Adrian’s fever had peaked. Had he still been in the wickiup, he would have recovered nicely. The hypothermia that had come on brought him to the edge of death. Adrian knew in a distant way that he was dying, and was satisfied to go. The pain was ending and would soon be gone. Yet something deep in Adrian resisted death. Dying without fighting back wasn’t in his makeup. He would have died anyway had it not been for Marian and Jerod and the fires. Warmth started to slowly creep back into his extremities and then into his body core. He had small areas of frost bite on his hands and feet.
Adrian fought a long, slow battle that lasted the entire night and well into the next morning. He didn’t regain consciousness until Marian and the boy were dead. When he awoke, he was angry. The part of him that fought to live was deep within his psyche, something he wasn’t aware of. What he was aware of was that he had almost escaped the strangling grief. But he had been rudely snatched back. He opened his eyes to see what had gone wrong. Near him lay a dead child. He saw two brutish men, crudely dressed. One of them was pulling up his pants. At his feet lay a dead woman with her skirt rucked up above her waist.
He saw three fires smoldering around him. The picture was instantly clear, partly because his subconscious mind had been gathering information while he was unconscious—but mostly because the situation was self-evident. Obviously the men had seen Adrian as no threat in his weakened and unconscious condition and probably intended to interrogate him after they raped the woman.
Adrian’s anger at being alive was compounded a hundred times by what these men had done, and by the fact that he had lain there unaware while they did it. Roaring like the grizzly bear he had so recently vanquished, he grabbed his spear and thrust it directly into the throat of the man pulling his pants up. He pulled it out as blood jetted from the man’s carotid artery in red, arcing sprays, then shoved it deep into the man’s stomach. The man tried to scream but could only make gurgling sounds as he sank to his knees in the reddening snow, clutching at the spear with both hands.
Without pausing, and still roaring, Adrian grabbed the other man, who had barely moved in his shock at this sudden ferocious attack and his companion’s blood raining over him. Adrian seized the man by the throat and choked him with hands of iron fury. Adrian put his face inches from the dying man’s as he choked him and screamed with inarticulate rage. Adrian kept choking and screaming until the man was dead, his lounge protruding from his mouth from being strangled. Then Adrian slowly released his grip.
The snow had stopped during the night and the fires had partially dried Adrian off. His fever was gone, but he was weak from the long sickness and the sudden activity. He was trembling with adrenalin as he surveyed the grisly sight before him. The two men he had killed. The woman, her throat cut. The boy with a smashed in skull. Adrian, now beyond sanity, stared without compassion, only intense anger. Who were these people to have brought him back to this wretched life; brought him back to this mess? Adrian didn’t know where he was. He was lost, and the sun was behind clouds, so he couldn’t determine directions.
He could see that he was at a crossing of two elk trails, so he had six choices. Follow one of the four trails, strike out cross country off the trails, or stay where he was. He chose to follow one of the trails. Before he set out, he searched the four bodies for anything useful. The men had rifles, poor ones, and a small amount of ammo for each. One of them had matches. He left the rifles but took the coat off the man he strangled—the other one was too bloody. He chose the trail that headed downhill. It would eventually lead him to water, and he was ravenously thirsty and hungry. He could catch fish and eat. Taking his spear from the dead man’s stomach, he moved down the trail.
He reached a creek after a couple of hours. At the creek he saw where wood had been chopped. That meant that someone had a camp nearby. He needed to check that out before doing anything else. He drank water, cold water that lowered his internal temperature again. He felt the weakness increasing with the cold. Carefully scouting the area, he found a well-established trail from the creek up the other bank. He followed it by walking parallel to it. It led to a small cabin that looked well-made and tight. There was no smoke from the short stone chimney. He circled around the cabin but all signs said it was empty. He found a grave nearby. By the looks of the marker it was only a few months old.
