by Stan Morris
After an hour, Jacob blew the Admin’s whistle to alert Ahmad and Rasul that they were leaving. The burial detail lifted the litter and began the long sad journey back to Petersburg. By Jacob’s estimation, their return trip would take a day longer.
Behind them, Ahmad and Rasul were watching the trail to their rear. When they heard Jacob’s whistle, they prepared to follow. Suddenly Rasul held up a hand, indicating the need for silence.
“Did you hear that?” he asked Ahmad.
“Yes, I heard it. What do you think? A deer?”
“Maybe. Let’s wait a few minutes.”
They hid in the midst of some trees and waited. Within five minutes, they could faintly hear something coming their way. Nervously, Rasul took a grip on the rifle he carried. He wished he had fired more than one round in practice, but the tribe was trying to save the ammunition for hunting game. Ahmad had his spear at least. Rasul wished that he had his spear.
The crashing in the brush was getting closer. Whatever it was, it was in a hurry. A minute later, two women appeared running down the path toward them.
When the women were about to pass the boys, Rasul leaped out of his hiding place and yelled, “Stop.”
The women screamed, and then they fell to the ground cowering away from the boy. Ahmad came to stand beside Rasul. One of them was carrying a baby.
“Oh, please, please, don’t hurt us,” the other women cried out. She raised her hands together in a pleading stance. “We’ll do whatever you want. Anything. Just don’t hurt us.” The woman carrying the baby curled up in a fetal position, covering the child protectively.
“We are not going to hurt you,” Ahmad exclaimed, shocked at their appearance. “You’re safe with us. Calm down. Who are you? Are you from the Retreat?”
The pleading lady was an older woman. She was tall, and she had short brown hair. The younger woman was much shorter, and she had long black hair like Yuie, but this woman’s hair was much thicker. She was dark skinned and looked vaguely Asian or perhaps she was a Pacific Islander, like Makayla. Her baby was crying. Both were wearing ankle length dresses that were much too light for the present temperature, and their faces were emaciated.
The older woman said, “Yes, we’re from the Retreat. We escaped four days ago. Who are you? You really won’t hurt us? You promise?” She was panting while trying to talk, as if they had ran a long ways.
“You’re safe now,” Rasul said. “Do you know Jean? The Forest Ranger.”
“I’ve heard of her,” the woman said as her breathing slowed. “My name is Diana. I’m a nurse. Imee, here, is a student nurse. There was a group of us at Eagle’s Nest, but we’re the last. The woman who helped the Forest Ranger is dead, too. The men killed her because she gave the Ranger some food.”
“Do you know Lily?” Rasul asked. “She lives at our village.”
Diana’s eyes widen in an expression of joy. “Lily is alive? Oh, thank God,” she cried. “I was sure she was dead.”
Ahmad heard something and held up a hand for silence. Diana looked back the way she had come, looking terrified again.
“Are you being chased?” Ahmad asked.
Diana nodded. Ahmad looked at Rasul.
“Damn,” said Rasul. “What do we do now?”
Ahmad looked toward the direction of the burial detail. “If we go that way, we will lead our enemies to our people. But we also have the women to consider.”
“Should we try to lead the bad guys in the wrong direction?”
“Maybe.”
“What if we lead the bad guys in the wrong direction until it gets dark? That should give our people a good head start,” Rasul suggested. “Then we can sneak around the bad guys in the dark.”
Ahmad looked at the sky. It was cloudy, and a stiff breeze was blowing.
“Good idea. Come,” Ahmad said to the women.
When they didn’t move, he strode to them and pulled the younger woman to her feet. As he took the baby from her, she gave a cry of distress. Ignoring her, he walked quickly away. Rasul followed, and the women hurried after them.
Ahmad and Rasul moved sideways from the burial detail; Ahmad carrying the baby. They had not hunted this far north, so it was slow going. They made sure they left a trail that the chasers could follow. Once in awhile, they stopped and listened. After a few hours, they realized that their chasers were gaining on them. They turned south in the general direction of Petersburg. The wind began to blow harder, and the temperature dropped.
