Rock Creek by John R. Riggs

Author:John R. Riggs [Riggs, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781728313016
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: 2019-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Where my cedar deck overlooks it, Deer Creek begins its southward turn toward Rock Creek, and eventually the Wabash River. Depending on the hour and the season, I can watch a great blue Heron wade the shallows looking for minnows, deer come out on the sandbar to drink, wood ducks fly in, keep a tight tact to the creek’s near shore, then fly out again. I can listen to tree frogs, coyotes, wild turkeys, red tail hawks, and great-horned owls. I can watch the moon nestle in the deep water of the bend, as it sends its beams bumping along a rocky ripple in golden waves that fade to silk before they disappear around the next bend. I had built the deck with nature in mind, exposing myself to it as one might his secrets to an old friend. Never dreaming that someone might exploit that confidence to take a shot at me.

I heard the first report at about the same instant that a slug tore into a log about a foot above my head. The second shot whistled past me, through the open door, and into the interior of the cabin. At the sound of the third report, I was already off the deck and into the woods—shirtless, barefoot, wearing only the pants of my uniform. I hadn’t intended to chase an assailant, only to take a look at the moon before I went to bed.

Crouching behind the nearest tree, which I knew in daylight as a wild cherry, I waited to see what would happen next. When no more gunshots came from the woods below, I ventured to the next tree, then the next. When I heard the splash of water and the sound of footfalls upon the sand, I took off down the hill on the run.

In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque wrote that even soldiers who had both legs shot off found a way to run back to their own lines before they died. They ran on bloody stumps, he said, and adrenaline. But when my bare foot made hard contact with an unseen tree root, I ran no farther. Instead, I pitched headlong into a patch of nettles, then crawled the rest of the way to the creek. There I flopped into the water to blunt the sting of the nettles, before I hobbled on.

Atop the bank on the other side, I saw someone running across the rows of a picked cornfield, which showed a complete lack of country sense, since every row then became a hurdle to jump. I found the end row and ran up it to the corner of the field, where I had seen the figure enter the next woods. But by then the moon was behind the trees, and all I could see ahead were shadows and outlines and no clear path to follow.

So I slowed to a walk, feeling my way past limbs and between trees, over logs and through briars. At the end of the woods I came to a gravel road and stopped.

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