by John Grit
The sky was partly overcast, and the moon would not rise until late, and then only a sliver. A little less moon than the night before would light the night. He dimmed the Aimpoint’s red dot on the M4 so it wouldn’t overpower the images of his targets when he aimed.
The killing woods will be dark tonight.
~~~~
A summer of heavy storms had made the road unsafe to travel at faster than thirty miles an hour. Deni was reminded of this for the fourth time when she came to a rain-washed gully deep enough to send her over the handlebars if she had not skidded to ten miles an hour just as she dropped into it.
Deni bounced along at a speed that would get her to the farm in less than an hour. She sped up when it seemed safe and slowed when the road forced her to.
It took some time for her to find a pathway through thick-growing trees to get around the mound of dirt Nate had pushed up in the driveway. When she emerged from the woods, Deni twisted the throttle. The big tire broke loose and the bike fishtailed. In seconds, she was roaring down the driveway.
Deni skidded to a stop at Nate’s front door.
First, she hastily watered and fed the chickens and cow.
She ran, with a flashlight in hand, to an old oak behind the house, found a limestone rock ten feet from the oak’s trunk, and rolled it over. Then she got down on her knees and began to dig with her sheath knife until a nylon rope was exposed. Wrapping it around her hand, she pulled and yanked until something gave and the rope came up, along with a PVC pipe tied to it. It was heavy, but she managed to drag it out.
At the barn, she pounded on the lock with a two-foot long length of heavy steel pipe she'd found exactly where Nate said it would be. On the eighth blow, it gave way. She came out of the barn with an ax. Three swings and she had the glued-on plastic cap on the PVC pipe cracked open. The contents, she dumped into her pack. Rushing to the pump, she filled her and Nate’s canteens.
Back in the barn, Deni unfolded a stepladder and searched until she found a can of freeze-dried soup wedged up in the rafters and another of something else. She didn’t bother to read the label, just stashed them in her overflowing pack.
Outside, she swung the barn door shut and piled firewood against it to keep it shut and wild animals out. Shaking with nervous tension, she said to no one, “Move it. There’s no telling what he’ll try while I’m gone. The poor guy can’t handle women in combat.” She laughed. “One little shiner and he feels sorry for me. The big lug.”
She ran to the front door and unlocked it with Nate’s key. In the living room, she turned a couch over and found the ammunition she needed for her carbine and put it in her pack. After putting the couch back upright, she rushed outside and locked the door.
In seconds, she had the Harley flying down the drive.
~~~~
Nate walked out onto the hard clay and into the motorcycle’s headlight beam.
Deni slowed and stopped beside him. “Any trouble?”
“I’m not bleeding, and they haven’t moved one step closer to the farm,” Nate said. “That’s all that matters.”
“This is a long ways from the bridge. You’ve backed off miles.”
“That’s temporary. I didn’t want you driving into an ambush.” Nate turned toward the woods. “Follow me. Let’s get that bullet magnet off the road and in the brush.” He stepped across a shallow ditch.
Deni revved the engine and followed.
After they hid the motorbike, Deni held her small flashlight while Nate loaded his magazines with black-tipped, armor-piercing military rounds for his M14, all seven magazines. He stuffed more rounds, most of them special target loads for high accuracy, in his pack, wrapping them tight with a spare shirt to keep them from rattling.
Nate held the flashlight while she loaded all the magazines she had for her carbine and then the military magazines he had taken off dead men.
“I’ve got plenty of ammo now,” she said.
“I suggest you take this M4,” Nate said. “It’s got the Aimpoint for night fighting and full auto. If you weren’t infantry, I wouldn’t dare give it to you, but I think you can handle it.”
“It’ll stay on semi, most likely. Rock-n-roll’s only good for certain situations.”
Nate seemed reassured. “Good. I thought you understood the score.”
“Why don’t you keep a couple magazines and the AR?” Deni asked. “Tie it to your pack.”