It was almost completely dark when Rasul and Ahmad accepted that the chasers would catch them within another hour. The women had kept up as best they could, but they were exhausted.
“Let’s continue on for another fifteen minutes, and then we must find a place to hide,” Rasul said.
Ahmad agreed. After a bit, they came to a cliff. They turned sideways, and followed the edge until the land changed from a cliff to a steep slope with thick bushes.
“We can go down here,” Ahmad said.
Cautiously, fighting the dark and the wind, they made their way. Part way down, they discovered a patch of coffeeberry bushes that covered a hollow place. Inside the hollow, they were out of sight of the ridge.
“This is it, Rasul,” Ahmad said. “We’ll have to stay here.”
“Yes,” Rasul replied. “It will be hard to find us in the dark.”
After less than an hour, they heard the crash of someone stumbling in the brush above. A flashlight swept the area where they were hiding.
“See ’em?” a cold voice asked.
“No, but they’re down there somewhere. Hey! You stupid bitches! Come out. Come out, now!” another voice called.
“We’ve been here before,” observed the cold voice. “We found that kid here, remember?”
“Yeah, this was the place. He gave me this nice rifle.” The man laughed. “Listen up, bitches. If I have to wait ’til tomorrow to find you, I’m gonna beat the crap out of you. Now, come out now.”
Chapter Thirteen
SPEARS
In the hollow, the two women were shaking with fright. Ahmad covered the baby with his jacket to muffle the child’s cries. Luckily, the wind was blowing from their direction, preventing the baby’s cries from carrying toward the men. Rasul thought about what the men had said. He believed that he now knew what had happened to Luis.
“Hell with it,” the cold voice said. “They’re down there. We’ll find them first thing in the morning.”
They heard the men moving away from the ridge. Later, they smelled smoke from a campfire.
“This is not good,” Rasul said.
“No it’s not,” Ahmad agreed. “We can’t move in the dark, and we can’t stay here. They’ll find us in the morning.”
“Yes, we’ve got to do something,” said Rasul. “We need a plan. Where’s the Chief when we need him?” Ahmad laughed.
“Who are, you boys?” the older woman asked. “Where are you from?”
The teenagers began talking about Petersburg, frequently interrupting one another. The women were astonished to hear their story, and their spirits rose when they realized that there was a community of decent people who might be willing to help them.
“So you are Rasul and you are Ahmad,” Diana said, pointing at each boy. “Are most of your people, uh, like you?” Embarrassed, she tried to explain what she meant.
Rasul grinned, and Ahmad laughed.
“No, you were lucky,” said Ahmad. “You have the only Pakistani Moslem and Hindu Indian in the camp, here. I was born in Karachi and Rasul was born in Mumbai. Our families moved to the US when we were babies. But don’t worry. We are savage warriors, and besides, we belong to the Spears.”
“Yeah, right,” Rasul scoffed.
“We’ve got one thing going for us,” Ahmad said, “They are looking for two ladies and a baby. They are not looking for two guys.”
“True,” said Rasul. “On the other hand, they have a flashlight and we don’t.”
“I hav
e a flashlight,” Diana told him.
“Why didn’t you say so?” Rasul grumbled, irritated at her announcement. “We could have broken our necks climbing down that slope.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I’m just so frightened,” she replied.
“Why are you out here anyway?” Ahmad asked.
“Imee had to leave. They were going to do something to the baby. They didn’t like having it around. They said it was a nuisance, and that it cried too much. I couldn’t let Imee run away by herself, so I escaped, too.”
As Diana said Imee’s name, the younger woman began to unbutton her dress. The boys watched wide eyed as she lifted up one cup of her bra, so the baby could suckle. They looked at one another, and then they averted their eyes.
“You have a flashlight?” Rasul asked.
“Yes, I stole it from them,” Diana replied. “I thought we might need it. We left five days ago. They bragged about killing a kid in this area. We thought if there was a kid here, then there must be some other people over here, someplace. We thought we might find someone to help us. Was the boy they killed your friend?”
