A cold wind swept across the lake where we stopped to
discuss our predicament. At the end the dirt road, all of our gear lay in the
middle of a field. The only thing that stood in our way was two cops who felt
like they had done enough work for one night. From a distance we could tell
they weren't going anywhere. They sat in their vehicles, quietly idling with their
lights on, playing solitaire on their computers.
“Just leave it down there” Chad argued, “I will get it in
the morning when I go to work”
“No way!” I rebutted. “I’m going in.”
Chad driving, we cruised south toward the country side. It took us about ten minutes to find what we
were looking for. We hung a left and cruised back to the east until we reached
a point on top of a hill. We stopped on the road adjacent to where we thought
our gear would lay, about a half of a mile to the north of where we were.
Jumping out of the car, Karen and I plunged into the pitch
black woods that lay between us and the golf course. Taking our time, we
carefully and silently worked our way through the trees and down the hill toward
our objective.
As we approached the dead end road, we could see the two
sentries standing guard. Navigating with only the moonlight, we crept through
the brush and across the road where the two police officers sat. We knew our
gear lay somewhere in the grassy field about thirty yards out, but without lights
it was very difficult to transverse the hazardous terrain.
Silently combing a pattern under the watchful eye of our
silent guardians, we cross hatched our way across the field until we finally
found our stash. As carefully as we moved in, we gathered our things and
slipped back into the night the way we had come. After a far less stressful hike
back to the top of the hill, we found our brothers in arms waiting for us in
the car where we had left them.
By the time we got back to Chad’s apartment it was about
5:00am and we were too tired to discuss much of what happened. The next morning
we packed up and drove back home. We did not complete our objectives, but we
did get out with our clean records.
The End
