I joined Coli and followed her silent form deeper into the trees.

***

“Remind me again why I’m teaching you this?” said Coli as she led me deeper into the swamp.

“Attack planning. Canner attack.” I tried to sound casual so she wouldn’t suspect any ulterior motives on my part.

“You think you’re going to attack canners in the swamp?”

“It could happen. If any of them ever follow one of us back here or come looking for food.”

“I really think you’re deluding yourself, but whatever.”

We walked for a few minutes until we were well and truly in the middle of nowhere. If Coli decided to leave me there, I was pretty sure I’d be lost for good. All the trees looked the same to me right now.

“Okay,” she said, stopping and turning to look at me. “First thing you have to do is pay attention to the trees around you.”

I looked down on the ground.

“Not on the ground, stupid. The trees. Look up.”

I looked at her, confused. “Why up? I’m walking on the ground, not swinging through the trees like a monkey.”

“Yeah, but the stuff up in the trees, falls down. And then you step on it. Right?”

“Yeeaaaah …”

“So, you have to know what you’re dealing with. See that tree over there?”

I looked where she was pointing. “Yes.”

“Dry leaves. Crackle like crazy when you step on them. Avoid walking around trees like that.” She pointed to a different tree. “See that one?”

“Yeah.”

“Those leaves don’t crackle so much, even when they’re dry. They make less noise when you step on them.”

“Wow,” I said, looking at all the greenery around us. “I had no idea. I never thought of it that way.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why you sound like a herd of buffalo coming through when you walk.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No problem. Okay, so now, look at the ground.”

I was almost afraid to do it, like it was a trick.

“Do it, dummy. I’m not going to mock you … much.”

I laughed, looking down at the ground. I noticed some of those crackly leaves.

“So you’ve got leaves there and some small twigs, a branch. What happens when you step on the branch? Less sound or more sound?”

“It makes less sound?” I guessed.

“Try it,” she urged, gesturing with her chin at one near my foot.

I stepped on it and as soon as I put pressure on the wood, I realized my mistake. “It makes more noise.”

“Yeah. It’s bigger than your foot. That means it’s putting downward pressure over a bigger space, over more leaves and more twigs. And branches fall on top of …” she was waiting for me to finish her sentence.

“Dry leaves?”

“Exactly. So if you want to announce to the world you’ve arrived, step on a branch.”

“I guess I should avoid twigs too?”

“Depends on the twig. Some are dry and snap easy. Some not so much. You can ignore the wet ones that won’t break.”

“How will I know which are dry and which are wet?”

“Practice.”

“Eff me.” I sighed in frustration.

“I didn’t say it was easy or fast. What’s your hurry?”

“No hurry,” I said, casually. “I’m not worried about it. I’ll figure it out. But isn’t there like, kind of a default will-work-in-most-situations method I could try?”

“Sure. It’s called the shuffle.”

“It sounds noisy.”

“Well it is. But the idea is to mimic normal sounds of the woods or the swamp. Animals shuffle. Birds shuffle sometimes. People don’t.”

“So I need to sound like an animal?”

“Yep.”

“Show me.”

Coli took a few steps, basically using her toes to toss dry leaves and twigs out of her way, and only stepping down where there was bare earth beneath her feet. When she went fast, she sounded like someone shuffling through the leaves. But when she went slow, it almost sounded like something natural - not human.

“Wow. That is bad ass.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Let me try,” I said, excited to give it a go. I took five steps before Coli started laughing.

“Yep. Still a buffalo. Where are my bow and arrows? I’m hungry.”

“Shut up,” I said, trying not to smile. I was pretty pitiful in the sneaking department, that much was obvious. “So this is it? This is the whole lesson?”

“Once you’ve mastered this, come find me. Maybe I can teach you more, but until you can do this, it’s just a waste of time for both of us.”

“How did you get so good at it?” I was busy pushing my feet through the leaves, trying to figure out how to shuffle less and step more, but it didn’t seem to be working.

“My grandmother taught me. She was the best.”

“Now you’re the best.”

Coli shrugged. “Not really. But I’m good enough.”

I looked up at her, but her expression revealed nothing. I wondered how many of my conversations she’d overheard, being her sneaky self outside my hut.

“I’ve gotta go. Do you know how to find your way back?”

“Hell no! Don’t leave me out here.”

She sighed. “Well, come on then. Bus is leaving.”

We made our way back to my hut where Coli left me and then disappeared. I listened for her footsteps as she walked away but didn’t hear them. All I could detect was an occasional shuffling sound that reminded me of a small animal more than a person.

I have to figure out how to do that.

