Solar Minimum Read online

Matthew almost always awoke before everyone at the ranch and it was a perfect time to get in his customary ten mile run before breakfast. Stepping off the front porch and onto the dew-drenched meadow, Matt took a deep breath of the clean Montana air that was perhaps too thin for most people since the ranch was at 7,000 feet above sea level, but Matt was used it. He was surprised how much easier his morning runs had become and he couldn’t remember a time when he was in better physical shape. Not even at the peak of his football career did his body respond with such power and speed, being able to run all ten miles in just over 45 minutes.

  He ran a set course which lead down the private road out to the highway and then he would take a trail that wound up above the ranch and then drop back down behind the pond and around to the back of the ranch house near the blacksmith’s shop. The Clancy Ranch was an old homestead property originally purchased from the United States government back in 1850 and General Clancy purchased it from the descendants of the original family in 2020. The only building on the property he destroyed was the old farmhouse since it was beyond repair. However, since it was ideally located near the millpond he rebuilt a beautiful log home on the original foundation. All the other buildings on the 2,000 acres were restored and updated with modern conveniences.

  As Matt completed his run, ending up at the blacksmith’s shop, he was surprised to find the General hammering away on a red hot piece of metal, “What are you up to?” asked Matt as he wiped sweat from his face with his shirt, catching his breath.

  The General looked up at Matt as he placed the hot metal into a barrel of water causing a cloud of steam to rise up between them. He nodded toward the pasture where one of his Arabians was grazing, “Sampson threw a shoe in the night and given the state of things in the world at the moment I figured I was better off just attending to it myself. Rather odd that he threw one at night, that usually means the herd was running—running from something. I came out this morning to saddle him up and noticed he was walking funny.”

  Matt was stretching out his calves as he held on to the post that supported the awning, “Are you headed out on a ride?”

  The General pulled the shoe out of the water barrel and after inspecting it, walked out to the pasture to retrieve the shoeless horse as Matt followed, “Yeah, one of the hands this morning told me they heard Skanicum up on the north ridge last night which is what I’m guessing spooked the herd and caused them to run. Of course you know it was just a bear. I’m going to go up and have a look around and hopefully get lucky and shoot the miserable thing. Bears used to be scarce in Montana as you know, but thanks to those damned environmentalists they got them protected in 2024 and ever since then they have been multiplying like rabbits and migrating onto ranch land. Thankfully the law says if it’s on my property I can kill it.”

  General Clancy led his horse back to the shop and as he worked on re-shoeing it he continued, “You’re welcome to come along. Ever hunted bear?”

  “Once or twice,” said Matt and then added, “Illegally,” as he walked over to hold up the horse’s hoof so the General could hammer on the shoe. “Given the season, the bear no doubt are fattening up for the winter and will probably be even more aggressive.”

  The General paused from his hammering for a brief moment and nodded, “Hum, you have a point. We’ll have to be extra careful.”

  Once the General was done, he led the horse over to the tack shed and saddled up his prize Arabian. Matt was no stranger to the skills of a ranch hand so he walked out to the pasture, roped a mare and led her over to the tack shed to get her saddled up as the General came out of the shed with a pair of rifles and threw one to Matt. Catching it, he slid it into the scabbard attached to his saddle. Matt was born and raised in Montana and he was very familiar with the legends of Skanicum among the Native Americans, and like every other Boy Scout he thought he may have even seen one in his younger days. Now in his thirties he was certain he hadn’t and wasn’t sure anyone really had. Most Native American adults never talked about Skanicum so it surprised Matt that Hank, the General’s ranch hand, did.

  Matt stepped into the stirrup and threw his leg over the saddle and then paused for a minute, “Why did Hank claim it was Skanicum, did he see it?”

  The General started to laugh, “You know the Indians—everything in the forest is a mystery and every animal a long lost relative of some sort.”

  The General only had one Native American ranch hand and he was in his 60’s, hardly the kind of person who would mistake the noise of one animal for another, even if that animal was only a legend. The ranch hand’s name was Cetanwakuwa which meant attacking hawk but everyone on the ranch just called him Hank. Hank was a Kettle Indian from the Columbia River area and had lived outdoors most of his life by choice. Even though he was only sixty-something years old, his skin was like that of terribly worn saddle bag with deep cracks darkened by the extremity of the elements and a lifetime in the sun and rain. Even on the ranch, Hank had a small type of bunk house he cooked and took shelter in during the winter months but most of the time he could be found sitting by his fire in front of his little hut with a buffalo skin blanket.

  He wore his hair long down to his waist which he let hang freely without a tie or braid and it was greying in a gentle wave. He had the most commanding and wise demeanor of any man Matt had ever known and during his short time at the ranch, Matt and Hank had spent many hours talking about Montana, ancestors and the coming Minimum. Hank could not recall any Indian lore about solar flares specifically but his ancestors had hundreds of legends about animals that were twice the size they are today and how the holy men could communicate with them. They both wondered if that was the sign of a minimum period but the cause and effect was unknown to the ancients.

