Roman Wolfe's Adirondack Ordeal Part Three

Chapter 8

                                                                 ****

                                                                 Escape

            My alertness overwhelmed me like an overdose of a “stay awake” drug when I, once again, willed Wolf to enter my mind ─ two heads are better than one.  I could feel the blood surge into my brain and muscles, like a military, special-forces, combat unit put on maximum alert.  My mind, and Wolf’s, raced through strategies, paused, then became crystal clear, no lingering doubts concerning what to do next, just a determined, precise plan of action.  I felt a surge of strength, a strength beyond my lean, six feet two inches, one hundred eight-five-pound frame.  It was Wolf’s strength, plus the determined, action-oriented, decisive strength of a disciplined warrior, a hunter, an assassin.  As I remained submerged in Wolf’s persona, I couldn’t help but marvel at the two merged personalities that now inhabited my body.  I was thankful that, at this moment, the warrior and Wolf were inseparable partners.

            I sniffed the air.  My fur─hair─tingled at the roots and I felt a sudden urge to be on my hands and knees, like a wolf.

            “Grace,” I whispered with my lips touching her ear ─ Grace thought she detected a change in my voice and an animal smell to my breath ─ “Grace, listen. I want you to  quickly reach down my back, just inside my collar, unsnap the strap, take the knife out of the sheath and put it into my hands.  Quickly, now,” I spoke with an urgent emphasis on the word ‘quickly.’

            “The knife, Daddy?” Grace whispered in a confused sounding voice.

            “Yes, Sweetheart, my throwing knife.  You’ve seen me practice with throwing knives in the cellar.  I carry one of them inside my back collar.  No more questions.  Get it quickly and put it into my hands before anyone comes back.  The point is very sharp.  Be careful, but hurry,” I said, even more urgently.

            I leaned forward and Grace reached down the back of my neck as she thought: “I didn’t know Daddy carried a knife here.”

            I stared at the cabin door, nervously, desperately hoping that Grace could get the knife to me before anyone re-entered the cabin and caught her.

            Suddenly, and with great relief, I felt the warmth and smoothness of the metal.  The warmth of my back had made the knife feel almost hot.  The blade was smooth, hard, double-edged, as sharp as a razor and as dangerously pointed as a dagger.  It was one, long, smooth instrument of death, a poor man’s bullet.  I kept all my knives just as sharp as I had in Vietnam.  When I was in the jungle for extended periods of time, I shaved with my knives.

            The edges on throwing knifes aren’t typically sharpened because it’s the point that is of paramount importance.  But I knew that I may need to use it like a combat knife, in emergencies, so I always honed it very carefully until it was razor sharp on each edge, about three inches up from the point.

            It is extremely difficult to quickly judge distances so that the point would stick straight into an object.  More than likely, in actual combat use, the perfect distance for the spinning knife to enter point first wouldn’t exist.  In that case, the forcefully thrown blade would strike with one edge parallel to the object.  If that object was human flesh, then the razor-sharp edges would slash deeply into the flesh, although not as lethally deep as the point would have penetrated.  Although this type of wound, caused by the edge of the knife, wasn’t usually fatal, it could be a tremendous psychological blow to the victim due to the length of the wound and the amount of blood that would pour from it, especially if it severed a large, superficial vein or veins.

            “Grace,” I whispered, “I think that something bad is going to happen.  I think Lester is going to” ─

            The cabin door opened before I had a chance to finish.  Lester closed the door and whistled merrily as he casually walked to the table with his loaded 20-gauge shotgun.  He sat down and smiled smugly at Grace.  His hubris was at a peak.  He had such a cocky, arrogant, and confident smile plastered to his face that I wondered what Jake had said to him.  Wolf and I stared intently back at him, trying to divert his attention, but Lester only had eyes for Grace.

            When Lester’s eyes did shift to me, the contact was only momentary.  He looked away quickly, which was a sign of weakness, anxiety, and false confidence.  As if he knew that he had showed weakness, Lester’s arrogant smile evaporated, and his eyes started blinking rapidly, as if defending himself against Wolf’s intense glare.  Lester’s eyes then shifted to look around the room.  I could see the self-doubt wash over him like high tide over low land, his hubris dissolving, like a sugar cube in water.

            It was approximately 7:00 A.M. when Jake and Tom left the cabin.  I couldn’t see my watch, it being on my left wrist, behind my back.  But I was aware of the approximate time from having checked my watch prior to being tied up.

            Lester checked and double checked his weapon.  Either he was being extra cautious, or he didn’t know enough about shotguns to know what the hell he was doing . . . maybe both.  Of course, maybe he knew exactly what he was doing. I told myself that I shouldn’t underestimate him as he, Jake and Tom were underestimating me.  Perhaps all that clicking on and off of the trigger safety mechanism was his way of intimidating me.  And, in all honesty, I must admit that it worked.  But it was more irritating than intimidating, like Jake’s teeth sucking habit.  I guessed that this may be the Little Shit’s way of letting me know who was in charge, who had the power.

            But, looking at him closely, it was difficult to see him as the person in charge.  He looked too frail, weak, and puny, with feminine, delicate facial features, yet I could see in his eyes that he reveled in the masculine power that he was now experiencing.  His eyes were like those of a half-starved animal. I didn’t want to say half-starved wolf and Wolf knew it.  I heard his growl in my inner ear ─ who finally sights the prey that will serve as its long-sought-after dinner.  There was an intense hunger in Lester’s eyes, but not for food, and I half expected to see him drooling while he, once again, stared at Grace.  A few seconds later, he spoke.

            “They won’t be back ‘til around noon, maybe later, so we might as well get to know each other better.  What’s your name?” he said, looking at me.

            “Roman Wolfe,” I answered, laconically, wanting to tell him that kids address me as ‘Mr. Wolfe,’ but that would only make our situation worse.  Lester’s speech, grammar and pronunciation was so much better than Jake’s and Tom’s ─ he must have had more schooling, maybe even speech-therapy.

            “Roman,” Lester repeated, with a curious expression, followed by “Wolfe,” then another curious expression.  “Roman?  Like Roman soldiers?”

            “Yes.  I’m named after the capital of Italy, Rome,” I replied.

            “Funny name.  How’d yuh get it?”

            “When my parents got married, they spent their honeymoon in Rome.  They believed that I was conceived there.  So when I was born, they named me Roman, which, in Latin, means ‘a person from Rome,’” I explained.

            “An’ Wolfe?  Sounds dangerous,” Lester said, with a sarcastic twist to his lips.

            “Yeah.  Dangerous,” I replied, wanting to show him just how dangerous I could be.  “My great grandparents thought so, too.  They changed the name when they immigrated to America from Germany.  To make the name less offensive to American sensibilities, they changed their original name from Wolfanger, like an ‘angry wolf,’ to Wolfe.  It’s Wolf with an ‘e’ at the end.  I don’t know why they added the ‘e’ at the end.  It’s W-O-L-F-E,” I spelled, emphasizing the final letter “E.”

            “Wow!  Even more dangerous.  Angry wolf, huh?  Guess yuh really are a scary guy.  You ever feel like an angry wolf?” Lester asked, with furrowed brow, mocking eyes and a teasingly, sarcastic smile full of crooked, yellowish teeth.

            “You have no idea,” I answered cryptically.

            “Wow! You must be one awesome and dangerous mystery.” Lester replied, with another smile that was too insincere to reach his eyes.

            “You haven’t a clue,” I stated.

            “You said that already, Wimpy.  Oh!  Sorry.  It must be ‘Mr. Wolfe,’ with an ‘E,’ right?”

            “Yeah, kids address me as ‘Mr. Wolfe,’” I replied with unconcealed disdain ─ which was a mistake that I knew I should not have committed.

            “I’m no damn kid, Asswipe!” he yelled.

            I covered my previous mistake by saying, “I apologize.  I shouldn’t have said that.  You’re a man, not a kid.  Sorry.”

            The apology appeased his anger, thankfully, and he continued with his questions.

            “And your daughter?  What’s ‘er name?”

            “My daughter’s name is Grace,” I stated, feeling my blood getting hotter with anger.

            “Pretty girl.  Bet she’s real smart, too, huh?” Lester stated.

            I nodded my head as I replied, “Yes.”  I was barely able to keep a calm face while listening to his ludicrous attempts to be deviously sincere and genuine.

            “How old are you, Grace?” Lester asked.

            Grace looked at me as if to ask permission to respond.  I nodded to her.

            “I’ll be nine soon,” Grace said.

            Lester smiled and said as a joke, “Amazing Grace.  You any relation to her?”

            I guess he thought he was being cute and clever, but Grace didn’t smile.  She just said, “No,” then looked at me, then down at the floor.

            Lester and I stared at each other for a moment but didn’t speak ─ I tried not to show my contempt for him.  During all the previous, idle chit-chat I had been trying desperately to cut the rope with the throwing knife, but it was much more difficult than I had expected.  My wrists were bound so tightly as to prevent almost any movement and my fingers were getting numb and tingly from the poor blood circulation.  I curled my fingers and placed the knife edge on the rope, but I could hardly apply any pressure to the blade.  Indeed, it was difficult enough just trying to bend my wrists and fingers, but I was glad for the delay that Lester’s questions offered.

            Unexpectedly, Lester’s eyes sparkled with new-found confidence.  It surprised me.  His frozen stare cracked into a smile that appeared as cold as a snowman’s smile.  Then the smile melted, but his eyes remained cold, ominous, like the tip of an iceberg, warning of the unseen danger below it.  He said to Grace, “Come over here, Grace,” as he clicked on the safety button, then set the shotgun down on the table.

            “I want to stay by my daddy,” Grace said with a tremble of fear in her voice.

            “You can go right back to your daddy.  Just come here for a minute, okay?” he said, pretending to be polite, calm and friendly.

            I could feel Wolf snarling, baring his teeth, and the feeling was so real that I thought I actually felt my own lips parting and my own teeth growing pointed and elongated, canine fashion.  My heart rate soared as I frantically kept cutting at the rope.  The razor edge was making more progress now; I could feel some severed strands.  I kept cutting, but with an impatience that was hard to control.  Beads of sweat were forming under and on my arms, then they started rolling downward hitting each strand of hair they met, making me feel like insects were crawling all over my arms.  I felt sweat trickling down my spine.  My forearm muscles bunched up, my tendons grew taut and my bent wrists burned and ached, begging for relief from the cramped straining and poor circulation and the abrasions caused by the coarse rope.

            The cabin grew so quiet that I was afraid that the sound of the knife cutting the rope would be heard.  Tension was building in all of us, like a taut banjo wire stretched to its limit and ready to snap.  Lester’s face got redder and his fingers were white as they tightly gripped the edge of the table where he sat.  His teeth were clenched, and his lips were slowly separating to show his yellowish teeth as he was about to roar with impatient anger.  It was inappropriate for our situation, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking how excited a dentist would be to see the three Gibsons, with their crooked, yellowish-brown teeth, walk into his office.  In the dentist’s eyes the yellow teeth would look like gold nuggets.

            Grace moved closer to me, her fear evident in her rapid breathing and her fidgeting actions.  Her eyes caught mine, trapped them in a gaze of helplessness, but all I could do was

keep rubbing the blade against the rope and wait until it was severed.

            It’s humiliating, embarrassing, traumatic and shameful for a father not to be able to help his daughter in a moment of utterly, desperate need.  I would have screamed with rage, but it wouldn’t extricate me from my bindings, so why waste the effort.  Actually, my screaming would probably excite him even more ─ sadism and masochism working as partners within his addled brain.  My wrists and fingers burned from the exertion.  I knew that my wrists were rubbed raw and were bleeding from the abrasions caused by the tightness and coarseness of the rope.  And, yet all I could do at the moment was whisper to Grace, “Stay close to me.”

            Lester sounded like his father as he shattered the silence, causing Grace and I both to flinch.  “God damn yuh, cunt!  Get yur sweet, little ass over ‘ere now or I’ll blow yur daddy’s funkin’ head off!”  Lester stretched out the word now for exaggerated effect.  Spittle erupted from his gaping mouth.

            Grace threw her arms around my neck and the resulting jolt made the knife slip off the rope and cut my wrist.  I felt the sharp sting of it, but doubted that it was serious.  My first thought was that the blood might make my wrists and the rope slick enough for me to slip out of the binding, but that quickly turned out to be a false hope.  The rope was too tight.

            Lester picked up the shotgun, clicked off the safety button, then pointed it at Grace, then more calmly said to me, “Tell ‘er to get ‘er sweet ass over ‘ere or yer guts will become wall paper.”─ When he got mad his speech became more like his dad’s and brother’s.

            “Daddy, Daddy, please help me,” Grace cried softly as she buried her face in my neck.

            “Grace,” I said, urgently, “get on the bunk bed and crawl behind me, fast.”

            When Grace did that, Lester threatened to kill both of us.

            “I seriously doubt that,” I yelled.  “Your father will kill you if you shoot us.  He’s that kind of man and you know it.”  I sure hoped my bluff was right.  It was a damn, risky gamble.

            Then the little asshole did something that I didn’t anticipate.  He rushed over at me and slammed the butt of the gun into my head before I could try to kick him.  I was semi-conscious, but, in a few seconds, when my head cleared, Lester had Grace.

            Lester was laughing hysterically and inattentive.  It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do when I got Grace’s attention and mouthed the words, “I need more time to cut the rope.”

            I saw her tremble, then she looked at me like a child would look at a fallen, shattered, and destroyed super-hero who is no longer invulnerable.  I guess that’s what I was right then.  I was a big, brave, ruthless killer of the enemy in the jungles of Vietnam, now reduced to a helpless wimp in the forests of the Adirondack Mountains.  I felt the ultimate in disgusting shame and humiliation, as if I was volunteering my daughter for the purposes of sexual molestation.  My guts knotted, my stomach churned and I nearly vomited.  My head throbbed as if there was an ice-pick driven into it.  My rampaging guilt almost caused me to lose eye contact with Grace.  Then I heard the growl of Wolf.  It forced me to focus, and I continued, with new energy, applying pressure to the blade.  I felt more frayed, severed strands of the rope, but didn’t have good enough feeling in my fingers to know how far I’d cut into the rope.

            Grace’s sad, disappointed, almost catatonic-looking, tear-filled eyes broke from mine as she turned to look at Lester.

            With Grace standing in front of him, Lester grinned while saying, “I needs a little pussy to play with.  Know what I mean?” he stated, rhetorically.  “No?  Then I’ll be teachin’ yuh.”  Another cruel grin spread across his face like that of a man who’s holding a royal flush in a high-stakes poker game.  But it wasn’t the smile I remembered most; it was those crazed, Charlie Manson eyes, similar to black, powder-burned, bullet holes.

            I heard Grace sniffle and saw her wipe her sleeve across her runny nose.

            My fingers were working furiously, my face hot with rage as I tried to buy time by roaring, “What’s the matter, Shorty?  Are you puny and weak like you’re mommy?  You’re short and weak like your mommy instead of big and strong like your daddy and brother, aren’t you?  Is that why you hate women?  You’re too weak even to subdue normal women aren’t you, you little bastard!  That’s why little girls become easy prey for you, isn’t it? ─ I kept cutting the rope.  You feel really big and strong hurting little girls who can’t fight back, don’t you?  You’re an animal that needs killing, you son-of-a-bitch!  What do you say, Shorty?  Am I right about you being so disgustingly pathetic?  I’m right on the money, right?”

            A quiet pause as he looked at Grace.  Then, “Yeah, Asshole!” he screamed furiously, out of control, his face turned red, his arms pumping, “I am a animal.  I’m the animal that’s gonna rape yur little girlie right in front a yur big, fuckin’ eyes.  Pa says yur dead, anyway, as soon as they git back.  He’s going to let me rape her then, anyway, but I decided ta do it now.  An’ Tom, he gets to kill yuh any way he likes.  Fuck it!  Why should I be waitin’ till they git back?  I make my own decisions, not them.  So, Mr. Roman Wolfe, with a ‘e,’ while I fuck yur daughter, I’ll be happily listening ta yuh screamin’ at me.”  His voice grew more calm.  “Makes it better for me that way, yuh know?  You screaming’an’ her cryin’ and thrashing around.  It’ll all make me come sooner an’, who knows, Mr. Wimpy, I may even do it again, you know, like having a second helping of tasty dessert.  An’ for more fun, I may even blow your fuckin’ head off an’ make her lick the blood and brains off the wall.”  His exaggerated calmness was disturbingly haunting as it filled every inch of space in the cabin, like water that fills every corner of an aquarium.

            Abruptly, he began laughing like a mad man.  He continued his orders, but he was no longer calm.  He shrieked at Grace, “Come ‘ere, bitch!”  I felt a ringing in my ears like one gets with high blood pressure, or from uncontrollable rage.  My heart raced out of control; almost exploding out of my heaving chest.  I felt short of breath and started panting but didn’t stop cutting the rope.  Keep cutting, keep cutting, I told myself.

            Though I felt out of breath, my fingers were working feverishly, dragging the blade back and forth across the strands of rope.  I thought I felt many more frayed ends, but I figured that I was only about halfway through the rope.  I felt panic, as if a whale were trying to swallow me, but I kept cutting.

            I kept dragging the blade across the rope, back and forth, back and forth, as my bleeding, abraded wrists ached and my fingers danced with painful muscle spasms, causing me to almost drop the knife.  The blood flow must have stopped because I didn’t feel any sticky wetness now.

            Lester clicked on the shotgun’s safety button, leaned the shotgun against the table, then buried his fingers into Grace’s hair and dragged her closer to the table.

            “Take off all yur clothes . . . ‘cept yur panties,” he barked.  Grace’s eyes flashed with terror and for the first time I think she knew what Lester was going to do to her.  She turned her head, her terrorized eyes pleading with me for help.  I was always there to help her before.  She needed me desperately now, more than ever before, but I couldn’t move . . . not yet.  I couldn’t help her, yet.  It was terrifying for her and agony for me, as my stomach tightened up into a painful knot and my guts coiled tightly and moved about like a sack full of angry snakes.

            Tears of outrage soaked my eyes as Lester slapped Grace repeatedly while yelling, “Take off yur clothes!  Get ‘em off now, God damn it!”

            Grace turned her head away from me, slowly unzipped her coat and let it fall to the floor.  She was in shock; her movements were in slow-motion.  Her cheeks were as red as ripe strawberries from being slapped repeatedly.

            I needed a little more time ─ I could feel more and more frayed rope.  I hoped Grace would continue to undress very slowly, pause, stop, delay, give me the extra time that I desperately needed.  My vision was blurred with tears.  I sensed that Grace wasn’t really undressing slowly to give me extra time.  It was happening for another reason.  My innocent and precious little girl stood there in a state of lethargic shock and terror.  Her tears rolled down her cheeks, then off her chin like rain drops off a roof.

            My throat emitted a growl.  My teeth involuntarily snapped as if I were biting air.  My ears were so sensitive that I could actually hear each strand of rope separate as I cut through it.  I could smell my own dried blood and feel the burning heat of my abraded wrists.  It was all due to Wolf’s presence.  Wolf’s strength and fierceness were supporting me as my painfully, bloody wrists found new strength ─ I had cut myself again in my fervor to cut through the rope.  I didn’t care how badly I cut myself.  I had to free myself quickly to save Grace from Lester’s intentions.

            Wolf was emerging.  My skin itched like a bushy beard itches, my teeth ached and felt as if they had grown longer, and my muscles felt like taut springs ready to snap.  All my human senses became hyper-sensitive.

            I worked feverishly at the rope.  I felt and heard strand after strand give way faster and faster.  Sweat dripped down my forehead, burning my eyes.  I squinted and blinked rapidly to rid the salty sting, but my mind remained focused on the object of my rage.  If looks could really kill, Lester would have been dead already.

            Faster and faster I worked . . . I cut myself once more but paid no attention to the pain.  I kept cutting and cutting and felt the amount of severed rope grow larger.

            I expected Lester to tear into Grace’s clothes, to rip them from her body.  It totally surprised me when he didn’t.  He just stood there, smiling at Grace, then at me, as Grace lethargically removed her shirt, then her pants, boots and then her socks.  I thought: “Lester must frequent strip-clubs and gets erotic pleasure from clothing being slowly removed, one piece at time; bare flesh exposed, little by little, titillating and teasing.

