He received his instructions from IFP tower, and landed safely. As he taxied to the end of the runway, his Follow Me car appeared, and he followed it to a parking space far away from other aircraft. He followed the radioed instructions to shut down his engine and wait.
Soon three police cars appeared. Armed men got out. A man in CBP uniform came up to the plane and gestured him out of the aircraft. As Daniel’s feet touched the ground, the CBP officer put out his hand.
“I am Captain John Carstairs. I bet you have an interesting story. You’ll have to tell us about it. For now, welcome to the United States of America.”
Freedom’s Ride
L.B. Johnson
“Have you got any matches?”
The mountains northwest of Lake Tahoe are quiet. Her more conservative neighbors fled before the “vote”, something she would have done, had she only recently moved to the area.
But her family lived in this state for generations, her dad farming the rich soil down in the Valley like his father before him. The death of Lisa’s parents—her father from a farming accident and her mother from cancer several years later left Lisa with just enough money to buy this cabin, and land perched up against a national forest after she had left college. Moving some money into savings from her inheritance, she had restored it to a simple rustic charm by putting a kitchen in the former one-room living area, and adding on a bedroom, den, and bath.
She found it, nothing much more than a hunting cabin at the time, for sale, when she was up here. It was just north of Meadowvale and was her uncle’s hunting cabin. Her dad and Uncle Bud had taught her to hunt as a young teen. Her family was hard working, but her dad accepted no handouts, so there were lean years where harvesting a deer meant meat on an otherwise empty table. With all the regulations in California: permits, limited areas of hunting and paperwork—having to fill out a harvest report even if you didn’t USE your permit and go hunting, hunting was done out of necessity, not for sport.
In college working on her Veterinary Technician associate’s degree, she did the seemingly obligatory stint as a vegetarian, failing miserably one hungry night when she jokingly realized she was about ready to take hostages at an In and Out Burger. At the time, her mom was needing some meat on the table, and she came up here to see if she could get a deer that season, her uncle driving up from his place a few miles down to help get it to the butcher if she was successful.
Sitting in her comfortable warm home tonight she still remembers walking in her uncle’s cabin for the first time by herself on her first solitary hunt.
The interior had been shadowed and bare, the only furniture visible when she first walked in, a dust covered chair crouching in the corner as if afraid of the light.
The hunting cabin had been closed up for almost a year. It was a long drive up here but worth it. She would rather have driven for hours then head to the nearest “Squatters’ Rights RV campground” where the closest thing to wildlife was the married couple in the next spot that drank too much tequila and had a fight.
When she found the light switch, she saw there was more inside, a couple of couches, covered by a tarp, a small table and 2 more chairs, a sink, though there was no running water, a small refrigerator and some cooking supplies and a supply of bottled drinking water that her uncle left here for her. She enjoyed tent camping, but since she was by herself, this was much better. Putting up a tent on her own entailed cursing and usually bloodletting unless it involves a Pop-Up tent (oh good, tent Viagra). She would go with the cabin any time when she was on her own.
For it was just going to be herself this weekend, friends off with friends or family, doing other things. There was plenty to do as she lifted her firearm from its case, the glint of silver easing the gnawing stillness of the lonely room.
She cleaned up, swept and dusted as best she could, preparing stew and biscuits in a cast iron skillet to tide her over for the next couple of nights, some nut butter sandwiches and apple slices to have in her pack for lunches at the blind. Later days will hold a dinner table set with game, turkeys bewitched to a dark gold, venison succulent with the juice of life, the laughter of friends. Now is not the time for the feasting but for the gathering.
There was no TV, there was no radio. After putting some fresh toilet paper in the outhouse, she sat in the still quiet, thinking back to the city, right now bustling, growing and dying, buildings lined with amber windows that only hint at their human secrecy to the observer in the streets. People rushing to and fro, the casual innuendo of work relationships, fleeting obligations, names forgotten quickly at tedious meetings. Above, the communal wafer of the moon shined brightly, surviving the directionless pull that is the city for some.
Soon she was settled in the cabin, far away from the city, the blind out far away in the woods, her footsteps back out just a memory for anyone watching. Before it was even 9 pm, she was snuggled down in her sleeping bag as comfortable as she could be.
In the morning, she could feel the chill in the air as she had a cup of coffee with her bacon and eggs, over a small campfire, her breath competing with its steam. There’s a cold front coming in, and despite the forecast, she knows there is a chance of not just hard rain, but thunderstorms. She could imagine the clouds gathering up like an angry crowd even as the moonlight bloomed in the trees like a faint blue flame. It would be light soon, time to get out in the blind and hope the storm would pass her by.
It was a long hike out. She had not meant to head out this far away from the cabin, initially planning on using the blind within shouting distance of shelter, but sometimes you make that decision, one that every adventurer takes, try that new cave, explore that new trail, put up that blind out where you saw the giant scrape. Let the cowards ponder other things back in the safety of the jeep; it’s time to blaze a trail that will either be heartbreak or the profoundly sublime. Acting on intuition and trusting your gut, you risk a new adventure or a fourteen-point rack.
And possibly a thorough, cold soaking.
The storm was not supposed to be severe. The ones that affect you deeply never are. First, there was nothing but a congealed sky, the blue turning to dark-the color of cold and constant night. From the next ridge line came a rumble, or maybe that was her stomach, breakfast had been some time ago. But she didn’t wish to get into the pack for the real provisions, as the sky had just spit in her face, a challenge she wasn’t in the mood to take on.
The animals sensed it before she had, the forest going silent. The only whitetail she had seen all day was there and gone in a blink of an eye. In just the instant before he saw her, all the light in the sky remaining gathered on him, then he disappeared into shadow. He was there, and then he was only a specter of hide and hair. Then nothing but longing, followed by a clap of thunder that echoed somewhere deep inside.
She should have gone back, but she didn’t want to. She only had two days to hunt. She didn’t want to pack up the cabin and head back to the city. For at least one weekend each year, the woods here were hers, brief moments of time away from the drudgery of pavement and obligations. Time away from loss and explanations and time in tiny rooms that don’t allow her to breathe.
It’s not easy sitting still in the deer blind, listening only to the hearts whispered confidences, conversing silently with your own regrets. But if you were patient and completely still, there in the distance you may hear it. Not the birds nor the brook, but the soft crunch of leaves, scarcely a sound yet, almost sound anticipated, yet to reach the ear. There it was again, drifting into your hearing, then ebbing away again, sound dying softly on a trail that’s leading away from you. It’s gone.