The Distant Echo of a Bright Sunny Day

by Patrick O'Brien

  “Take good care of it.”

  Peewee and Rick started down a flat, dry stream bed that had cut a wide gully across the open pastureland. Four hundred yards out, it veered off to the right and around the end of the hill, where the hill sloped off into a dip and became a second hill that flattened out, after a mile or so, into more of the same coarse, treeless pastureland. By the time they reached the dip, they were almost out of sight.

  “Think we’ll see ’em again?”

  “Of course we will, Mitch. Why wouldn’t we?”

  Mitch ignored the question and said, “Punch sure seemed in a hurry to get away, though, didn’t he?”

  “He managed to get his good-byes over with fairly quickly, I would say,” Ralph commented. He had taken umbrage at the almost perfunctory way Punch had shaken his hand, and the resentment now showed itself. “I would have expected a little more heartfelt sentiment. It’s almost as though he didn’t really approve of what we’re doing.”

  “Or really didn’t care.”

  “Nonsense, Mitch—he wouldn’t have helped us out if he didn’t care…”

  “I’m not so sure, Heidi. Maybe he just felt obligated.”

  “Why would he feel obligated, Mitch?”

  “Yeah, Mitch…I didn’t see that at all,” Jody challenged him. Mitch’s continued skepticism, which from the beginning had been evident below and above the surface, had begun to annoy her, and she felt the urge to call him out on it. As far as she was concerned, he had gone too long with a lukewarm attitude that at times verged on the cynical.

  “I don’t know, Jody—I don’t have the answer. But maybe what we’re doing is too close to home for him to feel comfortable. After all, when it’s all over with and we’re back in Portland, he’ll still be here. He’ll have to hear about it and read about it. His little ‘Shangrila’ may never be quite the same again…”

  “Yeah, Jody, as an environmentalist, he may sympathize with our goals, but maybe he doesn’t approve of our methods.”

  “I think you’re both wrong, Mike. If he didn’t approve, he wouldn’t have had us come all the way out here. He would have told Rick up-front that it was out of the question.”

  “How can you be so sure, Jody?” Misty asked. “Ralph and I talked about it, and I don’t think we’re even sure that it’s a good idea.”

  Ralph gave her an encouraging kiss on the cheek.

  “That’s tantamount to blasphemy,” Tony said, “but—”

  Carlos, having squatted down beside the leather case Peewee had left behind, stood up. “Escuche, amigos,” he said, ignoring Tony, “but we’re already here. And, speaking for myself, I didn’t come all this way to back out now. If you all remember correctly, we voted on this back at Heidi’s. Everybody had a chance to say what he thought. And we all voted to come. It was a group decision, just like all the others we’ve made as a group. Comprende?”

  Without waiting to hear anything more, he slung his rifle onto his shoulder, picked up the case, and set off toward a grouping of boulders a few yards away.

  “I’m gonna build a fire,” he said over his shoulder. “Anybody that wants to keep warm while we wait can join me.”

  Heidi, thankful for the intervention, looked around at the others. “Any objections?”

  No one said anything.

  Taking their silence as consent, she picked up the M1 rifle Rick had given her out of the supply of firearms scrounged up by the two agents, and proceeded to follow Carlos.

  Assuming the matter settled, Jody did the same.

  She was followed by Ralph and Misty, with the other three resignedly falling in behind.

  45

  At Carlos’ prompting, and considering it the only sensible activity called for at the moment, everyone scattered throughout the surrounding area, beyond the confines of several large boulders, and began gathering up wood for a fire. Within a short period of time, an ample supply had been piled up nearby, and using a few stones lying about, a small fire pit had been created. Carlos, the self-designated fire-starter, was down on his knees, arranging kindling over a handful of crumpled-up notebook paper. After a few minutes of effort, satisfied with his handiwork, and with Mitch and Ralph providing a windbreak, he struck a wooden match and held its flame to the paper. The paper caught instantly; within seconds the flames had peeled onto the dry wood sufficiently to stay lit.

  He stood up.

