by John Grit
Caroline shot at something only she saw.
They took off as fast as Nate could carry Deni.
~~~~
Covered with sweat and out of breath, Nate had to rest. The river reflected gray and mirror-smooth ten yards in front of them. He put Deni down by a log so she would have cover on one side and the river on the other.
She seemed worse.
Brian wet a handkerchief and wiped her face. He touched her forehead. “I thought she would be overheated, but she feels cold.” His eyes met Nate’s.
Nate’s heart jumped into his throat. How can I tell him she is probably dying?
“There’s nothing we can do.” Brian smeared his face.
“No,” Nate said. “But she is not dead yet. Keep thinking. Maybe we will all make it.”
“Ben didn’t.” Brian did not look at him.
“He is past helping. Deni is not. We are not.” Nate’s voice rose. “This is the worst time to quit on me.”
Brian stood and looked his father in the eye. “I won’t quit on you—ever.”
Nate nodded. “Okay. I believe you.” He lifted Deni. “Let’s go.”
Caroline had been watching their back trail. “I think we may have lost them.” She kept scanning the woods. “But how are we going to get her back to the bunker?”
“First, we get more breathing room.” Nate walked downriver. The others followed, looking over their shoulders.
~~~~
Sunlight slanted down through a canopy of treetops. Morning had become afternoon, and Nate had been carrying Deni without rest. Afternoon had begun to die, fade into evening. Still, he carried her, feeling her slow, shallow breathing on his neck where her head rested on his shoulders, rolling with his steady gait, unsupported by her neck muscles.
Nate saw that Brian and Caroline were calmer now that danger seemed to be far behind. Finally, he put Deni down in the middle of a jumble of windfalls. Nate looked the scene over and saw logs lying crossways, one on top of the other, offering protection from bullets. “We’ll rest here.”
Brian knelt by Deni and helped Nate get her in a comfortable position. He moved closer and brushed dirt off her face. “I would pray…but it's never worked before.”
Nate grimaced as he pulled his screaming shoulders back and took his pack off. “She’s lived this long. Maybe it’s not as bad as I thought.”
Caroline had been watching their back trail. She came closer, looking down at Deni. “You guys watch for trouble while I examine her.” She knelt down and took her pack off, laying the carbine on top of it, out of the mud. “I was a nurse before the world went to hell,” she said, without taking her eyes off Deni. She began to unbutton Deni’s shirt.
Brian’s eyes flashed to his father, then Caroline. “What the hell! Why didn’t you tell us that before?” He threw his hands up. “I mean like weeks, months ago. How about when Deni needed your help when she was shot in the head?”
“Brian.” Nate’s voice rose. “You’re not considering everything.” He pointed at a place where three logs crisscrossed, forming a three-cornered bunker of sorts. “Take my rifle and spare mags. Sit down in those logs. Keep low and watch for movement in the woods.”
Brian said nothing, just did what his father said.
Nate caught his attention. Brian looked at him, still angry. Nate motioned for him to put his boonie hat on. He wanted Brian to hide his head as much as possible.
“She has broken ribs,” Caroline said.
Nate turned and saw Caroline pressing her hands on Deni’s chest on each side, feeling.
Caroline bent down close, listening to Deni breathe. Then she moved to Deni’s chest, pressing her ear against it, listening.
“Her lungs?” Nate asked.
Caroline almost smiled. “She’s bruised bad inside, I bet, but there is no hole in her lungs.”
Brian saw his father’s face. He blinked and turned away.
“Did she cough up blood?” Caroline asked.
Nate nodded.
“Scared you, didn’t it?” Caroline smiled for the second time in months.
Nate swallowed.
“She might have spinal injuries. No way to tell. Maybe a concussion. She might make it. She might not.” Caroline checked Deni’s arms for broken bones.
“We knew that already,” Brian said, his voice higher-pitched than it was a few moments before. He smeared his face. “She’s the toughest girl I ever knew.” He looked over at Caroline. “Except maybe you.”
