After the Fall: Jason's Tale (4 page)

Jason hiked north. The remote country lay in that direction.
He headed for the areas of the forest that had not been logged in a hundred
years and were dominated by large climax trees, leaving the undergrowth open
and easy to navigate. He tried to stick to established trails which provided
easier travel, however to the north, the terrain got steeper, tougher. There
were fewer farms; the forest taking over more the land. He was looking for that
country.

The second day, following a well worn trail, he came around
a bend and there sat half a dozen people. He stopped, cursing himself under his
breath for being careless. No one moved. The group stared at Jason as if he
were an alien from space. He stood and stared back.
Don’t threaten them.
They
were young. Some of them were armed. They were a mix of men and women. They
didn’t have much gear with them, only an assortment of book bags and backpacks.
Some of them had on hiking boots and some had running shoes. They didn’t look
ready for the wilderness.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Jason finally said. They
just looked at him. He unhooked his travois without taking his eyes off the
group. Next he slid his backpack off. His 9mm was in a holster at his side.

One of the men responded, “You did.” He stared at Jason.
They outnumbered him. No one moved.

“Where are you headed?” one in the group finally asked.

“Where are
you
headed?” Jason countered.

“We’re just trying to find a place where we won’t be
bothered by the militia telling us what we can and can’t do.”

“Where do you think that will be?”

“Somewhere away from Hillsboro we figure.”

“Was it hard to get out of town?”

“We all got out okay. We met up after leaving town.”

“Better watch out for gangs. They’ll take all your
supplies.”

“That’s why we’re in the woods.”

“Are you going to try to rob us?” another asked.

“No. I’m not interested in robbing anyone.”

“Looks like you’re pretty well equipped,” someone else said.

“I planned it that way. I’m also ready to defend what I
have.”

One of young men edged closer to his backpack propped
against a rock.

“I wouldn’t reach into your pack. It’s liable to get you
shot,” Jason stated. His hand edged closer to the pistol on his belt.

“You going to try to shoot all of us?” the young man
replied.

“If I need to.”

“You can’t get us all,” he challenged.

“Yes, but who will I shoot first? If this turns into a
shootout, none of you know who’ll get shot. I’m a good shot, I don’t miss.”
Jason continued as the tension grew, “I’ve done this before and survived, so I
don’t recommend you do anything foolish. I’m no threat unless you threaten me.”

“How about coming with us?” one of the girls spoke up. She
eyed him intently. “We could use an extra man like you.” Her look was both
challenging and inviting.

Jason stared back at her. She was pretty. She stared at him,
provocatively measuring him. But behind the invitation there was a hint of
desperation in her eyes. He ignored the implied offer. “No, I’m going alone.
You better get some supplies. You have any weapons?”

“We’ve got enough,” one of the men said.

Another said, “I’ve got a 9mm in my pack.”

Jason could see a rifle laid against another backpack, “What
caliber is that?

“It’s a .22,” said the man nearest the rifle.

“Good caliber for hunting small game. It’s quiet and the
bullets don’t weigh much. I hope you brought a lot of ammunition.”

“Do you think we’ll run into gangs here in the woods?”
another asked.

“You ran into me. You could run into anyone.”

“We thought being off the roads would keep us safer.”

“Probably, but there’s no guarantee. My advice is to find a
place soon and gather supplies. It’s that or go back to Hillsboro.”

“And get raped?” the girl spoke up again.

Jason turned back to her. There was an angry look in her
eyes. “Did that happen?”

“It almost did. Lots of other girls experienced it. It was
that, or become someone’s mistress, same thing if you ask me. Why don’t you
help us out?”

Jason stared at her. He didn’t know what to say. The urge to
protect rose up inside of him but this group didn’t look prepared to survive.
They had no structure, no organization. There would be the inevitable jockeying
for dominant status with the males. Then there would be paring up issues with
the two females that would fuel more discord. Their situation didn’t look
promising. Yet Jason’s sense of duty nagged him. The practical solution was to
leave them to their own fate. The problem was he knew what that would be.

