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Post by solo on Feb 16, 2022 16:12:28 GMT -6
Here is a new story that is playing with the giblets between my ears. I figure I would see where this one goes.
ALL THAT REMAINS
CHAPTER 1
The man had remained still for more than a few minutes. His knees were protesting; his hands had started their slight spasms where the muscle would jump in different spots. Still he held his position. He was listening. He was seeing. He was smelling. He was urging his being, projecting into the next five, ten or fifteen minutes, trying to see what was going on. If anything.
He had been in this place, this situation, many times over the last few months. It was as if his senses were all firing at the same time, bombarding him with an overwhelming sense that something was off, that something wasn’t right. Yet, when checking one singular sense one at a time, he could detect nothing overt.
But it had always been something. The first time, three months before, he had almost stepped on a copperhead. He was moving slowly and silently through the pine filled forest. There was little undergrowth, but the years of unmolested trees had left a thick palate of pine needles on the floor of the woods. This made for great silent movements, but also hid many dangers.
In times past, when he was overseas, working for the government, in the Department of the Navy, he had honed this ability. This ability to detect danger with the minimal amount of sensory input. In that environment, he also learned that what they taught him in Coronado, to find cover and drop was not always the best answer. Many times it was best to freeze and blend in without any further movement. He did this with the snake. Because if he would have gone to cover at that time. He would have attempted to share the exact same space as the snake. That encounter ended favorably for him. And it ended favorably for the snake.
The other two times, he was more deliberate and had time on his side. He always seemed to have time on his side now, since he unplugged and took a walk five months ago. But first, the second time he encountered this feeling. It had just started getting very cold. It was about a month ago. Thinking back on it, the frequency has only increased, when the weather started to turn. Maybe there was a connection somehow. More than likely it was because the stimuli that blasted his senses simply decreased because of the time of the year. There was less noise to contend with, so to speak.
It had been below freezing for the better part of that week and as he trekked up the path that had been created by the passing of many of the citizens of this forest, he came upon an older looking fir tree. It was only of average height, but was majestic in its own right. The bottom limbs, while originating several feet off the forest floor, drooped down in an almost perfect circle.
The weather was turning, so he was looking for an expedient shelter. This was as good a place as any so he trekked down the hill, into the slight hollow and approached the tree. He stopped dead in his tracks. He got that feeling. After cycling through the litany of his senses and straining to perceive any order in the information, he finally felt it. He felt a rhythm. With that rhythm an operational picture began to form in his mind. His courses of action began to develop and he had prepared himself to act. And act he did. As he found out later, to re-act in this situation would have made him dead. For underneath the canopy of the lower limbs of that tree, was the still sleeping form of a very old and very large bear.
After he felt the rhythm, he was able to parcel out the pertinent information from his other senses. His hearing clearly detected the breathing. His sight, the depressed grasses and bent and broken parts of the ends of the limbs. Finally, the smell came to him. That musty, sweet smell of a potential predator that was slightly higher up the food chain than himself. He didn’t know what kind of bear, he did not have need of this information. He quietly back tracked, stealthily back to the top of the knoll he had started on and looked back to observe. He saw movement, then, as the bear, not fully hibernating yet, had poked his head out to take a look around.
Two things worked in the man’s favor at this time. He had cool patience and he had deadly skill to operate in this environment. When he stopped at the top of the hill, he had dismissed a half dozen courses of action by that time. His mind was very in tune and adept at this type of decision making. He had simply frozen in place and faded into the background tapestry, in plain sight. And of course, it didn’t hurt that he was downwind from the creature. After a couple of minutes looking and sniffing around, the desire to conserve warmth in light of the worsening weather won out. The bear soon retreated back into his den.
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Post by NCWEBNUT on Feb 16, 2022 17:13:53 GMT -6
This is shaping up to be another great read, Thanks solo
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Post by texican on Feb 16, 2022 18:39:18 GMT -6
Best not to push a bear for the bear will normally win.
Tanks Solo for starting another story.
Texican....
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Post by CountryGuy on Feb 16, 2022 19:44:26 GMT -6
Great start!
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Post by 9idrr on Feb 16, 2022 20:57:58 GMT -6
Ah, Solo, you're gonna get me hooked on another one, ain't you?
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Post by udwe on Feb 16, 2022 21:29:22 GMT -6
Great start!
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Post by bluefox2 on Feb 17, 2022 8:21:58 GMT -6
Tease
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Post by ydderf on Feb 17, 2022 9:00:35 GMT -6
Looking forward to more!
