When the Devil Dances

Jake dropped into a small “cave” between two large granite boulders and breathed deep. The position was just about perfect and, coincidentally, about as far as his legs were going to take him. The two “boulders” — both the size of a large truck — were actually outcrops that had been worn away until one dropped onto the other. In between was a small, rather dry gap about head height on the west side that narrowed to barely knee height on the east. Located slightly below the true military crest of the mountain and to the west of the mountain’s summit, it looked over the last nearly vertical climb, which was on the east side of the mountain, and down to the saddle the Posleen would have to cross. Not only would the Posleen have to cross the saddle, struggle up the trail and then cross the actual summit, in full view most of the time, the position was darn near impregnable to anything but their heavy weapons — a concrete bunker might be a slight improvement, but not much — and had a back way out. Of course, the “back way” led to a four hundred foot high vertical cliff, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

The wind-swept mountain had once, clearly, been a popular hangout. There was still a vague outline of some old lean-tos and two fire pits. It was well covered in gnarled trees, white pine and oak with a scattering of maple, their twisted trunks and branches leaning primarily to the south. The reason for their twisting was clear; what had been a light breeze down on the flats was a blowing gale on the heights and the wind whipped the leaves around him in a fury.

There were several large boulders and outcrops, but most of the moutain was covered in loam and brush. The exception was by the cliff, where the loam came to an abrupt end about four meters from the edge. The first few meters of the cliff were broken, with a fair-sized cave on one side, a fair number of wind-twisted white pine and several ledges. However, beyond the ledges the cliff fell away sheer for over four hundred feet to the tree-covered base of the mountain. The trees swept out for almost a kilometer from there before hitting the beginnings of “civilization” and another open field.

Jake flipped down the bipod on the Barrett, flipped up the ladder sight and pushed an old Jack Daniel’s bottle out of the way. The range to the saddle, actually to the upper edge of it where the trail was clear of obstructions, was just at eight hundred meters. Judging distance like that, downhill in the mountains, was usually tough. But Jake’s AID just laid a hologram on the hill and marked various points with range markers.

What the AID could not judge quite so well was the wind. At that distance the bullet would tend to drift rather strongly, perhaps as much as six inches given the wind and its direction.

Fortunately, Posleen were big targets.

The sergeant major rolled Nichols’ rucksack off his back and rummaged around in it. He’d lightened it up on the way up the hill by some judicious disposal of devices, but it was the first “down-time” he’d had all day and all he’d had to eat since the previous night was a handful of hickory nuts he’d picked up on Ochamp Mountain.

Mosovich pulled out four one-hundred-round boxes of .50 caliber BMG, a bag of peanut hard candy, two packs of Red Man, three packs of some sort of apparently homemade jerky, and three MREs. Apparently Nichols wasn’t big on “pogie-bait.” No Fritos, no Pringles, no soynuts, trailmix or cornnuts, not even a damned Ramen package. What the hell were they teaching these kids? The MREs were spaghetti and meatballs, tortellini and lasagna. Either Nicols had eaten everything else before these or he had packed out mostly Italian. Mosovich dove back in and rummaged for a while, but came up empty. Nothing else, but socks.

“Damn, no hot sauce. What kind of a soldier goes out on a mission without hot sauce?” He could stomach the Army’s version of “Italian food” if it had enough hot sauce in it. Otherwise it was just south of fried salamander — which wasn’t half bad really — in his personal view of military food. Somewhere way down from fried grasshopper and just above kimchee. After a few moments’ thought he pulled out one of the pieces of jerky and sniffed at it. His brow rose and he took a bite.

“Where in the hell did Nichols get venison jerky?” he asked no one. “And how come he was holding out?” After a moment’s thought and another bite he answered the second question for himself. “I’m gonna have to speak to that troop about his choice of rations.”

The sergeant major leaned on the pack and listened to the artillery in the distance. As he did he realized that the position also gave the first clear view he’d had of Clarkesville. The town was darn near fourteen klicks off, but it was as close as the team had gotten and the day was clear.