Adrian approached the cabin and knocked on the hewn plank door, yelling out as he did. “Anyone home?” Twice more he knocked, then opened the door and stepped into the dark one-room cabin. There were no windows; the only light came in through the open door behind him. It was neat and clean. The occupants had not been gone long. An old photo on the mantle told him the woman had lived here, with a man, most likely her husband and the boy’s father. Adrian assumed the man was buried in the grave.
Using the firewood and kindling that was ready at hand, he quickly built a fire in the neatly made fireplace. He was cold and half-starved. There was no food. He had pemmican back at his camp, lots of it. All he had to do was find it. When he did he would bring it here. This cabin was too good to leave behind for the wickiup, and the owners were all dead. He sat at the table, letting the heat from the fire soak into him. He thought about where he had awoken and decided that he had a fair idea of which way his camp was. Instead of going back to the three fires camp, he would cut across country, taking the third leg of the triangle.
After he had traveled several miles in what he felt was the right direction he recognized a lightning struck tree, and all at once the location of his camp clicked into place. The cabin was two valleys over from his. It was only a matter of hours before he was back at the wickiup, sitting by his fire and wolfing down bear pemmican. He stayed there two more days, recovering his strength. Then he moved all his supplies to the cabin. He hid his food high up in several trees. He might lose some of it to accident or animal, but he wasn’t going to lose all of it. He had more than enough pemmican to take him well into spring.
When Adrian had been in the new cabin for two days he went to get the woman’s and child’s bodies. It nagged at him that they had done what they thought was a good deed, saving his life—they hadn’t known better. He couldn’t repay that by leaving them to the forest scavengers. Insane as he now was, there was still a tiny thread of something civilized deep inside. Cursing himself for being seven kinds of a fool, he took an elk hide and walked back to the death camp. Everything was as he had left it except the bodies were frozen solid. It made carrying them difficult. He built a travois using poles and the hide, put the bodies and the rifles and ammo on it, and dragged them back to the cabin. Using their shovel he dug two new graves next to the older one. He buried them, thought about if he should say something, but decided there was no point talking to himself. He buried them in silence. He lived in silence and misery for three more days before the silence was broken, and Adrian’s war started.
Chapter 9
THE SILENCE ADRIAN LIVED IN existed not only externally, but also inside his head. He rarely thought in words now. His thinking was as acute as before, but faster without words to slow him down. Words created imprecise images; thinking without words was simpler and more effective when alone. He went about his daily chores with complete awareness of his surroundings. He heard every sound, saw every movement. He spotted patterns in the trees and brush that he would never have noticed before. He smelled things clearly, especially when he hadn’t been around his fire for a few hours. His senses were fully attuned to his environment in a way that he had never experienced in his life. Only the pain of grief kept him from being a contented man.
He listened far better than ever before. Sudden silences meant something to him now. The forest was awash with the sounds of birds and wildlife coming from all directions. A silence in one part of the forest meant something was moving there, something the birds and squirrels were afraid of. Usually a predator of one kind or another. It might be an eagle or a bear or a wolf. Once he had spotted a mountain lion by the circle of silence it creat
ed around it as it prowled. He had tracked it down and killed it with his bow. Mountain men of old had often said it was the best eating in the mountains, and Adrian agreed.
Knowing that he, too, was a predator, he took extra care not to disturb the forest life around him, and as a result he had become a more efficient hunter. When he hunted he covered himself with an elk skin that still had the head on it. Moving along the way an elk does he not only blended in, but was able to keep the birds singing. It was an old Indian trick he had read about, and it was effective. The skin also allowed him to stalk elk and deer much closer than before. They saw him as another safe animal grazing along. In one instance a bull elk had come towards him to investigate what appeared to be a lone cow that could be added to its herd. When he finally realized what the bull was after, an alarmed Adrian urgently threw the skin off and stood upright, yelling and waving his arms. The bull nearly turned itself inside out trying to spin and run away. The whole situation was so comical that Adrian burst into rare laughter.