  Hank was one of very few who could live off the land and he also knew the wilderness areas of Montana and the Pacific Northwest intimately well. As the General and Matt made their way out of the pasture and into the forest, Hank approached them from behind on a palomino without a saddle. As he drew near, he said nothing and just nodded as if to say both “good morning,” and “mind if I come along?”

  Early autumn was in the air on the ranch and the temperature grew cooler as they slowly descended up the mountain trail at the north end of the ranch. The trail was just wide enough for the three men to ride single file, winding up through the thick forest canopy of aspens and maple trees. The leaves were beginning to turn as they neared the summit and as the warm sun rose it bathed the riders in a rich backdrop of yellow and orange light. In the last ravine before they reached the summit about a mile from the top, they crossed a slow moving stream that reflected the bright fall colors above their heads and it scented the air with a damp, woodsy musk.

  Matt took a deep breath, “Ah! You never tire of that smell do you?” He filled his lungs again as his horse jumped up the steep bank on the other side of the stream and then stopped and turned his head to look at the General and Hank, “Do you smell that?”

  The General didn’t respond until he had crossed the stream and stopped his horse alongside Matt. He took in a deep breath and then turned to Matt puzzled, “I want to say elk musk but it’s not quite right is it?”

  Both he and Matt continued to smell the air trying to identify the animal musk. They both had grown up hunting elk, deer, bear, almost everything and they were frustrated that they couldn’t place the simple musk of an animal. The smell was sweet and sharp like elk musk but there was also a somewhat rancid odor mixed with it almost as if there were a decaying animal nearby. Matt rode along the stream for a few yards in each direction looking for a dead animal but found none.

  Hank had stayed on the other side of the stream surveying the area and smelling the air. He got off his horse and walked a few yards upstream and then stopped and looked back at the other two men. “Skanicum,” said Hank calmly as he held up the carcass of a small deer at the end of a stick that had been completely stripped and was only a few hours old.

  The
general scoffed quietly, “Whatever it was, it obviously attacked while the deer was drinking from the stream. My guess is it was a wolf and the coyotes then came and cleaned the carcass. After all, coyotes are scavengers you know, the vultures of the mountains.”

  Hank shook his head, “No, Skanicum,” he insisted.

  The General was about to refute Hank’s claims when Matt held up his hand signaling the General pause for a moment as he asked Hank, “What makes you so sure? I’ve seen a completely stripped carcass before, as I’m sure you have. What makes this one any different?”

  Hank pointed to the air as he spoke, “You smell the air, you smell Skanicum,” he then pointed to the ground at his feet, “Skanicum tracks.”

  Both Matt and the General crossed the stream again, dismounted and then walked to where Hank was standing, “See,” said Hank pointing at the dirt at his feet that had been recently disturbed, obviously from the struggle between the two animals and he traced the outline of a print approximately 13 inches long resembling a man’s footprint but with noticeable claws. Both Matt and the General narrowed their eyes in confused analysis. Neither of them had ever seen such a track and while it was difficult to make out, there was no question that it was a print, but of what, Matt and the General couldn’t be sure.

  The legends of Skanicum that Matt was familiar with were now just shadows from a long forgotten campfire story he’d heard as a child and Matt turned to Hank as he wiped the dirt from his hands on his shirt, “What are Skanicum really, have you ever seen one?”

  “Once, a long time ago when me and my grandfather lived on Kokanee Creek one would come to the river almost every morning before sunrise. Whenever it would see us it would run into the forest but one day it stayed and looked at me and I at him when I was alone. He turned his head like he was studying me then walked away and he never came back—but I saw his tracks sometimes along the river, then they too eventually disappeared.” Hank walked back to his horse and mounted it as if to return to the ranch.

  Matt called after him, “Why are you turning back, are they dangerous?”

  Hank stopped and turned back to face Matt and the General, “Some say so. My people call them Skanicum, which means stick Indians, some call them Wild Men of the Woods and Night People. My ancestors tell that Skanicum would steal children and kill livestock and one squaw said she was raped by the Night People. They are known to be very evil, but dangerous? I do not know.” Hank flanked his horse slightly and instead of heading back to the ranch as both Matt and the General assumed he was doing, he turned and crossed the stream.

  Matt and the General mounted quickly and followed Hank. It was clear that Hank had much more experience with the animal they were tracking and they were both comfortable with him at the lead. In less than a mile they reached the summit and they could see the entire ranch and never ending mountains on the other side. On the ridge, Hank dismounted, knelt down on the ground, picked up a handful of dirt and held it to his nose. Like Matt's increased strength, the Minimum had heightened his already keen tracking senses and he was able to determine from the smell of the dirt alone all the animals that had pasted the trail in the last several days.

  “It was here,” he said, “Last night when I heard him cry out. Some say they do that when they are lonely, looking for other Skanicum.”

