29 December 2015

On the ground, unmoving, Einar appeared at first to have passed out, Liz hurrying to try and rouse him so they could keep moving, but something was wrong, his limbs all stiff and back arched in an odd way, the situation becoming clearer to her the next moment when he began visibly seizing. Nothing she could do, nothing but watch, wanted to move him in further under the overhang where he would be even better concealed from the air, but the way he was flailing about, she feared getting too near him with Will on her back.

It had been some time since Einar last experienced a similar incident, a long time, at least, since she had last seen it happen; she was not at all sure that he would have told her about it, had it happened somewhere out of her view...and though she could not be sure of the cause, low blood sugar seemed a likely candidate, perhaps various electrolyte imbalances after their long trek to reach the airport, accompanied by his usual antipathy towards taking in anywhere near an adequate quantity of nutrients...but nothing she could do about any of that at the moment.

She wondered if she could give him a bit of honey, perhaps, in the hopes of at least raising his  blood sugar, without either hurting him or putting herself at too much risk, wanted to take Will off her back for his own safety but with their situation so uncertain and the little one both highly mobile under his own power and intensely curious about all aspects of the world around him, she did not dare.  Could not have him wandering away.  So, she waited. Surely the event would have to end soon, and Einar would be alright, and they would move on...  But, it did not, and Liz knew she must try to do something.

Approaching carefully, knee gently on Einar's chest more to monitor his movements and give herself an early warning should she need to jump back than to restrain him in any way and his right hand gripped firmly in hers, she worked to get a taste of honey into his mouth.  Hoped it might help cut short the seizure, which already seemed to have gone on far too long.  His mouth was clamped shut and she could not get it open, had to make do with smearing the honey on his gums and hoping some might find its way inside.  Not too likely, but there was nothing else she could think to do.  Other than to wait.  And wait.

Liz had no way of keeping track, no time keeping device, but it seemed to go on for a dreadfully long time, upwards of eight minutes, she was pretty sure, and when at last it was over and Einar lay still, she was not at all certain at first that he was still breathing. Hurrying to him she was prepared to start CPR, but he grimaced and twisted to the side when she touched him, half opened his eyes and then went limp again.

 She sat down beside him, dabbed at a smear of  blood where his cheekbone must have contacted rock in his thrashings and tried again to get some honey into his mouth, this time succeeding.  It seemed to help.  To her amazement he got right to his feet, unsure at first, stumbling, eyes not quite able to focus, but with one glance at Liz he drew in a sharp breath, situation returning to him and the urgency of the thing lending a straightness to his faltering limbs and a wideness to his eyes as he met Liz's.  Tried to speak but couldn't get the words to come together, brain could form them but could not seem to send them to his lips in an order which made any sense, and he soon gave up trying, resorted to hand motions.  Time to go.  Keep moving.  And, they moved.

Focusing intently on the ground ahead of him as he walked, Einar strove to avoid leaving sign, mostly succeeding despite limbs which felt as though they belonged to someone else and a head which would not quite clear up and allow him to reason with the precision to which he was accustomed.  Aware enough to recognize the deficit but frustratingly powerless to correct it just at the moment, he struggled to strike some sort of balance between the speed he knew they needed to maintain, and the stealth essential to their situation.

They traveled some distance, Einar walking strangely but maintaining a decent pace.  He was sick though, vomiting, didn't want to take the water she kept offering, and when finally she insisted, he choked on the stuff, only managed to get a little down, immediately took off walking again.  His walking was getting worse, left side weak, leg dragging, face grey and a dreadful exhaustion in his eyes when finally Liz persuaded him to stop and look at her, hands cold and mottled purple where he held the straps of his pack despite the day being fairly warm, and she knew she had to get him to Arizona.

They did not discuss it, did not discuss anything, really, Einar still struggling to put two words together, but when Liz took out the map during one of their infrequent breaks and asked him if they were on course to make the rally point set by Bud and Roger, he squinted hard at the twisting, blurring lines until they began making a bit of sense, nodded, showed her their present location on the map, and waved her into the lead.


Doing her best to pick out landmarks as she walked and keep them on the course which appeared likely to take them with the fewest obstacles in the direction of the assigned meeting place, Liz took them up the remainder of the increasingly narrow canyon. Having looked at the map, she was somewhat dubious about their ability to cover the required distance before that coming morning, when Roger said he would meet them at the designated meadow, should their first attempt fail. As it had done. Not only had it failed, but Einar's driving, necessary as it had probably been at the had put them many miles from the assigned meeting place. Those miles could be covered, though, and she did her best to make certain they would be, pushing ahead somewhat ruthlessly even when she saw that Einar was lagging, struggling, left leg clearly not functioning properly, grey faced and fighting for breath. He did the same and worse to himself all the time, she reasoned, and they absolutely had to make that meeting.

