Flight

by Bernard Wilkerson

Wolfgang stumbled up the side of the hill, Leah under his arm supporting him. The mountain ahead was too steep for them to continue this way. He knew he had to get his feet properly under himself.

  The two soldiers stopped, and Wolfgang told himself he only had to get as far as them, he only had to catch up. When he reached them, he let himself fall to the ground, Leah trying to slow his descent. He looked up in gratitude at her when he was finally sitting but didn’t say anything. The thought of speaking was too painful.

  “I think we’re far enough away, sir,” the younger of the two officers, Captain Wlazlo said.

  “I feel bad just leaving Captain Smith’s body in the truck,” the older one, Lieutenant Colonel Robertson replied.

  “Think of it like a Viking funeral pyre, sir.”

  Robertson sighed. “Go ahead.”

  Wlazlo readied his weapon, pointed it back down the slope, and fired a single grenade towards the truck. There was a loud boom followed by a puff of smoke, but the grenade had fallen short of the upside down vehicle. He fired a second.

  The initial explosion, along with secondary explosions from the grenades and ammunition they couldn’t carry, lit the twilight sky like a fireworks show. Whatever their attackers may have hoped to recover from the Army supply truck burned up in a ball of flame and smoke.

  Wolfgang, supported by Leah, stared. There existed a certain perverse pleasure in watching the fire, the subsequent explosions as grenades and ammunition boxes heated up and cooked off, the colorful flames, some reaching eight or ten meters into the sky, and the dense black smoke as the truck and its contents died a final death.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Robertson ordered.

  Leah concerned herself with him constantly as they hiked. She complained that he needed a break and that his bandage was soaking with blood, but Wolfgang pressed on. He felt weak, and he didn’t want to feel weak. He wanted to overcome his weakness, even if it took stubbornness and suffering. He wanted to be strong again. He wanted to be the one who helped others, who others admired as he played with children, swinging them high in the sky, the children laughing and pleading for more.

  He wanted to be able to think about his wife and daughter without the pain in his soul hurting worse than the pain in his head.

  There was nothing to be done but to put one foot in front of the other, to keep climbing despite everything his body told him it craved. Rest, sleep, food, comfort. Those all became nothing to Wolfgang. Ascending the mountain came to represent overcoming his pain. If he could keep moving, he might not succumb.

  If he stopped, he would simply want to die.

  Leah made him drink water, giving it to him from her canteen. In another world he never would have shared from the same bottle as anyone but his wife. Now he just obeyed and took the water.

  A patchwork of granite covered the side of the mountain, but the soldiers wisely stayed under cover of trees. The four picked their way carefully in the dark, shining red flashlights that allowed them to see a little but not be seen from a distance. The moon didn’t penetrate the clouds.

  The two soldiers led.

  Wolfgang wore a hiking pack. He didn’t know what it contained. The Americans had insisted each of them bring a rifle, one of the deadly MP23s, so Leah carried his for him. She had a large pack and both rifles strapped on her back, and still she easily outhiked him. That began to aggravate him more than his head.

  Yet when he thought to say something to her, when he had to look at her, with her dark eyes and light brown, curly hair, all he could see was his lost wife. Who looked nothing like Leah.

  He slowed down, sensing he and Leah had fallen far behind the American soldiers, but he hiked on nonetheless. He told himself he could do this. He could continue on. He ran a hiking club. This had been his hobby and the out of shape Americans hadn’t been able to keep up with him then. Surely he could keep up now.

  After a while, thought became too much effort and that was better. Just step, step, step. Keep moving. Take a drink occasionally. Step again. Focus on his feet and nothing else. Hike your own hike. That’s what he always told his club.

  He fell heavily over a root he missed in the dim red light. Leah rushed back to him, helping him back to his feet, asking over and over again if he was okay. She mixed German and English as she spoke, the worry in her voice evident. He didn’t want a break, he told her. They had to keep up.

  She stayed closer, using her flashlight to point out rocks and roots, and they made their way slowly up the Southern Swiss Alps.

  Hours later they heard a shout. With no strength to rush to its location, Wolfgang urged Leah to investigate. She refused.

  They hiked on.

  Eventually Captain Wlazlo returned, waiting for them at the top of a small crest.

  “You gotta get a move on, Wolfie. We got trouble.”

  “He’s doing the best he can,” Leah argued.

  “That might not be good enough.”

  Wolfgang stopped to breathe, his eyes closed. The weakness in his body was unnatural. He wondered how much blood he had lost.

  He felt the American put a hand under his arm, then Leah do the same on the other side, and allowed them to propel him forward. They held him up enough that he could keep walking, although the new exertion made his head pound and his eyesight blur. He let them guide him.

  They finally stopped and Wolfgang sank to the ground, his eyes shut, grateful for the lack of motion. Leah gave him a water bottle, then he heard her ask a question that puzzled him.

  “Who’s that?”

  “A picket. A lookout. A guard for the gang that attacked us and killed Cyrus.”

  Wolfgang wasn’t sure what the first two descriptions meant, but he understood the third. He could also hear the anger in Wlazlo’s voice.

  He looked through bleary eyes and saw a small outline lying on the ground with arms awkwardly at his sides. The picket’s hands were tied behind his back.

  “He’s just a boy,” Leah said.

  “He killed my friend.”

  “He’s a boy!”

  Wolfgang couldn’t keep his eyes open and just listened.

  “His gang tried to kill us and he’s a lookout for them. We need to kill him.” Wlazlo.

  “What? No. He’s a child.” Leah. Desperation in her voice.

  “He’s got a rifle.” Wolfgang heard something rattle. “And he would have shot us if he hadn’t fallen asleep.”

