Denny let his fingers straighten and held his left arm stiff, almost pushing the hickory bow forward, as if he could add a little extra speed to the arrow. In a heartbeat, the arrow cruised across the fifteen yards of open space between hunter and prey.
His mind’s eye was already picturing the perfect heart-lung shot, guaranteed to put his quarry down. A fraction of a second before the arrow hit flesh and fur, those sensitive ears stopped swiveling and seemed to detect a sound that Denny’s hearing could not hope to register. The doe flinched in response to the unknown sound, and in that moment of panic, the arrow notched a harmless groove through the fur across the top of her shoulder, impaling itself in the pine tree just behind the lucky deer.
Denny stood and sighed as he watched the white rump and tail bounce away through the undergrowth and vanish into the forest to the sounds of broken branches and rustling leaves. He was about to utter some colorful commentary on the day’s hunt when he also perceived a barely audible sound off in the distance. Denny cocked his head and listened, trying to determine the direction of the muffled noise. It was a very low rumbling, somewhat like a continuously undulating thunderclap, but still not very loud.
He looked farther upslope toward the thinning tree line and could see clear blue sky in the far distance. Denny was below U.P. Lake, half-way between the burned out husk of his recent home and a forest ranger’s man-made ‘lodge’ higher up on the mountain slope. The ‘lodge’ was really just a cave that had been commandeered by the Forestry Service to serve as a dependable look-out post for fires during the dry months of summer. The cave had formed in the side of a curved wall of granite at the crest of The Ridge, overlooking U.P. Lake. It faced east and had a nice view of the Salmon River Valley and Salmon Falls two miles below.
Denny had successfully moved his meager possessions into the forest ranger facility after his home had been destroyed. In the austere lodge, he found a little fuel and a good quantity of potable water—even survival rations left over from the previous season. He thought he might even prepare himself for winter there, provided he could bring in enough meat.
Denny sighed. He worked his way towards the arrow that had embedded in the pine tree and ripped it free, angry at himself for missing such a beautiful shot. That doe would have kept him in jerky for months. He then continued eastward for a few minutes until the trees thinned and he stood on the edge of the mountain itself. The precipice he stood upon offered an unparalleled view of the valley, but what he saw sent a chill down his spine and explained the noise that had spooked his doe.
Circling over the still-smoking remains of City Hall was an alien-looking helicopter. It reminded him of the famed Apache that the Army flew, but it looked bigger, uglier, and more insect-like, to Denny’s eye.
Other helicopters, their sides swollen as if pregnant, revealed lines hanging from their sides to the ground. Overhead, he saw three large transport planes, wings glinting in the afternoon sun. The transports looked to have been circling the town; now, they were beginning their descent.
With slightly trembling hands, he pulled his small binoculars from a leg pouch and focused on the hovering helicopters. Clumps of something began sliding down the lines hanging under the…
Soldiers. Those are soldiers rappelling out of helicopters onto City Hall. Why the hell are they here of all places?
Denny took a knee, leaning against a tilted pine tree to make sure he didn’t tumble down the mountain as he watched the activity below. He could see some residents moving toward City Hall from down the street in small groups. As he swept over the town, he could see others standing in their yards, holding children or leaning on fences, watching the air show.
He sensed a growing roar similar to the sound when approaching a waterfall. He swung the binoculars up and quickly spotted one of the huge transport planes exposing its belly to him as it banked to the north, and dropped quickly out of the sky. Denny watched transfixed, because he knew there was no airport in Salmon Falls. Wondering where the big beast was going to try and land, he spotted a few symbols on the slanted tail fin. Whatever they were, the letters were not English. The blue, white, and red flag symbol was wrong, too. Try as he might, he could not spot the expected USAF emblem, nor a star, or an American flag on the dull-gray plane.
He quickly lowered the binoculars when the first shot rang out. The transport forgotten, he listened as more and more gunfire commenced, sounding like a lot of puny firecrackers from this distance. When he again glassed the area around City Hall, he felt a heavy, sinking, feeling in his gut. There were bodies in the street. The soldiers were charging confidently forward, running into the remains of City Hall and the adjoining buildings. There were people running in all directions to get away—stumbling, falling, crashing headlong into parked cars and bystanders too shocked move.
A change in pitch from the airplane’s engines tore his attention away from the horror unfolding on Main Street. The giant airplane had dropped its pants and was defecating parachutes over the town. Dozens of them. And dangling under each one was a man with a rifle.
Denny tried to calm his racing heart. He racked his brain in an effort to understand the mysterious symbols on the aircraft. They just didn't make sense. Then, all of a sudden, it came to him—they were letters—just not English letters. It was Cyrillic. He was dead sure of it, now.
“Russians!” he hissed.
As he watched, the helicopters disgorged more and more soldiers. The plane, finally finished with its deposit of armed men, closed its doors and angled higher into the sky, heading to the east. The second plane roared overhead, the rear door already starting to open. He didn’t need binoculars to see this one. But it didn’t drop off men. Big crates with three parachutes slipped out the back. Two large vehicles came next, and many, many smaller boxes—all with the same white parachutes.
