Roman Wolfe's Adirondack Ordeal Part Two

Chapter 4

                                                      ****

                                                            Night Images

            I woke up with sweat dripping down my forehead in spite of the cold.  I sat up as well as I could considering that my hands were tied to the upper leg of Grace’s metal cot with two feet of extra rope so I could move a little.  I leaned my back against the cot.  I could feel the sweat rolling down my forehead, rivulets of ice-water, the salt from the sweat stinging my eyes, some dripping off my nose, and some running down my cheeks.  I wiped the sweat off.  I noticed that the cabin had cooled off considerably due to the colder night air and letting the fire in the wood stove burn-out.

            I closed my eyes, then shook my head to clear the cobwebs.  I found myself desperately hoping that this was all a bad dream.  I opened my eyes, looked around the room, saw three sleeping shapes and realized that Grace and I were still in deep trouble.  Images from Nam burst suddenly in my mind like firecrackers, then exploded out of view as new, terrifying images appeared.  I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut trying to rid myself of those dreadful images.  When I opened my eyes, I told myself that I needed to focus on something else.  I bit my tongue until I tasted blood.  The pain forced the images away and enabled me to focus.  Now that my mind was clear, I realized that the blood in my mouth tasted good, very pleasing.  That was a strange feeling because the taste of blood made my stomach growl with hunger, as if I was a hungry carnivore . . . Wolf.

            I looked at my glow-face watch. If I push in on the stem, the face glows a dim green.  It was nearly 4:00 A.M.  I thought that within the next hour Jake would be up and we’d be moving out of this cabin and heading for Preston Pond.

            The cabin was quiet.  I thought about escaping, but certainly not without Grace.  Escaping with Grace would make it much more difficult, of course, but there was no possible way that I would leave her alone with any of these monsters, especially Lester. Just the thought of doing that made me hate myself and I couldn’t have been more deeply guilt-ridden about that despicable thought, even if bullets were guilt and a machine gun had riddled my body beyond recognition.  I bit my tongue again to rid myself of that cowardly thought, then refocused.  My mind-set concentrated on indomitable courage and determination.  Now there was no doubt in my mind that I’d kill any or all of the Gibsons to get Grace and me away from them safely.  But that meant I had to be patient; wait for the right time, the right situation.  A time like in Nam, when the wolf in me was roaming, night time was always welcomed, and I embraced it as I would a loyal friend.

            My thoughts wandered.  Today was Sunday, November 15th.  I doubted that the cops had even started to search for us.  I remembered some TV cop show where the cops said they couldn’t even begin to search for someone until twenty-four hours had passed.  Apparently, a person wasn’t officially missing until a certain amount of time had elapsed.  The cops probably wouldn’t give our disappearance genuinely serious effort because they wouldn’t quickly make the connection between our situation, the prisoner escape and the troopers being shot.  On the other hand, with a child missing and possibly kidnapped, the police may take action very quickly, like they do now-a-days with the Amber Alerts.  They probably wouldn’t realize that the two cases were related until they found the cabin and the Annie button on the cabin floor, the tire tracks and fingerprints, if any existed.  Then, hopefully, they would see the connection between those discoveries.  I hoped that they were at least competent enough to find the Annie button on the floor of the cabin and to mention it to Sam.  She would make the connection right away.  I’d give almost anything to be in her arms right now.  I missed her so much.

            I wiped the sweat off my brow, again.  I closed my eyes and in the blackness, I saw two images as if they had been projected on the insides of my eyelids.  The two images were as vivid, colorful and clear as an organism seen through a powerful microscope.  I saw Grace’s peacefully sleeping face and an image of Sam’s tearful face.

            But I also sensed something strange, though I couldn’t identify it yet.  I kept my eyes closed and studied the image more carefully.  I pretended that my mind was the zoom-lens on a camera and that I could zoom-out away from my close-up mental picture of them so that I could see the background.  I still saw Grace with her eyes closed, only she was farther away from me in this view of her.  She was without her glasses as she slept.  She looked so peaceful.  She was lying in bed wearing a beautiful white dress with bright orange, marigolds embroidered around each short sleeve.  Her hair shone brightly as her head sank halfway into a plush, lacy pillow.  Her forearms were crossed over her abdomen and her mother was standing over her, head bent, with tears streaming down her cheeks.

            Suddenly I though, “Why would Grace be wearing a dress in bed?”  I opened my eyes in shock.  My body shuddered.  “Shit!” my mind screamed at me.  I realized that Grace never slept like that.  I knew what the images meant, but not why my brain conjured them up.  Grace was like a cyclone in bed; always twisting and turning, and usually falling asleep in a fetal position with her knees bent up toward her chest.  I should know because I went into her room every night to kiss her on the cheek, whisper that I loved her and to make sure she was covered-up.  Sometimes when I kissed her cheek, even with the lightest pressure, she would roll over in bed.  I saw the image of Sam, once again, tears tattooing salty paths down her cheeks.

            No!  That wasn’t a bed.  It was a coffin that Grace was lying in.  The images that I was having belonged to a funeral scene, and this startling realization brought a flood of tears to my eyes.  My head was an anvil, and a blacksmith was pounding it.  I could feel the feral wolf in me trying to rip its way out of the confines of my inner body.  My ribs started to hurt, as if they were prison bars that some tremendously strong and angry beast was pushing and bending in order to escape.  It was a familiar feeling, but one that had been long dormant.  It’s a feeling that has always been there, just beneath the surface of civility, just waiting to be triggered so it could explode out of me, take shape, and turn vicious.  And the older I got, the more intense that feeling became.

            There’s a shadowy, sinister place inside of me where no one should trespass.  It’s an extremely remote place with an air-tight, heavily secured, extra-thick door that shouldn’t be opened by anyone but me.  But the Gibsons were breaking through that door.  They’ve begun to trespass into a forbidden area and had no inkling of their truly tragic mistake.  Now they must face the wrath of the escaped furies in the form of a pale wolf; an untamed, wild, feral and ferocious creature, known to me alone as my Roamin’ Wolf, the very dark side of Roman Wolfe.

            I felt my whole-body trembling.  I still had my eyes closed as Sam’s dramatic image turned away from Grace’s coffin and looked straight at me with glassy eyes and both hands wiping away the scalding tears that were streaming from each eye.  Her long, auburn hair glistened, as it framed her head.  More startling was the brilliant, purple nimbus, Sam’s favorite color that formed an outline around her entire body.  Her soft, full lips opened slowly and in slow-motion she screamed to me, with a pause between each word for emphasis, “Bring… her… home… to… me, Wolf!”  She paused to catch her breath, then repeated the same words, again.  Then she said, “I… love… you, Roman.  I… love… you, Grace.  Come… home… safely!”  Her hands came to her face and covered her eyes as she wept uncontrollably.  As this disturbing image faded away, it was replaced by another.  I glanced at my precious daughter lying in that beautifully decorated, box of death.  It made me want to scream with rage, as my brain felt as if it was boiling.

            I opened my eyes suddenly to rid myself of those tragically, haunting images.  The tears poured down my cheeks as if a flood gate had been opened.  It was atypical of me to be this emotional, so I wondered what the doctor would think.  I didn’t have my depression medication and I didn’t care.  I would force myself not to get severely depressed because Grace’s life depended on it.  Without Grace, life wouldn’t offer much meaning for Sam and me.  Death for us would have more meaning than life without Grace.  No, I thought, depression won’t control me now.  I must maintain strict control, controlled rage . . . just like in Nam.  I felt as if death was hovering very close, so close that I really thought I could smell its putrid flesh.  I thought, “If this struggle is to be anything like Nam, then that decaying flesh would be neither Grace’s nor mine.  I just had to wait for my chance and not be impatient.  I had to stay controlled, stay focused and hopeful, then let the pale wolf come to me.

            I wiped my tears away and in doing so, it seemed as if my mental cobwebs were wiped away too.  I stared into the darkness of the cabin.  I realized, then, that in my funereal “death image,” Sam had called me “Wolf.”  That was unusual because she always called me, Roman.  It was in Nam that she knew I was called Wolf because of my deadly stalking and killing in the night.  So, to her, Wolf was a name of violence, blood and death, thus, she never used my code name, Wolf.  She disliked that moniker.  So then, I asked myself, why would I imagine that she would say it as she screamed?  Maybe she just meant to say my last name, “Wolfe,” instead of “Wolf.”  It was a conundrum that I didn’t want to waste time on.

            Then, unexpectedly, I couldn’t help but smile just a little, like a person on a game show who knows the answer before anyone else does.  In matters of great danger, it was “Wolf” that was needed, not Roman.  “Roman” was the nice, gentle, civilized guy, whereas “Wolf” was feral, strong, cunning and dangerous.  Sam was calling for the Wolf in me to surface, to protect Grace and myself.  I knew Sam well.  I knew how she thought.  She might not like the “Wolf” in me because it was synonymous with violence and death, or my Nam nickname, or what I did in Nam, but she knew that it was time for Wolf to rise-up inside of me.  She wanted “Roamin’ Wolf” to surface.  I knew that that’s what the image of her screaming meant.  So, Wolf would surface . . . soon.

            Beyond Sunday Rock was the remote wilderness world of the wolf.  It wasn’t just Jake’s untamed, uncivilized world anymore.  Wolf was now prowling this vast acreage.

            The painful pressure behind my ribcage ceased.  The beast had escaped; Wolf was free to roam as he had roamed the nights in Nam.  Wolf’s growl whispered to me, “You and Grace will be home safely for Thanksgiving.”  So the dream and the death box were wrong.  The dream wasn’t a prophesy, just a tool to motivate me.

            I had to focus on my right hand in order to stop its slow movement toward the knife under my left arm.  It wasn’t the right time, nor was it practical, especially with my combat blade hidden under a heavy winter coat.  Wolf was a master at stalking and patience, so I waited for a sign or a feeling from him, my alter-ego.

            A lighted match extinguished my thoughts and images, banishing the cabin’s darkness.  Jake lit a kerosene lamp, then slipped on his boots.

            I bowed my head, chin resting against my chest, and pretended to be asleep.  In a few seconds Jake’s bass voice crashed against the cabin walls, as he yelled, “Everybody up!  Come on!  Git goin an’ git yur asses up!”

            Grace woke up startled and frightened.  I comforted her by speaking calmly and soothingly to her until she relaxed.  It didn’t take long for everyone to get ready because everyone slept fully dressed.

            Tom and Lester got up slowly and slipped on their boots and coats, also.  I already had my coat and boots on.  I was never given a chance to take them off, which was probably the best thing that could have happened because my coat kept me warm and covered-up both blades nicely.  I was only given one blanket which I used to cover-up Grace.  And since I had to sleep on the floor, with no blanket, it was good to have my boots on so that my feet wouldn’t get as cold as they would have with them off and just my socked feet on the cold wooden floor.

            Jake walked over to me with his blade in hand, threateningly.  I thought my throat was going to be slit right then and there until I realized that if he had wanted to kill me, he could have done it easily last night.  None-the-less, seeing King-Kong in mountain man clothes approaching me with what looked to be a ten-inch Bowie knife wasn’t a pleasant experience.  I turned my eyes downward so he wouldn’t glimpse the angry “Wolf” in me.  I felt a silent growl rising in my throat, the hair on the back of my neck spike outward and felt the eerie sensation of my fingernails growing into claws.

            The Gibsons thought I was a wimp and that was fine with me because then I would own the element of surprise when Wolf leaped out at them.  In any kind of warfare, surprise is a definite and distinct advantage and of major importance.  So, being thought of as a wimp was my second big advantage.  The Gibsons were all doltish louts which is an excellent example of why the world has many more “horses’ asses” than horses. Tom’s breath smelled like something that comes out of a horse’s ass too.

            I flinched as Grace started screaming when she noticed Jake’s approaching knife.  “Daddy,” she yelled, “he’s coming!”

            Jake stopped when Grace screamed.  Then he laughed and pointed his knife at me and said, “Shud up, girlie!  If I wan’ed ta kill yur Pa, I’d have done it las’ night.”  He looked at me with scathing eyes and not one shred of respect, a total wimp is all he saw.  Jake continued, “You shud ‘er up or I be shuttin’ ‘er up fer good.”  As he said that, he held the knife up to his neck and made a slashing gesture, then smiled like a crazed and murderous Charlie Manson.  Then, as if for emphasis, he burst into a maniacal laugh to purposely scare Grace, as he glared at her.  He was having his sadistic fun, as if it was a morning routine of his, like eating cereal. The Gibson’s were probably all “cereal-killers.”  Inappropriate humor at an inappropriate time, I know, but stupid things like that have popped into my head all my life and I can’t help it.  I expect that I’ll die with a joke on my mind.

            Grace leaped off the cot and hugged me, burying her face into my neck.  I whispered to her, “He’s just going to cut these ropes, Sweetheart.”  She relaxed, slightly.

            Jake started sucking air through his front teeth.  It sounded like a snake hissing.  From the floor, as I looked up at him, I thought that none of the Vietnamese enemy came in a package quite as muscularly big, ugly and murderous as he was.  Not even in the special Marine combat training camp had there been such an example of size, pure meanness, brutality and strength.  But that was just Roman’s thinking.  Wolf looked at Jake and confidently smiled inwardly while thinking, “Rip a man’s throat out and his size and strength don’t matter.  Then he’s just a large, bloody corpse.”

