Apache Dawn, - [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

the firefight vanished. The soldier on the right tilted his head as if he was listening to something, then nodded and turned to the one on the left. They stood up and motioned Chad to follow.

“Let’s go, sir, we gotta hustle, now.” Without waiting for a response, they took off at a jog.

“Wait!” said Chad as he struggled to catch up. How the hell could those guys be running? They were carrying packs bigger than his and looked to be wearing body armor as well.

“Don’t worry, sir, we’re not leaving you,” a voice said behind him.

“Jesus!” Chad said, whirling in surprise and nearly stumbling headlong into a snowbank. “What the hell is going on?” he shrieked as the white-clad ghost grabbed his arm and spun him forward again.

“This way, sir. Move!” More popping and the bark of bigger guns flitted through the trees and snow. Someone was fighting back there and it was getting louder. Then, as they continued on, the only sounds he heard were his own ragged breathing, his heart pounding in his ears, the crunch of his boots in the ankle-deep snow, and the ever-present howling of the wind.

Finally at the base of the ridge, Chad and his escort paused at the tree line, where a service road ran east-west. Chad looked with longing off to the right, down the road toward his cabin on the shores of Lake Avalanche. Just a few minutes by ATV, or an hour on foot. To the left, the road followed the MacDonald Creek valley between Little Matterhorn to the south and massive form of Mt. Vaught to the north. If they went that way, they’d be funneled right into Lake MacDonald.

The three soldiers put their heads together and discussed something while Chad stood there, looking at the road. Finally, one of them turned to him and said, “Okay, sir, the LZ is just on the other side of those trees there, maybe two hundred yards. Looks like there’s a creek or river or something—”

“That’s MacDonald Creek,” said Chad. If he strained his ears, he could just barely hear the noise of the swiftly flowing glacial creek as it rushed toward Lake MacDonald.

“Right, okay. Well, we’re going to assume the enemy has a patrol out there—” the soldier said, pointing to the east. “And they’d be stupid not to have someone set up over there,” he said, pointing to the west. “That’s Mt. Vaught, due north, right?”

“Yeah,” sighed Chad. Trapped again.

“Then that’s where we’ll go. Did you see any vehicles with these men chasing you? Any aircraft?”

“I saw three Jeeps when they first arrived,” offered Chad weakly. “They were down that way, and were driving east,” he said first pointing to the right, then to the left, toward the lake. “I heard a helicopter later…”

“Copy that, sir. That helo you heard could have been us, though.” He took a quick look left and right down the snow-covered road. “Okay, we’re going to sprint across the road on my count, then regroup inside the tree line on the other side of that ditch over there. Got it? Don’t stop—”

Some more gunfire, closer than ever, erupted behind them, up the ridgeline. The soldiers didn’t pay much attention to it but Chad ducked. He had heard that same sharp sound when the bark was blasted off the tree above his head a few hours ago.

“It’s all right, sir, you’re fine. But remember: run, do not stop for anything until you reach the trees. Okay?” Without waiting for Chad to acknowledge, he turned to his comrades and said, “One, two, three—go, go, go!”

Chad bolted and kept pace with the soldiers as they raced across the road, kicking up snow in their wake. From his left, Chad heard a loud bang and a clump of snow flew up in front of his face. He screamed and ran through it, tripping off the edge of the road into the ditch as more shots rang out and blasted snow from the road.

“Sniper!” someone called out.

One of the soldiers cleared the ditch in a leap and disappeared into the snowbank on the other side. The soldier immediately pivoted in place and fired a three-round burst from his rifle toward the east into the darkness. The gunfire thundered in Chad’s ears and he screamed.

The other two dropped down in the ditch, oblivious to the shots fired at them and physically hauled Chad to the tree line a few yards away.

Once within the safety of the trees, the soldiers all dropped to a knee and waited. Chad was panting from fright and exertion. He fell down on his hands and knees in a cloud of snow. He’d never been so scared in all his life. Even when Blue Flu was killing everyone in his neighborhood, he hadn’t been really afraid. He remembered feeling…nothing. But now, with some sniper shooting at him, Chad came face-to-face with a deep-seated fear that he had never known before. He felt his bowels begin to liquefy.

