Ray Gorham - Daunting Days of Winter

The second man pulled his wounded comrade into the ditch, and David took aim at him and fired. The man screamed and fell to the ground. The scream made it real. David pulled back from the edge and began to cry.

He’d barely retreated from the edge when a volley of gunfire erupted, and the air above him came alive – bullets spinning by, ricocheting off rocks and trees, branches falling. It was as if World War II had erupted on a Montana mountainside. David wiped his tears on his coat sleeve and crawled further from the edge, knowing the cliff protected him from the incoming fire. He climbed to his feet while trying to stifle sobs of fear and grief and ran downhill, crouching low, searching for another spot, knowing the darkness and the trees made him as safe as he could hope for.

He stopped twenty yards downhill, crawled back to the edge, and looked down. Two shots came from close to the river, the flash of light exposing the shooters’ positions, but they hit far from David, and returning fire would have just given up his new location. He focused on the militia house and saw guns sticking out of the upstairs window and a figure on the porch, crouched behind a barricade. He glanced down at the hood and saw that it was facing him. Blinking, he looked again. The hood was hanging from only one rope and had turned so that he had a square shot.

David quickly brought his gun to his shoulder, took aim, and pulled the trigger. Ring! The sound of the bullet striking the target was more welcome than anything he could ever remember hearing. He fired again. Ring! The hood slowly spun around, and David waited until just before it squared up and fired once more. Ring! Fresh tears came to his eyes and blurred his vision, but this time they were tears of relief.

Gunfire continued below, and David shrank down low to the ground, but no more bullets screamed overhead. He waited for two minutes before looking up again. Men were running towards the militia house from the direction of town. Someone shouted commands. Voices were shrill.

The figures in the ditch were shooting towards the militia house now, and David heard glass break. He could see that they were trying to work their way towards the river, but moving slowly, neither able to help the other due to their injuries.

As David watched, he saw more flashes of gunfire from the river area. The trees and bushes were thick there, and providing excellent cover. Undeterred, he took aim at a spot a rifle’s length back from the flash and pulled his trigger as fast as he could, until his weapon was empty. He released the empty magazine, jammed in another thirty rounder from his jacket, and looked back at the river. Gunfire from there had stopped, but he wasn’t sure if it was because the target had been hit or was moving, so he watched and waited.

David was starting to feel the cold again when he saw movement. A lone figure emerged from behind the trees onto the ice where the river was frozen over, dark stains marking his footprints as he attempted to reach the far bank. David shuddered as he once again shouldered his weapon and lined up the figure in his sights. He could see that the man struggled to walk, and knew that he had probably caused the man’s injury. This didn’t feel anything like a video game. This was real blood, suffering, anger, terror and guilt, all mixed together. This was more awful than anything he could imagine.

The man was halfway across the river when he suddenly turned back towards the shore he had come from, then stopped. David grabbed the binoculars that still hung from his neck and pressed them to his eyes. The right lens was broken, so he closed that eye and watched the man through one eyepiece. The man pushed at the ice in front of him with one foot, found it stable, then moved carefully ahead, repeating the process.

David knew what the man was doing. The ice on the river was thick at the shore, but the further out you got, the more the water underneath carved out thin spots. The week before, David had stepped out a few paces onto the ice to retrieve his hat that had blown off, and the creaking of the ice had sent him scrambling for the edge.

The injured man moved a little further, testing the ice as he went. From his perch, David could see that the militia was gathering at the garrison. Close to twenty people were there, and they likely weren’t aware of the person on the ice. David looked back at the man, grabbed his gun, and took aim, but it was hard to shoot now that the fear and adrenaline were gone and no one was shooting at him.

Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the man slipped and fell. He tried to rise but lost his footing once more. His movements became more frantic and uncoordinated, and David realized that the man was slipping on wet ice, ice that was thin and breaking up around him. David could see the urgency in the man’s movements, then a dark line appeared in the ice beneath him, widened, and the man’s legs dropped into the water. He clawed at the ice, frantically trying to pull himself out of the water, but each time he started to escape, more ice broke away, and he slid back down again.

The scene hypnotized David. Tears ran silently down his cheeks as the man’s arm movements became slower and slower and his life drained slowly away. Finally, after a couple of minutes, the movements stopped altogether, and the body was slowly pulled from the ice by the current, disappearing in the darkness of the river.

A heavy shudder ran through David’s body, and he noticed how really cold he was. The wind whistled in the trees and blew on his face, making him shiver violently. With the threats gone, he stood, backed away from the edge, and headed back to the trail, numbly picking his way around rocks and trees, intent on heading head back to the lookout post and the warm fire he hoped was still burning. Just as he got back to the trail, he heard footsteps moving quickly in his direction.

David quickly hid behind some rocks, certain he was going to have to face at least one more person fleeing from the militia. He readied his gun and waited as the person drew closer, then saw a dark shape run past him up the hill, breathing hard and moving fast.

“Stop!” David shouted, his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot. “Stay where you are!”

The figure stopped, raising its hands. “Seahawks!” a man shouted.

“Dad?”

“David?”

David jumped up from behind the rocks. “Dad, I’m here!” he sobbed as fear and relief hit him all at once.

Kyle ran towards David and grabbed his son in his arms. He was panting and could barely talk. “David! I was so worried,” he choked out. “I could see the shots coming from up here.” He gulped for air and pressed David’s face against his shoulder. “I should have been here for you. Are you alright?”

***

The remainder of the night and the next morning were a blur of events that Kyle shielded David from as much as possible. Because David hadn’t seen the group as it approached Deer Creek, he hadn’t been able to say for sure how many men they were looking for. Once he had explained to the militia leaders all that he had seen and done, David had been relieved of duty for the night and sent home, and recon teams had been organized and sent out to the two places where David had seen shooters, as well as along the road and up the hillside, where David’s view had been blocked.

By the time the sun was well up, the recon teams had found no evidence of other men, although without knowing exactly where and what to look for, they couldn’t be sure they hadn’t missed anything. The body of the man who had fallen through the ice on the river had been located just over a mile downstream. He only had one bullet wound, but it had done significant damage to his lower abdomen. Carol had commented that the temperature of the water, combined with a significant loss of blood, had sped up his death, and that his chance of surviving more than a couple of hours without extensive surgical repair would have been slim. The second man found by the river was dead. Of his six bullet wounds, three would have proven fatal under most circumstances.