            Fighting is much more mental than most people think it is.  It’s a lot about strategy and attitude, especially attitude.  There’s an over-used but true saying that: It’s not the size of the dog in a fight, but the size of the fight in the dog that matters most.  The size of the opponent matters, of course, but what matters more is you, your attitude about winning, surviving.  And attitude, in a fight can be measured by the answers to some simple questions that have complex answers for each of us.  for example, can you take punishment as well as give it?  How well can you attack and punish?  Can you conquer your fear of injury, but injure some one without remorse?  How determined are you to beat your opponent?  Is your determination to win, more than his?  How deep is your “quit zone?”  Is it buried in your bone marrow and is rarely used? or is it superficial, lying just below the first layer of skin?  Will you quit after a bloody nose or a cut lip?  Does the sight of blood, his or yours, make you want to quit, or does the sight of blood motivate you to continue?  Do you have an indomitable urge to win, to survive, to have the spirit of a warrior?  And, lastly, but just as important, do you know when it’s in your best interest to quit or to walk away before a fight starts?  Quitting is not losing, its not being defeated, if it’s the best thing to do for you or a friend that you’re protecting.  However, only you know your personal answers to those questions and only you can set the rules and standards that you need to establish a personal guideline for yourself. Those rules and standards will be highly individualized and will determine your mind-set for combat.

            Fighting is very mental, but the mental part of it has to be established prior to a fight because there’s no time to think about the mental aspects of fighting during a fight.  You can’t debate with yourself during an epic struggle with a larger opponent about whether or not you can go for his eyes so he can’t see through the abundant flow of tears that’ll flood them, or strike him in the Adam’s Apple so he temporarily can’t breath, or kick or punch to the groin, or use a martial arts choke hold that’ll render him unconscious, or a wrist lock that may break his wrist, or an arm-bar to break the elbow, etc.  The debate about all those things must be complete and accepted prior to a fight, then in a fight you just have to act, not think about those issues.  Then, your accepted answers become part of your fighting strategy and the rejected answers become limits and, therefore, useless to your fighting strategy.  But be careful, because in a life-and-death struggle, you may have to revise those limits drastically and spontaneously, just like: Is the bear Catholic? and Does the Pope shits in the woods? needs a quick revision.

            But only supremely egotistical and maniacal sadists like Jake and his spawn would equate brute strength with unrivaled power and cruelty, for entertainment purposes, including sadistic murder.  The Gibson’s were all fools who think they are invulnerable to attack and injury.  As a matter of fact, when I first committed this same grave error, I unceremoniously and humiliatingly got me ass kicked, my face cut and bruised, and my pride violently deflated.  Anyone can be beaten on any given day, just as a great football team can be defeated on any given Sunday.  It just takes a careless mistake, or an accident, or lack of preparation and practice, or laziness, or simply a more skillful opponent.

            I thought about how we were outnumbered in this ordeal, but Wolf’s thoughts over-rode my own as he quoted Andrew Jackson, who said: “One man with courage is a majority.”

            I calmed Grace and put her down next to me.  But as Jake bent down over me to cut the ropes that encircled my wrist, she fearfully gasped air into her open mouth, then covered her mouth with both hands, as if to stop a scream.

            As Jake was cutting me free, he suddenly turned to Grace and shouted, “Boo!”  Grace did scream then.  Jake laughed and looked at his sons who were also amused and laughed hilariously.  Jake sheathed his knife, bent down and unexpectedly grabbed the front of my coat with his right hand.  He lifted me, from my sitting position, straight up into the air until we were eye-to-eye.  My feet were dangling above the floor.  I didn’t resist and stayed calm, though inwardly I was embarrassed and humiliated by being treated like a ragdoll and not being able to do anything about it . . . for now.  He wanted to see fear, so I showed it to him, but it wasn’t hard to do since I did feel fear.  He burst into laughter that sounded childish.  But there was no doubt that he was an extraordinarily strong and brutish man.

            “Do what yur tol’, Wimpy, an’ yuh an’ yur girlie may jest live ta see ‘nother day.”  Then he had me in both his hands, pulled me close to him and threw me across the room, toward the cabin door.

            Grace cried out and that enraged me.  It was Wolf that sprang up off the floor, but I kept my eyes down and controlled the urge to fight right then and there as Jake spoke, not really noticing, or, perhaps, not believing that the “wimp” would ever defend himself.  “Boys help me unload the trunk,” he said to his sons.  Then, pointing at me he said, “An’ don’ think a runnin’ away ‘cause yur girlie will die if yuh do, unnerstand?”  I nodded affirmatively to him and put a cover on my barrel of humiliation.

            I glanced at Grace.  She was terrified and trembling.  All she wanted right now was to have me hold her, to wrap my arms around her, to make her feel secure, comfortable and safe.  I wanted to show her a smile and wink to show that the situation wasn’t as bad as it looked, but I couldn’t unwrap her from me.  She had her arms round my neck and her face buried into the hollow at the side of my neck.

            It wasn’t easy being both “Roman Wolfe” and “Roamin’ Wolf.”  In Nam I was almost always called Wolf.  After Nam, I was Roman, wanting to be plain Roman, but now I was fluctuating between both.  I had to force myself to be Roman when it was advantageous to be docile and calm, and to keep Wolf under control.  But when it was advantageous to become Wolf, then “Roman Wolfe” needed to disappear and the “Roamin’ Wolf” would spring forth with all its strength, cunning and viciousness.

            An image of Sam’s lovely face appeared clearly in my mind.  It acted as a reminder to me that I made a promise that we would escape and that I’d protect Grace from serious harm.

            I knew that I needed to use my brains first, then my martial arts and knife-fighting skills, combined with Wolf’s wild, ferocious nature, to produce a concerted, life-saving force that would protect both Grace and I, especially Grace.  But I needed a better opportunity.

            I felt myself being pushed toward the door as Tom’s voice exclaimed, “Come on!  Move it, big asshole!  You too, little asshole!”

            I opened the cabin door and walked towards their car.  Tom opened the trunk.  It was mostly full of weapons and boxes of ammunition.  There were actually only six guns, but the trunk looked like an arsenal.  There were two Browning, 12-gauge, pump shotguns, probably for Jake and Tom, and one Ithaca Featherweight, 20-gauge, pump shotgun, probably for Lester’s more frail musculature.  There were also three high-power, 30-06 caliber rifles, each with a superior quality Leupold scope securely mounted on it.  There didn’t appear to be enough ammo, however, so I suspected that most of the ammo was already at the Preston Ponds cabin and, most certainly, other firearms as well, especially handguns.  The trunk also contained a half-dozen nylon-type backpacks, canned food, can openers, eating utensils, weatherproof wooden matches, compasses, three plush, lightweight sleeping bags, about six wool blankets, and a few other supplies that were grabbed before I had a chance to see them.  We brought all these things into the cabin where Jake now had two kerosene lamps lit.  I guess we didn’t need the car anymore.

            Jake told me to put a backpack on myself and one on Grace.  I helped Grace put hers on.  It was adult sized so it hung down to the back of her legs.  I adjusted it as much as I could to make it more comfortable for her, but I couldn’t do much with the proper, comfortable fit of it.

            The Gibsons each carried a shotgun, but in what I thought was a foolish move, Jake handed the three heavy high-power rifles to me and said, as he pointed his sausage-like index finger close to my right eye, “Yuh carry ‘em.  An’ don’ yuh lets nothin’ bad happen to ‘em or yur girlie gits ‘er fingers cut off.  Unnerstan’?”  Immediately, I nodded affirmatively that I understood and was willing to obey him.  It didn’t take me long to notice that the bolt actions had been removed.  They were probably in Jake’s backpack.  Giving me the rifles to carry told me that they had more rifles at the cabin and were too lazy to carry these rifles themselves, but if I did do something stupid with the rifles, they had more at the cabin.  I knew, now, that I had no choice about damaging or losing the rifles.  I had to treat them like gold or Grace would be harmed, maybe seriously, maybe even fatally.  My heart skipped a couple of beats when I thought about that word.

            Grace’s and my backpack were being filled with cans of food.  I could feel the cans being dumped into my backpack, in no particular order.  I could feel the edges of the cans’ rims digging into my back.  Luckily, some lighter supplies were put into Grace’s backpack when I suggested that she shouldn’t be made to carry too much, or it would slow us down.  Jake grunted his reluctant approval and some of the supplies were taken out of Grace’s pack and placed into my already bulging backpack.  The ammo was placed into the Gibsons’ packs.

            Luckily the three heavy rifles each had slings which made them a lot easier to handle, though they were still going to be quite heavy to carry, especially if we were going on a long hike into the wilderness.

            Since a majority of the heavier supplies, such as the canned food, were in my backpack, that left the lighter supplies to be carried in the backpacks of the Gibsons, leaving their hands free to carry their shotguns and perform other woodsmen activities, like picking up wood to build a campfire or checking a compass.

            Each of the Gibsons also carried a tightly rolled, lightweight sleeping bag as well as two tightly rolled wool blankets which were all attached to the top of each of their backpacks with nylon straps that appeared to be made for just that purpose.

            Jake gruffly ordered Lester to put the car into the garage to hide it.  Lester looked a little irritated by the brusque order because he had to take his backpack off to get into the car.  His irritation became my pleasure and I smiled, secretly.

            The garage was more like a hastily built and enclosed carport made out of tree poles for the corners supports and rough planking for the roof and sides that covered a dirt floor.  It looked sturdy, but very crude.  There was a large door, also make of rough planking that hung on large hinges.  After Lester parked the car in the garage, he locked it with a length of chain and a padlock.  Apparently, Jake wanted the place to look unoccupied.  It would look natural that way because that’s the way it normally was, with Jake quite often gone for weeks at a time, either as a guide for groups of hunters, fishermen, or hikers, or when he went on his own extended hunting and fishing trips into the dense Adirondack wilderness.

            I looked at Jake and found myself wondering, if there really is a God, what a cruel trick he had played on Jake.  Jake was the epitome of the hard, strong, determined, independent, but mostly savage, rogue frontiersman who lived two-hundred years ago.  Jake, it seemed to me, was born two-hundred years too late, and if it hadn’t been for the survival of the Adirondack Wilderness Preserve, Jake would have perished long ago, like a nineteenth century Texas cowboy in New York City.  Modern civilization, with its morality, laws, and technology would have killed him, like a wind-blown seed settling on a slab of concrete where it was unable to survive.  Unfortunately, Jake’s seed had fallen between the expansion and contraction spaces between two slabs of concrete and, found just enough space and nourishment to grow and survive to the point where he could spread his own seed and produce two sons who would, in turn, spread their own brand of cruelty to all those who were unfortunate enough to come into contact with them.

            And nature also played a cruel trick on Jake because his intelligence and human compassion grew in inverse proportion to his huge size.  He and his spawn were some of society’s most pathological misfits.  It was a wonder that they were able to stay out of prison for all these years.  Someone once said that only a man of limited intelligence can know himself well.  If that is true, then Jake must know himself expertly.  Jake Gibson and Tom Gibson had somehow managed to slip through a huge crack in the justice system, though it looked like the justice system and prison had marginally caught up to Lester.  It seemed utterly tragic, I thought, that a free, democratic, lawful society, like ours, has so many easily available cracks for criminals, like the Gibsons, to slip through and hide underground.  Perhaps that’s the price American Democracy has to pay for our plentiful liberties, though it sure seems like we could do a hell-of-a better job than to allow those like the Gibsons to abuse and use the rest of us as their helpless prey.

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                                                            Chapter 5

                                                                 ****

                                                            Preston Ponds

            I pressed the stem of my watch and the face brightened with a greenish tint.  The time was 4:07 A.M.  I looked out a window and saw that it was still very dark.

            Grace and I stood by the cot as Jake and his sons hunched over a map that was spread across a dusty table.  Jake pointed out their route of travel.  Being an alert ex-soldier, I listened carefully to every detail that I could hear.  That information may be useful while planning our escape, or when traveling after the escape.

            Jake was silent for a moment as he concentrated on the map, typically unaware of the air whistling through his teeth.  Tom paid close attention to his father, but I could tell that Lester had to struggle just to make it appear as if he was paying attention, or that he even cared about the details of their trip.

            While they were checking the map, I took the opportunity to check my coat to make sure it was zipped up, thus concealing the combat and throwing knives. I raised the collar of my coat to further conceal the throwing knife.  It was hard for me to believe my luck at still having those weapons.  The Gibsons had thoroughly underestimated me.  They considered me to be a wimp who couldn’t possibly be dangerous to them, so they never attempted to search me.

            I put my right arm around Grace’s shoulder as she stood close to my right hip.  She was scared, as she should be, but not as much as yesterday.  She glanced at me with a faint smile.  I winked at her, then put my index finger to my lips to let her know that I didn’t want her to talk.

            “Okay!” Jake’s voice boomed loudly at his sons.  “We be walkin’ ta the south en’ of this Raquette Lake while it be still dark.  We stay off da path ‘cause we don’ wanna be seen.”

            Jake scratched his beard vigorously as if some infestation had taken root there, then looked at Lester, who was peeking lasciviously at Grace out of the corner of his eyes.  “Now, Lester, boy, yuh needs ta listen careful-like ‘cause this be mostly fer yuh.”  Jake pointed at the map.  “Yer brother an’ me, we has this planned out.”  Lester looked at the map where Jake was pointing to show that he was paying attention, but in a few seconds, he glanced at Grace again and smiled, the kind of smile a hungry coyote would give a rabbit.  I pulled Grace protectively against my hip as Jake continued talking.

            “Now, when we get ta the lake, we finds us two canoes that Tom an’ me hid there las’ week.  We hopin’ it be still dark so’s we be in the lake an’ out a sight.  Then we stay close ta the eas’ shore where it be hard ta see us ‘cause a the early mornin’ shadows from trees.  Me an’ Tom, we take the lead canoe, wid me bein’ in the back an’ Tom in front.  The skinny wimp there”─Jake pointed at me with a sarcastic, distasteful grin─“be in the middle so’s we keeps are eyes on ‘im.  Lester, now, yuh be in the canoe in back a us wid the girlie.  We be goin’ real steady, now, so yuh keeps up wid us.  We not a-goin’ awful fas’, but steady, so’s there be no slowin’ down, unnerstan’?  Yuh be in a lighter canoe so’s yuh can keep up ta us easy like.”