At the canyon's head, a little trickle of water tracing and dashing down orange sandstone cliffs stained white and purple with deposited minerals, she found an end to the easy walking, a series of narrow, rocky cuts offered a good chance of escape, and when she looked questioningly back at Einar he squinted, nodded and headed for the leftmost of the cuts. Though still visibly struggling with both balance and strength, Einar took on the task of leading his family up that rocky, treacherous draw with the vigor and enthusiasm required of him by once more being in evasion mode, speed surprising Liz, though perhaps it should not have, and they were soon topping out in a dense cluster of wind-stunted little aspens, some of their lithe trunks bent nearly into loops a foot or two from the ground by decades of heavy, gale-packed snow. Going no further for the moment, world spinning most inconsiderately around him, Einar grinned at Liz, lowered himself to his stomach on the damp, mossy ground, and promptly passed out.

Not a time for rest, not even the enforced rest of unconsciousness, and Liz, though desperately wanting to allow him to rest, scrubbed a handful of icy, spring‐hardened snow across Einar's face, all but poured a sip of water down his throat when he snapped awake and looked at her with confusion in his eyes, and dragged him to his feet. Liz led again after that, map in her hand and landmarks showing themselves in such a way that they were able to make good progress, and by the time Einar put a hand on her shoulder and insisted on taking the lead once more, they were less than a mile from the long, narrow, aspen‐lined meadow where Roger intended to land the plane. Sun low in the sky and nearly swallowed by a growing mass of cloud, but not yet set, they had made it in plenty of time.

"Is that it, you think? That meadow?"

Einar nodded. "Has to be."

"Do you think they'll really come?"

Exhausted, swaying, Einar half closed his eyes, caught himself against an aspen tree to avoid falling, nodded.

"Can always count on Roger. He will come."

"I'm glad. Will you get on the plane?"

"Have to see. Just wait and see how things look."

It was the best she could hope for. At least he had not refused. The rest would have to come in the morning. Walking the perimeter of the meadow, securing the place, Einar discovered a jutting outcrop of broken, tumbled‐down grey shale at a high point overlooking the meadow, just inside the trees and parallel to one of its long sides. A fine place, he figured, to spend the night, and Liz agreed.

Later, Will warm and asleep beneath the shelter of stone and everything as well set as it could be for morning they stood together in the rising wind and watched the light fade, streaks of orange and crimson through the clouds. Einar's head still hurt from its earlier encounter with the rock and his entire being felt odd and somewhat out of place from the lingering effects of that seizure, but it didn't seem to matter, relief so great, joy at having been able to evade the potential dangers of the past several days, the smell of sagebrush, broken rock, distant rain and immediate freedom sharp and joyful all around them. Einar turned to her, led her over beneath the aspens, and she might have been surprised at the taut energy in his emaciated and half frozen form, had she not known him so well... Later they fell asleep close together beneath the sheltering overhang of rock, and that night she dreamed of a brother for little Will, the two little buckskin‐clad boys playing together outside a sturdy, hand‐hewn log cabin hidden high in basin somewhere between the peaks, and the dream brought a smile to her sleep...

Einar's sleep was not nearly so peaceful, night quickly becoming cold and a thin, piercing rain starting sometime after midnight. Liz and Will were well sheltered by the overhang, but Einar, on the weatherward side of things and jammed as well as he could manage under the little outcropping as he sought to avoid the rain, had the worst of it. They had begun the night with Liz's jacket tucked around the three of them them as well as could be but as the hours had passed and with little Will's squirming, he found himself with less and less covering, hardly wanted to wake the others to try and do something about it, so he just lay there with various parts of him inevitably sticking out of the cramped little space into the wind no matter how he contorted his body, shivering through the night and any hope of further sleep soon evaporating as the dampness chilled him though.

Better that way anyhow, he told himself, as it kept him awake to listen for any potential danger, gave him time to think. He spent the remainder of the night running through various scenarios in his mind, plane showing up, plane not showing up, showing up but something being wrong, being off, so that they had to conceal themselves at the last moment and melt back into the timber, disappear... Towards morning the rain moved out, sky cleared and Einar dozed a little, exhausted by the intensity of the thoughts and by his own shivering. Daylight and Liz's insistent words woke him some time later.

Wake up, she was telling him, the plane will be here soon, and you have to wake up, but more immediate than her concern about missing the plane was the fact that Einar had become seriously chilled in the night, extremities purple, body nearly too hypothermic to shiver, and she tried to get him warmer, talk him into eating something. Einar, though, saw no problem, his singleminded focus being on that plane, on watching, waiting, making sure things were safe...

15 December 2015

Encouraged by Liz to travel within the confines of the law so as not to attract undue notice, Einar quickly put several miles behind them in the little truck, Liz silent, letting him think, watching the rearview mirror and tending to Will, trying to keep him still.

Einar did not know the place, did not know the road, but it was not long before he knew exactly where he was going, barely losing any speed before abruptly leaving the highway, taking off up a dirt track, Forest Service Road 322, according to a battered brown and white placard that hung half detached from a bent green fence post off to the left of the junction.

"Where does this go?"  Liz's words were clipped and breathless, struggling as she had been to keep Will upright and prevent their backpacks and assorted gear from falling on him during the sharp turn.

"Up.  Goes up.  Saw the road cut through the trees back there a little bit.  Looks steep.  We need that."  His attention was thereafter fully occupied with navigating the increasingly rocky contours of the track and preventing the truck either high centering or bogging down in the mud that lurked slick and greasy down in the ruts where rocks were more sparse, a balancing act, and one at which he found himself more than proficient, despite the several year gap in his driving experience.

