The Hunted

11:40 p.m., November 14Mae Hong Son Province, Northern ThailandScared. The word didn’t even begin to describe how I was feeling. Words like frightened, terrified, and sheer panic came closer. Yet, somehow, I triedto catch my breath and stay silent at the same time as my heart raced and every cell in my body told me to run. Beside me, my best friend, Mike, crouched next to the tree I was hiding behind, peering back into the darkness.The black Thailand jungle pushed in on all sides. Earlier inthe day, the jungle had looked exciting to me, full of promise,mystery, and things to explore. Now, at just a little after midnight,it had become a humid, terror-filled nightmare.My two other rafting buddies, Hollis and Dave, were hidingten feet away behind another tree. I could see only theirvague shapes in the faint moonlight, and I couldn’t hear themat all over the pounding of my own heart.Dear Lord, I don’t want to die. I repeated the thought, like aprayer. Dear Lord, please don’t let me die. Not now. Not here.The men who had been our guides, and who now wantedto kill us, crashed through the brush. It sounded to me likethey were very close behind us. The noise they made seemedfantastically loud, like they were giant horror movie monsters.My mouth was completely dry and I wanted to throw upwhat was left of the fish dinner I’d eaten a few hours ago, backwhen everything was still wonderful, still a happy adventure.But I knew that if I did, they’d hear me. They’d find me. They’dfind my friends. And our lives would be over.I took shallow breaths, trying to be as quiet as I could,working to calm myself, listening to every sound around me,no matter how small.A mosquito buzzed at my ear. I stopped myself from brushing it away.Swearing echoed through the trees, followed by shoutingin a Thai dialect I didn’t understand. Of course, I didn’t under-stand anything but the most basic Thai words and phrases, justwhat I’d picked up listening to a language tape for a few hourshere and there over the last couple of months.Two months ago, I hadn’t even planned on coming here.“John, we have to move,” Mike whispered, but his voicesounded more like a shout in my ears.The faint light of the half moon through the jungle canopymade everything seem surreal, almost dreamlike. I could tellthe men who were after us were coming, somehow followingus, crashing through the Mae Hong Son Province jungle likeelephants on a stampede.I wanted to hold my hand against my chest to silence mypounding heart for fear that the men with the guns could hear it.“John,” Mike whispered again.“If we move, they’ll hear us,” I mouthed back, my threadof a voice sounding to my ears like a shout telling everyone our location.Calm down! The thought, a warning ringing inside my head, helped me.Calm. Calm. Think.“Doesn’t matter. They’ll find us here,” Mike said. “We haveto keep moving. You ready?”I glanced back in the direction of the men chasing us. Icouldn’t see them, but I could hear them. There were at least ten of them.We were supposed to be sleeping. They had planned towait for us to go to sleep before they tried to kidnap us. ButMike had overheard two of our guides talking about it earlierin the minivan, thinking we didn’t understand them. Luckyfor us, Mike knew just enough of the Thai language to get thegist of what they were saying. He’d traveled all over the worldon his rafting expeditions, and had picked up bits and piecesof all kinds of languages along the way. He had kept quiet,watched them, warned us, and then gotten us all out of camp just in time.Right now, I wasn’t sure what good that would do us.The men who were chasing us knew this jungle. I didn’t.Neither did Mike or Hollis or Dave. I was a city guy. My wildernessexperience was limited to the Cascade Mountains backhome in Oregon. And I’d spent time in a few elk-hunting areasmy father had taken me to years ago. But I knew nothing aboutthe mountains and jungles of northern Thailand.Nothing.Except for studying a few maps of the river area we plannedon rafting, we had left all the rest up to our guides. The sameguides who had turned on us and were searching for us now.I heard one of the guys I was with take a step.Suddenly, it seemed like the world around me exploded.Two of our would-be captors, or their friends, opened firewith their AK-47s, spraying the trees and brush like they weretrying to mow down everything in front of them.We were in front of them.With a sickening thud, a bullet smacked into the tree rightbeside my head, sending bark and splinters into the side of myface before I even had time to react.Hollis yelled, “Run!” and took off away from the gunfire.Dave followed him quickly.So much for my plan of hiding. I stayed firmly plantedbehind the tree, and Mike crouched at my knees as anotherblast of gunfire from our former guides tore through the trees and underbrush.“Now,” Mike said. “Follow Hollis.”As a team, just as we had worked on so many other thingsover the years, Mike and I moved at the same time, sprintingthrough the brush following our two panicked rafting buddies.The brush ripped at my arms, branches jabbed at my legs, therough ground beneath my feet threatened to trip me with every moment.Somehow, both Mike and I managed to stay on our feetand running, the shapes of the looming trees of the junglenothing but dark shadows to be passed under and around.Behind us, more gunfire cut through the trees. Another shotcame frighteningly close. I saw it cut off a branch beside me.It seemed the people who wanted to first kidnap us to gainappropriate international publicity, now just plain wanted usdead. They didn’t seem to care about their earlier plans. Itseemed we had made them angry by escaping and messing with their agenda.After what felt like an eternity of slashing our way throughthe brush, bullets flying after us, we caught up with John andHollis. Hollis, overweight and