            Lester’s extreme joy was a direct measure of the extent of his depravity.  Then I admonished myself for thinking like a dunce, then thought: “Of course he wouldn’t attempt to rip off Grace’s clothes.”  He wanted Grace and the other girls he’d raped, to feel the added humiliation that came from assisting him to rape them.  He wanted his victims to feel that they had assisted him in his act of abominable, abusive violence, by making them take off their own clothes.  That would make it seem as if they were preparing themselves for him, thus, sharing in the act of violence, which, in a sense, made them a partner to the crime against themselves and would later increase their mental anguish ten-fold.  If this was a conscious effort on Lester’s part, then he was a worse fiend than I had previously thought, and more cunning, too.  None-the-less, the fiend’s strategy would give me more time.

            Wolf’s strength doubled my own strength and now the knife was making fast progress.  I guessed that nine-tenths of the rope had been cut through, but it was hard to concentrate as I saw my innocent little girl take off her pants slowly, and then her shirt.  Lester stared at her like some vile animal ready to pounce as she stood in front of him wearing only her panties . . . and a flowing veil of tears.

            I tried to yell at Lester to distract him, but he paid no attention to me, though I heard him snicker.  His total concentration was on Grace as he soothingly said, “That’s a good girl.  You’ve done a good job helping me.  I see you have your pretty panties on, Honey.  That’s good ‘cause I wanna cut them off myself.”  After saying that, Lester slipped into a childish giggle, then waited for Grace’s reaction.

            Grace stood in front of Lester, seemingly semi-conscious, motionless and in shock, frozen in terror.

            My wrists ached so badly I could hardly move them, and my fingers had gone almost completely numb, but I thought I could feel a good-sized lump of frayed rope.  I desperately wanted to pull apart the remaining strands, but I didn’t have the strength.  I continued cutting.

            Grace now stood in front of Lester naked, except for her panties.  She turned her head to look at me.  Her lips trembled out of control as tears continued to steam steadily out of both eyes.

            I heard Lester laughing.  The rage within me made my head feel like it would explode.

            Lester looked at me and said, “Ready for the sex show, Mr. Wolfe, with an ‘e’?

            Then I heard a howl, that was so loud and anger-filled that it shook the roof; fill every corner of the cabin.  It was me screaming at Lester, begging Lester to stop, to hurt me instead, to punish me, not Grace.

            “But I am hurting you,” Lester said arrogantly as he laughed, taunting me in my helplessness.

            Grace’s eyes were begging one last time for me to save her.  She spoke almost inaudibly, “Papa.  I love you.” she said in a terrified monotone.  Then she looked away from me and entered what looked like a state of catatonic, motionless silence.  Her face showed no emotion, like the open-eyed stare of a dead person.  No more crying, no sniffling, no whimpering, just wide-open, staring eyes and stiff, immobile body . . . corpse-like.

            Lester grabbed her under the arms and lifted her onto the end of the table; her legs hanging down toward the floor.

            Lester pushed her farther back onto the table, then grabbed her ankles roughly and pushed her feet up close to her buttocks while staring between her legs.

            Lester turned toward me with a taunting smile as he undid his belt, let his pants drop to the floor and pushed down his underwear.

            I kept cutting, pulling and grunting, straining and cutting more as I howled epithets of rage and disgust at him.  I could feel that I was extremely close to cutting through the rope.  My wrists ached terribly, but I forced them to continue as I thought, “I’m too late.  I’m too late.”

            Lester’s small body made his erection look large by contrast.  It was gorged with blood and stood straight up, stiffly erect.  He held it like a trophy as he looked at me and laughed again, then turned around and stood silently before Grace.  He had small, round buttocks, milky white, like flour dough, no hair.  The long, thin slashes of white scar tissue on each of his buttocks stood out immediately, reminding me of the scars on Tom’s face.

            Lester spoke slowly, softly, and gently, as if talking to his favorite pet.  “You need to be punished, you know, ‘cause girls and women hate me, treat me bad and tease me about being short an’ weak an’ ugly.  They have always done that to me.  The girls in school, they always teased me.  Women and girls look at me with disgust, like I was some awful disease.  My mom, she made me this way, you know.  All women are cruel bitches.  So I must punish you for that.  Yur all God-damn whores, anyway, so yur only getting what you deserve.”

            He took his time, dragging out the time to increase my mental pain, before commencing with the physical pain for Grace.  The open pocketknife was on the edge of the table.  He picked it up then reached for the elastic band of Grace’s panties.  He grinned, looked directly at Grace and said, “This is yur punishment fer hurting me, Honey.  Now yuh will feel my size and strength inside of you,” he shouted.  He took his rigid, blood-gorged penis in his right hand and tipped it slightly downward, away from his stomach and toward Grace.  He stepped closer to her, saying, “Now, Honey, you’l l─”

            Lester suddenly flinched and stopped talking in mid-sentence.  He felt a slight twinge of pain, like a pinprick, on his ultra-sensitive penis.  He looked down to see the cause of the pain and saw his body’s crimson fluid spurting from the stump of his severed penis.  He dropped the pocketknife and looked at his right hand which still held the severed, bloody and flaccid remains of his manhood.

            Blood was flowing outward like a fountain from the severed stump as he stared at his blood-soaked penis.  As he lifted his penis up toward his disbelieving eyes, blood flowed from his hand, down his forearm, then dripped rapidly from his elbow as if it were a leaky faucet.  His eyes glazed over as he stared in shock at his severed penis.  Then his fingers opened slowly and he dropped his penis to the floor.  It fell into the pool of blood at his feet and splashed droplets of blood across his boots, pants and underwear.  Lester stared down at the large amount of blood slowly spreading across the floor, like spilled syrup.  He said, as if in a trance, “My prick.  What happened?”  He stared at his severed, limp, lifeless and shriveled sexual organ, which looked like a shriveled hot dog after being left too long in a microwave.  Only then did he think to turn around and see me standing there, staring at him, with my throwing knife held at his eye level.

            Grace didn’t move through the whole encounter.  She looked deaf and catatonic as she stared at the ceiling.  Thankfully, she was in a dazed stupor, leaving her unaware of whatever was going on around her ─ perhaps, she wouldn’t remember any of this awful, degrading, and humiliating experience, amnesia.  Before she closed her eyes, I saw that her pupils were dilated, unfocused; a sign of being unaware of her surroundings.

            “If you don’t want to bleed to death, you better squeeze what’s left of your penis to stop the blood flow.  You lose any more blood and you’ll pass-out, and then bleed to death,” I advised him, with a sardonic, vengeful smile.

            Lester grabbed himself and pinched off the blood flow, then started crying hysterically.  Then he screamed, “Please!  For God’s sake, please help me!  Do something!  Please help me!  I don’t want to die!  Not like this!  Please!”

            I checked to make sure the safety was on, then placed the shotgun on the bench-like seat that was built into the table, like a one-piece, outdoor picnic table.

            I looked at Lester’s pale face and said, “You’re a disgusting animal, a human monster and you got what you deserved!  It should have been done to you a long time ago.  It won’t help the girls you’ve already raped and scared for life, but you’ll never do it again, that’s for damn sure!  And you actually have the nerve to call God for help?  If there really were an omnipotent, omniscient, all-good God, mutant, human perversions like you, wouldn’t exist.  You’ll get no help from me, so beg to your mythical God and see what results you get.”

            Lester continued squeezing the stump of his penis and shuffled away from the table with very short, unsteady steps due to his pants and underwear being down around his ankles and because the lose of blood may have been making him dizzy.  He shuffled his feet, nearly stumbled, but made it to his dad’s lower bunk bed, then sat down, still clutching himself and bleeding on Jake’s bed.

            Grace was still in a trauma induced trance and not aware of her surroundings.  She had closed her eyes.  Her skin was cold and clammy.  I knew that she was in shock and that I should leave her lying down and raise her feet up to get more blood to her heart and brain, but I didn’t have the time.  We had to escape.  We had to do it immediately, so I dressed her quickly, then picked her up, and hugged her.  She moaned but I couldn’t understand her, at first.  Then she said, as if she was talking in her sleep, “Daddy.  Oh, Daddy, I love you.  Please take me home.  I want to be with Mommy.”

            I ignored Lester, who was also in a lethargic shock.  I put Grace on the picnic table seat, then put her coat on.  She didn’t move.  I told her that we must escape quickly, before Jake and Tom got back.  Then I told her not to look at Lester.  She didn’t react so I didn’t know if she understood anything that I had just said.

            What I did know was that I wouldn’t waste time helping Lester.  He was on his own.  Jake and Tom would be back soon to help him.  And helping him would delay their attempt to track us down and recapture us.  It was to our advantage to leave him as he is.  Besides, I thought, those who show no mercy, get no mercy ─ an unchristian-like stance, but then, by now, you know where I stand on that issue.

            I saw Grace move.  She turned her head and blinked her eyes as if to shake the fog out of them ─ a good sign of recovery, I hoped.  She looked past me, then suddenly screamed, “Daddy, look out!  He’s got a knife!”

            I, as Roman Wolfe, now, spun around and saw Lester approaching with my pocketknife raised over his head to stab me.  Instinct caused me to lash out with a powerful karate front kick to Lester’s groin.  He had the bleeding almost completely stopped until I kicked him solidly.  The knife in Lester’s hand immediately fell to the floor, on his knees, as he doubled over in excruciating pain, then screamed.  He slid to his knees, still moaning in pain.  I saw the bloody stain increase in size on the front of his pants, indicating that blood once again flowed steadily from his severed penis.  His upper body fell forward.  He braced himself with his hands, so now he was on all fours.  Soon he toppled over onto the floor and lost consciousness.  Neither Wolf nor I cared, though Wolf felt delighted by the sight and smell of his blood.  I picked up my pocketknife, wiped the blood off onto Lester’s pants, closed it, and placed it into my back pocket.  I was thankful that Lester had pulled up his pants before Grace saw him.

            Grace was more alert now and able to walk.  Quickly we hunted for supplies to take with us on our escape.  I told Grace to look for matches and a small metal cup or bowl.  While she was doing that, I searched the food shelves and what I found might be more valuable to us: a compass.  Now I wouldn’t have to use primitive methods of finding direction, though following the river seemed easy enough.  I found a canteen, tin cup and several containers of dental floss.  I took the canteen and cup and a few containers of dental floss to use as string.

            I still had a difficult time thinking of Jake as a dental floss kind of person.  It seemed hilariously ironic, Like Attila the Hun worrying about oral hygiene.  But I was happy to have found it because string has so many uses, especially in “survival” situations.

            Grace found a lot of match boxes, the wooden kind, with blue tips.  I told her to put two boxes on the table by the candle that I had just found.  Then we found a metal cup and bowl, some venison jerky, dried soups and several packages of what I was later to learn was called “gorp.”

            Gorp is usually a combination of pieces of hard chocolate, nuts (any kind), dried fruit (usually raisins) and grains, like cereals.  This was the stuff Jake, Tom and Lester were secretly eating as we hiked to Preston Ponds.  I learned, after our ordeal, that hiking the Adirondacks causes the human body to use two to four times as many calories as a sedentary person and, thus, a hiker needs quickly-assimilated, readily-accessible, high-energy food.  The gorp met all those criteria, plus, it tasted good.  It looked like a terrific, easy, no-preparation meal, so I grabbed ten, pre-mixed, zippered, plastic sandwich bags full of the gorp mixture.  Then, on second thought, I grabbed the remaining four bags of it, as I remembered that this was the stuff that Jake, Tom and Lester were eating, and didn’t offer us any on our long hike to this cabin.  Why, then, should I leave any for them? I thought.  Besides, if they wanted to mix some gorp to take as they followed us, it would delay them that much more.

            I placed the compass into my left shirt pocket and everything else into one of the nylon, waterproof backpacks that we used on our trip to the cabin.  The backpack reminded me of my Nam rucksack, same thing, basically, and the same purpose, just a little bigger and had a different name.

            I walked to the table, lit a candle, and tipped it so the hot wax flowed into the small cereal bowl that Grace had found.  When I had enough melted wax, I put the candle down and asked Grace, with her gloves on, to hold the bowl, with one hand, and the candle in the other.  I directed her to hold the candle flame under the bowl of melted wax in order to stop the wax from cooling and solidifying.  She looked puzzled, so I told her that by dipping the match heads into the hot wax so that the wax went past the match-heads, a little way up the wooden shaft, I could basically waterproof the matches so that wetness wouldn’t prevent them from lighting.  I did a bunch of the matches this way and put some in my pants pocket, then put the remainder inside the backpack. with the bowl and candle.

            In my desperate hurry for supplies, I made the mistake of not paying attention to Lester, after he’d toppled over unconscious.  Only Wolf’s extremely sensitive ears heard the clicking sound of Lester pushing the shotgun’s safety mechanism off and, thus, I was alerted to my nearly fatal error.  When I felt Wolf’s warning growl, I lunged and grabbed Grace, pulling her to the floor with me as the shotgun blast went over our heads.  The deer slug embedded itself into a log in the cabin wall, sending splinters sailing through the air.

            We were really lucky.  If birdshot or buckshot had been used, Lester might have gotten me ─ my body was protecting Grace.  Jake must have let Lester get his own shells and Lester chose the deer slugs over the birdshot.  At close quarters, the large, spreading pattern of the bird-shot was much better than one small slug ─ but over the short distance between Lester and I when he fired the shotgun, that pattern would have only opened to about a foot or two, still very deadly.  But Lester’s misfortune was our good luck.

            “You bastard!” he screamed as he swayed on unsteady feet.  He tried to pump another shell into the chamber, his blood-soaked hand slipping down the pump handle as if it were coated with oil.

            I was so distracted that I hadn’t been aware of him moving around after he had fainted.  What was I doing, I asked myself?  I’m being too careless.  Thank goodness for Wolf’s warning.

            I saw that Lester was very weak and very unsteady.  He rocked back and forth on his heels, trying to keep his balance.  I reached down my back shirt collar, quickly withdrew my throwing knife, gripped it’s handle firmly, then stood up quickly and cocked my right arm.  Just like Nolan Ryan, in his prime, throwing a blazing fast ball, the knife, like a silver bullet, was airborne.

            I stood frozen in place, knowing the blade would reach its destination before Lester could pump, aim and fire his shotgun again.  He didn’t see the blade coming at him due to his concentration on the shotgun.  That silver blade was a streaking javelin; a silver blur, with a vapor trail, like a comet, as it streaked across the short distance in an instant.

            The blade slammed into Lester’s upper left chest area; slightly left of the sternum.  The speed of the blade drove it about six inches into his chest cavity.  The sound of its penetration was like the sound of a spade shovel plunged into soft earth, a scraping, sandpaper kind of noise.  The blade must have hit a bone first, then slipped between the chest bones, puncturing Lester’s heart like an icepick violently driven into a basketball.

            I had a vision of what happened to Lester’s heart as the blade pierced its muscular wall, the blood erupting from the large puncture and blood flooding his chest cavity.  Lester dropped the shotgun to the floor, hitting his toes, but he felt nothing.  He wouldn’t feel anything ever again.  He looked at me for just a second, eyes wide with surprise, jaw agape, then looked down at the deadly silver sliver protruding from his chest.  I knew he was dead even as he stood there on wobbly legs.  He put his right hand around the remaining four inches of the protruding handle of the blade and somehow found the strength to pull it out.  I guess it wasn’t difficult or painful, not for a dead man.

            The blade seemed to slide out too easily, his own blood acting as a lubricant.  I heard the typical sucking sound that occurs when a blade is quickly removed from such a deep wound.  He stared at the blade as his blood dripped off the double edges, then looked at me again, momentarily, with lifeless eyes that seemed to turn black suddenly, like turning the light off in a windowless room.

            There was little blood until the blade was withdrawn from the wound.  But once the blade was pulled out, the lethal, red puncture bled profusely.  When Grace saw the blood she gagged, then vomited.  I turned her head and buried her face in my left hip.

            The front of Lester’s shirt was saturated with blood.  His eyes rolled upward, his knees both weakened, and his body crashed straight downward, like those expertly demolished tall buildings that you sometimes see on TV news reports.  Even billowing dust from the floor rose up in a cloud from the downward crash of his body, much like the dust and dirt billowing out from under a demolished building.

            He lay chest down, his right cheek pressed against the dirt floor.  His eyes remained open, seemingly staring at the shriveled remains of his blood-stained penis which lay only a couple of feet in front of his deathly gaze.  A fitting end for the “cock-sucker,” I thought.  I told Grace not to look, walked over to Lester’s bunk to remove his blanket, kicked the severed penis toward Lester ─ it struck him in the face ─very poetic ─ then I covered his body, and penis, with the blanket.

            I sat Grace at the table, facing away from the body.  Then I concentrated on preparing for our long journey to escape Jake and Tom.  I’d wasted too much time already.  I grabbed Lester’s sleeping bag and our two wool blankets, rolled them tightly and strapped them to the top of my backpack with the straps that were provided.  I loaded everything else into the backpack.  With my blade I shredded Tom’s and Jake’s blankets, sleeping bags and backpacks.  I threw the extra boxes of wooden matches into the fire and watched them flare up.  Jake and Tom would follow us, of course, but not very comfortably.  I would have taken an extra sleeping bag, but it was added weight.  I didn’t want to carry it in my hand.  One hand would hold Lester’s shotgun and the other hand would be holding onto Grace.  The backpack straps were too short to accommodate the extra sleeping bag, anyway, so we would have to make do with the one sleeping bag and two blankets.  I didn’t want to burden Grace with something to carry.

            Grace was whimpering, with her head down on the table and her arms wrapped around her head, like a child playing a game called “seven-up.”

            She’s such a sensitive girl, I thought.  I wondered if the pain would ever heal for her.  I wanted to comfort her, but we had to move quickly.  It was nearly 9:00 A.M.  We could be three or four hours ahead of Jake and Tom by the time they arrived back at the cabin and found Lester, that is, if they hadn’t heard the shot from Lester’s shotgun and didn‘t come back sooner.  But I seriously doubted that they would have heard the shot, the blast being mostly contained within the cabin, with logs and snow acting as excellent insulation, providing sound-proofing, plus there were no windows that would let sound escape.

            I picked up Lester’s shotgun and placed it on the table with the backpack.  The shotgun made me think of the rifles.  They were locked-up on the wall gun rack.  My thoughts raced back to Nam and images of men with their heads nearly blown off their necks by enemy sniper-fire sped through my mind like film running at fast-forward speed.

            I heard myself mumble, “They won’t get a chance to pick us off at long range, not with these rifles.”  I walked to the fireplace and picked up the wood-splitting sledge hammer, then walked to the gun rack and smashed the sledge-hammer into each rifle barrel so that the barrels were each bent at angles that made them useless.  I smashed the scopes, too.  It was a shame to destroy such excellent tools but doing so meant a greater chance for our survival, so it was necessary.

            I told Grace to stay close to me as I quickly went outside to look for where Jake had hidden their cache of rifle and shotgun ammunition.  I believed that they were in the well-constructed, padlocked wooden box next to the wood pile that was stacked up against the cabin.  I went into the house, got the sledgehammer, came back out to the box and smashed the lock off the box.  I took some of Lester’s 20-gauge shot shells and slug shells and placed them into my coat pockets.  Then I picked up the wooden ammo box.  It seemed light, must be the adrenaline in me, I thought, or I was still operating on the combined strength of Wolf and me.  I carried the box to the nearby pond, set it on the shore, pushed it into the water, where it floated temporarily, then with a long, dead branch that lay nearby, I pushed it as far as I could into the pond.  It floated towards the center of the pond and slowly filled with water and sank.  Now Jake’s and Tom’s shotguns would only have the shotgun shells and/or slugs that they brought with them.  That knowledge made me feel good, but certainly not comfortable.  It would only take two shotgun shells or shotgun slugs to kill us, if they got close.  I also knew that Jake and Tom would be excellent marksmen with shotguns and with rifles.  Luckily, they didn’t bring their rifles with them, just their shotguns.  The rifles were now inoperable, which meant that the rifle ammunition was also useless, so I didn’t bother throwing it into the lake.  Now, with their shotguns, they’d have to get close, and to get close they’d have to catch up to us.  I thought I heard a pleasing growl from Wolf when I mentioned the word close.

