Robert Parker - Wilderness

"If they didn't know something was up," Newman said, "they will when they get back here."

"They'll head back here if we don't get them first, and when they get here we'll have them trapped against the lake." Hood was excited. His movements were quick. Newman turned the second boat over and sank the hatchet blade into the plywood bottom. He chopped a hole several inches around in the bottom, prying the splintering plywood with the hatchet blade.

"Better hide the canoe," he said.

"Yes," Hood said. "I'll take it down-lake a little ways and hide it and come back up here. You and Janet wait here and watch. You better get out of sight."

They helped him push the canoe back off the beach, and they watched him paddle from the stern, turning the paddle blade after each stroke to hold the canoe steady. When he went around the near curve of the lake, Newman turned and looked for a place to hide.

"Under the big pine tree," he said to Janet, "behind those rocks. I hope they don't come back while Chris is gone." "Me too," Janet said. They slipped under the tree and lay on their stomachs behind the gray rocks.

"You too?" Newman said. "You sound scared."

"I am." "I thought you weren't," he said.

"I wasn't. But I am now."

"How come?"

"It's the woods, I think. It's so alien." "Or we are," he said.

The rocks behind which they lay were gray, granite flecked with quartz.

Grayish lichen grew over parts of them. The dead pine-needles had made a thick, soft blanket around the base of the tree and no vegetation had been able to push up through it.

"Aaron, destroying those boats has really committed us."

"I know."

"If they come back they'll know."

"They'll know something," Newman said. "But they won't necessarily know what."

"But they'll be very much more wary, and there are five to our three."

"Right. It's better if we surprise them before they see the boats."

There was a locust keen in the air, and the noise of a woodpecker.

"You seem better, Aaron."

"How so?"

"Less-what?-ambivalent, I guess. Less tied in a knot, more ready, looser."

"If rape is inevitable, lay back and enjoy it." Newman said.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I'm committed. It's too late to agonize. I'm scared, but I'm not uncertain, you know."

"I guess so." "You're kind of nice yourself," he said.

"Like what?"

"Like not so bossy, not so controlling. Softer, maybe." "I just react to you," she said. "If you don't push at me, I don't have to push back."

Newman made a harsh, derisive sound. "Family that kills together stays together," he said.

There was movement along the lake and Chris Hood appeared, walking quietly.

Janet said, "Over here, Chris."

Hood slid under the tree with them. "Canoe's in the cove just around the point," he said. "I put some rocks in it and sank it in about three feet of water. It's under the water at the base of the only big rock in the cove."

Newman nodded.

"Remember where it is," Hood said. "In case I don't come back with you."

"Maybe none of us will come back," Newman said.

"Then it won't matter," Hood said.

The trail was little more than a continuous opening in the thick forest. It was laced with greenbrier and slow going. But all around them the greenbrier was thicker, and brush and second-growth saplings were dense and difficult.

Occasionally there were the soft summer droppings of whitetail deer.

"In winter," Hood said softly, "the droppings are much more like pellets because the feed is different. In the winter they're eating bark, stuff like that."

Hood was first as they went single file, the Springfield cradled across his left arm, his right hanging free. Janet came next and Newman was third. They smelled of insect repellent and perspiration. But Newman wasn't tired.

"I'm not that taken up with deer shit, Chris," Newman said in a loud whisper.

Hood smiled. "You're in the woods, Aaron, it's good to" know a little about them."

It was late afternoon. The sun was still high but the; deep woods were dim. They had been walking for three; and a half hours.

"You okay, Janet?" Hood said.

"I'm fine," she said.

Newman smiled to himself. "She's in shape, Chris. She; runs three miles a day."

Hood nodded. Janet looked back at Newman. He; winked at her and made the double-time gesture with his; clenched fist. Ahead there were gunshots. Hood stopped" raised his right hand. They stood motionless.

"Deer maybe," Newman said.

"Out of season," Hood said.

"Christ, so am I," Newman said. "That didn't seem to" sweat them."

"Yeah, maybe. I guess they wouldn't be nervous about the game laws, would they?"

They were quiet. No more shots. No sounds. No locust hum. No birdsong. Newman could hear Janet breathing; in front of him. Her shirt below the pack was soaked with sweat, and he could smell the perspiration odor mingled with perfume and insect repellent. He liked it.

A woodpecker began to drum in the darkening trees above them. There was locust hum again. Hood motioned with his hand and they went forward behind him walking with very little noise. The forest was deep with the accumulated leaf-fall of timeless autumns, and the footing was soft. They walked carefully, watching where they walked, not stepping on dead branches.

It must have been like this, Newman thought, when the Saint Francis Indians would raid down into Maine and take prisoners back up to Canada and Rogers' Rangers would chase them. In his imagination he could sense the single file of coppery men and the long-dressed women captives with mop hats on moving in silence, the women stumbling sometimes, and behind them the lank men in fringed buckskins and loose-sleeved shirts moving grimly at the trot, carrying long rifles.

Like us, Newman thought, in pursuit.

The trail opened slightly by a small stream. Newman could smell faintly the acrid edge of gunpowder, a dim nasal memory of Korea. At the stream edge was the buff colored short body of a ground-hog. Where its head had been was a scramble of blood, bone, and tissue. They stopped. They spoke softly.

"Shot it with a big gun," Hood said.

"No season on these things," INc-wman said. "Guess you can shoot them anytime."

"Not a lot of sport to it," Hood aid.

"Why shoot a groundhog?" Janeet said.

"Cause it was there," Newman said.

"They're not choosy," Hood saiol. "Remember that."

They went on. It was nearly dark now and they went more slowly, Hood ahead, listening hard, watching closely, slowing at each trail turn.

For the last hour the trail had meandered, rising slowly. Newman could feel the rise and the added stress of it. He watched Janet carefully.

She did not seem more tired. than he was. They'd canoed and walked all day without eating. He was hungry. It wasn't an insistent hunger, he was too intent on the pursuit and the trail ahead of them to be preoccupied with hunger, but the knowledge that he'd like to eat was always a part of his consciousness.

In front of them, Hood stopped and put his hand up.

He made an exaggerated sniffing gesture with his head. Newman smelled smoke. Hood looked at him; Newman nodded. They could barely see each other now that the evening had gathered. Hood came back and stood close to Janet and Newman.

"I'd guess they're making camp for the night," he said.

"What do we do?" Janet said.

"We'll find a place to squat and then reconnoiter. If they are making camp we ought to be able to do what we came for tonight and walk out of here."

"With the rest of them chasing us," Newman said.

"Kill them all," Hood said.

"No," Newman said. "Five people, Jesus Christ."

"Aaron, this is like a war," Janet said.