Dawn found Sam half an hour awake. He’d already checked the trotlines. Two fish this morning, although one of them he was almost ashamed to take. Maybe if he’d gotten to it sooner he’d have released it, but trotlines weren’t too kind after three or four hours, and if it was going to die anyway, he may as well eat it.
The raccoon hide was still pretty wet, so he left it alone. Give it a few more days, he figured, and it ought to be ready to work. A quick check found the brain still sealed and unmolested in the ice cold water.
It was time to go.
He was wearing the armor today, just in case. How much protection it might be, he wasn’t certain. He hadn’t bothered with heavy ballistic plates or anything tactical, since the most dangerous missile weapons he was likely to encounter would be stone or flint spears. What he’d decided on was riot armor for arms and legs. Plastic plates backed with foam, although he had decided on a pair of Battle Steel level IV plates for chest and back. A stone spear wasn’t a .44 magnum, but it would still smart if somebody punched one through his sternum.
The riot armor had arrived the afternoon of the day he’d left, so he hadn’t been able to put it through any sort of paces, but the various pieces had seemed like they’d stop anything the natives threw at him. So to speak. They were rated against knives and bludgeons, so that should do.
Still, he was who he was, and so, before he put one of the leg pieces on, he found a nice, pointy rock and gave it a good, stout whack. Barely a scratch. Good enough.
He’d never worn armor before outside of one or two civilian training programs he’d signed up for. When he’d been active duty, the armor had been GI cotton and steel pots. By GW1, he’d transitioned to a kevlar, but that had been the extent of the upgrades. All of this armored vest stuff had happened after he’d gotten out of the Guard in the early nineties. It felt strange and vaguely cosplayish.
The bump helmet felt strange, too, with the weight of the PVS18L3 hanging off of it. He’d played with night vision in the past, but nothing this advanced before. He was still kind of surprised he’d been able to pick one up without a military purchase order. Nearly as surprised as he’d been when he saw the price tag. His and Meg’s first house hadn’t cost that much!
He was still wearing a compression sock on his bad foot, and the tight-wrapped bandage. The boot was laced as tight as he could get it. Hopefully that would be enough.
Figuring out how to rig the pack over the armor was an experience, but he got that settled, finally, and he wanted the frame at least, on the off chance he did find anything to haul back. Inside, he had basic gear only, just enough for an overnight. The parka would go in the pack as well. He’d wear the poncho today, draped over him like a Conestoga wagon cover.
He’d leave the spear behind this time. He was going to be carrying the rifle. The good rifle — his own rifle, with the red dot, magnifier and eighteen inch barrel. He didn’t know what he might find, how unfriendly it might be, or how many of it he might be facing. While the spear would help him walk and maneuver, he didn’t want to be juggling the damned thing if he had to go hot.
It was a good thing there were no mirrors around, he thought. Looking down at himself, he had a distinct feeling he’d feel pretty foolish if he were to look full at himself in this getup. Even moreso than he had in the hotel room. Hah! Wait until he got farther west, when the clothes he’d brought along finally wore out and he had to start in making buckskins and carving his own buttons.
The ground wasn’t awful. Rocky still, but not too jagged. He didn’t have much trouble with the grades, even with a bad ankle. The brush was another matter, and he spent almost as much time going around obstacles as forward along his route.
He’d brought one of the tablets, but had packed it away. He wouldn’t be using it for navigation anyway. It’s purpose was to research and provide him a platform to keep a journal. For navigation, he’d brought one of the Council supplied maps and a compass. The alien watch had a compass feature, but he was more familiar with the old-fashioned lensatic army model, and it had some tricks that the aliens either hadn’t bothered with or that Bob hadn’t shown him.
He walked slowly, in no particular hurry. After all, without any particular destination, he’d no need to reach it quickly. He was just checking out the lay of the land. If he happened across something edible, all the better, but he wasn’t counting on it just yet.
He was traveling more or less straight southwest, paralleling the intermittent brook he’d originally struck before heading north, and marking his trail occasionally. Gloucester would be down here somewhere a couple of miles away, or the area that would one day be Gloucester at any rate. There would be lots of water down there, and unless he found a spot that had iced over, he was going to have to figure out a way to cross. He’d brought hip waders, but wasn’t carrying them on this trip.
Of course, if this were a populated area, there might be a bridge, or a beached dugout or ten. He’d have to see.
He wasn’t making much noise, for all the brush. Rubber soled boots and forty-five years of walking through the woods did that for you. Around him he heard the occasional squirrel, the odd bird.
He spotted a rabbit or two, but passed them by. No fat, no calories, and the skins were more of a pain to work than they were worth, particularly with the primitive conditions he was working in. Maybe on the way back if he hadn’t spotted anything else. The basic use of rabbit was to flavor vegetables anyway, and he didn’t have any of those.
The timber grew thicker as he moved, with very few trails through it. This would be ideal deer country so long as the current occupants hadn’t hunted them overmuch. He kept his eyes peeled for sign.
There was scattered snow on the ground beneath the trees, and he was seeing tracks, though they were largely rodents, and not of much interest.
