by Darrel Bird
the hay last evening.”
”You men come on and eat.” Mrs. Begs said as she poked her head out the door. The group ate with much silence, each with his or her own thoughts. As soon as the meal was finished, Josh, and Austin headed out to the barn to catch up the horses. Joshes horse bucked a time or two when he climbed into the saddle.
“See what I mean? This is the dumbest critter God ever made; he has got to buck every time I get on him of a morning.”
Austin laughed, “I don’t know about that Josh, but it sure makes for a good show.”
The leaving
They led the horses up to the house, and tied them to the front porch rail. Austin stepped into the house where Ann, and Mrs. Beg were in the kitchen washing the last of the dishes, “What are you washing those for; we can’t take them with us.”
“We’re not leaving dirty dishes setting on the table Dad; someone else may need to stay here after we are gone.”
“Ok, when you get things right, we’ll go; we're not going to rush this anyway.”
When he walked back out the door Josh was already busy loading the supplies on the horses. Lisa was helping him, while looking up at him moon eyed. Austin observed the girl as he began loading the other horse. I don’t reckon she could do better if something takes place between these two, and it just might from the look of things.
He looked around at the little band, each with a back pack as they stood around in a group, “Ok children, lets go, we’ll hook up with the freeway, and follow that to cut off to Morton, and then over to the White Pass. Try to be careful, and don’t sprain an ankle, the horses have all they need to carry.” He headed off down the road toward the little town of Castle Rock. Before they reached Castle Rock, he would follow a series of log roads he knew very well as a shortcut until they reached the I-5 corridor.
Josh walked up beside him leading his horse, “How far do you think it is to White Pass? I’ve never been up that way before.”
“I reckon it’s about a hundred and fourteen miles to the top of the Pass; It's about a hundred, and sixty seven miles to the Yakima Valley.”
Josh spat, his mouth already drying out, as he wasn’t used to the walking, “That far; that’ll take us a few days. Do you think we will run into any trouble?”
“I don’t know son, but if we do, we will have to react quickly, and decisively; we have to guard these ones who depend on us, and give our lives if we have to."
Josh liked it when Austin called him son, but it made him miss his Dad, “Austin, were you in the war?”
“Yes I was; I was a sniper for the Army, and I had to do things I’m not proud of.”
The only sound was the horse hoofs in the dirt on the shoulder of the road; they avoided walking the horses on the pavement. The women, and Paul were strung out behind over thirty feet.
”Have you thought much about God?” Josh asked.
“Yes, I made my peace with him best I could, but I can’t quite wrap my mind around the sacrifice he made on the cross. I can’t be anything other that I am, and I don’t rightly know if killing a man comes under his flag or not, and I’ve had to kill a few.”
“My Mom said he would forgive us, if we just ask; I don’t know whether to believe that or not. I haven’t been the best person a man could strike up on.”
“You best make your peace with him son, you may not live to see the other side of these mountains; I ain’t there yet myself, but I’m workin’ on it. As for you not being a good man, I think you’ll do.”
Nothing else was said as the steady walking ate up the miles. When they came to the log road Austin meant to use as a short cut to the I-5 corridor he said, “ We’ll turn off here, this road is pretty grown up in bushes, but I know the lay of the land, we’ll stop and noon about a mile in.”
They made their way through the young bushes, and Austin stopped every now and then to listen. They watered the horses at a small stream that crossed the old road, and then he called a halt, “You gals break out the sandwiches. Drink the water from the canteens, not the Creek, when the water gets low, we will have to stop and boil enough to refill them. Paul! Don’t drink that water, here use my canteen.”
The boy had already stooped to drink out of the stream. Austin worried about the boy some; he didn’t seem to catch on too quickly. I’ll have to keep a close eye on him. He thought as he handed his canteen to the boy.