  “So there are many of these Skanicum?” asked Matt very amused and intrigued with the hunt. The General was equally amused by the events since they left the stream and viewed them as pure entertainment.

  Hank tossed the dirt from his hand into the air, “My very old ancestors say there was once very many but that the sun killed them.”

  Matt and the General looked at each other. Hanks story was starting to sound very familiar—strange happenings surrounding supernatural events, effects on living things and the sun. The General now becoming genuinely interested for the first time in the discussion of Skanicum asked, “How long ago did your ancestors live—those who talked about Skanicum?”

  Hank climbed back on his horse and surveyed the hundreds of miles of raw and primitive wilderness before them, “No one knows for sure since the way they counted days has been lost to us but my grandfather said it was sometime after the English came in the east and after they killed their witches.”

  They started to make their way slowly down the mountainside toward the vast wilderness to the north having to pick their path through whatever openings they could find in the dense forest since there was no longer a trail. The General thought for a minute recalling from memory U.S. history, “That would have been between 1620, when the Pilgrims arrived and 1692, the date of the last witch hanging in Salem.” The General paused, turned to Matt and then resumed, “I’ll be dammed if that doesn’t coincide with the last solar minimum period.”

  Matt nodded in agreement and continued with the General’s line of reasoning, “If Hank is right and we are tracking a real Skanicum, how large could it be? I mean, the Minimum hasn’t started to effect much until recently.”

  “Unless,” the General paused when he saw Hank raise his hand signaling them to stop, then continued in a quieter voice, “The Minimum has really been going on for 10 years now, almost eleven. Since we have no idea how it affects animals—or humans for that matter—it is possible it could be at least 10 years old. Think of a 10 year old bear, not something you would want to approach unarmed or without lots of luck.”

  Matt nodded again as they rode up behind Hank and stopped. Hank smelled the air and as Matt and the General did likewise they smelled the same rancid, musk they had smelled back at the stream. No one spoke and Matt and the General watched Hank determine the direction of the smell as he turned his head left and then right repeatedly each time moving his head up and down. He then closed his eyes in deep concentration as the fall wind blew his long hair in a gentle wave. Hank had a crow feather woven into the back of his hair on a long leather tie that twisted and twirled in the breeze. Seeing Hank, sitting bareback on a palomino and watching him track in the same way his ancestors had done for thousands of years, Matt felt almost as if he was thrown back in time and that they were the only men for 100s of miles.

  Hank motioned for Matt and the General to stay put while he rode ahead. They watched as Hank rode up to the opening of a small ravine and dismounted. He then proceeded on foot, then crawled on his belly, and then stopped. He lay there for about 10 minutes before he crawled back several yards and then began to walk back to his horse. They watched as he effortlessly jumped up on its back without the aid of a stirrup and rode back to where Matt and the General were waiting. It was obvious that Hank had seen something over the ridge and that whatever he saw, it was significant enough to require silence and caution. As Hank drew near Matt whispered rather loudly, “Did you find the nest?”

  The expression on Hank's face never changed no matter what he was doing so it was impossible to determine the true state of things from looking at him, “hundreds,” was all he said as he came to a stop near the General.

  The opportunity to see a real live Skanicum was too much for Matt to resist so he flanked his horse into a quick start when Hank reached out and grabbed the reins, causing Matt's horse to rear and nearly caused Matt to fall off. “What the hell,” he yelled out at Hank with a hard look.

  With his expressionless face Hank raised his hand and waved it, “not Skanicum, soldiers.”

  The thrill of the hunt quickly changed from excitement into fear of the unknown and for the first time since leaving the blacksmith's shop, the General was completely engaged. “Soldiers, whose soldiers?” he demanded as he turned his horse preparing to ride. Hank just shrugged his shoulders, his expression still flat and unchanged which gave the impression that he didn't care.

  The General flanked his horse hard, rode down the ravine and up the other side, then stopped where Hank had. He quietly dismounted and following Hanks example he crawled to the ridge and peered over the edge. Just as Hank had said, the valley below was full of soldier
s, a hundred at least. They were well supplied and by the looks of things they had been there a week or more.

  “They're certainly ours.”

  Thinking he was alone, the General was startled to find Matt on his right looking at the troops through binoculars.

  Hank watched the General and Matt from a distance as they surveyed the troops in the valley when he felt the hair on the back of his neck slowly rise. Even though he didn't hear a sound, he knew there was something behind him, something near, approximately 20 feet or less. His first thought was that the Skanicum they were tracking had doubled back and was now tracking him, but his horse had not responded to the presence of a foreign animal and he couldn't smell anything. Just then the wind shifted and as the smell of rancid musk hit his nose. His horse jumped slightly, neighed and turned its head in the direction of the foul breeze.

  Before Hank could turn around, the massive Skanicum clubbed him on the side of his head with a tightly closed fist which felt like an eight inch log had been swung at his head, completely knocking him from his horse to the ground as his horse bolted and ran toward the ranch.

