Chapter 5: Bandits

So the next day the girls closed up the little old cabin that had been their salvation. Drained the water tank like they’d found it, and took out the rifles and ammunition so no-one else could find them, as well as a blanket for the one or two nights they’d have to spend in the open.

One rifle they buried using a pick and spade from the toolshed, the other they took with them ‘just in case’, along with the bullets. They weren’t expecting to need it, but you never knew - they could need to kill an animal to survive, if they got lost or something, and also in case they met someone that two girls on their own wouldn’t be safe with - not that it was likely but it wouldn’t exactly be the first time the girls had met someone like that, would it?

Walking with a purpose and renewed energy and food the girls made good time walking back up the stream, even though it was often uphill. They were quite good at walking now. They took turns carrying either the backpack or the rifle, which had a nice thick strap so it didn’t dig in.

They slept fairly well in the blanket, snuggled up together and only a bit cold, and were making good progress the second morning when Allie caught something out of the corner of her eye, some way off ahead and to their right. She pointed and they stopped. Was it an animal?

They crept over to get behind a big tree. Ellie unslung the rifle, took the caps off and looked through the telescopic sight. She scanned the area where the movement had come from: there were two men, walking along looking at the ground! Hunters with rifles; walking a bit funny, in a stop-start way, and sort of sneakily.

Out of instinct Ellie and Allie set off after them.

They realized the men must be tracking an animal. The girls caught up until they were about a hundred yards behind, trying to keep trees between them and the men and not to step on any twigs. After maybe half a mile the men stopped and were peering round a tree.

Ellie felt something building as she and Allie went on a bit to get closer.

Allie nudged her and she looked where Allie was pointing: left a bit ... some way ahead was a bear. A black bear, rootling around at the base of a tree; after nuts, perhaps. Ellie looked at it through the telescope ... a plump, fluffy black bear, minding its own business, being a bear.

She moved the rifle to the right ... there were the two men behind their tree, one with his rifle held casually across his body, and the other one aiming at the bear!

Ellie didn’t really think, apart from if she shouted and the bear started to move the hunter would likely shoot straight away.

It was innocence versus evil; that was it ... she could save the innocent, defenseless bear if she was quick. She rotated the rod with its lever, slid it back, so a bullet would pop up wouldn’t it, then forwards again to push the bullet in, rotated it back down to fasten it. Slid the safety switch off, centered the sight again, on the middle of his chest, and squeezed the trigger.