            Lester nodded at Jake.  His eyes betrayed the fact that he hated taking orders from anyone, especially his father.  I guess it made him feel even more inferior than he already felt and, from the looks of him, that must have been a tremendous burden to carry around.  The rage showed in the squint of his eyes, the distortion of his lips, as well as his furrowed brow.  He paid attention, though, out of fear, like the rest of us.

            Jake noticed Lester’s reaction, paused to give him a warning stare, then continued, “We be goin north ta the en’ a the lake, then we carries are canoes ta Fork Lake─it was really called Forked Lake─an’ we always try ta stay in the shade a them trees.  Importan’ not ta be seen.  When we carries the canoes ta Fork Lake, Lester, the wimp be helpin’ yuh carry yur canoe.  Be sure he be carryin’ the front an’ yuh carries the back.  Yuh two be ahead a us so’s we can watch yuh.  Then we goes northeas’ on Fork Lake, stayin’ close ta the shore like I says before.  At the en’ a the lake, we goin’ ta carry them canoes, just like before, ta Long Lake.  An’ don’t yuh gets carried away, like some fuckin’, sight-seein’ tourist by it bein’ all pretty and such.  The lake be ‘bout fifteen ta twenty-mile-long an’ ‘bout one ta three mile wide, dependin’ where yuh be at.  There be small islands ‘long the whole length a the lake.  Stay away from those damn things so’s yuh don’t hit bottom wid the canoe and so’s yuh not be seen.  The whole fuckin’ lake be surround by thick woods.  Trees goes right down to the lakeshore.  Once we is there, we has good cover.  Damn place be real pretty, but yuh pays ‘ttention an’ be careful all the way.  This be no time fer gawkin’ at pretty crap.  Pay ‘ttention.  Yuh hear me?” Jake asked as he stared at both of his sons.  Two heads bobbed up and down in unison, making the scene look like a bobble-heads, puppet show.

            Jake continued his dictatorial monologue, “At en’ a Long Lake we hides the canoes ‘cause we cain’t paddle agains’ the river flow.  So, we needs ta walk up the shore of Col’ River─Cold River.  We be goin’ northeas’, ta the moun’ains.  That get us ta the cabin near Pres’on Pon’─Preston Pond.  Okay boys, yuh has any questions, then spit ‘em out now, or forever hold yur peace.”

            After saying that, Jake held his fist in front of his zipper.  He moved his loose-fingered fist up and down a couple of times.  It was obvious what he was doing and that he didn’t say “peace,” but rather, had intended the word to be “piece.”  I stepped in front of Grace to block her view, but don’t know how successful I was, although I doubt that she understood Jake’s obscene, hand gesture and subtle, verbal reference.

            After Tom and Lester giggled boyishly, Lester asked, “Pa, how long will it take ta get ta the cabin from here?”

            That’s exactly what I wanted to know, and I mentally thanked Lester for asking.

            Jake dug at his twig and dirt ladened beard again. Lice too?  Got Cooties?  Then, naturally, he sucked air through his front teeth before he said, “Take ‘bout tree days, if there be no problems ‘long the way.”

            Then Jake looked at Tom to see if Tom had any questions.  When Tom remained quiet, Jake stated, “Come on, then, an’ let’s be gittin’ out a ‘ere.”

            Jake looked at me and pointed toward the door.  I put the slings of the three rifles over my left shoulder and took Grace’s left hand into my right hand as we walked out the door.  Jake locked the cabin door and led the way, his twelve-gauge shotgun balanced horizontally in his left hand.  Tom held his twelve-gauge shotgun like his dad, while Lester held his twenty-gauge shotgun with both hands, as if it were heavy for him.

            I knew the shotguns were all loaded because I personally saw them being loaded just before they went to the table to look at the map.  I didn’t hear or see any of them click-on their safety-levers; didn’t even see any of them look at the safety mechanism.

            As we walked, under cover of darkness, to Raquette Lake, Grace kept her hand in mine.  It wasn’t cold enough for gloves, yet, so we each had the gloves in our coat pockets.  When I thought about my gloves being in my coat pockets, I was reminded of the food I saved for Grace.  I took it out and gave it to her.  Her eyes widened with delightful surprise, then she hungrily devoured the food.

            I think the warm flesh of our hands made Grace feel more comfortable.  She squeezed my hand tightly and forced a smile at me.  I said, “I love you,” silently, with just lip movements.  She read my lips and smiled.  Then I winked at her once more and smiled.  We weren’t allowed to talk, but our eyes and lips communicated our silent messages of love to each other.  Then I remembered the importance of my knives, tapped Grace on the shoulder and silently lipped, “Don’t talk about my knives.”  She lips responded silently with, “OK.”

            We followed Jake into the Adirondack wilderness.  As we traveled, my mind became occupied with the realization that throughout my whole childhood, my teens, and adult life, too, I’d lived in New York State, but not once had I ever been to these Adirondack mountains, until now.  I’m a nature lover, too, so it seemed very ironic to me.  It also seemed ironic that I would even have such thoughts at a time like this.  I should be thinking about our escape, but even by dim moonlight only, I could tell that this was a nature lover’s paradise, especially in the late fall when the leaves changed to an artist’s pallet of bright colors.  I had a vivid mental vision of those brightly colored leaves racing and rattling across the ground like multi-colored field mice searching for food and a warm nest.  My vision also included the wavering leaves that were still on the trees as they clattered and rattled in the breeze like colorful hands clapping at the musical sounds coming from the forest, an autumn orchestra.  When this ordeal was over, I promised myself that I would come back this way, some day, and enjoy it a lot more.

            Grace and I didn’t like the idea of being separated in different canoes, but there was nothing I could do about it.  When I tried to mention it in the cabin, before we left, Jake nearly went ballistic with rage because I questioned his leadership and authority.  So I didn’t dare mention it again for fear that harm would come to me when Grace needed me most and when I needed to be uninjured for our escape.  However, at least Grace was allowed to walk with me while we trekked through the forest and when we portaged with the canoes between lakes.  When I had a chance to whisper to her, I told her not to complain about being separated in the canoes or they might also separate us when we were on land.

            That’s also when she told me that her back hurt because of the heavy supplies in the backpack.  The supplies were poking against her back.  I told her that when we had to get into the canoes, she should take the backpack off to give her back a rest, and that while the backpack was off she should try to rearrange the contents so they would lie smoothly along her back without any edges poking into her.  This strategy seemed to work fairly well, but she was only eight years old and I knew that her back and shoulders must hurt a lot just from the weight of the pack itself, and this, in time, would get worse.  She was trying to be brave about it, but when she looked up at me I could see the pain in her eyes, though she tried to hide it.

            The first day, November 15th, we covered the distance from Jake’s remote cabin, near Raquette Lake, to the northeastern end of Forked Lake before we stopped for the night.  We stopped for short rest breaks along the way.  Everyone except Jake looked tired.  Grace was especially tired and had been walking on wobbly legs for the last hour or two.  I felt terrible because I couldn’t carry her.  I had an overloaded backpack and three awkward, heavy rifles to carry.  My free arm wasn’t strong enough to carry her with her backpack loaded with supplies, which was actually a moot point because Grace wanted to hold my free hand.  I also couldn’t carry her on my shoulders because of the rifle slings that hung there.  I felt great distress and shame because she was hurting and I couldn’t remedy her situation.

            Luckily, it wasn’t long before we made camp.  Grace and I, with Tom guarding us and ordering us around, collected dry wood, then large slabs of dry moss, in great quantity, from a large, dry ledge of rocks and moist ground.  We, also, had to gather large quantities of balsam and spruce boughs.  I may be an outdoor lover, but I’m no woodsman.  I didn’t know what the hell the moss and boughs had to do with a camp, or a campfire.  I decided to remain quiet and see how they’d be used.

            Tom started the campfire.  Lester opened some cans of food and Jake stood about twenty feet from the campfire with the barrel of his shotgun in the crook of his left arm with his right hand around the grip, near the trigger guard.  His finger wasn’t on the trigger.  He stood their looking like Daniel Boone or Davy Crocket, if they were sentries waiting for an Indian attack, and enjoying the anticipation and joy of killing and shedding blood.  Jake seemed to blend into the surrounding trees.  His height and strength were magnified as Grace and I sat on the ground and looked up at him.  It was like sitting on the sidewalk, in New York City, and looking up at the Empire State Building. His head didn’t come to that sharp of a point, though.  I could feel the vertebrae in my neck squeeze together as I craned my neck upward.  Jake stood like a solid, tall, oak tree, habitually sucking air through his front teeth, like wind blowing through the upper tree branches.  He waited for the cans of food to get hot and, like a good shepherd, was watchful of his sheep.

            We were given one can of canned food. It was hash. We got a fork to shar, alsoe.  When we were done eating, it had become dark.  I noticed that the Gibsons each had a sleeping bag and I wondered how Grace and I would have to sleep.  But I didn’t have to wonder too long because the answer came in the form of two blankets that Jake threw at us.  I seriously doubt that we got the blankets out of compassion for our comfort.  Jake was smart enough to know that sick or tired hostages don’t travel well.

            I noticed that they were “wool” blankets.  I’d once read that wool was the best kind of cloth for the outdoorsman because it was able to retain body heat whether the blanket was dry or wet.  It was late fall now, but it wasn’t too cold yet.  I thought the temperatures were in the high forties, by day, and were probably about ten degrees colder at night.

            Jake started placing some of the thick, dry moss slabs on the ground, about three feet from the fire and projecting outward away from the fire about seven feet long, and about three feet wide.  Tom and Lester started doing the same thing.  I was starting to learn why Grace and I had to collect so much moss and boughs.  They were to be used to prepare make-shift mattresses, nature’s mattresses, so-to-speak.  The moss was three to four inches thick and springy.  They made double layers of it.  Then they placed the balsam and spruce boughs over the moss, making sure that the sharp ends of the branches went down into the moss, out of harms way so they wouldn’t get jabbed during the night or have their sleeping bags ripped.  Then they each placed their sleeping bag over the bed of moss and balsam boughs.  I have to admit that I was impressed to see how easy they made it look.  In hardly any time at all, they each had a “nature mattress,” which looked to me like a guarantee of a comfortable night’s sleep . . . for them.

            When they were done, Jake looked at me, spit-out some tobacco juice, sucked some air through his teeth, then pointed to the remaining moss and boughs and said, “Yuh kin ‘ave what be left, Wimpy.  It be up ta yuh how yuh sleeps.”

            I got up, collected the extra moss and boughs, then arranged them as I had seen them do.  There was only enough moss and boughs left for half a “nature mattress,” one layer thick, but I did make it about four feet wide.  That would allow Grace and me to sleep together, sharing our body heat.  I placed one wool blanket over the boughs for us to sleep on and the other blanket would be used to cover us up.  I didn’t care that the “nature’s mattress” wasn’t long enough for my legs, as long as I could keep my upper body warm.  Luckily, for Grace, if she curled her legs slightly, her whole body would fit on the soft moss mattress and be totally covered by the blanket.

            Grace squirmed close to me as we lay between the blankets.  In a few minutes she was sound asleep, a sleep promptly induced by her total exhaustion.

            I listened to her breathing.  It was peaceful and quiet, such a contrast to this whole ordeal, I thought.  Tears rolled from the corners of my eyes as I fought for emotional control and tried to quench a hot barrier of fear that I hadn’t felt since Nam.  I stared at Grace and thought, “A good father is obligated to protect his children, at all costs.”  The fear that I would fail with that endeavor caused me great distress.  A loving father, a dedicated father, a responsible father must protect his progeny, or else, what is there left of him when he dies?  An artist leaves his art for the world of the future, a writer leaves his ideas and stories within his books, and a father leaves his children.  He knows that his children’s lives are more important than himself, and a valuable gift for future society because of their potential to do great things with the loving memory of their father deeply imbedded in their minds.  And so, the loving father, though deceased, still lives on in the memories and actions of his appreciative and loving children.

            Jake, Tom, and Lester stayed up and talked in whispers.  I couldn’t hear most of it so in five minutes I pretended that I was asleep by snoring mildly.  They fell for the snoring ploy and weren’t as cautiously quiet as they should’ve been with their whispered, conspiratorial conversation.  Or, perhaps, Jake knew that I was faking and didn’t care if I overheard our fate.  Maybe he figured that we were well beyond Sunday Rock, well out of reach of the laws of civilization where most people have to face the consequences of their criminal actions.  Or, perhaps, he wanted me to overhear their conversation because he received as much sadistic pleasure from the terror he created in his victims, letting them know that he was going to kill them, as he did from the actual act of murdering them while they remained helpless to take any counter-measures.

            As I thought more about it, I grew more and more to believe that my snoring was fooling Tom and Lester, but not Jake.  Perhaps Jake was letting his boys talk louder because he wanted me to clearly hear their plans to kill me.  Perhaps he was enjoying himself because he sincerely believed that I was a helpless, pathetic weakling that didn’t stand any more chance of successfully opposing him and his boys as a fawn does against a pack of wolves. Wolf growled at me.

            Perhaps it was me that was underestimating his intelligence, being a sucker to the way he looked, talked, behaved, and dressed.  I thought, “What if, while I concentrated on how I was out-witting him, due to his underestimating me, that I was in danger of underestimating him?”  I had to be alert; I couldn’t afford any mistakes in my thinking or in my actions.  So, I thought, the standard of thinking and planning for our escape plan had to be: Expect the best, but always prepare for the worst.  If plan “A” fails, what’s plan “B? or is there only plan “A?”

            I knew that I was in one-hell-of-a-predicament, though.  My mental imagery focused on hell and I could see red-hot coals and flames everywhere, with Jake appearing as a cloven-hoofed, flaming red body, and black-horned Satan.  He pointed at me, saying, “I’m gonna kill ya, Wimpy.”  Then he sucked the flames between his teeth, laughed crazily and exhaled fire.  He continued to point at me, his flaming finger flicking up and down slightly, for emphasis, or in mockery, probably both.

            I started to wonder if, perhaps, we were all really dead and this life on Earth was the real hell.