            I used the sledgehammer to break a hole into their rowboat then pushed it out into the pond, also.  It went out farther than the box and sank.  Now, if Jake and Tom wanted to try to retrieve the wet bullets, they’d have to wade out into freezing water to get to the ammunition storage box.  I walked back to the cabin with Grace in tow.

            I would have burned down the whole cabin if it wouldn’t have been a signal for the two Gibsons to hurry back to see what caused the smoke.  The blaze might have attracted attention and sped up our rescue, but it was too risky, and I decided against it.

            I looked at the ground, spotted a smooth gray, flat rock about the size of a silver dollar.  I pick it up, brushed it off and placed it into my back pocket.  It would remain warm and dry there until I needed it to strike a match on, then start a fire, if I felt it was safe for us to have a fire.

            I put the backpack on, grabbed the shotgun and told Grace that we had to go . . . fast.  I hugged and kissed her moist, cold cheek and told her that Jake and Tom would kill us if they caught up to us, so we’d have to travel real fast, especially now that we wouldn’t have the extra time that we would’ve had if Jake and Tom had to delay chasing us in order to help Lester.  I also told her it would be difficult for the both of us, but especially her, and that she had to try real hard to keep moving so we could get home to Mommy.

            As I mentioned the word Mommy her eyes dried and sparkled, and her lips bent at the corners into a faint smile.  We both thought of her Mom for a second.  We both needed her and loved her very much.

            We ran.  As we ran away from the cabin, through the thick forest, I wondered if the cops had found the Annie button and Jake’s Raquette Lake cabin.

            I let the thoughts of a quick rescue evaporate from my mind, but one mental vision remained.  It was a full body, clear mental image of Sam facing me with both her hands outstretched, palms-up and her fingers beckoning Grace and I to come to her.  Tears were running down Sam’s cheeks and her lips were moving, as if speaking, but I heard nothing.  I concentrated on her lips as the blurred images of trees floated past my head and shoulders.  I remembered how soft, delicate and sweet Sam’s lips were to kiss.  In the vision, her lips were still moving.  I tried, again, to read their movements.  They seemed to be pleading for me ─ or was it Wolf, or both of us ─ to save Grace and myself, and to get home quickly and safely.

            I had a strange feeling about that because, although she was aware of my feeling about the Wolf inside me, Sam rarely referred to Wolf, and never spoke to or about Wolf, like I did.  Wolf was a part of Nam, a very cruel and vicious part of me that she knew about but refused to accept and didn’t want to talk about.  With time, she probably thought Wolf would go away, vanish, like a ghost in a snowstorm.  She believed that my visits to the doctor would eventually rid me of that defect that had aided me to survive in Nam.  I thought that she was wrong but didn’t say so.

            The vision persisted as I ran.  I thought I could see her lips making a kissing, circular shape, like the lip movement that it would take to say the initial sound of the word Wolf.  Was this just my imagination?  The thought shocked me as I ran hand-in-hand with Grace through the naked trees, over the autumn carpet of multi-color leaves, on this somewhat overcast and chilly day.  And, strangely, I had the feeling that I was running through an area of the Nam jungle that was bare due to the defoliating effects of the Agent Orange chemical, instead of running through the bare hardwood and evergreen forest in this section of the Adirondack mountains.

            Again, I wondered if I was mistaken about what I thought the mental image of Sam was saying.  Then Wolf spoke to me, referring to Sam, and said, “No.  You’re not wrong, Roman.  Sam needs me now, too.  I have waited a long time for her to accept me and I’ll do as she asks.”  Then the warmth from Wolf’s smile comforted me like sipping blackberry brandy by the fireplace on a very cold and snowy winter night.

            We ran.

                                    /-/- - -/-./-.- -/..-./.-././-./-.-./…./../…/--./.-././.-/-/

                                                            Chapter 9

                                                                 ****

                                                          Running Wolfe

            Sometimes I pulled on Grace’s mittened hand because she couldn’t keep up with me.  I felt bad about tugging on her, but I had no choice.  We were literally running for our lives.  I had to push myself to keep going, but I was used to that.  What I wasn’t used to is forcing an eight-year-old girl, whom I loved dearly, to keep going in spite of her exhaustion.

            We were slowly jogging in a southwesterly direction.  I knew, from the position of the sun and my general knowledge of New York State geography, that we had to have traveled in a northeasterly direction to get from Chemung to the Adirondacks.  When we left Raquette Lake, the sun also told me that we constantly went in a northeasterly direction all the way to Preston Ponds.  Therefore, I know that we had to travel in the opposite direction, which, of course, was southwesterly.  The compass confirmed my reasoning.

            Grace tripped over an exposed tree root and fell down hard when her hand slipped out of mine.  I was aware of her labored breathing, as well as my own.  I certainly wasn’t in as good shape as I had been in Nam, so after I helped Grace up from the ground, we stopped jogging and walked at a fast pace so she could catch her breath.  I couldn’t push her anymore.  She was too exhausted and weak.  She tripped easily because her legs were wobbly from over-stressed muscles.  When the sun was high in the sky, I planned to stop for a few minutes to rest and to eat some gorp.  Grace was so exhausted she almost refused to eat until I convinced her that she’d get worse, much more quickly, if she didn’t eat and get the energy that her muscles needed to be able to continue on our long journey.

            Nagging doubts pierced me, like poisonous darts.  Would I really be able to save us?  Were Wolf and I really as good at survival as I had remembered, or were my memories just a lot of pumped-up hot air, imagination, exaggeration, and egotistical self-deception?

            We sat on a “blowdown” until our hearts stopped racing.  I rested the shotgun against the fallen tree and took off my backpack.  My neck and shoulder muscles ached from the weight of the backpack, just as they had in Nam.  Each of us drank from the canteen and swallowed hard, gasping for air after each long swallow.  We rolled our tongues around inside our dry mouths to spread the cool, refreshing moisture.  We drank most of the water in the canteen in order to stay hydrated.

            Dry mouth wasn’t a good sign because a person in good shape can breath through his nose, even when fatigued.  But an out-of-shape person has to open his mouth to breath so he can suck, into his lungs, as much air as possible.  That kind of fatigued, exhausted breathing dried out the mouth, leaving it as dry as desert sand, and feeling much like sandpaper.

            Grace had a hard time, of course, keeping up the pace, even with fast walking.  I had to slow my pace for her.  With the backpack sapping extra strength from me, I couldn’t carry Grace very far without being totally exhausted myself.  I couldn’t let that happen; I needed to act and think clearly, so I needed to avoid total exhaustion.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t risk trying to carry Grace, not right now, anyway.

            The gorp helped increase the saliva flow enough to keep our mouths moist.  And the gorp wasn’t only a high energy food, it also had excellent flavor, sweet like eating a candy bar.  The mixture of nuts, chocolate chips, raisins and grains (in the form of an oat breakfast cereal) blended wonderfully, making it very tasty, providing quick energy and activating the mouth’s salivary glands.  I’d never had it before, although it looked a lot like the stuff that my elementary school used to serve in tiny cups to the children.  It was a delightful surprise to my palate, and I was glad that I had taken all the remaining bags of it so that Jake and Tom would be deprived of its convenience and energy content.

            We were desperate, running for our lives and burning a lot of calories.  The gorp would help us replenish those calories so we could continue as rapidly as possible.

            Moving through the thick forest with exposed roots and fallen branches to trip over, bushes to snag our clothing, fallen trees to climb over, or go around, and low branches to duck under, all tended to make traveling through this Adirondack forest a difficult task, especially with a full backpack and no established path to follow.  Thus, we were forced to take a serpentine route, constantly dodging around trees, exposed tree roots, bushes and boulders.

            Grace’s face was taking on a haggard appearance, although she was trying to be brave.  She said, “We can’t rest for very long, can we Daddy?”  Her breath was coming out in ragged gushes as she looked at me with a forced and labored smile.

            “No, Sweetheart, we can’t,” I said.  “Only about five or ten minutes.”  I gave her a hug, kissed her and told her that I loved her.  It didn’t re-invigorate her, but she said that her legs felt better after I massaged them to relieve her muscle stress.  As I massaged and Grace rested, I thought of the Marine survival reminder: IAO (Improvise, Adapt, Overcome).  I would do my best to IAO.

            My thoughts drifted.  I was her paladin against the gargoyle faces of evil that were almost certainly tracking us by now.  I could feel the turmoil of a battle going on inside of me.  I was fighting the tendency to become as skeptical of my and Wolf’s survival abilities as I was towards religion.  It’s times like these that religious blind-faith and thoughtful skepticism are put to their true test.  It’s severely tragic, heartbreaking, helpless times like these that can turn atheists to prayers.  But blind-faith never had a rational appeal for me, and any shred of uncertainty, that religious blind-faith was valid, was forced out of me long before Nam.  Blind-faith was just that, blind, but I chose the see, to think rationally and not believe in glorified illusions, superstitions and spiritual fantasies originating from voluntary self-deceptions ─ the intellectual dishonesty and deception involved with maintaining a unreasoned belief in a God has to be huge.  That reminds me of something that both Mark Twain and Will Rodgers once said.  It’s not an exact quote, but they both said something to the effect that: It’s not what you know that hurts you, it’s what you think you know that just ain’t so.

            It’s like a child’s blind, unreasoned faith that there is actually a real person who makes toys all year long, at the North Pole, then once a year he flies in his sleigh, that’s pulled by reindeer, so he can force his fat body down narrow chimneys to leave toys for all “good” children.  And Santa does this for billions of children over the entire world, during the few hours of the darkness of just one night.  The child accepts all this with blind faith because he knows that his parents wouldn’t lie to him.  After all, why shouldn’t the child totally accept and believe this fantasy?  Isn’t it his trusted parents that always emphasize to him that being honest is extremely important to them?  Now take that child’s blind-faith, that this fantasy is absolutely true, and transpose it with the Santa Claus myth and you’ll have the adult version of a child’s, unreasoned, illogical, blind-faith, where Santa is now God and this adult version of Santa can do many more miraculous things than Santa.  So most adults also believe in Santa Claus, only they changed the name to God and accept the myth with blind-faith that’s unquestioned and unquestionable, unreasonable and the result of grossly false logic ─ isn’t it a “devilish” coincidence that the letters in the word “Santa,” when rearranged, spell “Satan?”

            Basically, I thought, what will save us is my actions, my rational thoughts and ideas, my skills, my survival tenacity, and, perhaps, some luck.  But depending on unsupported blind-faith, a God delusion, with faulty reasoning, myth and fantasy, will get us killed.

            And, if there was a Christian God, I surmised, He has always been extremely hard on the poor ─ Napoleon stated that, “Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich ─ hard on the sick, hard on the mentally ill, hard on the police, hard on firemen, hard on soldiers, hard on parents and teachers.  Damn! might just as well say He’s a “hard-on.”  Blasphemous!  I smiled, then the word “Jesus” popped into my mind and immediately, I asked myself, “If Jesus is supposed to be Jewish, then how come he has a Mexican name?”  Sacrilegious?  Of course not.  How does one commit sacrilege against a institutionalized and cultural myth?  You can’t do that any more than you can commit sacrilege against Mickey Mouse.

            Also, when I hear someone get excited or angry and state, “Jesus H. Christ!” I wonder, What’s the “H.” stand for?  Does it stand for “Homophobic?”

            I refocused.  I must admit that it did worry me that my confidence seemed to be sinking in the quicksand of my own fatigue and self-doubts.  That feeling weakened me in the sense that it put a strain on my decisions, yet, at the same time, that same feeling strengthened me because I felt that I was being honest with myself, and that, like in Nam, I could overcome the doubts and fears that haunted my thoughts and sapped my self-confidence.  In the distant, primitive parts of my mind I felt that if I kept pushing, if I kept trying, if I never gave up, then, as in Nam, Grace and I would triumph over all the odds that were mounting against our survival and rescue.  So, mentally, I moved on with a feeling of new-found strength.

            Grace lifted her head from my shoulder, looked at me with a stern and saddened expression ─ her lips were slightly parted, and her breathing was almost normal.  Grace looked down at her hands in her lap.  She paused before she spoke, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to say what she was thinking.  But then she looked back up, directly into my eyes, and said, “Daddy, will you have to go to jail for killing that mean man?”

            We looked deeply into each other’s eyes ─ I hoped that she didn’t see the ominous shadows that inhabited a dark portion of my mind.  Her eyes were filling with tears.  The tears continued, settled on her puffy, lower eyelid, then tumbled onto her cheek, leaving a trail of moisture on her dry, dirty skin.

            I tried to be honest, yet hopeful, with her.  “No, Grace, I won’t have to go to jail because the law says that a person can kill another person if the other person is trying to kill him, or a member of his family.”  I tried to keep it simple.

            I hoped I was correct, but I wasn’t sure because I didn’t have as much faith in the law as I used to have.  It seemed that, now-a-days, the laws were set up to protect the guilty and hinder the innocent from obtaining a full measure of justice.  There were too many miscarriages of justice, too many technicalities allowing criminals back onto the streets, and just too much crime that “the law” couldn’t deal with.  But, to hell with that, I thought, right now I just needed to reassure Grace; to give her confidence and hope.  I would worry about the law after we were safely reunited with Grace’s mom and grandparents.

            “Are you going to try to kill those other men, Daddy?  If they catch up to us?” Grace said as fear and pain rolled from her eyes as if they were riding on each teardrop that now streamed down both of her cheeks.

            I wanted to say, “Damn right I’ll kill those bastards!” but that wouldn’t calm Grace and I needed to think of her needs right now, not my anger.  I replied, “If they catch us, Grace, they will kill us.”  I paused.  I forced myself to look in her eyes and not turn away from her gaze.  I owed her my honesty, even if it was the cruel truth.  I wondered about my own strength and I doubted my ability, again.  Would my own daughter see me as a killer?  Would she ever forgive me or love me again, if she witnessed me killing two more men?  Would she be afraid of me?  I feared the lose of her love.  Then Wolf growled in my head, a growl of encouragement.

            I wasn’t the same man that I was in Nam, that night-stalking killer of the enemy.  I tried to forget those days ─ mostly the nights.  I tried to resolve the nightmarish guilt with logic.  I killed because it was my duty to do so for my country.  It seemed like a good idea to do it for self-preservation, also.

            Plenty of times, in Nam, I heard guys whispering to one another about how dangerous I was.  It was flattering at first, but grew stale, boring and irritating after a short time.  What makes a man dangerous?  Is it an expert knowledge of a mixture of martial arts styles?  An expert with certain lethal weapons?  Large muscles and stature?  A cold heart that’s insulated by a lack of conscience.  Rage, anger, revenge, or vengeance?  You take one or more of those traits and give them to a man who’s a little crazy and not afraid to die, or a man that doesn’t care if he dies, or a man who wants to die, then you have a dangerous man, a very dangerous man and, perhaps, the ultimate dangerous man.  I shook my head to clear the bullshit out of it.  I didn’t know what brought me to those thoughts.  I just needed to refocus and stop thinking of Nam.

            After Nam, I tried not to be physically aggressive, and I tried not to use my karate combat skills ─ but I kept my knives close, like best friends.  Everything had worked nicely until our abduction.  Fate?  To me, fate has a subtle and insidious religious connotation.  Was our abduction fated to happen, like a predetermined even in our lives?  If so, then who would schedule our fate, then make sure it occurred when and where it was predetermined to happen?  If there was such a thing as fate, then who was the master of our fate, the master planner?  God?  So, if no God, then no fate, then no fated abduction.  The abduction was just a highly unlikely, random event that settled on our lives like the marble that falls into any one of the spinning black or red numbers that are on a casino’s roulette table.

            I decided to rest for five more minutes.  My mind drifted to my view of the core of religious faith: intellectual dishonesty.  It had already been proven to me that I was lied to about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and many other adult perpetuated religious, semi-religious, or just mundane untruths, as well as grandly exaggerated fantasies, myths and legends, so why not lie about the ultimate fantasy, religion?  What I had the hardest time figuring out ─ and still do ─ is why adults, with all their maturely developed, rational powers intact, still believe in the God fantasy.  In everyday life, if they are skeptical about something, they’ll argue about it and ask for proof in order to convince them.  However, they appear to be afraid of being skeptical about their parent’s religion which usually becomes theirs and don’t dare ask for proof, don’t even need proof ─ what’s good enough for mom and dad is good enough for them.  All of a sudden religious heritage and blind faith are good enough for them, no questions asked.  Maybe it’s because, if they didn’t accept their parent’s religion, they have to think of their parents as silly liars.

            When I was a child, I found it difficult to think while in church.  Years later I thought I had the answer.  How can a skeptic, a thinker, be analytical and use deductive reasoning skills in such a climate?  To be religious, one has to enter a church willing to accept “blind-faith” in fantasies and be willing to temporarily suspend their ability to reason and be logical.

            As I was growing up, I was occasionally dragged off to church.  There I heard priests spout many ridiculous superstitious, as well as unproved opinions and childish platitudes.  It made me wonder just how useful are priests, preachers, reverends, and ministers?  Can they really do more than lay people?  Sorry, sometimes my mind slips into a George Carlin mode.

            I remember being punished after one fervent priestly sermon when Father Dacy said that the Pope didn’t think that using surrogate mothers to have children for someone else, was appropriate.  The crowded pews should have been a cacophony of laughter.  Exactly how did Father Dacy think that Jesus was said to have been born?  Didn’t he know that, supposedly, the Virgin Mary was the surrogate mother of Jesus?  Laughter was mandated by Father Dacy’s unreasoned foolishness ─ I was the only one to laugh.  The laughter was worth the punishment.

            Even as a pre-adolescent, with immature reasoning skills, much of what I heard in church, or during religious conversations by grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors, had a loud and false ring to it.  One gem that comes to me now is: God won’t give you more than you can successfully deal with.  But my addendum to that is: Unless you die of something that you can’t deal with.  What’s my proof?  Just listen to your neighbors, friends, relatives; read the newspaper, and magazines, listen to the TV and radio.  There you’ll hear, read or see stories about millions of people who experience unimaginable tragedy and death.  Do you suppose those people were given much more than they could deal with?  Of course, they were, and inane religious platitudes won’t, and didn’t, help or save them.

            Damn it!  I’m wandering and shouldn’t be, I chastised myself.  I should put all that stuff out of my mind now and focus on Grace.  Grace is what mattered beyond all else.  She must survive to be with her mom, grandparents, other relatives and friends.  I’d die before I’d let those two remaining Gibsons lay a hand on her.  My death didn’t matter to me.  It hadn’t for a long time.  It’s Grace who mattered most.  Her welfare was of utmost importance to me.  I must get Grace back to her mother . . . at all costs, even if that cost meant sacrificing my life.  But, like I said, I’m OK with that.

            I looked at Grace and, for a moment, didn’t know what to say to her.  She was so utterly precious to me; a product of the mixture of her mother’s genes and mine, our parental gold mine and treasure chest.  How do I tell my own sweet, innocent flesh and blood that, in addition to being an atheist, I was a highly skilled and highly feared killer in a war and that I would, once again, assume that role of an assassin.  And once back into that persona, there would be no hesitation and certainly no guilt associated with it, not when the killing was done to protect Grace.  Wolf and I would blend, like in Nam, and a killer instinct would become paramount in my actions towards any enemy who tried to hurt my precious daughter in any way, at any time.

            Grace was patiently waiting for my response.  I could feel the words burn as they flowed over my tongue and lips like acid-water.  What I was thinking was, “Sometimes, the right and best thing to do is to kill your enemy, if you believe that you have no other choice.  And, if your enemy follows the rule of ‘kill-or-be-killed,’ then, to survive, you must also kill-or-be-killed.  You must be more lethal than your enemy, with your weapon and your mind.”  Then I thought that, perhaps that would be too vague or too harsh for an eight-year-old.  So I looked at Grace, spoke softly and bluntly as I stated, “Yes, Grace, if I have to kill them in order to save our lives, that’s what I’ll do.”  Grace didn’t reply.  She lowered her head and I could no longer see her expression.  She didn’t give me a hint of what she was thinking, but a lowered head was not a happy head, except in church.

            I was still hot and sweating under my coat.  When I inquired if Grace was too hot, she said that she was.  We unzipped our outer clothing to let the excess heat and moisture out.  When I thought of the moisture, I realized that we needed to replenish the moisture in our bodies.  I suggested that we get water from the Cold River.  We walked to the shore and I filled our canteen, then we drank our fill.  I refilled the canteen.