I walked around the hut for about ten minutes, trying to get a feel for the different leaves beneath my feet and the technique, before finally giving up. Lunch would be arriving soon, and I was tired of failing. It wasn’t a familiar feeling for me, and I didn’t like it one bit. I was going to have to defeat this sneaking thing, just so I didn’t have to experience it anymore. I was getting a taste of how my dad felt, when he first started doing krav maga. He used to tell me it drove him to improve, when he realized how much he couldn’t do. It never made sense to me before, but it sure did now.

I laid down on my mattress and stared at the ceiling, thinking about my dad, wishing he were here with me. He’d tried to teach me so many things, and I’d blown him off over and over again. I would give anything to have him back with me, and the fact that there was nothing in the world I could do to make that happen just made me cry.

I calmed myself by taking George’s journal out of my backpack and reading it. Inside I found all kinds of stuff on ambushes and sneak attacks that seemed totally appropriate for what I had in mind for those canners. I turned down the corner of a couple pages to show to the guys later.

***

Lunch came, delivered by none other than the two chiefs.

“Wow. I’m honored. Lunch hand-delivered by the head honchos.”

Kowi smiled but Trip gave me no reaction, his face remaining serious.

“It was faster. We figured we could get this scouting mission figured out while we ate.” Kowi looked around the hut and surrounding area. “Where are Peter and Bodo?”

“I have no idea. Peter’s probably off organizing the swamp and Bodo’s … wherever.” I didn’t want to alert them to the fact that he just disappears all the time, so I smiled really big. “What’s for lunch today?”

“Someone bagged a wild turkey, so turkey sandwiches if you can believe that,” said Trip.

“Holy crap, really?” I walked over and looked in the basket. Sure enough, there were thick sandwiches, full of meat. I grabbed one and took a big bite, unable to stop myself or even pretend to be polite about it. “Forry,” I said through the food, shrugging a little.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Kowi. “I went a little nuts when I saw them too.”

I swallowed my first bite. “Yeah, well you seem to be able to control yourself.”

“We’ve already had two each.”

“Oh. That explains it.” I took another bite, watching them dig into their third helpings. They were like all the other guys I knew from the dojos where I trained - monster eaters. They finished their sandwiches off in about four bites.

I took the basket from Kowi and put it on our shelves, keeping it there for when Peter and Bodo eventually showed up again.

“I think that Peter kid is over with my people. Working on making bread,” said Trip.

“That’s cool,” I said. That was definitely a good skill to have here. “Where do you guys get your flour? Costco?” My lame attempt at humor was met with zero smiles. “Just kidding, geez.”

“We make our own,” said Trip.

“Whaaat? No way.”

“Yeah, we grow our own crop and harvest it by hand. Just outside this area, actually,” said Kowi. “That’s one thing we’ve always shared between us. Even when we stopped getting along, we kept that a team effort.”

“Yeah. It’s too important to try and take from each other,” said Trip.

“Well,” I said, swallowing another bite, “call me crazy, but I think that could be said about everything out here, not just wheat.”

They both shrugged.

I gave up trying to be political. “So what’s the deal? You guys want to discuss our plans?”

“Yeah,” said Trip. “We talked about it before coming. Celia told us everything she told you after you left with Coli.”

Kowi joined in. “We think we could go in the next few days, just check it out, figure out if it might be possible to sneak in while they sleep and just get the kids out first.”

“What would be the point in that?” I asked. “First, you alert them that we’re there, then you get them hungry so they go out looking for more food? That means we’ll just have to go back and do it all over again, and have more handicapped kids here in the swamp.”

They just looked at each other.

“Okay, I know that sounded bad, about the handicapped kids. What I mean is, every one of them who’s missing a limb is going to need extra care. And out here, that makes them even more vulnerable. So it’s a lot of work and whatever. Not to mention we need to stop crap like that from happening in the first place. I’d prefer it if we kept the injuries to an absolute minimum.”

“So you have a better plan?” asked Trip.

“No. But George probably does.”

“Who the hell is George?” demanded Trip angrily.

Kowi placed his hand on Trip’s shoulder. “Just relax, man. She’s on the same side as us.” He had a bemused expression on his face.

I frowned at Trip, not happy with him jumping at me again. “George is my old neighbor. He gave me his war journal and it has a lot of good tips in it. I’ll show you.” I got up and grabbed the book off my mattress, coming back to join them and sitting on the floor near our pantry. I motioned for them to join me.

I opened up the book to the first page I had turned down. “Let me read this to you, and you can decide if you think it will help us.”

They sat down across from me, listening attentively.

Prisoners of war are a problem you should expect to face in a wartime situation. Sometimes, there are special units utilized to identify where they are being kept and to secure their release. But other times, it falls to the shoulders of the originating unit to retrieve their comrades from behind enemy lines. Great care should be taken to ensure that the rescuers don’t become prisoners themselves.

“Seems like pretty obvious stuff to me,” said Trip, sounding decidedly unimpressed.