  Almost unconscious, Hank lay on the ground waiting for the stars and dizziness to end, hoping he could clear his head and recover his faculties before the Skanicum came over to finish him off. With his head clearing slightly he could now feel blood running down his head and his ear began a painful throb. Any second Hank knew he would most-likely be picked up and thrown or perhaps just crushed under its foot, but seconds past and then minutes, and still nothing. Not even a sound. Perhaps it has left, he thought.

  Hank slowly rolled over and as he waited for his eyesight to clear, he could see the Skanicum looking at him as it stood above him. It was at least nine feet tall with hair mostly all over its body but not as thick as you would normally find on an animal that lived outdoors in a temperate climate. It looked more like a man but with three inch hair sparsely covering its dark skin. It had fingers like a man but with one inch nails that looked like claws instead of finger nails. Its human facial features gave it the appearance of a man but much more chiseled, menacing and terrifying. It wore no covering or clothing and other than looking human, it was definitely and animal in every other way.

  It looked at Hank and slowly turned its head as if it were studying him. Hank sat up slowly as the Skanicum took a step backwards, but without breaking his eye contact. With his vision now clear, Hank and the Skanicum stared at each other for several minutes and Hank remembered his experience as a child in a similar situation, staring into the eyes of a Skanicum. It crossed his mind that perhaps this was the same Skanicum but it was impossible to tell after so many years, but there was something about Hank that made the Skanicum pause and eventually turn and walk away.

  Hank pulled himself into a full upright position against a tree so that he could keep his head elevated and with minimum pressure stop the bleeding. From this position he could barely see the General and Matt still peering over the ridge.

  The General reached out his hand to take the binoculars from Matt, “Ours—by that you mean the U.S.?” The General surveyed the small army below him and didn't speak for several minutes, “They are in battle form that is for sure, prepared for a fight—but as for them being ours, the last time I checked, the United States didn't attack their own citizens.”

  Matt turned to the General confused, “You think they are here to attack—us?”

  “They could only be in this valley for one reason—they are here to invade the ranch. There is nothing of any military significance in this area for at least two 200 miles. I am certain they are thinking if I am captured or destroyed they can unite the Western forces with the East. So long as the Western forces are out of the Vice president’s reach he cannot assume complete control, and the Vice President knows it.”

  “You mean the President,” said Matt correcting the General since the Vice President had crowned himself President a month ago. General Clancy rolled his eyes and shook his head as he handed the binoculars back to Matt.

  “So, what do we do now?” asked Matt as he took another look at the army through the binoculars.

  “Well we sure as hell can't stop them alone, so we had better disappear. It’s not my favorite war strategy but it will allow us to fight another day, as they say. Frankly I’m very surprised we haven’t been discovered yet, if this were my outfit I would have sentries on every summit surrounding the encampment.”

  The General rolled over, preparing to crawl back to his horse when he noticed that Hank was no longer waiting for them on the opposite ridge. He tapped Matt on the shoulder and pointed in the direction where Hank should have been waiting. Matt looked at the General confused and then resumed studying the army, looking for any indication that they had Hank. After several minutes he sat the binoculars down and shook his head, “I don't see any sign of him down there. Maybe he got bored with the hunt and returned to the ranch?”

  “If the scouts discovered him, they certainly saw us and are working their way toward us right now, most-likely through the bottom of the ravine where the brush is thickest,” said the General whispering.

  Both men sat and watched for any sign of movement in the thick brush below them but saw nothing. Despite his young age of 34, the General had perhaps the most wartime experience of any one in the country, military or civilian and he knew if Hank had been taken, they had only seconds to make a decision before an ambush. Without a word to Matt, the General gave him a nod and they both jumped to their feet and made a dash to their horses and pulled their rifles out of the saddle scabbards. They fully expected to see soldiers surrounding them, but with their backs to their horses, they both turned 360 degrees quickly and saw no one.

  The sun was just past its zenith. The cool morning had warmed considerably and the air was still and silent. The General mounted his horse as did Matt and they slowly rode back to the other side of the ravine where they had left Hank, looking around cautiously as they went. Nearing the spot, the General saw Hank sitting up against a tree with his eyes closed and he only opened them slightly as the two men approached. Although his ear had stopped bleeding, there was a large amount of dried blood down the right side of his face and a large stain on his shirt where the blood had pooled.

  The General immediately enquired what had happened, still certain it was the soldiers and he began asking how he escaped and where the soldiers had gone. A chill when down the General’s neck as he realized he had probably just walked into a trap but then Hank shook his head and said, “Not soldiers, Skanicum.”

  This drew Matt off his horse as he began firing questions at Hank one after another, wanting to know every detail about this mythical monster that had now returned into being. Hank began to speak in his slow and deliberate way, with no emotion and just the facts, “Skanicum approached me from behind and clubbed me with his fist and knocked me from my horse. I thought I was dead but he didn't touch me after that. I landed over there and my horse ran toward the ranch. Skanicum stood right where you are and looked at me. He acted like he knew me, and maybe I knew him too, I don't know. He then ran into the forest,” Hank concluded pointing in a northwesterly direction.