            I told Grace that we had to get moving, that we couldn’t afford to sit and chat any longer ─ our ten-minute rest period had already stretched to fifteen minutes.  But I still needed to say something else to Grace.  I said, “If the time comes for me to fight those men, will you promise me that you will close your eyes, or look away and not watch what’s happening.  Would you please promise me that?” What father wants his child to see how brutal and savage he can really be; to see what lies dormant under the façade of a civilized, educated maturity.

            “Why do you want me to do that, Daddy?  Maybe I can help you.”

            “If I get hurt”─ I didn’t want to say ‘killed’ because that would scare her ─ “I don’t want you to see it happen and if I hurt those men, I don’t want you to watch me do it.  You saw too much already, back at the cabin.  There’ll be blood and I know how much the sight of blood upsets you.”

            “They’re bad men.  I want to see you beat them up.  Punch them hard, Daddy.”

            Grace spoke with unusually intense anger and that surprised me because she was normally very gentle and very sensitive to other people’s needs and problems.  I kept my voice calm.  “Yes, they’re bad men, Sweetheart, and they should be punished.  And I wish I didn’t have to try to kill them.  But if you see them die, you may never be able to forget their faces and that memory will always be scary for you.  More importantly, Grace, I don’t want you to see me do it.  I don’t want you to see the beast in me.  I’m positive that it would be an ugly sight; a sight I don’t want you to see or remember.”  The word beast settled on my lips and, like a heavy anchor pulling downward, I could feel my lower jaw falling until I had an open-mouthed, surprised look on my face.  Then I closed my mouth, and before Grace had a chance to talk I had this strange feeling that I had used too strong a word to describe Wolf and our unique interactions.  In my thoughts, I apologized to Wolf.

            I stood and stated, “Come, Grace.  We have to get moving.”  I reached out for her hand, she took it and I pulled her to her feet.

            “What’s the beast in you?” she asked, to my apprehension and shame.

            As we walked quickly, I responded.  “A beast is something like a fierce, violent and dangerous animal.  A beast is like a difficult to control monster that likes to fight, to injure, to kill, to shed blood.  Sometimes, Sweetheart, I think that there’s one locked up inside of me” ─ a growling noise filled my ears as if I had insulted Wolf, again.  Then I added, “But it doesn’t have to be a bad thing, if a person can control that violence and fierceness that’s inside of him.  There’s a wildness, a fierceness inside of me that helps me survive, keeps me alive, like it did in the war.  It’s a savage feeling I don’t let loose unless I’m in a fight or protecting people I love.  It’s a feeling that I call ‘Wolf’ simply because, when I feel that wildness, that violence that’s ready to explode out of me, I see a white wolf.  To me, it’s a real wolf; a friend, not just a silly, powerless vision.  Those savage feelings that I get make me feel that, somehow, I have a wolf’s spirit in me.  I don’t want you to see me fight those men because then you’ll see that beast, that wolf in me, and it might make you think of your daddy as a beast; a killer, someone whose a brutal savage.  I don’t want you to ever be afraid of me, Grace.  I would never hurt you.  Do you understand?”

            “Yeah.  I guess so,” she said, but she was distracted and stumbled over a fallen tree branch, hands first.  I grabbed her arm and pulled her back upright, then wiped the dirt and decaying leaves off her palms.

            “Can you jog for awhile?” I asked.  “We need to get as far away from the cabin as we can.”

            “Okay,” she stated, reluctantly, though she seemed to understand the importance of my request.

            After a few minutes of jogging, I could hear Grace’s labored breathing.  I said, “Grace, when the fight comes, and I hope it doesn’t, you’ll see me change suddenly.  I may not look or sound or act like your daddy, you know, like what you’re used to seeing.  That’s when that wolf feeling will take charge and I’ll sound, look and act fierce.  But please remember, Wolf would never hurt you any more than I would hurt you.

            “You never told me scary stuff like this before, Daddy.  Does Mommy know?”

            “Yeah, Grace, she knows,” I said with a note of sadness in my voice.

            “The thing inside of you is called Wolf and our last name is Wolfe?” Grace stated through her increasingly labored breathing.

            “Yeah.  There’s always been that “name” connection.  But the war was what really started me thinking about my connection with a wolf.  It happened in the Vietnam War.  I killed a lot of enemy soldiers there, Grace.  And that fierce feeling that I got when I silently snuck up on them just appeared and it felt to me like a wolf.  I kept getting images of a wolf.  When I snuck out at night, I felt like a wolf; I seemed to have the strong senses of a wolf.  A vision of a wolf was constantly in the back of my mind.  It usually appears, but not always, as a white wolf, a pale wolf.  In the bible, there’s a part where a pale horse represents Death because the rider is Death.  The pale wolf that I see, and feel is more like a symbol for a partnership in Death.  And Grace, I don’t mean the fun of killing, or criminal and gang types of killing.  It’s killing for your country, killing to survive or to protect other people─”

            Grace interrupted to ask me, “How come we don’t have a bible at home?”

            The question surprised me.  My mind went blank.  “Well,” I started, “it’s not an important book to me, but if your mom or you want a bible in the house, it’s ok with me.  You should talk to your mom about it if you want to.”

            “Ok,” she replied, then, “Sorry I interrupted you.  You were talking about a feeling that reminded you of a wolf.”

            “Yeah.  OK.  So, it didn’t take long for me to give that wolf a name, though.  My last name is Wolfe and the feeling and image reminded me of a wolf, so I called the pale wolf, Wolf.  Just about everyone in Nam called me ‘Wolf,’ too

            I’m trying to control Wolf’s feelings, so I don’t hurt anyone unnecessarily or unlawfully.  The doctor I’ve been seeing is helping me with my strong feelings of guilt, sadness, and depression, especially the depression.  But even though I’ve told you all this, I think it will still be very scary to see me fighting those two men . . . if it comes to that.  That’s why I want you to promise me that you won’t watch, okay?”

            “Okay.  I’ll try, Daddy,” she said, hurriedly, then gasped for breath and said, “Can we walk now?  I can hardly breathe.”

            “Sure, Grace.”  We slowed to a walk so Grace could catch her breath.

            After a minute of heavy breathing, Grace stated, “What’s depression?”

            I didn’t want to go into this kind of stuff with her, but I was stuck.  It was best to be truthful with her.  “It’s a sad feeling, Grace.  Not ordinary sadness, but great sadness where a person feels unneeded, useless and a better life seems hopeless.  Some depressed people have thoughts of suicide and some actually do kill themselves.”

            “How could you feel like that when you have Mommy and me?”

            “I don’t know, Grace.  When I’m very depressed, very sad, I don’t get to pick and choose how I feel.  I don’t get to choose to be reasonable, or fair or smart.  I don’t get to choose to feel that I can be hopeful, or that I’m a good person.  I only get to feel what the depression brings to me, how it makes me feel and think.”

            “I hope the doctor can fix it, Daddy.”

            “He will, Grace.” ─ Well, that was a ‘hopeful’ comment.

            I picked up our pace so that we were walking quickly . . . as quickly as one can walk on a tree studded, rough, serpentine route that was more like a skiing slalom race where the racers have to ski between poles (trees) stuck into the snow and do it at top speed.

            “Is that wolf, the part of you that fights, protecting me and Mommy, too?”  Grace smiled up at me as she said that, her eyes searching into mine.  She seemed at that moment so much smarter than her eight years.  I was proud of her.  She was my gift to the world.  She was so much like her mother.  She was a gift that I wouldn’t allow to be harmed . . . not while there was life in my body.

            “Yes,” I responded, “Wolf as a protector.  But my Wolf has human characteristics, too, like being able to communicate his thoughts to me, just as I can pass my thoughts to him without talking.  My inner Wolf has some human qualities.”

            “How can that be?” she said.

            “Well . . . Wolf lives in my mind, and that’s just the way he exists for me.  There’s a special word for something like Wolf.  The word is anthropomorphic.  It means to give human qualities or characteristics to a living thing that’s not human.  That’s the way Wolf exists within my mind.  He’s anthropomorphic.  You understand?

            “A little, I guess.  Sounds kind of crazy though,” she said, then smiled up at me.

            “Yeah.  It is kind of crazy.  I’ll admit that.”  We both laughed.

            “Does Wolf ever come out?  You know, like so he can be seen by other people?”

            “Rarely, but yes, sometimes that happens . . . ah, but I don’t know how it happens; I can’t explain it.”

            “If Wolf protects people, then Wolf can’t be bad, right, Daddy?  He’s our friend.  He must be your closest friend, since he lives in your head.”  Grace giggled, then said, “Get it, Daddy?  Lives inside of you so he’s your closest friend.”  The giggles continued through her raspy breathing.  I joined her in more laughter.

            “You’re just too funny, kiddo.  But Wolf is also like an advisor as well as a protector.  He can be bad to other people while being good to us.  What I mean is, he can hurt or advise me to hurt other people in order to protect myself, or to protect other people.  So, I guess I’d have to  say that Wolf is both good and bad, just as most people are both good and bad.  He’s anthropomorphic that way, too.”

            “You really see him in your mind and sometimes out of your mind?” She asked, innocently.

            “Yes,” I said with a laugh because she use the words ‘out of your mind,’ not realizing what she had said, or the implications of it.

            “You can talk to Wolf and Wolf can talk to you, right?”

            “Yes.”

            “Wolf protects you and gives you advice?”

            “Yes,” I repeated.

            “And Wolf is your very closest friend?”

            “Yeah,” I said with rising curiosity.

            “If someone didn’t believe you, Papa, could you prove that Wolf is real?”

            “You know, I don’t think I could, Sweetheart.”

            “So Wolf is like a God?”

            I was so stunned that I stopped walking, frozen in my tracks.  Grace looked surprised, not knowing that she had asked me a shocking question.  She thought it was no big deal.  She was just curious, but I was filled with wide-eyed, slack-jawed amazement as I stared at her.

            Suddenly I felt a loud echo inside my head, as if Wolf were standing at the very top of Mt. Marcy, the highest elevation in New York State─5,344 feet into the clouds howling joyously.  That sound temporarily made me smile outwardly and forget our dangerous predicament.  I had thought of Wolf as a beast, but he really wasn’t, not to me or the people I loved.  He was, in fact, my protector, our protector, my closest friend, as Grace put it, and it took a child to make me understand that better.  Wolf was ‘good’ from our point of view, but ‘bad’ from the enemy’s point of view.  Out of the mouth of babes, I thought.  What an absolutely wonderful daughter I have.  She had said, “So Wolf is like a God?” to which I had no answer.

            Though she was now breathing heavily, I told Grace that we must walk faster.  She didn’t hesitate, but for a child of eight, walking fast to keep up with her dad was the same as jogging slowly.  But she was being a trouper about it.

            Before we picked up our pace, we drank our fill from the canteen.  We headed for the river to fill the canteen.  On the way I heard, then saw, some ravens.  I couldn’t help but think of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, and his stories filled with sadness and death.  The sight of those ravens sent an ominous chill up my spine, as I thought of their funereal-like image, with their all-black plumage looking like dark, evil cloaks, and making their somber noises.

            Actually, I knew from reading, that ravens were considered to be highly intelligent birds whose black pigment allowed them to absorb solar energy.  Their intelligence and flexibility have allowed them to adapt to and survive in the more hostile and ever-changing environmental conditions that they find in this more modern, crowded, and polluted world.

            As Grace and I reached the riverbank the ravens flew away, the Doppler-effect causing their cawing sounds to diminish in intensity as their distance away from us increased.  That was fine with me.  It was a relief, like evil specters slowly withdrawing from my life.  I couldn’t help thinking, though, that Poe made an excellent choice when he selected the raven for his spooky poem.  I also figured that he was wrong about his claim that the saddest thing in life is the death of a beautiful woman.  I thought that the death of an innocent child was even more sad and that it’s a million times worse if it’s your own child ─ I don’t think Poe had any children.  Perhaps that’s why he didn’t think like I do.

            I looked at Grace, still thinking of Poe, then turned away from her quickly so she wouldn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes.

            I quickened our pace for a short distance when I heard the gurgling of water.  I turned toward the sound, then continued to the riverbank.  The land sloped downward steeply for about ten or fifteen feet.  At the top of the river bank I removed the backpack and set the barrel of the shotgun down on top of it to keep dirt, twigs, fallen leaves and anything else away from the barrel and the action mechanisms.

            Grace and I got down the slope rather easily by bracing ourselves against the trees that went to the river’s edge.  Also, on the way down, I held Grace’s hand as we proceeded slowly and carefully down the slope.  It was mostly controlled sliding that got us there.  We’d done this many times before while exploring in the woods at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house, in rural Chemung, N.Y.

            I filled the cup for Grace to take a drink and, as frigid as it was, she drank all of it.  I filled another cup and told her to drink it even if she felt full because her body would need to replace the water that was lost due to our strenuous traveling pace ─ not as strenuous for me, but very strenuous for Grace.  She got “brain freeze” from the cold water, but it didn’t last long.

            I quickly gulped down two cups of water to make sure I kept my own body hydrated.  The frigid water sent a sharp pain to my brain, also, but my mouth was delighted as the cold liquid passed over my tongue and down my parched throat, coating each with cool, refreshing moisture.  Then I used the cup to fill the canteen with more water.  I poured slowly so as not to get the outside of the canteen too wet with ice-cold water which would make it inconvenient to carry comfortably.  As long as I had the tin cup to fill the canteen, I wouldn’t have to dunk the canteen into the water to fill it.  That’s why I was glad that I’d grabbed the cup as we left the cabin.  I should have used it before when I filled the canteen ─ too much on my mind, I guess.  Plus, near panic made me forget I had it.  I hooked the canteen and cup to my belt and we started back up the steep slope.

            Grace was ahead of me so I could push her as we climbed up the slope.  Our feet slid on the loose ground and gravel of the steep slope.  We grabbed saplings, exposed roots, tree trunks, anything to help us pull ourselves up the embankment.  I pushed on Grace’s rear end to help her up the slope.  Grace was at the top and things were going well, then disaster happened.

            Grace lost her footing and started sliding backwards.  She would have slid into me in another two or three feet and I would have caught her, but instinctively she grabbed the backpack strap that was hanging slightly over the slope.  The front sight of the shotgun apparently snagged on the backpack and when Grace pulled the strap, the backpack came tumbling over the edge of the embankment . . . so did the shotgun.

            Grace fell backward into my arms as I leaned my back against a stout sapling that I had just used to pull myself forward.  I got a secure hold on Grace with my right arm and with a pure reflex action I reached out with my left hand and luckily grabbed one of the backpack straps . . . but the shotgun went cart-wheeling, end-over-end, down the slope, hitting heavily on a boulder, then bouncing into the air, as if off of a trampoline, then flew out into the frigid, clear water of the Cold River.

            I held Grace and the backpack tightly.  Grace and I remained immobile in our precarious position.  Then I felt Grace’s body shake against mine as she burst into tears.  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whimpered.  “I didn’t mean it.  I was slipping and falling back, so I grabbed something.  Please don’t be mad at me.”

            “I’m not mad at you, Grace.  It was an accident,” I said as I pulled her closer to me and hugged her tightly, more of a secure caress than anything else.  I looked over my shoulder and saw the shotgun lying in its frigid, clear, watery grave.

            Seeing the shotgun lying in the icy water was a jolt to my sense of security.  I wanted to scream but didn’t.  I felt panicky as my heart raced and the scream of frustration kept building inside my throat.  I controlled the frustration so Grace wouldn’t feel devastated.

            As Grace was crying, my thought was statically fixed on the importance of that shotgun to our escape.  I experienced such a gut-wrenching and helpless feeling of disappointment that my muscles started to slacken and I had to tighten my grip on the backpack strap, and Grace, before the supreme disaster took place, me reduced to an idiot by my frustration.

            When I calmed down, I thought: Shit!  There’s nothing I can do about it now.  I couldn’t prevent it; sure as hell didn’t anticipate it.  Can’t retrieve it.  I’ll get wet in the process and need to build a fire to get warm and to dry my wet pant legs and hands.  I looked at the shotgun again, with much regret.  I thought: “Even if I could retrieve it from the icy water, it probably wouldn’t be of any use to us.”  The barrel had smashed against a boulder and looked bent ─ though it could look that way due to the refraction of light in the water ─ which would cause it to explode if I tried to fire it.  Even if that wasn’t true, and I could retrieve it, the moving parts would be frozen, the shells would be wet and useless.  Retrieving it, building a fire to dry it and myself would take too much time.  We didn’t have that time to waste.  We needed to move, fast.

            Grace saw me staring at the water.  She was crying heavily against my chest.  Forget the shotgun, I thought.  I would get along without it, I would improvise, adapt and overcome (IAO).  Pay attention to Grace, I told myself.  I said, “I don’t need the shotgun, Sweetheart.  No need to cry.  I know it was an accident.  There’s no need to blame yourself ─ I wanted to shift the blame to me so she wouldn’t feel so terrible.  It could have happened to me, too.  Actually, I think it was my fault.  I shouldn’t have rested the shotgun barrel on the backpack.  That was careless of me.  But we’ll be fine, Sweetheart, you’ll see.  It’s all over and done with now.  It was an accident so let’s forget about it and continue our journey.  We’ve delayed too long already.  We need to go quickly.  Jake and Tom are gaining on us.  Let’s concentrate on getting far away.”

            I tossed the backpack up and over the embankment, then pushed Grace to the same place.  I pulled myself up to Grace, slipped the backpack straps over my shoulders and we quickly started walking away.  I gave Grace a reassuring pat on the top of her head and as I lowered my right hand, she grabbed it with her left and we walked hand-in-hand, as I gradually increased our pace.

            As we walked, I shifted the backpack to a more comfortable position by raising my shoulders, then shifting my weight right or left until I got the backpack to settle where I wanted it.

            I heard the ravens cawing and that irritated me because they seemed to be laughing at me, as if they knew that the shotgun was much more important to our survival than I had led Grace to believe.  But then I heard a soothing growl and my cheek felt wet as if Wolf licked it like a pet dog would do to its owner.  I chuckled at my paranoia, then grinned about the wet feeling on my cheek.  I knew it wasn’t really wet; it was just Wolf reassuring me, like the reassuring pat on the head that I gave Grace.  I raised my hand to my cheek, anyway, and when I rubbed it, it didn’t feel like skin at all.  It felt like wet animal fur.  I said a silent, “Thank you” to Wolf.

            We walked quickly and silently.  Grace was breathing heavily, again, which made it difficult for her to talk.  During this quiet time, I thought, “The shotgun wasn’t my choice of weapons anyway.  My kind of fighting was CQC ─ close quarters combat ─ within arm’s reach, of the enemy, or closer.”  When I’m that close my head ─ for head butts ─ hands, fingers, elbows, knees, and legs were all dangerous, vicious and punishing weapons.  The secret to winning a one-on-one fight is CQC.  If someone throws a punch or a kick, you should move forward to block it or, if hit, shake off the effects of it, but you seldom retreat, retreat is defeat.  The enemy expects you to back up, retreat, and continue long range fighting at least at distances that are within and arm’s reach.  So, I, usually, suddenly, and surprisingly move in close at the very first opportunity.  A head butt or an elbow to the face has a far greater impact than a fist.  Up close, fingers can reach the eyes and throat, knees will punish far greater than karate kicks that use shin bones.  The natural inclination is to defensively move away.  Fight that inclination and move in, crowd him, jam him, destroy him.  That’s my mantra.  You won’t be able to avoid taking some punishment, but move in.  Use all your body’s weapons, even teeth if necessary and, most of the time, you’ll win by quickly dishing out much greater punishment than you’ll take.  I heard an affirmative growl of agreement from Wolf.

            I was about to remove the shotgun shells from my pocket and throw them into the river.  Then I remembered that, if I needed to start an extra fast fire, I could cut the shells open and use the gun powder to create a fast, hot burn which would start a fire very quickly.  I let the shells fall back into my pocket.

            We were away from the accident area quickly.  With Grace’s mittened hand still within mine, I started to jog with her, slowly.  It was nearly 12:30 P.M. and I wanted to put more time and distance between the Gibsons and us.  Grace kept pace with my slow jog the best she could.  She stumbled a few times, but I pulled-up on her hand and saved her from crashing onto the cold ground.  More importantly, she didn’t complain, though her mouth was open, her breathing was labored and her legs were getting weaker.

