TWENTY: “Check”
Chess is a primitive game. A few pieces, with specifically designated moves, face off against their likenesses on the other side, and after typically a great length of time, the battle concludes with one of two possible outcomes: checkmate or stalemate. Checkmate, in this situation, meant death for us. As pawns in this grand scheme, our options were limited, and we knew we were being circled and even somewhat manipulated by the rooks, knights, bishops and a particularly evil queen. The queen, Captain Eddie in this scenario, could come out of nowhere and take us with far more aggressive and effective strategies than the only move we could make as a pawn. There was no going back as a pawn—if we got caught in the open, we were done for. The advantage was to every other piece in the game. It sucked being a pawn.
No one understood our limitations and potential risks better than Danny. When he called Dad and Wes over and started his first question with, “If this were a chess match,” it was clear he was trying to put us several moves ahead. We listened to his reasoning. “Okay. We have to assume the captain found the bag. And, as a result, we have to assume he also has the maps. My guess is he’s pretty pissed he let us get away, and if he managed to connect the dots with the rifles and linked those to our vehicles, he’s probably made several other connections as well. We have no choice but to imagine we’ve made this into some kind of personal battle of wits with him. Like chess. We have to imagine he’s sitting outside our cave right now, waiting for us to come out to him. We can’t afford to assume for even a second that he’s not.” He allowed that ominous thought time to sink in.
“The problem is… we have to come out. We can’t stay here. More and more troops are probably on the way, and we don’t have nearly enough supplies to last us for more than a couple days. We need water. We need food. And we need to keep moving, or we’ll soon have no other moves.”
No one said anything. We just nodded. “Grandpa, you and Wes were checking out the maps,” Danny continued. “How many routes south to Rapid City are there?”
“From here to Highway 12…” Wes replied, pointing at the map in our remaining atlas. “There are three solid routes south in North Dakota and another if we crossed into Montana and went south on 7. That’s going to be the most wide-open one, but could therefore also be the riskiest. All the roads connect at Belle Fourche. If I were this captain, I’d be waiting for us there.” He put his finger firmly on the map. “In Belle Fourche.”
Danny looked around at the group. There were more nods, but Danny didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t know if I’m outthinking myself here or not, but that seems like the most obvious plan to me as well, and that’s why I don’t think he’s done that.” He rubbed his forehead. “Let’s say we’re right, and this guy is here and tracking us. How far ahead do you think he’d want to go to wait for us? He has to know we’re not traveling by day. We can’t, or the drones would have found us. If we’re still alive, he knows we’re only moving by night, so Belle Fourche is way too far for us to have gone. You’re right, he may eventually get there, but my money is on him trying to anticipate our next move and cutting us off before we even get that far.”
“So what do you think he’s doing, Danny?” Dad asked.
“I think… there wasn’t a Montana map in that case. We never figured to go through that far west. We knew we had to get to Rapid City as fast as we could. If I were him and I laid out those maps, I’d see a general route we’d be taking. I’d try to get ahead of us, but not too far, and I’d try to cover all our options to be absolutely certain to get us. I don’t think he’s looking at Montana. I could be wrong, but I think he’s set up to cut us off before we get to South Dakota. On this map there are three main routes south. If we take any one of them, I think we’re dead. I think the only way to go is the fourth, through Montana, and hope we sneak by on the outside.”
Again, no one responded. What he said made sense, but then he continued with the thought in the back of our minds. “But.” He again looked at us. “What if he thought there was no Montana map in there because we had that one with us and needed it for our route? What if he is, or isn’t, as smart as we give him credit for? And what if that was his logical reasoning all along? What if that seemed so obvious to him and he took all of his men to the same route? He’d be going all in with his chips, but if that’s what he did and we walk right into it, we’re dead. No doubt.”
Dad finally spoke. “I don’t think he did that, Danny.”
“Okay.” Danny looked at him and waited, suggesting he continue.
Dad started pacing. “In a poker game, that would be like going all in without looking at your cards. Or in chess, like leaving your queen in an open diagonal line with your opponent’s bishop. Maybe you’d get lucky. Or maybe you’d lose your best advantage. I don’t think he plays that way. This guy seems like he understands the way we think. If he does, he can’t be thinking we’d go through Montana. It wasn’t on any of the maps, and it’s out of our way. It’s the longer way to get to where we want to go. He can’t think we’re going there.”
“Let’s say I agree with you,” Danny responded. “How many of you are completely comfortable with the decision to go that way?”
We all raised our hands. Either way we had no way of knowing what we were walking into, and who knew if we would even make it that far. Or maybe we’d overestimated this captain and he was nowhere near us, and our worries about his ambitions were in vain.
“Okay then,” Danny continued. “It’s almost dark.” Pointing at Blake and Nathan, he asked, “You two know the roads around here pretty well, right?” They nodded. “We need to travel as remotely as possible out of this park, and then we need to cut over to Montana without coming close to the interstate. Can that be done?” Again they nodded and started discussing the best possible route. “I’ll leave it to you,” Danny said. “You get me to Highway 7 in Montana, and I’ll take it from there.”
“Got it,” Blake said.
“Perfect.” Danny patted him on the shoulder, walking towards the trucks. “We leave in an hour.”
I could almost hear our hearts pounding off the walls of the cave. He came walking back a minute later with a shovel Tara’s dad had given us. “Let’s clear the entrance out and get ready to go.”
A little more than 150 miles south of the cave, Captain Eddie had moved his men into concealed ambush positions where the three roads south met Highway 20. Comfortable their THIRST systems could blanket ten miles in every direction, he was satisfied they had the sixteen to twenty mile gaps between their three patrols covered. On the other hand, one outlier still troubled him, and that was the alternative route down through Montana. Two times now he’d had these people where he should have been able to capture them. If they made it past him a third time, he was going to start looking incompetent to his own men, and nothing led to rebellion quicker than incompetence. Highway 323 south through Montana was only eighteen miles west of the men on Camp Crook Road, but that was beyond the extent of their radar. If he was to believe the intel numbers, he was confident he could take a few members from each of the three current squads and send twelve men to guard the Montana route. He had an extra THIRST set, and that would cover every likely American travel scenario, so he decided to do just that. It would weaken each patrol a little, but not enough to hurt them against a dozen or so lightly armed, unsuspecting Americans.