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Post by cavsgt on Feb 17, 2022 9:33:28 GMT -6
Nice to have you back.
Thank You Phill
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Post by solo on Feb 17, 2022 10:01:23 GMT -6
CHAPTER 2
The man had waited then for an additional thirty minutes or so and then slowly, one step at a time, eased down the trail. The last time, the time before this time, he had detected the presence of another human. This time the senses aligned quickly; he wasn’t sure if it was because he had learned to hone this skill, or if it was just that the people, there were two, were way bit more obvious with their presence.
They were a couple who were camping. They had set up a three season tent in a small clearing and were collecting wood for a fire. Their backpacks were sitting in front of the tent. He wondered briefly about their story, how far had they backpacked, how far away they parked. One thing for certain, they were more worried about each other than on how dire their situation was. There was about a foot of snow on the ground. Looking at the sky and the other signs that the woods will tell you if you look, the couple was paying attention to the wrong thing.
Their tent was inadequate. They didn’t clear off the snow before setting up and had no ground sheet to protect them from melting snow under their tent. They were dressed more for fall than winter in a place where winter hit with an exclamation point. Even if they could keep a fire going, they didn’t have it set up to reflect its warmth into their shelter. No, judging by their actions so far, they were interested in warming up one way and one way only. Unfortunately, that would not keep you alive.
So he was faced with the dilemma of moving on and letting natural selection select or stepping out and helping. So he chose the second, but on his terms. About an hour past noon, the sky became overcast and the temperature dropped precipitously. The couple had rummaged through their backpacks and put on all they had and sat huddled again the small fire. Their wood supply diminished, it didn’t look good for them. Instead of working collectively toward a livable solution, they just sat there, froze as much from indecision as from the weather around them.
“Hello the camp!” The man yelled out. He realized he had not heard his own voice in some time. His gravelly voice startled him somewhat, he mused to himself.
The young man looked up and looked around. He nudged the young lady next to him and whispered something to her.
“Hello the camp!” The man repeated.
“Who is there?” The young man wavered.
“The person who can save your life if you will let me.” He didn’t brag, he felt he needed to put it out there because time and daylight was running out.
“What do you mean?” The girl spoke up.
The man thought for a second and realized that it was a fair question. After all, he could be that stranger danger guy.
“Weather has turned. It will only get worse. You are not ready for it.”
“The weatherman said it would be a good weekend!” the girl said indignantly.
Great! The man thought to himself. He realized two things. These kids were probably sheep who had to be told when to do things and the girl had strong “Karen” potential. Was the young man a “Chad or Kevin”?
Unfortunately, the man had his own two year run in with a “Karen” type. They had dated seriously after he returned from the sand box and because the sex was great, he chose to overlook many things that just crazy, now that he looked back on it. She always complained. About everything. Her entitlement was off the charts and while he protected her like he should, he began to see that a lot of the reasons for her needing protecting was because of her own doing. She would literally create situation that would need his intervention. She did this often. Eventually, he woke up and realized that having the big house, the shiny car, and the gorgeous girl was not worth it, no matter how good the sex was. There is more to life than that.
“Is the weatherman out here right now? If it was good weather, wouldn’t the weather man be out enjoying it too.” He tossed back out.
The girl looked around for a minute than sort of shrugged her shoulders. The man thought to himself, ‘Dang, like shooting fish in a barrel.’
The young man, sort of manning up, “We have a tent and we have a fire.”
“Suit yourself.” The older man said. He paused for effect than said, “You don’t have the right tent or set up for what is coming, and your fire is very inefficient.”
The couple sat there in the cold as the temperature began to drop. They shivered slightly then had a muffled conversation. Finally, they stopped. She was not happy, he had an exasperated look on his face. “Okay. We will just pack up and head back.”
“You won’t make it.”
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Post by 9idrr on Feb 17, 2022 18:07:28 GMT -6
You've set a pretty high bar with your previous stuff, sir, but I'm sure you're up to the challenge of reachin' new heights.
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Post by solo on Feb 18, 2022 11:18:59 GMT -6
CHAPTER 3
“What do you mean by that?” The girl rapid fired with a little touch of indignation, the type that only their generation can muster.
“The bottom is about to drop out of this weather. Look we don’t have much time. It is very apparent you do not have the skills. I can help you if you would like, otherwise, I have to set up to weather this storm too.”
With that, he stood up and approached the camp. He walked up to the fire and simply said, “Fire is good, but it needs to be told what to do. If you build a back drop, a reflector, it can push the heat where it needs to go.” He turned to walk off, then stopped. “See those trees right over there? I am going to set up my little camp there. If you two want to join me, collect your stuff and come over.”