            A humorous thought crept out of the crevice of my gray matter, like an ant from a crack.  I thought, “Damn!  I sure wish the Gibsons would stop calling me Wimpy”.  It irritated and distracted me to no end; made me hungry, too.  Being called Wimpy was even worse than Jake’s air-sucking.  Made me think of the Popeye cartoons with Wimpy always saying, “I’ll gladly pay you, Tuesday, for a hamburger, today.”  Man!  Where the hell did that rogue thought come from?  But I would gladly pay someone on Tuesday, for a hamburger today.  I grinned, shrugged, then listening carefully.

            The secretive talk was about their winter supply of food.  Jake was saying that they probably didn’t have enough canned and dry food to share with Grace and I, and that eating meat every day wasn’t a satisfactory option.  Also discussed was the fact that, if they needed to move quickly, Grace would slow them down too much.  The only reason they let Grace stay with me when we walked was that she would travel faster when walking next to me.  Tom suggested, and Lester agreed, that we weren’t valuable hostages anymore and that since we were beyond Sunday Rock, they should be allowed to kill us here and now . . . in our sleep.

            I quietly unzipped my coat, unbuttoned one button on my shirt, reached in and wrapped each of my right-hand fingers and thumb around my Ka-Bar combat knife.  My thumb is ready to unsnap the handle strap.  Once my fingers touched the handle, I felt a surge of both fear and confidence, which I couldn’t explain because they were contradictions.  But I hoped I wouldn’t be forced to use the knife now.  I wanted better odds of escaping than I had now.

            Tom was almost begging Jake to let him have me.  He said he wanted to jump on top of me, pin me to the ground under the blanket and repeatedly stab my body while I was pinned there as helpless as an insect pinned to an entomologist’s display board.  Furthermore, he said, with clenched teeth, that he wanted to slash my face to a bloody pulp.  He was trying to keep his voice to a whisper, but he was so excited about his method of killing me that I could hear every hushed word that he said.

            And while he was begging his dad to let him stab me to death, Lester kept repeating, softly, “Let me have the little girl, Pa.  Let me have the little girl, Pa.”

            Lester’s voice was a little more subdued than Tom’s, but its high-pitched squeal carried easily to my ears and made me grimace in disgust at both the sound and intent of it.

            I was ready to throw the blanket off, spring-up and slash the throat of the first one to approach within arms reach.  Then I’d kick to the groin of the second, if there was a second attacker close by, then stab to the back of the neck so that the blade severed the spine, or at least cut a major artery.  The second victim would be paralyzed with a severed spine or artery, and the first one would stagger around for a few seconds in a death dance with blood spurting from around his fingers where they would be wrapped around his neck desperately trying to stop the gushing flow of blood.  In a few more seconds he would pass-out due to lose of blood to the brain and death would follow a few seconds later.  Unfortunately, if I made it that far, I’d be dead before I could confront Jake.  He’d splatter my guts all over the ground, trees and bushes with his shotgun.  Grace would probably be wounded as the shotgun pellets spread out.  I didn’t want to think of what might happen after that.  If I’m really lucky, I thought, Jake will squash their childish, sadistic excitement and stop his sons from being spontaneously foolish.  Maybe he could just send his boys into the dark forest so they could masturbate their excitement away.

            I thought,” Fools talk too much.  Cowards are afraid to talk.  Wise men listen and think before they talk”.  But all men revert to fools and cowards when filled with wine, or full of the hyperbolic joy of their own bloated egos

            In any kind of group combat, where one person faces the threat of a group, the single person must always take-out the most dangerous opponent first, or the leader, if they aren’t the same person.  Take the leader out of action first and fast with semi-deadly or deadly force, depending on how dire the situation is.  But the dynamics of this situation meant that Jake would have to be the last one I attacked because he was standing the farthest away from me, with a 12-gauge shotgun.  I could use my throwing knife if Jake paused in shock and delayed shooting me, but I seriously doubted that Jake would pause.  Also, if I did get the chance, would the throwing knife penetrate his heavy winter coat?  I thought not.  I’d have to aim to penetrate an eyeball with the blade penetrating the brain or aim for the neck.  It’s probably a million to one odds, or worse, for either of those things happening.  So trying to get to Jake was nearly impossible without me getting wounded, probably killed.  Then Grace would be alone with Jake.  The thought repulsed me; made me shiver with cold sweat.

            As I lay there, extremely tense, my heart was sledge-hammering the inside of my chest.  It felt like a heart attack.  Then I heard Jake’s voice say, “No, boys, not yet.  We needs ‘em ta help us carry are supplies an’ canoe.  It make da work easy on us, right?  So’s we best be  waitin’ til we gits ta the cabin.  If nobody be on are trail after a few days then we kills ‘em near the cabin an’ burries ‘em there.  Be calm boys.  Yuh be gittin’ yur crack at ‘em.”

            There was a deathly silence and I could feel each of them staring across the campfire at Grace and me.  I opened my eyes to imperceptible slits and saw the fire light shining on their faces forming hideous, dancing masks on their madmen’s flesh.

            In a few minutes I released the blade very slowly, without causing much motion under the blanket.  I pretended that I was changing my sleeping position and this motion covered up the movement needed to withdraw my hand from my shirt.  Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep for most of the night.  I wondered if Jake orchestrated this whole scene, played with me so that I wouldn’t get much sleep and be tired.  Did he really know I was faking sleep?  Was he that clever?  I wondered.  I shouldn’t underestimate him.

            While two Gibsons slept, one stayed awake and guarded Grace and me, but Lester wasn’t one of the two guards, just Jake and Tom.  I assumed that Jake didn’t trust Lester to stay awake or to stay away from Grace.

            I was tempted to make a break for freedom during the night, but the chances of Grace and I making it were too slim.  I needed to remain patient and wait for a better opportunity, but it was getting damn difficult to do that.

            To my surprise, everyone slept until daybreak on the morning of November 16th.  Jake must have felt that he was out of danger now, so he allowed everyone to sleep late before we all were awakened by his stentorian voice.  He had the last watch guarding us so he was already up and the fire was full of red hot coals.

            It was a cool, clear, fall morning.  The forest glistened with icy dew and the colorful leaves on the ground made the ground look like a huge artist’s palette of bright colors.  Under normal circumstances this would be one of the most beautiful mornings of my life.  But, under these particular circumstances, I couldn’t linger long about such pleasant thoughts.  But the irony of those thoughts floated across my mind like dark clouds before a storm.

            If I wasn’t an atheist, I’d say that this was truly God’s country.  And if, some day or some how, I felt that all this Adirondack beauty had something to do with a God, then I’d have to give up my atheism and embrace this golden Adirondack realm as one of God’s temples. Not much chance of that happening, though.  Then I started to wonder if, perhaps, my desperation was making me senile.  This certainly was no time for any mental thesis on the existence or the non-existence of God, especially for an, out-of-the-closet, atheist like me.

            Grace was especially quiet as we got a late start, after we ate, packed up and extinguished the fire.  Jake was careful to cover-up the traces of our passage.  He buried the fire pit, smoothed the dirt, then littered that dirt with sticks and leaves to make it look as if no one had made a campfire.  He left no litter and as we walked away, I couldn’t tell that anyone had stayed there overnight, except for the “nature mattresses.”  The Gibsons just left them there.  It seemed kind of stupid to me.  Surely, any other woodsman would know what they were.  I didn’t understand; didn’t need to, I guess.

            We walked to the canoes at the lake’s edge.  I walked with Grace and put my hand on her shoulder.  She looked up at me and smiled nervously.  She tried to hide her growing fear, but couldn’t, and I felt agony for her pain and my feeling of helplessness.

            As we approached the lake, I noticed that the sun made the smooth surface look like a calm, watery mirror.  I stared into that mirror and saw a huge combat blade shimmering on the surface of the lake.  It initially startled me, but I soon realized that it was only a mental image; like a mirage, perhaps, but it was a symbol of hope for me; a sign of good luck and it lessened that feeling of helplessness.

            We had just gotten into the canoes and were only a few feet from shore when I saw Jake and Tom snap their heads to look back at the tree line near the shore.  My eyes followed theirs.  I reined my extreme pleasure and only smiled with my eyes.

            “Damn!  Tom whispered, but not so quietly that I couldn’t hear him.  “Looked like a damn white wolf, Pa,” Tom continued.  “Did yuh see it?”

            “Saw it.  Cain’t be no wolf, son.  Be a coyote.  No wolves be here no more,” Jake responded.

            Tom looked doubtful; didn’t think there was any such thing as a white coyote.  Maybe a white coydog─the result of a coyote mating with a domestic, pet dog.  But he said nothing.  He knew better that to question is father.

            The thought of  “Roamin’ Wolf” near our camp sight made me, “Roman Wolfe,” very pleased.  A damn good omen that brought a subtle smile to my face.  Two good omens in a short period of time.  Hope was on the rise.

            Long Lake was beautiful, though, technically, it wasn’t a lake.  At the campfire, the night before, Jake told his sons that it was really the very wide portion of the Raquette River which follows an ancient and very wide, geological fault line.

            Long Lake remained a frigid, smooth mirror.  There was no wind to create even the tiniest ripples.  I could see the billowing cumulus clouds so clearly that they actually appeared to be huge cotton puffs floating on the lake’s mirrored surface.  The sun shone on this mirror and I basked in it’s reflected warmth.  The clear, cold water rippled where the paddles entered it and where the canoe cut through it like a large, silent knife.  I could see fish below the surface where the clear water was a few degrees warmer.  They seemed undisturbed by our presence.  I felt like a fishing pole would be a hated object in the midst of Long Lake’s serene beauty.  The canoes and oars were an intrusion on the calmness of the lake, like the Gibsons being an intrusion on our relatively calm lives.

            In early evening, after long hours of paddling, we reached the end of Long Lake, where the canoes were both well hidden under an assortment of boughs.  As we stood by the northeastern end of the lake, where Cold River runs south into it, I continued to look in a northeastern direction and saw a wonderfully amazing natural sight, which I later found out was Mount Seward.  It ran across the horizon like a serrated knife.  It was truly a wonderful, pleasant sight to see.  I thought that Grace and I couldn’t die here because we had to come back to see this and other sights again, if it didn’t bring back too much emotional pain.  Grace was by my side, but she only stared at me as I, in turn, stared at the serrated mountain on the skyline, the “cutting edge of nature.”  It must have been almost impossible for Grace to see any beauty in any of this experience.

            I thought, “That’s it.  The word ‘edge.’  Mount Seward was like a knife’s edge and, like in Nam, it was a symbol of survival.  Another good omen.”  I smiled at Grace, then whispered that we’d be OK.  I wanted to give her hope.  I needed some, too, especially since I had been thinking of the future, when there was no future, if I didn’t focus on getting away from the Gibsons.

            A vision of Sam came to me.  I thought about how worried she must be.  I longed to see her, to hold her, so even the vision of her tearful face was comforting to me.  I’d save Grace for her, though I may perish in the process.  The thought of my death didn’t scare me, just like in Nam.  I could feel my body and mind preparing for the final fight as an aberrant thought raced through my brain: Death itself is not scary at all.  It’s “how” you die that could be scary.  All my life I’ve felt that Death stalked me, walked in my tracks, far behind me, but on my trail.  It seemed to me that Death was also walking faster than I was, every year.  Was he now about to catch up to me?  Death, life’s ultimate, unstoppable, irrevocable disease might be named Jake.  I forced myself to struggle out of that mental entanglement.

            At the campfire, Jake’s Adirondack guide knowledge flowed forth as he talked to Tom and Lester about the area.  He said, “Some lumberin’ done here ‘long this here Col’ River─Cold River─an’ some a its creeks a few year back, but upper parts be mostly not touched.  These here Adirondacks ‘ave bout ten thousan’ square mile a land.  That be more than a million acres a land packed wid lakes, ponds, trees, moun’ains an’ all sorts a animals.  Some of them are deadly if yuh cross ‘em.  An’ don’ be fooled by the pretty face.  Good ol’ Mudder Nature can kill yuh way out here if yuh ain’t being’ careful, boys, ‘specially this here Col’ River area dat we be headin’ fer, tomarra─tomorrow.  The river be ‘bout fourteen-mile-long wid heavy fores’ on both sides so’s don’t yuh go wanderin’ off by yerself.  This river be a wil’ one.  Hardly be no people ‘round it at all.  Not many people wants ta come this far out in dis wil’erness.  No cars ‘ere, boys.  Yuh git here by water like us, or by walkin’, which be awful hard ‘cause it be damn hard ta walk through thick forest wid backpacks that be catching on tree limbs an’ bushes, an’ yur feet be trippin’ over roots, fall-downs an saplin’s.  Only other way ta git close be by horse trail.  But that ain’t likely ta help since horses cain’t leave the trail an’ go inta the woods.  There be some two hun’red mile, or so, a horse trails.  Some horse trails be ‘long some parts a dis river, so we stays away from ‘em, but yuh listens up now, boys, dis here river area be dangerous.  It be the only one in New York State that needs a warning.  Us guides are always supposed ta tell people that the Adirondack Park Service warns them ‘bout dis here area bein’ a very remote wil’erness area where yuh kin git yerself lost an’ die real easy like.  Yuh listenin’ careful, boy?”  Jake looked at Lester whose eyes were wondering.

            Lester snapped his head around.  “Yeah, Pa, I heard yuh.”  Tom nodded and Jake looked satisfied with his son’s responses.

            My thoughts focused on Jake’s semi-literate speech patterns.  If Jake got up on stage and talked like that, applause and laughter would loudly ejaculate from the mouths of the entertained audience.  The echoes of their pleasure would bounce off the walls and fill the air with vibrations that titillated the eardrums.  And Jake would be called a comic genius of unparalleled skill for his ability to mimic a backward, backwoods, poorly educated, and possibly a hillbilly born as the result of incest.

