Post by FOTH on Aug 2, 2020 14:51:01 GMT -6
All is well up here on my mountain. Some plans have changed due to the strangeness of the year, but for the most part, my day-to-day life has not, which is, after all, one of the aims in getting off grid and living life this way.
Hope you are all in good health and getting by, or perhaps even thriving, and continuing to prepare for the increasing uncertainty of this situation.
***********************
The rally point planned by the little group before leaving Bud Kilgore's house lay some six miles distant, on an evergreen-covered mountain flank which they were to recognize by an incongruous-looking rock escarpment which rose out of the timber some distance below the summit. Honeycombed with old, overgrown mine roads and a few slightly better maintained ones which lead to still-active mining interests, this slope, according to Bud, would not only provide the fugitives any number of hiding spots and escape routes, should these prove necessary, but would offer excellent cover to anyone traversing the timber-trails by vehicle. Vehicles were not at all uncommon up there, and any of the three drivers could be prepared to present valid-sounding reasons for their presence, should they be questioned.
With Einar in the lead, the escapees wound their way down the gully below Bud's, keeping always well clear of roads and trails and never far from terrain and timber which would best conceal them from the air, should more surveillance flights cross the area. For the first half hour or so, the skies were eerily silent, after the morning's heavy activity, but near the end of a brief break beneath a slight rock overhang along the trickle of a creek which they had been following, Einar crouched, fingers trailing the earth and head bowed, listening. Two seconds later, he had no doubt. Something was coming. By that time Dima had sensed it, too, and Liz hurried to get little Will back on her back, not even waiting for word, knowing what Einar's actions meant.
"Not yet. Don't go anywhere. This place is just fine," and Einar pressed himself up beneath the overhang, back against the rock and limbs tucked in until he seemed almost to disappear, the others emulating him as well as they could. Well enough. Einar nodded, chin pressed to his knees as the chopper passed into the realm of the audible, approaching. Not directly overhead, not nearly, and this reassured them all, with the exception of Muninn the raven, who remained generally annoyed at the delay in their travel. He, for one, had been enjoying the return to the open road, the end of what had been, nearly as much for him as for Einar, a forced and unwelcome rest at Bud Kilgore's cabin.
No hovering, no circling, and the great beast had not, Einar noted, even been particularly low, its course rather suggesting travel than surveillance, but one can never be too sure, and he kept the crew still for a good ten minutes after its rumbling had finally died away, before giving the all-clear and resuming travel. Having assigned Dima - the only one amongst them who owned a watch - the task of time-keeping, Einar and Liz stopped at his signal and turned on the radio to wait for word from Bud. Nothing. Back on the move. This sequence they repeated hourly, each time getting the same result, and though Bud had made clear that it might be a day, or two, or three, before they should expect to make a connection, each member of the party entertained his or her own private worries as to what the ongoing silence might mean.
Some three hours later and they were, according to the map and Einar's reckoning, within half a mile of the rally point. After that first helicopter, the skies had been quiet. So quiet, in fact, that Liz had begun to wonder if they might have been hasty in their decision to depart. Perhaps the earlier air activity had been part of some routine training by the local National Guard, a search for a lost hiker, wildlife officials counting elk...or one of any number of other non-threatening patterns that they, being always and necessarily on edge, had managed to misinterpret. Bud had not thought so, and he, more than any of them, had the background from which to judge the situation, as he had spent so many years in the location, observing normal patterns and noting others which were less so.
Well. Better safe than sorry. Though, watching Einar fold the map and somehow silently communicate to Dima that it was time to move on, she realized that she was sorry, wished very much that they could have had another week or two with the Kilgores before running again. Much as he would surely deny it, Einar was hardly ready to be on the move again, looked only a missed meal or two away from actual starvation, and weary enough to fall asleep on his feet if he would allow himself. Which of course he would not, was, in fact, already leading the way down through the steep draw that marked the last obstacle between them and their hoped-for meeting spot, and she rose, hoisted Will onto her back, and followed
Hope you are all in good health and getting by, or perhaps even thriving, and continuing to prepare for the increasing uncertainty of this situation.
***********************
The rally point planned by the little group before leaving Bud Kilgore's house lay some six miles distant, on an evergreen-covered mountain flank which they were to recognize by an incongruous-looking rock escarpment which rose out of the timber some distance below the summit. Honeycombed with old, overgrown mine roads and a few slightly better maintained ones which lead to still-active mining interests, this slope, according to Bud, would not only provide the fugitives any number of hiding spots and escape routes, should these prove necessary, but would offer excellent cover to anyone traversing the timber-trails by vehicle. Vehicles were not at all uncommon up there, and any of the three drivers could be prepared to present valid-sounding reasons for their presence, should they be questioned.
With Einar in the lead, the escapees wound their way down the gully below Bud's, keeping always well clear of roads and trails and never far from terrain and timber which would best conceal them from the air, should more surveillance flights cross the area. For the first half hour or so, the skies were eerily silent, after the morning's heavy activity, but near the end of a brief break beneath a slight rock overhang along the trickle of a creek which they had been following, Einar crouched, fingers trailing the earth and head bowed, listening. Two seconds later, he had no doubt. Something was coming. By that time Dima had sensed it, too, and Liz hurried to get little Will back on her back, not even waiting for word, knowing what Einar's actions meant.
"Not yet. Don't go anywhere. This place is just fine," and Einar pressed himself up beneath the overhang, back against the rock and limbs tucked in until he seemed almost to disappear, the others emulating him as well as they could. Well enough. Einar nodded, chin pressed to his knees as the chopper passed into the realm of the audible, approaching. Not directly overhead, not nearly, and this reassured them all, with the exception of Muninn the raven, who remained generally annoyed at the delay in their travel. He, for one, had been enjoying the return to the open road, the end of what had been, nearly as much for him as for Einar, a forced and unwelcome rest at Bud Kilgore's cabin.
No hovering, no circling, and the great beast had not, Einar noted, even been particularly low, its course rather suggesting travel than surveillance, but one can never be too sure, and he kept the crew still for a good ten minutes after its rumbling had finally died away, before giving the all-clear and resuming travel. Having assigned Dima - the only one amongst them who owned a watch - the task of time-keeping, Einar and Liz stopped at his signal and turned on the radio to wait for word from Bud. Nothing. Back on the move. This sequence they repeated hourly, each time getting the same result, and though Bud had made clear that it might be a day, or two, or three, before they should expect to make a connection, each member of the party entertained his or her own private worries as to what the ongoing silence might mean.
Some three hours later and they were, according to the map and Einar's reckoning, within half a mile of the rally point. After that first helicopter, the skies had been quiet. So quiet, in fact, that Liz had begun to wonder if they might have been hasty in their decision to depart. Perhaps the earlier air activity had been part of some routine training by the local National Guard, a search for a lost hiker, wildlife officials counting elk...or one of any number of other non-threatening patterns that they, being always and necessarily on edge, had managed to misinterpret. Bud had not thought so, and he, more than any of them, had the background from which to judge the situation, as he had spent so many years in the location, observing normal patterns and noting others which were less so.
Well. Better safe than sorry. Though, watching Einar fold the map and somehow silently communicate to Dima that it was time to move on, she realized that she was sorry, wished very much that they could have had another week or two with the Kilgores before running again. Much as he would surely deny it, Einar was hardly ready to be on the move again, looked only a missed meal or two away from actual starvation, and weary enough to fall asleep on his feet if he would allow himself. Which of course he would not, was, in fact, already leading the way down through the steep draw that marked the last obstacle between them and their hoped-for meeting spot, and she rose, hoisted Will onto her back, and followed