  The others had gathered around.

  “Good job, Carlos!” Heidi congratulated him.

  “Yeah, Carlos, you da man!” Tony said with a laugh. “Now all we need are some marshmallows.”

  “We could sing camp songs, too.”

  “Yeah, Mitch, you should have brought a guitar,” Mike said.

  “Damn! Why didn’t I think of that? We could have entertained Punch last night with protest songs. He would have gone for that.”

  “Isn’t that what they did back in the sixties?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

  “But Punch was. He would have felt right at home.”

  “He was a Navy man. I doubt if he was even into that.”

  “Yeah, he probably got his share of flack for even being in uniform.”

  “A lot of them did,” Ralph said. “My uncle was a hippie for a while and told me about how they used to approach soldiers and sailors and try to talk them into joining protests against the war. Some of them did.”

  “They were the ones that went AWOL, weren’t they?”

  “Yeah, Heidi, but some of them just hung out at coffee houses and had anti-war discussions.

  “To go AWOL was a pretty big deal. The FBI got involved.”

  “When I was living in Europe, I met a couple of fellas who had gone to Sweden. They were still living there.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah…totally acclimated.”

  “You know, didn’t Rick say something about Punch having been involved in some kind of intelligence work in the Navy?”

  “I think you’re right, Mike, he did. Why?”

  “Well, if so, he was probably one of those guys whose job it was to ferret out dissidents, don’t you think?”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “Nothing, really, Heidi…just that it’s hard to place him in the context of the times…”

  “People change, Mike.”

  “I’m not saying they don’t, Heidi. Just that you would think his experience would sort of place him at the conservative end of the spectrum.”

  “Once a conservative, always a conservative?”

  “Well, ah, I don’t know…”

  “Our boy, Mike, seems suspicious.”

  “I’m not suspicious, Mitch. I mean, what’s to be suspicious of?”

  “But you’re driving at something, Mike, whether you realize it or not…”

  “How do you know he’s driving at something, Mitch? Are you suddenly the clairvoyant in the group?”

  “Clairvoyance doesn’t have anything to do with it, Jody. I’m just commenting on what seems obvious.”

  Ralph had relit his pipe: standing nearby but off to the side, he puffed it contentedly.

  “What would there be to be suspicious of?” he asked.

  “Well, Ralph, you yourself commented on how he was rather abrupt at the end, when saying his good-byes…”

  “I thought we settled that,” Heidi said. “He’s willing to help, but he’s just not comfortable with our tactics.”

  “That’s certainly a possibility, Heidi.”

  “Maybe you’re not comfortable, either, Mitch. I noticed you didn’t bother to bring a rifle?”

  “Lisa’s dad lent me his, but in my rush to join the rest of you, I went off and forgot it, Jody. Anyway, I can use yours…I mean, how many cows are we gonna kill? You shoot a few, and I’ll shoot a few. We can take turns. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Keeping this fire going is a big deal,” Carlos said. “If we’re gonna be here all day, we’ll need more wood…”
<
br />   “We’ve got a whole pile over there, Carlos. How much do we need, anyway?”

  “Wood burns fast, Tony…might want to get more.”

  “Yeah, I agree with Carlos…we’ll need more wood. Why don’t we all spread out again and get more?”

  “We don’t want a bonfire, Mitch.”

  “Nobody’s talking about a bonfire, Jody. But Carlos is right…maybe it should be just a little bigger if we’re all gonna sit around it and keep warm.”

  “We can hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya.’” Tony laughed.

  “You can sing ‘Kumbaya,’ Tony,” Carlos said over his shoulder.

  He had knelt down beside the fire and was building it up with the addition of several larger pieces of wood, which he placed teepee fashion over the top of it.

  He looked up and said to no one in particular, “It’s dry wood. It’s not gonna give off much smoke. We can always trim it back if it starts to…”

  Briefly, once Carlos built up the fire to his satisfaction, and with enough wood piled up nearby to maintain it for several hours, the group huddled around. No one said much of anything. It was almost as though each one realized that the time for talking, for debating anymore the question of the action they were shortly to embark upon, had run its course. Now the only thing left was to wait out the hours. To wait out the hours and, perhaps without venturing too close to a reassessment of their resolve, hold on until the final moment.