            The tourists that Jake took on trips through the Adirondacks undoubtedly weren’t turned-off by his poor speech skills.  Perhaps his poor speech even added to the flavor and authenticity of his knowledge and woodsman skills.  Actually, many people probably considered it charming that someone like Jake cared enough about his job, as a guide, that he’d spend many hours teaching himself to talk like a genuine, illiterate, early nineteenth century, mountain man.  I started to feel sick to my stomach when I thought that Jake’s poor language skills may have been the highlight of hundreds of deep woods camping trips for thousands of campers.  I could almost picture someone recalling, ten years later, their camping trip with Jake as their guide and saying, “Yes, our camping trip was wonderful, and do you remember that unbelievably authentic Adirondack mountain man guide?  Wow!  He was great.  He made me feel like I actually lived a hundred and fifty years ago.”

            At the end of the day we prepared the camp in plenty of time before night fall.  I could tell that the further we got into the isolated Adirondack area; the better Jake felt.  His happy facial expression indicated that he was feeling exceptionally well now.  He felt safe and secure. This was his true home.

            I heard Jake tell Tom and Lester that tomorrow we’d start up Cold River and before nightfall we’d be at the Preston Ponds cabin.  They all laughed with anticipatory joy.  I could see big, open-mouthed smiles, showing a plethora of badly discolored teeth, missing teeth and plenty of discolored gum.  They acted like horny cowboys must have acted when they headed for the whorehouse and saloon after a couple of months of driving cattle to market across the lonely, dusty and dangerous western ranges.

            Shortly before dark, Jake and Lester went into the woods, leaving Tom, with shotgun in hand and evil in his eyes, to guard us.  This seemed like a good time to make an escape, but Tom had his shotgun and his eyes pointing directly at us and he wasn’t about to turn either one away from us.  There was no mistaking how badly he wanted to kill me.  I wondered what sort of perverted fetish he had with wanting to dive on top of me to stab and slash me to death.  Was there some sexual connotation to it? That was a repulsive, nauseating thought.  Was being on top a sexual reference?  Was the stabbing knife a Freudian symbol for a penis?  Why not just blow me away with that shotgun, or one of the rifles?  I didn’t know the answer, but I did know that it would take a team of ten psychiatrists ten years to thoroughly analyze these three psychotic, mental dwarfs, and even then there would probably be serious disagreement about the roots of their psychosis, as well as how to treat it.

            Jake and Lester disappeared quickly into the thickly wooded area.  I didn’t know their purpose until about an hour later when they appeared, almost as suddenly as they had disappeared, with their arms full of firewood.  It seemed strange, though, that it would take an hour to collect an armload of wood in this densely wooded area where firewood was so plentiful, especially in late fall with no snow on the ground.  Also, I thought, “Why collect firewood at night when it’s so much easier to do it in the daylight?  Jake obviously felt safe, so why not stop while there’s still enough light to see and collect the firewood?  Not only that, but they usually forced Grace and I to do that job.  It was too unusual, so it made me suspicious.  I decided that they were up to something, but I didn’t know what the hell it was . . . not yet.

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

                                                            Chapter 6

                                                                 ****

                                                             The Cabin

            Tom and Jake, once again, took turns guarding Grace and I during the night.  Grace seemed to have gotten the rest she needed to regain most of her depleted strength, though I didn’t think she had the stamina for much more of this kind of very rough hiking.  At least she was able to sleep through the whole night without once waking up.  I wish I could say the same for myself.  A foggy haze seemed to have wrapped itself around my brain, like a blanket of gauze, from lack of sleep.

            The following morning, November 17th (my father’s-in-law birthday) we got a late start after a breakfast of warmed, canned hash─again─that was burned and had little taste to it.  Lester had been given the chore of warming the cans by the fire.  He placed them too close and neglected to watch carefully─Jake and Tom shook their heads in disgust, but said nothing to Lester, but their eyes conveyed their message of displeasure to him.  When you’re hungry─we certainly were─you’ll eat just about anything, even if it tastes like burned toast.  Grace and I considered ourselves lucky to get enough food to sustain us.  But Jake knew that in order for us to travel fast, a long distance, carrying supplies, we needed food for energy.  If we were deprived of food it would only slow him down, which made it advantageous for him to feed us, but I don’t think he understood the meaning of the words “balanced meal” and “nutrition.”

            We departed Long Lake around mid-morning and walked northward on the east side of Cold River.  Cold River ran south into Long Lake so we couldn’t use the canoes to travel upstream against a swift current.  That really slowed us down, especially since Jake would stay away from any possible trails where we might be seen.  He tended to stay in the dense woods where we couldn’t see far ahead due to the density of the tree trunks, limbs and bushes that came close to the edge of the river.  However, we were lucky that it was fall.  If it had been late spring or summer, the lush, verdant vegetation and leaves would have prevented our seeing more than ten or fifteen feet ahead of us, almost like Nam’s dense jungles.  But there was, realistically, very little chance of us being spotted, even without concealing vegetation, because I heard Jake repeatedly inform his sons that this was an extremely remote area, very isolated.  Jake was taking no chances, though, so he also stayed away from clearings where aircraft might be able to see us. I hadn’t heard any aircraft at all, not even distant ones, since we left Raquette Lake.

            We stopped to eat a late afternoon lunch of beef jerky.  No campfire was built.  Jake didn’t want to take the time that it would take to clear a space, dig a shallow hole, start the fire, cook, clean up, cover the coals and ashes, then camouflage it with dirt, leaves and branches to make the area look as if no one had been there.  He wanted to eat fast and get moving quickly.

            Grace sat close to me, her jaw muscles straining to bite, then chew the leather-tough strip of jerky.  It was like trying to bite and chew the sole of a shoe; about as tasty, too.

            Jake passed a clear, plastic bag to his sons.  They reached in and pulled out a handful of what looked like peanuts, bits of chocolate, raisins, and oat cereal.  Grace and I were not offered any as they noisily appeased their gluttonous appetites.  They kept the bag for themselves, hoarding it greedily, as if it was a bag of gold nuggets amongst a trio of poor prospectors.  I could see Grace’s disappointment radiating from the hatred in her eyes.  I tapped her on the shoulder so she’d look at me.  I didn’t want the Gibsons to see her hatred for them because they might take her away from me.  I whispered to her; asked her not to stare at them.  She obeyed by looking at the ground.  I knew she was hungry, especially for quick energy food like the Gibsons were eating now.  I’d beg them for some, to give to Grace, if I thought it would do any good, but I knew it wouldn’t, especially when I saw Lester and Tom smiling over their shoulders at us as they enjoyed their moment of adolescent teasing.  I thought I heard Grace’s stomach growl from hunger.  Maybe it was my stomach or, perhaps, Wolf’s.

            I placed the three rifles carefully against a tree trunk.  I knew that I could be ruthlessly killed if I mishandled them, or worse, Grace could be threatened; perhaps abused.  It was a huge relief, however, getting those rifles off my aching shoulders while we stopped for lunch.  When we were walking, and one shoulder got sore, I’d switch the rifle slings to the other shoulder.  But now both shoulder muscles ached.  Even my heavy winter coat, for padding, didn’t protect my shoulder muscles anymore.  The rifle slings had dug into each shoulder muscle, rubbing the skin away until they each felt raw, bruised.  They also stung from the salt of my perspiration.  I’d be glad to get to the cabin so I wouldn’t have to carry them anymore.

            I kept my left arm around Grace’s shoulder while I ate the rest of the dry, leather-like jerky with my right hand.  Grace and I strained to smile at each other, but we didn’t speak.  One of the Gibsons usually stopped us from talking aloud during the daytime, but our whispered communications weren’t usually interrupted.  Grace was too scared and tired to say much, anyway, and probably what she did want to say had to remain unspoken until bedtime when she could lie close to me and we could whisper to each other.  But, as often happened, by bedtime she was usually too exhausted to say much, or to listen for very long.  For those reasons, we didn’t do much talking unless I felt it was absolutely necessary, like giving her some words of encouragement and praise, or some advice.

            But through my anger and fear I could still see and enjoy the splendor of these forests.  It was indeed odd to be able to do that with life-threatening danger as a constant companion.  Grace only saw the ugliness and I could understand that.  For me, the trees stood tall, like watchful sentinels, ever vigilant protectors of this wilderness beauty.  I studied the trees for a while and saw that we were in the midst of some maples, beech, elm and birch trees.  Among the conifers were red spruce and white pine, which I found later were the symbols of the north woods.  I saw a playful and frisky red squirrel jumping back and forth, from limb to limb and from tree to tree.  The squirrel was so cheerful and frolicsome that it made me smile.  Grace saw where I was looking, so she looked, too.  We both saw the white at the same time.  Beyond the squirrels, almost out of viewing range, a white object moved slowly.  Grace looked up at me; I shrugged me shoulders as if I hadn’t seen it.  When she and I looked again, it had vanished . . . Wolf.

            We reached the Preston Ponds cabin about an hour before dark. That must have been why Jake wanted lunch to be an “eat and run” activity.  He wanted to reach the cabin before dark.  A fire was made in the cabin’s stone and clay fireplace to warm its chilly interior.  I thought that the smoke rising out of the chimney and into the air would be like a signal flag to show where we were, if anyone was searching for us.  But then I realized that the cabin was built right in the midst of a copse of the thick evergreen forest.  That meant that the smoke coming out of the chimney had to rise slowly through the heavily laden branches of tall pine trees.  And as the smoke rose, the pine tree limbs and abundant needles would disperse the smoke to such an extent that it couldn’t be detected by any search and rescue aircraft.  The smoke would simply rise through the tops of the tall pine trees and be released as frail, diluted wisps which were almost immediately obliterated by even the slightest of breezes that sailed over the treetops.

            There were no windows in the cabin, though I saw sections of the walls marked, probably to show where windows would eventually be cut in the spring.  The fireplace and plenty of candles served as the only light sources.  The cabin was almost totally in the shade of the trees, except when the sun was directly overhead.  I figured that there must be flashlights and oil lamps, but I didn’t see any in plain sight.  But they had to be present because this log cabin was basically a wooden cave, dark and dreary, with a dirt floor that had been pounded so hard that it felt like concrete.

            There was one table made out of split logs, similar to a rough-looking picnic table.  There were four chairs and four bunk beds, two bunk beds built into the wall on each side of the fireplace.  I guessed that Grace and I were lucky to share the fourth bunk bed, though I wondered why it was built, until I thought that when building one bed, you might just as well build both.  And if the fourth bunk bed wasn’t used by someone, then it could very conveniently serve as a shelf.

            There was plenty of firewood already cut, stacked and seasoned.  I saw it on the way into the cabin.  It was stacked up against the weather-protected side of the cabin.  Cans of food were everywhere, on shelves built into the interior side of the cabin.  Jake really had this all planned out and executed extremely well.  I didn’t take comfort in this thought, however, but I was well aware that to defeat an enemy you had to study them, learn about them so you could find their strengths and weaknesses, think like them and imagine walking in their shoes.  Finding their weaknesses puts you on the path to victory or, in our case, a successful escape.  But I found that thought to be more threatening than comforting, especially when I looked into Grace’s young and innocent brown eyes.

            Jake dumped about six cans of chunky beef soup into a cast-iron pot, heated it up over the fire and we all ate hot soup.  Then we prepared for bed, even though the cabin had only warmed-up a few degrees.  Jake and Tom took off their coats.  They both still had thick, warm-looking shirts on.  Lester, however, looked cold even with his coat still on.  Jake and Tom looked at Grace and me curiously.  I had told Grace to keep her coat on, just like I did.  I couldn’t chance taking off my coat and exposing the knives that were under my shirt.  Those knives were our major hope and my element of surprise.  They must be kept secret at all costs, until just the right moment. But that moment had to be soon because keeping my coat on all the time would eventually raise serious suspicion, especially when the cabin became comfortably warm.  I knew that I couldn’t keep my coat on too long, but for the moment I made up the excuse that Grace and I were still cold because we weren’t used to this rough outdoor life, like they were.  I pointed to Lester and said, “See.  He’s still cold, too.”  Jake looked at Tom and they both laughed, but they accepted what I said, then looked away from us, one of them faintly whispering the derogatory word, “Wimpy.”

            I had to act soon, tonight, or tomorrow morning.  I thought of two proverbs that were in opposition to each other: “He who hesitates is lost”─don’t hesitate before you act─and, “Look before you leap─hesitate before you act.  Action and inaction.  At present, however I couldn’t leap, nor could I hesitate for very long.  I had to rely on the “Roamin’ Wolf” in me to do whatever it takes to get Grace out of harm’s way.

            Tom kept glancing at us, as we sat on the bottom bunk.  It didn’t take long for him to say, “Yooh, asshole! You can take yur coat off now,” he teased.  He surprised me because I thought that that issue had just been settled─the bad apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree.

            Apparently, he didn’t think much of my excuse for keeping our coats on.  “We ain’t gonna steal it from yuh.  Ain’t even worth the effort.  Cheap coat.”  Then he burst into sarcastic laughter that ejaculated through his crooked and discolored teeth.  Lester followed suit.

            Grace cringed because the laughing sounds exploding from his mouth were more like the vicious snarls of a ravenous lion tearing apart its prey.

            The coat wasn’t cheap, though it may have looked cheap.  It was nylon stuffed with something to trap the warm body heat.  However, it was best for fall weather and might not be good enough in the biting chill and blowing snows of an Adirondack winter season.  This thought nearly put me in a panic.  We had to get out of this mess before it snowed, before the winds howled their frigid anger and touched their icy fingers to all of us warm-blooded creatures, and, also, before the temperatures dropped to serious, frostbite levels.  Neither Grace nor I were appropriately dressed for the rugged Adirondack winter weather, or for the rough terrain.