Adrian also used a small, stuffed deerskin dummy to attract deer. He would set it on the edge of a clearing and climb a nearby tree. Using grass reeds held between his thumbs and blowing air across it, he could make a good imitation of a fawn’s distress cry. Deer would hear and come investigate, see the decoy, and approach. Predators would too. It was a deadly technique and brought him much food.
He had taken the cabin over, admiring the skill and craftsmanship with which it had been built. The man who built it was a good man; that was evident in everything about the place. He could read the man’s character by his work and the care he took in crafting; it was plain to anyone that could see. It had not been built quickly or crudely, but with loving skill in every notch in every timber. The timbers had been shaped top and bottom to fit tightly against each other. There was no chinking, yet no air came through, no daylight showed. Adrian was sure this meant that the logs were tongue and grooved into each other. A small piece of cast-off timber he found later had proved it.
The door was built with wooden hinges, one piece with a hole and one with a peg fit into the hole, lightly greased. Most cabin doors were attached with strips of leather for hinges, but these were carefully carved wood. The door moved smoothly and silently on them, always keeping the door in perfect alignment. It had a similarly carved latch that could be opened from the outside or locked when inside. There were eating bowls, plates, forks, and spoons also beautifully carved of wood. He found two combs intricately carved of turtle shell that were quite effective. The stones making the fireplace weren’t just stacked; whoever had made it had used colorful stones to make a sunrise pattern. This man had been an artist, showing his love of creating in everything he touched. Adrian would have liked to have known him.
He had been in the cabin a little over a week when he sensed someone watching him. He was alerted to the presence by the unnatural cone of silence nearby. He was walking to the cabin with firewood in both hands when he heard the rushing footsteps of two men behind him. “Crap,” he thought, “they sound like elephants, do they really think I don’t hear that?” He knew that they wanted to capture him, otherwise they would have shot at him from their hiding place. Adrian smiled grimly and kept walking towards the cabin. He could tell that the two men were separated by about ten feet between them by the sounds they were making. The one to Adrian’s left was the bigger man, at least thirty pounds heavier than his companion and faster too. He would be the one to take out first.
Adrian stopped and shifted the bundle of wood in his arms, as though adjusting the load. He timed it so that as the two men were about to pounce he dropped the wood; except for one piece that he used as a club. He whirled to his left, swinging the club at where he knew the man’s head would be. He swung through, and the heavy wood moving at full of speed crushed the man’s skull like a ripe watermelon. Blood and brains sprayed out in gray and crimson lace. The man was instantly dead; his body fell skidding past Adrian before grinding to a halt in the snow.
Adrian continued swinging even as the man’s body hit the ground, turning completely around to face the other man. Adrian saw shock on the man’s face. He was trying to stop but his speed carried him right into Adrian’s arms. Adrian flipped the man over his hip, using his momentum against him. The man hit the ground heavily, his breath knocked out of him. Adrian kicked him in the temple hard enough to knock him out. Adrian had some questions for him. He grimly welcomed the interruption by the two men; it gave him something interesting to do.
Adrian glanced once at the heavier man and confirmed he was dead. No man survived a head flattened that much. He grabbed the other man by the collar and dragged him to the cabin wall. He propped the man in a sitting position against the wall, then fetched a hammer and nails. He nailed the man’s hands to the wall, arms outstretched. Secure in the knowledge that this fellow wasn’t going anywhere, he dragged the dead body and propped it in a sitting position next to his prisoner, something for him to look at and consider. Adrian picked up the fallen firewood and finished his chores. He heated stew and ate a hot meal. As he was finishing he heard stirring sounds coming from his prisoner.