            We didn’t talk much because talking used up energy and made it harder to breath.  I concentrated on moving southwesterly.  However, I did tell Grace, at one point, that if she ever got lost in the woods, that she should always remember to follow a stream or a river because streams always flow downhill and sooner or later they will take her to people that can help her.

            I hoped, again, that the cops had found the Annie button and that they were on our trail.  I wanted to be saved, of course, but my paramount concern was for the safety of Grace.  She is  my flesh and blood.  I knew that I couldn’t ask for the help of a mythical God.  I also knew that, like so many times in Nam, more than likely, no one was going to come to my rescue.  Not that they didn’t want to, just that they usually couldn’t, for one reason or another.  That meant that our survival probably depended on me alone ─ I heard a dissatisfied growl, so I must include Wolf.  I forced myself to stop thinking of outside help.  That kind of thinking would only hinder my attempts to save Grace and myself.  It was Roman and Wolf that would have to do the saving.  We had always gotten the job done in Nam, so why not in the Adirondack Mountains, too?  The solution was my responsibility.  Our survival depended on my decisions and my judgment.  That’s the way it had to be and that’s the way I had to focus my mind and all my effort.

            Grace was breathing too heavily and starting to stagger on weakened legs.  I knew that she was giving her absolute best effort to do her share, but she was so young, her stride so short and her stamina nearly drained, so I had to slow down and walk.

            Grace immediately sighed with great relief and took a few deep, lung-filling breaths.  When she walked, I could tell that her leg muscles were nearly exhausted, making her stumbled easily.  Her right hand gripped her side and massaged the skin over the painful ‘stitch’ caused by prolonged exertion.  My heart ached for her, so I bent down and scooped her up into my arms and carried her.  Without the shotgun, my arms were free.  She went limp with grateful relief.  I kept walking as fast as I could.

            As the afternoon wore on, and the temperature remained frigid, I worried about hypothermia.  When your core body temperature falls because of exposure to continuous coldness, you lose your ability to think clearly.  You get tired, lazy and want to sit or lie down to rest.  This condition catches many people off guard, making it even more dangerous because then they can’t take precautionary actions.  In cold weather, like this, a person could freeze to death at night.

            However, I didn’t think we were in danger, not yet.  It was cold, though, and as night came, it would get even colder in spite of the fire that I intended to build.

            After a half hour or so, my arms ached, and I had to put Grace down to walk.  I had to be careful of Grace’s health, so now, every hour that we walked, I took a five-minute break.  And after the break I tried to carry Grace for another five minutes.

            Wolf had an acute instinct for danger, yet he had not given me any warnings.  Because of that, I was sure that Jake and Tom wouldn’t be able to catch up to us tonight.  We’d made pretty good time even with the five-minute rest breaks that we took every hour that we traveled after we ate our lunch.

            I wasn’t worried about getting lost, just getting caught.  I was glad there was no snow on the ground, yet, and I was elated that we had a river to follow instead of always having to check the compass.  A compass is good for “straight line” travel, but not when you have to travel a very serpentine route, as we had to do, with constant directional changes to avoid trees, bushes, fall-downs, rock out-crops, large boulders and other path-blockers.

            It made me think about how the new guys in Nam got lost so easily.  I remember once reading a report that said that the almost natural inclination of people in deep forests to roam about in circles is an unexplained phenomena, and that scientists aren’t sure why people tend to walk in circles when lost.  We sure were in deep woods now . . . and “deep shit,” too.

            I could remember how some of those new recruits were so cocky and over-confident upon arrival in Nam.  But in the jungle it was remarkable how quickly most of those cocky, over-confident and fairly, well-conditioned teenagers lost that arrogant, self-assurance when they were lost in a dark double and triple canopied jungle; a place where the sun was blocked out and the afternoons were like night time and the nights were so pitch-black that you couldn’t see very far beyond your own outstretched hand  Because of Wolf’s incredible instincts and sense of direction, I never had that trouble.  I didn’t expect to have any trouble in this Adirondack forests either.  Then I laughed silently as I wondered if I was being too cocky and over-confident.  Can’t afford to let that happen.

            “Why are you smiling, Daddy,” Grace asked.

            “Oh,” I fibbed, “I was just thinking of how much fun we’ll have at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house for Thanksgiving.”  I didn’t want to have a conversation.  We both needed to conserve our energy, although, by the way she was walking, I didn’t think Grace had much energy left.  Grace forced herself forward, sometimes dragging a foot.  But we continued even though I knew that her legs ached and that the temperature was getting colder.

            Suddenly I had an over-powering urge to hug Grace, to tell her that I loved her more than anything in this world.  I also had great sympathy for her pain and discomfort, so, once again, caught up in my emotion of love for her, I bend down and swept her off her feet.  I carried her against my chest to give her legs and lungs a rest.  Her cheeks were rosy red, cute, but cold.  I pulled her head towards me so she could rest it on my shoulder.  I knew I could only do this for a few minutes, but Grace needed the rest in order to catch her second-wind ─ I hoped that was possible for her, in the short time that I could carry her.  As I held her and kept walking, I whispered, “I love you more than anything in the world, Grace.”  She snuggled closer to me and I hugged her tightly, then released the pressure.

            After about ten strenuous minutes we came to another blow-down tree and it gave me an idea.  I put Grace back down on the ground, shook the cramps out of my arms, and told her to walk forward with me and to put a lot of pressure on each step that she took.  We both walked forward, heavily, for about fifty feet and then I told Grace to stop and stand still.  She looked up at me curiously.  I told her to walk backwards and to place her feet back into her tracks until we got back to the blowdown.  I held her hand to steady her and we both backtracked inside our own previous tracks.  When we reached the blowdown, we stood still, and I explained my actions and reasoning to Grace.

            “Sweetheart,” I stated, “You know that the Gibsons are following us.  They are woodsmen and can track us easily.  They push the leaves aside and see our tracks, and if they’re really good, like Jake probably is, they can look at the impression on the fallen leaves and tell that we have walked over them.  But you and I will leave a dead trail for them.  That’s a trail that goes nowhere because it appears to end suddenly.  We walked forward, then backtracked to this fallen tree.  Now I’ll climb onto this blowdown and lift you up to me.  Then you and I will walk the length of this bare tree, which looks to be about sixty or seventy feet long.  We’ll step over all the branches, carefully.  Then we’ll get down as easily and as lightly as we can, trying not to make obvious tracks.  We’ll walk flat footed, not pressing our heels into the ground, which leaves marks that are easy to follow.  Then we’ll walk off in a totally different direction.  After about a mile, we’ll circle around and continue in the same direction as we were going before.  This tactic should confuse the Gibsons and cause them to waste time.  You see, the Gibsons think I’m a wimp, an ignorant weakling, and they won’t expect this trick from me.  It’ll only take us five minutes to do it, but, if we’re lucky, it’ll take them fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes to figure out that we’ve done and we’ll be just that much farther ahead of them.  They’ll, of course find our trail, but they’ll be confused and start wondering why we, all of a sudden, are going in an unexpected direction.  If they stopped to think about it, or if the puzzle causes them to walk instead of run, or walk slowly instead of fast, then we will be gaining time on them.  Understand?”

            Grace smiled as she looked up at me and said, “You’re not a wimp, Daddy.  You know karate real good.”

            “Yeah, you’re right, but they don’t know that.  They don’t know that I have my knives either.  Nor do they know how good I am with them.  So we have surprise as our big advantage.  They just think I’m a pathetic wimp who knows nothing about how to survive in the woods.  That’s why I’m so sure this trick will fool them.  They’ll be over-confident and careless, so they’ll fall for this trick . . . I think.”

            Grace smiled as I slid off the end of the tree.  I picked her up and decided to carry her.  I walked gently and carefully, flat-footed, on the soles of my boots, for about a hundred yards in the wrong direction, then I put Grace down.  We jogged as we circled around to get back to the river and proceeded southwesterly.

            After jogging a half mile, we slowed to a fast walk.  It was the middle of the afternoon.  When Grace caught her breath, she said, “Daddy, I’m really tired and hungry, When can we stop for a rest?”

            I could see that she was still out of breath and this ordeal was extremely difficult for her.  But I was so proud of her for giving her best effort, though I couldn’t help wondering how long she could last at the pace that we were traveling.

            “It’s a little after three o’clock now, Sweetheart,” I said affectionately, as I looked at my watch.  “We’ll be able to stop in an hour or two, just before it gets dark.  But until then we need to walk as quickly as we can and you can eat the gorp as we walk, OK?  I could use some, too,” I stated, as we both reached into our jacket pocket to get a gorp bag that we had both placed there after lunch.

            I said, “When we stop, I’ll build a fire by the river and I’ll fix you a package of dried soup that I found in the cabin.  All I have to do is mix it with hot water.  You’ll like it and it’ll warm you up.  Then I’ll show you a special way of keeping warm at night, so you’ll get a good night sleep even when the night temperature keeps getting colder and colder.  OK?”  Grace gave a tired but affirmative nod of her head and looked at me curiously.  She must have been wondering how she’d stay warm on a frigid night.

            We kept walking and eating gorp, but near dusk we stopped to build a campfire and rest.  I put my arm around Grace and called her attention to the western sky, where the sun was setting behind the horizon, while casting a beautiful crimson glow onto the bottoms of milky white, cumulus clouds.  It made those clouds look like pure, white snow that’s piled on top of red campfire coals.

            Prior to building our campfire, however, we both went off in opposite directions to relieve our bladders.  When finished, we both picked up dry sticks and tinder for the campfire.  We met again at the spot I had indicated for our camp, a small, level clearing covered with a thick mattress of brightly colored autumn leaves.  Grace slumped to the ground, exhausted as a few of the brightly colored leaves crinkled under her weight.  She looked as if she were sitting on a huge artist’s pallet.  Looking at her, I wished I had a painting of her just like that.

                                    /--/../-.-/./..-./.-././-./-.-./…./../…/..-./..-/-./-./-.--/

                                                            Chapter 10

                                                                 ****

                                                                 Nightfall

            “This looks like a good place to camp tonight,” I said to Grace.

            She nodded her head up and down, too exhausted to speak.

            “Sit down by that tree, Sweetheart, and I’ll get things ready.”

            Grace dragged herself, head hanging so low that her chin pressed against her chest, to the tree that I’d pointed at and sat down like a dropped sack of potatoes.  As she sat, her back pressed against the tree, her head continued to press against her chest and all four appendages immediately went limp.  She looked like a marionette with all its strings cut.  I heard her ragged breathing.  I assumed that her ragged breathing was caused by her chin poking into her chest and the way her neck was bent.  My assumption was confirmed when she tilted her head back, closed her eyes, then opened her mouth slightly to take unimpaired, deep breaths.  I could see the arteries on both sides of her neck pulsating to the rhythm of her heartbeat.  I knew the rest would do her good, but I also knew that we wouldn’t be able to make good time tomorrow.

            I paused to consider my own condition.  Since Nam, I hadn’t kept myself in top shape.  I guess the part of my forgetting about Nam also included forgetting the rigors of physical fitness since the latter always reminded me of the former.

            So, the fact was that we would both be sore and stiff-muscled in the early morning and our muscles would rebel against our activities.  How we reacted mentally was yet to be seen.  I knew, however, that physical fatigue and mental fatigue were often sad partners, thus it would be an extra tiring day, and being tired physically, as well as mentally, usually meant grumpiness and impatience.  But guess what?  When death stalks you, your mind stays alert; an alert mind overrules physical fatigue and you’ll “run-till-you-drop.”  Nam proved that to me . . . but would that platitude hold true for a child, for Grace?

            Of course, we’d have to push ourselves to our known limits in order to escape, and, if necessary, we’d have to redefine “our limits” ─ the notion that one can “push themselves beyond their limits is illogical.”  If it’s your ‘limit’ then you can’t go beyond it, and if you do go beyond it, then it really wasn’t your limit ─ in order to keep pushing ourselves as much as it takes to escape this ordeal.  I would have to force myself, and Grace.  It will be cruel to treat Grace that way, but it will be a necessary cruelty.

            Running for my life wasn’t my style, unless against insurmountable odds.  If it wasn’t for my need to protect Grace, at all costs, I’d be stalking Jake and Tom, instead of them stalking us.  Jake and Tom had no idea that they were screwing around with a Jekyll and Hyde personality, Roman and Wolf, respectively.  I’m not the reclusive, secretive, intellectual that Jekyll was, nor am I the feral, stalking, lawless killer that Hyde was, but sometimes it seemed that way.  Wolf is much more like Hyde than I am like Jekyll.  Wolf is somewhat like Hyde with a conscience, and that conscience came from and blended into me.  It was how I controlled Wolf.  It was what turned Wolf into a weapon of survival for me, in Nam, and now for Grace and me, as we ran from peril and struggled to survive.

            There is no doubt that Wolf is vicious, cunning, strong and fast.  But Wolf is the silent, hidden part of me that I use to protect myself, and the people I love or care about, in times of dire necessity, in an emergency.  He’s the “inhuman” part of me, so to speak.

            Everyone has certain parts of themselves that they want to hide, I thought, but the important thing was to make sure that the relatively good side is the dominant side, the one in control.  In the classic story of good versus evil, Jekyll couldn’t control Hyde, but, luckily, I can control Wolf.

            Personality aberrations are interesting.  We as individuals, who form societies and unite into countries that inhabit the world, are not as civilized as we would like to believe.  We disguise our uncivilized attributes behind masks of laws, manners, and politeness.  We are all capable of viciousness, we are all capable of killing, but we are not all capable of admitting the existence of our darker sides.  And who might know the human personality better than Sigmund Freud?  In his day, he was the unchallenged Master of Human personality via his newly formed techniques that became know by the word “psychoanalysis.”  What did Freud think of mankind?  He said, “I have found little that is good about human beings.  In my experience most of them are trash.”  We lie to ourselves every day, not wanting to admit that our basic instincts are savage-like, cruel, blood-thirsty.  Thus, the need for man-made laws and man-created religions that build a wall between our civilized façades and our uncivilized, primal instincts.  I’m not saying it’s a bad remedy to control our baser, savage instincts, but I am saying that it’s true, though I doubt that one in a thousand would ever admit it.  Only when some tragic, life-and-death emergency situation occurs, and they do something violent, perhaps even kill a person, will the doubters finally recognize the truth about themselves and what they are truly capable of doing.  War certainly doesn’t bring out the very best in “human nature.”

            I cleared my mind and refocused on myself, Roman Wolfe, and my alter ego, Roamin’ Wolf.  I knew that I projected onto and into Wolf a conscience that enabled Wolf to see beyond his feral, savage nature and have compassion for those who were weaker and helpless.  It is a compassion that doesn’t totally focus on my own survival, but on the protection and survival of those who need protection, whether it be from a bully on a school playground or from the anonymous enemy in a war combat zone.  My desire and willingness to protect weaker friends showed itself in elementary school, where I reluctantly became acquainted with bullies.

            I let Grace sleep as I hurriedly made the Dakota Fire Holes, then walked around the campsite clearing it of surface rocks and fallen branches.  I also gathered moss for bedding and plenty of dry firewood and kindling.  I started the fire in the Dakota Fire Hole.  As I did this, I glanced often at Grace in repose, my great concern for her obvious in the straining creases on my forehead and around my eyes.

            If you could read my mind, you’d understand me a lot better.  I certainly didn’t seek to harm or kill indiscriminately.  I wasn’t blood-thirsty, like some stereotypes of a wolf, or even like a rogue soldier, but in a “kill or be killed” confrontation, especially one involving close quarters combat, it wouldn’t at all be wise to bet against me.

            I could feel the presence of Wolf prowling back and forth, like a zoo animal in its cage.  Of course, Wolf’s cage was my mind, where he kept me alert to my surroundings and attuned to noises that might signal danger.  The pressure I felt in my mind was the pressure of Wolf’s white paws as he paced back and forth over the soft, spongy, gray-matter of my brain.

            I stood with an armful of firewood and remained immobile, my thoughts concentrating on a strange, mental feeling.  At first it was a gentle and vague thought that smoothly poked its way up to consciousness, like an air bubble rising to the surface of a body of water.  I became apprehensive because, as the thought developed and gradually became more clear, I didn’t like it.  It brought discomfort with it, yet it was a thought that needed to be prodded, needed more thought so the details became clear.  A voice in my head said: Close quarters combat may not settle this ordeal because Jake and Tom are armed with shotguns, which meant that, for them, close quarters combat wasn’t necessary.  But immediately Wolf’s voice growled a rejoinder that asked: Would they really want to immediately kill you and Grace?  Wouldn’t their sadistic nature require them to have their victims close to them so they could enjoy your terror up close?  More than likely they wouldn’t want to shoot either of you.  To satisfy their sadism, they would want to be close and “close” meant the possibility of close quarters combat.  I smiled delightfully.

            “So,” I thought, “given the right opportunity, Grace and I could be blown away from a relatively safe distance, one that was out of reach of Wolf, my martial arts and combat knife skills.”  But considering their sadistic personalities, that probably won’t happen.  They’d want to capture us so they could torture us, for fun.  That thought really agitated me but being agitated kept me hyper-alert and washed away any minute particle of over-confidence that may have been germinating within me.  Then, a thought that had always been present, but always pushed so far back in my mind that it was almost hidden, came to the forefront: Wolf may have to become more active.  Grace and I may not be able to run much longer ─ I could, but probably not Grace.  She was exhausted, her energy depleted, her muscles on the verge of collapse.  My heart cried tears of blood for her physical and mental pain and discomfort.  Was this ordeal to be like Nam with me and Wolf prowling, stalking, then killing the unsuspecting enemy before that enemy had a chance to launch an attack?  I stared at Grace during this sobering and frightening thought.

            I forced myself to refocus on our immediate situation.  Grace and I were about one hundred feet from the Cold River.  I had to hurry before darkness set in.  I picked up another armload of dry firewood, then searched for five dead, but sturdy branches that would assist me in building a quick lean-to for a shelter, in case of snow.  It took a couple of trips, but I located five long branches that were each about eight feet long, then two shorter ones that were about four feet each.

            I was reluctantly forced to use one of my knives to dig two narrow holes in the ground, about seven feet apart.  My knives were my only weapons, now, and I didn’t want to dull or chip a blade on nearly frozen ground or on a sub-surface rock.  Therefore, I used my pocketknife.  I looked around and found a sturdy stick and shaved the end with my combat blade so that the end of the stick was now pointed.  It would make a good dirt-punch and digging tool and only took five minutes to prepare.  I also dug about a foot deep, a foot wide, and a four feet long trench in the ground near the center of the side of the lean-to that Grace would be sleeping on.

            Now the narrow holes, seven feet apart.  The first inch of ground was almost frozen, so digging the holes with my stick would be a tough job.  I didn’t want to expend a lot of energy like I had done on the trench.  Therefore, I carefully used my pocketknife to cut circular, one-inch diameter and one inch thick pieces of dirt off the top of the ground where each hole would be.  Then, to make the two holes deeper, I used the pointed stick-punch.  I inserted the stick-punch into the shallow holes and pounded the top of the punch to drive it down into the softer dirt.  I did the same for the other hole.  Each hole only needed to be about six or eight inches deep, so it didn’t take long to do that job.  When I had finished digging the two holes, I placed each shorter branch into each hole so they were straight up and down, then packed the dirt back in around the buried portion of the branch.  I made deep, “V” shaped cuts into the upper part of these shorter branches, about two inches down from the tops.  I then cut off two pieces of dental floss, each about two feet long and two more pieces each about a foot long.  I made a loop in each of the two feet lengths of floss by tying the ends together, then used the one-foot lengths to attach the loops to the “V” shaped cuts.   When I finished tying the loops to the upper pole’s loops, I grabbed three of the five, eight-feet long poles.  The first pole I pushed into the loops that were hanging down from each of the four feet poles, so it looked like a rectangle with a piece missing the ground piece.  Then I took the other two, eight-feet poles and slipped them into the floss loops so they slanted backwards away from the other three poles.  Lastly, I place the other two, eight-feet poles equidistant between the first two, slanted eight-feet poles.  When all this was done, my lean-to looked like two, attached right-triangles with the short, upright side being nearly four feet high, the slanting eight feet branches being the hypotenuse and the ground being the base that formed the right angle.