As he walked, he tried to go over what he’d been learning about this area. Not much, really. Most of it came from what he’d learned about the Massachusett, and from a thousand years into this current time’s future. They’d used boats to take fish, oysters, clams, and lobster, although he wasn’t sure what sort of boats. They’d gathered and farmed various flora, and hunted various fauna.
Deer bone tools as well as stone, no surprise. They’d apparently eaten birds, including gulls and the aforementioned heath hens who lived along the coast. Some kind of prairie chicken relative that were plentiful all through this area. He hadn’t seen any sign of them yet, but that might mean they were laying low for the cold months, or that he just hadn’t been looking in the right places.
There were supposed to have been buffalo and elk well into the eastern and northeastern regions, but he hadn’t any notion of how far east. Pennsylvania, he knew, but not whether any of them ever made it this far east.
Predators were limited to small cats, coyotes maybe, and grey wolves. Or maybe red wolves, or maybe something that was a combination of all three types of wolf. He had yet to see any sign of those either.
He stopped beside a bare limbed oak and took a few moments to scan the scenery. Nothing but him and the squirrels. Listening, he heard only the wind and the creaking of the slumbering trees.
Another hour found him in lower, wetter terrain, and here he began to see some sign. Beaver? The hell? He shook his head. Of all the beasts he’d expected to see on this coast, beaver hadn’t even made the list. He carefully took a knee and examined the tracks. Not fresh, but definitely beaver. He glanced westward, wondering how far away the pond might be. Beaver had a lot of fat on them, and famously useful pelts.
Then he thought better of it. He was after information and larger game. In that order. He was too far from camp to be chasing after every trail he came across.
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He came across his first big hurdle another half mile or so on. It looked wider than it did on the map, and deep enough that he didn’t feel like trying to wade it. Maybe he should have brought the waders.
This would also be the area where he could start expecting to see signs of habitation. There were supposed to have been a substantial number of people living in this area, although nothing like modern Gloucester. But how many constituted substantial was open to debate. There were only supposed to have been a couple of million people living on the entire continent at this point. How dense could the population be?
Of course, that question was almost as dangerous as the famous ‘what could possibly happen?’ that invariably got people killed. If he kept expecting to run into a war party around every tree stump, he wouldn’t be the one surprised by any chance meeting.
Crouching beside the wide stream, he pulled a glove off and dipped a hand. It smelled brackish. He wasn’t about to taste it. Wiping his hand dry on the seat of his pants, he stuffed it back into the glove and took his feet, moving slowly. Southeast would take him to Gloucester Harbor. If anybody had summer digs nearby, they’d be along that shore. Maybe he could borrow a boat. Wasn’t sure what he’d do with it, but it was nice to consider options.
It was getting along towards late afternoon, and the sun was nearing the western horizon, sending its long shadows racing eastward, pulling the temperature down as it went. Well, he’d figured on spending the night. He faded back from the edge of the stream and started looking for someplace to kip up.
He curled himself up in a deadfall, wrapped in the bivvy with the parka and poncho draped over it. He didn’t bother with a fire — not with the chance that the current residents might not follow the patterns of their descendants regards seasonal relocation. The night was therefore long and cold, and spent with the rifle to hand.
He awoke thinking of coffee and a hot shower, neither of which he was likely to see in the near future, and that old garage sale fan that he and Meg had bought for their first apartment. The one with the bad bearings that he’d had to jump start every time, and that had squalled so loud that you’d think it in constant danger of bursting into flame.
The poncho felt heavy for some reason. Peeking out through the hood slit, he saw that the world had become swirling white. The snow was coming down heavy and uncomfortably horizontal. It had been the wind that had awakened him. Tilting his head, he looked down and saw that a good two inches of snow had already accumulated atop his cover.
Sit it out, or move? Try to get better cover? The snow would keep him warmer than wandering through the wind, blindly risking falling into some iced over stream. But for how long? He was carrying food and water, but not all that much. He’d set out with the camelback and two canteens full, but had been going through it pretty quick.
Snow, of course, and it was doubtless clean enough to drink if he melted it, but the notion of melting snow with his body heat wasn’t attractive in the least, and he was damn well too late to start gathering wood for a fire.
So he settled back and tried to think warm thoughts and ignore his bladder.
It snowed for about four hours, and the scene the storm left in its wake was unrecognizable. This was the danger of wandering off into strange forest in a strange land. Sam knew that, if he leapt up at this exact minute and started north for his camp, he wouldn’t make it by nightfall, and maybe not ever. In a world where any fall might cripple him, even temporarily, having every feature of the terrain muffled in a six inch blanket of soft white was downright terror inducing.
Bet you wish you hadn’t left that spear behind now, don’t you lunkhead? He asked himself silently. On the other hand, what every forest had in abundance was sticks, and at this moment, stick was the most important feature of any tool he could think of.
Giving up his exploration for now, he carefully extricated himself from his cocoon, working carefully to keep as much snow as possible clear of his gear. It was cold as a banker’s heart, the sky clear and brittle, the sun offering no warmth. This time, the pack went over the parka, and the poncho over them both.
