CHAPTER TWO

The body of the sentry lay hidden in a thick patch of foliage. The horse was tied to a tree behind the shack. Both lay out of sight. Jacob washed himself clean of the dead man's blood using a bucket of warmed water. He hoped the sentry didn't have anything communicable in his bodily fluids. He assumed nothing had gotten into his mouth or eyes, but he couldn't be certain.

After settling in for the night, Jacob and Emily devoted more of their time to the metal box, the letter, and the handgun. Since Jacob and Emily were too timid to handle the weapon more than they already had, they spent most of their time going over the letter. They were intrigued by the meaning of the word "counterrevolution.” It was a term they hadn't heard before. Sure, they knew what a revolution was. The State school used it to describe how the Earth, or Gaia, had rebelled against mankind. Destroying towns, cities, and nations through powerful acts of nature, Gaia forced humanity out of its toxic cities to punish mankind for its destructive behavior.

After some discussion, Jacob thought he knew why the term had been used.

“We’re in this spot in history because of a revolution,” Jacob explained to Emily. “To undo this insanity, we’d have to have a counter-revolution… we’d have to push back against the status quo.”

Emily, who was lying on her side beside Jacob with Godiva resting warmly at her feet, suddenly flashed her husband a cautious look.

“What do you mean ‘we,’ Jacob?”

Jacob didn’t bother to respond. Instead, he shook his head dismissively and continued.

“Whoever put this gun in this case was around long enough to know what was coming. They saw the path that lay ahead and they did something about it. They knew someday someone like me would need this gun.”

Emily closed her eyes. Her thoughts involuntarily rushed ahead to a point in time where her husband was in danger because of the weapon he had found. Perhaps, he would fight someone with it. Perhaps, he would defend himself with it. Either way, she didn’t like what she saw. Sighing softly, Emily opened her eyes. Her gaze returned to Jacob. His own eyes were staring intently at the metallic box resting on his stomach. She could tell by the way he looked at it that its presence was changing him. She could see something strong and unbreakable solidifying behind the black pupils of his eyes, and it unnerved her.

After several minutes of silence, Jacob pushed the top lid of the case open as far back as it would go. To his surprise, he noticed there was writing on the roof of the box. Written in pain-staking detail was what appeared to be a map. Shooting upright in bed, Jacob pulled the case closer to his eyes. The map showed two rows of numbers in the top left corner. Jacob figured they were either a combination to something or coordinates to a location. If it was the latter, Jacob knew it would be next impossible to find the location because the technology needed to do so was no longer available in these parts. In fact, it hadn’t been available in years.

Jacob directed his attention to the remainder of the map. There was a drawing of a river, some roads, and a series of bridges. Jacob knew where the river was, for it was no more than an hour’s journey from his farm. He also knew the roads. He had been on them before. As for the bridges, most of them were crumbling and impassable, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was how on one particular bridge there was an X, and next to that X was a message.

“Gather here,” Jacob read.

Jacob’s mouth dropped open in amazement. His hand drew to his chest and grabbed at his heart. A strange sense of delight and hope suddenly burst into his body.

“Gather here,” he read again with a grin.

Emily pressed her lips into a thin frown. Whatever it was they had dug out of the ground today, she knew she had better start preparing herself for the chain of events it had unleashed. Instinctively, her hand moved to her pregnant belly. Again, she sighed.

The following morning, Jacob saddled the horse he had acquired from the sentry. The notion of what lay hidden by the X on the map had eaten away at him all night. He had to know what was there. So he set out for the river since it was the closest landmark to his home. Emily stayed behind to make a shallow grave for the horseman’s body. Jacob took the handgun with him since he was the only one who knew how to use it. He tried to get Emily to fire a practice round into a tree, but she declined. The weapon, quite simply, frightened her.

It took Jacob about an hour to reach the river’s edge. Once there, he advanced along its borders until he came to the road labeled on the map. The map he carried in his hands was a recreation of the map from the case. It was just a few lines and some scribbling on a piece of paper. Jacob didn't need much detail, though. Since he was already acquainted with the land, this was a simple matter: find the river, find the road, find the second bridge along the road.

“Riverside Drive,” Jacob said to himself upon seeing the road.

At this, Jacob paused to make sure the pistol was still with him. Reaching into the saddlebag behind him, he felt for the weapon. When his fingers touched the cold metal of the gun, he was immediately comforted.

“Okay,” he breathed.

Proceeding onward then, Jacob led the horse onto the crumbling pavement of the road. The black horse beneath him made an audible sound with each step of its hooves. For the most part, it was the only noise that registered with him. Of course, he could hear the sound of the water rushing in the river, but his mind had long since tuned it out. After a while, he even started to ignore the “clickity-clack” of the horse’s steps.

It wasn’t until Jacob saw the second broken bridge over the river that his awareness fully returned. Everything rushing back into focus: the water, the hooves, the wind, the cold, the green leaves budding to life in the trees overhead. Kicking the horse at its sides, Jacob propelled the beast forward into a faster gait. Within minutes, he was at the bridge. Once there, he dismounted and tied the horse to a nearby tree.

The bridge itself was completely broken in half. Parts of its remains poked out of the water like the rib cage of a dead animal. A single rusty steel beam was all that connected the two ends of the bridge together. Jacob could see the waters racing below him. With Spring at hand, the snow upstream was melting so the river was fuller than normal.

Sweeping his gaze from one end of the tributary to the other, Jacob searched for something to catch his eye, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Undaunted, he persisted delving deeper into his surroundings. After all, this was a covert process. Counter-revolutions didn’t occur in the open. They happened in secret behind closed doors with cloaks and daggers.

Jacob stepped off the bridge and proceeded down the embankment to the water’s edge. Stepping over slippery, moss-cover boulders and gnarled patches of tree limbs, he made it far enough under the bridge to get a good look at its darkened underbelly. Unfortunately, there was nothing under the bridge except rust and spider webs.

Jacob sighed softly with frustration. He took another look at his surroundings. The only other item of interest to be seen was an old spillway that opened on the other side of the river. It poked out of the embankment in a rectangular concrete tube. From the looks of it, it appeared rather spacious. Jacob would have no trouble standing up inside its confines. There was just one problem: the river. Jacob couldn’t tell how deep it was. He knew the water was ice cold, and by the looks of the current it was strong enough to drag him down stream if he didn’t watch his step.

Jacob cast his gaze one last time to the forest around him. There were no other options left to explore except the spillway. So, this was it. This was his first trial by fire. Someone told him once: freedom isn’t free. At least, he thought he had heard that before. He wasn’t sure. But it sounded true, and it certainly fit this situation. Jacob wanted freedom, and if the alter of Liberty wanted blood—his blood—then he was willing to give it.

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Option 1: cross the river by going through the water.

Option 2: cross the river by using the steel beam over the river.