            There wasn’t much of a breeze within the tree cover, but there was a little, so I built the lean-to so that the wind would strike the slanting roof, which, when covered with a thick layer of pine tree branches, would shield Grace and me from the wind-chill factor.

            I looked at Grace, again.  She was still sound asleep, her head leaning down to her shoulder and her back up against the tree.  I knew I’d have to wake her up when I was done because we needed to eat before we slept.  I thought: “Our bodies needed nourishment so that we will be better prepared to get up early and move out quickly.  That way Jake and Tom wouldn’t gain too much time on us while we were sleeping.  They would leave their camp at dawn, or before, but we would wait until dawn so Grace could see where she was walking.”

            I cut a couple dozen, long pine tree branches off the plentiful, nearby trees, then used the floss to tie them perpendicularly across the four, eight-feet sections of the lean-to, so they didn’t fall through.  When I couldn’t see through the layer of pine branches, I was nearly done.  I quickly found four, long, dead branches and laid them equidistant on top of the pine tree branches to keep the pine branches from dislodging or shifting from their positions.  Now the lean-to was complete and only took about twenty minutes of hurried work.

            Building a lean-to is the secret to staying warmer on cold nights.  It was protection from wind, rain and snow.  It was one of the things I was referring to earlier when I told Grace that I’d show her the secret to keeping warm outdoors on a frigid night.  It’s extra work but keeping warm and dry is of life-saving importance.

            I noticed that the light was fading sooner than I had anticipated, so I quickly looked for four flat rocks that were approximately one foot long, about six to nine inches wide and a couple of inches thick.  I intended to heat them with the campfire.  These heated rocks would be the most important factor of all for keeping Grace warm until morning.

            I stayed well away from the river in my search for these rocks because river rocks often have trapped moisture in them and when heated, the moisture turns to steam, which creates tremendous pressure inside the rocks, which causes the rocks to explode, spraying dangerous, stony shrapnel into the faces of those persons who are sitting around the campfire.  I found the dry rocks that I needed.

            Next, I scurried to gather as many dry leaves and moss as I could and placed them on my side of the lean-to so the wind wouldn’t blow them away.  Then, quickly, I cleared an area of ground about three feet in front of the opening to the lean-to and prepared to build a regular, above ground campfire.  I wanted a clear area, free of flammable objects because I didn’t want to start a forest fire, although, on second thought, I figured that, maybe I’d get help faster if I did just that.  But I immediately discarded that line of reasoning.  It was a bad idea and I didn’t have time to waste on bad ideas.

            I sure was glad not to have to try and make a bow drill like the Native Americans used in order to start a friction fire.  I pulled two of the waxed matches out of my pocket and placed them on the ground.  The ground was still rather dry and, knowing this made me appreciate the fact that, although the sky had been overcast all day, it hadn’t rained.  But I was even more appreciative of the fact that it hadn’t snowed yet either, or had the weather turned bitter cold.  I knew it would happen soon, however, but I hoped that Grace and I would be back to civilization by then.  I wasn’t really a woodsman.  I just liked reading about survival situations, and much of the information I read stuck in my mind.  Now I was using some of that dormant knowledge.

            Of course, Nam was a survival situation of a different sort.  Supplies were dropped to us from helicopters, so we didn’t have to worry about building fires, or hunting for our food, or what to wear, or where we’d be sleeping.  Our needs were taken care of by the omnipresent helicopters, but out here, in the Adirondacks Grace and I were on our own.  Whatever we brought with us is all we had and if we needed more, then we had to find it in nature, or make it from nature’s materials.  We simply didn’t have the time to do any of that.  I was also extremely thankful for our good fortune in finding the bags of gorp.

            I built a special, Native American fire called the Dakota Fire Holes.  It takes a little more work than simply building a fire on top of the ground, but it has definite advantages, especially if the ground surface is wet or nearly frozen.  The extra work is worth it because the Dakota Fire Holes have an efficient consumption of fuel that greatly reduces the amount of firewood needed to cook a meal ─ it produces hotter fires with less wood ─ boil water, or to keep warm.  This type of fire is like having a wood stove, using the ground as a level and stable platform for cooking food ─ four green branches laid over the hole can be used as a grill for cooking.  Also, at night, the firelight itself is hidden in the hole, plus the fire does not give off as much smoke since the fire burns hotter and more efficiently than an above ground fire.  Furthermore, all the heat is directed upward, not sideways for three hundred and sixty degrees around, as it would be with an above ground fire.

            To build it, I first had to dig two holes in the ground about a foot apart and, also, about a foot deep.  When I finished that, I dug a small hole, like a short, small tunnel, connecting the bottoms of the two holes.  One hole serves as an airway for the fire, he hole that is closest to the direction the wind is coming from.  The other hole is for the fire.  These Dakota Fire Holes work so well and are so efficient because, as the fire burns, the hot air that’s created travels up through the fire hole, which, in turn, creates a suction-type of draft that forces air down the other hole and through the tunnel directly into the base of the fire, sort of like the bellows in a blacksmith’s shop.

            With both holes completed I got up and walked to a copse of trees to collect tinder and various larger sizes of firewood.  I needed to collect a good supply of firewood before I started the kindling ─ you can’t very well build the fire, then have to run around collecting wood for it.  I peeled off sections of the paper-like bark from some birch trees.  This bark can be peeled off quite easily, using a knife or sharp-edged stone, and has combustible, natural oils in it.  Then I crumpled the paper-like bark, so the fibers started to show and the bark started to shred.  I added dry grass and very tiny twigs that I located under pine trees, where the umbrella shape of the lower branches keeps them dry.  I placed this ball of tinder into the fire hole.  Then I took out the dry, smooth, flat rock from my back pocket, picked up one match and struck the waxed head against the stone.  The tip of the match broke off and ignited at the same time.  The flaming tip jumped to the ground like a comet leaping across the night sky.  It landed on the cold ground and died immediately, after a brief sizzling sound.

            I took the second match in hand and, not putting as much downward pressure on it, I struck it across the face of the stone.  It burst into flame, and as the flame journeyed up the wooden shaft, I carefully placed it into the ball of tinder.  The tinder caught fire easily and the twigs were in flames almost instantly.  Then all I had to do is add thicker, dry twigs, then thicker, dry branches ─ they have to be short to fit the diameter of the hole.

            As I placed thicker pieces of wood into the fire hole, I thought about some of the information about survival that I’d never used but had remembered.  I could have used the toilet paper for the tinder if I couldn’t find dry tinder.  I even remembered about using punk for tinder.  Punk is wood that’s so thoroughly decayed, dry and crumbly and, supposedly, makes easily ignited tinder.  And punk can be found dry even on rainy days by searching the hollow sections of fallen, rotten trees.  Another unexpected source of tinder, I thought, was abandoned bird’s nests with their intertwined bunch of dried twigs which will usually ignite quickly.  Bird’s nests are often easy to find in the short saplings, especially in the winter when the tree branches are bare, though climbing is sometimes necessary to retrieve some nests.

            I walked to the river and filled our canteens, then filled the aluminum cup three-fourths full of water, poured some dried soup mixture into the cup and placed the cup next to some red-hot coals over the fire. ─ the cup rested on very green, small sapling sections that, when placed over the fire hole, make them look like a grill.  I also grabbed the four large, flat, rocks and placed them half hanging over the lip of the fire hole, to be heated and used later.

            The fire was a comforting sight.  Its warmth was welcomed and it also pushed away the night’s blackness and the nighttime’s damp chill that will soon engulf the both of us, like having a damp blanket wrapped around you on a very cold night.

            Of course, those were my thoughts, not those of Wolf.  Wolf was seldom cold.  Wolf and I saw the night as a loyal and trusted ally, but I got cold and Wolf didn’t.  Wolf and I thought there was no better time to meet one’s enemy than in the dead of night.  The darkness wrapped itself around us like a dark cloak of comfort, unless, for me, it was one of those damp, chilly nights that could chill me to the bone, though, if I had to, I could mentally block out the cold, like John Madden.  He was the long-ago coach of the Oakland Raiders professional football team.  He prowled the sidelines on a cold December Sunday coaching his football team while wearing a short-sleeve shirt, yet he looked comfortable and never shivered, at least not when the camera was on him.

            It was time to wake up Grace.  I walked to her, shook her, but she didn’t want to wake-up.  I didn’t blame her, but I knew she had to eat, even though her body was screaming for rest.  She woke up after a few minutes of my prodding and coaxing.  After she got over being angry at me for waking her, she hugged me tightly.  We sat on the unrolled sleeping bags which were on the ground next to the fire.  Her face was buried in my chest and as she spoke, her words were slightly muffled by my coat.

            She said, “Why don’t those awful men just let us go?  I want Mommy and Grandma and Grandpa, Daddy.”  Then she cried and I could feel her body shaking against mine.  I didn’t answer any of her questions.  I felt that they were questions that were rhetorical and said out of a deep sense of frustration and fear.  Her questions were a way to vent her angry feelings but didn’t require a direct answer.  So I quietly sat there stroking her hair gently, comforting her as much as possible; staring out into the night time blackness in a semi-daze.  In my mind I was in Nam, in my heart there was rage and at my core there was Wolf.

            I couldn’t tell her the truth, that we couldn’t move as quickly as Jake and Tom because she simply didn’t have the stamina or the strength to move that fast.  I knew she was doing the best that she could, but she was exhausted from that herculean effort.  We had to move as fast as Grace could go, but she was slowing down quickly like a long-distance runner approaching the finish line of a race.  That meant that we would be constantly losing ground to them.  I also didn’t tell her that I thought they’d catch up to us about the time that we reached Long Lake, probably tomorrow evening. They’d be extremely volatile and hostile men as they fast walked and ran as fast as they possible could, with short rest breaks.  But they were grown men, woodsmen, with a lot of stamina for quick, long distance traveling.  I was worried, but I didn’t let Grace know it, not in my voice, nor in my actions.  She hurt enough physically already, and I didn’t want to add stressful emotional burdens as well.  I tried to keep my attitude hopeful and self-confident.

            Actually, that response worked well for my platoon buddies in Nam, too.  Their self-confidence was tied to mine, as their leader, just like the tail of a kite is connected to the kite itself and keeps the kite stable.  So, for them, I kept the kite as high and as stable as possible without letting them know or see my own fears and doubts because, then, they would be fearful and doubtful, perhaps making deadly mistakes for themselves and others.

            Grace’s soup was ready.  It was hot and it nourished her as well as it warmed her.  The cup was so hot that she had to hold it in mittened hands.  I was relieved to see her enjoy the warmth on her fingers and palms as she sipped it slowly so as not to burn her lips and tongue.  She offered me some, but I told her I’d make some for myself later, though I would probably just eat some gorp.

            The fire’s hot coals were radiating comforting heat, but we had to hold our hands and faces close to the fire hole.  We could each feel the warmth on our hands and faces.  The heat felt good, like the feeling of the sun shining on your face on the first clear, warm, spring day.  She drank her soup with a satisfied smile.  I suddenly remembered the venison jerky that was in my backpack ─ a needed change from the gorp.  I took some out.  It was hard chewing, putting a strain on my jaw muscles, but it didn’t taste bad once my saliva softened it.  Grace didn’t want any of it.  The hot soup was having a wonderful drowsy inducing effect on her.

            Actually, I really wasn’t that hungry.  Most people who are in a survival situation become overly concerned about what they’re going to eat.  Yet out of the four necessities for survival: shelter, water, fire and food, food was usually considered the least important.  Chances are you can survive for a month or more without eating very much.  Water is usually considered the most essential, much more important than food because you can survive only a few days without it, which makes sense since nearly seventy percent of your body is water.  However, shelter could be the most critical necessity in survival situations because a person stranded in a hostile environment, without any shelter from the elements, in extreme heat or cold, may not live more than a few hours.  In a warm or hot climate, like Nam, shelter was not as important to survival, but in frigid weather, like we were experiencing, shelter was of paramount importance.  The circumstances dictated the relative importance of the four necessities for survival, but food was almost always the least important.

            Water is of critical importance to every bodily function including an alert thinking process.  A person couldn’t live without water much longer than a few days, maybe a week at the most, and possibly only a few hours in a very hot, very dry desert climate.  The liquids we drink simply do not stay in our bodies for very long and constantly need replenishing.  The lack of water not only leads to adverse physical effects but also to adverse mental effects.  Dehydration can cause mental depression (leading to body pains, hallucinations, and delusions), poor judgment and reasoning ability, slowed muscle activity and nausea.  That’s why I keep Grace and I both properly hydrated.

            I looked at Grace.  Her soup was gone, the cup had fallen out of her hands and was on the ground.  She was fast asleep with her head in my lap.  I got up, unrolled the sleeping bag, placed her inside it and zipped it up, but left her near the tree.  Then I used bendable sapling tongs to place the four, hot rocks into the trench that I had previously dug in the ground, inside of the lean-to.  I spaced the four rocks about a foot apart, then I covered the rocks with four to six inches of dirt so that the area was fairly level.  I then covered the trench, thinly, with pine needles, leaves and dried weeds.  I waited for about fifteen minutes to let the hot rocks steam away the moisture that was in the dirt so that Grace wouldn’t be sleeping in an uncomfortable steam bath.  Then I walked back to Grace, picked her up, while she was still inside the sleeping bag, walked back to the lean-to and held her as I placed my hand over the trench to feel for too much heat.  I could feel the warmth on my palms.  The sensation was pleasing, like a hot shower on a cold morning.  The warmth of the rocks was heating the dirt and boughs nicely, so I placed Grace on top of the heated trench.  I knew that she would sleep warmly all night.

            Not much fire light reached her, but some did.  I studied her pale face and admired it, as well as her nose, her soft, full lips (which were just like her mom’s), her fair, clear complexion, rounded cheekbones, all framed within fine, dark brown hair (like mine).  There was strength of character in that eight-year-old face.  She was no ordinary child ─ every parent has a right to be biased in their opinions of their children.  She was incredibly special, she was mine, a part of me.  After all, I thought, hadn’t she run, jogged, and walked quickly with me all day with few complaints and only one break for lunch?  Yes, that was a strength that few eight-year -old girls could possess.  I must save her, no matter what, I thought, even if it costs me my own life.

            Wolf stirred with agreement inside of me.

            I tenderly kissed Grace’s cheek and, as I do nearly every night, I whispered in her ear, “Daddy loves you.”  I looked down at her lovingly as fear festered in my guts.  I thought: “When a person becomes a parent, fear attaches itself to them permanently, especially in this age when so many crazies and perverts lurk behind, or in schools, churches, parks, or wherever children congregate.  There’s so much potential danger in the world that a parent can never be without fear for the well-being of their child or children.  And if something terrible did happen to their child, the staggering weight of a ton of sadness, grief and guilt would settle on their shoulders which could only be assuaged by time, and even then, only an ounce of pain a day could be taken away.

            I mentioned that dehydration can cause mental depression and decreased mental clarity.  That thought jumped into the forefront of my mind, and almost as a reflex action, I bent over to pick the cup off the ground, then started walking toward the river to get more water.  When I reached the Cold River and dipped the cup into the water, I had a sudden feeling of panic.  I’d left Grace alone.  I imagined the worst, of course, so I dashed back to the campfire.  The sight of her safely sleeping calmed me.  I looked at the empty cup in my hand.  The water had all spilled out during my run back to the camp.  I scolded myself for going to the river when all I had to do was use the water that was in the canteen.  Was my fatigue causing me to lose my mental alertness?  My answer was yes . . . and I was angry with myself.

            Instead of soup, I drank plenty of water from the canteen, knowing that I could easily fill it tomorrow morning.  The water would keep the mental lethargy and depression away.  I joked with myself to ease the pressure that I placed on myself.  In all seriousness, however, I didn’t really have time to be depressed, though I wasn’t as mentally sharp as I wanted to be, due to my own fatigue.  Can’t really nice killers, like me, be happy?  Can’t fun-loving killers, like me, have a sense of humor?  Who was it that said, “Seriousness is the last refuge of deeply, shallow minds?”  Jesus Herman Christ!  I guess I am getting foggy headed.

            I hadn’t taken my depression medication and I was in a life threatening situation, but I didn’t feel any serious depression, a little dazed from fatigue once in a while, sometimes giddy, but not depressed ─ hell, I figured that I had plenty of time to get depressed, after I’m dead, and find out that all those anti-God comments that I’ve made are wrong.  Yep, I’m giddy, but at the same time I felt in control . . . mostly.  I hoped I wasn’t falsely bragging to myself, but I did feel a growing, solid sense of confidence.  The problem, however, was that the confidence came and went.  One moment I’d feel confident and the next moment I’d be riddled with doubt ─ manic depressive?  My thoughts drifted back and forth like a sail boat in an ever changing wind, but my confidence acted like a rudder that kept me on an even keel, gave me a stable direction and kept me pointed into the troublesome, white-tipped waves that threatened to capsize me.

            I closed my eyes and mentally wiped my mind free, like a teacher’s freshly erased chalkboard.  As my eyes were closed, I asked myself to make a mental picture on that empty chalkboard.  As I wondered why I should request such a thing of myself a face slowly took shape, not line-by-line like an artist might sketch or paint a portrait, but the whole face slowly appeared, fuzzy and indistinct at first, then unquestionably distinct and vivid ─ my face.  I saw it as my own face, but it wasn’t the way I appeared to others.  The image was really a composite of two faces blended together, my human face and Wolf’s face.  It was like two images, one over-laying the other with my face on top of Wolf’s so that my face was much more distinct and predominant than Wolf’s.  Then I noticed my eyes, and, to my surprise, they didn’t look like a man’s eyes.  I realized that they were Wolf’s eyes, dark, piercing, searching and wary.

            I heard, or thought I heard, a growling voice that said, “Home for Thanksgiving.”  Immediately following that voice was a distant howling that repeated itself, as if it was echoing off miles of steep canyon walls.  Was the howling a real sound coming from the distant forest, or was it a sound created and living totally within my brain?

            Abruptly, an image of a fierce-looking, white-wolf replaced the composite image.  This wolf looked like it does in some picture books that tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood, its teeth bared, with fierce, piercing eyes and lips pulled back in a feral rictus.  I couldn’t help but laugh quietly, the face looked comical.  I wondered if I should be ashamed of these occasional fantasy, dream-like episodes that I was having.  But I did have to admit that they were helpful, no matter what the doctor may say about them, with reference to dealing with reality instead of escaping it.  My thoughts unexpectedly shifted again, thoughts that led me to realized that I wasn’t trying to escape reality and that I wasn’t trying to fool myself.  I really did feel confident that I was feeling confident ─ sorry about that.  That feeling of confidence was real.  Wolf was a deeply personal, entrenched thought, a vivid concept, a unalterable principle of my survival behavior and that was all very real to me.  I smiled as I placed the empty cup back into the backpack.

            I was growing tired, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep.  I kept wondering if Jake and Tom really did stop for the night.  They had to stop, I thought, or they’d get lost, or stumble and trip over roots, rocks, or fallen branches.  Although that conclusion sounded reasonable, I couldn’t relax.  Jake and Tom didn’t impress me as reasonable men.  Also, experience had taught me that conclusions, or solutions, are simply that point at which someone stops thinking.  Further thought may have altered or added to that conclusion and made it much better, or more thought could produce a completely different but viable conclusion or solution ─ a “line” is just a “period” that keeps on thinking.  But Jake and Tom didn’t seem like the type to give too much thought to the wants and needs of other people.  They were very consistent with their behavior and actions.  If you knew them for a few days, you’d predict very accurately how they’d think and act because of their consistency ─ A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds said Ralph Waldo Emerson.  The trouble with persistent consistency, though, is that, by its very definition and nature, it mandates that a persistently consistent person be just as stupid today as he was yesterday and as stupid next year as he is this year.  Martial arts training and military training taught me that one step in the path to victory is to know your enemy.  I know that the Gibsons are very consistent and that’s a disadvantage for their “little minds.”

            I snapped out of my philosophical episode.  I had to stay awake, stay alert to danger, just like in Nam.