  Heidi had her arms snugged about her legs and her chin resting on her knees. Lifting her head slightly, she looked at the others.

  “This is almost worth the trip all by itself, isn’t it?”

  “I’m glad we came,” Jody agreed. “I’m glad we’re all here and that we have a chance to be together like this. It gives the experience a special flavor.”

  “It’s almost spiritual, isn’t it?” Mike said musingly.

  “And romantic, too,” Tony added.

  He and Mike were sitting side by side, with their hands touching. Tony wanted to lean over and kiss his friend but resisted the urge, instead giving the other man’s hand a meaningful squeeze.

  Across from the two men on the other side of the fire, Ralph and Misty were huddled together under a blanket Ralph had brought with them. They both looked on contentedly, happy to be together.

  The fire burned.

  Stirring the coals underneath, Carlos added more wood. Ralph and Misty drew in closer to each other, and Mike and Tony, saying they were going for a walk, rose to leave.

  “Don’t get lost,” Heidi cautioned.

  “And watch out for them bears,” Carlos cracked. “If you run into one, you might get mistaken for lunch.”

  “I’ll give him mine,” Mike said.

  Mitch stood up. He had taken off his pack earlier; now he put it on again. “I think I’ll go for a walk myself,” he said. “Just to check out the terrain. Anyone wanna come along? Heidi? Jody? Carlos?”

  Heidi and Jody traded a quick look.

  “I’m gonna stay close to the fire, Mitch.”

  “Me, too,” Heidi said. “Why don’t you go? When you get back, you can let us know what’s out there.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’ll run into our two compadres.”

  “You don’t wanna come either, huh?”

  “Nah, I’m gonna build the fire up some more, Mitch, then curl up next to it and try to take a little nap. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  Mitch looked at Ralph and Misty, but they were preoccupied with each other. Without saying anything, Ralph shook his head no.

  “I’ll see y’all in a couple of hours, then.”

  “Don’t get lost, Mitch.”

  “I got my emergency whistle, Heidi—three blasts means come looking for me. Stay toasty, everyone.”

  46

  Northwest of where the group would bivouac for the remainder of that day and into the evening, the national forest became markedly denser. The scattered array of trees and isolated clumps of brush had tightened up and seemed less like stragglers trailing behind the main body of troops. Inside the forest proper, tall stands of Douglas fir grew closer together, as though forming a barrier that could only be breached by tramping through an understory of brush and ferns. Daylight filtered through the treetops, creating an atmosphere of gloom, especially on days of opaque cloudiness. A somber silence, broken only by the distant, far-off drone of an airplane, prevailed with a completeness that could evoke utter aloneness.

  The trail the group had taken petered out shortly before coming to a massive table rock wedged into a brown, grassy slope. From the top of the table rock, as he trained his binoculars off to the south, Mitch had a view of the ranch land extending outward in a series of hilly, rumpled, and twisting contours for at least three miles. Adjusting the lens for clarity, he could make out the rounded, bullet-shaped top of a feed silo just visible beyond a far-off ridgeline. Nothing else of the ranch could be seen, but on the other side of the ridgeline, he surmised, lay the ranchstead and any outbuildings.

  He had left the group thirty minutes earlier and had taken an upland line of travel roughly perpendicular to the southerly direction Rick and Peewee had taken. As it skirted the boundary between the ranch land and the national forest, it had curved away and out of sight of the cluster of boulders where the group had built a fire.

  The decision to go off on his own stemmed from a desire for solitude that periodically had to be satisfied. Equally important, he also had wanted to avoid running into either of the two men. He had no objection to the need for reconnaissance. To avoid pitfalls and delays, scouting the terrain was a necessary exercise. But his own curiosity constituted a compelling counterpoint to any information they might bring back. Giving them both the benefit of any doubt Mitch might have had about their abilities, he still wanted to see for himself what lay out there.

