Dead of Night

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

About an hour after I found the crash site I stopped at the bank of a river, the water rushing past, rapids spewing up sprays of foam. I knelt down and took a swig of water, using both hands to form a cup, and then sat back against a moss-covered boulder. I took a deep breath, wiped my cold wet hands against my coat. It was getting dark and I had no idea where I was. I guessed that the highway was on the other side of the river, but with the light fading I didn’t want to try to cross that surging torrent without a better idea of the surroundings. One misstep and a month or so later my father would get an interesting letter from the UN.

‘Well, Boy Scout Samuel,’ I said out loud. ‘Time to find some shelter.’

I went deeper into the woods so that the sounds of the river faded away some. I knew I was going to have a hard time sleeping tonight; I didn’t want the noise of the rushing water back there to keep me even more awake. As I moved, I kept to the same pace that had kept me alive during the afternoon, pausing and looking about me, listening again to any sounds out there.

But so far everything had been fairly quiet, with just the chattering of the birds and the sounds of tree limbs knocking against each other every time the breeze came up. I walked for another ten minutes or so until I found a place where an evergreen was growing out of the side of a small rise. Earth had fallen away from around some of the roots, and by carefully digging a hole into the base of the root system I made a tiny cave. Working slowly and diligently -I didn’t want to leave freshly disturbed piles of leaves or dirt lying about — I filled the little cave with leaves and boughs from another evergreen tree. It started to get even darker and I crawled into my little shelter, my head hitting the rough surface of its ceiling. Some earth trickled down the back of my neck. I coughed and managed to pull in a few additional boughs to block the narrow entrance. I lay back, pulled my collar up and put my hands inside the coat pockets. I listened, but all I could hear was my own breathing, labored and still frightened.

I shifted in the darkness, the leaves that I was lying on sounding very loud as I moved. My stomach rumbled with hunger and I licked my dry lips, wishing that I had drunk more back at the river. Of course, who knew what the hell was in the water I had just drunk, but I didn’t care. I shivered some, crossed my legs, and stared up into the darkness.

I remembered being eight. I remembered my mother sitting with displeasure in the den, my father grabbing my hand and saying that he was going to break me of my fear of the dark, right then and there. I remembered being sent out into the rear yard, carrying blankets and a pillow. It had been a warm night. There was a quarter-moon up. It hadn’t made a difference. I remembered this eight-year-old boy going from the front door to the rear one, trying to open them but finding both doors locked. I remembered the eight-year-old boy crying for his daddy, crying for his mommy, refusing to believe they weren’t coming to get him. I remembered the eight-year-old boy being terrified at seeing all the lights in the house out, nothing there but a dark house, knowing that his mommy and daddy were asleep, ignoring their boy outside. I remembered the eight-year-old boy, huddled by the cellar door, blankets wrapped around him, shivering all night long, hearing the night noises, waiting and waiting for the sun to rise.

I remembered.

I shifted in my hole.

It promised to be a long night.

I awoke with a start, wondering why the tent was so cold and my damn sleeping bag was so lumpy. I moved some and listened to the noise of the leaves that cushioned me. Then I remembered, remembered everything, and my legs started trembling as I recalled the gunfire, the dirty and unshaven faces of the militia members, the bloody campsite and the body of Sanjay lying there in the cold, so far away from his home in India. And, of course, the torn green flannel nightgown that belonged to Miriam, that had sweetly enclosed her body and had kept her warm, and was now a bloody and torn rag. I could not bear to think of what might have happened to her.

I shifted about some more and then froze. I heard voices, out there in the woods. I waited and tried to stay still. The voices were low and barely audible, and I couldn’t even make out an individual word. Then there came the sound of a dog barking, and then another, and I shivered some more. Searchers, maybe, looking for that lone UN observer who had gotten away after scalding one of the militiamen. A dog barked again.

Hold on, the rational part of me observed. It didn’t make sense that they would be looking for me, not at night, not in the woods. Too much trouble with flashlights and stumbling along the trails and such. No, it didn’t make sense, not at all. Maybe there was a militia unit out there, maneuvering around, but it didn’t mean they were looking for me. The rational part of my brain said, Look, that doesn’t make sense, not at all.

I crossed my legs, tried to ease the shivering. It didn’t work. The irrational part of my brain—which was in full control this dark night—was saying that it made perfect sense. Considering everything that had gone on before and the search for Site A and what I had seen, it made perfect sense that the hunters would be on the prowl.

I kept as still as possible. The voices faded away. There was one more bark from a dog, and then silence.

I stayed there, breathing evenly and slowly, waiting for the voices and the dogs to return.

