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“We’ve gotta hurry!” Sean said to Brody after looking down at his watch. “We’ve only got fifteen minutes ‘til the first check-in.”
“I’m hurrying,” Brody responded while pushing the gas pedal down a little further. They had coordinated incremented times with David and the town of Tionesta to be listening for ham radio transmissions from the East Homestead. With the scouting group poking around the North Homestead earlier that morning, it was paramount to get lines of communication set up. The problem was their meeting with Pastor Dan ran a little longer than they had planned. To top it off, they also encountered a large tree which had fallen down across the road in the storm two nights before, forcing them to dig out the chainsaw and clear the road.
Brody brought the truck to a screeching halt as Sean jumped out and headed for the gate to open it, not waiting for someone on watch to walk across the field and let them in. It took Sean a minute to find the small rock with the hidden key and by the time he had the gate unlocked, Damian was halfway across the field headed in their direction. Sean waved at him as he swung the gate wide and Brody pulled the Bronco forward. Sean quickly closed and relocked the gate, and jumped back into the vehicle. Brody spun the rear tires as he headed up the long rutted driveway. They stopped long enough for Damian to jump in the back seat next to Maria and then they were off once more, headed for the main retreat cabin.
“What’s the rush?” Damian chuckled as he bounced around unceremoniously in the back seat.
“We came to test out the new ham radio towers and see if they’ll reach out here. Our first check-in time is in two minutes,” Sean said, glancing down at his watch for the thirty-fourth time.
“Ahhhh,” Damian said in understanding. Brody fish-tailed the rear end of the old Ford on the last bend leading up to the cabin, sending Damian sliding across the worn leather backseat and smashing into Maria. “I didn’t realize I’d need my seatbelt to get up the driveway,” he chuckled as he slid back over to his side and tightly grabbed ahold of Brody’s headrest.
As soon as the tires came to a stop, all three of them jumped out, rushing up the stairs to the tower room of the retreat. Maria took her time and made her way into the kitchen to see who she could find to chat with. She also wanted to get a glass of water as the windy country roads had made her a little carsick.
Just as the others reached the tower room, Sean turned on the power of the ham radio and looked down at his watch, “Thirty seconds...,” he said out loud. In the awkward silence of waiting that followed, they realized they were all huffing and puffing and they burst out laughing. At the stroke of noon, they quieted down and Sean keyed the mic. “Gondor, Shire, this is Bree. Do you copy?” Sean suddenly noticed that Andrew was on watch, standing next to a window, and he gave him a small wave and smile. A few moments went by before a loud batch of static came through the channel, forcing Sean to turn down the speaker. He could actually hear David’s voice coming through and a random word here or there, but not enough to get the gist of what he was saying. Sean turned and frowned to Brody and Damian who both just stared down at the radio in hope.
After the static ended, a few more moments passed by before they received another transmission which was significantly clearer this time. “This is Gondor. We copy your last transmission, Bree. Did you receive the message a moment ago from the Shire?”
“No we didn’t,” Sean responded. “It was completely garbled. I only made out a word or two.”
“Copy that. They said they could tell someone was transmitting from your end but all they received was static and they couldn’t make out a single word. They only responded to see if it would work the other way. We read you fairly well here, but not perfect.” The man’s voice came through the handheld ham radio with a mixture of static.
“This is Bree. Same here,” Sean answered. “I read you but there is some static involved, as well. Tell the Shire that we will try and reach both of you from a different location in one hour: at the stroke of one.”
“I’ll forward your message. Talk to you in an hour. Gondor out.” Sean turned the handheld ham radio off and stuck it back into his cargo pocket just as Randy came to the top of the steps, followed by Caleb.
“Hey, guys!” Randy greeted them warmly. “So, Brody...you ready for this Saturday?” he asked in reference to the wedding ceremony being held in Tionesta.
Brody blushed as usual when talking about Beth Ann. “I guess so. Honestly, I’ve been too busy to even think about it much.”
“Whatever!” Caleb challenged him with a light punch to the shoulder. “I don’t buy it. You be out there hoeing vegetables like ‘oh Beth Ann, oh Beth Ann!’” Caleb teased in his usual teasing manner while pretending to swing a hoe.