“No. I’m weighed down enough as it is. The M14 and revolver is what I need. And now I have the ammo for the job.” He handed her flashlight back. “We’ll leave the AR with the bike.” Nate started walking.
She followed, carrying the M4. “So you’re going to shoot up their vehicles with that AP stuff.”
“Yep.”
“Yep hell. How are you going to get within range? They’ll have men stretched out along both sides of the road in the woods for half a mile or more.”
Nate stopped and let her catch up so he could take his full canteen from a side pouch on her pack. “You’ll be there watching my back.” He took a long pull, the first drink in many hours. “I trust you.”
She coughed. “Yeah, you trust me all right; you just can’t stand the thought of me being hurt.”
“Bullshit.”
“You deny it?”
“I can’t say as I like the idea. Look, I wanted to make damn sure you understood that I don’t expect you to stay. And I wanted to make damn sure you understand we both will probably die somewhere along this dirt road.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You seem to understand and you’re still here.”
“I guess I just don’t have anywhere else to go.” Deni looked away, into the dark.
He continued. “And you came back. That says it all. Now let’s get to killing some of those bastards.” He checked the Aimpoint on his rifle.
She tilted her head in the dark, the carbine resting on her right hip. “Oh, so it’s like that now? Good, let’s kick some ass. They’ve been raping and pillaging, they deserve it.”
Nate took his pack off and found a relatively dry place to sit. “Now that we have that settled, let’s eat.”
“Eat!”
“We need calories and this will be the last chance we’ll have for a day or two. It depends on how long we live.”
Deni sat beside him and took her pack off, too. “Gee, you’re full of cheer tonight.” She held one of the cans of food out. “Got a can opener?”
~~~~
Nate whispered. “I think we’re close, but we’ll have to wait until false dawn so we can see well enough to find it.”
Deni tried to penetrate the dark, searching for a large pine tree. “It won’t take them long to figure out the fire is coming from the tallest tree around.”
“Long enough for me to take out a half-dozen trucks," Nate said. “They won’t be able to tell how far away or exactly what direction until the fourth or fifth shot.”
“They have patrols out, you know.” Deni kept her voice low. “A team could be nearby just when you start shooting.”
“That’s your job: keep them off me. It won’t take me long to ruin five or six radiators.”
The pitch of her voice rose. “Twelve hundred yards?”
“Exactly twelve hundred and thirty yards. It better be, anyway, or I won’t hit a thing.”
“How much punch does a 7.62 have at that range? I know it can kill a man at long range…but.”
“Enough. Men have been killed at twenty-four hundred yards with the 7.62. A radiator isn’t that hard to puncture. The trouble will be in hitting them. Armor piercing ammo isn’t as accurate as National Match. I’m going to use the anti-armor stuff in case I hit an engine block.”
They sat in silence for fifteen minutes and watched the graying dawn materialize.
Nate stood and searched the woods, getting his bearings. He pulled a compass out from under his shirt where it hung from a string around his neck. “This way,” he said. “Stay alert.”
She got up and foll
owed, her carbine at low-ready, eyes sweeping the woods.
After ten minutes, Nate pointed.
Deni nodded.
The big tree was only fifteen yards away.
Nate sat down and attached steel spikes on the insteps of his boots with leather straps. He looked up at Deni. “I knew we might be doing a little sniping from trees, so I brought my pole-climbing rig.”
“Uh, do you climb poles often? Worked for the power company once?”
“Naw,” he said, “My father did for a while, decades ago, when crop prices were so low he couldn’t make a living farming. Hated it. Quit as soon as he could go back to farming. I’ve been using this rig for hunting deer from a tree stand for years.”
Nate rigged up a rope harness that went around the tree trunk and his waist, around both legs, and looped back under his crotch on both sides, creating a seat made of rope. He leaned closer to the tree, giving the rope slack, and flipped the other end of the loop up higher on the trunk. Then he jumped up and dug both spikes into the pine bark. He was only six inches above ground, but he started taking small steps up the tree, each time leaning into the trunk for a split second, just enough to allow him to flip the loop up a few inches on the backside of the tree trunk. Then he immediately leaned back against the rope to drive the spikes in. The whole process started all over again when he moved first one boot, and then the other a few inches higher up the tree, leaning out and digging the spikes in before leaning in for a second, just enough to flip the rope a little higher on the tree trunk.
