Men of Winter

Chapter XVIII

In form, the figure of a young girl, the gray-eyed goddess approached him. — Odyssey 7

I anticipated Helena asking me what had happened, why all hell had broken loose, and I wanted to tell her – I wanted to tell everyone, to fulfill my predetermined role. But neither Helena nor Slivania was asking. I concentrated on the road and getting used to the truck bumping along unpredictably, and invested myself in controlling its headstrong course. After a few minutes, a bump caused Doctor Slivania to fall to my side, his head coming to rest on my shoulder. Helena tried to wrestle him upright again but it seemed a lost cause and I told her to leave the colonel be. Blood trickled from his fatal wound into his left eye then onto the captain's insignia on my sleeve.

Wind whistled through the hole in the front glass and sounded like a teapot, or a flutist warming up. In either case the sound was both mournful and merry and only increased my anxiety.

I negotiated a bend in the road and caught a glimpse of the truck ahead of me. I was overjoyed and began to have a sense of safety. Tension released in my arms and shoulders that I did not even know was there. I swiveled my head on my neck to release even more and that is when I saw an image in the side mirror for the briefest instant: a truck following us. But there had only been three trucks at the medical post.

"There is someone behind us," I said, as much to the doctor as to Helena.

Helena, out of reflex, looked out of her window but could see nothing. "Are you certain?"

"Yes." Here I was, though, with a dead man resting on my shoulder driving an army truck through the Great Northern Forest, closer to the top of the world than I ever imagined I would be, wearing a discarded uniform given to me by a whore – perhaps I should not be so certain of my perceptions.

I continued on, trying to see behind as much as ahead. The road was serpentine, which helped create the illusion that Helena and I were quite alone. I wished again for the omniscience of that overhead eye – to know what was what, and where. I was thinking about the giant eye, in fact, when the deer bounded in front of the truck. I swerved instinctively to avoid it but did not; nor the tree which brought the truck to a sudden dead stop. The three of us pitched forward. The doctor, not able to catch himself, slammed hard into the front glass, face first.

"Are you all right?" I said to Helena.

"Yes, I believe so." At the very least, we were both stunned.

The engine had quit and I knew there was no restarting it. Smoke or steam rose up from the truck's broken engine.

"Come on," I said as I pushed open my door and grabbed my valise. Helena exited from her side. If she had her bag, she left it behind.

On the road I noticed the deer struggling to get his legs under him but the hind two were broken. I figured he would not be suffering long. The same was not necessarily true for Helena and me, unless the soldiers had adopted cannibalism. We ran into the woods, I wishing they were thicker and hoping they were thick enough. I heard the other truck rumble up the road. We took cover behind a trio of close-grown trees and I heard the whine of the truck's brakes. I listened intensely. The rusty doors were opened. There were boots on the road – how many I could not say. The soldiers did not speak to each other, at least not with words, so their role as friend or foe remained unknowable – not that language would have assisted much with this determination.

I looked down and saw Helena's and my tracks in the snow. They were not obvious – the forest floor was naturally uneven – but were discernible. I heard a twig snap and it was all the motivation I needed. "Run," I said to Helena quietly and we did ... loudly.