Brody ignored the laughter of his friends and quickly changed the subject. “We’ve got a security issue that needs to be discussed. We had four well-armed men poking around the North Homestead, as well as the other two vacant farms on our street, early this morning. They were picked up by six vehicles full of armed men. Neither Tionesta nor Warren saw them, so they either came across the bridge in West Hickory or they came from somewhere around here.”
“Do you think they could be part of the same group we fought off this spring?” Andrew asked from the other side of the room while adjusting his glasses.
“Who knows? Could be,” Brody shrugged his shoulders. “The point is, you guys might want to double up your watch for a while. Also, the Bronco is nearly out of gas and Tionesta’s gas station is nearly empty as well. Where do we stand on the gasoline fuel tank here?”
“Well, you guys are the only ones really using it as our tractor runs on diesel. I haven’t looked recently, but I believe it’s down below half,” Damian answered.
“Probably closer to a third,” Caleb added. “I used some for the rototiller the other day.”
“If we don’t get these lines of communication set up, we’re going to be in trouble,” Sean pointed out the obvious. “We’ve scrounged every last bit of gas from the local cars near North Homestead. We better find some horses soon or we’re going to be limited to walking.”
Damian nodded his head in agreement, “Well, then, let’s get to it. Where do you guys want to try transmitting from next? One o’clock is going to get here real fast.”
“On the way in, I was thinking about taking that extra tree stand in the garage and setting it up at the top of the hill if the tower didn’t work,” Sean spoke up. “We might need to trim some tree branches off the surrounding trees to get a good north-westerly line-of-sight, but it may work.”
Caleb grimaced and shook his head dubiously but couldn’t really think of an alternative. No one else spoke up, so Damian finally said, “While I don’t like the idea of climbing the hill each time we want to get in touch with you, that sounds like the only idea we have. I’ll head downstairs to the basement and get the pole saw if you guys want to grab the tree stand and meet me out back.”
“I’m going to go and let the men on watch know to stay alert,” Brody offered.
Damian nodded his approval before they split up and went in different directions. A few minutes later they were hiking up the long hill behind the retreat. By the time they reached the top it was already 12:30.
“We need to hurry and work our way to the backside of the hill and find a tall tree facing northwest,” Sean said as he pulled out his military surplus tritium compass and got a heading. “Let’s spread out in a line ten yards apart and head this way,” he suggested, pointing towards their heading. They spread out and only a couple minutes later the ground started dropping away from them. Sean called a halt and they milled around the area until they found a large pine tree that was a bit taller than the surrounding trees. Randy went to work climbing the tree as high as he could before dropping a rope to hoist up the pole saw. The group had been hanging tree stands for years and they didn’t even need to talk about what was needed next. Caleb slung the hang-on tree stand over his shoulder and started climbing the tree, followed by Sean whose cargo pockets where full of ratchet straps. By the time Caleb reached Randy’s boots, he was lathered in sweat. Sean climbed up around the backside of the tree and gathered a good foothold before taking out a piece of webbing and attaching it to his riggers belt so he could lean away from the tree without using his hands to hang on.
“Almost done,” Randy said as he finished sawing through a final branch. “Head’s up!” he hollered down to Damian as a large dead branch flew past Caleb, only to get stuck on a couple other branches ten feet below them and blocking their descent. “Shoot!” Randy exclaimed. “I should have tried to throw that out instead of just letting it fall.”
“It’s fine,” Caleb said as he perched precariously below Randy and Sean. “We’ll deal with it later. Let’s just get this thing hung; it’s killing my shoulder.”
“Well, hand it up then,” Randy responded impatiently. Once Randy had it positioned into place, Caleb took an extra step up to help him support the base of the stand from underneath while Sean quickly went to work with the ratchet straps. In less than two minutes the tree stand was securely fastened to the tree and Randy climbed into the seat and relaxed for a minute while Caleb worked his way down to move the tree branch he had dropped earlier. Randy peered around the tree with a wink to Sean before hollering down to Damian. “We’re going to need a section of steps to make it easier to get into the stand!” He was getting ready to drop the rope once more when Sean stopped him.