Near the top of the ancient pine, Nate sat on a thick limb, just able to see the bridge and several trucks parked on the far end. The men had been working feverishly, and they were nearly finished with the crude but effective repairs. The posts Sam pulled away from the beams they supported had been pulled back in place with a truck and heavy logs attached to them for beams. More logs had been laid across the beams for decking. Sometime later in the day, they might be driving the first trucks across.
Fog lifted lazily up from the river in the dew-drenched morning. Nate draped a rope over another limb above him and off to his side; the free end reached to the forest floor. The other end he tied around his chest just under his arms, with a knot that would not slip and allow the loop to tighten on his chest and restrict his breathing. Then he untied and removed the harness he had used to climb up with and let it fall to the ground, where Deni stuffed it in his pack. The spikes were removed, and also dropped to Deni. He planned to use the limb like a pulley while he let the rope slip through his hands when he rapidly descended. Even though it would be wrapped around his body once for friction and to take nearly all of his weight, he knew his hands would be burned since he had no gloves, and he planned to get down fast. The longer he stayed in the tree, the more danger they both would be in.
What he had never done before was shoot at such long range from a tree. He knew the first shot would be a guess. There was no way to know exactly where his rounds would hit. Normally, he always shot at long range from prone and from his natural point of aim. Shooting from an awkward position meant the rifle would not shoot to its normal sight settings. The first shot or two would be guesses—and he had no spotter to tell him where those first shots hit.
Deni kept her eyes on the surrounding woods and waited anxiously, not wasting time looking up at Nate. Her job was to protect him while he was in the tree, and she would do it to the best of her ability.
Observing the treetops and how the fog still gathered in low places near the river told Nate there was no wind to push his bullets off target. He knew that would change as the sun rose and heated the atmosphere. His back sight was at its highest setting, but he would still have to aim high.
Nate leaned his left shoulder against the pine tree’s trunk, rested his left hand on a convenient limb, and took careful aim at a pickup’s radiator. The result of his first shot surprised him. The pickup’s left front tire deflated. Dirt flew where the bullet struck. He had been trying for the radiator by aiming at the windshield. He aimed higher and more to the right. The left headlight shattered. He couldn’t see such a small object at that range, so he looked through his binoculars to confirm his suspicions.
After adjusting windage on his back sight, he tried again. Echoes of his shot reverberated back from the river valley as firing from men on the bridge roared. Looking through his binoculars rewarded Nate with the sight of radiator fluid pouring onto the ground. He let the binoculars hang from his neck and shot out three more radiators, missing only twice more.
Men scurried off the bridge or took cover behind vehicles. Heads bobbed about, looking for the sniper. Nate’s shots were impossible to locate because the river valley and its tall trees created an echo effect, making it seem shots were coming from all directions. Some men fired blindly into the woods.
Nate fired into two more radiators and then into the side of a two-ton flatbed truck parked one hundred yards farther down the road and partway up on the river valley’s upward slope. He hoped to damage the engine. There was a load piled high on the back and covered with a canvas tarpaulin. He shot into it. Maybe I’ll hit a gas can. With such a large target, he squeezed off round after round. His last shot was followed by a large explosion. The truck disappeared in a fireball.
Shocked, Nate stared at the scene. A gradual smile spread across his face. Dynamite? Blasting caps? He stuffed his binoculars under his shirt out of the way, slung the rifle across his back, and dropped off the limb, falling at a fast rate until near the forest floor, then braking, landing on his butt.
Deni glanced his way just long enough to see if he got down unhurt. She then resumed her vigil, watching the woods for threats.