Up out of the mud, then, road turning to shale, switching back and the grade increasing, aspens and the occasional Douglas fir beginning to replace the tangle of scrub oak and serviceberry which had prevailed down lower.  Four more switchbacks, shale slippery, road angled towards the outside where banks of the stuff, cut long ago during early coal mining days and largely neglected since, had partially sloughed off over the years and distributed fine rubble favoring uphill side of the track, and Einar eased the truck into four wheel drive, kept going.

"Einar, what...?"

"You'll see.  Almost there."  Which apparently they were, one last switchback and the vehicle rolled to a stop, nosed into a thicket of small firs so dense that she could not see more than a foot or two into its depths.  Einar motioned for her to wait, backing the truck out into the aspens and getting it turned around.  He exited the vehicle then, standing, one hand one the top of the door and eyes momentarily closed as he listened, drew in a long breath and finally nodded to Liz.

"Get your pack on, carry Will and follow me."  He shrugged into his own pack, but not before removing and unwrapping the FAL, hastily reassembling the rifle and slinging it on his shoulder.  Through the firs then, worming his way and then, timber thinning, aspens creeping in, dropping to hands and knees and motioning Liz to do the same.  Not easy when one is carrying a child, but Will was more than happy to walk beside her.  Reaching an abrupt clearing, trees ending entirely, Einar stopped, dropped to his belly in last year's dead‐brown leaves, snow having only recently left them, leaves matted, crisscrossed with telltale white fibers of snow mold.

Before them, the land dropped away sharply, shale cliffs plunging several hundred feet to the timbered lands below, highway clearly visible in the distance.  When she looked closely, Liz was almost certain she could see the place where the Forest Service road left the highway.

"That's the road we came up..."

"Yes."

"You knew, didn't you, that we would be able to see from here."

"I did.  Spotted the road cut from down on the highway. Want to watch for a little while, make sure no one is following."

"Then...?"

"Then we ditch the truck, break our trail and get out of here."

"Too bad we can't keep the truck for a while.  But I know that probably wouldn't be a good idea."

"Wasn't a good idea to take it in the first place, but we kind of had to.  Thought about hanging onto it for a while, heck, thought about going back for Roger's Jeep and seeing if he'd hidden a key, but we can't do either.  That thing may be watched, bugged, who knows what, and if they're not already looking for this truck, they will be soon.  Got to break contact, here."

Liz was about to answer when Will, who had been quiet, broke out in a series of jubilant shouts, "Moon!  Moon!"  and when Einar glanced over to see what might have caught the little one's attention, his face wrinkled up in a strained smile at the sight of Muninn the raven, perched only inches from the boy's face, tilting his head and making the soft, contented rasping sounds usually reserved for quiet evenings after good, full meals.

"That bird is some tracker, being able to follow us in a vehicle, like that.  Hope anyone else who may be on our trail isn't half that good..."

"How could he have done that?"

"Oh, ravens are awfully smart.  He would have watched us get into the truck, just followed it I guess.  Took some shortcuts no doubt, to be able to keep up with my driving..."

"No doubt!  Einar, where are we going?    I don't know exactly where we are, but if we look at the map...well, I'm pretty sure we could make it to that rendezvous place Roger and Bud were talking about in case something went wrong at the airport, meet the plane in the morning..."

Einar sighed, looked worried.  "We need to break our trail.  Just need to break our trail, first, and then we can think about it."

Seemed to Liz that they could do both at once, really ought to be doing both at once, if they were to have any hope of making the meeting place in the timeframe specified by Roger, but Einar seemed to have thought through whatever it was he wanted to do to break their trail, and for the moment, she let it be.

Not content to abandon the truck where it sat—the road appeared little used, but not entirely abandoned, and he did not want anyone coming across it soon—Einar motioned everyone back inside, satisfied that they were not at the moment being pursued and wanting to find just the right spot.  Not a quarter mile further up the track he found it, creeping across an exposed section of schist—they were, it seemed, largely leaving the shale behind—and into the dark, welcoming timber beyond.  Not a road or Jeep track, as such, but it appeared to him as though hunters had used it from time to time to park their rigs, and he figured hunting season would be just about the ideal time for the truck to be rediscovered.  Making one final sweep of the vehicle's interior to be certain they were leaving nothing behind—he and Liz had both been wearing gloves the entire time, having been prepared for the plane ride and not wanting to leave fingerprints in Roger's plane—Einar pulled out  spare quart of oil he'd found behind the seat, carefully pouring a portion of it down over the windshield, while Liz watched in puzzlement.  He then scooped up a handful of loose soil and needles from beneath one of the evergreens and tossed it in the air above the windshield, letting it settle and stick on the film of oil.  This operation he repeated anywhere glass or chrome might be showing, the resulting dull finish ensuring that no flash of sunlight on glass would bring the truck to be discovered before its time.

