Billy lowered his rifle and listened to the echo of his cry. This is how my real fathers must have felt, he thought, as he basked in the brilliance of the evening sky. His eyes flashed with confidence and his muscles tensed. He had never felt as alive as he was at this moment, nor as purposeful. I will find these men and give them what my fathers would have if they were alive.
He breathed several deep breaths, left the deer path, and trekked to the east. No longer concerned about traps, Billy was sanguine as he stepped through the brush, over logs, and ducked beneath low-hanging pine boughs. Minutes later, carrying the rifle loosely, it caught upon a bush and was pulled from his hand. He stopped to retrieve it, then changed his mind. I don’t need it.
Billy stood tall, removed his shirt, and pressed forward, leaving the rifle to rest on the earth. He walked. The stream lay before him in the moonlight, twenty yards across and a swiftly flowing current. There would be no avoiding this. Billy fashioned a walking stick for balance and stepped into the rushing water.
The power of the rapids tore at his legs as he waded. He tried using the stick as a balancing tool but found the riverbed was slippery, adding to the difficulty of his task. A boulder lay a few feet away, nearly covered by the swirling rush of water. He decided to reach for it, but his foot slipped on the greasy bottom and the current whisked him off his feet. Billy lost his stick, soon finding himself bobbing up and down and swallowing water as he was rushed downstream.
Gasping and spitting water as soon as it rushed into his mouth, he finally found a handhold near shore; a root sticking out from a massive white pine. He grabbed onto it, exhausted, then pulled himself onto the riverbank. Only now did he notice the mosquitoes as they formed a cloud around his head. The incessant buzzing would have driven him crazy even a day ago, but not now. He sat motionless, thinking about his forefathers. How did they survive such torture? His hands reached down into the embankment, his fingers sinking into the mud. Enclosing his fingers around the mire, he brought it up and spread the slimy mixture to his face. He reached into the muck several more times, bringing it up and spreading it evenly across all facets of his face, neck, arms, back and chest.
When he was finished, the mosquitoes no longer troubled him. The body armor of mud had done the trick, allowing him to survive the onslaught and preserve his sanity. Before he continued his hunt, a satisfied grunt emanated from his lips as he admired his own ingenuity.
Now that he had a measure of comfort in his new skin, Billy picked up his pace, determined to find his quarry. He glided easily through the sparse underbrush, throwing an occasional glance through the upper reaches of the red and white pines. He, like Gabe, could use the stars to navigate. It was the one skill his real father had ever taught him. He remembered the words so distinctly: The easiest way for finding the North Star is by finding the ‘Plough’ a group of seven stars. It’s known as the ‘Big Dipper’ to the whites and the ‘saucepan’ to many others. Next you find the ‘pointer’ stars, these are the two stars that water would run off if you tipped up your ‘dipper’. The North Star will always be five times the distance between these two pointers in the direction that they point away from the pan. True north lies directly under this star.
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