  Matt was like a child filled with excitement, “Knew him? How—you mean maybe the Skanicum you saw as a kid with your grandfather and it was the same one you think?”

  Hank just shook his head, “impossible to know for sure. He did look old, but...”

  “The fact that you are alive says it all. There was a reason why it didn’t kill you and if you both looked each other in the eye, well—I think it's obvious," said the General helping Hank get to his feet and on his own horse.

  Matt inspected Hank’s ear and couldn’t quite get over the living proof that Skanicums existed, “Wow, a battle scar from a living and breathing damned Skanicum! You are one lucky Indian. You can now tell the story the rest of your life with proof. ”

  Hank just looked at Matt with his trademarked blank stare and then voluntarily co
ntinued to relate his experience as they started to make their way back to the ranch following their same path as they had come, “They are a very sad beast, full of pain and emptiness. I could feel it when he looked at me and I felt sorry for it. There was also a strange communication between us but not words that men use and I felt his torment and anger at men. Why I don't know, but they hate us terribly. Most men also hate them and want to hunt and kill them, but I don't. Maybe that is why he didn't kill me because he knew I didn't want to kill him.”

  Matt, spoke over his shoulder to the General and Hank since he was in the lead, “How do you think the Minimum brought them back and where did they go when the solar flares were strong?”

  Recalling his silent conversation of shared emotions with the Skanicum Hank’s understanding increased as he thought out loud, “They have always been here.” Hank paused as he processed the emotional images in his mind, “They never left, but because of the Minimum we just can see them now—somehow. Whenever there was low flair activity over the years, even for brief moments we are able to see each other, but they would disappear again.”

  “That actually explains a lot,” said the General as he walked alongside his horse that was carrying Hank. “How many times have you been in the mountains and swore you were being watched?”

  Matt, recalling his numerous camping adventures exclaimed, “Oh yeah, tons of times!”

  “And it also explains why we see Skanicum tracks but never a Skanicum, or why one person swears they saw one but can never prove it—they’ve been here all along and our worlds only collide when the solar flares decrease, even if only for a day.” The General rehashed again in his mind the words he just spoke and concluded he was right, “It explains everything. I now feel sorry for the poor suckers who actually saw one and would not be believed—they’ve been right all along.”

  Turning his thoughts from the Skanicum to the much more imminent danger of the army that was preparing to invade, the General called up to Matt, “Hold up, don’t approach the summit before we can see what’s going on down at the ranch.”

  Matt stopped and dismounted, then waited for the General to catch up. General Clancy left Hank and his horse and walked up to meet Matt near the summit. They crouched in the thick brush and surveyed the ranch below. Everything was quiet and appeared to be a typical autumn day on the ranch. The General asked for Matt’s binoculars and began surveying the landscape in minute detail. Knowing the strategy and tactics of siege warfare, if there were any soldiers already at the ranch, he knew where to find them. After several minutes he handed to binoculars back to Matt and sighed, “They’re already there, which means the encampment we saw behind us is the flank reinforcement intended to intercept us if we are able to escape the initial attack. They want us destroyed without any mistakes. The problem now is, Gus and everyone else at the ranch have no escape and we are sandwiched in between the force at the ranch and the force behind us.”

  Matt surveyed the ranch looking for the soldiers the General was talking about, “You have better eyes than I do, I don’t see anything.”

  The General rolled over on his back and looked up at the high thin clouds that lazily drifted across the Montana sky, “Look at two o’clock west of the cabin, 20 yards into the forest.”

  “I got nothin’,” said Matt not being able to see any human form.

  “Keep looking, bear in mind you’re looking for someone who is expert at blending in with their surroundings.” High thin clouds in northern Montana meant that there was a strong Jetstream blowing in a storm and the thinner the clouds; the stronger the high winds which also meant the storm would approach quickly, perhaps before nightfall. The General mulled over all of his years of training and combat experience but never had he been in such a hopeless situation with so little in his favor. Two men and a wounded Indian against two highly trained military forces one at the fore and the other in their rear was futile. If they had time to plan and more assets their might be a chance, but a slim one even still. The only hope was to discover a flaw in the commanding officer’s plan.

  “Ah! I see you now,” exclaimed Matt breaking the General’s concentration, “There are probably hundreds of them, all around the ranch.”

  The General sighed, “At least a hundred. We don’t have much time before show time and I don’t have a plan. The only thing in our favor is the storm that is coming but I’m afraid it will all be over by the time it gets here.”

  Matt looked up at the sky, “Storm, how do you know?”

  The General pointed up at the high thin clouds, “I’ve spent enough time on this ranch to know that when the clouds get as long and thin like this, it is blowing a storm in off the coast. It will probably be here by tonight, but even if I’m right, I can’t really see how it will help us in any significant way except that I’m certain the army is unaware of its approach.”