“And if we don’t?” The girl said a bit snottily. She was definitely a Karen in the Making, if she wasn’t already a card carrying one. To his credit, the young man let loose a subtle eye roll that the man caught. He thought to himself, there may be hope for him.
“If you don’t, please write down the contact information for your next of kin. When I hike out of here tomorrow,” He paused and looked up, “or the day after tomorrow, I will make sure they know where to come and find your bodies.” He turned to keep walking.
“Just who in the H*$$ do you think you….”
He turned and cut that off immediately. “Lady, I don’t have to listen to that from you. While he does, I don’t. I am only trying to survive this mess that is coming. Either you want to or not, no skin off my back.” He turned back on his path then went to the trees. It was a small copse of poplar that faded into a hollow filled with poplar saplings. It was a bush crafter’s dream.
Quickly he doffed his small back pack and pulled out his ridgeline. He found two trees in the middle that met his approval, no widow makers and being in the copse, provided some blocking for the wind. Along with this he strung up his hammock and pulled out his wool blanket. After some tying off, he had rigged it as an under quilt and then pulled out his issue poncho and liner and laid it inside the hammock. Finally, he rigged his nylon waxed tarp over the hammock, staking down the side facing the majority of the wind and using two saplings he had cut to lift the front like an awning for a porch. Later, when he settled in, he would drop this to provide more protection. He then began to kick the snow out from under his set up, clearing the ground.
“How exactly is that supposed to help. It has more exposure than our tent.” The girl had wondered over.
The man finished clearing his space out and cleared out an additional space next to his. When he finished this he said, “Set your tent up here. Then go and collect as much firewood as you can. Make sure it is dead, don’t cut anything down. It doesn’t matter if it is wet. Collect all sizes but especially this size.” He held up a branch. “We need from pencil led all the way up to pencil and glue stick size.”
She looked at him for a good minute. It was obvious that she didn’t like to be spoken to this way. But she didn’t say anything and headed back to their set up.
Soon the young man brought the tent over and set it down, it was still erected, and then staked it down. She followed with their backpacks and their sleeping bags. When they were finished with this, he had them orient the door toward the same space his hammock was aligned.
“Stand at your door way, like this.” He then went to his hammock and did the same thing. He took a giant step out and looked at the young man. He mimicked the man and didn’t quit reach where the man originally did. This wasn’t surprising as the SEAL was six foot tall while the young man, probably around 23 or 24 years old was only about 5’7” or so. So the man split the difference and made an X on the ground.
He then reached into his small bag again and pulled out a drum liner and handed it to them. “We need wood. All sizes. She knows what kind. Fill this up four times with the smaller stuff and bring it back. Dump it here.”
While they were doing this, he went to work himself. He cut eight saplings about the diameter of his thumb and then three larger trees that were about the size of his forearm. Taking the eight saplings he measure and cut them to about waist high then sharpened one end. Taking his hatchet, he pounded the two sets of four into the ground in pairs about four feet apart and making an angle of about 130°, He then cut down the larger trees until he had about twelve, five foot sections. He stacked these between the saplings to make two walls that joined in the middle about waist high. These walls would direct the heat from the fire to both the tent and the hammock.
After this, the couple had finished collecting the smaller wood, he instructed them he needed a lot of larger dead wood as well so they could keep the fire going. While they were doing this, he used his boot to move the snow out further. After a couple more hours of cutting, and assembling, he had crafted a chest high wall around their little compound area, incorporating the fire reflector as a wall and leaving an opening to walk in and out next to it as an offset of the adjoining wall so they over lapped and still offered wind protection. Using an arbor knot and some bank line, he tied the top of each sapling pair off, making the wall somewhat sturdy. Finally he took the tarp over the hammock and rearranged it to cover both the tent and the hammock, stretching it over the half walls and staking it out taut.
They gathered inside and they sat on their packs and the man sat on a tripod stool he had crafted from a piece of leather he stretched over three two foot legs he had cut and lashed together. “Okay, the light is fading, go ahead and start a fire, I will go and get dinner.” He walked back to where he had stopped initially and found the two white rabbits that had been field dressed, right where he had left them.
When he walked back to camp, he heard the bickering. It was all one way. “Hey! No more of that!” He was stern, but meant it. He did not want to hear any more of it. “What’s wrong?”
“This idiot…” She stopped, because the man had glared at her. “He used our last match.”
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Post by gipsy on Feb 18, 2022 11:45:09 GMT -6
Can you ever educate a "Karen"?