            Fear started to penetrate my confidence.  I was becoming damn frustrated with myself for vacillating between the twin devils of fear and panic and the twin gods of self-confidence and strength.  But before I could berate myself too severely, a mental picture of a wolf took shape . . . a pale wolf─doesn’t Death ride a pale horse in the mythical, biblical Book of Revelation?  Strange that I would think of that, especially since I consider the bible an ages old book of multi-authored fiction.  The growling image of the pale wolf broke me out of my daydream, its lips drawn back to show pink gum and deadly fangs.  It was an image that I’d seen hundreds of times before, in Nam, but Wolf wasn’t white back then.  Back then Wolf was black.  I wondered why it had changed color.  Was it a double meaning?  Was a pale wolf similar to the biblical pale horse?  Death was the master of the pale horse, so, is the wolf’s master also Death?  Then that would be me.  I’m Death?  But isn’t white also associated with goodness, as in good versus evil?  So, did that mean that Wolf and I represent Death, that we had to kill the Gibsons, and that in this particular case Death would be a good thing?  Holy shit!  Was that just a convoluted rationalization?  Shit!  I don’t know why I’m thinking of this crap at a time like this.  I should only have one thought, one goal, one all-consuming duty, saving Grace.  I would do whatever it took to save Grace, so screw the death and goodness crap, screw the good versus evil bullshit, and screw the law.  Grace’s survival was all that mattered to me, now.

            I calmly looked at Tom and replied, “Grace and I are still chilled from the long, cold trip to get here.  That’s why we still have our coats on.  If we get sick we’ll just be an added burden to you, so keeping our coats on helps all of us.  We aren’t used to the rough weather and the rough traveling, as I told you a little while ago.”

            Actually, I knew that the Gibsons didn’t give a shit about any of that.  To them, we didn’t need warm coats and it didn’t matter if we were sick or healthy because they didn’t intend to let us live very long.  To them, we were just a burden, just animals waiting to be slaughtered, after they had some sadistic pleasure.  Jake whispered to Tom and Tom said no more about my coat.         The Gibsons sat at the table grinning at us arrogantly, like children who think they have a secret that no one else can possibly figure out.

            Grace was exhausted so we sat on the bottom bunk bed, with our coats on.  We huddled together since the cabin was still cold and covered our legs with our two wool blankets.  While we were sitting on the bunk bed I noticed that, instead of springs in the bottom of the bunk beds, there were spaced, taut ropes running the length and width of the wooden frames, in a checker-board pattern.  The mattress appeared and felt as if it was nothing more than a huge, canvas sack stuffed with dried moss and dry grass.  I was skeptical about its comfort, until I thought of what our beds were like (fairly comfortable) on the way to this cabin.

            Soon we laid on the bunk to get some sleep.  Lester immediately looked at us and said, while laughing haughtily, “They’re just a couple a candy- asses, Tom.  The wimp there an’ his very sweet little girlie.”  Then, in a menacing voice, he added,” Come here, little girlie, an’ I’ll keep you warm.  I surely will.”

            Lester reached into his pocket and took out the three-inch folding knife that he took from me at Raquette Lake.  The perverted miscreant then waved the opened blade toward Grace and beckoned her, in a teasing, licentious tone of voice, to come to him.  I kept my eyes riveted on him while Grace buried her terrorized face into my shoulder.  I could feel her body shudder with fear.  The razor-sharp blade in Lester’s hand sparkled like liquid silver from the reflected light of the fireplace, as well as light from the candles that were sitting on the crude table and in the corners of the cabin.  Barely controlled rage surged through me as I desperately tried not to glare at him, for two reasons: one, my stare might intimidate him and might show Jake and Tom that I wasn’t the “ultimate wimp” that they thought I was; two, Grace needed me to comfort her, to make her feel safe, to stroke her hair, to whisper soothingly words to her, to reassure her and give her hope.

            Suddenly Jake’s massive open paw flashed out and smacked Lester across the back of his head, raising tufts of hair to form faux cowlicks as his head jerked forward from the unexpected blow.  “Knock it off, son.  Not now.  Yuh hush-up an’ be patient,” he said, his harsh words pouring out of the hole in his grizzled beard, and his eyes radiating sparks of admonition.

            Lester glared at his father, then quickly looked meekly at the cabin floor.  Then his head rose as he stared with bitter hatred and clenched teeth towards me, as if I was to blame for what he said, the consequences of his own words, and of his father’s stern rebuke.

            I closed my eyes to indicate that I was going to sleep, waited a few seconds, then opened them just a slit so I could see all of them sitting together.

            In my imagination I could see Wolf pacing around that evil trio, with his eyes reflecting yellow light from the fire, his lips drawn back over wet and glistening, white fanged teeth.  It was the dance of a hungry, stalking, feral creature seeking the taste of flesh and blood, and knowing it was all within reach.  Lester appeared to be the closest, tasty morsel to the hoary wolf’s lolling and dripping tongue.  But Wolf, following my lead, controlled his fierce rage, subduing it with patience.  Lester continued his staring faux bravado, not knowing just how close he was to his own bloody and violent death.

            I could, however, see the festering cowardice in Lester’s eyes and face; the hesitancy to take action, the grand lack of self-assurance and the subtle way he leaned backward, on his heels, as if to take flight and run away.  He wouldn’t approach Grace with me in the way, and his father and brother were making no attempt to assist him . . . not now, anyway.  I rolled on my side, turning my back to them and drew Grace closer to me.  I whispered into her ear, “Daddy loves you.  I’ll take you home to Mommy, Grandpa and Grandma for Thanksgiving,” But Grace didn’t relax, rather she burrowed her head into my neck and shoulder as if she were diving down a hole to safety.  She was trembling with fear, anxiety and stress.  Her arms and legs were alive with short, jerky movement; she couldn’t settle down.  After about ten or fifteen minutes her breathing became more regular and soothing, indicative of sleep.  I hoped that she would be carried off on the dream laden wings of sleep, to a pleasant and safe place, which would probably be into her mother’s arms.

            As the cabin became quiet, and the Gibsons were left to their own thoughts, I wondered if the police were on our trail.  I hoped that they were.  I wondered how my in-laws and Sam were doing.  I wondered if Sam had called my sister, nephews, and niece to give them the bad news.  I wondered if Sam had called my school principal so he could get a substitute teacher for me.  I wondered who the substitute teacher was.  I wondered if I’d ever see my classroom, students, colleagues, relatives and friends again.  I wondered what went through their minds when they heard about our being kidnapped.  I wondered a lot and guessed a lot, but I thought I did know five things: One, I knew that I couldn’t count on any supernatural assistance.  No amount of prayers would get us out of this mess.  No fairy tale, superhero would come and rescue us; Two, I was on my own and I alone had to be the one to take action to save myself and Grace; Three, I didn’t feel nearly as confident as I had in Nam.  Fear of dying in Nam didn’t bother me, though how I would die did.  Dying in Nam was no big deal to me because it would end my mental pain and my sense of futility and hopelessness, but now I had much to live for.  Mainly, I had Sam and Grace.  I felt that Wolf’s fierceness hadn’t been diluted, just dormant, since I left the jungles of Nam.  And being honest with myself, I knew that my confidence had been shaken and sometimes fear did threaten to paralyze me, which made it hard to plan an escape.  But, in mortal combat, over-confidence usually leads to unexpected death.  I couldn’t afford to be over-confident, nor could I afford to panic.  I also knew that here, in the Adirondacks, with my daughter and me against three pre-Neanderthal savages, I wasn’t as certain of my abilities, until my visions of “Roamin’ Wolf” began to appear, as they had appeared almost every night in Nam.  Those visions, plus my own combat skills, strengthened me and gave me hope for our survival.  When the right time came, like in Nam, Wolf would have to run the show.  His specialty was controlled violence, not random violence.  I was Roman Wolfe with a “roamin’ wolf” inside my mind, just waiting to be set free to do what it does with expertise . . . mete out sudden, violent death.  Roamin’ Wolf was made for the brutal violence of combat, for “do or die” situations, but I, Roman Wolfe, was Wolf’s General.  I gave the orders, the commands that called Roamin’ Wolf into action.  So the fourth thing I knew was that I needed to be thinking clearly, be alert, be decisive, but patient, and then call upon Roamin’ Wolf’s full arsenal of savage power at just the right time.

            I thought, “What was it that Lord Fisher had once said about war?”  Yes, I remember now.  He said, in so many words, that the essence of war is violence and moderation in war is imbecility.  And, may I add, “moderation” in war leads to certain defeat.  That, of course, is how we lost the Vietnam War.  We lost mostly because of our politician’s and the president’s use of “moderation,” which equates to their own “imbecility.”  You don’t win a war by not giving your best effort, by holding back, by being afraid to use your power, by being sissies in a land of savages. Therefore, the fifth thing that I knew was what Roamin’ Wolf’s violence could accomplish when it co-existed with my own martial arts skills.  Wolf and Wolfe working together, with no inclination towards “moderation,” would enable Grace and I to survive this ordeal.  That was my belief, my lifeline for survival.  So why did I still have doubts?  It was a maddening thought; one that frustrated me.

            Beliefs?  They are formed in manifold ways, solidified by experience and serious thoughts.  But once formed, primary beliefs are like an unmoving, unaltered island, while most other things in life flow and change with the changing currents that must flow around the island of primary beliefs.

            I concentrated on gaining mental clarity.  If Roamin’ Wolf was the warrior and I, Roman Wolfe, was the General, as in Nam, then doubt and fear would have to be pushed aside.  Who would have ever guessed that in the midst of all this Adirondack splendor, a very intimate and personal war was about to break out.  I smiled and Roamin’ Wolf’s image snarled back at me.  The friendly snarl was a great comfort to me, but not comfort enough to allow me to sleep.

            Grace was asleep.  As she slept, her body shook in disturbed spasms.  She wasn’t sleeping as peacefully as I had hoped.  I listened, again, to the Gibsons’ post-dinner conversation.  Most of it was irrelevant, braggart, bullshit, but the part about Jake and Tom going out tomorrow morning to see if anyone had followed us and to set some animal traps, as well as to do some hunting for fresh meat, was interesting.  Interesting because that would leave only Lester in the cabin to guard us.  Then I could make my move to escape.  Damn wonderful, I thought.  We have to get out before the snow and frigid weather locked us into a tomb of ice, heavy snow fall, blustery winds and sub-zero temperatures.

            Jake, Tom and Lester each checked and unloaded their shotguns.  Jake double-checked Lester’s shotgun.  Then they leaned the empty rifles and shotguns near Jake’s bunk bed, against the log wall.  Jake went outside and put the ammunition someplace.  He’s real cautious, I thought.  Not as stupid as he looks either.  “Know your prey,” Wolf growled to me.

            Like I said, Jake took the lower bunk bed that was across the room from the one Grace and I slept on.

            A thought suddenly burst into my mind, like an air bubble rising to the surface of the water, then popping.  I knew that Tom would want to take the bunk bed that was above Grace and I.  Lester needed to have his rape victims submissively under him in order to feel powerful and in control and Tom needed that same sort of feeling.  He needed to have his victims pinned under him so he could stab and slash with his Bowie knife.  This made him feel supremely powerful and in complete control, just like Lester, only Tom’s actions were not related to rape, although just as sadistic and lethal.  I wondered, again, how he got those scars on both of his cheeks.  Were they deep scratches from female fingernails?

            I thought, “Too many men denigrate or even brutalize women.  Perhaps some men needed to feel physically more powerful that women because subconsciously they feel inferior and use their greater muscle mass to enforce their needed superiority.  However, for the convenience and privilege of being able to piss while standing up, and usually being endowed with greater muscle mass, men get to labor harder, fight wars and die younger.  Women, on the other hand, get to relax and think while they piss sitting down, so they get to be more thoughtful, safer, more relaxed and live longer.  They are normally superior emotionally and intellectually, too.  They also tend to be more sensible and reasonable.  As if they weren’t superior enough, they get to create life.  Women are the creators of girls who, themselves will become women who can create life and of the boys who will become men.  But those men are simply the guardians of the women and the lives that women can create.  The only reason that women don’t rule the world is that the world is still such a violent place, where the archaic proposition that “might is right” is still entrenched in the DNA of most men, myself included.”  I laughed at myself for this train of thought, then Tom’s voice brought me back to the present.

            “I’ll take the bunk bed over the wimp and his girlie,” Tom said, huskily.  He grabbed his sleeping bag and blanket, then tossed them onto the bunk bed above Grace and I.  I smiled to myself.  Wolf says, “Know your prey,” but more appropriate for me was, “Know your enemy,” and I did know my enemy fairly well.  They were easy to read.

            That left Lester with the bunk bed above his dad.  Before Lester got up into his bunk bed, Jake asked him to place several chunks of wood on the fire, which he did, then everyone settled into their bunk.  Nobody was on guard duty.  Was that a trick, or trap, or carelessness? I waited and wondered.

            Then Jake growled, “I be a real light sleeper, Wimp.  Yuh makes a move fer that door an’ I gut yur girlie right befo’ yur eyes.  Yuh unnerstan’?”

            “Yes.  I understand perfectly,” I said in my best hesitant, trembling voice, wanting to reinforce the “wimp” image in order to use it to my advantage later on.  The ‘wimp’ had a few surprises planned for them.  I was glad that Grace wasn’t awake to hear Jake’s threat.

            I could feel the top bunk jiggling gently from Tom’s laughter.  I held Grace and kissed her softly on the cheek.  I whispered, “Daddy loves you,” then pressed my head into the pillow, staring, sleeplessly into the bottom of the top bunk’s mattress.  “Checkers, anyone?” I thought as I looked up at the checkered pattern of the ropes that served as bed springs.

            I thought of the next day being November 18th.  Good thing I had my watch with the year-long battery and the day and date indicators, or I’d surely lose track of the date and time.

            Tomorrow, November 18th, I thought, again.  That meant that today was my father’s-in-law birthday.  Not a good day for a happy birthday, this year, I thought.

            In my mind I could see Sam’s face as she sat in tears at her mom’s and dad’s kitchen table.  I could also see Mom’s and Dad’s sad faces clearly, just as I saw images of my sister, brother-in-law, nephews, and niece.  Their names drifted across my mind like cumulous clouds: Fran, Larry, Mark, Tony, Mike, and Lori.  Seeing their names was comforting to me.

