The Guardians, page 25
Luke helped him drag it free and said, "This one only has four holes."
"We can work with that," Nate said.
The brothers then proceeded to remove the last canoe from underneath the rubbish to find that it had survived the situation unscathed. Nate looked at Luke and said, "Find some rope, I'll be right back. Rachel, you keep an eye out for trouble while we work this out."
Luke dug around and quickly found some mooring line and brought it back to where Nate was busy working with the canoes. He noticed that Nate had an old milk jug, a few sticks from a tree branch, and a lighter. He used his knife to cut out strips of the plastic milk jug and then broke the sticks into two-inch pieces that were approximately a half inch round.
"What's the milk jug for?" asked Luke.
"Welding rod," replied Nate busy with his task at hand.
Nate twisted and worked the sections of wooden sticks into each of the bullet holes for a nice tight fit. Then using the saw on his multi tool, he cut off a majority of the excess portion that stuck outside of the sides and bottom of the canoe, leaving the protrusion mostly on the inside of the boat. He then used his lighter to heat up the plastic hull of the canoe around the sticks that he used as plugs. He then followed that up by melting milk jug patches over the area. He repeated this procedure on both the inside and outside of the canoe. As the plastic from the milk jug melted, in worked its way into the area around each of the stick plugs, sealing what the stick alone had not. Another layover of a larger piece of plastic was then melted overtop of the hole making a patch.
"That's brilliant," said Luke. "Do you think it will hold?"
"They are both petroleum based products, so hopefully they will bond well enough," replied Nate as he continued working.
Upon completion of the patch job, Nate flipped the canoes right side up and placed them side by side on the ground. He then began lashing them together with the mooring line Luke had found using the center seat and cross braces as tie down points. Next, he said, "Bring the bikes over." Uncertain of what he had in mind, but trusting, Rachel and Luke pushed the bikes over to Nate. He then laid the bikes over the center of two canoes, and tied the bikes frames to the canoes, creating a rigid center structure, securing the two boats tightly together.
"Wala!" he said triumphantly.
"Bravo brother," Luke said.
"I figured you and I can both sit in the back with ores, one paddling on each side, and Rachel can sit up in front of the bikes in one of the forward seats and act as our lookout," explained Nate. "It's gonna be dark out soon. Let's hang tight in here and get some rest. We can then carry the boat down to the water under the cover of darkness, slip it in, and be on our way.
****
Chapter 36: Recon
Back on the Homefront, it had been two days since the raid on the Muncie place. All seemed quiet and secure on the neighboring homesteads. Evan was getting itchy to get some intel on the current situation. He gathered Jason and Griff to put their heads together to decide what course of action to take next.
"Since no one has reported any hostile activity, I think we are going to have to make a scouting run over to the Muncie place to see what's going on," Evan said to the guys. "Which one of you guys want to go with me?"
"You're call Griff," replied Jason. "I'm feeling up to it, my leg is doing fine, but since you were involved with the raid, I figured you may want to see the results of your handy work."
"Sure, I'll go," Griff replied. "I'll stay back on the next run and you can get back in the mix then," he said.
"Roger Roger," replied Jason smartly.
Let's head out tonight to be in position at sunrise to get a good look around," suggested Evan. "I would feel better traveling under the cover of darkness for a while."
Griff agreed and the two men went to ready their gear. Evan and Griff both decided to carry VZ58 rifles as their compact size and side folding stock would make them easy to carry through the woods in the dark, especially since this was intended to merely be an intel gathering outing.
That night after dinner, Evan and Griff said their goodbyes and set out on foot for the Muncie place. It was a cloudy evening with no moonlight to guide their way so they opted to leave the bikes behind. It would take longer, but they could move more safely and stealthily on foot they thought.
That night at the Homefront, Judith, Peggy, and Mildred entertained and cared for the children, while Jason, Molly, and Judy stood watch. Sarah, Jake and Greg were sent to bed early, as they had the early morning shift. Molly patrolled the immediate area of the house itself, while Judy monitored the cameras and the radio in the basement. Jason decided to spend the evening watching over the livestock, especially the cattle, as he knew it would not be hard to trace the movement of the herd to the Homefront, giving the Muncie gang a clue as to whom the Guardians were associated.
Jason perched himself in one of the Homefront's observational tree stands with a thermos full of coffee and settled in for what he hoped would be a boring night. The first few hours were uneventful. He had mostly his sense of hearing to go on, as the dark and dreary cloudy night all but made his vision useless. There were always plenty of animal sounds in the woods at night to help occupy one's time while on watch. Jason would close his eyes and try to identify each and every sound he heard. Painting a mental image of what that bird, or squirrel may be doing.
At about two o'clock in the morning, the sounds of the animals fell unusually quiet. Jason perked up knowing that the animals in the forest were often the best early warning system one could have. He heard a branch crack off in the darkness. Trying to focus on the direction from where he thought the sound came, he felt frustrated and helpless as he could not see what it was that he was hearing. He heard weeds and brush move as something or someone slowly passed by, what seemed like mere feet from the base of tree in which his stand was perched. Just as the sound passed him, it stopped. There was dead silence, not a single sound other than the gentle breeze blowing through the hills.