  Matt thought a moment and then replied, “We also know something else they don’t?”

  “And what is that Matthew?” said the General as he rolled onto his belly and looked down on the ranch again.

  “We are not in the cabin as they think. That has to be beneficial,” said Matt.

  The General thought for a minute. A skilled military strategist would have known everything about the ranch before invading including the horse count and would have known that three horses were missing from the pasture today. He surveyed the higher elevations around the ranch and couldn’t find any scouts looking for additional persons. This meant that the commander in charge wrongly assumed everyone was still in the cabin. This was an advantage as Matt had assumed and just like the approaching storm, they could at least descend upon the cabin unexpectedly. The General smiled as he realized he had found a flaw in the army’s logic, but was it enough to give them even the most remote chance of success?

  Given the instability of cellular and radio communications over the last few months in the United States, General Clancy knew that the army would now be relying on visual communication, which meant that once they attacked one soldier, others would know. The trick was to first determine where the sentries were posted and attack as many as they could at once and without a sound. Using their rifles was out of the question which meant they were weaponless.

  Hank crawled up in between Matt and the General and having already surveyed the situation suggested, “There are only two soldiers between us and my hut, we take them out and I can arm us with bows at least, then we come up with a plan to free the others.”

  The General was a skilled bow hunter as was Hank of course but Matt had scarcely held a bow in his hand to say nothing of being skilled enough to take out an armed foe. The General nodded, “We better leave the horses here so we can go unnoticed.”

  The three men quietly made their way toward Hank’s hut and after crossing the small stream they saw the first sentry. The General made a mental note of his position knowing that all the other sentries would be similarly placed around the ranch. He concluded that the sentries were placed approximately 300 yards above the ranch and was about to mention this to Hank and Matt when he noticed that Hank was no longer with them.

  Seeing the confused look on the General’s face, Matt pointed at Hank crouching closer to the soldier not making a sound. As he got nearer, it was obvious that the soldier could hear nothing and was completely unaware of Hank’s presence.

  “Unbelievable! He is as quiet as a,” Matt paused searching for an intelligent metaphor then just said, “as an Indian.” The General looked at Matt and rolled his eyes, slapping him on the back of the head.

  Reaching the soldier, Hank stood up behind him and looked around within the soldier’s line of sight and could see other soldiers to the west and east, just as the General had suggested, all within line of sight. He crouched back down so that he could observe the movements of the two other soldiers without being seen and waited for the perfect opportunity. Then without a sound, he reached up and grabbed the soldier around the neck and pulled him to the gro
und. There was a very short struggle while Hank twisted the soldier’s neck until it popped and all was quiet again. He put on the soldier’s shirt and tucked his long hair under the helmet and stood up where the soldier was standing, and then motioned Matt and the General to advance.

  For an old man, Hank was ruthless and deadly which caused Matt to marvel, “Sure wouldn’t want to face him on a battlefield.”

  “You never would. He would kill you before you even arrived,” said the General as they advanced toward Hank.

  The General told Matt to assume the sentry’s position so that he and Hank could go take out the other sentry near his hut. Matt placed the helmet on his head and put the green uniform over his T-shirt as the other two men made their way toward the sentry some 100 yards away. It wasn’t long before Matt saw the soldier disappear into the brush and then reappear as if all was well. He gave a nod to the General and the General nodded in return dressed as a sentry. From their vantage point, they could both see Hank crawl through a back window of his hut and then in a few minutes return with a bow and a quiver of arrows.

  Hank then disappeared into the forest without a sound, taking out the next three sentries that had a clear view of the back of the ranch house while the General and Matt made their way toward the fallen soldiers, taking their place and effectively opening up an area of 800 yards without a sentry while the remaining army was none the wiser.

  Hank then returned back to his hut and climbed through the back window and after a few minutes, he was seen walking out his front door.

  “What the hell?” said Matt softly as he watched Hank casually walk toward the ranch house, up the steps and through the backdoor. Matt looked to see if the sentry to his right saw anything and he saw the soldier give him a wave of acknowledgement, which Matt returned.

  Whatever their orders were it wasn’t to shoot on sight everyone they met. Obviously, they saw Hank as nothing out of the ordinary and since he was certainly not the target and they had no reason to suspect that they had been discovered, the army remained out of site and out of action, waiting for orders.

  When Hank entered the house, he found Gus on the phone and getting more frustrated by the minute as his call would be dropped every few seconds and he would try again. His conversation was little more than, “Can you hear me now? And obscenities.” Jess and Ted were discussing religion and faith but when they saw Hank enter the room they stopped and asked if he had seen Matt or the General that morning.

  Even though Hank’s expressions never changed, they could tell something was amiss and Gus hung up the phone and placed it on the table while they waited for Hank to speak. Hank looked around the room and at the windows knowing that he was being watched. While entering the ranch house was not a common thing for him, he had to make it look like it was and he sat down at the kitchen table and pretended to pour himself some coffee.

