Chapter 11: Organization
Seeing Walker punished so swiftly and definitively seemed to take the air out of everyone else's dislike. When Cam walked into the mess hall for breakfast ten minutes after Clayton had left her at the barracks, she was greeted with a few gruff, 'Hey's' and 'how are you's'. She seemed taken aback at first, wary of the sudden friendliness from the other students, but when Valverde passed by her seat after breakfast and told her quietly, "Um, hey, uh, I'm glad you're okay, and I'm sorry," she accepted his apology with a warm smile.
With Walker and Harper gone, the student complement dropped to twelve from the original fourteen. Hilton addressed all the students at the beginning of Thursday's class on escape techniques, announcing a reorganization of teams. He gave them a chance to switch to Clayton's team, if they so chose, but no one did, so he reorganized Warren's Team C to include Warren, Blasetti, Valverde, Stanton; then the new Team A became Johnson, Locke, Lewis, and Robinson. Clayton wasn't really impressed with the caliber of Ranger in the newly-reorganized Team A; none of them had the same leadership skills that he, Warren, and Walker had.
With her teammates' departure, he got a glimpse of why Dixon had said she was superlative. The day's topic today was on escape and evasion techniques; Halloran was telling the students that they could avoid being detected if they stepped into running water when Cam interrupted him and firmly and quietly told him that wasn't true, if one's feet or legs were cut and bleeding the blood trail could be picked up in the water.
Halloran regarded her with surprise, then asked her how she would avoid being detected. "Take off my boots and put river mud, and then a layer of leaves, in the bottom of them. If I have bleeding feet or legs the leaves will absorb the blood, and when I stop later I can weigh the leaves down to the riverbed with rocks. Then I make sure that I head in a different direction from the way the water would be flowing. It's usually best to wait until you're at a fork in the river, creek or stream before you change the leaves; that way if they do find the trail, they'll be forced to either make a decision about which fork to follow or they'll have to split their forces to find you."
Hawk blinked; he'd never even thought about doing something like that. He'd never even heard of anyone doing something like that. Halloran regarded her curiously, then said, "And if there is no river or waterway available to try and lose your scent, and your pursuers have scent hounds with them, what do you do then?"
"Circle around upwind of them until you see them. If necessary, give your pursuers an occasional glimpse of you so they swing upwind, then you can circle behind them downwind. Look for dogpiles; when you see one, step in the dog's fecal matter and make sure you get a good coating on your shoes. Yes, it's disgusting and you'll hate the smell, but the dog will be confused by the smell of its own excrement masking your scent and you'll have a better chance of avoiding detection. Alternatively, if you catch and kill an animal, say, a rabbit or squirrel or deer, saturating the soles of your shoes in the animals' blood or using vines to tie the animal's skin and fur over your shoes can mask your scent. Be sure not to touch the sole of your boot, or use your hands to apply these masking scents to your shoes—not that you would want to anyway." A wry smile. "If all else fails, climb a tree and take the high road. It takes more calories and uses a lot more effort, but in the short run, if you evade capture you're not going to mind the extra energy expenditure."
Halloran regarded her thoughtfully. "You sound as if you have experience evading pursuers and trackers. I've never, ever had anyone give me those answers before."
She gave a wry laugh, but there was an edge to it; something underneath the feigned humor. "When the white man was taking over the People's land and territory and rounding them up to herd them onto the reservations they learned all those ways of defeating tracking pursuing forces. We haven't forgotten those tricks and they have been taught to each succeeding generation of warriors."
"Are you considered a warrior in your tribe?"
"Yes," she said quietly without a trace of mockery or pride; a bald statement of fact. "My people are the Iroquois, and we take pride in our women's riding to war alongside their men. Women are equal in status, and in some cases are in higher reverence; there are women warriors as well as male warriors. And although usually the woman puts aside her weapons once she has a male to share her hearth with, not all women choose to have children and keep a lodge, and the wisest tactician in the tribe is usually the oldest warrior female. You may have heard the old saying that poison is a woman's weapon; the Iroquois believe that a woman's weapon is that she thinks…and then acts on that decision without hesitation."