Moving, then, off across the exposed schist, raven gliding after them, no trace of their passing, Einar intending to stop and review maps with Liz, make their decision about attempting to meet the plane, but wanting to be well clear of the area, first.  He would, at least, lead them in the general direction of said rendezvous , whenever such proved compatible with his escape plan.  Over around the shoulder of the ridge he led them, and then down, far down a stony wash where their passing would leave little sign, back into the land of shale and aspens and then, still descending, into a narrow sandstone canyon whose rims bristled with scrub oak.  All this time Liz found herself struggling to keep up, amazed at the speed and agility with which Einar moved, exhausted and hungry as she knew he must be.  It was almost as though, through being forced once more into close contact with the possibility of discovery and capture, he had begun to regain something of his old self, of the Einar she had known, and she hoped it might continue, even if it had taken rather dire circumstances to bring the thing about.  Einar, she had observed, always seemed to be at his best under dire circumstances, anyway...

Down the canyon, walls creeping further overhead as they went and a series of sandstone shelves allowing them to make some distance quickly without leaving much sign, they soon reached a place where the canyon deepened dramatically, water‐worn rock soaring above their heads, overhanging in places so as to provide cover from the air.  Liz wanted to pause here, catch her breath for a moment and allow Einar to do the same, but he kept moving, swinging into a narrow, rocky side drainage that took off uphill, a quick glance over his shoulder to make certain she was still following, which she was, but he made it only ten more yards up the rocky gully before she caught up to him for good.

9 December 2015

A dusky dawn light as Einar rolled for the last time from his bed on the ground, stretched cramping limbs and hauled himself to his feet, sun still hours from rising, and the wind was picking up.  Had been increasing throughout the night, bringing with it, mingled with the familiar and somewhat comforting scents of sage and alkali soil, the occasional whiff of asphalt and exhaust, town smells, and they had troubled his sleep.

It was warmer down there, leaves beginning to come out on most of the trees and not a trace of snow anywhere, but Einar was not warm as he scrubbed numbed hands across his face and stirred about camp that morning, energy entirely exhausted by the long trek to reach the airport, head heavy and confused and the morning chill seeming to pass right through him, sharp, keen, body beginning to tremble with cold whenever he stopped moving for more than seconds at a time.  Liz could see it, wished they might find a sheltered place and stop for an hour, make a fire and some hot food before the final push to the plane, but it was not an option, not even a remote possibility, and she just had to hope everything would go smoothly, so they could be in Arizona and on their way up to Bud's house within a few hours.  She could only imagine how good it would be to put that kind of distance between themselves and their pursuers, real, theoretical or otherwise, and to be able to relax for a while.

Einar, scouring camp for any trace they might be leaving behind and donning his pack, had no thought of relaxing, mission underway and everything coming into sharp focus as his thoughts turned to the details of their upcoming actions.  In his mind he could picture the site, both as it appeared on the map and through binoculars from their vantage point the previous day, access road running along the low ridge just above the wide basin which held the runway, high chain link fence beyond that but in one spot, brush coming down to the access road and beyond it, enveloping the fence and continuing, though hacked off yearly to maintain some semblance of order, nearly onto the runway itself.

It was here that they planned to wait, He and Liz, as Roger, Bud and Susan went to the waiting plane and prepared for the journey, here that they would meet it and board—or, more accurately, be loaded, concealed in duffel bags that Kilgore would carry into the brush and stuffed into the two black plastic crates which Roger had brought for the purpose.  Cargo.  Could work.  Would have to work.  They were committed now.  This being a small and somewhat rural airport—no tower, no flight plan and no clearance required for a small plane like Roger's, so long as he took the proper route out of the valley—there were no cameras covering the perimeter.  Of this, Roger was certain, having conducted a thorough reconnaissance of the area on several previous occasions, their plan thus posing little risk.  Theoretically.

On the move, hour still early and Roger wanting to keep it that way, especially with the wind continuing to become more blustery and now clouds moving in, they made their way down the slope and along a draw which concealed their movements while allowing them to approach within a quarter mile of their final destination.  That final push involved climbing the backside of the ridge along which ran the access road above the airport, seeking out the most heavily concealed path down its opposite side, and hastily crossing the dirt track.  They would then hurry along the fence in the timber to the spot where, just off of airport grounds,  Roger had concealed the vehicle in which they would all ride out to the plane.  No sooner had they got a closeup look at the access road than they realized there was a problem.

The truck, a small white pickup with some sort of logo on the door, was parked at the end of the dirt track, not ten yards from the spot where Roger had left his Jeep, window rolled down, engine not running and a head clearly visible on the driver's side.  Not an unmanageable situation, perhaps, had Roger been alone, but with no way to know the purpose or intentions of the vehicle's occupant, Einar certainly did not want to risk taking his family down to meet Roger's vehicle.  Had to come up with another option, and by the time Bud looked questioningly in his direction, he had already done so.

"Got to cut the fence, crawl through and wait for you guys in the oaks there on the other side.  You bring the plane to us.  You've got those duffels in the plane, right?"

"Right.  But not the crates."

"So we skip the crates."

"Just load you folks in duffels?  Gonna be a mighty rough ride."

"Got a better idea?"

"Let's go for it."

Safely on the far side of the road, having crossed on a curve so as not to be visible from the area where the truck was parked and having seen no other sign of human activity up there, other than their own, they began worming their way through the oak brush, Einar walking point and Bud just behind him.