  “While hunting this morning we discovered two armies of soldiers, one surrounding the house and another two miles to the northeast. We were able to break through the sentries on the backside of the ranch which enabled me to come in. We need to get you out of here before they strike.”

  Gus sat down slowly at the table as he considered what Hank was saying, “How many and where is Matt and General Clancy?”

  Hank was a terrible actor but that didn’t stop him from pretending to laugh so that the eyes outside the window would assume all was well within the house, “They are pretending to be the sentries we killed and are now waiting for us to make a move. The General doesn’t think we have a chance in hell getting out of here alive and he offered to give himself up since he thinks he is the only one they want.”

  Ted and Jess both looked at Gus waiting for him to respond, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I mean, I’m certain they want the General to unify the military forces with the East but,” Gus paused, “Toprak Esir announced yesterday that they refused to acknowledge the new President and that they were placing their support and military might with the West.”

  Ted ran his fingers through is hair as he slid back in his chair, “And they have declared that Gus here is the leader of the West, being that he is the most senior of the senate and the most-fit to lead a miss-guided nation back to order. They refuse to acknowledge or negotiate with anyone else.”

  “As you can imagine, this has put the East in a terrible frenzy—Gus is public enemy number one,” said Jess pouring himself a real cup of coffee and taking a long drink.

  Gus got up from the table and began pacing the floor, “How many soldiers to you think?”

  Hank shook his head, “Two hundred maybe in the backcountry and probably one hundred around the ranch. They are waiting for some signal or sign before they attack the General is sure of it—but of course he don’t know what it is.”

  “They are waiting for Gus to make an appearance certainly,” said Jess.

  “And waiting for the General as well,” added Gus.

  The situation was very bleak and no one offered a strategy or even a silly suggestion as to how they might get out of the situation alive. They were surrounded on every side with a very strong flanking force to destroy anything that escaped the initial attack. However, the fact that they didn’t just air strike the ranch meant that they wanted at least the General or Gus alive, and probably both. But that was probably the best-case scenario and Gus was sure that if things went sideways they would be ordered to just kill everyone.

  Just then, Matt walked through the door winded from running and greeted everyone in his usual flippant demeanor. Hank looked at him in surprise, “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, as I stood there I realized that the soldiers had probably been in position since last night at least and they must have seen me leave on my run. I figured if they wanted me dead they would have already thrown me off a cliff. Then it occurred to me that they might be waiting for me to return. So, I found a log and some branches and dressed it up to take over my post and came running down the trail as if all was normal.”

  Hank stood up and for the first time for everyone in the room they saw his expression change, “You stupid fool! They most certainly saw the three of us leave on our ride this morning too, now you return without a horse and without the General? I was lucky to walk in here without arising too much suspicion but now seeing you—certainly they know something is wrong.”

  Matt was alarmed at Hank’s display of emotion and his own lack of strategy and forethought, “Damn! What have I done?” he said landing a powerful fist on the wall.

  “Don’t trouble yourself too much there my son,” said Jess. “It was futile before you even arrived. Maybe you have aroused confusion enough that could play in our favor.”

  Ted sat considering Jess’s comment with his hand to his chin, “We know nothing for certain but I am in agreement that if they wanted one or all of us dead we would already be fertilizing the pasture. My guess is they want Gus dead, and the General alive—and as far as they know, we don’t know they are here, so we should continue to act like it. It will buy us some time.”

  Gus stepped further away from the window considering Ted’s line of reasoning, “I think you are correct. Killing me would give Toprak nothing to work with and capturing the General would create checkmate for the military in the West.”

  “Both of which CAN’T happen,” said Matt forcefully.

  Just then a bullet broke through the glass missing Gus by only inches. Matt charged Gus and pulled him to the floor as everyone else hit the deck. Matt positioned himself between Gus and the window and whispered, “I guess they saw the sign they were waiting for—a clear shot at Gus. Hypothesis confirmed Professor Ted.”

  Several far-away shots could be heard at random intervals and Hank approached the window to see what was going on. He could see three bodies in the meadow as another soldier was running toward the house. He only got within a couple hundred feet when the General dropped him from his sentry vantage point above the ranch. Hank slid down to the floor sha
king his head, “He is one hell of a shot to be able to drop four men at over 900 yards and only a single shot for each.”

  Gus crawled into the hallway where there were no windows and sat up, “This situation won’t last long. They will soon be ordered to storm the house and I’m certain at this moment they are searching for the General, his shots giving away his position.”

  Hank considered what Gus had just said; knowing he was right—but then realized it was even more dire than that. If they wanted Gus dead, everyone else in the house was expendable and it was only a matter of time before they realized the man they needed alive was on the mountain and that they no longer needed to be careful with the bodies in the house.

