Chapter 5

Sleep overtook us. Well, overtook Emily. I still slept on a hair trigger, years and years after leaving the fire department. I awakened from time to time, alert to the second sound that would identify whatever had called my attention to it as benign or threat. Listening revealed wind rustling, or small animals scurrying in the litter on the woodlot floor. Reassured, I drifted back to sleep. I would admire the sun wafting through the branches, varying as the breezes moved the tree limbs. Cuddling back up to my companion, I’d resume sleeping, until the next disturbance roused me.

Finally, awakened at dusk, I turned from my bed-mate, and wriggled from our nest. I pulled the pistol from my boots, stepped into them, and pulled my trousers up, settling my belt around my waist. Shaking out my shirt, I drew it on myself, and buttoned it in a hurry. The warmth of sleep soon dissipated in the chill of a spring afternoon! Replacing my shoulder holster, I secured the handgun, and stooped to extract some food, water, and my alcohol stove from my pack.

Emily had awakened, likely from my scuffing through the leaves and whatnot. She crawled to the edge of the hootch, peeking at me from the blanket draped over her head, hood like. “If you’d warm up my clothes, and pass them over here, I could get dressed in comfort. Then I could help you with whatever you’re doing”.

“Warm up your clothes? Would you like a hot stone massage while I’m up and about?”

“Why, yes, sir! That would be lovely!” She grinned at me, one arm snaked out to retrieve her wardrobe, and disappeared beneath the bedding.

I suggested, “While you’re getting dressed and up, I’ll wander around, and see if there’s anything I want to get worried about.” I shrugged into my flannel shirt, picked up the rifle, and moved to deeper into the trees. Once I figured that I was around 50 meters from our campsite, I turned to my left, attempting to walk a circle around where Emily was getting organized.

I went slowly, both to stretch the sleep stiffness from my limbs, as well as to attempt to not advertise my presence to anybody lurking about. The sky was clear, the sun was setting, and the breeze was gentle and intermittent. On another spring evening, it would have been a wonderful nature walk. Well, a heavily armed nature walk, but a stroll outdoors nonetheless. I completed my circuit, pausing at a tree I had recognized as my starting point, and turned to my left, re-entering our site. I approached the clearing, to see Emily, dressed again, kneeling before a bare spot in the leaves, that evidently she had cleared, settling a pot on my alcohol stove. She turned as I crunched closer, and smiled.

“While you were patrolling, I figured I’d start some breakfast. It looks like you only packed coffee fixings, and so our picnic looks like chicken on crackers, coffee, and peanut butter. Yumm!”

“Yeah, “ I responded. “I didn’t plan on a companion, or romancing her beneath the stars. Next time, I’ll have to expand my meal planning, eh?”

“I certainly hope there’s no ‘next time’, this one walk is enough for me!”

I started to take down the tarp, and pack the blanket and sleeping bag. We settled on the poncho, sipping our coffee (I took the soup can ‘coffee cup’, wrapping it in my bandanna to avoid scalding myself), and chewing our ersatz sandwiches. Once we completed our meal, I felt around in my pack, and withdrew a handheld Amateur radio. I placed the batteries in the proper place, powered it up, and entered the frequency I wanted.

It was approaching 6 pm, so I waited, listening a few minutes. I heard nothing, and so I keyed the radio, and spoke: “Grandstand, this is speedracer.”

Emily looked at me, with That Look. “Speedracer? What, are you eleven?”

I grinned, and answered her. “No, but it does capture our scenario just a bit, don’t you think? My buddy is perched at home, in the grandstand so to speak, while I’m out here, racing towards home. It appeals to my sense of irony.”

I heard nothing, so I waited a moment more. Again, “Grandstand, this is speedracer.”

My timing was correct this time. “Speedracer, this is Grandstand.”

“Got your notebook handy?”

“Affirmative.”

“We are approximately 35 miles from your location.”

“Got it. On horseback?”

“I confirm, on horseback.”

“We’ll have fresh coffee waiting for you. Grandstand, out.”

I started putting the radio away, removing the batteries, and stowing the antenna. Emily looked at me peculiarly.

“It looks like you have a question.”

“Yep. Horseback? Really?”

“Yep. He now understands that we are walking. The ‘horse’ in question is an old turn of phrase, that I first encountered when I worked with alumni of the infantry, who walked everywhere. They called it ‘riding Shank’s mare’, and it was a wry reference to the fact that they walked, and the officers generally rode. The 35 miles reference tells him we are around 10 miles or so from his location. Today is the 25th, right? We add the calendar date to the actual figure, to obscure our meaning. That way, if anybody is listening, it may confuse them enough, for long enough, that we are not where they figure out we are, by the time that they get there. An additional benefit is that once we start to approach Andy’s place, he will know that we are due around that time. Makes the whole ‘identify friend from foe’ issue simpler.”

She looked at me for a while longer. “You really, really do not trust people, do you?”

“Well, I’ve trusted you enough to drag you along with me, and I trust Andy enough to plan for a lay over if times get uncivil. I trust my kids, and their spouses. Outside of that, no, not so many people. Why?”

“Well, you are paranoid enough to code your radio conversations. You are untrusting enough to have all these guns, and extra ammo for them. You slept in a pile of leaves, because you were concerned enough about bad people that you felt you had to hide. I just cannot imaging being that suspicious of people.”