There it was, the fence, Einar motioning for everyone to wait some distance back while he crept forward and inspected the thing, looking for sensors, trip wires, anything which might necessitate a re‐thinking of their plan.  Finding nothing he gave Bud a nod, set to work severing the minimum number of links so as to allow their passage.  The cut, narrow and well ‐concealed in the surrounding brush, might not be discovered for weeks or even months.

Striding confidently over to the little green and white plane as soon as he'd exited the brush, Roger began his walk around while Bud and Susan loaded their packs and Susan climbed in.  Liz, meanwhile, was thoroughly occupied with keeping little Will from crying out in fascination at the sight of so many unfamiliar things, the planes, especially, catching his eye.  She succeeded, the boy, like most creatures who grow up in the wild and under some degree of daily threat, possessing an innate sense of danger, and he sensed it now in his mother's hushed words.   Watching carefully for any sign that the plane was being watched, Einar saw no sign of it, scrutinizing a truck which stood between their position and the plane, and determining it to be unoccupied, some sort of airport service truck.

Roger was finished, got in, Bud looking very deliberately in Einar's direction before joining him.  It was time.  Or would be, as soon as Roger got the plane a little closer.  Einar was ready.  But, it was not to be, plan interrupted by the appearance of a white pickup over between the hangars but heading their direction, no way to know the driver's intentions but Roger was powering up, ready to begin taxiing, and Einar caught his eye, gave the pilot an emphatic depart! signal, a hasty salute and a big grin, disappearing into the brush as the little plane began to move.  Right past them.  Gone.  Good.  Go.  While you can.

Quickly scanning the ridge from which they had come, Einar was dismayed to see their escape cut off, the first white pickup having left its parking spot and begun inching its way slowly along the access road that ran the length of the ridge's summit, window down, driver appearing to search for something.  Not good, not a place he wanted to go, unsure as they were of the driver's intentions and well aware that they would likely be seen now should they attempt to cross that opening, but they couldn't stay where they were, either, first truck still heading roughly in their direction, and he did the only thing he could see to do, taking Liz's hand and striding out of the brush, straight to the service truck which sat parked only yards from their hiding place.  The vehicle was concealed from the ridge by the close proximity of the scrub oak thicket and they, themselves, concealed from the first pickup by the bulk of the second as they approached.  Rising from his low crouch by a few inches  and peering in the passenger's side window Einar saw the key in the ignition, eased open the door, motioned to Liz and prayed the thing would start.  It did, no visible reaction from the other truck as he started it up and slammed the seat back to allow for legs apparently rather longer than those of the previous driver.

"Get Will on the floor between your feet and keep him there," he spoke to Liz, voice low, well controlled, but with a hard edge to it that she had heard only a few times in the past.  "No matter what happens, you keep him there."  He checked his pistol and handed it to her then, wishing the rifle were available but not having time to retrieve it from his pack and reassemble it.

Einar  took off, creeping at first, still hoping to avoid provoking alarm on the part of whoever occupied those other trucks, a plan which seemed to be working, as the first had veered away and headed back towards the hangars at a leisurely pace, the second continuing its slow circuit of the access road.

A few dozen more yards and then there they were, pulling out onto the highway, after which, concealed from airport grounds by a low, juniper‐covered rise, Einar, behind the wheel for the first time in several years, took off with such enthusiasm that Liz had to put her hand on his knee and remind him that down here in the world, there are such things as speed limits...

29 November 2015

Though not much distance remained between their current location and the one chosen as the best place to pass the night, Bud was anxious to close the gap and get the little party established there, wanting to have time to thoroughly inspect the place for escape routes, give Einar time to become as comfortable with the arrangement as he might be capable, and allow everyone time to once again go over maps and discuss procedures for the following morning.

That last quarter mile of approach involved  a lot of climbing, up and over several low ridges in a landscape that appeared to have been picked up and folded with some precision by giant hands while it was still malleable, resulting crenellations standing out like ribs  on a bamboo fan.   A fine sort of terrain, providing as it did many opportunities for concealment, just the sort of place Einar might feel at home, but his legs were giving out as they approached, simply refusing to support him, leaving him to cling grimly to his two walking sticks, grit his teeth and hope no one would notice.  Despite this difficulty Einar was able through sheer determination to more or less maintain the pace Bud was setting, but if he thought he was concealing the struggle, he was convincing only himself.

Finally, nearing the top but with several hundred feet of elevation gain still to go, Bud halted the party beneath a sheltering overhang of yellow sandstone, spreading the map on a dry stretch of ground and holding it flat against a rising wind.  Einar doggedly remaining on his feet even as the others crouched around the map, knowing he would be hard pressed to rise again should he allow himself to sink to the earth.    Into the earth.  Stillness, and the sweet, damp smell of soil.  He wished.  Tired.  Trembling, beads of perspiration standing out on his face with the effort of maintaining his stance, he swiped a hand across his eyes, shook his head and squinted out at the world below, keeping watch.  All across  the jumbled sweep of land below them, the country through which they had just traveled, the sound of the wind singing between the ancient, twisted branches of several score of junipers was interrupted only by the occasional rasping call of a scrub jay.  He could not see the airport, ridgetop above them concealing its basin, but last he had seen of it, the place had appeared quiet, also, no sign of trouble.

