Chapter 9

We turned south and east, paralleling the river. When we kept 20 to 50 meters off of the bank, the going was not particularly muddy or swampy. We soon fell into a rhythm, me leading, Lucy in the middle, trailing about 30 feet, and Emily bringing up the rear, trailing Lucy by around another 30 feet. I wanted the women to have the time to go to ground, or veer off, should I stumble into some problem or another. That would also provide me with a “flanking element”, who could maneuver on the sides of any troublemakers I encountered, so that, if we went to guns, well, our new acquaintances would find themselves in a crossfire.

All of which I devoutly hoped would be simply a thought experiment. I had had enough of shooting folks. Really, more than enough.

We came to, and crossed our first hurdle, Valley Road, uneventfully. The woods let us out in a stretch which was orchard either way, for several hundred meters. Emily and I executed our road crossing drill, and Lucy demonstrated that she had caught on quickly. She knew well the possible consequences of an unlucky encounter.

Another mile brought us to another road, and, fortunately, full dark. We paused for a while, just before our woods petered out, and looked around. There were two farm houses, one around 60 meters to our east, and the other on the order of 100 meters to the west. We had no trees to hide us, although fortunately there appeared to be no activity at either domicile. The good news, was that Church Road appeared again, and ran due south. From my recollection of the internet map survey, and Andy’s route planning (USGS maps are a good thing to have, and when mounted on the back side of a Plexiglas sheet, well, you can grease pencil your route and edit it as many times as you may like.), there were not many houses for a couple of miles. At that point, we could jog east a kilometer or so, and duck south again on a dirt two track. By following the country roads southerly and easterly, we could make better time, there were few houses so our need to creep would be reduced, and we might make it to the spot I anticipated bivouacking at, with plenty of time to settle in before sunrise. In addition, road travel would make criss-crossing the Tamarack River very much more convenient.

We arrived, with a couple of hours to spare, at the woods I had selected. We moved to the east, and then south, so as to put the river at our east and south, and settled in somewhere around 100 meters from the road. As I started to set up our hootch, Emily pulled me aside.

“Where are we going to sleep?”

“What do you mean?” I wondered. “I figured we’d all bundle up together. It worked the last two nights we were in the outdoors.”

Emily responded, “Yeah, it certainly did. We also did not have Lucy with us. She is newly widowed, and, gotta say, had a tremendously traumatic day. You think she could use some alone time?”

I considered this. “I dunno. Let’s ask her.”

We approached Lucy, and I cleared my throat. “Lucy? I have a question for you.”

She looked up. “What is it?”

“Well, Emily and I have bunked together each day as we’ve traveled. Emily wonders how you would like to handle that.”

Lucy appeared puzzled. “Well, shouldn’t a husband and wife sleep together? I can sleep over there, across the clearing, if you like.”

I looked at Emily, and she looked at me. Emily spoke up. “Well, yeah, we’re married. Except, not to each other. Mark is married to Marie, and I’m married to John. Mark is escorting me home to see about my family, and Marie is at home, keeping things together for him to get home.”

Lucy goggled at us. “That means, you’re cheating on your spouses!”

I picked up. “Well, yeah. Marie and I have been known to invite other women into our bed. And, Emily got a ‘cheat free’ card from her husband, although he likely doesn’t know he gave it to her. Still, when he started to cat around, well, he should not be surprised when Emily takes his actions as a permission slip.” I paused for a breath. “In either event, it’s gonna get chilly once we are not moving. Out of respect for you, we will refrain from playtime, but, still, things will be warmer with all of us huddled together in our hootch.”

She appeared to consider this. “Well, I don’t have a sleeping bag, or much of anything, really. I guess you’re right: we’ll all sleep better if we’re warm.” She looked around for a moment. “I’m in. How can I help you set up camp?”

We piled up leaves, spread the ponchos on the pile, and settled in beneath blankets and my sleeping bag. Lucy was in the middle, Emily and I on the outside. I slept in my clothes this time, with the rifle near to hand, and my pistol, again, in my boots. Emily mirrored my efforts, so Lucy was bracketed by firepower, so to speak.

