Something was happening, but what was it? We were all awake now. Kat let the cats outside and they quickly disappeared into the darkness of night. We still had our night vision goggles, which was certainly good. The rest of us crawled out of the tent, first Kat, then me, then Cat. I realized something as I got outside, I could see! Not completely clearly, but I could still see.

We all headed off behind different trees, looking in the direction the cats had run. Suddenly there was a lot of shooting at our tent. Kat and Catalina returned fire and I could hear men drop to the ground. I waited, looking in the opposite direction, and sure enough, two more men were coming up behind Catalina. I shot and got them both. Then Kat shot a man that was about to shoot me.

More men started coming out and I could hear the familiar “Thwock” from the cats and some groans. Several times that happened. There are a lot of men this time and they seem to be following us quite easily. That seems rather strange, we are not leaving much of a trail. They must have someone good at tracking in this group. Especially since they were tracking us at night which is harder.

Suddenly men were appearing all around us shooting! We returned fire and the cats joined in a couple of times. I spotted Cat throwing a knife once at a man that was just about on me. And she did not miss either. Then Muffin shot one of her mini bombs at a group of four men coming at Kat.

It stopped two of the men and startled the other two so Kat could shoot them. Then all was quiet though I heard some rustling, like someone was running away. Then that stopped too. Muffin came back. Meow,meow.=That all, no more human soldier men left. Storm run after last man. He came back shortly telling us he got that last man.

Then the cats went around to pick up their steel balls. They found all of them too. By this time the nearly full moon was shining brightly, and since our tent was no longer useful, we decided to begin hiking early. We stayed along the ridge where the breeze was so nice, keeping the mosquitoes away from us. Nights would be bad now without our tent, and none of us had mosquito netting.

Each one on the team carried different things on this trip so our backpacks would not be too heavy and bulky and we could travel faster. “They obviously know which way we are going,” I said, “which proves what we thought before, someone in the government was a spy and let this government know which way we would likely leave.” “He must have given them a detailed map to follow us so quickly,” said Catalina.

“Very true,” said Kat. “May I call you Kat too?” asked Catalina. “Of course,” said Kat, “that is my real name anyway.” “How is your eyesight now Steve?” asked Catalina. “Still a bit blurry,” I said, “but a big change from yesterday when I could see nothing.” “A very encouraging sign,” said Kat. Meow,meow!=Me say so too!

Muffin was on Catalina watching behind us while Storm was sleeping on Kat’s backpack. It was another hot day and we were going through our water too fast, even though we took water off the men we had killed. But we needed that water or we would have trouble to keep on going. Perhaps I should say, the girls needed the water.

Whenever they were not looking, I would take some of my water and add it to their bottles. That worked for a while, but by evening Catalina was looking at her bottle. “I have been drinking a lot of water today, but I still have quite a bit left,” she said, “I figured I should be nearly empty by now.” “I was just thinking the same thing,” said Kat as she looked over at me.

“I have shared mine with the cats,” I said, “since they need it more than I do.” “And which ‘cats’ are you referring too Steve?” asked Catalina, giving me a rather stern look. “Um, well, all of them I guess,” I said, “but you all need it more than I do, you work hard, I just lie here and relax.” “No more of that,” said Kat, “we should be coming up to another stream soon, about mid morning.”

“We should keep walking through the night,” said Catalina, “it is cooler and without a tent it will be hard to sleep anyway.” Catalina walked around a bit and came back with some plants. “Rub these on your skin,” she said, “it will help keep mosquitoes away.”

We could use mud too, but it was too dry and we did not want to waste water. We rested for the evening and then as it began to get dark we loaded up and off we went. About 2 am Storm said he smelled water close by so off he went looking with Kat. Soon they came back with our water bottles filled again and we continued our hike…

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.