  Right on cue, bullets started raining down upon the house crashing through every window, and destroying the interior of the cabin as everything seemed to be exploding within. Hank lead everyone into the back hallway that lead to some stairs leading to the basement and they all crawled down the stairs to safety, at least temporarily. The problem now was they were trapped and it was only a matter of time before the shooting stopped and soldiers entered the cabin to destroy whatever was left.

  Hank knew the General maintained a small arsenal of weapons in the basement and he opened the door to the armory and began handing out weapons and ammunition. Reluctantly, everyone took on several weapons each knowing it would be a short-lived battle but what else could they do. It would be a fight to the last man but to surrender was completely out of the question.

  Just as they suspected, the firing sporadically stopped and they waited to hear footsteps above them but all they heard was silence. They all looked at each other confused as the minutes dragged on and on. Fifteen, twenty, thirty and an hour—still no sound of anyone in the house. Hank got up and made his way to the door that lead to the stairs and slowly opened it; Matt following behind him.

  Peering out and fully expecting for bullets to fly, Hank pointed a rifle barrel out the crack, but no shots were fired and no sounds were heard. He opened the door a little wider and cocked his head upwards to try and look up the stairs. Just like the absence of sound, there was also an absence of any visual clue that anyone was in the house. Pushing the door open wide, Hank and Matt slowly walked up the stairs and into the back hallway. The cabin was completely destroyed and wood splinters and broken glass were everywhere. As they made their way into the kitchen they could see soldiers outside the window across the meadow dismantling and reassembling their weapons as if they had all miss-fired.

  They watched the soldiers load their weapons and pull the trigger to no effect. They would then rip out the magazines, dump the unused bullets on the ground, reload and try again. Only occasionally would one of the soldier’s rifles fire, but overall, every pulled trigger was ineffectual as if the bullets themselves refused to be fired. Hank and Matt looked on in amazement not knowing what to make of the situation and wondering how long the forced cease fire would last.

  They could hear the others approaching cautiously from the back hallway and as they drew near they could see for themselves what was going on but were equally clueless as to the reason why.

  “So under what circumstances do bullets stop working?” asked Jess.

  Ted shook his head at what he thought was a rather stupid question, “Never, that’s why bullets were invented. You can shoot modern guns underwater, right?” Matt nodded in agreement.

  Gus then had a look of enlightenment come across his face, remembering his and Matt’s visit with professor Winston at Oxford, the Minimum forces the ozone to fall to the earth’s surface—effecting everything from crops to gun powder.

  Ted was brilliant in most all subjects and started matching chemical compounds in his mind and running mental experiments and formulations, “Well, all explosions require an oxidizer but too much oxidizer can be as bad as none at all.”

  Matt turned from facing the window, “What are you suggesting, that the ozone can somehow infiltrate into the bullet cartridges nullifying the gunpowder?”

  Ted shook his head, “No, not likely. I think the ozone nullified the powder when the casings were made. The ozone had already mixed with the powder months ago then, after they fired all of their initial rounds, their reloads were null and void.”

  Jess laughed slightly, “So we are now besieged by an impotent army and we are the only ones with bullets that work!”

  Hank stood up but still avoided the open window that had been completely blown away, “Not necessarily, if they happen upon old bullets they will be back in business and we can’t be sure if the General’s ammunition is old or new—but, this is our only chance at an escape.”

  Hank went back downstairs and returned with several high-powered bows and as many arrows as he could carry. Luckily, the General was an avid bow hunter and he had enough firepower that just might allow them to escape into the forest that was four hundred yards to the north of the house. He started to explain to the group his plan when Matt got up and left the room and returned with the General’s ceremonial sword, “I will be worthless trying to shoot one of those things. I’ll be much more effective with this.”

  He pulled it out of the scabbard and inspected the blade. It was of very fine steel and surprisingly sharp for being a uniform decoration. He slid it back in the scabbard and returned his focus to Hank.

  Hank was handing out assignments and was explaining his strategy, “I highly doubt any soldier in this day and age carries a bayonet so we will have the advantage, but only for a short time until they over-power us with their numbers. Since we have not emerged they may also think we are all dead or wounded and at the moment they all appear to be preoccupied with their own weapon problems, which should buy us at least 200 yards—placing us about halfway between the house and the cover of the forest. The remaining 200 yards will be a gauntlet I assure you. Do you understand how I mean?”

  Gus nodded his head, “Indeed.”

  Hank pulled a quiver over his head and started to make his way to the door, “I will go first and try to make it to the blacksmith’s shop where I will have some cover and where I can then cover you from any approaching soldiers. Then upon my word, all of you make a run for it. You will have to climb the pasture fences on both sides which will slow you down and make you an easier target. So space yourselves as you run so that you can cover each other if you are approached—I will do all I can to protect you but there is a limit to how many arrows I can shoot.”

  With that, Hank darted out the door as they watched him run completely unnoticed to the safety of the shop. He got himself into position, drew an arrow out of his quiver and placed it in the bow and then nodded, giving everyone else the signal to begin the run of their lives.

 

 

 

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