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were still out there somewhere. |
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We were at the rendezvous point. Jake checked his watch, grumbled and plunked his heavy frame down on the tailgate of Kramer's truck. It was the best seat in the house, and I joined him. I took out a cigarette, offered Jake one and noted with a modest degree of satisfaction that it was only my fifth one for the day. That achievement, however, paled in comparison to the fact that Madden's entire crew, including yours truly, had survived the trek in from the Freeman boundary without some sort of encounter. There was little doubt in my mind that Madden viewed it as just another day's work, but to my way of thinking, it was akin to conquering Everest. |
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We had been waiting no more than five minutes when Caleb's crew began to filter out of the woods into the clearing. ''We could hear Harlan's crew working out to our right," he said. "They're runnin' three, maybe four hundred yards behind us." |
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Jake nodded, slowly scanning the men from the last three groups. In all, I counted 23 of them. At least five of them looked as though they could be 15 or maybe even younger. There was no horseplay between the youngsters; there seemed, instead, to actually be a grimmer dimension to them than the older group. |
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It was a good 20 minutes later when Harlan's crew began arriving. They |
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