Joshua Gayou - Commune - The Complete Series - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Box Set (Books 1-4)

He massaged his kidneys a bit towards the end of the act, leaning into his knuckles and yawning. When he was done, he shook around for a bit, put himself back together, turned his flashlight back on, and returned to the camp. He sat down in one of the chairs by the cold, iron-grey ashes of the fire pit, leaned into the backrest, breathed in the cold, clean excellence of the mountain air, and waited.

The others began to stir shortly after sunrise. Lum was up first, stumbling from the tent bleary-eyed with patches of hair sticking out in improbable directions, and looked around the area while George regarded him quietly.

“Them girls up yet?”

“No,” George said. “I’ve heard them giggling in there a little while, now, but I think you have time.”

Lum nodded and ducked back inside the tent. A few moments later, he stepped out and limp-shuffled over to the tree line to relieve himself. While he was gone, George leaned over and laced up his boots, sitting back up for a breather between completing the right and starting the left. Lum came back before he was done and began stabbing at the remaining clumps of char in the fire pit. Much of the leavings collapsed into a small could of white dust, but there were still a few bits of blackened material that might burn a bit more when a new fire was constructed. He laid in some fresh kindling and pulled a Bic lighter from his pocket.

“Oh, really?” George asked, smiling.

Lum shrugged. “They needed to learn, not me. ’Sides, hand drills’re a pain in the ass.” He had a healthy little fire crackling away within minutes and was setting the skillet onto a shelf of rocks running almost through the flames when the girls emerged.

They washed up and brushed their teeth after breakfast; spent some more time taking turns changing into fresh clothing within the tents. By the time Lum slung the .30-06 over his shoulder and had the girls lined up to head out, the sun had not yet been up in the sky by an hour and a half. George waved to them as they tromped out of the site. When he could no longer hear them up in the trees, he rose from his chair (marveling still at his ability to leave the cane behind), stepped carefully back to the tent, found his bag, and dug out the book he’d been working on. He settled back into the chair with a “ wumpf ,” sighed, and began to read:

…And all pass over eagerly, for here,

Divine Justice transforms and spurs them, so their dread turns wish: they yearn for what they fear…

Lum took Lizzy and Rose up into the trees, cut through a gentle cleft dividing two of the smaller peaks, and traversed the back face of the mountains ringing their campground. The grade through this area was shallow and stretched out in either direction for what appeared to be a good half-click before the trees and the natural bend of the land defeated further scrutiny. The ground cover was thick and healthy through much of their intended path, and Lum found a small game trail before too much time had passed. They set a series of snares along the points that seemed to enjoy the most traffic, some hundred feet or more up above the col, and continued on. They passed over a low saddle and ranged along a gentle mountain base for a good long while, taking their time and chatting easily among themselves.

They encountered a pile of fresh scat not long after two o’clock. They stopped and rested a while as Lum pulled out his binoculars and glassed the hillside, suspecting mule deer. He assumed a buck from the tracks leading away from the droppings; those of the front feet being clearly bigger than the hind. He looked out in the direction the tracks traveled but saw no movement. Letting the binoculars hang at his neck, he instructed the girls to remain quiet for the next little while and continued on.

They traveled another forty minutes or so before they saw him. The air currents were all wrong down in the hollow of the mountains, and he’d clearly caught wind of them; standing stock still out in the distance. Lum waved out at the girls as soon as he put eyes on the buck and they all took a knee behind the wide trunk of a whitebark pine. He faced almost directly at them, head raised straight into the sky, frozen and alert; ready to dash off at any moment.

The four of them sat motionless for what seemed like ages, waiting for some change in that frozen reality. Eventually, the buck twitched his ears and lowered his head. Moving slowly (slow as water runnin’ uphill, his mother would have said), he popped the covers on the rifle’s scope and dialed in. He put the crosshairs over the animal’s chest and waited to see if he would turn to the side. The crosshair tried to wander on him as he watched and he allowed it to do so, not wanting to spend energy in trying to hold it steady until it was required. As he watched the buck, he began to think about what would come next and how sometimes, just sometimes, hard lessons were not always required. He shook his head, sighed, and put the muzzle up.

When he turned to look back at Elizabeth and Rose, the deer bolted and disappeared off around the bend. Settling down to his ass, he lay the rifle across his legs and said, “Reckon we’ll give ’em a pass.”

Rose exhaled a long, shaky sigh while Lizzy shrugged and asked, “How come?”

“Just me to drag ’im back. That buck’s a good three-hunnerd pounds. ’Fi had the fellas with me I’d quarter ’im an’ go, but… eh. We got the food back at camp. No need to kill-uh critter if we ain’t need ’im.”

Eyebrow cocked in confusion, Rose said, “Well, it’s not like I mind it but… why’d you bring the rifle, then?”

“Wendigos,” he smiled, and the girls laughed nervously. “C’mon. We’ll wanna get back ’fore we lose our light.”

They walked on for a time in silence, picking their way carefully back along the trail that had led them out like travelers following breadcrumbs. The joke about the Wendigo had pulled Lum’s attention back to the story from the night before and to kill the silence he asked, “You’ns have any trouble noddin’ off last night?”

“I did okay,” Rose said easily.

“Took a while for me,” said Lizzy.

“Oh, yeah? I hadn’t even noticed.”

“Of course not,” Lizzy laughed. “You were snoring.”

Rose’s mouth fell open at this. She glanced back briefly at Lum, looked back at her friend, and asked, “I snore?”

“Sure, but it’s not your fault. I don’t think you have enough of a pillow. Your neck was at a funny angle. I even nudged you at one point to try and get you to stop, but you started up again when you rolled over.”

“Oh, man. I’m sorry if I kept you awake…”

“Didn’t bother me,” Lizzy shrugged. “You should hear what Jake sounds like when he sleeps; you can hear him two tents over. I only nudged you ’cause I was afraid you’d wake up with a kink in your neck.”

“You said it took a while getting’ to sleep?” Lum asked from behind them. When Lizzy nodded he said, “George didn’t scare yah, did he? Them were just stories, Lizzy—wuddn’t nothin’ to ’em.”

“No, they didn’t scare me. I guess… I guess they just made me sad, you know? Like, I know that’s dumb because they’re just stories and all but… something about the thought of him living out in the woods like that all alone. It made me feel lonely. It was crummy.”

“Reckon that was the point.”

“The point was to make the listener feel awful?” Rose scoffed. “What kind of story is that?”

“The important kind,” Lum sniffed. “You’ns need to ’member, them stories come from Injians. Now you c’n cut it any way you want—they may-a been primitives and such but they still had them some wisdom. An’ a bit-uh wisdom’ll take you a might bit further ’an smarts. I fig’re if they’s tellin’ that story to their own people, must-a been a damn good reason.”