Chapter 2

I woke up to brightness and the sound of birds chirping, and the barking of dogs off in the distance. I opened my eyes and looked around. Yes, I was in a tent. To my right I saw a cargo bag and a back pack. They both had a camouflage pattern, though the cargo bag was a heavy canvas material and the pack was a lighter material – ripstop nylon, it looked like to me – parachute cloth with a liner on the inside. They looked like the ones I remembered seeing the soldiers carrying on TV coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Along with the sound of birds and dogs, I realized after a moment, I could hear laughter – little kid's laughing, actually. "Well, good then," I said to no one in particular. "At least I'm not completely off in the wilderness somewhere."

Unzipping the sleeping bag was much easier than it had been the night before. I slid out of the bag and sat cross-legged on it and reached for the cargo bag. It was at this point that some things finally occurred to me. I was Harold Lee Scoville. I was 93 years old. The last I remembered before last night had been laying in bed waiting to die of old age and generally crappy health. There should be no way I could be sitting in a tent somewhere by a lake, let alone sitting cross-legged. I was far too old for that shit.