The third plane dropped off more men. Denny shook his head. In a matter of only ten minutes or so, he had counted at least twenty men from the helicopters, another sixty or seventy from the planes, two big vehicles and two dozen crates of all sizes. There was no contest. The town belonged to the Russians in a matter of minutes. They hastily set up barriers across all the roads surrounding City Hall. As time progressed, there were less bystanders and more bodies in the streets.
He watched as the paratroopers dropped by the planes landed and gathered their gear. The vehicles were starting to move—lumbering towards the center of town. One had landed on the high school baseball field. He watched in horror as it rolled right through the high fence surrounding the field as if it were made of paper. The vehicles moved slowly, allowing the soldiers to follow along like so many armed, camouflaged ducklings.
One group of soldiers peeled-off from behind their vehicle and started kicking-in doors to houses unfortunate enough to be just across the street from City Hall. He saw a family emerge from the rear doors of one house and rush into the backyard. He could feel his hands gripping the binoculars tighter as he saw the parents try to usher their children toward the back fence and a row of trees and bushes. If they could make it in time, they might have a chance to escape -
He lowered the binoculars as the popping sounds that signaled the death of the family reached his perch on the side of the mountain. The family had died together in a hail of bullets as the Russians poured out of the house, kicking lawn furniture and toys out of the way as they went. Without stopping, they scaled the chain-link fence and moved methodically on to the next house. The scene was being repeated all through the town.
Denny had seen enough. John was right. His hand moved toward the radio at his belt and clenched air. Looking down where John’s radio had been before he went hunting, he saw nothing. Then he remembered he had left it back at the ranger station. Denny had been worried he’d drop it or the damn thing would go off with one of John’s requests for a little conversation. He could visualize the little radio sitting on a dusty crate back in the ranger station.
It would take him about thirty mi
nutes to get to the ranger station if he was just casually hiking. Sprinting back up the slope, even through numerous bushes and trees and over some loose gravel, only took him ten minutes.
Dusty, winded, panicked, and worried, Denny opened the door to the ranger station and collapsed on a camp stool. He picked up the radio and tried to calm his heartrate. He took a deep breath and activated the radio: “John! John…you there?”
He counted thirty heartbeats before his neighbor’s voice crackled over the radio’s speaker. “We’re here, Denny. What’s going on? You sound out of breath? Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Denny said quickly. “But you’ve got trouble. I just watched a whole bunch of—I think they were Russian soldiers get dropped into town.”
“I know,” John said sadly. “I heard it on the HAM net.”
“They’re killing people! I just saw them shoot an entire family…” Denny suddenly felt the urge to vomit.
“Listen to me,” John said. “I want you to promise me, that whatever happens, you will stay up there in your fortress of solitude, son. Okay?”
“John…”
“Denny, I don’t know what is going on—it’s like the end of the world. But I do know that this country will need men like you soon. Men on the outside, men not willing to give up the fight. Promise me you won’t give up, Denny.”
Denny could feel something heavy rising in the pit of his stomach, a feeling of general rage he had not felt since his teenage years when he had been consumed with anger that his people had been put on reservations. He had been a hot-tempered youth, young Denoya Tecumseh. In college he had learned to control his anger and use it instead of letting it turn him into a tool of blind rage. He had pushed that fury he felt on behalf of his ancestors down into the deepest part of his heart, locked it away. Instead of acting on his anger, as some of his friends and relations had—they had been arrested or worse over the years—Denny decided to strike at the Anglos in another way.
He had focused all his energy on becoming a teacher. A history teacher. He taught young Anglos the real truth that their parents and government tried to cover up. He taught that the United States of America was the only western power to get away with genocide. Millions of Native Americans murdered at the hands of Uncle Sam but no war crimes trials, no international outrage, no war of liberation for his people.
Denny had impressionable youths in his classes. So he always lectured about the truth: about the Trail of Tears, about the families destroyed, the lives ruined and taken, the villages burned down, the death, the diseases, the heartache, and the injustice. And the powers that be had loved him for it.
Political Correctness run amok had ushered Denny into the open arms of apologists at the local, state, and federal level. He got raise after raise, tenure, promotion, sabbaticals, anything he needed for his classroom. It was a dream come true.
And then one day, it was over. The anger that had driven him to succeed, to indoctrinate the supple, young Anglo minds with the truth, to fight back and strike at the soft underbelly of his enemy in the only way he could…was just…gone.
One day he woke up and the voice full of burning desire to strike back for his ancestors was silent. The anger was all used up. He backed off on his zealot-like quest and just enjoyed his job for what it was. He was a history teacher, and he was good at it. He brought a passion for the past that never failed to spark some interest or excitement in his students.
Now, for the first time in years, that anger had had chained up inside was awakened anew. It was yawning and stretching his previously subdued limits of tolerance. He wasn’t sure who to focus it on—the Russians for murdering his fellow residents, or his own government for allowing it to happen…regardless, the anger was awake.
He closed his eyes and counted twenty heartbeats. “I promise, John.”
“Good,” was the immediate reply. “I think we’ll be okay. A burned-down house sits on top of us, remember? I haven’t tried to open the door yet, but I think we’re pretty well hidden.”