Finally he answered, “I can’t help you. We’re all going to
struggle to survive. I’m going to do it on my own. That’s my plan.”

“We’re going the same direction, shouldn’t we hike
together?” the girl asked.

Again, Jason paused, wrestling with his conscience. “No. You
go on. I’m going to take a different route.” The group gathered their gear and
began to walk away. Jason stayed where he was, watching them go up the trail.
His mind churned with conflicting thoughts. Was he someone who cut and ran…like
his father did? He couldn’t save everyone. He had just reinforced his decision
to strike out on his own—to save himself. After they were gone, he set out for
higher ground.

It was the fifth day and the way was harder now. The steeper
terrain was rougher than the ground on which he had practiced. The hiking was a
constant wrestling match with the travois—his ‘anchor’ as he came to think of
it. He made only a few miles progress each day and his hips and shoulders were
rubbed raw as he struggled to adjust the harness and backpack. Comfort remained
an elusive goal. Some routes became impassable with the travois and he had to
retrace his steps to find another way north. It was always north, or as close
to it as he could maintain. At night he often sank, exhausted into his sleeping
bag without making any shelter, just pulling a tarp over him. Each morning he
awoke in pain from his hips and shoulders. When he found a game or old hiking
trail heading in a generally north direction it was a huge relief, as he could
make a couple of extra miles that day. He drove himself to keep pushing, keep
moving. Each day he fought with the terrain, not willing to give an inch to it,
driving himself onward.

The trail was so faint he almost missed it. It was narrow
but promised more miles north. An hour along, the trail wound around the
shoulder of the mountain following the twisting spine of the ridge above which
crooked and curved like an arthritic finger. The trail bed was a narrow bench
cut into the side of the mountain. It was late morning. He was fatigued. His
feet found uncertain purchase on the loose rocks. Then he slipped. His body
lurched to the outside. His hands flung out wildly, but there was nothing to
grab. He twisted his body, trying to restore his balance, and then the travois
slipped off the side of the trail yanking him over the edge. He fell down the
hill bumping against rocks, grabbing desperately at bushes and limbs but the
travois flung him downward without stopping. The fall seemed to go on forever
in a blur of sky and hillside flashing in his face as he rolled.

Then it stopped. Jason was jammed up against a house sized
boulder two hundred feet down the hillside. He slowly took stock of his
situation. Every part of his body was bruised. Pain seared in his left side
when he tried to move; he hoped only bruised ribs. He gingerly tried moving his
arms; they weren’t broken. Next he tried his legs. Aside from being bruised,
they worked. No broken limbs. The backpack had saved him from a worse injury to
his spine by cushioning him against the rocks on his way down. But between his
pain and steepness of the hill, he was not just going to hike back up this
slope.

He looked up at where the trail seemed to be.
Shit. What
a mess.
The slope was steep. He struggled out of his backpack and unhitched
the travois. After, he lay exhausted, unable to move.

Finally gathering his strength, he unwound a hundred feet of
line from his travois. Next he tied a steel ring to the frame. He looped the
line through the ring and tied both ends around his waist. This gave him almost
fifty feet of room to climb. Further up the slope, he could tie one end of the
line to a tree and pull the travois and pack up with a two to one advantage.
After setting up his system, he started painfully crawling up the slope. He
could only move about ten feet uphill without having to stop to wait for the
pain to subside. When his line was close to running out he stopped where he
could tie one end off and then laboriously pulled the pack and travois up.
Without the two to one advantage it would have been impossible.

By late afternoon, Jason was half way up the hill. He
secured the travois against some rocks and laid back to gather his strength.
After resting for some time, he began climbing again. Each time he had to pull
the travois the pain caused him to cry out, but he kept at it. He could not
survive without the gear in the travois and pack. And so, painful foot after
painful foot, Jason dragged the gear up the slope. Hour after hour he climbed
and pulled.