  “You blew up a truck. How could he be asleep?”

  “That was hours ago. They put him up here to watch for us. I can’t tell in the dark. I don’t know how far he can see from here. But he was probably the one spotting for them, the one who told them we were coming. He’s probably got binoculars. Find them!”

  Wolfgang heard rustling and swearing.

  “A radio,” he croaked in German.

  “A radio?” Wlazlo cried. The word was similar in both languages. “That’s right. He’d have to have a radio. Find the radio. Search everywhere.”

  “Right here,” the lieutenant colonel said.

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll take it.”

  Wolfgang heard smashing.

  Then Leah spoke in her native tongue.

  He’d never heard her speak Italian before. She spoke rapidly, fluently, and it almost surprised him. Her German was passable but weak. Her English was better, better than his English, but he’d gotten used to her halting accent. Hearing her speak naturally made him realize how intelligent she must be. When he only heard someone speak like a kindergartner, it was easy to think that’s how intelligent they were.

  His opinion of the young, Swiss girl began to change and he painfully opened his eyes to watch her.

  The boy stared at her, terrified, and she raised the pitch of her voice, her face in front of the boy’s and he began shaking his he
ad, crying.

  “No, no, no,” the boy repeated.

  Leah hammered him with questions and he continued to say no.

  She finally looked up at Wlazlo.

  “He wasn’t part of the attack. He doesn’t know who was,” she said in English.

  “And you believe him?” Wlazlo shouted.

  “It wasn’t him! He’s only a boy.”

  “He’s old enough to carry a gun.”

  Leah turned to the boy and shot him a question. The boy responded with a number.

  “He’s only thirteen,” she said coldly.

  “He’s on this hill. He’s armed. He has a radio. Do you think he’s a Boy Scout? He’s a soldier,” Wlazlo screamed, getting into Leah’s face. “He killed my best friend, he almost killed your boyfriend, and he’d just as soon kill us as give us the time of day.” He brought his gun up and pointed it at the boy.

  “No,” Leah cried and got in front of his gun. She straddled the boy, preventing Wlazlo from shooting him.

  “You get away from him right now, missy. This isn’t your war.”

  “This is my country. It’s not a war. He’s not a soldier.”

  “He’s armed.”

  “He’s not a soldier. He’s a child.”

  “When he doesn’t radio in, the rest will check on him and find him. It’s standard military procedure.”

  “He’s a thirteen year old boy. He’s not military.”

  “He attacked us!”

  “No, he didn’t!”

  “He. Killed. My. Friend.”

  “No, he didn’t!” and Leah reached out and grabbed Wlazlo’s gun.

  Wolfgang held his breath. Leah grabbed the weapon with both hands, keeping the barrel pointed away from both of them. Wlazlo didn’t let go, but he didn’t fight her. The two glared at each other across the deadly device. The lieutenant colonel stood to the side of his officer, looking unnerved.

  “You said this gun makes you as powerful as ten men,” Leah finally said.

  “What of it?” Wlazlo replied. He didn’t shout. Wolfgang finally let his breath out.

  “Don’t shoot,” Leah commanded and let go. She turned back down to the boy with his hands tied behind his back. She grabbed his shirt with both hands, bringing his face to hers and began yelling.

  The boy cried again, repeating ‘no’ over and over. She let go of him with one hand and slapped him in the face, then grabbed him again and yelled something else.

  The pain got the boy’s attention and he nodded ‘yes’, slowly. Leah put him back on the ground.

  “He understands how dangerous you are. He understands that when those he is with find him, if he tells them which way we went and if they follow, you will kill all of them. That you are heavily armed and trained assassins and it will be easy to kill everyone. He understands if he ever wants to see his mother again, he will do exactly as I say.”

  Captain Thomas Wlazlo glared defiantly at the young, Swiss girl, but then turned away and began hiking up the trail that led up the mountainside. He didn’t say a word. The lieutenant colonel followed.

  Leah checked the boy’s bonds, then tied his legs and gagged him. She searched his gear. He’d been sitting in a sleeping bag and had several packs with him, trash scattered around him. She went through the packs, found ammunition for his rifle, and threw it down the hill. She also checked the single action rifle, opened the bolt, and used her fingernail to pry the bullet out. She tossed it down the hillside also.

  She spoke to the boy calmly now, in Italian, her voice mild compared to the yelling she’d done before. She touched his face gently.

  Wolfgang wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision. It was the humane decision, to let the boy live, but he wasn’t sure a stern warning was enough. As soon as the rest of his gang checked on him, undid the ropes that held him, and slapped him around a little, he would tell them everything about Leah, Wolfgang, and the two officers. Nothing would stop their pursuit, and the followers would move a lot faster than Wolfgang could.

  Leaving the youth tied up was foolishness, but Wolfgang didn’t think he could be responsible for the boy’s death either. He admired Leah’s conviction.

  He also hoped his own weakness, his slowness, wouldn’t get her killed.

  “Come, we must go now,” she said to him in German, speaking gently. She helped Wolfgang stand and he felt like the pack he carried weighed fifty kilos and his head weighed a hundred. He looked down at the tied up boy and knew his safety probably lay in the boy’s death, but he didn’t say that to Leah. He’d take his chances with her decision.

  “He’ll be fine,” Leah said to Wolfgang, assuming his look meant concern about leaving the boy tied up. “His friends will look for him when he doesn’t call them on the radio and they will rescue him.”

  Wolfgang knew that would happen, but hoped it wouldn’t happen too quickly. He wanted to sprint up the hill, to flee the boy and those who blew up the Army truck, but his feet and his head refused. He began hiking slowly with Leah’s help.

  17