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Post by bluefox2 on Feb 18, 2022 12:04:05 GMT -6
Can you ever educate a "Karen"? Sometimes, but it takes a whip, chair and one heck of a lot of patience.
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Post by papaof2 on Feb 18, 2022 12:31:34 GMT -6
“He used our last match.”
Not sure if either of them can be salvaged...
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Post by iamnobody on Feb 18, 2022 12:48:06 GMT -6
Can you ever educate a "Karen"? The odds of me winning a $100,000,000 cash lottery, when I do not play the lottery, are higher than the possibility of educating a "Karen"
I have known "Karen" that argued with me about the sky being the color blue....
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Post by gipsy on Feb 18, 2022 12:52:58 GMT -6
LOL
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Post by CountryGuy on Feb 18, 2022 18:43:05 GMT -6
At what age do mini-Karens begin to form I wonder... lol
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Post by NCWEBNUT on Feb 18, 2022 19:39:44 GMT -6
At what age do mini-Karens begin to form I wonder... lol I think its a learned from their mothers LOL They didn't bust their little asses growing up like they should of.
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Post by boomerweps on Feb 19, 2022 8:47:49 GMT -6
Very good story. Love the details, paints a vivid mind picture. Recommend future hammock camps set up the tarp first before rolling out the sleeping gear in bad weather.
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Post by solo on Feb 22, 2022 10:58:57 GMT -6
CHAPTER 4
“Oh? Ok, use this.” He handed them his Ferro rod. They just looked blankly at it. “Oh, boy… This won’t do.”
The man takes one of the older poplar logs off the pile and pulls off the bark that had loosened with age. He peels the inner bark off until he gets a softball size and then begins rubbing it between his hands. Eventually, after getting more inner bark he has a nest of soft fibrous material. He walks it over to the fire pit and cleans it out. Taking a piece of the bark he put it and the nest on top of a couple smaller limbs laid out like a platform. He then pulls his knife and positions the rod where the sparks will fall into the nest. After two good strikes, there is a small flame going. He picks the nest up then gently blows into it. Shortly the nest bursts into flames and he gently lays it on top. He takes a handful of the smaller sticks and lays it at an angle over the flame. He takes another and does the same thing. Without realizing what is happening, the couple sees the fire quickly spread among the haphazard fire lay. Soon it caught good and the man fed the fire to get it going good.
“How did that mass catch like that? I thought they had to have a pattern.” The man asked.
Without looking up, “Yeah, the boy scouts probably teach that, but in truth, fire loves chaos. If you want to see about the multiple ways to start a fire and all the materials you can use, I suggest you look up Corporal’s Corner with Shawn Kelly on YouTube. You will learn that and many other things watching that. He is the lead instructor at Dave Canterbury’s Pathfinder School in Ohio. The Grey Bearded Green Beret also on YouTube has a wealth of info. He used to teach at the Pathfinder School but opened his own school in the Adirondacks.”
Next, in short order he takes a couple of stick with a y-branch on one end and drives them gently into the ground. He finds another stick to rest across the two y-branches. He quickly makes short work of skinning the rabbits and soon has them both roasting over the fire.
The girl is somewhat okay with this but the young man was definitely squeamish. With this task done, the man turns to his hammock and makes some subtle adjustments then took a length of para-cord, he wrapped it around the tree holding the head end of his hammock, just below the strap. The para-cord had a bowline already on one end, the ran the loose end through the loop then in the end as it hung down he made a loop nearer the end and pulled a bight through it forming a pocket where he stuck a stick about a foot long and about a thumb thick making a modified marlin spike hitch. On this modified spike, he took his backpack and looped the straps over this horizontally oriented hitch, successfully suspending his pack off the ground and handy to his hammock.
He turned back around to check on the rabbits and noted the duo was watching him intently. He looked back at the back pack and then to them, “You may want to get anything off the ground that you want to keep dry. The ground in here, especially around the fire will soon become mush.
“Won’t that be the same for under the tent?” The lady asked.
The man looked at her. Maybe he had her wrong. She was asking the right questions. “That is a strong possibility. But we have lost our light and anything to fix that would have to come tomorrow morning. We will just dry out what we can and go from there.”
The young man looked at the tent. “What can we do to keep that from happening?”
“The best way is to build a small platform off the ground. You could even dispense with the tent and build raised beds over there since the tarp provides element protection.”
The lady was a little alarmed. “No we will keep the tent.”
“Suit yourself; but if it is for the reason I think it is, privacy is not a replacement for living. Just so you know.”
The lady was dumbstruck. How had this old man known what was on her mind? Still, this man was really starting to intrigue her.