Nearly delirious with pain now, Jason chugged down some
water and lay back against the steep hillside. After a rest he forced himself
to start again. He could not spend the night on the side of the slope. He might
not be able to move by morning. He had to reach the trail.

The sun had set by the time he finally reached the top. He
laid down on the trail like a wounded animal and waited through the pain for
sleep to come. Dawn came and with it the pain. It took an hour to sit up and
get some water and an MRE. His body was hurt all over, but the ribs were the
worst. He spent the morning arranging a more comfortable place to lay down with
his sleeping bag and ground cloth.

 
I’m not going anywhere soon.
At this point, he
couldn’t imagine putting on his pack and harnessing himself to the travois.
Have
to rest here even though it’s on a trail.
He kept his 9mm close at hand and
hoped no one would come along.

Jason stayed in that spot on the trail for another full day.
He alternated between resting, eating and making his body move so he wouldn’t
become immobile. The next day he tied his backpack to the travois and put the
harness around his waist. With this set up he could shuffle forward. It was
painful and slow, but he was on the move again.

The forest strips one of pretension. It must be encountered
on its own terms. Now injured, Jason had serious second thoughts. Could he make
it in the wild? His struggling, now worse, kept him at odds with his
environment. He was tempted to abandon his gear and lighten his load, but
resisted; until he found other resources, the gear would be necessary to keep
him alive. Shelter was now a serious concern. He was injured and exhausted. He
needed a place to heal and recover his strength but there was nothing.

After the accident, he would wake at dawn, cold and sore,
always favoring his left side. Water, and a power bar or MRE was his breakfast.
It took many twenty minutes of moving around slowly before he was loose enough
to pack his gear and get back into the harness. The travois was now damaged.
The frame was bent and one of the wheels didn’t turn. This made it all the
harder to cover ground. On a good day he had a trail to follow, if not, he had
to bushwhack his way, tripping over fallen logs and underbrush. The pain in his
side remained. He would walk for two hours before his body demanded rest. After
ten minutes he would force himself to get up, strap on the harness, and start
out again. The pattern repeated with a longer stop around noon to eat. By four
in the afternoon, he could go no more and looked for a flat area to camp. Some
days Jason would stop with enough energy and force himself to set up his
lean-to shelter over a pile of leaves to cushion his sore body. Occasionally he
had enough energy to make a small camp fire and heat a meal. Then he would
crawl into his sleeping bag and fall into an exhausted sleep. More often he ate
cold rations and slumped exhausted into his sleeping bag and ground cloth.

Dreams were erratic and often frightening and he would
awake, breathing hard. Only the night sounds of the forest broke the deep
stillness—the hoot of an owl and, sometimes, the far off bark of a coyote. A
sense of aloneness flowed over him like a dark wave. Some mornings he awoke in
tears, having had tortured dreams of Maggie, trying to reach out to save her,
unable to stop the terrible descent of the plane; its fiery explosion waking
him.

Then the rains came, cold and harsh in the early spring.
Jason would spend the night shivering under his tarp, getting little sleep as
the rain found every crevice to drip down on him. He had learned how to build a
fairly dry and comfortable shelter of branches and the forest ground cover, but
he often had no energy to complete such a task. Daylight brought little relief.
The wet woods dripped with water making it nearly impossible to light a fire.
The result was camping cold most nights and no relief from the wet and cold in the
morning.

As his strength diminished, he moved down to lower
elevations—towards easier ground—to reduce the effort to move forward. This
change brought him to the edges of the forest and the danger of meeting outlaws
increased, but it was his only option if he wanted to keep going. Onward he
trudged, ever more tired and sore. With the rain, small creek crossings now
became dangerous obstacles.

He stopped at the edge of a narrow torrent of water. It was
ten feet across. In a drier time he could hop across the water; now it was more
threatening due to his injuries and the gear he carried. How deep was it? The
water was moving fast enough to sweep him off his feet if he wasn’t careful.
Four feet of depth would be enough to drown him as it swept him downstream.
What would not have given him much of a pause was now a dangerous obstacle.