Again, I slept on a short fuse. Gotta tell you, my sleep today was considerably more restful than 24 hours previously. Emily seemed to sleep the sleep of the honest, if her regular breathing was any indication. Lucy, well, she appeared to also sleep on a tight string. Several times I awakened to hear her quietly crying. Once, she wept out Martin’s name.

As the day started to fade, my bladder woke me. I dressed, armed up, and, taking my rifle, stepped away to water the pines. As I returned, the women were up and moving about, and Emily took Lucy off behind some other bushes for their morning drain. I cleared some leaves to bare earth, and lit the stove. Heated water set us up for coffee, and more canned chicken and crackers served as breakfast. We cleaned up our trash, packed up, and set off again.

Around 20 minutes in, I called a halt in the bushes off the peak of a rise in the road. Pulling out my HT, and setting up, I listened for a bit, and then tried a call. “Grandstand, this is speedracer.”

Lucy, now, looked at me peculiarly. Emily leaned in to explain. “Yeah, he sounds like he’s eleven. His friend is north, something like 12-15 miles, and, if he can hear us, maybe he can contact somebody in Argyle and see about my family for me.”

Lucy nodded. I called again. “Grandstand, this is speedracer.”

The radio crackled. “Hey, buddy! Call me again, so I can get my antenna directed to you.”

I did so. “Make it speedy, partner. We had a close encounter of the sixth kind, and don’t want a repeat!”

Stronger now, he replied. “Gotcha. Any friendly casualties?”

“No, but three tangos are out of service. One friendly out of service, but we had not met him prior to his encounter with the tangos. I have a new traveling companion. Echo Lima is chaperoning our new friend.”

“Fine business. What can I do for you?”

“Can you reach our next overnight stop on HF?”

“Dunno, haven’t tried.”

“Well, if you could give them a shout, Echo Lima would like some word about her precious cargo. Presently we’re long on concern, and short on facts.”

“Copy, will do. I’ll try you in 6 hours, and again, if I don’t reach you, in 8 hours. Alternately, I’ll ask friendlies there to contact you then on this.”

“Very good. See you in six to eight. Speedracer out”

“Grandstand out.”

Lucy looked at me confused, Emily with placid acceptance. Lucy asked, “What was all that about?”

Emily stepped in. “I asked him if he could reach anyone in Argyle. He asked his old EMS buddy to call on short wave, and see if he could talk to anybody there, and see how my family is doing. In the morning, once we stop for the day, he’ll call us with any update.”

Lucy was confused, still. “Who’s ‘Echo Lima”? And what precious cargo? And, what is a tango?”

Emily got us started. “I guess I’m ‘Echo Lima’, for my initials, Emily Luce. My precious cargo would have to be my family, because Mark keeps saying that nothing on earth is as precious to him as his family. I’m lost about ‘tango’, though.”

I filled them in. “Back in the late sixties and early seventies, southern Africa was caught up in brush wars. The folks now running Zimbabwe, then it was Rhodesia, and South Africa, were then fighting against the established governments. That made them, in the parlance of the police and military of those governments, terrorists. In the phonetic alphabet, that comes out as ‘tango’. Your deceased assailants likely qualify, certainly in my book.”

Lucy grimaced. “Yeah, I guess I’d agree: they certainly had me terrorized!”

We set out again. With the practice we had yesterday, and a full day of (relatively) unmolested sleep, we made pretty good time. We stopped for a meal several hours into our trek, placing us about 2 miles from Argyle. Emily and I chatted, clarifying our planned route to her home. I wanted to crawl in, surveil her home for a while, and determine if her family was there, or potentially hostile persons had taken over. She wanted to stroll down the street, unlock her door and walk into the embrace of her loving family.

“Emily? Suppose your family is seeking stability elsewhere, like with John’s parents, and somebody else, like Lucy’s late assailants, has decided to enjoy your hospitality? Do we really want to simply let them know we’re there, and then let them see us as some sort of morsels?”