In fewer than fifteen seconds, Nate had the rope off him, pulled out of the tree, and put into his pack. He ran to her. While grabbing a fresh magazine out of his load-bearing harness, he said, “We got lucky! That explosion blew a crater in the road on the other side.” He slammed the magazine in his rifle and stashed the nearly empty one in a pouch. “Time to make tracks.”
Deni smiled, too. “What happened?”
Nate still had not resumed his normal, levelheaded demeanor. “I shot up a load on the back of a flatbed truck and it blew up. There’s a crater all the way across the road. It’ll take them forever to fill it with shovels.”
Deni’s eyes lit up. “Holy shit! I wonder where they got the explosives.”
Nate shrugged. “Time to retreat. We’ll backslap sometime when we’re not being hunted.”
She gave him a wry smile and tilted her head. “Okay, party-pooper, let’s go.”
They moved fast for one hundred yards, and then slowed to hunting speed. A group of men moved in, but Nate and Deni heard them coming and veered off. By noon, they were waiting five miles down the road.
Deni sat with her back against a sycamore, keeping her eyes busy searching that side of the woods. “What now? If that crater’s as big as you say, they won’t try to fill it. Probably they’ll cut enough trees down to allow them to drive around.”
“Yep,” Nate said. “But we bought ourselves some time. There are giant cypress trees on both sides of the road there, and they might not have a chainsaw big enough to handle trees that big. They can still cut them down, but they will have to cut one piece out at a time in wedges until they work all the way through. That will take time. Then they have to get those big tree trunks out of the way. That means more cutting through those giant trees. We might be lucky enough their saws’ chains are dull and they have no files to sharpen them. Can’t bank on anything but the fact we have a little more time now. And that’s more than we had at sunrise this morning.”
Deni turned her head, even though she could not see Nate where he sat on the other side of the sycamore. “I was thinking we should have ambushed the bunch that came hunting us.”
“No,” Nate said, “ambush works a lot better when it’s a complete surprise. They knew we were in the area and were on full alert. Safer to get them later wh
en they’re not so ready for us.”
“Yeah. You’re right. I’m too gung-ho sometimes.”
Nate got up and stepped around to her side of the tree. “I’m glad I have you with me.” He held his hand out to help her up. “I guess I have more actual combat experience than you—and more training in jungle fighting.”
She stood and slid into her pack straps. “You Rangers are sent to Panama, so I guess the Army taught you a few things.”
“Real combat taught me more.” Nate looked her in the eye. “Now, I’m going to teach you something about booby traps.”
“Oh?” She watched him cut off a small oak limb.
Nate said, “That hickory over there—cut some branches off. We need sticks one-half to three-quarters thick and at least a foot long.”
“Punji sticks?” Deni did not waste time waiting for an answer. She walked to the hickory tree.
They were forced to search for more trees to find enough branches the right thickness and low enough to reach. After two hours, they had a large pile of sticks sharpened on both ends.
“My knife’s dull.” Deni got a stone out of her pack and sat down to sharpen it. “And I need a rest.”
“It’s going to get dull again,” Nate said. “We’re going to be digging in the road tonight, and that clay is dry and hard-packed.”
She looked up at him, a smile on her face. “The tires.”
“They can’t have many spares with them.” Nate bent down, wrapped a cord around one bundle of sticks, and tied it off. “We’re going to be busy tonight.”
“You know,” Deni said. “Even if we can stop all of their vehicles, some of them may keep coming on foot.”
“That’s possible.” Nate tied a bundle of sticks to his pack. “They damn sure want to cross here for some reason. If they’re running from someone, I wish they would get here already.”
Deni nodded. “Why don’t you use my stone while I bundle the rest of the sticks, and tie them to my pack?”
Nate sat down to sharpen his knife. He kept searching the woods while he worked. “I think we should put these in the bottom of shallower washouts. They’re not as likely to notice the fresh dirt where we dig. Also, when the tires fall in the gullies, it will make the sticks more likely to puncture them. I’m talking about washouts about a foot deep and not much wider. There’s no shortage of them, so we can put quite a few out by false dawn.”