“Perfect timing,” he thought to himself, using words again. “Must be a consequence of being around people, and the fact that I will be speaking in a minute.” Adrian took one of the hand-crafted chairs outside and sat in front of his prisoner. He stayed just out of reach of the man’s feet, in case he was feeling frisky and wanted to kick. He waited patiently, allowing the man to regain consciousness at his own pace. Adrian was in no hurry. The man slowly came to, opening and closing his eyes several times, each time seeming a little more aware. Finally, the man, fully awake, tried to move his hands and grunted in pain as he felt the nails and realized what had been done to him. The terror on his face pleased Adrian.
“So, you come sneaking up behind me, try to take me prisoner,” said Adrian. “Then you go to sleep. Then you wake up, nailed to a wall, a prisoner. I betcha you’re thinking about begging for mercy, right? If I asked you how you were going to treat me as your prisoner, you would tell me you were going to treat me nice. Shoot, you probably have ice cream and cake back there where you left your rifles, just for me, right? So now that I have done your lying for you, let me tell you what’s going to happen.
“You’re going to answer all of my questions. You’re going to answer them honestly and completely. You’re going to tell me anything interesting or important that I don’t ask you about. In short, you’re about to talk, a lot, because if you don’t I am going to bring pain to you that you never knew existed. You’ll be begging me to kill you, but I won’t do it. And eventually you’ll tell me everything that I want to know anyway. Now, think about that until I get back, then decide how this is going to be for you. Your choice entirely, I have all the time in the world and nothing better to do.”
Adrian rose from his chair and looked down at the prisoner. He turned and walked off to examine the tracks the two men had left in the snow. He walked to where they had hidden and watched. Their rifles were leaning against a tree. He followed their tracks a few yards back into the woods making sure there were only the two, then returned to gather up their rifles. He carried them past the prisoner into the cabin. One of the rifles was an excellent long range shooter with a top of the line scope on it. He came back out and searched the dead man and found fifty rounds of ammo for the rifle. It was a true treasure. This re-affirmed his notion that they had wanted him alive, and the only reason could be for questioning, possibly about the two dead men back at the three fires camp.
He took the ammo inside and got his huge bowie knife down from the mantle. He took out the whetstone also. He returned outside and sat in the chair. Adrian began slowly and deliberately honing the already surgically sharp knife. Adrian knew that he rhythmic sound of the whetstone on the knife blade would badly rasp on the prisoner’s frayed nerves. From the looks of his hands, he had barely tried to get free when Adrian was out of sight. This told Adrian the
man would talk freely because his pain tolerance was low. If Adrian had been nailed to the wall, he would have ripped his hands off those nails no matter how much it hurt or how much damage was incurred. He would then beat his captor to death with those bloody wounded hands. This man had just sat there. He would talk.
Adrian waited, stroking the knife on the stone. Suddenly the man started blabbering, stuttering because he was trying to talk so fast.
“I c-come from Wolfgang’s c-camp. It’s eight or ten miles northwest of here at an old mining site. We were in prison when the grid went down. The prison near Lyons. The doors were supposed to stay in lockdown when the power was off, so we were going to starve. But something went wrong in the system and some of the doors opened up. Wolfgang’s cell was one of them. He got out and figured out how to work the rest of the doors open. He released everyone except the enemies he had in there, and he had a lot of enemies. They starved; we checked later. The rest he told to go away, or to follow him, he didn’t care which. But, he said, ‘If you follow me, you take my orders without question or hesitation. I don’t have time to babysit. You don’t want to take my orders, don’t follow me. You follow me and don’t take my orders—I’ll kill you.’ It was easy to see he meant it. Like most of the guys, I had nowhere to go, no idea what to do. He looked like he had a plan, that kind of guy always knows what to do next, and is good at it. So I followed him. I took his orders, and he did us good. We almost always have food, and places to sleep.
“We raided everything in the town worth raiding. When the town dried up, we moved to the woods. We raided homes and camps. We eventually found and settled in the mining camp. It’s a good location with a small river for water, cabins to sleep in. There are tribes and villages in the area that we make give us food. We hunt some too; we have a couple of pretty good hunters that bring in elk now and then.
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