Chapter 56

Bob the Quartermaster wasn’t a major issue to me until he made himself one. That was his mistake.

The fact was that I wanted to wrap up business at the base, hand everything over to Burton and Monty, and head north. I wanted to get home, see my women and children, speak to my friends, and then go looking for Winslow. To me Winslow was the number one bad guy. Bob changed that.

I’d spoken to Monty about getting a couple of drones into the air. He’d told me he’d look into it. I left him to the job and then got on with making lists and speaking to other people. I put the thought of drones out of my mind for the rest of the day.

Dunbar found me at breakfast the next morning. It was late. I’d found it hard to pull myself away from the four women lying in my bed with me, and they certainly did their best to convince me to stay. As such, I was one of the few people still in the mess hall. “Monty wants to see you at the control room,” Dunbar declared as he stopped in the doorway to the mess hall and looked over to where I was sitting drinking a cup of tea.

“Oh,” I asked with a bit of surprise in my voice. “What’s up?”

“Monty put a drone in the air this morning like you asked,” Dunbar informed me in a matter of fact manner. “He sent it to the southeast to buzz Maket’s village before sending it off to sweep the south. He and Burton found something you should see.”

I grunted in response to the information and then I got to my feet. The fly over the village had been part of our discussion the day before. Burton was heading off this morning to visit Maket. Our hope for the day was that Burton could negotiate a boundary between the Forest People and our people. In truth we’d be dictating the terms, but hopefully Maket would see them as generous terms, and not give us grief over them. Burton was prepared to use the big stick form of diplomacy if necessary, but both of us preferred to walk quietly when it came to dealing with the locals. To assist in Burton’s mission today I’d suggested that Monty’s first priority was to put a drone over the Forest People’s village to make certain it was still there. Considering how distressed the villagers had been the last time we visited them, there was a possibility that they’d moved on. I felt it would be nice to know this before sending Burton off into the woods.

The flight over the village was actually only part of the drone’s mission today. I’d made it clear that once the drone had confirmed that the village was still there and it was relatively safe for Burton to go there, I wanted the drone to fly southward along the coastal track in search of Bob. I really wanted to know where he’d gone.

My reason for ordering the flight was twofold. First my people were mounting an around the clock, all out guard on the base and it was taking a toll on our limited personnel. I wanted to scale things back. If Bob had continued to the south, and he was miles away, then the threat he represented would be minimal. I could focus my energy on other matters and my people could stand down. My second reason was more basic than the first. I just didn’t trust the man.

Dunbar led the way to the control room. This was a command post container unit that had been set up on the far side of the base by Winslow’s people to monitor and control aerial operations. It was situated adjacent to the helicopter pad and the makeshift hanger that housed the helicopters and the drones. There wasn’t anything special about the place except that it was out of the way and the roof of the container unit bristled with antennae.

I found Monty and Burton in the control room, hunched over a monitor, staring at it. They were deep in conversation. Burton noted my arrival with a quick glance over his shoulder as I stepped into the darkened room. Monty didn’t see me.

“So what’s up here?” I asked loudly, startling the man.

“Fuck,” Monty exclaimed as he whirled about in his seat to look at me. “You really need to let people know you’re there. You scared the shit out of me.”

“I did,” I told the man, smiling as I did, “but you were staring so intently at that screen that you didn’t hear me. Now what’s up? Why did you send Dunbar to find me?”

In response Monty turned back to the screen he’d been staring at and he started tapping away at a keyboard and clicking on a mouse. The screen of the monitor flickered for a moment and then the view changed.

“Take a seat, this will only take a second,” Monty suggested absentmindedly as he worked away on the controls.

I did as Monty asked. I plopped myself down in a swivel chair that was sitting on the other side of where he was seated. As I made myself comfortable, the monitor in front of me came to life.