Swaying, sick, he wanted to tell Liz to go, take Will,  get on that plane and make a break for it, start a new life in Arizona where no one would be looking for them, leave him there where he stood, where he would fall, soon to become a part of the landscape, scant meal for the vultures, bones  carried away by coyotes.  As it stood he was only slowing them down, increasing the danger of their already‐risky plan.  But, he could not bring himself to say it.  Could not abandon them, could not banish from his mind the images of what could happen down there, hidden teams rushing out to capture them as soon as they stepped onto that runway, succeeding, he watching from a distance, too far away to have any impact...  He would not do that.  Must at least go along to see them safely onto the plane, provide cover, if needed, as they took off, and then...but that wasn't right, either, for the flight would have a landing as well as a takeoff, and he must be present for that, too, see them safely all the way through.

Except, he told himself, arguing, debating the thing, except that Bud and Roger were two of the most capable and competent men he had ever known when it came to such missions, not to mention his own Lizzie, who had more than once proven her own strengths.  They would be fine without him.  Better.  So.   Make it happen.  Let this be the end of it, let them go.  Swaying again, and this time he let go his grip on the sticks would have fallen and in all probability found himself beyond the ability to rise by the time the others took notice.  Did not fall though, standing straighter after a moment's uncertainty, smelled the sage, spicy, damp, springtime down there in the valley, drawing himself together and starting up the last rise, heading for the ridge crest.

Less than an hour later they had reached the spot where all had agreed to spend the night, preliminary reconnaissance carried out and shelters beginning to take shape beneath the trees, nestled up against a series of low rock outcroppings which slashed their way incongruously across an otherwise‐unremarkable landscape of low pinyon and juniper.  While Liz and Susan set up camp and prepared a cold supper and Roger—well aware of his duties the following day—slept with hat pulled down over his eyes beneath a jutting shelf of sandstone, Bud and Einar made a final going‐through of their own packs, and everyone else's.

Carefully emptying Liz's pack and his own, Einar went over each item, careful to make certain that nothing put back into Liz's would, if somehow seen by others, provide any particular clue as to her way of life over the past years, keeping it to the essentials, and mostly those that had been brought in from outside by Bud and Susan.  His own gear he did not similarly sanitize, no point, if they get hold of me there won't be any shred of plausible deniability, no doubt who they're looking at, so instead he focused on weapons, FAL brought to him so many months ago by Kilgore disassembled and stashed in the pack so as not to be obvious from the outside, wouldn't do to be seen crossing the runway with such a thing, though he would have been far happier had he been able to have it at the ready...  Pistol and knife, though, he kept on his belt as always, concealed beneath his vest, bone spear and dart heads carefully wrapped and stowed in an outer pocket of his pack.
 
Dusk, then, air growing sharper with the setting of the sun, and Einar was as ready as he figured he was ever going to find himself.

8 November 2015

Responding to a silent summons from Kilgore the little group assembled beneath a stand of junipers, some distance further back from the edge of the vegetation and just out of sight of the airfield.

"Here's the plan, guys.  Roger's got a vehicle stored down there, not on airport grounds but nearby.  He and I are gonna work our way down around to where it is, show up and check things out.  Then while Roger gets the plane ready I'll take the truck back off of grounds, since there's a fence and no cover and you kids don't need to be climbing it...come here."

Bud beckoned and the others followed, Einar lowering himself to his belly on the little rise indicated by the tracker and taking the binoculars, studying the fenceline, two spots where the timber crept down nearly to the fence, itself.
 
"We're supposed to meet you, and the truck, down at the edge of the timber?"

"Better.  In the timber.  There's a little access road that parallels the fence.  You can't see it from here, and it can't be seen from airport grounds, either, and that's where you're gonna meet me.  The three of you will hurry into the back of the truck, where Susan'll help get you all packed into your transport containers as I drive out to meet Roger at the plane."

Einar looked skeptical.  "Transport containers?"

"Sure.  You don't think you're just gonna be walking around out in the open out there, do you?  No!  We've got it all figured out, got a couple cargo crates for you guys. "

Cargo crates.  Sensible plan, really, he had to admit, good concealment, but the thought of being locked in a crate and shoved aboard a plane with no way to see out and no chance to resist should trouble come...he let out a slow breath, nodded.
 
"Let's do it."

Roger grinned, Susan let out a silent sigh of relief and Kilgore clapped the fugitive on the back, nearly bowling him over.  Liz just watched silently, knowing Einar was agreeing too easily, wishing she might know what was going on in his head.

"Now," Roger took over, "should something go a little funny down there and we fail to make contact with you for one reason or another, we've got a backup plan of sorts, a rally point so we can all have a second chance at this thing."  Roger spread a map on the ground, indicating the airport and plotting a course cross country, over a series of low hills and around a low, open basin, indicating a location near its northern edge.

"Can set the plane down here, if need be.  About a three hour walk from the airport, if you really hoof it.  So we'll give you six hours, to be safe.  Should we miss meeting one another then, we'll make a second attempt the following morning just after dawn.  After that,  I've got to clear out of here and you're on your own.  So we better make this work.  Understood?"

Einar nodded.  "This afternoon, then?"

"I was thinking morning.  Morning will give us more options if we have to go to plan 'b.'  We'll head down first thing in the morning, after a good night's sleep."