  The time it had taken him to come this far still allowed time to explore out and back. The group had arrived at their jumping-off point close to mid-morning, and nothing prevented him from covering the distance from where he was now to the ridgeline and back before the group left that evening for the ranch. He had all afternoon to make his own surveillance.

  One of the obstacles to maintaining any kind of reasonable time-line was the hilliness. From point A to point B, as the crow flies, three miles could get him there easily within two hours, more likely an hour or so. But, as he started out, moving down-slope, crossing a bowl-shaped depression, and then gradually traversing the next rise, he realized that more than two hours might be needed. Taking into account the undulating character of the terrain and its variations in elevation added at least another mile, maybe more. Only by a rough calculation of the difference was it possible to come up with a more realistic figure. If he had had a topo map of the area, he could have laid a route for himself that would have taken out much of the guesswork. Along with a compass, he could have used it to reckon the distance with more accuracy and hence a closer approximation of the time. As it was, only by stepping it up, quickening his pace, could he hope to get within viewing distance of the ranchstead and back again before it got too late in the day.

  He had gone another thirty minutes in a southwesterly direction. Where Rick and Peewee might be at this moment he had no way of knowing, but by keeping westerly of their presumed line of travel, he thought to avoid them. Having left the group almost two hours before, they probably were close to the ranch, if not already there.

  A further ten minutes of walking brought him to the western end of the two hills separated by the gully wash Rick and Peewee had taken. On his right, running north to south, was a quarter-mile-wide mountain meadow of thick green pasturage with a marshy area at its center. At its northern end, a half-mile away, it sloped up and around a wedge-shaped portion of the national forest that intruded into the border area between the forest and the ranch. At the other end, to the south, it came up against a low-curving hill with a steep slope that ran east to west and then, on the other side of the meadow, swung
northward. The ridgeline of the hill angled off into the general direction of the ranchstead; Mitch decided to head for it.

  The decision proved serendipitous.

  As he stood on the ridge with the meadow behind and below him now, he looked down the far slope and saw a rough track that on a map would probably show as an unimproved dirt road. Seeing it, his first thought was to consider whether Rick and Peewee had seen the same thing. He knew they had brought a topographic map of the area; he also knew that, with their background, they probably would not venture into unfamiliar terrain without first checking it against any hunch they would have as to the most feasible line of travel. But the way they had set out, almost on a beeline from where Punch had left the group, made him wonder. If they had seen the road and yet had chosen to go another way, it meant the road itself did not pass near enough to the ranch to make it worth taking, or they had simply chosen a quicker albeit overland route. But the only way to find out would be to follow it for a distance. At some point, he could mount to the top of another hill and check his progress against whether he was any closer to the tip of the silo he had seen earlier.

  Twenty more minutes of walking told the story. For roughly one-third of a mile, the road headed due south and, by his reckoning, away from the ranch, but then it curved to the southeast. If he had not overshot the ranch by going too far south or southwest from his starting point at the table rock, he should have been approximately parallel with it. It should have been off to his left, over the other side of a hill that formed the eastern half of another, much wider meadow the road skirted. The road itself probably did not go directly to or by the ranch, but almost certainly ran within a mile or two of it.

  He continued on for another quarter-mile, just to make sure that he had indeed gone far enough. Then he left the road and headed up a grassy incline to the top of a hill from where he hoped to see the silo, if not the ranch itself.

  He was not disappointed.

  Even without binoculars, he could see not only the silo but most of the layout, although from a northwesterly angle. From that angle he had a view of one side of the two-story house, a partial shot of the parking area in front of it, and of cattle pens, barns, and outbuildings behind and on the other side of the house. He could also see a stretch of the long dirt road that came up from the south and ended at the ranch. Looking farther out, but using the binoculars now, he saw more of the rumpled countryside and, seven or eight miles off, a line of poplars demarcating the Yellowstone River as, flowing eastward, it paralleled the Interstate.