“All right,” Monty muttered as he turned his attention to me. “We launched a small, short range drone this morning as planned. I flew the drone from here to the village without any problems. The drone responded well to my controls and the video feed from the drone was received and recorded without any issues. We buzzed the village just after dawn and we got ourselves some good footage. Once we were done there we flew the drone southward, looking for Bob or to be more specific, the truck that he’d taken. Given the fact that the truck was running on fumes when he took it, we’d figured we’d find the truck long before we found Bob, which by the way we did.”

I just nodded my head in understanding when Monty paused in what he was telling me. I did take a glance at the monitor in front of me. The video feed was frozen at the moment and I couldn’t make out what the man was displaying on it. However I did realize that he hadn’t called me there to give me good news. I just looked back at the man in a questioning manner waiting for the other shoe to fall. I didn’t have to wait long.

“Watch the video feed,” Monty told me as he turned back towards his controls and he started to click away at his screen with his mouse.

I watched the video feed with interest. The feed came to life showing an aerial view of a forest. That view only lasted for a moment or two and then it gave way to a view of an open field. At that point I watched as the camera angle adjusted itself and the image shifted from one of directly downward as the drone flew along, to one angled in such a manner that the drone was actually recording the terrain lying before it as it continued along its flight path. As the view changed I noted a couple of familiar features that helped me identify where exactly the drone had been flying. Then I spotted the truck.

“Shit,” I muttered aloud. As I did, Monty froze the frame.

“That’s what we thought as well,” Burton announced from where he was seated. “Bob is alive and well, and probably not that far away.”

It could see that. The drone had been flying along the edge of the valley where Lottie had landed the Chinook when we’d first flown down here from the north. There was very little evidence of our recent presence there, except for the fire pits that we’d left behind, and all the detritus that remained from our attempt to camouflage the helicopter in an effort to conceal it from any possible enemy patrols. It was near that same spot that the truck was parked.

What made me curse was the fact that the truck had been camouflaged as well. Believe it or not, considering everything that Winslow and his boys had left behind on our Earth when they’d crossed over, somehow Bob the Quartermaster had come up with a camo net. He’d used it to try and hide the truck from any aerial searches. Unfortunately for him, the cam net stood out like a sore thumb against the new growth that was slowly filling in the foliage of the forest. He’d done his best by adding some cut branches into the webbing of the net, but it wasn’t enough. I just sighed and shook my head.

“Okay,” I muttered thoughtfully, glancing over towards Monty and Burton as I spoke. “It’s clear that Bob was alive when he parked the vehicle. It’s also clear that he didn’t get as far away from us as I’d hoped and from the look of it he hadn’t really tried. That valley is a good ten miles east of the coastal track. He’d have had to go there deliberately. So what else have you got to show me? This can’t be all of it.”

“It isn’t,” Monty declared as he started clicking away at his monitor again. “Once we’d spotted the truck and we saw how it was parked and camouflaged, we decided we needed to take another look at Maket’s village. As you know it really isn’t that far away from the valley. We figured that Bob wouldn’t have left the truck parked where it was if he was still headed south. After a review of the video feed of the earlier flyover of the village, Burton and I found evidence that suggests that Bob is there.”

I frowned in response and then I looked back at the monitor. The image was now panning over forest once more. The view only lasted for a few seconds and then it showed the village. I started looking more intently at the screen. The first flyover was quick and it didn’t reveal much, however a moment later the drone buzzed the village again. When it did, Monty froze the image.

“Can you make out anything different?” Monty asked me, his voice containing a little boyhood glee as he directed his question to me.

I looked. The frame showed the centre of the village. More specifically it showed Maket’s hut and where he normally sat in front of it, by the central hearth. I scanned the image closely. The hut looked a little larger than I remembered it, but that wasn’t what Monty was trying to get me to see. What was staring me in the face was the fact that the log that Maket had been sitting upon was no longer there. It had been replaced with a folding camp chair. It was the only thing different, but it was definitely a major difference.

“So, Bob’s gone to the village,” I muttered with a hint of exasperation in my voice, “and from the look of it, he’s taken over.”

“That’s what we think,” Burton piped up. “We could be wrong, and Bob’s dead, but why should we take the chance?”