            Just before I drifted off to sleep, I wondered exactly how old Dad would be.  I knew he was in his seventies, but not his exact age.  Then I thought about being home for Thanksgiving, eating one of Mom’s marvelous Thanksgiving dinners of turkey and ham, gravy, homemade dinner rolls, mashed potatoes, corn, cranberries, lettuce salad, pumpkin pie and a few other homemade goodies that always made Mom’s Thanksgiving dinners so very special.  My mouth watered as my mind wandered, and I thought that I should have said that I knew six things, not five.  The sixth thing I knew was that the damn dinner soup didn’t fill me.  I was hungry for a jumbo bacon, cheese hamburger.  I thought, “I’d gladly pay someone Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

            I dreamed about sitting next to Sam and Grace at Mom’s and Dad’s large dining room table, feeling happy, safe and comfortable, as I stuffed my face with warm, delicious food and exchanged warm, friendly glances and conversations with relatives and friends.

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

                                                            Chapter 7

                                                                 ****

                                                      Whispering Death

            When I awoke the next morning, November 18th, I was somewhat surprised and disappointed with myself for how soundly I had slept.  I told myself that, if I could get to sleep, I needed to sleep lightly, for Grace’s sake.  But that didn’t happen.  When I finally did fall asleep my body must have been so exhausted that it went into hibernation.

            Then I remembered my silly, unexplainable dream, one of the most puzzling and confusing dreams that I’ve ever had.  I dreamed that I flew with my legs straddling the spine of a giant book.  The red front and back covers served as wings, the white pages hung down like a bird’s torso and legs.  I soared over the earth enjoying the earth’s splendor, but then the pages that hung downward started dropping their black words, thousands at a time sliding off the pages, like bird-droppings, leaving a distinct ebony colored trail upon the earth.  A few minutes later I landed the book, checked the pages, and found all of them to be blank.  I backtracked the ebony trail and scooped up all the words, pushing them into my shirt, making the front of my shirt puff outward like a fat man’s belly.  Then I flew to a nearby lake, landed on the sandy beach, basked in the sunshine for awhile, then reassembled the words in the book by scooping them out of my shirt and pouring them between the pages, randomly.  When I finished, the pages were full of organized words just like any normal book, but the story was totally different: different characters, different plot, different setting, different problems, and different resolutions.  It was as if I’d used most of the original book’s words. Some words worked their way down my pant legs and spilled onto the ground and were not used to magically author a completely different and original novel.  I didn’t notice the original title of the book, nor did I see the new title of the re-worded book, though I did remember that the title on the spine of the original book was black while the title on the spine of the altered book was gold.  As I strained over this conundrum, the new book spoke to me.  It requested that I take another ride.  I mounted the spine, soared to the highest mountain top and began to read the book that I’d magically authored with those magic, randomly selected and rearranged words.

            The three main female characters came to vivid life for me.  Sandra, Mara, and Grace were their names, but the only familiar name was Grace.  “Who were those other two characters? I wondered.” They came to vibrant life in my dream, but it was as if that life was a past life, something that I knew and experienced, but had somehow forgotten.  I had to ask myself, “How could I have possibly forgotten such caring, loving, memorable and remarkable people?”  Was it a silly dream or a vision of a past life?  Somehow, for some unknown reason, I felt as if I knew them, and yet I didn’t, except for a girl with the same name as Grace.  It was a mildly disturbing mystery that seemed to have a tight hold on me for a minute or two, then vanished.

            As if reading my mind, the winged book flew above the clouds to some unknown region of the world that it called home.  It was a library sitting on the very top of a high, snow-covered mountain, I know not where.  I woke up then.  I never did solve the meaning and mystery of that crazy dream.

            Grace was still sleeping, her exhaustion kidnapping her physical and mental energy just as the Gibsons had kidnapped her body.  I didn’t know if it was light outside and didn’t want to chance using the light in my watch to see what time it was.  The cabin was dimly lit by the beginnings of a fire in the fireplace.  Dark shadows occupied the cabin’s four corners as if dark and evil wraiths lurked there.  I could hear the wood popping in the fireplace as the fire grew larger.  When my eyes adjusted, the cabin seemed to brighten a little.  I could hear the burning wood popping louder now, as if someone had thrown popcorn kernels into it.  I guessed that the fire hadn’t been started too long before I awoke.

            I didn’t want anyone to know that I was awake, so I didn’t attempt to look at my watch or turn my head or body to look. The fireplace was in the direction that was over my right shoulder, but I assumed that it was Jake who started the fire shortly before he awakened his sons.  I thought that Jake had formed a decades old habit of rising early and getting his day started, just as he did when we were at his other Adirondack cabin.

            I had been sleeping on my back with my head facing left, towards Grace and the cabin wall.  Now, trying to be unnoticed, I slowly turned my head, to the right, towards the fireplace and the opposite cabin wall.  I saw three shapes: small, tall, and huge.  Tom must have gotten down from the top bunk extremely quietly, or I had slept so soundly that I didn’t feel or hear him descend from the top bunk.  The realization, that I did, in fact, sleep so soundly, scared me.  I had to be alert, sleeping lightly to protect Grace, yet during the night I had put us both in danger by sleeping much too soundly. I must have slept like a damn log if Tom could get down from his upper bunk and me not hear or feel his movement.  Again, disappointment washed over me like a waterfall, giving me a cold chill.

            The thought of him doing that, while I slept soundly, didn’t sit well with me.  It wouldn’t have happened to Wolf.  I knew that for certain.  But Wolf wasn’t in control . . . yet, and, so far, I couldn’t set my figurative mongoose loose amongst the Gibsons: Jake, the cobra, Tom, the rattle shake, and Lester, the garden snake.

            It was the conspiratorial whispering and Lester’s loud giggling that caught my attention, and what must have awakened me.  They must have thought that they were engaged in clever repartee as they huddled together.  Jake did most of the whispering, but with Tom and Lester adding bits and pieces to Jake’s ramblings.  I saw Tom’s and Lester’s cupped hands go to their mouths, immediately followed by more muffled laughter.  But not normal, joyful laughter.  Rather, it seemed diabolical, as if Satan and his two minions were trying to quiet the sound of their cruel mirth before it echoed off the fiery halls of hell and alerted their next victims.

            As they conspired, I thought about their ignorance and realized that the difference between intelligence and ignorance is simply that intelligence is finite, whereas ignorance is infinite.  The proof lies with the Gibsons and all the doltish rubes like them.  I couldn’t imagine the Gibsons having any normal, genuine friendships.  One can’t expect genuine friendship and loyalty to survive amongst the poisonous tentacles of treachery and sadistic brutality.

            Tom started to side-step and peek out at me from behind Jake’s shoulder. Jake’s back was toward me.  I closed my eyes quickly, keeping my face muscles lax, and breathed softly as if I were still asleep.  When I heard the continued whispering, I opened one eye slightly.  Tom had returned to his former position in the family huddle.  Although Jake’s back was toward me, I saw his right hand go to his throat with only his index finger protruding from his fist.  Then he made a slow, horizontal motion, a slash, across his Adam’s Apple, with that index finger.  “Tomorrow?” Tom asked in a whisper of joyful surprise.  Jake’s head bobbed up and down, affirmatively, a couple of times as Tom and Lester displayed their satanic smiles.  Then Jake used that same index finger and held it perpendicular across his lips, combined with a shhh sound to have his boys be quiet.

            My heart skipped a beat, lost its natural rhythm, and I felt like I was short of breath and suffocating.  I heard a growl within me.  It calmed me and allowed me to breathe normally, again.  Wolf was still riding shotgun on my mental stagecoach.  Yeah, Wolf, I thought, and where the hell were you last night.  An internal growl was the only response.

            As I clandestinely watched the Gibsons, I thought, “If there really was a God, like a Christian God, and if people were created in the image of God, then that God must be just as evil as He is good.  Anything that had something to do with creating these three amoral maniacs, and the millions who are similar, or worse than them, had to, at the moment of their creation, been something truly unholy and a fiendishly evil mechanic of the universe.”  I speculated that, if there was a God he could never live on Earth.  He’d be too embarrassed by His fatal mistakes and afraid of what He had created

            Suddenly I realized that I was condemning myself, also. Wasn’t I a murderous maniac in Nam?  Perhaps that could be debated either way.  Things are seldom as simple as they first appear to be.  It always came back to the same postulate for me.  The proven existence of God is not only unknown, scientifically, but also, unknowable without crippling logic by striking it fatally with the baseball bat of blind faith.  Perhaps that postulate isn’t as simple as it appears to be either, but “blind faith,” which is a synonym for unreasonable or illogical faith, was the alternative, and that was too ridiculous for me to consider, especially in my present situation.  Then I remembered what Benjamin Franklin stated about faith: “The way to see by faith is to shut the eyes of reason.”

            I knew that Jake’s gesturing meant death for me, certainly, and probably for Grace. Tears formed in the corners of both my eyes.  Then, in sadness and desperation, I wished that there actually was an all-good God who could come and at least save Grace.  But, as usual, that fantasy vanished quickly from my mind, false hopes and false Gods couldn’t help me, never did, never will.  Feelings of weakness, helplessness, panic and doubt sometimes bring on useless thoughts like that.

            My eyes moistened with emotion.  I closed my eyes but made no attempt at wiping the tears away.  I didn’t want to move; I needed to listen.  My right eye’s tear dripped off and landed on the mattress ─ there was no pillow ─ while the left eye’s tear rolled down toward my nose, stopped momentarily at the junction of my nose and my cheek, then slowly ran down the crease of my nose to the left nostril.  It continued to the left corner of my mouth and then down under my chin, leaving a warm trail of salty moisture on my flesh.  I stopped any further tears from emerging while at the same time I felt myself going through a slow metamorphosis.  The wolf was starting to emerge from its long slumber.  My emotions hardened and commanded Wolf to remain silent and still.  It obeyed.  No time for tears and self-pity.  The Gibsons thought I was a wimp, but I, and my “roamin’ wolf,” knew better.  I felt strength and confidence slap away panic and doubt as I nearly laughed aloud at the irony of myself as a wimp.  But it was good camouflage.

            Then I tasted something coppery . . . blood.  There was the taste of blood in my mouth.  I wondered why?  Must be something to do with Wolf.  When I glanced at the Gibsons, I had a tremendous, unnatural urge to bite their neck and rip their throats out.  I closed my eyes to block out the vision that would be the consequence of that feral urge.

            Suddenly, while my eyes were closed, I felt a heaviness crushing my chest and stomach, while my arms were both pinned under the two wool blankets.  When I snapped my eyes open, I saw that Tom had quietly approached the bunk bed and was pinning Grace and I down.  I could only move my head and neck; my arms were trapped.  I felt as if I were in a straight-jacket.  I felt Grace squirming in panic, trying to free herself, screaming.  As my eyes focused, I saw Tom’s scarred face grinning at me, real close, almost nose to nose, his foul, fetid breath, was like sewage pouring over my face.  I struggled momentarily, then stopped as I felt the point of his blade stick into the soft, fleshy area below my Adam’s Apple.

            Grace continued screaming and thrashing, trying desperately to free herself.

            The pressure of Tom’s body on top of me made my throwing knife press deeply into my upper spine.  I was thankful that it was sheathed.  I could see Tom grinning as he lightly brought the cutting edge of his Bowie knife up in the air, then down, diagonally across my right cheek.

            Grace managed to free her head, then stared in horror at Tom’s knife.  Her screaming intensified when she saw the blood flowing down my cheek.  Her voice seemed far away, as if coming from the far end of a long tunnel.  Her screaming continued as I felt the warm, moist droplets of my own blood running down my right cheek.  The sound of Grace’s screaming was only slightly interrupted by the loud laughter of all three Gibsons.  I stared at Tom’s laughing face as he removed his blade edge from my cheek and held it out in front of my eyes, about a foot away.  The knife was like Jake’s, more like a large butcher knife than a typical skinning knife used by hunters.

            Then the crazed dolt started licking my blood from his knife, relishing it, lapping it up like a mad dog as he smiled demonically at the two of us.

            Grace’s screaming turned into crying and the tears flowed in abundance from her horror-stuck eyes.  I thought, the most dangerous, cruel, heartless, amoral, unethical killer on the planet Earth was a creature that a mythical God supposedly created in his own image . . . man.  And, at this moment, that’s what I was, and if I could have, I would have killed Tom without mercy or a shred of compassion and certainly not an atom of sympathy.  Perhaps I’m not all that different, just a slight DNA variation on the same Gibson-type theme, with a killer’s impulses, a killer’s knowledge, and a killer’s abilities. I wondered if there’s a specific gene that controls the urge to kill.

            I knew, of course, that Tom’s actions were meant to terrorize me and Grace.  Unfortunately, it had the desired effect on Grace.  How could it not; she was only a little girl.  But I had seen and even perpetrated much more ghastly horrors than what Tom had just done. When vital information was needed from the enemy to save American lives.  No, the desired effect to terrorize me didn’t work.  It strengthened me.  It made my “Roamin Wolf” more alert, tense, ready to spring and rip Tom’s throat out, crushing his tender Adam’s Apple as the gushing, and the spurting blood, from his severed carotid artery, formed a red geyser that arched, then splashed, to the ground near his feet.  It was a horribly, bestial image, but totally satisfying in these circumstances.

            I stared at Tom’s grinning face, pretending to be helpless, terrified, acting like the wimp that he expected, as he held the blade closer to my face, after having just licked all the blood off of it.  He pulled his face away from mine slowly but continued to hold his blade about a foot from my eyes.  We looked into each other’s eyes as Grace’s crying was reduced to helpless whimpering.

            Grace put her left arm around my neck and buried her face into the soft area where my left shoulder and neck meet.  Her crying became muffled and I could feel the slick wetness of her tears.

