His pursuers took advantage of his trip and rushed towards him.
Just as the three men were to converge upon him, they were inexplicably stopped by nets and ropes, wrapping around their feet. Shem had stumbled there, too, but knew how to step out again. As the three men fought and flailed, they became more entangled, as if the ropes hidden by leaves and branches tightened with their every move. That’s because they did.
Shem, however, stood up, nonchalantly brushed off the black lining of his army jacket, and watched passively as several trees and bushes tightened the binds on the three men.
It was a trap, and one of their best.
As the three men fought against half a dozen camouflaged captors, two more men in green and brown mottled clothing emerged. Those whose skin wasn’t naturally hued brown or red had worked mud into their flesh, but it had long since dried and was flaking off. One man went to assist tying up the prisoners and gagging them into silence, while the second one, a hulking figure and already browned by the foresight of nature, made his way over to Shem.
“This should be the last of them,” he said appreciatively. “Excellent work! I thought there were four, though.”
“There were,” Shem whispered.
The man in green exhaled in understanding. “The long knife?”
Shem nodded once.
“Where’s it now?”
“Still in his heart,” the corporal said flatly. “If I removed it, it would’ve made a mess.”
“It had to be done. You know that,” his companion said consolingly.
“Never going to own another one again,” Shem whispered in despair. “I’m too deadly with them.”
“You killed a guilty man in order to save fourteen lives tonight,” the man in green and brown assured him. “And these three others will never reveal anything either. The way is safe again, because of you.”
“Why wasn’t it before?” Shem snapped bitterly, and began to tremble.
“Bad timing along with a few unexpected complications,” his companion explained. “It was the noise that attracted their attention. There were far more than we expected, and they wandered this far east because—Look,” he said, growing annoyed with having to justify the situation, “you know this is part of why you are here. Your training, your position, your access . . . you also know we wouldn’t call on you unless it was a real emergency. True, we need you to keep quiet, but every now and then you still need to—”
“I know, I know,” Shem sighed wretchedly. “Fourteen, you said?”
“Yes, now.”
Shem nodded once, knowing he had to be satisfied with that response. “So where is he?” he asked, looking around at the dark pines and leafless trees. “I need to get him back now that the last are secured.”
The man shrugged and looked behind him. “I’m not sure, but he’ll be completely exhausted. We had no idea we’d be distracting the entire army, too, or we would have told you to borrow those three brown cows that never moo. They crash through the underbrush just as effectively, and we could’ve split them up.”
“But once the cattle fence is up, we won’t be able to use those, either. We’ll need to find another strategy,” Shem decided. “He tried to go home early, and that’s what alerted the patrols this morning. Then rumor and fear, being as efficient as they are, blew everything out of proportion. The major’s been on high alert since early morning, completely perplexed.”
“Confusion is good,” the man patted Zenos on the back. “You doubt what you see, so you make up explanations of what it may have been, and soon you can’t even remember what you saw to begin with. By the time this night is over, I’ll guess there’ll be about a dozen different stories, all compelling, all terrifying, and none of them accurate. No one’s imagination will ever let them believe that it was—oh, there he is. Ugh, he is a mess.”
Through the undergrowth came the noisiest creature to ever plod in the forest. He saw Zenos and went straight for him, collapsing in exhaustion at his feet.
“Oh, good dog Barker!” Shem squatted and scratched the massive black dog behind the ears. “Well done, well done. Look at you, covered in burs, twigs, and what’s this? Ew, never mind. Sorry about that. Not sure if we’ll have time to brush you out before we bring you home.” From his back uniform pocket Shem pulled out a piece of jerky, Barker’s favorite.
Barker looked up at Shem, his tired eyes drooping, his drool running, but his tail wagging whip-like and thrashing the long dry grasses behind him. He gulped down his reward.