            I stared out into the night.  The trees stood out like sentinels surrounding our campsite, tall, black, forbidding, with bare limbs reaching out as if in an attempt to touch us.  Then, for some unknown reason, the trees appeared like accumulated columns of towering sins, must be my sins.  A weird thought, I admit, but it made me think.  I knew my sins were many, too many.  But everyone has secrets and sins, some blacker than others.  And everyone has their own way of dealing with them.  My greater sins weren’t just confined to Nam.  There are so many things I wished I hadn’t said or done, some insignificant to anyone but me, some mortal; unforgettable and, perhaps, unforgivable.  Many secrets and sins are the same thing, I thought.  But I’m not one to ejaculate them onto the nearest friend or relative, hoping to assuage my guilt.  I already knew that my guilt is the consequence of actions that I know are wrong.  To be a responsible person means that I must accept responsibility for the consequences of my actions.  Since the consequences of some actions is sometimes guilt, then I am responsible for that guilt.  In other words, to me at least, guilt must be dealt with responsibly and personally.  And how does a former killer deal with guilt responsibly?  Well, I certainly don’t whine and cry about it to friends, relatives or even strangers in order to make myself feel better.  Such confessions may make me feel better, but the people I tell won’t feel better for it.  They shouldn’t have to bear my secrets or my sins.  Telling them and asking them to forgive me or help me deal with it, I think, is cowardly ─ if you were in pain from a cut, a responsible person would not cut a friend so that he could share the pain.  They didn’t assist me in the actions that I keep secret or in the sins that I have committed.  The guilt is mine alone.  I must deal with it without causing more pain and discomfort, instead of spreading it around like some contagious disease, causing misery and pain to friends and relatives.  I try to leave them disease-free by handling my own guilt, and I handle my own guilt by trying not to make the same mistakes and trying to be a better person.  However, for ordinary shame and guilt, forgiveness can be a good, healing salve.  I know that there are a plethora of occasions when I need to make sure that I forgive and forget, before I forget to forgive.

            I laughed at myself when I realized that I had gone back to preaching and philosophizing to myself, as if that was appropriate to my current situation.  But, sometimes, one doesn’t steer his mind, his mind steers him.

            I pushed more wood into the fire and moved over towards a tree to lean my back against it.  I thought about how much I missed my reclining chair; how comfortable it was to relax on it as I read one of the Spenser detective novels that I’m so fond of.  I remembered the T.V. show, based on Robert B. Parker’s books, entitled Spenser For Hire.  I’d read every single one of those books and was thinking of reading them all over again.  I wished that Spenser and Hawk were here with me, but I reminded myself that they were imaginary characters and that they were fun to think about and enjoy.  I still had fun comparing Spenser to myself, as Roman, and comparing Hawk to Wolf.

            I wondered if Spenser and Hawk weren’t just the two sides of Robert B. Parker, Spenser being the logical, moral, humorous side of Parker, while Hawk represented the emotionally hostile, semi-moral, mean side of Parker that was hidden beneath the surface of a calm Spenserian exterior, like me and Wolf.  They both have their place, I thought, and if I had to pick between the both of them to help me out of this particular situation, I’d pick Hawk, just like I readily accepted Wolf’s assistance in Nam.

            It was getting late now.  I could hear the noises of prowling animals, the hoots of owls and the branches at the tops of trees clashing into one another due to the strong breezes.  I wondered if some of the noises were footsteps, but Wolf would have let me know if there was danger lurking in those nighttime shadows.

            But as a precaution, I put the fire out quickly, especially to lessen the amount of smoke that would be created ─ smoke can be smelled for quite a distance ─ and to eliminate night blindness from the firelight.

            I checked on Grace.  She looked at peace and comfortable, sleeping soundly and warmly on nature’s version of an electric blanket.  She wouldn’t need the fire for warmth.  I would endure the cold like a night stalking, roamin’ wolf.

            The Adirondacks have a lot of black bears.  I wondered if one would come crashing into the camp looking for food.  I decided to worry if and when that happened, though, I thought that that’s not likely to happen since there’s no strong-smelling food or garbage to attract them.

            I returned to the tree, sat down and rested my back against it, then pulled out my Ka-Bar, military combat knife from under my left arm.  Then I pulled up my left shirt sleeve and coat sleeve until they were about six inches above my wrist.  I checked my watch.  It was almost eleven P.M.  I placed the flat of the blade next to my watch face, blade facing toward my left elbow and slid the edge of the blade carefully up my forearm, as if I were shaving.  I smiled with great satisfaction when I felt my arm, where the blade had passed.  Where the path of the blade had slid through the hair on my arm, it was now as bare and as smooth as a baby’s ass.  The blade had cut through the hair as cleanly as a razor-sharp scythe cuts through wheat.

            I brushed off my arm after placing the blade on my lap.  The feel of it, the weight of it, the experiences that I had with it gave me comfort.  The Ka-Bar was Parkerized (blackened so that it didn’t reflect light).  It was a combat knife used in the Armed Forces, especially the Marines and some special forces groups.  It was long, sleek, rugged and had good balance.  It was a very lethal, up-close combat weapon.  I had been well-trained in its use.  Specialized combat training and Nam experiences had made me an expert with it.

            I held the point of the blade up to the sky.  Against the light of the stars I saw its deadly shape.  For a few seconds I was mesmerized by its sleek form, like many people are mesmerized by the flames of a fire.  I held it tightly and it felt like I was shaking hands with a best friend, then I returned it to its sheath.

            I thought about how much I loved nature and smiled at the incongruous fact that I didn’t really enjoy camping.  I liked hiking, hunting, fishing, but wasn’t a fan of tent camping and campfire cooking.  Weird, I thought.

            The thought of cooking made me think of Sam.  I loved her with all my heart but wasn’t very good at showing my feelings.  I don’t think she ever really understood the extent of my love for her.  Sure, she knows I love her, but it’s the degree of that love that I don’t think she fully comprehends.  It’s almost like she feels that she may not be good enough for me when, actually, it’s exactly the opposite.  I am very much like Spenser, in some ways.  Spenser would only sleep with Susan (his exclusive inamorata in the books) and I feel that way about Sam.  I love her too much to cheat on her.  Plus, I consider myself to be basically honest, honorable and trustworthy.  Cheating on Sam would force me to change that image of myself, and I don’t want to do that.  I like being an honorable person who can be trusted in such matters.

            I know that I don’t show Sam enough how much I love her.  I’m not too verbal about my love for her.  Plus, I know that I’m moody and depressed a lot.  I enjoy being alone too much and she probably feels like I’m shutting her out, but I don’t mean it to appear that way.  When I’m alone, I’m not lonely, I’m at peace, happy contented.  I’ve also been easily distracted lately.  My thoughts drift and I appear to be a million miles away, not responding to her, or anyone else’s inquiries.  I’m not as good a husband as I’d like to be, but I can’t help myself.  That’s who I am.  But when I get back, I’ll have to talk to Sam, try to make her understand that I do love her and that my silence, moodiness and depression aren’t caused by her presence, speech or actions.

            I pictured Sam in my mind and very much wanted to hold her, kiss her, but I knew that those feelings would have to wait.  Then a thought occurred to me: When Grace and I make it through this ordeal (positive thinking), Sam would have to love the Wolf part of me, too, wouldn’t she?  I humorously wondered how Sam would react to having a wolf in bed with her, figuratively speaking, of course.  My stomach muscles jumped with muted laughter.

                                    /-/…./.-/-./-.-/…/-/- - -/.-../.-/.-./.-./-.- -/..-./.-././-./-.-./…./

                                                            Chapter 11

                                                                 ****

                                                                Footsteps

            Sleep didn’t find me that night because I spent the late night and early morning hours patrolling the camp area.  I was sure that Jake and Tom wouldn’t be able to catch up to us during the night, but I didn’t want to take a chance on Grace and I being murdered in our sleep.  I kept myself alert for most of the night.  Actually, Wolf’s acute senses were mostly in control.  He wouldn’t allow me to take any chances.  Being tired was a lot better than being dead.  The feel of anxiety and fear of impending battle was similar to Nam, but much more intense because I had Grace to protect.  Going into battle alone, in a “kill or be killed” situation, with just my own life at stake, is not as frightening as knowing that if I don’t prevail, my daughter dies with me . . . and, perhaps, dies painfully.  That’s the kind of fright that paralyzes the muscles and freezes the brain of a loving father.  I couldn’t allow that to happen; I wouldn’t allow that to happen.

            Grace and I would be home for Thanksgiving, I demanded of myself.  Then, just prior to 2:00 A.M., I gave myself permission to get a couple hours of pre-dawn sleep.  Wolf would be on guard during my short slumber, which turned out to be shorter than expected.

            Wolf startled me awake with an serious growl.  I cleared my head of grogginess.  Footsteps?  Did I hear footsteps in the forest?  Sound carries more clearly and for a greater distance in the night time air than in day time, especially if there’s no foliage to block the sound waves.  I thought I detected a dragging sound, like tired feet that weren’t being lifted high enough to clear the dead leaves and branches that lay all over the ground.  Then I heard crunching, scratching sounds─my vision and hearing were heightened by Wolf.  Twigs were being broken and clothing was brushing against bushes.  Jake and Tom might be woodsmen, but in the dark their silent, stalking skills apparently were being nullified.

            I sprang to my feet and leaned closely against the tree that had served as my back support during my short sleep.  My eyes carefully searched the area where I thought the noise was coming from.

            Grace and I were vulnerable.  I was wrong about the speed with which vengeance had propelled Jake and Tom through the forest.  I was near panic, worried sick and feeling grenades going off inside my stomach.  My Ka-Bar appeared in my hand as if by magic.

            My eyes penetrated the forest’s black shadows.  I transferred the knife to my left hand and slowly, while concealed by the tree, reached up to my collar and grabbed the throwing knife.  I broke out in a sweat knowing that Grace was only a few feet way, sleeping and in danger.  Increased panic started to bubble up inside of me, like a boiling geyser.  My stomach muscles tightened and my guts twisted into Gordian knots.  My chest felt as if it were in a vice as my heart raced almost out of control.  The night air was cold, but my face felt hot, flushed, and I couldn’t think clearly.  I couldn’t shake my head in an attempt to clear it of the mental fogginess because movement, especially quick movements, attract attention the most and I didn’t want to give my position away.  I squeezed my eyelids closed and mentally forced clarity.  Finally, a plan of action developed.  Because I had the element of surprise, I could probably incapacitate either Jake or Tom with the throwing knife, even though they had shotguns.  But then the remaining man would have a tremendous advantage over me since I couldn’t both save Grace and dart into the forest to stalk the lone survivor.  He would just grab Grace and I’d have to come out into the open to try to save her.  I’d have to stand my ground and hope that Wolf’s survival instincts were as good as they were in Nam.  Not much of a plan, I thought, but better than dazed panic and inaction.

            The faint noises continued to approach.  I searched through the underbrush as my chest shook from the force of my battering heart beat.  My eyes strained to focus on the origin and direction of the sounds as I willed my heart beat to slow.  I felt my eyes widen, like huge saucers.  My jaw went slack, then tightened.  My arms fell limply to my sides.  The sight that I saw was shocking.

            I returned my blades to their sheaths, closed my eyes and took deep, lung-filling breaths of air.  The sight of those two raccoons slowly foraging for food over the dry autumn leaves was a relief that defies explanation.  What a hell of a way to start the early morning hours of November 19th.

            For breakfast, I could have eaten my own heart, it was so far up into my throat that it was almost chewable.  I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my forearm sleeve.  Raccoons, I thought with a grin . . . not men’s footsteps.  Those damn raccoons, I thought.  They scared the shit out of me, figuratively speaking.  That scare had an extreme asshole “pucker factor” rating.  I felt myself rubbing my face in embarrassment, as if I was washing with a wash cloth.  When my hand dropped away from my face, panic was replaced by calm, and the grimace was replaced by an embarrassed smile.

            I walked to the lean-to and checked Grace immediately.  I could tell that she slept deeply and comfortably during the night because her face looked angelic and peaceful.  I hoped that it had an invigorating effect on her because I knew this day would be very difficult.  I also knew that her present comfort, warmth and restored energy wouldn’t last long.  I hoped that she would have the stamina to keep traveling quickly, at least for the morning hours.  I lowered myself next to her knowing that I could never sleep after the scare and embarrassment that I had just been through.  I lay next to her just resting for a little while, until dawn.

            I awakened a couple of hours after dawn, amazed that I had fallen asleep.  I woke Grace and we packed our things quickly.  As we did that, I told Grace, “We’ll have to eat as we walk.  We have to get moving quickly because I fell asleep.”

            I had intended to leave at daybreak, but now the sun was up over the horizon and I berated myself for my carelessness.  Wolf must have thought that I needed the rest, and since he sensed no immediate danger he let me sleep.  I mentally berated him, too.  A recalcitrant growl is the only response that I received from him.

            As we were about to leave camp, I picked up a cool chunk of charcoal from the campfire.  I stuck it into a corner of my backpack, then kicked as much sod and dirt as I could onto the feeble remains of the campfire.  As we walked southwest, along the Cold River, there were flurries in the air.  Again, I was very thankful that there was no heavy snowfall because it would severely limit our chances of escaping.  Even a light snow would make tracking us so much easier and neither Grace nor I were dressed for windy, bitterly cold or snowy days in this wild, remote Adirondack wilderness.  We’d be in serious trouble if there was a snowstorm─of course, so would Jake and Tom, but they’d know how to survive it better than I.  By now, however, they really didn’t need to track us.  They would know that we were heading for the canoes.

            “Daddy?  Can’t we sit while we eat the gorp?” Grace asked.

            “No.  I’m sorry, Sweetheart, but we need to keep moving as fast as we can.  We’ll have to eat as we walk because I overslept, but we can stop for a while when it’s time for lunch.”

            Grace’s brow wrinkled with concern and I knew that she was thinking that lunch time was a few hours away.

            So we both ate our breakfast of gorp as we walked, being extra careful not to trip and spill any of the precious energy-packed food.  I was sorry that I couldn’t fix us a hot meal for breakfast, especially for Grace.  It would have gotten us off to a better start and in a better frame of mind─teachers, nurses and doctors always say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day for children.

            I tried to stay close to the river, where the trees weren’t as dense.  That way we could walk faster and straighter because we wouldn’t be constantly dodging as many trees.  It would be nice to travel “as the crow flies,” fast and straight, but that wasn’t a possibility.  The forest made travel very difficult and slow, especially for Grace whose short legs weren’t made for a fast pace that included dodging trees, bushes, fall-downs, rocky outcrops, slippery moss, and the constant ups and downs of the wilderness terrain.

            We both finished our gorp about the same time and put our bags away.  I pulled my gloves back on and Grace pulled on her mittens.

            I took Grace by the hand to help her keep pace with me.  After a couple of hours walking, then jogging, then walking, again, over the rough terrain, with only very brief “catch your breath” stops, I felt as if I were dragging a heavy bag.

            “Grace,” I said too impatiently, “I know how hard this is for you, and how tired you are, but we just can’t slow down.  Please try to keep up with me . . . Okay Sweetheart?”  I immediately regretted showing my impatience.

            I knew she was drained, exhausted, discouraged, but I didn’t know what else to do.  I could carry her for awhile, but that would slow us down almost as much as Grace’s tired body slowed us. I thought about hiding her and seeking out my pursuers, but just the idea of that option scared the crap out of me so I dismissed it quickly.  I’ve always had a serious aversion to running away from my enemy, as we were doing now.  My tendency is almost always to move forward, into the danger, head on, one-on-one, best man wins.  Alone, I’d be stalking Jake and Tom.  The hunters would become the hunted.  But I had Grace to protect and not many options about how to protect her.  I decided that hiding her and going off to hunt the hunters was a terrible option and to take that option would expose my growing panic and unclear thoughts.

            I could see the tears well-up in Grace’s eyes.  I could feel some of her pain and exhaustion and then my own guilt.  Discomfort and sadness was etched all over her dirty face.  She looked up at me and spoke.  “Daddy, I’m trying.  I really am.  But my legs and feet hurt bad.  I can’t even breathe good.  My chest hurts.  Don’t be mad at me, please, Daddy.”

            “I’m not mad at you, Grace.  Really, I’m not.  Just do your best, OK?”

            Grace hugged my leg and nodded her head to me.

            My heart broke as she hugged my leg for support.  Shit!, I thought, as I severely chastised myself.  How can I treat Grace like a soldier.  She’s only eight years old.  So I bent down and picked her up.  I’d carry her as far as I could.  She desperately needed a break from our rapid pace.  We had come a long way, and almost at top walking speed, in order to make up for the lost time from my over-sleeping.

            As I walked as fast as possible, Grace remained on my mind.  She was a very sensitive child, always has been.  I felt guilty about what I had just said to her.  Of course she was trying.  She was already doing her very best.  Hell, most of the guys in Nam couldn’t keep up with me, so how’s a little girl supposed to do it?.  I shook my head feeling like an insensitive ogre.

            Grace wrapped her arms tightly around my neck.  Her legs wrapped around my waist.  I grabbed my left wrist with my right hand so that both my forearms were under her butt to support her.

            I walked quickly, but after a couple hundred tree-dodging yards, I was starting to have difficulty with my footing as we progressed over some rough terrain.  Getting through or around the thick underbrush was an awkward strain, also.  I slowed my pace.  My arms and shoulders ached and my lower back felt like a dagger had been plunged into it.  The backpack straps bit viciously into my shoulders and the contents poked me.  My breath became raspy with fatigue.

            After approximately one-hundred more yards I had to put Grace down.  She thanked me for the brief rest, but I knew she was a little disappointed that I had put her down so soon.  But she looked up at me and smiled with appreciation.

            I looked into her eyes and could feel my heart consumed in an intense conflagration of fatherly love.  I realized then, as if it were a revelation, that, where there used to be cold in me, she brought warmth and where there used to be darkness, she brought light, where there used to be sadness, she brought happiness.  Then a surprising thought occurred to me.  Eventually, she was going to be the mother of Sam’s and my grandchildren.  The sweet smile spread across my face like maple syrup across pancakes and I could taste the sweetness of it.

            We walked until the sun peaked over our heads.  I noticed that Grace’s face was cut and dirty.  Her coat and pants were ripped, also.

            I felt my own face and checked my clothes.  My clothes were basically in the same condition.  Duh!  What did I expect, a pristine tuxedo after sitting and sleeping on the ground, constantly brushing my bare skin and clothes against tree bark, branches, bushes, vines?  I felt silly.  Lack of sleep was having adverse affects on me.

            After a couple of hours we stopped, sat on a blow-down tree and shared water and more gorp.  It gave us a chance to catch our breaths.  We didn’t talk; only the wind and the crunching noises of our chewing could be heard.

            Tiny snow flurries were increasing, but I doubted they would cover the ground even if it flurried all day, the flurries melted as soon as they hit the ground.  The clouds were not numerous enough, nor dark enough to carry much snow.  But I could feel the cold wind picking up and, as I had expected, Grace shivered and said, “Daddy.  I’m getting cold.”  I was determined not to speak harshly and with impatience to her.

            I could easily see that her lips looked bluish.  She shivered again, the body’s way of burning energy to produce more heat.  To produce more heat, the body needs energy and the gorp was our source of energy.  Again, I was very thankful for taking the bags of gorp.

            I looked around and spotted an area that must have been marshy during spring and summer.  There were many dead and dried cat tails there.  Those fuzzy, furry cat tails can be slid right off the plant stem.  I gathered many of these, pulled them apart until they resembled large puffs of cotton fibers, then I shoved them inside Grace’s coat, between her shirt and her inside coat lining, to act as a good insulation.  I did this to her chest and stomach areas and for her back as well.  I even shoved them down her sleeves─lightly, so as not to hamper her mobility.  Then I took out the dental floss and tied her jacket sleeves more tightly around her wrist to prevent as much heat loss as possible.  I tied her coat tightly around her hips, also, so the insulation wouldn’t fall out.  I also tied the bottom of her pants legs tightly to her boots for the same reason─I didn’t put puffs of cottony cat tails down her pants legs because it would take too many cat tails and it would consume too much time, plus it would only hamper her mobility and the cloth-like fibers would probably chafe her skin.  I remembered something.  I took off my backpack and removed the roll of toilet paper.  Paper makes a very good insulation material, also.  When Grace was through eating her gorp, I wrapped both her hands in toilet paper, then helped her put on her mittens.  And, finally, since the most serious heat loss from the whole body comes from the head, I wrapped the top of her head with several layers of toilet paper so that she looked like a hospital patient who had her head bandaged after brain surgery.  Then I placed her hat over the layered toilet paper.  I was sure that she’d stay a lot warmer now.