Another start as I woke up again, and there was no missing what had disturbed me: a flight of jets, low over the valley, their engine noise extremely loud. I turned on my side as the sound of the planes faded, and then there came several hollow-sounding booms! as the bombers dropped their ordnance some distance away.

Some cease-fire. Some armistice.

And another thing: during the much-censured bombing campaign that had finally brought about the armistice, NATO had been criticized for doing their job from so high up, at altitudes of five or ten thousand meters. Too many civilians had been killed in that pleasant euphemism known as ‘collateral damage’, but since most NATO countries really didn’t want to be here they sure as hell weren’t going to expose their pilots to shootdowns, like the poor German pilot from that Tornado wreckage I had come across yesterday. But if what I had heard just now was any indication, the days of high-altitude bombing were over. These jets were low and their aim was definitely more accurate. Something had changed.

I shifted again, tired of hearing the leaves rustling. I remembered how much I had disliked being in that tent and sleeping bag—all right, before Miriam had come along, let’s be real—but in the cold and damp and dirt I was now living in I would gladly have agreed to spend the rest of my life living in a tent in the common area of my apartment block back in Toronto—if only I could get out alive.

Out alive.

What a phrase. What joy in those two little words.

More jets overhead, and it was starting to make sense. I was able now to work it out from everything that had gone on these past few days. It was plain to see that the agreement had collapsed, that UN communications were being jammed, and any UN forces in-country were being hunted down and picked off, one by one, by the militia. Or by the death squads, if one was being impolite.

I sure hope Charlie was on the ball yesterday, I thought. Good ol’ Charlie. Put in an impossible position to do an impossible job, and he had done well. It looked like everybody else had got out — leaving just me and Sanjay—and I hoped they had made it past the cease-fire lines.

Still more jets. I tried to ignore the thirst in my throat, the hunger in my belly and the cold everywhere.

Morning, finally. I stumbled out of my hidey-hole, stretched some and felt muscles and ligaments pop and creak. I watered a nearby tree, then went back to my hiding place and carefully covered it up. It had been a good location and if I couldn’t make it across the river, or if something bad was going on—another euphemism for so many bloody possibilities—it was good to know that I had somewhere to hide out. I went back to the river, falling into the earlier routine of moving slowly, and I wondered whether, if I ever got back home, I would at least be able to talk to my father about how I had made my way through the woods and survived. Maybe he would appreciate what I had done. Maybe we would finally bond in that magical way that real fathers and sons supposedly share. Or maybe he would growl and grunt and go on for an hour about how I could have done everything better. Knowing my father, that would be the most likely possibility.

Back at the river I grabbed another sip of water, splashed some on my face, and then kept on heading downstream.

And it didn’t take long, much to my joy. After about ten minutes’ worth of walking, the river widened some and slowed down, and there was an area of exposed rocks and sandbars that made it easy for me to get across to the other side. The gray clouds that had been overhead all the time during these past days had finally dispersed and it felt good to see the blue sky overhead. If Charlie and Jean-Paul and Miriam and Karen and, yes, even Peter were in a safe area, having clear skies would make extracting them by helicopter that much easier. Even if the communications gear was still being jammed, all they would need would be an exposed area of land, the sound of a patrolling NATO helicopter overhead and one shot from a flare gun.

Then—maybe—somebody would come looking for me.

In the meantime, I still had to find that damn highway. How hard could it possibly be?

Now I was on the other side of the river, I made it through some low areas of brush and bramble, actually eating some blueberries that had managed to hang on. But instead of quieting the hunger in my stomach, they made it worse. It was as if some ravenous beast inside my belly was now fully awake and on the rampage, demanding something to eat. My mouth watered as I remembered Tico’s Place, a coffee shop about a block away from my old job at the Toronto Star, and how I could easily spend an hour there, eating my way through crullers, eggs—scrambled, over easy, any which way you wanted—and back bacon and sausage and—

I finally stopped drooling over my memories of food. The slope I’d been toiling up had flattened out—and I had found a road.

A damn road.

I knelt down and looked up and down it. It wasn’t much of a road, just dirt and gravel, but it sure had been churned up some by heavy vehicles. I glanced again. Nothing. Just a dirt road, almost parallel to the river. I got up. Which way? Left or right? Just like that old short story, the lady and the tiger. Which door would be the right one? Which one would lead to death?

If I’d had a coin I would have flipped it. Instead, I turned left and started walking, if for no other reason than that if I headed to the right I would be going back to where the ambush had taken place. And that was unappealing, for so many reasons.