And so she wouldn't have had any idea just how women are viewed in high-stress military operating specialties like the Rangers, Hawk thought. She was too young to understand the difference when she left Osan base after her father died, and her time with the Iroquois as an Iroquois female warrior would have reinforced her belief that women are equally capable. And from what I've seen…she is equally capable. Walker was an idiot for not seeing that…and not trusting his Commander's decision to put her with him. With his charisma and leadership skills and her ability to track and hide, they would have been unbeatable together in an RRD. Well, it was Walker's loss. And whoever ended up assigned to Cam would gain an incredible asset. They hadn't even gotten into the field yet and Hawk could already see where her skills would be invaluable in a combat situation.
Apparently he wasn't the only one who thought so; mess during lunch and that evening consisted of all the SERE trainees grouped together in a noisy, chattering mass. Clayton sat back and watched with a sense of satisfaction; for the first time the entire group of trainees were acting like they were all on the same side, with none of the marked coldness and indifference they'd seen this far. Warren hung back a little, but he was the only one.
"So have you ever been tracked?" Mark was the first one to ask her. Clayton wondered at the way Cam tensed almost imperceptibly; and when she spoke, her voice had the same edge it had held when Halloran had asked her the same question in class.
"When I told the Clan I wanted to become one of their warrior women I was met with some skepticism. Despite the fact that they adopted me into their clan, I wasn't born and raised as one of them, so they doubted my ability. They devised a test; I went off into the wilderness for a week to survive on my own while being hunted by two of the braves. It was one of the hardest weeks I've ever spent in my life; my reputation was at stake if they caught me, and the braves sent after me were two of the best in our clan. I used every trick I could think of; backtracking, riverwalking, and I used a lot of trees. I'm sure I probably gave some squirrels heart attacks when they saw me swinging through their tree like Tarzan!" Despite the levity in her words, there was none in her voice; instead, a sort of expectancy, like she was waiting for them to challenge her story. And that got Clayton very curious indeed; what was she hiding, that she didn't want to tell them?
"Cam. I don't want to pry, and I understand this is probably none of my business, but I get the feeling you're hiding some things from us. Not your knowledge, but how you came to gain some of it." He broached the subject with her on their customary walk back to the women's barracks. By now the others recognized this almost as a ritual and they retired to their barracks, leaving the two of them alone.
"You're right, it's none of your business." Her tone was sharp, but then she sighed with her next breath. "I'm sorry, Clayton. Please understand that I'm not trying to hide things from you that you might need to know; if I avoid mentioning something it's because it is private and has no bearing on the current training and situation."
"You sound like half your life has been spent in some secret underground bunker somewhere." Clayton joked, but was stunned when she looked at him with eyes gone dark and haunted. "Cam—what did I say?"
"N-nothing. It's nothing." But she'd suddenly gone tense, shoulders hunched, and…were those tears?
"Cameron. I'm sorry. I didn't mean—whatever I said that hurt you, I'm sorry—Cam, for God's sake, if it's something that hurts that badly you should talk about it, the more you keep it inside the more it's going to hurt—" But she was walking past him with fast long strides, and tears were streaming down her cheeks.
"Clayton. It's not you, okay. I just…I don't want to talk about it. Please leave me alone." And she ran the last few steps to the door of the women's barracks and closed it behind her. And he knew he wasn't going to be welcome in there. Not now.