            “I bet I look like a silly scarecrow, Daddy, but you know what?” she said, “I feel warmer already.”

            She gave me a hug and I bent down and kissed her cold cheek.  I hoped that she would warm up a lot because kissing her on the cheek was like kissing an ice cube.  I maintained a positive attitude and replied, “Yes, Sweetheart, you’ll stay a lot warmer now.  Wait right here as I climb this tree.”

            I wanted to find out if I could see Jake and Tom and, if I could see them, how far away they were.  I didn’t waste time wondering if they were following us.  I knew that they had to be following us, I just didn’t know how far away they were.  It wasn’t likely that I’d see them, anyway, not through the thick forest, but I needed to try, just for peace-of-mind.

            Once up the tree, as high as I could go safely, I looked across the leafless forest valley that I thought we had just passed through only a few hours before.  I spotted a slightly open area that I remembered.  I stared at it for about five minutes with the tree swaying in the cold breeze and my cheeks stinging from the wind-blown flurries hitting my frosty flesh.

            I thought that the Gibsons were either further back than I thought, or they were further ahead than I thought and, believe me, the latter thought wasn’t at all comforting.

            I decided to wait in the tree for a couple more minutes.  I strained to keep the area in focus.  The wind caused my eyes to water and distort my vision.  I felt a anxiety twisting my guts as I thought of Jake and Tom being closer than I anticipated.

            Then, suddenly, I thought I saw movement.  I wiped the tears from my eyes and strained them as I focused on that small, open area that we’d passed through only a few hours ago.  Sure enough, incredible luck was on my side and I caught a glimpse of two figures, one behind the other and each with a shotgun barrel across his left forearm as their right hands held the grips.  Jake and Tom looked doll-sized and the shotguns looked like toothpicks from this distance.  They appeared to be slow-jogging with their heads down, not as a protection from the cold wind or the snow flurries, but because they were looking for tracks, or a place where the ground was disturbed, indicating our travel direction and rate of travel─a good woodsman can get a good idea how fast a person is traveling by the distance between the foot prints and the depth of the foot prints─jogging will leave deeper prints that are farther apart, slow walking will leave shallow prints not spaced too far apart and fast walking will be in between those two.  But a tracker would have to know how big and how tall a person is to figure that out and they certainly knew how big and how tall I am.

            I looked down, to the ground, at Grace and a great sadness burned inside my chest, as if my heart was on fire.  A silent, lingering and desperate hope that they weren’t after us─which, realistically, I should not have harbored─was ripped from my flesh like a stubborn, rusty nail from a board.

            Ever since we left the cabin, I had secretly held on to the hope that Jake and Tom had wisely decided not to follow us toward civilization, but, rather, had decided that they would bury Lester and travel to other parts of this wilderness with as many supplies as they could handle, now that the Preston Ponds cabin wouldn’t remain a secret for very long, not once Grace and I reached safety.

            But they’d spent too much time secretly building the cabin and laboriously carrying supplies to it.  They intended to use the cabin, not abandon it, therefore they must stop us from reaching civilization and exposing their location.  I should’ve known better.  It wasn’t a realistic option for them not to follow us, catch us and kill us.

            I hurried down the tree─ripping my coat in a couple of places─trying not to show my heightened anxiety to Grace..

            Jake and Tom wanted the satisfying taste of revenge for my having killed Lester.  Their rage was probably just barely controllable, so they were traveling at a steady, rapid pace.  We needed to move quickly.

            I grabbed Grace’s hand, pulled her up from her sitting position, then started out at a quick pace, thinking, “Is it time to stalk the stalkers, attack the attackers, kill the killers?” Then I thought, “Should I tell Grace what I saw?”  No, no, I can’t do any of that . . . Not yet, Wolf’s voice whispered to me.  Grace was already afraid enough and I was already surprised at how fear for her well-being was growing inside of me, like a well-fed monster.

            In Nam I acted fearless─maybe crazy, numb and stupid, too─after my first couple of kills, but now I felt more panic and fear than I’d felt in the thirteen months of almost constant jungle warfare in Nam.  I didn’t like vacillating continually between self-confidence and self-doubting fear.  Then, thankfully, I heard the fearless growl of Wolf and felt the great strength that he possessed─that my mind possessed?  I calmed myself and mentally prepared myself.

            Wolf and I would own the night . . . tonight.  I thought that my fear and anxiety would lessen.  It should have, but it didn’t.  I wondered if it showed on my face.

            We were about three, possibly four hours ahead of the Gibsons, I calculated.  They had gained two or three hours on our approximately six hour head start.  That meant that they would catch up to us a few hours after we made camp tonight.  I needed to stop an hour or two before night time.  I had to stop and make camp and prepare for the Gibsons’ arrival.  Plus, Grace simply couldn’t travel through the night in order to stay ahead of the Gibsons.  Even if we could travel through the night, we couldn’t maintain a lead on them with our pace slowing drastically and their pace being constant and fast.  They must know, I thought, that they are very close to us and were pushing themselves even harder than yesterday.  They were full of vengeance and rage, as well as all the adrenaline-induced energy that accompanied those traits.

            Grace stumbled, staggered and then caught her balance.  She looked up at me, as if she had a sixth sense and could feel my fear and know my thoughts.  She said, “You saw them, didn’t you, Daddy?”

            She stared at me as she walked by my side.  Her eyes glazed over with a film of tears, her eyes pleading for me to respond in the negative, but trying to be as brave as she possibly could.  I wanted to sweep her off her feet, hug her and kiss her and tell her that we were going to make it, that we were safe.  And before I realized what I was doing, that’s exactly what I did.  I didn’t know if what I said was a good thing or a bad thing in this situation.  It just happened.  It was like an emotional imperative.  I felt myself smiling . . . and lying to Grace.

            “No, Sweetheart, I didn’t see them.  They must be farther back than I thought they were.  Our tricks must have worked and they couldn’t find our trail for a long time.  And, with you working so hard to travel fast, we must have gotten way ahead of them.  I picked her up, held her tightly and put my cheek against hers.  At first she was stiff, like a frozen rope, then she relaxed, like a warm rope.  I hid my face from her.  Yes, I lied to her, but, I rationalized, and said to myself, “Everybody, except newborn infants, lie don’t they?”  Truth be told, we are all liars─intentionally saying something that we know is not true.  Then I thought, “Sometimes lies aren’t only good, they are necessary, like telling a dying person what they want to hear so that their dying is more peaceful for them, even though you are sure that you can’t do what they want you to do.  Rationalization?  Maybe, maybe not.  You show me any normal person, over the age of one year old, who claims to have never lied and I’ll show you a certified liar.  Even the bible is full of intellectual dishonesty, lies like virgins giving birth and oceans being parted.  Of course, lies do comfort millions of people, giving them a false, but accepted, feeling of security, happiness and a sense of immortality (in heaven), but accepting lies to make your life comfortable, secure and happy is still a lie, deceitfully told to you and willingly accepted by you, at the cost of truth, rational inquiry, scientific facts and common sense logic.

            Referring to religion, George Bernard Shaw stated: “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”

            I’ll admit, however, that not accepting religious lies does make life much harder, more pessimistic, less hopeful because now all the pressure is on you, and you alone, to solve your personal problems and societal entanglements.  There’s also no solace in praying to a God for assistance and that knowledge can make life less happy, less comforting, less secure.  Nonetheless, personally, I prefer rational thought, its questions and its rational answers based on logic and scientific proof.  I’m simply not a person who can abandon rational, common sense in order to search in a dark cellar, at midnight, for an imaginary black cat.  Chapman Cohen said, “Gods are fragile things, they can be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.”

            A growling cacophony filled my inner ears, giving me new strength.  It was Wolf’s battle cry, a howling challenge to the evil that was approaching us.

            As Grace and I moved quickly through the forest, I imagined that the bare branches were saluting us.  I saw it as a sign of respect; of encouragement, a good omen, perhaps, especially since, the night before, the trees looked like the Gibson’s evil minions surrounding us like a hangman’s noose, then pulling that noose tighter and tighter around us.

            Sam’s face appeared on my mind-screen.  She was one of those rare women, with strikingly beautiful, green eyes that made me feel warm, accepted and comfortable.  Her sensuous, full lips were always inviting, but it was her green eyes, flecked with gold, that made me smile about their sensuous invitation.  The very first time that I kissed her I felt those warm, soft, pliable and accepting lips.  It was as if my own lips were being pleasantly melted by hers, as her eyes invited me to come inside and learn her secrets of love and longing for the right man.  I was so glad that it was me that got that invitation.  I accepted it without hesitation.

            Sam’s image lingered in my mind.  She was waiting for us.  Her smile told me that she knew, one way or another, that I would bring Grace home safely.  I would.  I had to.

            I took Grace’s hand in mine and we started to jog slowly.  As we jogged, my mind drifted to Dante’s Divine Comedy, which begins with the words: “In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself in a dark wood.”  My mind kept repeating it over and over like an echoing mantra.  I certainly was near the middle of my life and I also was in the dark woods, literally, although it was probably meant to be figurative symbolic for “evil.”  I’m not sure what it meant in the Comedy, maybe approaching death, but as applied to me, I seemed to be discovering myself all over again.  I knew, of course, that I wasn’t invincible, that I wasn’t an emotionless killer, like I felt that I sometimes had been in Nam, that I was a devoted and loving father, as well as a loyal and loving husband, and that Wolf was just the survivalist part of me─some people might say he was my “dark side”─that became an anthropomorphic white wolf.  Nor was Wolf a crazy, rabid or blood-thirsty slayer.  He was a personal, private illusion, a mental construct of mine, used for the purposes of vigorous self-protection.  This anthropomorphic wolf and I both disliked killing─because I’d given Wolf some human characteristics─yet we were practical realists and knew that killing was sometimes necessary to defend one’s life and the lives of others.  Killing, like lying, is not always a bad thing.

            I snapped out of my daydreaming as Grace asked, “Does Mommy think we’re dead, Daddy?”  Grace keeps asking me probing questions that I don’t want to answer, or that I don’t know the answers to.

            I answered in a fraction of a second, so sure was I of my lie.  “No,”  I said immediately.  “Absolutely not, Grace.  Mommy won’t believe that, no matter what anyone tells her.  She will know that we’re alive until she sees . . . (I almost said, ‘our bodies.’) until she has absolute proof, and that won’t happen.  I won’t let it happen.  We’ll be home with Mommy soon.  She’s probably sitting home waiting for us, Sweetheart.  She knows I’ll bring you home.  She knows that if anyone can bring you home, safely, it’s me.  I promise you that I will.  We’ll be home for Thanksgiving for sure.”  I spit those words out rapidly, machine-gun style, then gained control of my emotions.  I was being economical and judicious with the “truth,” I rationalized.

            I stopped myself from verbally rambling on.  I was thankful that Grace hadn’t noticed the doubt in my voice, but I did believe that, with some good luck and great perseverance, that I could get us home.  I had the determination to do just that.  We walked quickly even though our legs ached and, to my great surprise, I found myself almost saying a prayer from my childhood Catholic up-bringing─that was definitely not a good sign for a “born-again atheist.”  Something in me─was it the needed comfort, security and happiness that I mentioned before?─wanted to believe in an all-good and all-powerful and omniscient God who could save us, with one sweep of his or her hand.  Maybe that’s the primary appeal of religion.  When anyone feels that they or anyone they know lacks the power to solve a dire, or potentially tragic problem for them, then, in their helplessness, they conjure-up an imaginary being, God, to give them hope; peace of mind.

            My brain became inundated with quotations that I’d read in my search for the existence or non-existence of the Christian God.  Clarence Darrow, the famous Scopes trial lawyer, said; “I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose.”  The German philosopher, Nietzsche, said:  “Which is it?  Is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?”  Tennyson, the poet, said:  “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”  And Plato got right to the very heart of the issue, saying, “He was a wise man who created God,” though I could easily question Plato’s use of the word wise.

            So here I was, a stern doubter; a serious skeptic of religious beliefs.  I couldn’t appeal to God for help because I was an atheist who simply didn’t possess the ability to have an unquestioning blind-faith in what seemed, to me at least, mankind’s biggest fairy tale, a fairy tale full on incredible, naked nonsense, illogic, misinterpretations, grand hyperbole, contradictions and sprinkled with impossibilities.

            Occam’s Razor is a principle of thought that in essence says: "All other things being equal, the simplest solution or answer to a problem is best."  In other words, when more than one competing theories are equal in other respects, this principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates, the fewest entities and the fewest complexities.  So which is simpler to understand and believe? God or no God?  The irony of Occam’s Razor is that it was postulated by a Catholic, Franciscan Friar, named William of Ockham─the principle is named after him, though, today, his name is spelled differently.

            I wondered, “What is there that could constitute a convincing proof that a God existed, or didn’t exist.”  Perhaps there was no such thing as proof.  Perhaps there is just blind-faith  (a believer), doubt (an agnostic), and rejection (atheist).  In that case, everyone simply makes their own personal, subjective choice.  It would be vastly simpler if God would simply present Himself to the world.  Sure would eliminate all doubts.  Too simple a solution, I guess.  Perhaps God doesn’t think too highly of William of Ockham.

            But I was attempting to be a critical thinker.  There is a significant problem between critical, rational thinking and religious, blind-faith  thinking.  Critical, rational thinking and religious thinking will always clash because critical, rational thinking is all about questions which may never be answered─no valid proof, yet─whereas religious, blind-faith thinking, in large part, is all about the mandated, religious answers that may never be questioned.

            My personal values distinctly parallel Christian values because I was brought up in a predominantly Christian country, but amongst Sunday Christians─Monday through Saturday most were the ward of the devil─Is it just a coincidence that the word “evil” is included in the word “devil?”  I certainly didn’t grow up to consider myself to be an uncivilized heathen.  I was, in most respects, just an average person who acts according to his own secular moral code and that moral code coincided quite closely with a traditional Christian moral code.  And why shouldn’t it.  I was raised in an overwhelmingly Christian society.  I felt that I behaved in a way that was best for that society in which I lived─not best for the religion of that society, best for that society.  I also believed that I was probably more honest and trustworthy than most Christians that I had experiences with, but that certainly didn’t make me a Christian.  I believed in the secular code, but not that it had to have religious origins or be inundated with mostly meaningless, religious dogma.  I couldn’t help grinning when I thought of the majority of Christians, especially the supposedly “born again” minions.  They’re usually triple pains-in-the-asses, their “second” time around.  Naturally, by comparison, my being a “born again atheist” made me perfect, the “second time around.”  I couldn’t help laughing at myself.

            I was one step into the shallow part of the creek before I snapped out of my meandering philosophical thoughts.  I turned around as I felt the sudden tug on my arm.  It was Grace trying to stop me from walking farther into the water.  She had been yelling to me to stop, but I had been deep in thought and was oblivious to her words.  I was holding her hand and almost pulled her into the water.  Luckily, I stopped just in time.  Creek?  I looked around and saw that this was a small creek that flowed into the Cold River, a small tributary.  It was a very shallow area of the creek and the water didn’t penetrate, nor overflow, my Timberland boots (the kind that used to sit in a container of water, week after week, in many shoe stores, so that the manufacturer could prove how wonderfully waterproof they are).

            I knew it wasn’t just a feeling, but a fact, that the temperature was getting much colder when I saw the thin, lacey, fragile fingers of ice that were forming along both edges of this shallow creek.  The danger, here, wasn’t the deepness of the creek, but the coldness of the water.  No matter how waterproof, or insulated a boot is, if you dip it in something extremely cold, then the coldness─not the wetness─on the outside of the boot will eventually transfer to the inside of the boot.  But I had taken my boot out of the water almost immediately and hoped that the coldness wouldn’t transfer to my foot.

            I had been worried about cold feet, especially Grace’s, but she hadn’t complained about cold feet at all.  Cold feet would have slowed us down considerably more, I would’ve had to carry Grace more often and may have had to stop to build a fire to warm her boots and feet.

            Slipping and falling into the water would have certainly meant the death of us, since there was no way to survive without a fire, but stopping to build a fire would have allowed the Gibsons to catch us much more quickly.  Death was stalking us.  Now I knew what it was like.

            I rebuked myself, once again, for my mental wandering.  Right now I had to focus not on philosophy but on reality.  The Gibsons possess a large reservoir of hatred in which they must bathe daily.  When they sweat, I thought, they must ooze anger, vengeance and cruelty.  Where other people lived for praise, adulation, or love, the Gibsons lived for fear . . . creating fear in others was their pleasure and entertainment.  They were the ultimate sadists and an instinctive proof, for me, that their certainly was no “all-good” God.

            I had to keep us traveling at a quick pace, until night time, to maintain our dwindling lead on the Gibsons.  I needed the darkness of night and the lead that we had to prepare myself and Grace for the Gibsons angry arrival.  I had to admit to myself that I could no longer out-distance them.  I had to face reality, face facts.  Grace had been stumbling more and more and she was totally exhausted, her energy tank was dry.  I had to stop and make a stand . . . a bloody stand . . . a kill-or-be-killed last stand.

            I thought about the blackness of night and felt good.  Darkness was my friend, my ally, just as it had been in Nam.  I wore darkness like a cloak, comfortable, yet deadly.

            We were both thirsty so I stopped at the edge of the creek and filled the aluminum cup and we each had a drink.  I saved the canteen water just in case our travels took us away from the readily available creek or river water.  The water was so cold that it gave me a temporary headache.  The same thing happened to Grace.  Neither of us drank as much water as we should have because of the “brain-freeze.”  I was worried about dehydration so I emptied the frigid cup of water and refilled it with the warmer─because it was next to my body─canteen water.  We each drank our fill, then I refilled the canteen, carefully, with the frigid river water.

            As the brain-freeze ceased, I had an idea that would help us gain a little time on Jake and Tom.  So I said to Grace, “Sweetheart, I have an idea and I’ll need to carry you for a short while, okay?”

            It was almost time to stop for the night and set up camp.  Grace was very weary and welcomed whole-heartedly the thought of being carried.  She extended her arms to me, as her eyes said, “Thank you.”  I picked her up into my arms in the same manner that I had done before.

            We had been headed southwesterly for two days and, I thought that Jake and Tom would never suspect that I would suddenly veer in another direction, especially since they both thought of me as an unknowledgeable wimp.  Of course, I thought to myself, after killing Lester and after yesterday’s backtracking maneuver, they may not think I’m such a dolt.  But I was betting that they felt so strongly that I was a skinny, helpless, asshole, that they were thoroughly convinced that I had been completely lucky to have gotten the jump on Lester and probably accidentally stumbled on the idea of backtracking.  Anyway, I felt Grace and I had a good chance of fooling them, again, by using this creek that ran almost at a right angle to the Cold River

            So, with Grace in my arms, I walked into the shallow water at the creek’s edge, heading east, against the flow of the creek that eventually emptied into the Cold River.  Jake and Tom would certainly expect us to have followed the creek in a westerly direction right to the Cold River.  And when they followed the creek, one on each side, all the way to the Cold River, without finding any of our departure tracks, then they’d know that I’d fooled them again.  They’d backtrack, of course, then go eastward until they found my creek departure tracks upstream, where they hadn’t expected us to go.  And, whereas I’d have wasted a fifteen minutes performing this maneuver, they might waste two or three times that amount of time to locate our tracks, again.  By then they’d be furious and frustrated (I loved the thought), and, I hoped, would still consider me just a damn, lucky fool to have accidentally mislead them . . . again.  I was hoping they would be doggedly stupid and follow us.

            Wolf growled, but I was too distracted to pay attention.

            I was pleased with myself, my confidence was bolstered by this maneuver to gain time, although the danger of our situation normally wouldn’t allow me to have such a thought, as I walked up the creek─without a paddle, so to speak

            Suddenly, I felt Grace stiffened in my arms as I heard the ugliest, meanest, deep-throated and terrifying growl that I had ever heard.  I looked in the same direction as Grace.  For a moment all I could do was stare into those crazed eyes and opened mouth.  Those eyes were black pits consumed in agony and clouded with a veil of death.  The teeth were literally dripping with pinkish, frothy saliva.

                        /- -./..-/…/-.-/- - -/…-/.-/.-../../-.-/../…/.-/- -./.-././.-/-/..-./.-./.././-./-../