“She’s tough, all right,” Caroline said. “And stubborn. I don’t think she’ll let those assholes kill her. She’s got fight in her yet.”
Nate reloaded his revolver and holstered it. He saw the Kimber 1911 pistol in a holster on Deni’s belt and decided he needed it more than her at the moment.
Caroline felt the fingers on Deni’s left hand. “I need to splint her fingers. They’re broken.”
“You need sticks about the thickness of a pencil.” Nate got a medical kit out of his pack. “Here.” He handed Caroline a roll of gauze and tape. “I’ll cut some sticks.” He reached down and unbuckled Deni’s pistol belt to slide off the holster.
Caroline’s glare could have turned him into stone.
Nate slid Deni’s magazine pouch off also. He buckled her belt and looked at Caroline, stood, and stared back at her, shook his head, and walked away. When he returned, he had moved his revolver back on his hip to make room for Deni’s pistol on his right side, and had the magazine pouch on his left. He carried thin sticks for splints. He handed one of them to Caroline.
“You’re going to be so loaded down with guns you can’t move.” Caroline put a stick next to one of Deni’s fingers. She held it where the cut should be. “That long,” she said. “Make it as smooth as possible on the end.”
Nate took his time, carefully rounding the edge with a small pocketknife. His KA-BAR was too large for such a delicate job. He handed it to her when finished.
“Make the next one a half-inch shorter,” she said.
Nate cut it and left her to splint Deni’s fingers while he made a mental inventory of their ammunition supplies, going through all the magazine pouches.
Caroline spoke while she wrapped a finger with gauze to protect it from abrasion before taping the splint on. “Looks like you’re getting ready for a one-man war. I think your main responsibility is to get Brian out of this.”
“We’re pretty much out of it already,” Nate said. “Those cowards aren’t coming out here after us. There’s nothing out here to steal but our guns.”
She gave him her cold stare. “There are two women out here.”
Nate stared back. “They have women with them. And not every man is so depraved…”
“I realize you’re not like them,” she interrupted, “but most men are.”
“Your husband? Was he like them?” Nate stood. “I don’t blame you for not trusting men. But don’t ever think Brian is not foremost on my mind.” He walked to the river and looked around. After a few minutes, he walked to Brian.
“Are you planning on carrying Deni the whole way?” Brian asked.
“No.” Nate reached out. “Let me see the rifle.”
Brian handed it to him.
Nate checked the magazine and found it nearly empty. “Go to Deni’s and my packs and get our loose rounds. Reload all the M14 and AR mags. This one is nearly empty and so are many others.”
Brian stood but did not head for the packs. “What are you planning?”
Nate saw Brian’s face looking up at him, but he did not see the boy he had been seeing every day for so many years he could not remember what it was like to not be a father. “I want your advice before I decide.”
Brian blinked. “Now?”
Nate’s face softened. “Think on it first. Let me know what you come up with.”
Brian took a few steps, and then looked back. He walked to Deni and watched Caroline finishing the last finger splint.
What Caroline saw in Bria
n’s eyes made her stop working. “I like her, too. And I will do everything I can to help her.”
Chapter 19
Nate slept for two hours. He woke and found it was already dark. Caroline was asleep next to Deni. Brian stood watch.
“I haven’t seen or heard a thing,” Brian said. “You really think they won’t come after us? They’ve got to be pissed.”
“They’re pissed all right.” Nate took a drink from his canteen. “There’s a place downstream where we can wade across. Then we can make our way upriver and cross again near the creek and walk back to the bunker.”
“Make a stretcher to carry Deni?”
“Yes, but,” Nate smashed a mosquito on his face, “I would rather use the livestock water tank to float her most of the way like we did with our supplies that time.”
“It’s too open in the pasture where it is.” Brian’s voice changed pitch. “Don’t risk it. We can carry her.”
“Yes, we can carry her, but she’ll have a lot smoother ride in that tank floating upriver. It’s not us I’m worried about.”