Lisa sat by a tree munching her steak sandwich, and made goggle eyes at Josh as he ate. He paid no mind to it though Austin saw with approval, but he wondered how long the young man would be able to avoid the inevitable. Times have sure changed in a hurry, and the days are gone when we can afford too much prudishness. Then his thoughts went on to the dangers of following the I-5 corridor until the cutoff to highway twelve, that would take them over the White Pass. There may be lots of people on that freeway; people who would kill for our supplies, and the women.
They finished their sandwiches, and Austin let them rest a while. Two more hours brought them to the freeway and the bridge that crossed over the Cowlitz River. They crossed a field to get to the steep bank that would take them onto the freeway.
“Looks like a barbed-wire fence." Austin said as he appraised the wire that led right up to steep banks of the River.
“What do we do?cut it?”
“There’s an old piece of the fence over there, yes, we’ll cut it and repair the cut before we go on, if we don’t get shot at for doing it. Why don’t you cut two pieces of wire off that about two feet long while I cut the fence to let the horses through.”
Austin fumbled in his saddle bags and found a pair of lineman’s pliers, and snipped the two wires on the fence, then led the horses through. Josh began to pull on one end of a wire, while Austin pulled on the other. Austin tied the short wire on the long one, and before a few minutes had passed they were through and had the fence repaired.
They led the horses out onto the bridge, and there was nothing but the sound of the horses hoofs upon the bridge as they cross over the river.
They continued to lead the horses by the side of the road for four more hours, until they came to a roadside rest area. Austin decided to risk the rest area, but would camp back in among the tall trees.
He walked the horse back into the trees, stopping to listen before going on. When he was twenty-five yards into the trees, he stopped.
“Ok, right here will be good enough I think, let's get the tents up.” He wasted no time unloading the tents, and soon had them up. “Thank God for modern tents.” He remarked as they quickly strung the last fiberglass hoop.
“Yeah, they go up quick, don’t they?” Josh answered back. The women had already found the cooking pots, and other utensils they would need. They cooked their supper and ate quickly. It began to get cloudy as dark came on. “Looks like we may have some rain tonight.” Josh said, as he sat studying the clouds. Josh looked at the clouds, and Lisa looked at Josh. Ann grinned at her dad, and motioned at the two. Austin frowned, and Ann laughed out loud.
They talked of better days gone by, until Josh held up his hand, “Listen, I hear something.” Austin went into full alert; he cupped his hand to his ear, and then heard it too; it was horses coming down the exit end of the park.
“Stay quiet. They are going to smell the smoke, but they can’t see us.”
“Grandpa, who do you think it is? Will they try to harm us?” Lisa whispered.
“Shhhhh, I don’t know child, just be quiet, and alert, Josh, is your gun loaded?”
“Its loaded, how bout I drift off into the trees a bit?”
“Good idea, but stay well hidden, and don’t make noise, just stay put unless I call you in.”
They sat there for the better part of an hour, and kept their eyes in the direction of the park. They heard people talking in a normal voice, “It sounds to me like they are making camp here.” Austin whispered to Ann. Mrs. Begs looked fearfully in the direction the voices were coming from, until she heard a child laughing shrilly.
Soon they heard footsteps approaching the camp, “Hello the camp!” A voice called from the edge of the trees.
“Come on in, but keep your hands where we can see them.” Austin called back.
Soon a man came into the edge of the camp; Austin hoped that Josh had a rifle trained on the camp. The man had his hands out to the side as he came through the trees into the cleared camp area. “We don’t mean any harm; we would like information is all. Two families of us are camping here tonight.”
“Might as well pull up a rock, where are you folks coming from?” Austin asked as he studied the mans face.
“We are coming from up near the Canadian border; we've been on the road for several days.”
“Had any trouble?”
“Yes, we ran into trouble several times; one of us were killed this side of Seattle.”
“What did they attack you for, or do you know?”
“They attacked us for the horses, and whatever else they could get, mostly the horses though.”
“Why the horses?”
“Why Mr., where have you been?