I nodded my head in understanding. While it hadn’t been that long since Bob had buggered off, it had been over twenty-four hours and if he’d seized control of Maket’s village, anything was possible. He might have simply decided it made a better home than anywhere else, or he could have gone there specifically because he knew we were in conflict with the tribe and they would make good allies for him, if and when we decided he was a nuisance that needed removing, and regardless of how I felt about the man, I was certain he could be a nuisance if he really wanted to be.

“Recommendations,” I asked to no one in particular, sighing heavily as I did.

“Kill him,” Dunbar stated coldly from where he was standing near the entrance to the room. “The fucker could become a real problem if we let him live.”

“Agreed,” Burton declared firmly. “If we hadn’t taken a look this morning, just to make certain the village was still there, I could have walked into an ambush.”

“You still could,” Monty interjected. “We really don’t know what the man took with him. Penny hadn’t inventoried the stockpile of weapons and ammunition that we’d gathered after the attack on the base. It had all just gotten locked up. The man could have taken anything including Claymores, and even if he didn’t, he’s had twenty-four hours to put out defences. Approaching that village could be dangerous.”

I didn’t argue with any of them. I just kept staring at the screen and looking at the folding chair. I knew they were right. My only issue was whether I was going to speak to the man first, or whether I was just going to shoot him. Shooting him first actually sounded like my best option. Still I needed to think about it. I also needed a little more information.

“Let’s head back to the mess hall,” I told the others. “I want another cup of tea, and I want to speak to some people. Let’s find Kim, Terry, and my friendly trio of Forest men. I definitely want to speak to them.”

Finding Sakkor, Brogart, and Dolat wasn’t that hard of a job to do. They were with Sygor and Ozmat, waiting on Burton to show up so they could head off to Maket’s village. We rounded them up on our way back to the mess hall. Finding Kim was easy as well. She was with Penny and Sarah speaking to a group of uptime people. I called to Kim and asked if she was free to talk. She promised to see me in five minutes. That left Terry.

Terry was on his ship. I sent Dunbar down to fetch him. Dunbar headed off at a jog in response to my request. I had to smile at that. Lately I’d been getting about on an ATV. I’d have to break myself of the habit.

I got myself a tea and I found myself a seat in the mess hall. It was reasonably empty, and the people who were there appeared to be working, either cleaning the communal area or working in the actual kitchen unit. I ignored them and they ignored me. Burton got himself a drink as well and he took a seat across from me. Monty did the same. Sakkor, Brogart, and Dolat were a little hesitant to do the same until they saw Sygor and Ozmat join us. Even so the three hunters from the Forest People made certain that they sat to the far end of the table I was sitting at. Kim showed up a few minutes later and after she’d gotten herself a drink, she sat herself down beside me. I was just finishing briefing her on what Monty and Burton had uncovered that morning when Dunbar walked in leading Terry.

“Good,” I muttered aloud when they joined us at the table. “Now we can begin. I’ve got a few questions to ask. I hope you and our friends here can answer them for me.”

I said this explicitly to Terry, eyeing him pointedly, and then finished up by indicating with my hand towards Sakkor, Brogart, and Dolat. I spoke to him in English.

“I’ll try and give you your answers,” Terry replied in heavily accented English. “What do you want to know?”

I held up my hand first, indicating for Terry to give me a second. Then I turned to Sakkor, Brogart, and Dolat. I quickly explained what I’d said to Terry and then asked them to be patient because I had questions for them as well. When I was done I lowered my hand and I asked my query of the other man.

“Does Bob speak the Forest People language?” I enquired pointedly.

“I’m not certain,” Terry admitted. “I know he interacted with the Forest People from time to time. Whenever I returned from picking up food, I’d send Brogart and Dolat to take the supplies to him. They’d probably know better than I do. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I muttered dismissively, as I mused on what he’d just said. “Tell me something. Do you speak the language at all?”

“A word here and a word there,” Terry informed me with a hint of embarrassment in his voice. “Personally I think they understand more English than they let on. Mostly I pointed and shouted at them and they grunted and nodded their heads, and somehow we got along.”