“All good?” asked one of the soldiers.

“Hooah,” said one.

“You know it,” replied the other in a cocky tone.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” Chad muttered to the laughter of the others.

“Aw, you did all right, sir. For a civilian. Not bad at all,” said the soldier next to Chad. He gave Chad’s shoulder a brotherly slap.

The first soldier spoke again over his comrades’ laughter, “Hammer 2, Actual, this is Hammer 2-2: be advised, enemy sniper along the forest road, call it a 150 yards to the east, north side of the road. Repeat, enemy sniper north of your location. How copy?”

“What the hell is going on…this is crazy…” muttered Chad, trying to hold himself together.

“Actual copies all. Do not engage, repeat: do not engage the sniper—we have to make the LZ. Have engaged enemy foot mobiles. Confirm on the NKors, there’s only a few left, though. Get to the LZ and secure, we’re coming in hot!”

Chad could barely hear the words over the nearest soldier’s headset, but he could clearly hear the popping of gunfire in the background as the leader spoke.

“Roger that, Actual.” The soldier turned to the others. “You heard the man, let’s go.” They all stood up. He looked at Chad. “Okay, sir, we’re almost to the LZ—”

“The what?” asked Chad.

“Landing zone. Our ride is coming in to pick us up in a few minutes. We got to cross this creek.”

Chad followed the three soldiers deeper into the woods a few steps and finally understood what the soldier had said. “You gotta be kidding me! A helicopter?”

He could hear MacDonald Creek before he saw it—an icy-cold torrent of water, speckled with big rocks and boulders, perhaps ten yards wide. He stood on the south bank and watched first one, then the other of the soldiers scamper across the creek using the bigger rocks as footrests. They waved at him from the far side. Muttered to himself about the impossibility of his situation, Chad followed and managed to make it across the cold rushing water with only one wet boot.

“I don’t know how much farther I can go,” Chad said, bent over double.

The three soldiers chuckled in response, weapons still at their shoulders as they walked, scanning everything to the front and sides of their position. They continued into the trees again, following the slope of the ground north toward Mt. Vaught.

Chad paused and looked up at the massive flank of the mountain. They were deep within the forest now so the wind and snow had died down considerably.

“You guys train for this kind of thing?” he asked, panting.

“SSDD to us, sir,” said one.

“Hooah!” replied the other with a laugh.

“What?” said Chad, his world suddenly starting to spin out of control. Reality seemed to be taking a backseat today. He could feel his knees starting to get weak. He needed rest, food, and warmth, and he needed them now.

“Same shit, different day.”

One of the soldiers studied a map. “Come on, we still got about a hundred yards to go before we reach the LZ.” He turned upslope. “There’s a clearing up there somewhere, but it’ll be a bit of a steep hike.”

Chad threw his hands up. “Wait a damn minute. Just wait! I’m not going any farther until someone tells me just what the fuck is going on here!” said Chad as he came to a stop. He leaned on a tree, panting. “I was out minding my own business, bringing down a cougar for a sample, the next thing I know these guys show up with guns and start tracking me. Then, next thing I know, they’re shooting at me…and…and I shoot one of them…”

“He’s gonna pop,” whispered one of the soldiers.

“No he’s not…he’s gonna freak,” replied the second.

“Then you guys show up and scare the shit out of me, now we’re running from a bunch of North Koreans…and…and snipers, there’s a gun battle going on somewhere behind us and you expect me to get on a goddamn helicopter—” He gasped for a cold breath.

As if in confirmation of his point, the whop-whop-whop of helicopter rotors started to register in the distance. Chad held his hands up again in a frustrated shrug. “I give up.”

The three soldiers looked at each other. “Yeah, that’s about the long and short of it. But…” He held up a finger. “Correction, sir: we do not run from anyone.”

“Fuckin’ A, bubba,” grunted the taller man to Chad’s right.

“He ain’t lyin’,” said the shorter man with a shake of the head, high-fiving the one on Chad’s right.