“Watch out!” Ted yelled, catching the sight of Angus just as he swung his stick.
Angus hit Billy square across the back of his shoulders, then crashed head first into Ted, knocking both of them to the ground.
Billy was knocked over the rock pile by the force of the blow, and lay motionless.
Ted wrestled with Angus on the ground. He tried desperately to push Angus off of him, but he was no match for the ball of fury that was Angus Dawson.
Angus grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him up so they were face to face. “You’re gonna pay for stealin’ my grandpappy’s gold!” he hissed.
“What the f-” Ted yelled, but was cut off when Angus threw him back against the ground. Angus punched Ted in the face. Ted blocked the next swing, and managed to land a punch of his own squarely across Angus’s jawline.
Ted pushed up against the stunned Angus just enough to bring his knees up to his chest and kicked Angus off of him.
Both combatants rose to their feet, and turned to face each other.
“What do you want, man?” Ted demanded.
“You be after my grandpappy’s gold.” Angus said menacingly. “You fellers are gonna die for that.”
“Dude, seriously, we ain’t after no gold!” Ted insisted, “We’re just geoca-”
Angus lunged at Ted, pushing him backwards, then striking with a well aimed fist to the side of his head. Ted, not getting a chance to defend himself just stood there, stunned. Angus landed one more punch to the jawline, and Ted collapsed to his knees.
Angus grabbed Ted by the back of his hair and pulled his head back. Ted was dazed and helpless to resist.
With his free hand Angus reached behind his back and pulled the knife out of its sheath. He raised the knife over his head, poised to strike the knife at Ted’s throat.
“Prepare to die.” Angus hissed coldy. Ted closed his eyes, and waited for death. Then suddenly Angus let go of his hair, and he heard a sickening thud of hard things impacting bone and muscle.
Ted opened his eyes to see Billy standing over him, a large stone in his hands. He looked down to see Angus lying on the ground, the knife still in his hand, a trickle of blood dripping from the side of his head.
“I think he’s out cold”, Billy said, breathing heavily. “You OK, bro?”
“I think I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.” Ted replied, rubbing his jaw line.
Billy nodded at his brother, then stopped to take a look at Angus. He kicked him with his toe, but Angus was unconscious. Billy took the knife from Angus’s hand and tossed it aside in disgust. Then he went over to tend to his brother.
He helped Ted to his feet, then fished some water out of his pack, and offered some to his brother before taking a swig himself. They both drank deeply.
“What on earth do you suppose that was about?” Billy asked, gazing at the still form of the crazy old man.
“I dunno. He accused me of stealing his grandpappy’s gold, just like we talked about at the bridge.“ Ted replied, still rubbing the side of his head, “I think he’s crazy, man. Gone insane or something. He just ain’t right, ya know?”
Billy nodded, then pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “I’m gonna call this in.“
Ted nodded in agreement, then sat down on a rock.
“Nuts!” Billy exclaimed. “I am not getting any signal out here. Is your phone working?”
Ted pulled his phone out and checked the signal strength, “Nope, I got nothing here.”
“We really need to report this,” Billy repeated. “I guess we need to hike over to Cockney’s Knob and contact the rangers.”
Ted nodded towards the still form of Angus. “What do we do with that clown?” He asked. “Can we just leave him here, or should we take him with us?”
Billy took another look at Angus. “Well, as I figure it, we have no way to tie him up, and we can’t drag him. We are also not trained for this. The best thing we can do is get some distance between us. We should hurry too. It is gonna start getting dark in an hour or so.”
Ted nodded slowly. “Sounds like a plan”, he replied, getting to his feet slowly and checking himself over.
“I’m ready when you are,” he finally said.
The boys dusted themselves off, took one final look at Angus’s still form to confirm he was still unconscious, then they picked up their packs and hiking sticks, and began to retrace their steps back towards the woods.
When they arrived at the treeline, they both checked their GPS devices. Both brothers had their GPSs set to record the route that they walked on the way to the clearing. That route is displayed on the map with a thin red line. They started following that line back to the trail.
Beat up and sore, the boys were moving slowly. 15 minutes after they re-entered the woods, they had only made a few hundred yards.
Suddenly the boys heard the loud crack of a branch being snapped somewhere behind them. Both boys whirled around to look.
“Do you think that’s Angus?” Ted asked, alarmed.
“I dunno… maybe?” Billy replied. “We are still pretty visible in here…”
They looked around for some options.
“Come on!” Ted said, tapping Billy on his shoulder, “There are some rocks over here we can hide behind. It at least puts something solid between us and him.”
The boys headed off through the woods. 200 feet later they reached the rocks, and slid in behind them. They huddled for a moment to catch their breath, and take swigs of water from their water bottles.
Ted started to study the terrain maps on his GPS, looking for escape options.
Billy carefully peaked out from behind the rocks in the direction they came from. “Nuts!” he whispered.
Ted turned to look as well, and saw his worst fear.
A dark human figure was visible just inside the tree line, walking towards them.
Angus Dawson was on the hunt.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Copyright 2015 by Dave DeBaeremaeker. All Rights Reserved.