out of shape, had stopped andwas fighting to catch his breath. Even though he owned asporting goods store in Hood River, right at the base of MountHood, and snow skied all winter, he still was in bad condition.Mike and I had worried about him a great deal through theyears on our tougher rafting trips. In this heat, running on thisterrain, he wasn’t going to make it very far.The faint light from the half moon seemed far brighterthan it should. Full-blown panic throttled all of us. I knewpanic never got a person anything but killed, no matter whatthe situation was. And that’s exactly what panic would do tous now. We had to calm down and think carefully, as clearlyas was possible under the circumstances. Otherwise, we weregoing to be listed as missing tourists in the remote northernregions of Thailand, and no one but our families and friends would care.I was sweating like I had just finished a hard workout atthe gym. I took two long, deep breaths, making sure to exhalecompletely. My mouth tasted like paper. Which brought upanother point. We were going to need water, and soon, at thisrate. Mike had rousted us out of the camp so quickly andsilently that I hadn’t thought to bring anything except whatwas in my waterproof fanny pack. No water.Of course, if we hadn’t moved as fast as we had, we wouldbe kidnapped by now. Or dead.I glanced at the other three. Mike had only his emergencyfanny pack as well, strapped to the small of his back. Dave hada small daypack, and Hollis had nothing.“You all right?” Mike whispered to Hollis. Hollis only nodded,his breathing sounding like he might keel over at any moment.I stood up straight and forced myself to think and continueto breathe deeply. We had to figure out where we were,and then outsmart the men following us.Somehow.I glimpsed the slice of moon shining through the trees.“The river’s to our right,” I whispered to Mike. “We’reheaded upstream and toward it slightly. We’re going to be tooeasy to follow at this rate.”Mike stood from where he had been kneeling beside Hollisand looked around. “You’re right. The way we’re crashing throughthe jungle, a blind man could follow us without a cane.”“We can’t keep this up,” I whispered, glancing at Hollis. Itwas clear he wasn’t going to be running that much farther.“They’ll expect us to keep going the way we’re going,”Mike whispered back. “Or to head for the river to try to follow it back into town.”“Agreed,” I said. “We go left then,” Mike said. “As slowly and as quietly aswe can. Let them go by us.”More gunfire sprayed the jungle, not as close as it had beenbut still sounding far louder than I wanted to think about. Wehad to do something, and do it soon.“The road’s to the left,” Dave said. “Won’t they expect usto go back there to try to get out?”“We go under the road,” Mike said. “And keep going.There’s a bridge over a stream about a half mile above thecamp. Remember? We get into the water and go up that streamand find a place to hide in the mountain area. They won’t look for us up there.”I nodded, remembering the large bridge and runningwater I had seen just after we made camp this afternoon. Thebridge was a good thirty feet over the streambed, and thestream itself had looked shallow enough to wade in. “It might work. Let’s do it.”Mike put his hand on Hollis’s shoulder. “Can you move?”“I’m fine,” Hollis said, brushing off Mike’s hand.I knew that Hollis and Mike were having trouble dealingwith each other, especially after what happened in Bangkok theprevious night. Their relationship had been sorely strained. Theymight not ever work it out fully. But we had to get out of herealive, so they had to deal with each other now, like it or not.Actually, after last night, I was still uncomfortable aroundHollis. I knew it wasn’t very Christian of me, but there weretimes I found it easier to just walk away than face up to things.I knew that I was in the wrong, but I was finding the conceptof forgiveness and grace a bit difficult under the circumstances.After Hollis confessed his sins to us, I hoped time wouldheal the wounds. After all, we had been rafting companionssince college fifteen years before. I wanted to get over my angerand lingering sense of betrayal.Maybe that was optimistic. After all, we might not have much time left.“We go as slowly and silently as we can,” Mike said. “Try not to break any branches, leave any trail.”“Yeah, right,” Dave said.I agreed with Dave. Four men from Portland, Oregon,sneaking around in Thailand’s jungles not leaving a trail. Not possible.“I’ll lead,” Mike said. “Hollis, stay close to me. Dave and John, bring up the rear.”Without waiting for an argument from Hollis, Mikestarted off to the left, headed at an angle away from the menfollowing us and back toward the Mae Hong Son Loop. Thatroad was the only way in and out of the hundreds of miles ofnorthern Thailand’s mountains and jungles. It connected thetown of Mai Hong Son and the capital of the province, ChiangMai. We had flown in from Bangkok to Chiang Mai early thismorning. That now seemed like an eternity, a lifetime ago.Behind us to the left, more machine gun fire cut into thejungle, more shouting in a language I didn’t understand. Whatwere four adult men from the Pacific Northwest doing here?How had it come to this?A stray bullet smashed through the brush between Daveand me, thudding into the ground and sending up a spray ofdirt. It froze me for a moment. I could have been standingthere. Really, it would only have taken an extra step, just a secondof difference one way or another.I might have died right in that spot.But I didn’t have time to think about that now.Dave disappeared ahead of me and I forced myself to keepmoving, stepping quickly past the place the shot had hit.Dear God, please help us.In the dark jungle of northern Thailand, with men chasingus with machine guns, it felt to me like God had forgotten us. Isure hoped I was wrong.