That all happened before the new year. They nearly starved to death that winter. Clay remembered how he had to sneak around, using snares to trap small game, and fishing every morning before sunup.
Then the Marcus Hook survivors found them and took them in. He missed that place. Sure, there were unending days of hard work, but they had a safe place to live and hot food on most days. And the people were decent for the most part. Clay wouldn’t admit it, but even Dalton was a decent guy. He still could not understand why he lost his temper and killed him. If he had taken the time to think it all out, he would’ve realized Hermione was a drama queen, just like her mother.
Clay took a deep breath of the crisp air. It was clean, brisk, intoxicating. This area had grown on him. He’d always loved the outdoors. He loved hunting and fishing and fell in love with the Mississippi River the first time he saw it. If not for the loneliness, Clay was content. Aside from Big Tussey and little Natty, he’d not seen a human in three months. He thought how nice it’d be to find a woman who was content to hunt and fish alongside him and keep him warm at night.
He sighed to himself. The way it looked, the odds of him finding a woman like that were between slim and none. There was always Big Tussey, but he didn’t see that happening. She was a decent cook though, he had to admit that. He absently licked his lips. It’d been a week or so since he’d had a good meal. He briefly thought about strapping on the snowshoes and making the long walk to their house but dismissed the idea. It would take a couple of hours just to get there, and then another couple of hours to walk back.
He knew he was going to go nuts if he had to spend much more time by himself. That’s why he was keeping a meticulous journal of all the things he had done to improve this outpost. He hoped to send it back with the next supply run, along with a letter requesting his sentence to be commuted and he be allowed to return.
He scanned the area again with the binoculars and spotted a familiar animal emerging from a copse of trees near the riverbank. It was a lone wolf that’d been hanging around for a few months. Clay watched as the wolf ambled along the riverbank, pausing occasionally to sniff the air. It was an adult male, perhaps getting up in his age. He’d lost some weight since Clay last saw him, although he still had muscle under his thick coat. His muzzle had a lot of white in the fur and there was a distinctive scar on the bridge.
Clay knew he should probably kill him, but he felt a kinship with the wolf. They were both solitary souls, without a mate or family. The wolf looked up and toward Clay, perhaps sensing Clay’s presence. He sniffed the air once more before trotting off and out of sight. Clay grunted in amusement. He was about to end his surveillance and climb down the tower when something caught his eye coming up the river.
Grabbing the binoculars, he focused and inhaled sharply. It was a paddle boat!
Chapter 4 – The Russians Are Coming?
Clay stared in amazement as the paddle boat banked itself on the east side. Two men tied off the boat and took up guard positions while others began unloading. Clay took his eyes off them momentarily to open a suitcase that was strapped to one of the rails. It was a gray colored plastic piece of luggage that blended into the tower’s metal rails and was waterproof. He pulled out a digital camera with a five-hundred-millimeter zoom lens attached.
“Let’s hope you still have a charge,” he muttered as he turned it on. He was rewarded with three out of four bars. Nodding to himself, he began taking pictures.
He counted as he snapped photos. They were all dressed alike in nondescript gray outfits with generic hats of the same color. Most of them were armed with military style assault weapons that were unfamiliar looking to him. After a few minutes, he stopped taking photos and tried instead for a headcount. If he got it right, there were approximately four hundred of them.
When the last one had disembarked, the paddle boat reversed, and once off the bank, turned around and started back south. When it was out of sight, he descended the tower as quickly as he could without risking a slip and fall. Once on the ground, he hustled to the radio house.
He gave an anxious look around before stepping inside and securing the door behind him. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it from the hook on the back of the door before sitting down in front of the radio. He was breathing heavily, and even though it was cool inside, he was sweating profusely.
“Damn it,” he muttered and wiped his brow with his shirt sleeve. After a minute, his breathing slowed and the shaking in his hands diminished somewhat.
He willed himself to take slow, deep breaths while trying to think how best to proceed. Should he use the shortwave radio or the satellite radio? If he used the shortwave, he would need to start the generator. That would use precious fuel and make noise. The satellite radio was the better choice, but Clay always had trouble tuning in the dish to the satellite and repeatedly seemed to mess up the sequence for sending an encrypted message.
A few more deep calming breaths brought his heart rate returned to near normal. He looked back and forth from the shortwave to the pelican case containing the satellite radio. The thought of the generator’s noise was the deciding factor.
Grabbing the
