Journal (7 page)

Once
I was well back in the tree-line, Anna told Gabriel to “go watch.”  She rolled
me over on my stomach and took off my backpack.  I must have asked her “what
happened”, or something like that, although I have no such memory of asking the
question.  Her answer, though, I remember perfectly.  She told me I’d been shot,
and she needed to see where the bleeding was coming from.  I felt her pulling
on my clothes.  I felt the cold from my skin being exposed.  I felt her rocking
me first one way and then the other.  I heard her going through my backpack.  Finally
she said, “Get up, you’re not hurt.”  Nice bedside manner, huh.

I
heard Gabriel’s voice next.  He said, “He’s OK?  He’s not shot?” the Author

As
I was sitting up, she asked me if I had a can of tomato soup in my pack. 
Things still weren’t making sense to me, though.  I was stuck on this being
shot business.  So I asked her why she shot me.  I guess she was the first to
come to mind on the list of all the people who might want to shoot me.  I know I’m
making light of it now, but believe me, it wasn’t funny then.

She
smiled just a tiny bit and said I had to get up because we had to get moving,
and there might be more of them coming.

Well,
my back hurt (despite her saying otherwise), I didn’t understand what happened
to me, and she was telling me what to do again, so I yelled at her to explain
what was going on.  I wasn’t going anywhere until I knew what had happened to
me.  At that point, and I’m being honest here, I really did think she had shot
me for some reason.  That’s how confused I still was.

So
she let out one of those, ‘I’m frustrated with you, but I’ll accommodate you
just this one time’ sighs, and told me that as I was headed back, two men
stepped out of the trees and shot me in the back.  When they approached closer
to check on me, Anna shot both of them dead. 

Apparently
the bullet that hit me went through my backpack, traveled through two of Claire
Huston’s journals, the can of tomato soup and finally stopped, just dimpling my
skin.  The impact caused me to fall and hit my head, which is probably what
really knocked me out.  What she thought was blood, was just tomato soup.  I
wondered if maybe she was disappointed about that.

I
got to one knee at that point and went through my backpack — not that I didn’t
trust her.  One of the journals apparently was at an angle to the bullet so was
pretty much destroyed.  The other one was a through and through hole. 
Everything else seemed OK except the tomato soup can, that I chucked.  I kept
the destroyed journal because the paper could be used as fire starter.

I
wiped the mud off my rifle while Anna reminded me a couple dozen more times
that we had to get moving.  I ignored her, though, and walked out to the two
dead guys.  I removed their shoes, went through their pockets, and in the case
of one, a shoulder sack, and took several items such as matches, a knife, a nub
of candle, and extra ammunition for the weapons.  I would have taken their
jackets, too, but Anna was a good shot.  I carried all that stuff back to our
spot after that. 

Anna’s
rifle was the same caliber as that of one of the attackers but was in better
shape, so I stripped out his bullets and gave them to her.  The other weapon
was a rusty .38 revolver.  I kept that ammunition and threw the pistol into the
nearby underbrush.  Earlier I had noticed that one of Gabriel’s shoes had a small
hole worn in the side of it, so I tossed him both pair and told him to try them
on.  To get rid of the remaining weapon, I wedged it into a decomposing log and
shoved a piece of bark over its exposed end. 

Gabriel
thanked me for the shoes, Anna looked at me in silence, and we left heading
north again with my back hurting like hell.  In fact, it hurt so bad I wondered
if maybe I had a broken rib or something. 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;}
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The
next couple of hours were more of the same — walking, banging into stuff, being
cold, getting wet, and hurting.  Though I was miserable, to say the least, my
mind was elsewhere, bouncing wild like, from one thing to the next. 

First,
it was the near death experience.  No making light of it, those two guys almost
did me in.  Even if they hadn’t killed me outright, under the circumstances a
wound of any nature would be terminal.  The pictures that summoned up weren’t
pleasant ones, I can tell you that.  In my travels, and even before that in Reno, I’d seen many bodies left to nature, and I now couldn’t help but put my face on them. 
I also got into that whole afterlife thing: was there, wasn’t there?  If so,
had I earned my wings?  I’m no Claire Huston, which led to a little self-analysis
about how meaningless my life has been up to now.  See how my brain kept swizzling
thoughts around?   But there’s more.   

I
also started thinking about Anna.  Trying to figure her out, though, is like
trying to get a grip on water.  Here’s a woman who is so cold-blooded practical
that she executes a guy because we can’t take him with us, and because if we
leave him he’ll tell the others which way we went.  (I wondered if she has
since reconsidered that decision given the fact that they found us anyway.) 
Using that same reasoning, when she thought I had been shot, she should have
just left me there and run off.  That would have been the practical thing to
do.  But she didn’t take off, did she?  No, she dragged me to cover and tried
to help.  Plus, she felt bad about killing the pilot.  It was plainly there on
her face.  I definitely saw it.  She also rescued a ten-year-old boy and raised
him as her own.  She charged a man who was armed with a pistol, too, when she
saw Gabriel was in danger.  Where does all that fit in with her psychology?

Just
when I was starting to think I may have misjudged her (a little) and she wasn’t
such a cold-hearted …human being after all, my thoughts took off in the other
direction.  If my wound had been bad, I’ll just bet she would have put me out
of my misery.  She would have placed her pistol to my head and pulled the
trigger so I wouldn’t tell those who follow us which way she went.  I’ll bet. 
Jeeze.  Would she have at least felt bad?  “Sorry I have to do this but …” or “I’m
sure you understand why ….”

This
whipsaw conversation with myself, along with imagined visuals, went on the rest
of the afternoon until, due to mutual exhaustion, we stopped for the night where
the thick forest gave suddenly to a deep cut valley of green, bordered by
ridges of steel gray, pushed up on end.    