“There’s no way you can get that tank without getting killed. It’s in the middle of the pasture.” Brian lowered his voice again, looking around in the dark. “We can carry her without shaking her much.”
“She was bleeding inside. I did not have any choice when I carried her before. But I knew it might kill her.”
“You’ve had to make all kinds of decisions like that.” Brian stopped when a garfish splashed in the river. “You’ve done the best you could. It wasn’t your fault. Deni getting hurt and Ben killed.”
“No, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.” Nate checked the Aimpoint sight on Deni’s M4. “Get some sleep. You will have to stand watch again later tonight.”
“You’re going to do it.”
“I’m afraid she will die if I don’t.” Nate spoke with no emotion.
“How?” Brian asked. “How the hell are you going to go out there in the open and drag that thing across the pasture and then down to the river without getting shot?”
“I’m going to reason with them.”
“Whaaat?” Brian jumped up from the log he sat on. “You asked me for ideas earlier today, now you tell me you’re going to…what makes you think they will suddenly act like sane people?”
Brian woke Caroline.
She grabbed her carbine and sat up, ready to shoot. “What is it?”
“Go back to sleep,” Nate said. “Everything is okay.”
“Sleep hell.” Caroline rubbed mosquito bites on her neck. “You two fighting?”
“We don’t fight. We’re just talking.” Nate walked over and checked Deni. She was asleep—or unconscious. “You might as well join us if you won’t go back to sleep.”
They both sat down on the same log Brian had been sitting on before he stood.
“Sit down, Brian,” Nate said, “and let me explain what I have in mind.”
Brian sat down. “Well?”
“First of all,” Nate said, “there is nothing left at the farm for them to steal. They may have come back to burn the place, but I think they just decided to spend the night there. It was our bad luck they didn’t show up a few minutes later. If they had, Ben would still be alive and Deni unhurt. They probably reversed course when the chopper attacked and are heading down the road.”
“Then they will probably leave tomorrow,” Brian said. “So wait and then get the tank.”
“We’ll see if they leave in the morning. But if they don’t, I’m going to leverage the chopper attack in our favor. I’m going to tell them there will be another attack if they don’t leave the county.”
“Just walk in and talk to them?” Brian snorted.
“Something like that,” Nate said.
“And they will believe you?” Brian shook his head.
“They will if I can make it convincing. Tell them I have a friend—make it sister—in the Army, and the air assault was punishment for raiding the farm.”
Caroline spoke up. “You know the jargon, chain of command, and other things. There are a few military types in their group. Maybe you can make them have enough doubts about whether you are lying or not that they will not want to take the chance.”
“That’s the idea,” Nate said. “They have to move on anyway. There’s nothing to eat at the farm. They already took it all.”
“And I guess you’re going to help them decide to move on by showing them how dangerous it is to stay,” Brian said. “I mean besides the chopper coming back.”
“I just want to get close enough to one to talk.” Nate lied. “Caroline, check Deni’s pockets. She may have her military ID on her. I can use it to help convince them I have the ability to call in another air strike. I don’t have my VA card with me. It wouldn’t do any good anyway. It just proves I was in the Army.”
She stood. “Okay.”
After Caroline left, Nate looked at Brian in the dark. “I’m going to need your watch.”
“Watch? Okay.” He took his wristwatch off and handed it to Nate. It was a Christmas gift from his mother. “What do you need it for?”
“It would take too long to explain.” Nate put it in his pocket. It was too small to fit on his arm.
“Yeah, right.”
Nate laughed. “It will take too long, because I’m about to leave.”
“Shit.” Brian spoke so low Nate barely heard him.
“I guess you’ve earned the right to cuss a little.” Nate heard Caroline walking up. He wanted to say something, and he would rather say it to Brian alone. But this would be his last chance before he left. “Brian…I want to tell you something. I have raised you in my own way. It meshed well with your mother’s gentleness, but it’s different from what she thought I was doing.”