It made sense. I’d seen it before when I’d been deployed somewhere to help out the locals. People learned to communicate even when they didn’t speak each other’s language. With that said I turned my attention to the three Forest people. I asked them the very same thing. Of course I spoke to them in their language.

“Some,” Brogart told me after glancing first towards Dolat. “He knew words like ‘come, go, put, and wait’. Bob spoke to other hunters as well from time to time when they came to base to be given rewards. He spoke enough to keep men happy.”

I nodded my understanding and then I turned my gaze onto Sakkor.

“Did Bob ever visit your village?” I enquired.

Sakkor paused before replying, taking a moment or to think about it. Eventually he just shook his head no.

“Bob never visited the village,” Sakkor stated with confidence. “No one from this place came to the village, but hunters did encounter men from this village from time to time. First time two hunters died. After that hunters knew better. Most kept away, but some like Makor dealt with outsiders. Bob might have met him. I can’t say for sure.”

I let it go at that. I thanked the trio and then told the others what they’d told me. I fell back on English so Terry would understand. Sygor and Kim translated for Ozmat.

“It’s possible the man knew about the village already,” I pointed out, “but then again he might have just overheard us talking about it. It really doesn’t matter and the fact that he might or might not speak the language doesn’t matter either. I think that if Bob is at the village, one way or another, he’s going to make the villagers understand him. It would be easier for him if he did speak the language, but I don’t really think he cares. My assumption is that he’s moved in and taken the village over. Now the question is what he intends to do next.”

“Are you going to kill Bob?” Kim wanted to know, looking at me with little expression showing on her face.

“You know I’m going to kill him,” I stated sighing heavily as I did. “I wish the guy had kept on travelling south, but he didn’t. He might not be an immediate threat today, but I’m not going to leave here and head north with him hanging about possibly intending to cause us trouble.”

“I guess you’re right,” Kim admitted. “I just can’t wait for all this killing to end.”

“It’ll end one day,” I told her and the others with confidence, “when Winslow is dead.”

It was mid-morning when we rode out. I took Burton, Dunbar, Sygor, Ozmat, Gloria, and Sakkor. We took two packhorses with us.

We rode south along the coastal road and then headed into the mouth of the valley where we’d landed and where we knew the five-ton stake truck was parked. I figured that Bob wouldn’t be expecting us to come from that direction. It was certainly the round about route. I was hoping he thought the same.

When we got there we tethered our horses and we had a look about. I ordered everyone back and away from the truck, and the tree-line, until Burton and Dunbar had swept the area for any booby-traps or other types of surprises.

Burton found one. In fact, Burton really found two. One was there for us to find, and the other was there to kill us. The first one was an improvised device taped under the steering column of the truck. It was a pipe bomb that was wired to the ignition. Turn the engine over and you went boom. The thing was that it wasn’t hidden well. Even an amateur could have spotted it if they’d been looking for it. That was what made Burton look for the second device. He knew the first one was just a distraction. An amateur would have left matters at that on finding the first bomb and then he and his buddies would have gotten themselves killed by the second device. Burton was a lot more careful. The second was a claymore that was rigged off to the side of where the truck was parked. It was set up to trip the moment any one lowered the tailgate of the truck. The blast would cut the legs off of anyone standing in the path of the blast. Burton found the wire hooked to the tailgate and Dunbar trailed it back to the mine. Then with due diligence they disarmed the device.

The two explosive devices told us one thing and that was that Bob was playing for keeps. He might have not been out killing the locals like the rest of the goons Winslow had hired, but it was clear to my people and me that the man didn’t care if he took down an innocent. A curious local could have come along and tripped the claymore. That made Bob public enemy number one.

“How are we going to do this?” Burton asked pointedly. “You know that there is probably going to be more devices or traps.”

“I know,” I acknowledged glancing about as I did. “Just give me a moment to think.”

Burton and the others gave me the time to think. There really wasn’t a rush. We knew we were dealing with someone who had explosives available and the skill to use them. None of us wanted to run in blindly and get ourselves killed. Like our grandmothers used to say, ‘patience is a virtue’.