“He was a member of our village,” Ahmad said, he expression grim. He looked at Rasul. “I think that I know what the Chief would do if he were here.”
“Hang them,” Rasul said, nodding.
“Yes.”
“We have a rifle,” Rasul said.
“Have you ever fired one?”
“I never even held one before we left, except for that one time when I fired a single shot,” Rasul admitted. “And I wasn’t even close then.”
Ahmad thought. “I have my spear,” he said.
“We took down the bikers with our spears.”
“Yes.” They thought some more.
“If we could get close to them in the dark while they were sleeping, I could spear one of them,” Ahmad said.
“And I could bash the other one’s head with the rifle,” Rasul added.
“What if they’re awake?” Ahmad asked.
Rasul thought about that. He looked at the woman.
“What if the man on guard thought we were the women coming to surrender?” he mused thoughtfully.
“How are we going to make him think that we are the women?”
“They are looking for two women.”
“And a baby,” Ahmad said. “We don’t look like two women.”
“If we attacked them when they could barely see us… I have a plan, Ahmad,” Rasul said. He explained his plan to Ahmad.
“That might work,” his friend said. “Even if one of the men is awake, it might work.”
In the early morning hours, the man with the cold voice was watching. It was just light enough for him to distinguish individual trees, close by. The wind was still blowing hard, and the man was tired and cold, but he was alert. When he heard the snap of a tree limb behind him, he sprang up and looked around. He saw two shapes wearing dresses.
“It’s the bitches,” he yelled as he kicked his sleeping comrade. The two figures turned and fled. “Come back, you stinking bitches,” he roared as he followed them. The other man grabbed his rifle and hurried after.
Abandoning their plan, Ahmad and Rasul ran as hard as they could, up the ridge, away from the direction of the women. They could hear the pounding feet of the man following. He was closing in on them. He was still screaming at them. Their young hearts pounded with fright, and their breath became ragged as they ran.
“Rasul, fall down now,” Ahmad yelled, as they began to pass the steep cliff on their left.
Ahmad dove behind a boulder. Rasul looked back. He had never been so afraid, but he fell to the ground with the rifle beneath him. The man came running up, and as he passed the boulder, Ahmad sprang out at him, and the teenager jammed the wooden shaft of the spear into the man’s ribs. The man cried out in pain, as Ahmad forced him to the side. He stumbled at the edge of the cliff, lost his footing, and then he screamed as he fell over the precipice.
Ahmad turned to look for the man’s companion, just as the other man swung his rifle and smashed Ahmad in the face. Ahmad fell backwards as blood gushed from his mouth and nose. The man raised his rifle to give Ahmad another blow, but instead he took a blow in his own face from Rasul’s rifle. He staggered back. Rasul dropped the rifle, grabbed Ahmad’s spear, and shoved the point into the man’s belly. The man screamed, staggered back, and then he too fell over the cliff with the spear still stuck in his body.
Crying, Rasul ran to Ahmad and fell to his knees beside the Muslim boy. “Ahmad, Ahmad,” he yelled, panicked, tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Oh, man,” Ahmad managed to gasp. “That was one screwed up plan.”
Rasul sat down next to his friend, weak with relief. “I thought you were dead, man,” he huffed.
“I think I was already falling backwards when he hit me,” Ahmad moaned, the pitch of his voice markedly different due to his injury. “Did we get them? He caught me off guard.”
“Yes, we got them. I think they are both dead,” Rasul answered, staring at the rim of the cliff.
“We better get back to the women,” Ahmad said.
“You stay here. It’s getting light. I’ll go back and get them. You rest.”
“Help me back to their camp. They might have something there that I can use to stop the bleeding.”
Rasul helped Ahmad to his feet, and as the sky lightened, they stumbled their way to the men’s campfire. It was still burning, and gratefully, Ahmad sank down next to the warm fire. Rasul searched the men’s packs and found a cloth that Ahmad held against his face.
“I think my nose is broken,” Ahmad said.
“Both of your lips are split, but luckily none of your teeth are damaged.”
“My beautiful smile is intact,” Ahmad mumbled.