A slight smile from Einar, sleep, sure...  "Lot of daylight left, here.  Seems better to just get it done, minimize our time here near town."

"Sure, we could do it that way.  Morning means more time to watch the place though, make sure it all looks right before we head down there."

Sounded good to Einar, the extra time, almost outweighed the added risk which came of passing another night near the glow of the town.  He glanced up at Bud, but the tracker shrugged noncommitally.  Could see potential benefits and pitfalls either way—spooky as the man had been of late, he knew the fugitive might well change his mind about the entire operation, given another long night to stew over the thing, but might just as well back out should he decide he had not been given enough time to reconnoiter the airstrip and surroundings—and wanted Asmundson to make the decision.

Einar rose, studied the low folds of land that flowed away all sage‐and‐juniper dotted below their position, squinted down at the yellow‐grass basin which held the airport, and nodded to Roger.

"Yeah, sounds good.  Morning.  But we can't spend the night here.  Too exposed."

"No, no way, not here," Kilgore agreed, hoisting his pack up from the log on which he had been resting it, settling the load on his back and grabbing Einar's arm to help him to his feet, seeing that the man, despite his a tremendous effort, could not get his legs to cooperate.  "Already got us a spot picked out, back along this ridge by about a mile, mile and a half, still within bino range of the  planes, but far enough back so we won't be worrying about any townsfolk stumbling on us while they're walking their dogs in the evening, or anything like that."

Will, having grown restless on Liz's back since their stopping, squirmed and wriggled at the mention of "dogs," having seen pictures of them in a little book Susan had brought him.  After the first time reading that book to him, Susan had been begged, cajoled and finally commanded to re‐read it time after time, the boy's little hand clasping her finger and tugging insistently, making sure she understood his intentions by repeating, "ook.  Ook!" until she fetched the book and sat down to read.

Now, having heard Bud mention dogs, he wanted to see the book again, but wanted even more to see the dogs the big man seemed to be taking about, making his desires known with a series of well‐executed woofs and growls just like the ones Susan had demonstrated while reading to him.  Liz did her best to hush him, explaining that this was neither the time nor place for dogs, or books, or the sounds of dogs or demands for books, that one must be very, very quiet when within sight of towns and cars and all that mess down in the valley.  Will understood few of her words, but grasped very well their intention, watching the valley with huge eyes and keeping still.

Onward, then, to the spot where they had determined to pass the night, hours of daylight left and some final preparations to be made for the following day's journey once they got there.

27 October 2015

No one slept much that night, Einar relieved after his watch by Bud, but remaining near his post, listening.  The night was not quiet, but all of the sounds, so far as Einar could tell, were coming from some great distance off, from the area of Clear Springs.  Head nodding, sleep wanting to come, he fought it, struggled to stay alert.  Liz was sleeping, or appeared to be, Will with her over near Susan where the junipers were at their thickest, and he was glad to see her getting some rest.  Rose, stretching, holding himself rigid against a series of cramps which gripped the muscles of his lower legs, eased some by movement, and he moved.  A small sound in the darkness, a faint scraping of rock on rock, and he froze, listening.  Bud.  Recognized his pattern of movement, steps with a slight limp in them, probably remarkably similar, Einar realized, to his own.  Except that Bud was heavier, steps more solid, feet more firmly connected to the earth.  The tracker stopped, swiveled, froze, knew he had been heard

"What are you doing, Asmundson?  Supposed to be getting some sleep.  Your turn'll come again soon enough."

Einar said nothing, silently crouching on the rocks beside Kilgore, squinting into the darkness, past the trees and out across the sagebrush flats that lay between them and the murky glow of Clear Springs.  Bud got the message, words or not, and let Einar share the watch without further objection.  Roger, by common agreement, was to be allowed as much sleep as he might be able to manage, his being the duty to pilot the plane sometime the next day.

Morning, light barely beginning to show on the horizon when Einar rose stiff and shivering from his post and went to wake Liz, anxious to be on the move and gain, hopefully, a few extra hours during which to scout the area around the airport.

Four hours of walking, that's all it took.  Would have been less still, had they not needed to put so much time and energy into carefully choosing the most well concealed routes, sometimes necessitating an additional half mile here and there.

Einar's focus sharpening as they neared town, the world seemed to crackle around him, every detail alive, moving, imprinting itself on his consciousness without any deliberate effort at observation on his part.  Useful, this effortless alertness, but at the same time nearly unbearable as they neared town and the man‐made sights and noises increased.  Too much information, too much to sort out, and Einar wished rather desperately to be able to turn around and retreat into the quiet, concealing safety of his hills.  Could not do that, must not, paused and used his breath to slow everything down for a moment, give him some room to think.  Better.  Still nagged at him, but at least he was able to shove to the background the increasingly frantic feeling of the thing, concentrate once more only on the details that mattered.

Five minutes later they topped out on the ridge and saw through a screen of junipers the airport stretching out below them at the edge of the wide, flat basin which held Clear Springs, destination nearly reached, and Einar stopped in his tracks, wanting more than ever to turn back.  The thought of what he must do next, what they all must do...it took him right back to the moment when he had decided to walk out of the jungle after his escape from captivity, that morning three weeks into his escape when he had taken that leap of faith and stepped out into the open in front of the wire...only this time, there were no friendlies waiting for him, no hope of being reunited with the men beside whom he had fought...