Jason desperately wanted to shine the rechargeable flashlight that he had clipped to his chest rig in the direction of the last area of known movement, but knew that if it was armed men slipping through the woods in the darkness, he would simply be giving them an easy target and would be a sitting duck. He held off against his urges and just waited and listened. The sound of brush being pushed aside continued once again. Jason thought the intruder may be heading in the direction of the cattle. Once it had gotten a safe distance away, he slowly and silently slipped down the tree to the ground. It was still nearly pitch black outside, now that he was on the ground, he could see just good enough to feel his way silently through the woods in the direction of the intruder.
As he left the cover of the trees for the temporary pasture they had set up for the cattle, he slipped his rifle off of his shoulder and held it in his right hand while holding his flashlight at the ready in his left hand. At this point, he wished he had a tactical rifle with a rail mounted light, rather than his big bolt action Remington and a hand held light.
As he crept his way towards the cattle, he heard a cow let out a terrible pain filled sound, immediately followed by the sounds of the other cattle begin to panic and run in all directions. He felt the wind and heard the heavy sound of a cow narrowly miss him in the dark amid the chaotic stampede. He immediately switched on his light, only to have another cow change course to avoid the light only a few feet from trampling him.
As that cow ran past him, his light illuminated the fierce eyes of a large and hungry mountain lion. The cat had just brought down a cow and was now turning its attention to Jason and his light. The big cat began to charge with a fearsome roar. Jason immediately knew that if he dropped his light to shoulder his rifle, he would lose sight of the ferocious beast. With that in mind, he dropped his rifle and drew his .45 from his holster, emptying all eight rounds of .45ACP+P into the charging cat, while he held the light on his target. As his pistol locked back empty to slide lock, just as he was engaging the magazine release to reload, the big cat fell to the ground and slid to a stop at his feet.
"Holy shit!" he said aloud with his heart pounding in his chest.
The next day Evan and Griff returned from their scouting run around noon. Their wives and kids greeted them with a warm reception, and after lunch they met up with Jason for a debrief. "So what did you guys find?" Jason asked as he lit a cigar from his stash.
Evan took a sip from his coffee and said, "Not much at all actually. The Muncie place looked completely abandoned. We tore that place to shreds during the hit and it didn't look like they picked up or tried to repair the place at all. The door was still off its hinges from the hits from the fifty and everything. You would think if someone planned to continue to use the place, they would at least have put the door back up. We watched from sunrise until about nine o'clock and didn't see one sign of movement. We then worked our way around to the west side of the property, observed from there for a while, and didn't see a thing. It did look like they may have burned a few bodies out back, but that is the only visible sign of activity."
"What about inside the house?" Jason then asked.
"We didn't go inside," said Griff. "We didn't feel we had anything to gain in exchange for the risk. Basically, they just aren't there."
"Did we miss anything here while we were gone? And what's the special occasion for the cigar?" Evan asked.
Jason exhaled a puff of cigar smoke and casually said, "I put some more meat in the freezer."
"How did you do that?" Griff asked.
"You fellas ever eat mountain lion meat?" he asked with a smile.
Evan and Griff just looked at each other with confusion then Jason added, "I was in a stand watching the herd last night and had an altercation with a cow killing cat. He lost."
"Well holy crap," replied Evan. "Well if you think about it, the subsistence hunting that a lot of folks are having to do is putting a strain on game animal herds without the oversight of wildlife management. Take away the game animal population, and they will have to look elsewhere. That herd of cattle is like a buffet to a mountain lion. Just a bunch of big, dumb, slow, delicious animals, fenced in with no escape."
"Well, I'm gonna make me a hat or something out of him," replied Jason.
Griff just laughed and said, "There is always a bright side to everything I guess."
****
Chapter 37: The River
As the day gave way to the night in Decatur, the sky began to cloud up and look like they could be in for a rainy night. Nate stood watch while Luke and Rachel tried to nap. He weighed the pros and cons of the change in the weather in regards to his plan. The starless night will give them more cover in the darkness he thought. If there had been a bright moon that night, they would be easy to see from the shore, he thought. On the other hand, the near total darkness of a cloudy night would make it harder for them to navigate the river, and to find their intended point of landing ashore.
They did not have spare time to waste however, especially with Rachel being down two MRE's due to her generosity earlier that day. They only had one day of food left between them, and still had a long way to go. In his opinion, they should press on.
As the night was upon them, Nate woke Luke and Rachel from their nap and said, "Who's ready to go sailing?"
"You rigged sails up on it now?" asked Luke jokingly.
"That was just a figure of speech," replied Nate. "Let me rephrase that; who wants to go drifting?"
"Well Brother, knowing you I would have believed it," Luke said as he yawned and stretched.
"It looks kind of nasty out," Rachel said as she walked out of the shed and looked up at the sky.
"It could be better," replied Nate. "But on the bright side, it will keep the moon from illuminating us as sitting ducks on the river as we pass by Huntsville.
"Do you think it's going to rain?" she asked.