I walked slow but sure and after a while I came across something of an oddity: twice I noted a place at the side of the road where a wooden post had been sawed off. That’s all. A wooden post, about the width of one’s hand, sawed off by a chainsaw, it looked like. The second time I noticed it I searched the area to see if a signpost or something else had been taken down. But if it had, whoever had done the work had taken away the sign.

After about another ten minutes of walking, I found another signpost. But not one made of wood.

The road had curved to the right, and as I rounded the bend I saw something hanging from a tree. I ducked back into the brush on the side of the road, waiting. Nothing. Not a sound, not a movement. I waited some more, and then started walking through the brush, my feet sinking into wet soil. What I had noticed became clearer. It looked at first like a tangle of wires, as if someone had dumped some telephone cable in a tree. But then I saw something flapping there like a large banner, moving slightly with the wind. I walked closer, stopped, and then saw the shape.

I didn’t move. I just stood there, fists clenched in my coat pocket.

I thought, just for a moment, about turning around and going back. I didn’t want to see what was ahead.

But all that time, all that distance covered…

I shook my head and stepped out onto the road again, finally recognizing what I had seen. I stepped closer, now hearing the faint billowing sounds of the parachute flapping in the breeze. What I had thought were telephone wires were actually parachute cables. And dangling from them, like a store mannequin or some college mascot, was the body of a pilot. I came up to him, saw him hanging there about two or three meters up from the road. He had been dead a while, and somebody had stripped him of his boots and helmet. His dark green flight suit was intact, save for some rips, and his face was blackened and had shrunk some from exposure to the elements. It looked like he’d had a moustache. It was hard to tell. His hands too were black, as though they had turned to leather from being exposed. I looked closer, wanting to see if he had a name stripe on his flight suit, but most of his chest was obscured by a cardboard sign. The sign had been made from a flattened six-pack Budweiser beer carton, and had been fastened around his neck by a thick string. Written in thick letters on the sign was this:

THE REAL WAR CRIMINAL

I kept on looking at him, trying to think of what it must have been like, hanging up here exposed like this. This had to have been the Tornado pilot, the wreckage of whose plane I had found the day before. Shot down by the local militias who’d been using stolen Reserve or Guard munitions, he finds himself hanging in a tree. Maybe he’s unconscious or semiconscious. All he wants is to get down to the ground safely. A few minutes earlier he had been emperor of his own little universe, safe and secure in his cockpit, an elite pilot in an elite force, with ego and attitude to match. Flying to save the urban civilians of this frightened nation, urban civilians emptying out from the cities, looking for food, looking for safety, looking for shelter Then, in a blur of noise and pain and shock, he’s ejected from that safe world and is now on the ground, the deadly ground. He’s there, dangling, probably injured, unable to move much. And then the men come, the men who he hopes are his rescuers. But no, they’re not his rescuers. It’s worse than that, much worse. They’re the people who live here, who have been bombed and strafed and targeted by him and others who have traveled thousands of kilometers to wage war on this country, and the people who live here aren’t interested in rescue. They’re interested in revenge, pure and simple.

God, I hoped it had been quick for him.

There was a faint creaking noise from the branch as he swung back and forth. Again, I thought that I should at least do the right and noble and civilized thing, which would have been to cut him down and bury him. But I chose the coward’s route, yet again. If I did that, it would tell every death squad in the area that a stranger was around, someone who didn’t belong, someone who himself should be hunted down. I couldn’t take that chance.

I reached up—I wasn’t sure why—to touch one of his bare feet, but he was too high off the ground. I resumed my lonely walk and after a minute looked back. I wished I hadn’t: in the interim a crow or raven had perched on the dead pilot’s shoulder, and had gone to work on his face with its sharp beak.

I kept on walking, and didn’t look back again.

Another hundred meters, another signpost, but whoever had chopped this one down hadn’t done a thorough job. Scattered in a drainage ditch were some color brochures of the kind handed out to advertise tourist attractions, and I pulled one free from the mud. Days of soaking and exposure had faded most of the photos and lettering, but what was visible told me where the road led—or had led—to, somewhere called Bronson’s Works. I wasn’t sure who Bronson was and what kind of work he did, but I probably had a fifty-fifty chance of finding out, depending where the dirt road ended up. The only other readable lettering was on the bottom side of the reverse of the brochure, in small letters:

New York Parks Commission

H. Lewis Tolman, Governor

I dropped the brochure and continued on my way. As it turned out, I didn’t have that far to go.