The young man saw how she followed the man with her eyes. He knew who she was and what she was about. She had always jumped from man to man, going after the one who had the most to offer. Now this older, well put together man had her attention. He tried hard to hide his disappointment and his jealousy. He should know better. He was married and had a baby already when he had made the disastrous decision to give in to the lady, after she had chased him for some time. But he couldn’t stop. His wife thought he was at a hunting retreat with his friends.
The old man kept track of this from his bush crafted stool, while fixedly watching the flames from the fire dance around. And he had a fairly good idea that there was something more going on than a simple camping trip on a crappy night.
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Post by cavsgt on Feb 22, 2022 15:37:46 GMT -6
Thank You Phill
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Post by texican on Feb 22, 2022 21:45:14 GMT -6
His wife thought he was at a hunting retreat with his friends.
Yep, hunting two legged dears.
Texican....
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Post by solo on Feb 23, 2022 10:12:33 GMT -6
CHAPTER 5
Dinner was quite tasty. The woman had taken a rear quarter on her tin that passed for a plate. It did not take that long for her growling stomach to overcome any thoughts of thumper laying on her plate. Once she took the first tentative bite or so, she found it to be good and soon had devoured the entire serving and soon took another.
Her companion, though, was a different story. He was turning out to be a bit of an enigma for the old veteran to understand. He was used to being around men and those men being true men, manly men, and not this new hybrid man he had before him right now. While he appeared confidant and competent on some things, it was very apparent that he was lacking in life experience and had very little true life skills, little executive organization skills and his processes for thought hit the older man as odd at best. It was true, he thought, that it was a relatively small sample size over the last few hours, but it was familiar. Internally shrugging his shoulders, for now he chalked it up to that generation.
“What’s your name?” The woman finally asked. The man looked at her for a few minutes but did not respond.
She continued, “I am Veronica.”
Of course she is, Karen and Veronica being a harmonious intertwining and that particular personality.
“My friend’s name is Joseph.”
“Names aren’t important. I will not see you again after this storm eases.” With that, he stood. The snow had started to fall and as the tarp only covered the sleeping spaces, he went behind the fire reflector and laid a few arm sized saplings on the reflecting wall across the wall and over the fire. He hoped that this would keep the majority of the snow off the fire so the heat source could be preserved.
Veronica looked like she really wanted to say more, but given their interactions over the last couple of hours, she thought better of it.
“We have a right to know who you are.” Joseph piped in. This surprise Veronica, but the man knew it was coming. Joseph was definitely an entitled Chad. He wanted everything handed to him and would do very little work to make it happen.
“We have to keep the fire going tonight. We are looking at below zero temperatures.” He fixed them with his eyes. “Can I trust you to get up every couple of hours to tend to the fire?”
“Why me?” Joseph whined.
The man’s stare didn’t waver. “You will need to add two to three logs to the fire when you get up after you stoke the embers. Make sure you have a good flame before you get back in your bag.” He stood up and sat on his hammock and removed his boots. He made sure the boots were under his hammock and pulled out a Walmart plastic grocery bag and pulled it down over the top of the boots. Then he laid in the hammock with his feet toward the tent, so he could keep an eye on their tent.
The couple watched him. Veronica sharply jammed her elbow into his side and hissed under her breath, “Idiot!”
She went into the tent and took her boots off and crawled into her bag.
It took a moment, but Joseph soon stood up and after stretching, he turned toward the tent. “You forgot something.” The old man said. It was more of a growl. Joseph stopped and sighed heavily. “Hey, you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.”
Joseph stopped and turned back toward the fire. He grabbed a couple of the logs and laid them one the fire. He then entered the tent and started to zip it up.
With a sign, Veronica piped up, “Joseph? What are you doing?”
“We need or privacy.”
“For what? Do you really think anything is going to happen now?” Veronica whispered incredulously.
“Well, yeah. That is the reason we are even out here. You know?”
“Yeah, well, a hotel room would have been a much better choice, but here we are. I am sure your wife must be so proud.” She paused. “Leave the door open, the heat gets in better that way.”
Joseph was stung. He came soon got into his bag and moved over close to Veronica. He reached his arm around her to pull her close.
“Don’t Touch Me!” She said a little louder than he would have liked.
Joseph was stunned. He pulled back and like a child began to pout. She just shook her head. The old man smiled, and soon fell asleep.
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mlhj
New Member
Posts: 16
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Post by mlhj on Feb 23, 2022 10:20:18 GMT -6
Wow. She’s a home wrecker and I still like her better.
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