“But don’t we need to tell someone? The Sheriff? The Army?”
There was a long pause. Denny was about to try again when the radio broke squelch: “I don’t know son. It’s hard to imagine they don’t already know. Why they’re not here protecting us…well…who knows? What with all the craziness back east and the Koreans in California…” His neighbor sighed, static breaking up his sad voice.
“It just doesn’t make any sense. Ruthie is real tore up about it all,” he whispered. “It does her good to know you’re at least safe. We haven’t had word from the children yet…”
Denny could hear the worry in his friend’s voice. Before he could speak, he heard another sound, and it nearly made his heart stop. He put the radio to his mouth and keyed the transmit button: “John, I gotta go. I think someone is landing a helicopter nearby!”
“Go, run, Denny! Stay safe and call me when you can!”
The unmistakable sound of rotors slicing the air reverberated in the ranger station. He raced to the large wooden wall that spanned the entrance to the cave and threw open rough-hewn door. Almost as an afterthought, he snatched his bow and quiver on the way outside. Without a glance at the sky, he fled downhill toward the edge of the lake and made for the shadows and pines of the surrounding alpine forest. He didn’t stop until he was a dozen yards inside the tree line and dropped down behind a partially rotted log.
He lay there panting, listening to the sound of the helicopter reflect off the curved ridge of granite surrounding U.P. Lake. It seemed to be coming from the left, then the right, then behind him, as if rock formation was acting like a giant, natural amphitheater.
He’s circling, checking to see if anyone is home, the voice of Grandfather Red Eagle whispered.
Denny closed his eyes. Now I’m hearing things. Mishe Moneto, hear my prayer—make my sight straight, my arrows fast, my aim true. Help me defend this place and protect my friends. Let me die well.
The helicopter noise increased and remained steady. It was right behind him on the other side of the tree line. He peeked around the edge of the fallen tree and saw the great monstrous, alien-looking thing hovering there in mid-air, buffeting the closest trees and bushes with the downdraft from its big rotors. The spray kicked-up off the lake by the wind was swirling in a white mist directly under the helicopter. The noise was incredible.
It definitely wasn’t American. The graceful lines of a Black Hawk were unmistakable to anyone who had ever seen a TV. This thing had a bulbous nose, longer wings than seemed prudent on a helicopter and a heavy belly. It was ugly, but it worked. The hallmark of Russian engineering.
As he watched, a side-door slid open and two black, thick ropes dropped out. Two men leaned over the edge and slid down the rope, followed by two more. It wasn’t long before all four dark-camouflaged men were down on the rocky beach on the north shore of U.P. Lake. Once they had moved safely away from the dangling ropes, one turned and waved to the waiting helicopter some thirty feet up. The evil looking machine raised up effortlessly and moved on, trailing the ropes. It flew overhead and vanished behind him, flying east down the mountainside toward Salmon Falls. In a few moments, the serenity of the lakeside environment returned.
Denny watched, fascinated, as the four men raised rifles, pointed out in all directions. He could see the blue, white, and red shoulder patches with ease—that was not the American flag. They had to be Russians.
Whoever they were, the men wasted no time and scurried up from the north shore of the lake to take positions on either side of the door to the ranger lodge. Two watched the trees. Denny had to fight the urge to duck. He had to remind himself, there was no way they could see him, as far back in the forest as he was.
Besides, unlike the Russians in their mostly black camo, he was wearing a woodland pattern and his green and brown face paint. He knew he looked like just another clump of greenery in the forest, but he still had to force himself to stay calm.
The two men close
st to the door nodded at each other and quickly moved inside. It only took a moment for someone to shout, and then one of the guards left outside went in.
They found my things, he thought to himself with a sickening fear in his stomach. Now, they know someone has been here. He could almost hear Grandfather’s voice telling him to move deeper into the woods, to stay ahead of them.
He moved as slowly and silently as possible, deeper into the brush and crouched behind a pine tree some thirty yards from the lake. Even this far away, he could hear excited babble coming from the ranger station. He risked a glance around the trunk of the tree and saw all four Russians walking across the concrete landing pad, scanning the forest in all directions.
Now they hunt me, he moaned inwardly. Then he felt the anger stir again. His hand slipped down to the head of his tomahawk, ever present on his belt. The cold steel was reassuring and his mind cleared. No—now I will hunt them.
He waited, watching as the Russians talked among themselves, then the leader split them up into two groups. One two-man team turned and headed north into the tree line. The other, headed south. On their present course, the south team would pass to Denny’s left.
He crouched lower to the ground, trying to blend in as much as possible. Ever so slowly, as he watched the two Russians start down the slope, he pulled his bow up from the ground and carefully slid an arrow over his shoulder. They were moving systematically and cautiously, peering to their left and right. Step, pause, look. Step, pause, look.
Denny held himself still as a pond on a calm day and shifted only his eyes, seeking the other two-man team. They had disappeared from sight on the south side of the lake, trying to heading upslope to the crest of The Ridge. He turned his eyes back on his prey—they were almost even with him now, making a horrible amount of noise.
Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga Page 31