"There's a chance of it, but the sooner we get in the water, the sooner we get out. Besides, after all that pedaling we could use a good bath anyway," Nate said with a smile.
The three of them picked up the canoe-raft-contraption of Nate's and carried it to the water's edge. "We will have to paddle out of this protected area to get to the main channel," Nate said. "Once we get in the channel, we should be able to drift with the current, paddling just to steer and keep us straight."
"Should we put our packs in the boat, or keep them on our backs?" asked Luke.
"I was thinking about that," Nate replied. "I think we should wear them. Just in case we have to get out of the boat and run for it in a hurry. We don't want to leave what few provisions we have behind. We should keep our rifles in front of us and ready to go, but maybe run the sling through our belts so that we can't lose it if we tipped over."
"Yea, that sounds like the way to go," replied Nate.
"Well Rachel, climb on in the front seat of one of the canoe's and Luke and I will shove us off," directed Nate.
"If I could have looked into the future and saw my life, I would never have believed climbing into this thing would be an acceptable mode of transportation," she said jokingly.
"Yea, it's definitely not the way most of us saw our futures, but I'm just glad you're in mine," Luke said to Rachel in reply.
She just smiled as Nate and Luke shoved them off and climbed in their seats. "Dang it! I got my feet wet. I hope my leg doesn't rust," Nate said jokingly.
"Don't worry," Rachel said. "We sprung for the model with the undercoated chassis."
With a laugh, Nate and Luke began to paddle their way out of the marina. The joking subsided as they began to realize the seriousness of their new phase of the adventure. It was a dark and creepy night and the last of the visible stars faded away as the cloud cover continued to build. Nate hoped that he was not leading them down the wrong path with his bright idea. He just wanted to avoid an altercation with Rachel in the group at all costs, and through his previous cross-country travels, he had learned two hard lessons: an attractive woman is never safe in this new world, and the cities are not where you want to be.
The cool fall air, even this far south, was beginning to bite at them as the breeze blew over the cool water. It felt a good ten degrees cooler on the river than it did ashore. As they rounded the corner of the marina and joined the main river channel, they could feel the canoe enter the current. Nate and Luke used their paddles to turn the canoe downstream, and they just let the current take them.
"OK, guys, something to consider here," Nate said. "We need to stick to the right of the channel for a while. There is a strip of terrain that divides the river right down the middle coming up ahead. If we get ourselves stuck to the left of it, we will be land locked and have to beach it and get out and drag the boat over to the other side. The right side is the dredged side for boats to get through. After it's clear we've passed that divide, we want to move over to the left side of the channel, as it is the smooth and clear side. I can't see the map right now in the dark, but I studied it pretty well before the sun went down."
"That's good to know," said Luke. "I'm sure glad we've got you here to be the one to pay attention."
With that being said, Nate and Luke began to steer the boat over to the right side of the bank. "I really can't see a thing," said Nate.
"Me either," replied Luke. "How about you Rachel?" Luke asked.
"I'm kind of freaking out to be honest, I can't see a thing," she replied nervously.
Just then, it began to rain, reducing their visibility to near zero. "Is this thing gonna fill up with water?" Rachel said nervously.
"It would take a long time to do that," Nate replied. "We won't be going that far in it."
"Your patches seemed to be holding up well. It will be hard to tell now though with the rain water in the boat," added Luke as the rain picked up its intensity.
"I don't like this guys, let's paddle to the shore," said Rachel nervously.
"We can't see the shore," said Nate. "We could paddle ourselves right into a mess of brush and muck. I think we are better off just riding it out here in the channel," he said trying to keep control of the situation.
The continued down the river, struggling to see and guide themselves away from the shore when they could. They had passed two major bridges, only seeing the bridge piers as they passed next to them. They could tell the rain upstream had sped up the current by the speed at which they drifted past each bridge. The river now began to narrow, accelerating the current even more.
"We've got three major bends in the river to get around now, once we pass through the bends, we will come up on one more bridge," Nate said. "After that bridge, we can beach the boat on the left side of the bank anywhere it looks safe and continue on our bikes from there."
They rounded the first bend, and then the second, occasionally bumping a log or some other debris in the water, startling them and adding to the stress of the situation. The winds began to pick up, rocking the boat and creating choppy surface water, further disorienting them. Nate held his paddle down in the water straight down to the side with the blade turned in the direction of the canoe in order not to induce drag that may turn the boat. He figured that if he felt the paddle begin to drag the bottom, he would know they were getting too close to the riverbank. He felt a whack on his paddle, and before he could say anything, the boat violently came to a stop and began to swing sideways with the current. Rachel screamed as she became tangled in a partially submerged fallen tree. The current kept rotating the boat, which was now sideways in the river, as Rachel was pulled into the water, entangled in the tree.
Nate and Luke heard the scream and the splash, but in the total darkness could not see where Rachel had gone. Nate and Luke both paddled furiously in the direction of the tree, but the current was carrying the boat away. Luke took off his pack and rifle and jumped into the dark waters, swimming as hard as he could towards the sound of Rachel's cries for help, which soon gave way to mere splashes and the sound of a struggle.