It had been hard enough that first time, even though he had known logically that he was walking into the presence of friends.  He had still fully expected a bullet to rip into him the moment he was spotted, had almost been able to feel it as he took that first step out into the burnt clearing that surrounded the camp, and that bullet had been the best case scenario, because the other involved his being captured and returned over the border to that squalid swamp, to the bamboo cage for another round of interrogations...  He shuddered, hunched his shoulders against the sudden physical sensation, real and immediate as the rocks beneath his feet and the sage‐scented wind on his face, of the ropes about his upper arms, pulling them back into that impossible position, arms nearly jerked from their sockets.

He blinked, scrubbed the sweat from his face with a rough swipe of a hand, did his best to swallow the sense of rising dread.  Mostly succeeded, started moving again, but it left him queasy, unsettled, a situation not helped by the realization, as he took his turn with the binoculars before their final approach, that Roger's plane was well over on the far side of the airport near the hangars, nowhere at all near the trees or any other sort of cover...

11 October 2015

Doubts, as they traveled, Einar remembering some of the more difficult times during their years in the high country, those first months when he'd been virtually unable to move from the dark, cold recesses of old mines due to the intensity of the air search, no food, no way to have a fire, nowhere to go, standing and stomping his feet all night just to keep from freezing—until he'd hurt his hip, and couldn't stand at all, and was left to huddle shivering over a single bearfat lamp all night, hoping he'd get to see one more morning.

Rough times, but here he was.  Had not given up, walked into town and surrendered, not then, not when they'd shot him in the leg during one of his near escapes and he'd faced weeks of serious  infection as he attempted to clean out and care for the wound, nor during the agonizing months after the frostbite injury which had ultimately cost him all the toes on his right foot.

That one had nearly meant the end, numerous times, yet not once had he seriously considered doing what they were about to do, putting themselves in the hands of another and venturing willingly down into the territory of the enemy.  Liz.  Maybe she had wanted to do it, wished they had done it long ago, had been waiting for him to agree to the thing...he looked back at her, watched for a moment as she walked, Will on her back.  No, didn't think so.  Even during her pregnancy, when things had looked uncertain and she had struggled at times until they had figured out just how much protein she needed.   He had asked her, then, had offered it, but she had refused.  Had even insisted that, no matter what happened, they needed to stay out where they were free and were safe.

Doubts, and he put them aside, kept moving.  Different times, different situation, and this time he had agreed to it.  Advantage, which he had always found in the familiarity of his chosen territory, in the certainty that he knew the area better than his enemy ever would—he knew it could be had in a dramatic, unexpected change, as well.

The course they had mapped out took them with an efficiency not common to previously untried routes down out of the high country and into a series of lower, timbered hills, subalpine fir giving way to endless acres of blue spruce interrupted here and there by patches of aspen, leaf‐buds swelling with spring sap.  The breeze that whispered up from the valleys as morning stretched into afternoon was a warm one, soft with spring, alive with scents of the awakening world, and Einar was hungry.  Wanted to hunt, to stop and make camp for a few days here where the timber still concealed their paths, seek out the deer whose tracks he was seeing with increasing frequency, feast on fresh meat and show Will how to tan a buckskin...

Dreaming, drifting.  Stumbled over a rotted stump, realized his eyes had been closed.  Later.  The opportunity would come, would have to come, but not that day.  That day, they must cover distance.

Knowing the press of time everyone moved quickly, Einar traveling beside them and sometimes taking the lead, not wanting to be an obstruction to progress, but after a few hours of this his legs began hurting so badly that it was at times all he could do to continue putting one foot in front of the other.  He tried stretching each out to its full length between steps, leaning more heavily on the stick he already carried for balance, even tried standing still for a moment here and there, but nothing seemed to have any impact.  Silly thing, and he told himself it would pass, gritted his teeth and kept moving.  When it did not pass, he allowed his mind to wander back to the jungle, to the ropes, and the pain became that of returning circulation, and his anger carried him onward.

Stopping only twice that day, once to eat a hasty lunch and obtain water from a little limestone seep and the second time because Bud could see that Einar was near falling over with exhaustion and would likely benefit from a few minutes' forced rest, the little group made good progress, a faint reflected glow creeping across the sky as darkness fell and telling them that the lights of Clear Springs were not too many miles off.  They camped that night on a low, juniper‐studded rise above a sagebrush flat, no human habitation in sight, but the faint, unsettling rumble and hum of distant civilization reaching them as the night quieted.  It was a thing barely noticed by Bud, Susan and Roger, accustomed as they were to such background noises even in the relatively rural environments which they called home, but Liz noticed, the distant bustle imposing on her subconscious, and was troubled.  To Einar the change was not nearly so subtle, he hearing it as a clamor, a chaos, as the roar of impeding destruction.

This is it, then, Einar told himself as he took up a position beneath the most densely needled of the juniper clusters just below the ridgecrest.  Here they were, and  in the morning, they would go down there, and they would prepare to leave.  Muninn settled on his shoulder, twisted a bit of hair and rasped softly, helping him keep watch.