Brian looked at his silhouette in the dark.
“I believe in raising children like an oak. If I had beaten you down every time you opened your mouth, it would have stunted your spirit. When an oak is just a seedling, a man can step on it and break its back, maybe kill it, maybe leave it crooked, deformed, and never able to grow as strong and straight as it could have. So when it’s little, it needs to be protected and treated gently. 2As it grows, it can take on more wind, go longer without water, and take on the hazards of the world. An oak that’s been treated right when small will grow strong. Oaks grow slow, but they’re tough. I believe in raising children that way.” Nate put his pack on. “Since the plague, you’ve been growing into an oak. I took you with me on this trip, because I had to. I didn’t like it. But I was not taking a boy with me. I was taking a man. At least ninety percent of one. All that is missing is a few more years.”
Nate turned the reticle brightness in the Aimpoint on Deni’s M4 down so it would not drown out any targets in the dark. He looked through the sight while aiming at some brush.
Brian said nothing.
“This isn’t some kind of a good-bye speech, Brian,” Nate said. “I’ll be back sometime tomorrow. I just wanted you to know I am proud to be your father. I must have not messed up too much in raising you. Your mother was a lot of help, though.”
No one said anything for several seconds.
Caroline had been staying back, now she came closer. “She had it on her.”
Nate put Deni’s military ID in a shirt pocket.
“Just come back,” Brian said. “I don’t see why you don’t take me with you.”
Nate stood there in the dark. “Someone needs to stay here and help Deni and Caroline.”
“Yeah, right. Caroline is tougher than me.”
Nate smiled in the dark and cleared his throat and said, “It will take two people to get Deni home.”
“Okay,” Brian said. “Just get home yourself.”
“I will see you both tomorrow.” Nate disappeared in the night.
Caroline came closer and put her right arm over Brian’s shoulder. Brian responded by touching her hand. She stiffened and pulled it away.
“I’m sorry.” Bri
an stepped away from her.
“No. I am sorry.” She hugged him and then stepped back. “That was my fault. I just wanted to tell you I think your father will be okay.”
“He’s got something planned he’s not telling us.” Brian walked over to a log and sat down with Nate’s rifle across his lap. He did not say another word.
~~~~
All seemed quiet at the farm, but it was crowded with sleeping people. Nate could see no movement. The house and barn were not able to contain everyone, so many slept in tents or under tarpaulins in the yard. There were vehicles parked everywhere. The driveway was choked with trucks and pickups of all types and sizes, and the line of vehicles stretched into the county road for another half-mile. People were sleeping under many of them.
It looks like a scene from Mad Max.
Nate used his binoculars to search for sentries. There were not many. He expected more back in the woods he could not see. Eight men were in sleeping bags near the edge of the woods, all lined in a row, asleep. Nate lowered his binoculars and backed away, deeper into the woods.
Nate circled the farm and headed for the road.
Sneaking past two sentries, Nate ran to a line of trucks parked in the middle of the dirt road. On the back of one truck, he pulled a tarpaulin aside and saw cardboard boxes of canned goods piled high. Another truck contained many items taken from his farm. Mason jars of vegetables and meats, the result of many hours of hot, sweaty work in his kitchen, filled a two-ton truck. He punctured all four tires of each of the three trucks. Then he crawled under them and cut their radiator hoses.
Looking down the line of trucks revealed no sign of Nate’s cow. More than likely it had been killed in the helicopter attack. They would have eaten it by now anyway. He moved down the column of trucks in the dark of the moonless night and ducked under a truck loaded with barrels of diesel fuel. In less than five minutes, he had the radiator hose cut and all four tires flat.
Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. We need that fuel.
Four trucks down, Nate placed one of the two bombs he had left in his pack, running the wire into the woods. He came back and buried the wire under sand.
Working by feel in the dark, Nate readied a battery, attaching one wire, leaving the other bent back and away from the positive battery terminal.