Feinting to the left, Lang made it past the first defender, before a second man who made it into the middle distance between Lang and the trees cut him off. Angry shouts rang out and someone yelled, “Hey, give me that bag!”
Lang picked up his speed, finding traction now as the adrenaline rush made his body surge forward. Another of the assailants was sprinting toward him trying to stop him in his tracks, but Lang swerved and pivoted in the other direction. He had spent his life fleeing bullies, and now that lifetime of training kicked in. He maneuvered across the field at an angle, determined not to let these untrained hooligans do what the professional bullies he’d faced in Warwick could not.
Sprinting now at full-speed he almost casually and effortlessly detached his backpack’s waist band, and, grabbing the padded arm strap in a single fluid motion, he swung it’s full weight at his nearing attacker, juking to his right again simultaneously. The bag caught the man flush in the side of the head, and the bully tumbled to the ground, yelping in pain. This action caused a cacophonous cry of protest from the other men who were approaching from the rear, slow and lumbering, unable to get any traction in the ice and snow. Lang bent over, scooped up his bag, and ran toward the trees.
In the flickering night, he suddenly sensed a smooth air of calm as he warmed with the excitement and accomplishment of his escape. He noticed his shadow on the ground, running before him, as cast by the moon over his shoulder. He thought it beautiful and sublime, the motion of its lengthening stride, the way its feet met his own as it sprinted toward safety in front of him.
Just as suddenly as he had come to appreciate the pleasure of his own shadow—his own running—he came to question what became of it. In that expanded microsecond he heard a calamitous noise in the distance, and it sounded like an explosion over his shoulder, and he looked down at his shadow and saw the red splotches on its torso. He spun around in a jerking, involuntary motion like someone had run over him with a car, but he turned his head to watch his shadow until the last moment, and then he slammed to the ground whereupon the shadow disappeared.
Now, he was only Vasily Kashporov lying on the cold hard ground in the snow, with a bullet wound in his shoulder.
Lang knew that something had struck him but did not know what it was and he felt no pain. He had to get up, and as he did the thought crossed his mind that he was already free. He didn’t know at the time why that particular thought crossed his mind, but he did know that he was no longer helpless little Vasily, cowering from bullies. He was now a free man, and had tasted freedom, and he liked it. Solzhenitsyn said, “You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power—he’s free again.” Lang had suddenly come face to face with his death, and he determined that he would get up and run, and somehow this made him feel whole again. He liked being free, and he ran like the wind.
Almost instantaneously upon hearing the shot and seeing Lang tumble to the ground, Peter had vaulted out of the trees and, operating on adrenaline of his own, he was sprinting towards Lang like an Olympian with the 9mm pistol readied in his hand. The younger man had regained his feet and was rapidly continuing his progress. Peter met him and grabbed him firmly, hurrying him along, and the two friends made it back into the trees before the men in the distance could decide just what they’d seen.
The assailants stopped, tired and out of shape, and they did not follow their victim into the woods. If they had been asked what stopped their pursuit, they would have sworn up and down that they had just seen a bear run out of the woods to save a man.
Most Americans, prior to the events that were now unfolding in their country, would have denied that such random acts of violence and wanton cowardice would have been possible, but that is precisely because most Americans are insulated from reality. Woefully so. They are ignorant of world history and the conditions of life experienced through most of the last millennia by much of the rest of the world. When people have lived their lives carelessly, in the lap of comforts and the bosom of excess purchased for them by the hard work and sacrifice of their ancestors; when they have counted on laws and government alone to keep them safe, they come to believe that the same kindnesses they have experienced at the hands of their neighbors heretofore will be granted them when that world collapses. They believe that humanity will not revert to its animal nature when there is a disintegration of those laws, and when the power and ability of that government to impose and keep those laws is not just diminished, but eliminated. In this, they are wrong.
Man, loosed from the bonds of all law, and religion, and conscience, even if those restraints have been false or damaged to begin with, reverts to the animal nature that animates him. It is inevitable, then, that masses of men, loosed from restraints and deprived of access to the artificial means of provision they have counted on for all their lives, will soon experience unprecedented violence and mayhem. Even if it begins in small places, a little leaven will be enough to leaven the whole lump, and eventually social feelings will collapse along with society. We don’t have to like hearing it, but the truth has a way of not caring whether we like it or not.
The world is a violent place when restraints are removed. The already vanishing traditions of human care and kindness, peacefulness, and lawful living have been systematically eradicated by dialecticians who maintain power by championing division and by pitting neighbor against neighbor, race against race, and party against party. The bloody product of this will seem barbarous and horrible to those who have yet to experience it. This is strong medicine. But in times of sickness, it is medicine that is needed.
CHAPTER 21
Peter checked to see if anyone was following them. No one was. Tracking quickly through a low gully and into the deeper woods, after a good five-minute walk, they came upon a stone fence line in the snow separating a field from the surrounding forest. He pulled Lang down into the snow and, by touch and instinct more than sight, he felt for the wound that he knew to be in Lang’s left arm or shoulder. He needed to know how serious it was before he made any decisions about what to do next. He found the wound, and it seemed to be a minor one in the larger scheme of things, with a clear entry and exit in the fat of the tissue. Lang was blessed that the bullet had not struck any bone, and the young man was working on adrenaline and seemed to be unconcerned by the fact that he’d just been shot. In fact, he was slightly delirious.
“You’ve been shot, Lang.” Peter said. “But I don’t think it is too serious. A scratch, really.”
“Wow,” Lang replied, his right hand reaching upwards to feel the wound. He drew back his hand with blood on it, and he grimaced slightly, but not from the pain. “I’ve never been shot before.”
“Well, now you’re an expert,” Peter said, cupping his hand behind the young man’s neck. “I think you’ll be okay. We’ll move on so that we can put some distance between us and that madness, and then I’ll see if we can build camp and clean and dress the wound.” He looked at Lang and gave him a smile, then a wink.
“Thank you, Peter.” Lang looked back at him with sincere appreciation in his eyes.
“No problem, son,” Peter said, his smile perhaps grimmer than he had hoped. “Now let’s move out.”