I walked about as I thought. My eyes played over the ground. I was looking for other traps. There were none in the vicinity of the truck, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any more nasty tricks hidden here about. I eventually walked over to the break in the tree-line where the track we’d originally followed started. I looked it over from a distance. Then I paused and looked back towards the others.

“Find me a long stick,” I shouted back to the gathered group. “Just don’t go near the forest.”

Dunbar went and found me a ‘stick’. It was a tree branch that we’d used when we’d camouflaged the Chinook. Before handing it to me, he took his hatchet to it, and he stripped all the limbs off of it. When he handed it to me, the ‘stick’ was at least twelve feet long and relatively straight. I thanked him for it, handing him my carbine in exchange for it. Then I got to work.

I pushed the ‘stick’ up the pathway, running it close to the ground and sweeping it back and forth as I pushed it forward. About ten feet up the trail it tripped a trap.

The trap was a branch that had been bent back and tied off. It was triggered with a tripwire made from a bit of woven vine. When the branch snapped back it travelled forward and into the path. There was a flint knife tied to the branch and any person standing in the pathway, probably would have been impaled.

“Okay, the fucker is crafty,” I stated shaking my head in disbelief as I watched the branch vibrate back and forth until it stopped moving.

“Dangerous as well,” Burton grumbled. “He’s going to make this hard, isn’t he?”

“He is,” I admitted, “but that’s fine. It’s been a while since any of us has played ‘silly-bugger’. This will be fun.”

“Say’s you!” Dunbar spat out in disgust. “I say we call in an air strike. That Huey had a weapons pod on it. I’m sure it would make Bob’s day to get some of his stores returned to him, even if they’re returned the hard way.”

I just smiled and shook my head no.

“Dunbar, Burton, and I are going in,” I told everyone in common. “Sygor, you’re in charge here. Don’t go into the forest unless you really have to and avoid the main tracks. Bob has made certain that anyone using them will get hurt. We won’t be using radios just in case Bob is listening in. Once we get the bastard, I’ll send someone back to lead you in. Is that understood?”

It was, although Sygor was pissed off that he wasn’t getting the chance to come along. Even being left in charge wasn’t enough for him. Still he didn’t give me any lip. I then explained everything to Gloria. She was looking nervous, but she seemed to be holding up to being out and working once again. I hoped it would last.

I sent Burton to find another track for us to follow. It didn’t take too much time. I left my ‘stick’ behind just in case Sygor needed it, and I reclaimed my carbine from Dunbar. Then we headed in.

We stuck to the forest and away from the main game trails. It took time and care as we were moving through brush and undergrowth, at least near the edge of the forest. Once into it, and under the canopy of tall pines, the undergrowth thinned out. We still needed to watch where we were walking.

We spotted two more improvised traps on our way towards the village, both on the main track. One was actually a trick designed to make whoever was working their way up the track to step around it. When you stepped around it, you stepped into a pit of punji sticks. It was crude, but effective.

By the time we reached the village it was well past noon. By then Burton, Dunbar, and I had split up and fanned out, although we did stay within eyesight of each other. It meant that once shit started to fly, not everyone would be in the line of fire. Hopefully that would mean that we’d get lucky and all of us would come home. We were about to see.

Everything hinged on me. I took up a firing position behind a tree and then scoped the place out, while Dunbar and Burton hung back and covered me. Since Dunbar had the big rifle with him, he was the furthest out. Burton was next with his M16 and grenade launcher. I was the closest. I was actually lined up on the far right of the village looking down into it at a point that left me very little to aim at. Maket’s hut actually obscured a good portion of my view. It didn’t matter though. I was there to talk. If shit happened, Dunbar had already agreed to taking out the trash.

What I noted was the absence of hunters in the village. If there were any left, they had to be out hunting. Hopefully they weren’t out hunting my people, or just as importantly, me. Seeing only women moving about, I decided to call out to see if I could stir the pot.

