Joe nudged him again, this time with the toe of his hiking boot. Jake mumbled something unintelligible, but with a tone that oozed his own unique fusion of lethargy and vexation. Joe was fairly certain his inability to decipher Jake’s grumbled repine was for the best. He watched his son unconsciously resettle himself, finding the hint of a smile on his lips for the first time in what seemed like days at the thought of damnation via the ire of an eleven year old roused too soon.
Joe tossed the gnarled hickory stick he was holding aside, freeing his cracked and callused hands. In doing so he took in its form. Smooth on both ends from weeks of use supporting him as he walked, it was knotted along its length where smaller branches had once grown when the stick had been but a part of something more than itself.
While examining his makeshift staff he suddenly realized he had no idea if it was hickory or not. Hickory sounded right, and so it had become. Recognizing his ignorance, the grin hinted at earlier turned into a barely audible chuckle as Jen walked back with much less urgency than that with which she’d left.
“Mornin’ Sunshine,” Joe said, as Jen looked incredulously at her brother.
“Ain’t you gonna get him up?” she asked, trying to look scornful but failing. “Why’s he get to sleep late, and didn’t he have last watch anyway?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Joe effortlessly lied.“ Didn’t see any reason to wake him and have us both sit up watchin’ nothin’ but the dark.”
“Uh huh,” she said with a sarcasm unique to teenage girls and the occasional sated feline. She left it there, however, confident her message was received.
Looking up, the lightheartedness that had begun to raise its head above water vanished as Joe saw four figures come into view as they crested a slight rise in an overgrown pasture some distance to the south. Their approach was unremarkable, neither hurried nor notably cautious. They appeared to be talking, though at this distance Joe couldn’t be sure of anything other than the fact that they were coming his way.
They seemed to be wearing overcoats. He thought he could make out hats as well, or maybe hoods. His imagination was quickly turning the strangers into old-west outlaws from a bad western movie dressed in blood stained black dusters, murder and lust their only evident ambitions, accuracy with pistols and an insatiable thirst for blood their most distinguishing qualities. He could practically hear the ominous jingle of their spurs.
He took several deep breaths and reminded himself that the “dusters” could just as easily be full length dresses. He simply couldn’t distinguish between the two at this distance. “Binoculars,” Joe mumbled to himself, adding them to the ever-growing list of items he hadn’t realized they needed. His skin prickled with goosebumps. His stomach growled as his bowels reacted to the tension overtaking him.
Joe’s countenance changed in an instant, senses alert and straining to glean even the slightest bit of information, an edge, an understanding of the developing situation. Jen detected the change in her father. She followed his gaze to the strangers’ approach.
Feigned anger forgotten, Jen gently woke her brother. Jake opened his eyes to see his sister with her finger held firmly against her tightly puckered lips cautioning silence. He too was alert now and looked questioningly into Jen’s crystalline hazel eyes. As her father had done for her she wordlessly guided his gaze to the strangers’ advance.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