Using
the tarps, we made shelter under one of these granite outcroppings, providing
fair protection from the elements.  We even found enough dry wood for a small cook
fire and ate half the remaining venison and half the pork and beans in a
concoction somewhere between a watery stew and a thick soup.  Afterwards, I made
a tea that hinted of lemon from some Sheep Sorrel growing nearby, and despite
the pain still stabbing deep into my back, I began to relax.

Since
the walking had been so treacherous, I felt that even Mr. Ponytail wouldn’t try
following us in the dark, so I suggested that we only keep watch in the first
few hours and the last few hours.  Anna =tifreadily agreed and volunteered to take
the first shift.

After
she was out and while Gabriel and I were laying pine boughs for bedding and
insulation, he told me how frightened he had been earlier in the day when he
thought I’d been shot.  We talked about that a little bit, and he described how
his mother had killed the two men who shot me.  After a short pause, he asked,
“Is it wrong to kill someone?” 

The
first thought that went through my head was to wonder how Claire Huston would
answer that question.  I suspected that she would say yes, any killing is
wrong.  But he asked me, not her, and it was a fair question that deserved my
answer. 

I
told him that it seemed to me that sometimes it was wrong and sometimes it
wasn’t. 

Every
human being has the right of self-defense.  It may be the only one true basic
human right we have because it’s not given to us; it’s ours naturally,
instinctively.  So to kill to protect yourself isn’t wrong.  I went on to say
that, by extension, it would also seem justifiable to take the life of another
to protect the life of a loved one.  However, to take someone’s life for what
he possesses, or for something he says that makes you mad, or maybe for the sheer
pleasure of just doing it, would definitely be wrong.

He
asked me if it would be right to kill in order to protect the life of someone
who wasn’t necessarily a loved one, as I had done for them.  He went on to say
that I really hadn’t known them at that point.  We were essentially strangers.

I
told him that it was an interesting question and I guessed killing under those
circumstances was OK if it was to save even a stranger’s life.  It seemed to me
the value of one life is no less than that of another.  So if my life was worth
defending, why wouldn’t another’s life be worth defending?  If I just stood by
and watched a life unfairly taken, wouldn’t I be devaluing mine as well
inviting the same on me?    

He
was quiet for a moment and eventually asked, “What if someone just threatened
to kill you and you believed he would really do it?  Would it be wrong then?”

At
this point in our conversation I was starting to get the feeling my neck was in
a noose and Gabriel was tightening it a little bit at a time, with each of his questions. 
I also got the feeling that my answers were possibly intended more for my
benefit than for his.

I
told him that I thought it would again depend on the circumstances.  For one
thing, how can you really know what’s in another person’s mind?  What if you
were wrong about his willingness to kill you?  People say things they don’t
mean or intend all the time.  You would have killed him unnecessarily.

He
seemed to take that in and agree with it, although he didn’t really say one way
or the other.  We continued to prepare our sleeping area by spreading out our
ponchos over the top of the pine branches.  The temperature was dropping
rapidly and we were going to need all the insulation we could get.  After
completing that particular task, he asked something to the effect of, “OK, but
what if yWhile so engagedwotou were sure this person was serious?  What if, say, this person had
already tried to hurt you once, would it be wrong or right to kill him before
he tried again?”

Now
another thought came to my mind.  Had what at first seemed like a spontaneous conversation,
really been planned by him all along?  Had he sensed my objection to his mother
killing the pilot and engineered this little exchange to explain her
justification when she wouldn’t?  If so, clever kid.

All
of that aside, the answer to Gabriel’s question was complicated.  Before, when
there were cities, governments, courts, police, the answer to that question
would have been you’d go to the authorities and let them handle the threat. 
That’s because for the privilege of living in society and sharing the benefits
of order, justice, and protection, you agreed to follow society’s rules.  So if
someone had threatened you or your loved ones, that person had broken the rules
and must be judged and punished by society.  Otherwise rules of conduct would
have had no meaning; people would have acted as they wished, there would have been
no society and, therefore, there would have been no order, no justice, and no
safety.  In the simplest terms, it would essentially have been every man for
himself; kill or be killed.   

That’s
what we have now, though.  There is no society.  There is no one to report a
threat to.  There are no rules. There is no expectation of group consequences. 
In every sense of the phrase, it’s every man for himself; kill or be killed.  So
once again, given the world’s circumstances, is it wrong to kill someone who
has threatened your life and has in some way demonstrated a willingness to carry
it out?

I
didn’t have to think it through to see the position my own reasoning had put me
in.  Oh, I could argue it just ain’t right, and I don’t care what anyone else
says.  But this is a real life question with real life consequences, and it
would be wholly illogical not to act preemptively.  It is especially so since
there is no group to protect you.  It’s you and you alone.  To say otherwise
would be to place yourself in a position where you’d have to wait for the other
fella to advantage himself and essentially pick the place and time of your
death.  That would be insane.  It would also be giving up your right of self
defense.    

So,
I told him it would not be wrong to kill such a person if you knew with all
certainty that he intended to kill you.  To make a mistake about that, however,
would be a terrible thing, and to use it as an excuse to kill would be just as
bad.

As
I said those words to him, though, I pictured the moment of the pilot’s death,
him sitting there on the road one second and his brains all over the place the
next. That image made my answer feel all wrong, and so my words were given
without authority, even though on re-examination I could find no fault with my
reasoning.  I asked myself, does anyone in this world, as we now know it, have
the luxury of compassion over pragmatism in such matters? 

Gabriel
nodded his head and, for the third or fourth time in our conversation, lapsed
into silence.  I took that to mean that he was contemplating yet another crafty
question and began trying to anticipate where he was going with it, given the
thread of his inquiry so far. 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;}
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