“Let’s forget about that for now. We’ve only got twelve minutes left. I need to get in there and see if we need any more limbs trimmed,” Sean insisted. Randy nodded and carefully climbed his way out of the stand, allowing Sean to climb in and take his place. Sean pulled the compass out once more and pulled a heading. Once he found their heading, he cursed himself for not taking one before they placed the stand into the tree. The direction they would need to transmit was off to his left and Randy had cleared the limbs in front of them. Sean quickly went to work with the pole saw pushing it back and forth at a furious pace. A few minutes later he surveyed his work only to discover a medium sized Maple tree in the way ten yards in front of him. “Randy! I’m going to need you to cut this tree out of my way ASAP!” Sean looked at his watch: six minutes.
“You gotta be kidding me!” Randy said as he looked in the direction Sean was pointing.
“Get a move on, Kid!” Sean insisted sarcastically. “You’ve got six minutes....five and a half to be exact.”
Randy started to scramble down out of the tree at a pace only Randy could achieve. Sean studied the tree and tried to determine if it would be quicker to cut it with a two man saw from the bottom or have him climb the tree and trim individual branches out of the way. “It’s probably going to be faster to bring the whole thing down with the crosscut saw than to climb the tree and cut each branch!” Sean hollered down as Randy dismounted and dropped the last ten feet to the ground. Randy and Caleb went to work on the crosscut saw with Damian rotating in so they could maintain a furious pace.
Sean pulled the radio out of his cargo pocket and powered it on just as Caleb yelled out, “Timber!” Sean watched as the tree croaked, slowly picking up speed as it fell to the ground with a large crash.
Sean looked down to see Damian and Randy collapse in exhaustion, leaving the crosscut saw sticking in the stump, still wobbling. “Good work, Boys,” he hollered down to them in praise. He checked his watch once more: one minute to spare. Sean sat down to relax and admired the wonderful view of the Allegheny National Forest spread out before him. Although it was not a particularly windy day, at this height the tree stand gently swayed. The hill they were on wasn’t the tallest one in the area, but it was at least higher than the two hills off to his left. Hopefully it would be enough to get a signal back to the North Homestead.
Sean stood back up and keyed the mic, “This is Bree. Shire, do you copy?”
There was a short pause before David’s voice came back. “This is the Shire. I copy you Bree. How well are you receiving?”
Sean keyed the mic again, “You are slightly distorted, but I can hear you just fine. How about on your end?”
“You are coming in with a fair amount of static, but I can still make out everything you are saying,” David responded.
“Good. We’ll be rowing back to the Shire in the next hour or two. I’m going to try and contact Gondor from this new location.
“Copy that. Shire out,” David said as he signed off.
“Gondor, are you receiving me?” Sean asked into the mic.
There was a crackling in the speaker and he could hear the man from Tionesta, but not clearly enough to follow exactly what he was saying. He waited until the speaker stopped squawking before keying his mic once more. “Gondor, I’m not sure if you are reading us, but I can’t read you from this location. Everything is coming through garbled. Shire, can you please let Gondor know we can’t receive transmissions from them at this new location. Let them know we’ll speak with them in person when we pass through Gondor.”
“Copy that,” David responded. “I’ll pass it along. We’ll see you later this evening.”
“Alright, we’ll see you this evening. Bree out.” Sean turned off the radio and lowered the pole saw back to the ground where Caleb untied it before tying a section of hang-on steps to the rope. Sean pulled it up and attached the steps next to the tree stand. There weren’t any branches in that section and it made it a lot easier to get in and out of the stand. In short order, Sean had his feet back on solid ground and the others looked at him expectantly.
“You can reach North Homestead fairly clearly from up there but not Tionesta. I think we may have gone too far over the crest of the hill. There are just too many trees to the southwest and the top of the hill is in the way to transmit.”
“Well, I guess we’ll be relaying messages back and forth through Tionesta then,” Damian said disappointedly.
“It looks that way,” Sean agreed. “I was going to say that we may want to look for another tree a little bit further around the ridge, but I also like the fact that you can reach us privately if you want to.”
“Yeah, if I want to climb a mountain each time,” Damian said sarcastically. They chuckled and packed up their gear before heading back down the hill to the retreat.