He didn't sleep well that night, replaying their conversation in his mind over and over, wondering what it was he'd said that would make her cry. A secret underground bunker—but what she told me of her life has been pretty normal so far. She describes her life at Osan with her Dad as happy, and she obviously loved him very much. She went to live in New York and try for Juilliard, but she had some sort of accident when she was fifteen and that ended her dreams of a dancing career. Was it the accident? What happened to her? She might not be able to dance anymore but she's obviously still capable of undergoing rigorous military training, so what accident was it that cost her that dream of dancing? She hasn't had any hesitation in talking to me about her life while her father was alive, and she hasn't had a problem talking about her tribe. So whatever it was that happened to her that's hurting her must have happened between the time her Dad died when she was ten and the time she went to live with the Iroquois at eighteen.
For God's sake, what could have happened that hurt her that much?
He woke in the morning, tired and heavy-eyed, and went to the line for coffee twice, contrary to his usual custom. She showed up a little late to breakfast, outwardly the same cheerful person to everyone else, but Clayton watched her closely and could see she was slightly pale and obviously tired, and she got coffee too. It was the first time he'd ever seen her drink the stuff.
He intercepted her at the coffee line. "Cam." She turned to look at him, but he lowered his voice. "I'm not going to push it. Your business is your business, and I won't pry. I just…if it hurts that much you'll have to talk to someone eventually, and I would be honored if you considered me enough of a friend to confide in me. But only if you want to." He laid a hand on her shoulder gently, a gesture of support, and then got his coffee and walked away quickly.
Fortunately, today's class—their last before having one full day of R&R before the Survival and Evasion phase was supposed to begin—consisted of a refresher on basic survival. Fortunately, because Clayton was already acquainted with the idea and techniques and because he was so tired he wouldn't have been able to concentrate on anything that required him to use his brain.
The instructors had several live chickens brought into camp, and the trainees were told to kill and prepare them for their lunch. And they didn't make it easy, either; the trainees were brought out to the central receiving area of camp and told to stand at attention; then a crate with six live chickens was placed on the ground, opened, and the chickens were allowed to escape the crate. And the trainees were told that there were two chickens per team; and your team had specific chickens, too; there were colored bands around the chicken's legs indicating which team was supposed to capture which two. Then they were to prepare and cook the birds using only basic issue materials (aluminum pot, canteen, knife and all-purpose eating utensil) and whatever they could forage from the woods around the camp.
The chickens ran in panicked flurry all around Camp Mackall; Company A of the 82nd regiment laughed as they watched the members of Team A running back and forth, trying to catch their allotted two chickens. Team C, Warren's team, didn't look all that much better either; they were trying to split up and send two members after one chicken at once, but their birds kept escaping them.
Clayton was somewhat surprised when Cam stepped forward and addressed her teammates directly; he hadn't known she had leadership skills, but she took charge immediately. "Demo, Ryder. See those blackberry bushes over there? Go grab a handful of those berries and put them on the ground here. Hawk, that way, I'll go this way. We're going to circle around those two," she pointed to their two fat brown chickens scurrying out of the way of Warren's half-hearted attempts to catch his white rooster. The orange band marked them as Team B's targets. "Once we get behind them we should be able to herd them towards the berries. Once they see them they'll lose all interest and we should be able to jump on them easily."
And she was right. Ryder and Demo sprinkled berries on the ground; the chickens lost all sense of caution when they saw food set out for them; they settled on the berries and started pecking busily, and it was a matter of only a few minutes to pounce on them from behind. Demo stood with his hands full of squawking brown fowl uncertainly, but Cam took hers firmly and quickly, efficiently, twisted its neck to kill it. Hawk was surprised at her lack of squeamishness, then reflected that she'd probably done worse with her tribe. He'd spent some time listening to Charlie and Frank talk, and from them he gathered that while Native Americans were mostly modernized, there were still certain rituals and traditions carried out in the same way their ancestors had done for time out of mind, and he figured that Cam, as a warrior in her tribe, would have taken part in those traditional rituals. And they'd probably prepared food in traditional ways too.
