Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

won’t break.”
    “How will I know which are dry and which are wet?”
    “Practice.”
    “Eff me.” I sighed in frustration.
    “I didn’t say it was easy or fast. What’s your hurry?”
    “No hurry,” I said, casually. “I’m not worried about it. I’ll figure it out. But isn’t there like, kind of a default will-work-in-most-situations method I could try?”
    “Sure. It’s called the shuffle.”
    “It sounds noisy.”
    “Well it is. But the idea is to mimic normal sounds of the woods or the swamp. Animals shuffle. Birds shuffle sometimes. People don’t.”
    “So I need to sound like an animal?”
    “Yep.”
    “Show me.”
    Coli took a few steps, basically using her toes to toss dry leaves and twigs out of her way, and only stepping down where there was bare earth beneath her feet. When she went fast, she sounded like someone shuffling through the leaves. But when she went slow, it almost sounded like something natural - not human.
    “Wow. That is bad ass.”
    “Yeah, it is.”
    “Let me try,” I said, excited to give it a go. I took five steps before Coli started laughing.
    “Yep. Still a buffalo. Where are my bow and arrows? I’m hungry.”
    “Shut up,” I said, trying not to smile. I was pretty pitiful in the sneaking department, that much was obvious. “So this is it? This is the whole lesson?”
    “Once you’ve mastered this, come find me. Maybe I can teach you more, but until you can do this, it’s just a waste of time for both of us.”
    “How did you get so good at it?” I was busy pushing my feet through the leaves, trying to figure out how to shuffle less and step more, but it didn’t seem to be working.
    “My grandmother taught me. She was the best.”
    “Now you’re the best.”
    Coli shrugged. “Not really. But I’m good enough.”
    I looked up at her, but her expression revealed nothing. I wondered how many of my conversations she’d overheard, being her sneaky self outside my hut.
    “I’ve gotta go. Do you know how to find your way back?”
    “Hell no! Don’t leave me out here.”
    She sighed. “Well, come on then. Bus is leaving.”
    We made our way back to my hut where Coli left me and then disappeared. I listened for her footsteps as she walked away but didn’t hear them. All I could detect was an occasional shuffling sound that reminded me of a small animal more than a person.
    I have to figure out how to do that. I walked around the hut for about ten minutes, trying to get a feel for the different leaves beneath my feet and the technique, before finally giving up. Lunch would be arriving soon, and I was tired of failing. It wasn’t a familiar feeling for me, and I didn’t like it one bit. I was going to have to defeat this sneaking thing, just so I didn’t have to experience it anymore. I think I was getting a taste of how my dad felt, when he first started doing krav maga. He used to tell me it drove him to improve, when he realized how much he couldn’t do. It never made sense to me before, but it sure did now.
    I laid down on my mattress and stared at the ceiling, thinking about my dad, wishing he were here with me. He’d tried to teach me so many things, and I’d blown him off over and over again. I would have given anything to have him back with me right then, and the fact that there was nothing in the world I could do to make that happen just made me cry.
    I calmed myself by taking George’s journal out of my backpack and reading it. I found all kinds of stuff on ambushes and sneak attacks that seemed totally appropriate for what I had in mind for those canners. I turned down a couple pages to show to the guys later.
    ***
    Lunch came, delivered by none other than the two chiefs.
    “Wow. I’m honored. Lunch hand-delivered by the head honchos.”
    Kowi smiled but Trip gave me no reaction, his face remaining serious.
    “It was faster. We figured we could get this scouting mission figured out while we ate.” Kowi looked around the hut and surrounding area. “Where are Peter and Bodo?”
    “I have no idea. Peter’s probably off organizing the swamp and Bodo’s … wherever.” I didn’t want to alert them to the fact that he just disappears all the time, so I smiled really big. “What’s for lunch today?”
    “Someone bagged a wild turkey, so turkey sandwiches if you can believe that,” said Trip.
    “Holy crap, really?” I walked over and looked in the basket. Sure enough, there were thick sandwiches, full of meat. I grabbed