His concentration on the exercises was so focused he wasn’t sure when Angie joined him. She was doing a sun salutation set of yoga poses. Then she moved into a tai chi routine. He grinned, and moved alongside to follow her moves. He didn’t know her skill level well enough to face her, but that would be fun to do sometime.
Twenty minutes later, she stopped and grinned at him. He smiled back. There was something about doing those moves with another person. It was as if it created a sense of harmony, he thought. He bowed slightly at her. She returned the gesture.
It was then he realized they’d gained an audience. Craig nodded at them, and then said, “All right, the rest of you? Fall in. We’ll do more traditional calisthenics.”
“Good,” said the heckler from the previous evening. “Not that sissy stuff.”
Anderson snorted. “That sissy stuff created one of the finest armies China has ever known. I’d have Mac demonstrate its warrior forms with me, but I’m not interested in being black and blue for the rest of this trip. So, we’ll do the easy stuff.”
Mac grinned at him. “You notice I wasn’t willing to spar with Angie?” he said. “I don’t want bruises either.”
Angie snorted. “Coffee,” she announced. “I’m after coffee. And no one had better get in my way, or there will be bruises.”
He watched her walk away, and then he joined in with Anderson’s calisthenics. There were worse ways to start a morning.
After 30 minutes, Anderson stopped. “We’re going out for a three-mile hike,” he said. “Nothing difficult, but I want you to learn to be observant. So, we’re taking the trek crew with us, and they’ll be pointing out things along the way. Pay attention!”
He started off at a brisk enough pace. Mac brought up the rear. Angie was roaming the line, taking photos, talking to people. She’ll cover the distance twice at this rate, Mac thought with amusement.
And then some guy reached out and patted her rear. Mac started forward. I’ll end him, he thought grimly. If it isn’t nipped in the bud now, it will escalate. And then Angie stuck out her foot and tripped the man. He faceplanted in the dew-wettened trail and came up angry. But Craig just looked at him and laughed.
“You deserved it, man,” he said. “And be grateful she retaliated. Because her partner back there was gearing up for a much more brutal response. And I would have helped him.”
He glanced back at Mac, saw the look on his face, and shrugged it off. But he was still angry, and it showed. The other men moved slightly away from him. And they moved on through the woods.
The trek crew was actually quite interesting, Mac thought, as he listened to them talk about poisonous plants and how moss grew on trees. They pointed out animal trails and how those made going across country easier. And they picked orange salmonberries for people to eat. Angie chatted with them eagerly. It sounded like she knew a lot of this, but it didn’t stop her from asking questions.
Mac watched her as much as he watched the trail or the men. The more he was around her the more he liked her. Liked her as a person, although he was planning to ask her out when they were done with this story. If that ever happened. He was beginning to think this was the story that would never end.
The hike took them an hour. Mac would have made them double-time it with backpacks, if he was running things, but the men seemed proud of themselves for having completed the hike. Mac rolled his eyes.
Craig saw it, and dropped in beside him as they walked toward the breakfast line. “I know,” he said quietly. “But we’re not really out here to create wilderness survival experts, just to give them a taste of it.”
Mac looked at him for a moment. “What is Sensei’s goal though?” He was pretty sure Craig would at least know the man’s online persona, if not his real-world one.
Craig shook his head. “What he says his goal is?” he asked. “Or what it really is? Because I’m not sure, and it worries me. I have no issues with men wanting to learn about guns. I think the program Malloy and I have bumbled together works. But then Sensei came along, and he’s adding this whole level of talk that makes me uncomfortable. Malloy likes it and agrees with him, but let’s face it, Malloy’s a racist fucker. So, him agreeing with Sensei? Makes me even more uncomfortable.”
“So, you two had the program going before Sensei found you online?” Mac asked.
He nodded, then reconsidered. “Maybe,” he said slowly as if he was reviewing the timeline. “But Malloy had his training program going for a while before I got involved. And it may just be I didn’t hear about this Sensei until we started doing these weekend trips. I guess you found Sensei online? He’s got 40,000 followers!”
“I saw,” Mac said. He started to bring up mlk4whites, but they’d reached the food, and he focused on filling his plate. These guys were getting the deluxe treatment, he thought. And Craig was right. If it wasn’t for Sensei’s rhetoric that was spreading throughout these men, this would be just a good hobby. Get them some exercise, fresh air, learn a few things about guns. But he could hear the undercurrents in the way the men talked, and even how they treated Angie.
He wondered if that asshole would have patted her butt a year ago? Maybe. There were assholes like that everywhere. Or maybe he was an asshole who had been emboldened to act because of the rhetoric he was hearing daily. Men — white men — as the rightful rulers of all they could see.
A couple of the men sat