The dirt roadway widened some before it was abruptly blocked. Somebody had plowed up the surface into a thick earthen berm, and then, in a creative burst of landscaping, had covered it with shrubbery and other small trees. I climbed up the berm, pushed my way through the thick growth, and then stumbled and fell down the other side. I got up, brushed off my hands and clothes, and walked a little further before I came out onto pavement.

A real road, this time.

I looked back the way I had come. It was easy to see, close up, the work that had gone into making the berm, but to a truck or other vehicle speeding by, the dirt roadway would have been fairly well hidden. Bronson’s Works or whatever was back there was no longer open for business. I rubbed my cold hands together, looked over my options. There weren’t many. I turned to the right, started walking again. I felt exposed, out there in the open and in plain view, but I was tired of creeping through trees and brush, walking slowly, pausing every now and then to see if I was being hunted. It had been more than a full day since the attack on our campsite. Remembering what Jean-Paul and Charlie had said, I recalled that the militias didn’t like to stay in one spot for too long: too many chances of being spotted and arrested or attacked. So the little group that had killed Sanjay and had sent me running was probably far away on the other side of the county by now.

Still, I kept my ears and eyes open, always looking behind me, ready to duck into the side brush and drainage ditch if I heard a vehicle. But there was nothing. It was all fairly silent, save for the sound of my feet on the cracked pavement. My hair felt greasy, my face was dirty and covered with stubble, and I was tired and still horrified at what had happened yesterday. But I was on the move, heading -I hoped!—to where the highway ran. And before I took too many more steps, I tugged off my TLD and tossed it into the ditch. No need to advertise that I wasn’t from around here; the locals didn’t carry such dosimetry. And worrying about radiation exposure at a time like this seemed to make as much sense as worrying about my Star retirement plan.

Twice I passed farmhouses set far back from the road. Both times I saw woodsmoke coming up from the chimneys. So families were still here, still living. Each time I considered going up to the house and perhaps wheedling some breakfast or directions. But each driveway had been blocked by a metal fence hung with signs that said NO TRESPASSING and NO SOLICITATIONS. Perhaps the signs were there just for show. Perhaps. But I kept walking.

Then the road climbed up some, and on the left-hand side I saw a large two-story frame building, with a porch and gas pumps out front, cooper general store, said the black-and-white sign hanging over the steps leading up to the entrance. Out behind the store was a wire enclosure where a woman in jeans and a gray sweatshirt was feeding some chickens, scattering feed from a metal plate. She finished what she was doing and then entered the rear of the store, the door slamming hard behind her. I stopped, took in this domestic rural scene. The wind shifted—and then my stomach started grumbling, making a noise so loud that I’m sure farmers kilometers away could have heard me, for I had smelled fresh bread cooking. I started salivating so much that I had to spit on the ground, and I resumed walking. The store had rakes and shovels and other tools on the porch, and the two gas pumps had signs hanging from them, one saying NO GAS and the other saying DON’T EVEN BOTHER ASKING.

I stopped in front of the store, my need to keep moving running right up against my need to get something to eat and drink before I fainted. I licked my lips, looked up at the store and the door leading in. Yet another sign said open.

Unbelievable, open.

I checked my pockets. Empty. But in my wallet was a Canadian five-dollar note and some UN-issued scrip. I didn’t want to try using either in this store. But there were credit cards in my wallet, MasterCard and Visa, and those little credit-card signs were snuggled up on the door, right next to the OPEN sign, meaning that this general store out in the middle of nowhere accepted credit cards.

OPEN.

I headed up to the entrance. After all, not only might I get something to eat—if I was lucky—I just might be able to get directions to the highway as well. It couldn’t be that far to walk. And it’d be easier to walk on a full stomach, full of energy.

It made sense. It made good sense.

I walked up the porch, opened the door, and walked in.

A little bell over the door jingled as I entered, and I blinked my eyes, for the room was fairly dark. There were shelves of merchandise off to the right, mostly dry goods but some canned food, the cans lined up to make the shelves look full. The floors were wide and wooden, and had been worn down from years of use. To the left was a lunch counter, with a half-dozen stools lined up in front. Little metal napkin dispensers were each flanked by a menu and bottle of ketchup or mustard. It looked so damn homey and safe that it almost made me cry.

The woman I had seen earlier, out feeding the chickens, was behind the counter, working on a ledger. She looked up, curious. She seemed to be in her early fifties, face worn but pleasant, black hair streaked with gray pulled to one side.

‘Help you with something?’ she asked.

My legs started shaking, just from the sheer pleasure of someone asking me that. The sheer joy. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was wondering if I could get something to eat. Some breakfast.’