“Yes,” Rasul said with a grin. Ahmad was rather vain about his smile.
Rasul left to find the women. Presently, he returned with the three fugitives and the boys’ gear. Gently, Diana examined Ahmad’s face. She wiggled his nose, and he yelped.
“Yes,” she said. “Your nose is definitely broken.”
She used a t-shirt from one of the men’s packs to bandage Ahmad’s nose. She was surprised when Rasul handed her a tube of Neosporin.
“Chief’s rules,” the boy explained.
Diana gave him a wan smile. “He must have a good understanding of teenage boys,” the nurse said.
“You could say that,” Ahmad croaked.
Rasul looked at the women who were dressed in the boys’ clothing. Even Diana, as tall as she was, had struggled into Rasul’s clothing.
“Um… about our clothes,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” said Diana. “I’m sorry. It’s just that we have been so cold for so long.”
Imee started to unbutton Ahmad’s shirt. She shivered. Rasul looked at Ahmad who shrugged.
“Ah… why don’t you wear them for a little longer,” Rasul said. “But only until the sun comes out.”
“Thank you,” said Diana. “But at least take back your jackets.”
The two women and the two boys built the fire higher and rested for a time, and then the boys hoisted the packs of the two men onto their shoulders. Rasul led the way, as they started back toward Petersburg. He carried Imee’s baby inside his jacket. The women followed Rasul, and Ahmad brought up the rear while alertly watching the trail behind them. The women answered some of the boys’ questions as they traveled. The boys learned that Imee was from Hawaii, and that she was the daughter of Filipino immigrants. Diana was from Bodega Bay.
“I was there once with my parents,” Rasul remarked. “We collected sand dollars along the edge of the ocean. That is where they filmed a famous horror movie.”
“Yeah, ‘The Birds’,” Ahmad mumbled.
They walked back along the ridge, and when they got to the cliff they looked down. The two bodies were awkwardly arranged. One of them had Ahmad’s spear still stuck in his belly. A large grey bird stood nea
rby. The bird looked up, became aware of the people high above, and flew away. Already, the scavengers were about.
Imee leaned over and spat down the cliff. She pointed to one of the men. “Diego’s father,” she said, indicating the baby.
Rasul and Ahmad looked at one another. There was nothing to say. They found two rifles at the edge of the cliff. One of them looked familiar, and the other belonged to Rasul. They left the cliff. There was no talk of climbing down and burying the bodies.
It was a cold cloudy day. They made their way back towards their original trail. At noontime, Rasul could stand it no longer. He had to get out of this dress, and get into his own clothes. But, before he could say anything, they heard a noise. The two boys quickly put the women and the baby behind them. They pointed the rifles in front of them and held their breath. They could feel fear emanating from the women, matching their own fright.
“It’s Jacob,” they heard a voice call.
Ahmad expelled an exhausted breath. Rasul was so happy, he felt like weeping. Jacob stepped out of the trees. He stared at them as they stood there in the dresses, but he didn’t say anything. Ahmad and Rasul looked at one another and then at the scout.
“Jacob, I know that you like my pocket knife,” said Rasul. “I’ll give it to you, if you promise never to tell anyone that you saw me wearing a dress.”
The next day, the group met up with the burial detail. The detail listened to Diana, and then they heard the story of the fight on the cliff. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing that Luis’ killers were dead. The burial detail made its way back to Petersburg.
By the time the burial detail returned to Petersburg, Tyler and his unit had left. Tyler felt strange leading the guard post unit down the road. At any moment, he expected someone from Petersburg to catch up to them, and to tell him that a horrible mistake had been made. He would never forget the look on Gabby’s face when he told her that the Chief had put him in charge of the guard detail.
At first, she thought he was joking. Then she was perplexed. She wondered what devious plan the Chief had conceived, that he would put Tyler in charge. To her surprise, no one else seemed to think that putting Tyler in charge was all that unusual. Finally in the days before they left, Gabby had looked upon him with grudging admiration. He would always treasure that look. The day they left, she had kitchen duty and she personally packed a set of two day rations for his unit.