“Hey, Bob,” I shouted at the top of my voice. “I want to talk.”

Bob had been sitting in his lawn chair. I’d spotted him before moving to my current position. I knew he was armed and I knew he was wearing armour. He’d been sitting drinking something from a camp cup, watching the women as they wandered about and worked. The impression I’d gotten was that he was relaxed and chilling out. It was a pity that I had to piss him off.

Bob popped up in response to my voice. He brought his weapon up to the ready as he did, then he glanced about in an attempt to see where I’d called from. When he didn’t immediately see me, he took a step back, disappearing from my sight again. Then he called back in reply.

“Where in the fuck are you, asshole?” Bob enquired eloquently. “Show yourself.”

“I’m in the woods, Bob,” I shouted back, plastering myself behind a big tree when I said it. “Now drop your weapon and we can talk.”

“Fuck you!” Bob threw back angrily, stepping out in the open and sweeping the ridge that I was on with his weapon as he spoke. “I’m not putting down my weapon and you’re not getting to me. If you try anything I’ll blow this village to shit.”

I couldn’t believe the man’s threat. I didn’t know what he had up his sleeve, but I doubted that he had anything big enough to take out a whole village. I had to take a look.

I popped my head out to see what was going on. I spotted Bob and he spotted me. The second he did, he opened up with his carbine. That was his big mistake.

Bob got off two long bursts. Thankfully I was mostly behind a big, old pine. I ducked my head back in as he cut loose with his carbine. Most of the rounds dug into the tree. A few whizzed by but they didn’t hit me. A second later I heard a loud report. Then there was shrieks and screaming. Fortunately from my perspective, the screaming was coming from the village, and the screamers were women and children. None of my people made a sound.

I called out to the village. This time I called out in the local language. It took a couple of tries, but eventually someone replied. They told me Bob was dead. They also told me what I’d presumed. The hunters were out hunting. With a sigh of relief I pushed my way clear of the tree and I took a look.

I couldn’t see Bob. His body was on the ground and out of sight. I did see his two girlfriends. I called out to them in the River language and spoke to them. Once we got talking, I assured them that they’d be fine. I then started asking the women about any traps. I’d just gotten into it when the village hunters showed up.

That was fun. They came running down the hill to the gate of the village and then they stopped. The leader in the group pulled up short, and everyone else skidded to a halt. The leader had spotted Bob’s body and the women standing about looking up to where I was standing on the ridge. When the leader spotted me, he turned about and then started towards me. I let him get close enough to talk. Then I brought my weapon up.

“I hope you’re interested in talking and not dying,” I told the man pointedly, using my limited understanding of his language. “Put down your spears and you’ll live.”

The man did, as did his companions. Then he addressed me.

“We wish no trouble,” the man declared hesitantly. “You killed Bob. You are leader now. We will follow you.”

I looked at the guy and then I shook my head in disbelief. I hadn’t been prepared for that. Even so, it did mean that I didn’t have to worry about them trying to kill me. It was a start.

“What’s your name?” I asked the hunting leader.

“Patar,” the man replied puffing up his chest as he did. “I am the best hunter in the tribe.”

I smiled at that and then chuckled. I shouldn’t have, but I just couldn’t keep it in. Patar saw my response and a frown crossed his face. His fists clenched instinctively and the muscles in his neck began to bulge. I quickly got a hold of myself and apologized.

“I’m sorry Patar,” I told the man trying to be serious as I did. “I meant no offence to you. I’m certain you are currently the best hunter in your tribe, but that’s the problem. There aren’t many people left in your tribe. You’ve got a definite problem going on here.”

I think I surprised the man. Patar was older than any of the other hunters I’d encountered from this tribe. He looked to be pushing forty. So did at least three other men in his hunting party. As for the rest, they were young men between the age of fifteen and twenty. In total the group numbered ten. All of them looked a little lost. Patar was the first to recover.

“You are Jake of the Bear tribe,” Patar asked pointedly, making his question sound more like a statement. “You killed Tako and Makor and many other hunters. Will you kill us?”