            Tom pulled his knife away, turned it over and I saw some blood that he had missed.  He licked it off as he had before, then said, “Pa taught me this trick.”  He pointed to the scars on his own cheeks with his left hand, his crazed Charlie Manson eyes glowing with hatred and near madness.

            “Pa says if yuh want someone to obey yuh, yuh got to make ‘im fearful of yuh.  An’ what better way to make someone fearful than pinning him down, holding a knife to his throat, then slicing his cheek so he thinks about what else could be done to ‘em, real easy like.  An’ he feels the fear every time he be seein’ or feelin’ that scar.  An’ if yuh don’t think he fears yuh enough, well then, naturally yuh cut ‘im again, only deeper.  An’ if he don’t obey, or he does something wrong, yuh just give him another slice . . . or maybe you do it to his kin.”  Tom looked evilly at Grace.  She pressed herself against me to feel some sort of security, security that I had failed to provide for her.

            Tom continued, “I know how it works ‘cause Pa done it to me four times, so I know how its works.  Yuh be scarred now, Wimpy.  An’ yuh will do what yur told, won’t yuh?”

            Damn!  That’s incredible.  He’s even talking like his dad, but not quite as bad, I thought.

            I responded quickly, keeping Wolf in check.  “Yes.  I will do anything you say.  I’ll try not to do anything wrong.”  I spoke in my meekest voice.  After I answered him, he smiled, then he sat up on the bunk.  I could feel the pressure of his weight lessen on my chest.  I took a deep breath, then tried to comfort Grace with a grin and a hug, though it was difficult to grin for more than a couple seconds because of my rage.  Trying to smile made sharp pains in the back of my neck and head.

            I could feel Grace trembling with fear.  I hugged her closer, then whispered, “We’ll get away.  I have a plan.”  I hoped that I was correct.  She needed hope and I offered it readily, but hoping that I wasn’t giving her false hope.  Lying isn’t always bad, no matter how many times fools tell you that it is.  It doesn’t take an explanation to know that that’s true, it just takes common-sense thought and a minimum of reasoning.

            Tom stood up all the way, as Jake and Lester came over to the bunk.  They chuckled like Neanderthals; Jake more so than any of them.  He must have been proud of what he perceived as Tom’s bravery and toughness and, perhaps, even his comparable, mountain man speech pattern.

            I wondered how a father could slice his son’s cheeks with a blade just to teach him to fear and obey.  I thought, even my doctor would go crazy if he had these three for patients.  How did they slip through the cracks of a sane society?  Know your enemy, I thought, again.  I didn’t know my enemy as well as I thought I did because I would never have expected any father to treat his son like that, not even Jake.  But I was learning about my enemies, and each thing I learned about them prepared me to defeat them by knowing how they thought and predicting what they’d do and how they’d act.  I was learning fast by asking myself constant questions, then searching for answers.  That’s important to me.  People expect teachers to be geniuses; have all the answers.  But, in my opinion, it’s not knowing all the answers that would make a smart teacher, or any person, it’s knowing the right questions to ask of his students, questions that will lead them to the answers.  Telling students the answers will make them smart enough to pass the tests, but asking the right questions that motivate students to search for the answers will last a life time.  And, in many cases, the teacher learns right along with the student.  The teacher should be used as a valuable resource like an encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus and not as a depository for all the answers.

            I could feel myself push Wolf away, temporarily, so I could be a dutiful father to Grace.  This quick, smooth transformation pleased me because I now realized that I possessed the concentrated control to change from “Roamin’ Wolf” to Roman Wolfe whenever the occasion called for that change, like two cooperating, identical twins taking turns at completing the same job, each doing the part of that job that he is best suited for, or, perhaps, Wolf and I were more like Jekyll and Hyde.  I don’t know.

            I drew Grace closer to me, stroked her hair and kissed her forehead.  These actions assuaged her screaming and crying, but my heart─a loving father’s heart─was punctured with pain and my head ached as if a stroke was inevitable.

            Jake said, “Me an’ me boy, here,”─he placed his right hand on Tom’s shoulder─has ta go out an’ do some huntin’ an’ fishin’ after breakfas’.  Lester, here, he be guardin’ yuh.”  Now Jake placed his left hand on Lester’s shoulder and stood between his two sons, smiling.  This made his large body look like an unbalanced cross, with his right arm only slightly bent down onto Tom’s shoulder, but his left arm bent way down to reach Lester’s much lower shoulder.

            He continued to talk to me, “An’ I espects yuh ta be behavin’ yerself.  Yuh be tied up ta the bed, a course, and yur girlie”─he removed both hands from his son’s shoulders and pointed to Grace with his right index finger─“she don’ needs ta be tied up if’n yuh don’ cause any trouble fer Lester”─Jake tipped his head towards Lester.  “Does we have a deal?”

            I removed the blankets from Grace and I, thankful to escape their heat and confinement, sat up in the bunk bed with my feet touching the floor.  I placed Grace on my lap, her arms still around my neck and her head against my chest, and said, “Yes.  We have a deal,” I lied, knowing that in matters of life and death, lies can often save lives or extend them, at least.

            But it wasn’t me that I felt smiling.  It was something inside of me, a wolfish grin, so to speak.  My outward face was frozen in sadness and determination to survive, with Grace uninjured.

            This might be the best chance for our escape as the weakest member of the Gibsons would be left to guard us, and Grace wouldn’t be tied up.  It seemed like now or never.  This looked like the perfect opportunity for our escape.  I just had to act meek, weak and wimpy─the image they wanted to believe─until both “Roamin’ Wolf” and Roman Wolfe attacked.

            I felt my left cheek, where I had been cut.  The cut was scabbed over with dried blood and felt crusty.  I could tell that it wasn’t a severe cut.  It would probably only leave a faint scar, if any at all.  It felt like a superficial, thin line of rough sand paper to my touch, but it still triggered a deep-seated anger that smoldered inside of me, an anger that had been dormant since I was prowling in the jungles of South Vietnam . . . when Roamin’ Wolf and Roman Wolfe were nearly one and the same.

            Then I wondered why Tom hadn’t cut me more deeply, as his dad had apparently cut him.  Not enough practice, perhaps?  Tom was only a novice with a blade, while, unknown to them, I was a wizard with a blade.  I had learned the more sophisticated knife-fighting techniques from a friend who was a hand-to-hand combat instructor for the Navy Seals─I didn’t want to be in the Special Forces, originally, but if I had to join one and had a choice, it would be the Navy Seals.  My Seal friend taught me how to do seemingly miraculous things with a combat knife, as if it were a magic wand in a wizard’s hand.  Presto, slash, flash, gushing blood, death.

            The fireplace hadn’t thoroughly warmed-up the cabin yet, which was great for Grace and I because it gave us the perfect excuse to keep our coats on during breakfast.  We were both starved due to the lack of a filling dinner the night before.  Canned potatoes and canned meat mixed together and fried in a cast iron frying pan in the fireplace wasn’t my idea of an acceptable breakfast either, but my stomach felt empty, and so must Grace’s.  We ate what we were given, which wasn’t much.  At least we were given something to keep our strength up.  All through the meal I noticed Lester taking what he thought were secret glimpses at Grace, then smiling with a lewd twinkle in his eyes.  He’d quickly look down at his tin plate while chewing his food, swallow, then smile as if he were getting away with something mischievous.

            Grace and I finished before the others─we weren’t given as much to eat.  Jake and Tom ate enough for ten, so it took them longer to finish.  Lester didn’t eat much more than Grace and I, but then he was only a tiny little shit.

            We sat quietly, my arm around Grace’s waist.  I looked into her eyes, the sadness and fear almost defeated me, but I could feel the growing feral strength of Wolf inside of me.  I smiled at Grace, trying to give her hope, but she was unable to smile back, her fear being too great.  Then I felt the pressure of both my blades pressing against the flesh under my left armpit and below the nape of my neck.  That gave me the feeling of hope and the comforting warmth that came from it.

            I saw Jake’s arm rise from the table, his dirty right index finger point to our bunk as he said, “Over ta yur bunk, mister.”

            “Mister?” I thought.  “What happened to Wimpy?”  Then, I’m not sure why, I said, “My name’s Roman and this is my daughter, Grace.”

            “Don’ care ‘bout that!” Jake snarled.  “Wimpy an’ Girlie is good ‘nough fer me an’ me boys.  Now git over ta yur bunk an’ sits yur asses down.”

            Grace and I obediently walked over to the bottom bunk bed and sat on it.  Then I was told to sit by the end bed post, the bottom of which was buried into the ground while the top was securely attached to a thick roof beam.  Tom then came and tied my feet together at the ankles.  “Nice cowboy boots,” he said as he grinned up at me.  “Hey, Pa,” Tom said, “Wimpy, here, thinks he be a cowboy.  Ain’t that a hoot, Pa?  I do like ‘is boots.”

            “He mus’ be one a does tall, skinny, sissy cowboys, huh?” Jake laughed with his sons, then sucked air through his teeth so hard that it sounded like a whistle.  That irritating sound echoed in my ears and made me want to reach out for Tom’s head, grab his hair with one hand, grab his chin with the other hand, then suddenly and violently twist to break his neck.  I wanted to do it so badly, that I felt as if my muscles were getting ready to do it without my permission.  It took a focused effort to stop myself.  It would only get us both killed immediately.  I wrapped an iron fist around my emotions and waited for my opportunity to escape with Grace.

            Jake said, “I bets yuh wish does boots was yers, huh, Tom?”

            “Yeah, Pa.  Sure do look good,” Tom replied as he smiled up at his dad, then began tying my wrists in back of me.  Tom wound the rope around my wrists and started the knot, but Jake grabbed the ropes and pulled with force, pulling the knots so tightly that they dug into my skin, cutting off the flow of blood to my fingers and abrading the skin under the rope.

            I could sense the searing heat of the pale wolf stirring within me as I wondered if the ropes were tied so tightly because they were never intended to come off.

            Jake checked the ropes and knots, was satisfied, then pulled the rope, and my arms along with it, to the bunk bed post giving me only three or four feet of slack so I could sit in the middle of the bunk, but couldn’t move away from it very far.  As I sat there, I realized that the ropes tying my ankles were not nearly as tight as the one around my wrists.  Also, the rope tying my ankles went around my cowboy boots.  I thought I could take the boots off to free my feet, if I had time and the opportunity.

            My thoughts drifted to the superficial cut on my cheek as well as the ropes binding my ankles and wrists.  Tom had only cut my cheek superficially and didn’t tie my ankles as tightly as he could have.  That made me wonder if Tom simply wasn’t as ruthless as his father, even though he pretended to be.  If so, then his act was a lot better than Lester’s, but Tom’s actions gave him away.  I wondered if, maybe, there was some small kernel of decency within him that he was loath to admit or show outright.  Did it show in the superficial cut that could have been so much deeper and the tied ankles which could have been so much tighter?  Not that he was a kind, considerate, young gentleman, just not as severely warped and ruthless as he pretended and that his dad expected him to be.  Tom might have turned out a lot better if he didn’t have such a bad model and mentor in his father, and if he wasn’t so desperate to please Jake by being just like him.  But I doubt that his life was redeemable.

            Grace sat next to me as I was being tied.  When the ropes were tied, she slid over to me and put her head on my shoulder.  She sat there frozen in her own icy fear and there was nothing I could say to her at the moment that could comfort her.  She just stared at my hands and feet with pearls of tears occasionally running from her nose and eyes.  I didn’t know how much more of this she could take.  Too much prolonged fear was debilitating, and she had just about reached her limit.

            “Now yuh behaves yerself, Girlie, and’ yuh listens ta what Lester, here, tells yuh.  Yuh unnerstan’ that?”  Jake’s voice growled at Grace and she shrank back against me, the fear stiffening her eight-year-old body.  She tried to answer Jake, but her lips parted only slightly as her voice died inside her throat.  I could hear her swallow hard as she grabbed my coat and pulled herself into me.

            Jake bellowed, “Well, Girlie, does yuh ‘ear me?  Answer me!”

            I opened my mouth to answer for her but she spoke up in a very low, hesitant, trembling and terrified voice, like a mouse in the jaws of a cat.  She cleared her throat and responded, “Yes sir, Mr. Gibson.  I hear you.”

            “Essellent,” Jake beamed, obviously proud of the “sir,” or the “Mr.” or both.  Then his mouth hissed as he sucked air through his teeth.  It was as if a hissing snake lived in his mouth.  He must have had some meat jammed between his teeth.

            Tom’s eyes bore into mine.  I could feel his hatred.  It was palpable, the kind of boiling hatred that brews when a maniac needs to prove something.  Tom was learning his lessons all too well.  Tom was using me as a tool to prove to his dad that he was tough and mean, and every bit as vicious as his old man, in order to finally earn his dad’s respect.  I could see, in his eyes, the need to kill me in order to be like Jake and to have Jake treat him like an equal.  Equally mad, I thought, in the mental health sense of the word, mad.

            Then I noticed Lester’s gaze boring into Grace.  It was no secret what Lester had planned for her, but it was a secret what the Roamin’ Wolf had in store for him if he tried to touch her.

            During that private thought, Grace held me tightly, not saying a word, just looking down toward my roped feet as she trembled.  I was thankful for this because she didn’t see Lester’s probing eyes searching her young body.

            Jake and Tom got dressed warmly, took their shotguns in hand, then walked outside to get their ammunition and go hunting.  However, only a few seconds after they departed, the door opened, and Jake came back inside the cabin.  Jake walked to the gun rack to check the padlock on the three high powered rifles.  He grinned at me and said, “Cain’t never be too careful,” and walked back to the door, where he paused.  He ordered Lester to put his coat on, to grab his shotgun and to step outside.  Apparently, he wanted to talk to him without us hearing what he had to say, and he wanted to make sure that Lester’s shotgun was properly loaded and properly functioning so Lester would have it when guarding us.

            There being no windows in the cabin, and the door being closed, meant that no one could see Grace and I either.  That was careless of Jake; something I had not expected but was mighty good luck for us.

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