She shrugged, ‘If you’re not looking for fancy, sure. But I gotta warn you. I haven’t had meat in a while. So no ham, bacon or sausage. Or orange juice, either. Can cook you almost anything else with eggs, if you’d like.’

My mouth started watering again. It had been more than a day since I had eaten. I cleared my throat and said, ‘Well, that would be great. But I have a little problem,’

The woman turned a page of her ledger. ‘Problems in this county come by the bucketful. What’s yours?’

I shrugged and said, ‘My car broke down, a couple of… a couple of miles down the road. Thing is, I left my cash back there, in the glove compartment. The only way I can pay for breakfast is through a credit card. Is that OK?’

She smiled slightly. ‘Mister, last year at this time I’d have told you that no, it wouldn’t be OK. I’d have said that my policy was that only the store goods could be paid for by credit card. I wouldn’t let anybody—and I don’t care if they was my neighbors—I wouldn’t let anybody pay for breakfast by credit card. But you know what? Like they say, shit happens. Sure. Have a seat.’

I sat down and she got up, saying, ‘One more thing, though. You seem to be a nice enough lookin’ fella and all, but I want to run that credit card through first. All right?’

‘Sure,’ I said, opening up my wallet and passing over a Visa card.

She took it and said, ‘Thing is, if the phone lines are down, like most days, then you get a free ride no matter what.’

All right,’ I said, sitting there patiently, hands folded in front of me.

The woman went over to the cash register and ran my Visa card through one of those little machines that rule your credit rating. ‘Hah,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a dial tone. Then it’s gonna be a good day. Took some rebuilding but the phone lines are back, some of the computers, and most days we got power for a while. Guess those assholes who nuked us won’t keep us down long, right?’

I smiled and just nodded.

After some beeps and buzzes she smiled and came back and handed over the card. ‘You’re good to go. What would you like?’

I smiled, hoping that drool wasn’t running down my chin. ‘Sure. How about some scrambled eggs and toast?’

She nodded. ‘Two eggs OK?’

‘Could I get four?’ I asked.

The woman smiled. ‘My, you must have walked far. Sure. Four it is, though I’ll have to charge you extra.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘Extra toast?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘I’ve got milk and coffee, though I can only give you one cup of coffee.’

Hot coffee, I thought. Hot coffee and real eggs, not eggs served from a plastic, pouch and made whole again with cold water.

She started working at the grill as things started heating up and sizzling. She slapped down a mug of milk and coffee in front of me and I put two sugars in the coffee and took a long, hot swallow. I wiggled my cold toes. Soon I’d be fueled up and ready to go. I asked, ‘Is the highway far from here?’

The woman’s back was to me as she worked on the grill. ‘Oh, just up the hill and over to the right. There’s an access road that hooks up to the interstate. You hopin’ to hitch a ride or something?’

‘I’m thinking about it,’ I said.

She turned, passing the plate of eggs and toast over to me. ‘Might be your best bet. If you’re broke down like you said, Jake in town might be able to give you a tow, but I don’t know if he’s got any gas. Here, eat up, ‘fore it gets cold.’

I sprinkled salt over the scrambled eggs and ate two or three forkfuls so fast that I don’t think I even tasted them. But my taste glands kicked in right away and I looked over at her and said, ‘Heavenly ambrosia. The best eggs I’ve ever eaten.’

The woman seemed to blush. ‘Well, there’s something to be said for farm-fresh eggs and homemade bread. Look, would you like some raspberry jam for your toast? No extra charge?’

‘Only if it’s no trouble,’ I said.

She waved a hand at me. ‘No, no trouble at all. It’s back at the house.’

‘No, really, you don’t have to,’ I said.

‘Bah,’ she said, wiping her hands on a towel. ‘I’ve got to bring some over anyway. You just hold on.’

I just smiled, my mouth full of food, and went back to eating as the woman went out the rear of the store. I carried on eating the scrambled eggs but forced myself to slow down—I didn’t want to show my appreciation for this nice lady by suddenly getting sick and puking up on her country-store floor. I took a last bite of toast — real butter, strong and flavorful, nothing like the margarine grease I had been used to. Then the door at the rear opened up and she came back in.

But her hands were empty.

‘Oh,’ I said. I was going to add that it was OK, I didn’t need any raspberry jam at all, when three men came in behind her. They wore jeans and fatigue jackets, and had rifles slung over their shoulders.

I put the fork down slowly.

The main door to the store opened up and two other men came in, dressed like the first three. Muddy boots, jeans and slung weapons. Patches of some sort or other were sewn on the sides of their jackets, along with tiny American flags.

I swallowed the last of my breakfast.