Wilderness

CHAPTER 24.

"What are you doing here?" Karl said.

Newman was motionless. He fought against the impulse to look for Chris and Janet. They must be out there. Janet had seen it. She'd been right beside him on the ground. Chris. Did Chris know? He was separate from Janet. What if he'd started back? What if Janet couldn't rescue him?

The huge man had transferred his grip to Newman's upper arms, one hand on each.

"What are you doing here?" Karl said. There was no tone in his voice.

It sounded mechanical.

Newman stayed still. His face hurt. His head ached. His stomach felt bottomless. He was nearly dizzy with fear.

"Marty," Karl said. "Stick his face in the fire till he answers me."

Karl's younger son stepped toward Newman. He was as tall as his father, and fleshy, with an insufficient moustache over a Cupid's-bow mouth. He wore a black sweat shirt on which was printed "The Helmet Law Sucks." He put his right hand behind Newman's neck and began to bend him forward. Newman stiffened his neck and swelled the big trapezius muscles he had earned through years of weight training. Marty couldn't bend him, but the huge man could. He pressed forward and down on Newman's arms, forcing Newman toward the ground, forcing the knees to bend. It's humiliating. Torture isn't just pain, it's public humiliation. He strained against the pressure of Marty's hand and the huge man's force. He was losing. Where the fuck are they! His knees touched, he could feel the fire.

Chris Hood stepped out from behind the orange pup tent and hit the huge man across the back of the head with the butt of the Springfield. The huge man let go of Newman and pitched sideways and sat down. Without the pressure of the huge man Newman uncoiled like a released spring.

He straightened, tearing loose from Marty's grasp. He pushed Marty away from him and jumped for the woods. Richie Karl brought the shotgun up and from the shelter of the trees Janet Newman shot him five times. Hood turned the Springfield at Karl and Frank Marriot shot him in the chest with a.357 magnum. Hood died at once.

Newman turned toward the sounds of Janet's shots and she caught his hand as he reached the dark shelter of the forest. He went ahead of her, she followed, holding on to his hand in the darkness as they blundered as fast as they could through the woods. As they ran, Newman had a vague sense of downhill. He bore left in the darkness, feeling the panic boil in him and fighting to keep it down. They came across some granite outcroppings and stopped.

"Is this the place we were?" Newman's breath was coming in gasps. The sweat ran off his face.

"I don't know," Janet said. She was panting.

"Shh."

They listened. There was no sound of pursuit. He tried to keep his breathing silent so he could listen. The woods were empty of human sound except their own.

"Where's Chris?" Newman said. His breathing was still harsh and labored.

"I think they shot him," Janet said.

"Jesus Christ," Newman said. "Are you sure?" "I saw him fall," Janet said, "then we ran. I don't know. I think so." "Oh, good Jesus," Newman said. "We're on our own."

Janet nodded.

"Jesus, Jesus," Newman said.

"We can do it," Janet said.

"What if he's not dead," Newman said, "and they've got him?"

Janet was silent.

"We'll have to help him," Newman said.

"If he's not dead."

"We have to know," Newman said. "Jesus, what a mess."

"Nothing's changed," Janet said. "There's one fewer of us and at least one fewer of them. The odds are still the same."

"Except they know we're here." Newman's breathing was easier. He looked at his wife in the dim light where the stars shone into the clearing. "You shot the one with the shotgun."

"Yes."

"Just like I showed you." "Breathe, Aim, Slack, Squeeze," she said.

"He would have killed me."

"That's why I shot him."

"How do you feel?" "Scared, out of wind, mad. Like you," she said.

"But you killed a guy. You've never done that before. Does it bother you?"

"No. It had to be done. I don't mind. I won't mind next time either." "You are a tough cookie," Newman said. "Thank God."

"No, I don't think that's it, Aaron. It might be hard if it were right close and you had to wrestle and gouge or if you knew the person. But at fifty feet with someone I don't know it's easy. Squeeze the trigger. Just like you put the brakes on in a car. Something happens, you react. Didn't you ever kill anyone in Korea?"

"I don't think so. I was a radio operator at battalion level. I heard shots fired in anger, but I didn't kill anyone I can recall."

"Well, we'll have to kill several now. And you'll have to do some of it."

"I know," Newman said. "They know who we are. They'll figure out what we were doing here. If they get out of here alive we're dead."

"And the girls," Janet said, "they may well be dead too."

Newman grunted as if he'd been hit.

"So," Janet said, "let's get organized."

Newman sat behind the outcropping of granite in the woods in the dark and rubbed his temples with his left hand. As he sat the sweat cooled on his body and he felt cold.

"It's September," he said.

"What?" "Cold," Newman said, "it gets cold up here in September."

"Yes."

"They took my rifle, and pistol belt." "Take the carbine and my ax," Janet said.

"Yes, and you have the.32 and the knife. We have the jackets and the down vests. I have eleven granola bars. You?"

"Twelve."

"We ought to try and get by on one a day and stretch them out. Try to live off the land as much as we can."

"Yes."

"We'll eat one each morning. Then we'll look for berries and stuff. If we've found nothing by night we'll have another one."

"I hope we're not here that long."

"Even if we can get them, and they don't get us, we may get lost.

Neither one of us is big in the woods." "You won't get lost," Janet said. "You've never been lost in your life."

"I've never spent time in the woods." "I'll bet they haven't either," Janet said.

"I hope not."

CHAPTER 25.

They slept very little that night, though they tried, huddled together, each in a thigh-length nylon pullover.

"You try and sleep and I'll watch," Newman had said. "Then I'll wake you when I'm falling asleep and you watch."

But in fact neither one of them slept, and after an hour and a half they realized they weren't going to and they sat quiet in the dark and listened to the twittering of insects and waited for the morning. It came, finally, with a slow thi

"We've got to sneak back to the camp and see," Newman said.

"Yes."

"You look pretty good for a broad who slept on the ground in her clothes."

"What I wonder is if they're sneaking about, looking for us," Janet said.

All business, he thought, even here. Getting in charge.

"Take the carbine," she said.

"Okay."

The sun began to rise. Newman looked at it carefully, turning his body so the sun was to his right. In his mental map he saw himself standing on the East Coast, near the Atlantic, looking at Canada, full-sized, like someone in a television commercial.

"Okay," he said, "uphill is essentially north, downhill is essentially south. To get back to the lake we want to go south, downhill, remember that. In case we're separated."

"How about the packs?" Janet said.

"We'll bring them."

"Easier to be sneaking around without them."

"But if we leave them someplace we may not find them again and we need them," Newman said. "We better bring them."