This time, instead of blending with the scenery as he had yesterday, he stood out like a zit on a schoolgirl’s cheek.
The map stayed in its tube today, and the lensatic in its pocket. For what he was doing, the watch compass was good enough. He was only following his own blazes back, and he knew more or less the bearings to follow.
Near evening, and about a quarter of the way ‘home’, he brought up short. Kneeling, he pulled a light from his parka pocket, shining it down onto the shadowed snow, running it across the tracks. Those were definitely deer. Looking around, he wondered what had happened. There was no blood, and no accompanying tracks. Either something had spooked them from their bed or something had happened to it.
The tracks were fresh, since well after the snow had stopped falling. He looked northeast, along his original path, and then along the line of the tracks. If they’d been spooked by a predator, they might leave the area completely. Of course, if he followed the tracks, he might get his dumb ass lost. On the other hand, the peninsula wasn’t that big, so how lost could he get?
The sun had vanished while he considered. When would the moon be up? Not for awhile. He flipped the NODs down over his eyes and flicked the switch. It took little more than a second for the world to change. He looked along the line of tracks. The PVS-18 had IR capabilities, and if the tracks were very fresh, might highlight that fact. It didn’t.
Working slowly, he eased himself in that direction. Each footstep sounded like a wrecking ball taking down the wall of an old building in his ears, but the wind was in his face, and that might help mask the noise as well as his scent. His eyes were starting to ache before he caught the first hint of heat off in the distance. Easing sideways against a tree, he paused to try and identify what he was looking at. Still too far for much detail.
He worked his way closer with excruciating care, placing each foot slowly forward, pushing down on the snow crust as gently as possible until it gave before putting it down. For what seemed like hours, he moved to within the NVG’s range.
There were three of them. Does. The greedy portion of his brain said to take them all, it wasn’t like any of the meat would go to waste. The sensible part of his brain wondered how the greedy part was planning on carrying all of that meat, since the back was already groaning.
Sam’s rational brain was pondering which would be the most ethical kill. The middle one he, thought. The largest, on the far side, was a big ol’ gal, and he wasn’t sure he could pack her out. Even the middle one was a good sized critter, maybe a hundred, hundred-twenty-five pounds dressed out. The near one was little more than a yearling, and too small for the effort she’d take to get home.
He was about a hundred yards shy of them and morning was coming. They’d already gone through a couple of alert cycles since he’d started his stalk, although he was pretty sure they hadn’t any idea he was around. He didn’t think he’d get much closer before they spooked, though, and he didn’t want to have to snap a shot if he could help it. Closer in and he might have tried the Buckmark, even with the short barrel, but that was an iffy shot from here without a stock. He made a note to look for a nice piece of wood to make a stock.
It took him another quarter hour to slide himself enough to the side to get a broad on shot at her. He was in a perfect position for a head shot. His finger was already squeezing the trigger when he remembered how much he needed to keep the brain intact. He froze. Another reason not to use the Buckmark. Instead, he held position, his off hand braced against the trunk of the tree he was using for cover. Ten minutes passed, and his leg was starting to go numb where he was sitting on it, but she finally moved, standing, taking a few steps, starting to turn.
The bullet took her in the shoulder, passing through both lungs and out the other side. She dropped like a stone.
It took the other two whitetails a second to understand what was going on, if they ever did. The shot was no more than a loud pop-crack! What they did understand was the danger and blood smell. Their flags went up and they took off for the west at best speed.
Sam let his breath out slowly. He was dog tired, cold as hell, and he’d just given himself a new and strenuous job. Well, first things first.
It took him well into the next afternoon to get the dressed whitetail back to camp, and he had to thank the snow for even that speed. In the end, he’d rigged up a sort of drag with a couple of smaller tree trunks hacked down with the camp axe, and a truly ugly weave of lesser branches all tied together with five-fifty cord. He was going to eventually have to start weaving line from local materials if he didn’t want to run out of what he’d brought. Even five-fifty wore out.
The hide had already started to stiffen, and wasn’t about to fit into the five gallon brew pot anyway. Instead, he got out the e-tool and hacked out a bowl in the earth between his hootch and the lake, deep and wide enough to fit the hide. He warmed it by heating rocks in the fire and dumping them in once they were all nice and toasty. The big hide was much harder to clean than the ‘coon had been, both for its size and the lesser ratio of fat for the making of soap. He’d have to figure out something new soon, if he was going to keep this up.
Wood was also becoming an issue. He’d used about all the loose dead wood to be found close in, and unless he wanted to start cutting trees down, he was going to have to move farther out to gather fuel.
He’d been awake for close to twenty-six hours now, and was getting a little woozy, which was a dangerous condition to be in when butchering an animal. Instead, he strung the carcass up from a good, tall branch well away from camp. It needed to bleed a bit anyway.
He was asleep on his feet by the time he’d finished the frame and stretched and fleshed the deer hide.
The last thing he did before he crawled into the bivvy was to break out one of his four precious bars of hand soap and wash up in the camp pot, using some of his precious boiled water. He didn’t even bother to dump the scum from the pot before climbing into the rack and crashing.