He sat with Demo and Ryder plucking the feathers out of the chickens and watching as the members of the other two teams ran about trying to catch their chickens. Warren's team had managed to catch one; Warren and Valverde were now arguing over how best to kill it while Stanton and Blasetti were trying to catch their other one; and Team A were having no luck at all with catching either of their birds. By the time Cam came back with what looked like an armful of greenery, Team B's chickens were plucked and ready.
"At least they gave us nice fat ones," she said with satisfaction as she dumped the armload of greenery beside the 'camp' that had been designated as theirs. "All right. Here's what I have. This is cattail root; it tastes like a potato, and it's a good source of starch and simple carbohydrates. This stuff here is wild carrot; I know it doesn't have that carrot-orange color, but trust me, it's what my people would call it. There are some differences between what's in this area and what's on my tribe's reservation, but not that much. We can either peel them, boil them and mash the cattail root like mashed potatoes, or we can leave the skin on, wash them, cut them in cubes and put them in the pot. It's up to you." She looked at Clayton inquiringly.
He spread his hands. "It's been a really long time since I was in a survival position." His ordeal with Olivia in Colombia not included. "You're better at this than I am, so I'm delegating authority. What do you think we should do?"
"Boil the chickens in water." She said promptly. "Slice the cattail root and wild carrot, add the wild garlic and the wild onion I found—" she indicated two more handfuls of greenery, "And make a sort of chicken soup out of it. If we were really in a survival situation, the water in the broth would be important to maintaining hydration, the chicken mixed with other ingredients would make a high-protein soup, we wouldn't have to worry about how to preserve the remainder, and chicken soup also has natural immunity boosters when mixed with the garlic and onion. And there would be enough for four people to have another meal out of it."
Clayton was impressed. "Have at it." Then, as Demo and Ryder started to wash and cut the vegetables, he lowered the chicken into a pot of water and started it boiling. Then he indicated another handful of greenery with roots attached. "What's that?"
She smiled at him. "Neither one of us got good sleep last night, and we still need to get through the rest of today. This is coffee substitute. It's not going to taste quite like real coffee, but it has the same stimulating effect. I thought you could use some."
By the time their instructors came along at mid-afternoon to 'grade' their efforts, Hawk, Polaris, Ryder and Demo were relaxing around their campfire over cups of 'coffee'. The chickens had been boiled until the flesh was soft and had literally fallen off the bone into the pot, saving them the trouble of deboning it; all Hawk had had to do was fish out the skeleton with a knife. Adding the giblets (heart, gizzard, liver, etc.) had added iron and other nutrients too. The soup had been surprisingly good and filling, and Cam was right; there was plenty left. Head, innards, feet and other 'unusable' parts of the chicken was stored in a bundle made of the chickens' skins and body cavities, which Cam explained to Halloran could be used later as bait for fishhooks or traps for larger game; stiff quill feathers could be used as makeshift writing utensils later along with berry ink and tree bark for notes, and the smaller down feathers could be put inside boots and jackets if the weather got cold. Halloran looked impressed and gave them full credit for the exercise.
Warren's team had chosen to simply spit their chickens and roast them; but someone hadn't been to clear on how to roast and some portions were plainly burned. Halloran marked them down on wastage—the insides of the chicken had been left as 'waste' and hadn't been used, depriving the men of valuable iron and other vitamins in the organs. Team A had figured out what Hawk's team was doing, and had boiled their chicken, but hadn't left it in long enough (they hadn't managed to catch their chickens in time to do a thorough job of cooking them) and they also hadn't really paid that much attention to what Cam had collected to put in it, even though she'd carefully spread out everything she'd used in an effort to subtly 'help' the other teams.
Hawk was elated when Team A came over to congratulate them on their technique and results. Warren's team came over to study what they'd done too—with the exception of Warren. Hawk watched the guy studying Cam across the mess hall that evening, and decided he needed to keep a careful eye on him—Hawk was still not sure Warren hadn't known what Walker and Harper had done.