Meanwhile, at the blockade time dissolves into a somewhat meaningless concept. You wake up, you work until you are tired, you rest. Still, in the month or so since you arrived, it’s amazing what has been accomplished. Land has been cleared and a foundation laid for a brand new cabin. Spawning season has come and fish are being canned for the winter. New volunteers arrive almost daily. Even the mainstream media has made the long drive up the gravel road to come visit the blockade.
You have also been gaining increased attention from the police who have established a watch on the road, taking photographs of vehicles and their drivers and they come and go from the camp. Disconcerting as this is, there is nothing to be done about it, and so far they have made no effort whatsoever to pass through the barricade. Nonetheless, the camp is in an elevated state of alertness, which is taking its toll on morale. Naturally people begin to unravel, getting jumpy every time the dogs bark, and hearing phantom vehicles on the road. You can’t help but succumb to it as well. After all, it’s not paranoid to think that they’re out to get you while you really are under active surveillance.
One night around midnight, you awake disoriented. Someone is shaking you.
“What. What is it? What’s going on?”
“You’re supposed to be on night watch with Raven,” says the silhouette of a person whose face you can’t quite make out in the dark. “They sent me to come get you.”
Sitting up straight in your sleeping bag, you try and let your eyes adjust. “Sorry, I must have forgot to set my watch,” you say stretching your arms.
“No probs. I’m going to bed though.”
“Goodnight,” you say to the unknown shadow as they retreat into the night.
You find your shoes and make your way over to the kitchen, filling up a big thermos full of coffee before heading over to the barricade. The watch on the barricade is vigilantly maintained especially at night to keep the camp from being caught unaware while people sleep. Night shift is always done in pairs to ensure that nobody falls asleep while on watch. In the event of a problem, you’re to sound the alarm with air horns and flares; but nothing ever happens. As you approach the guard post, you can see Ravens slender profile illuminated by the glow from a cigarette.
“I brought coffee, you want some?”
“I’d love a cup.”
You pour two steaming cups and pass one over to Raven
“How’s it going?” you ask.
“Quiet as usual.”
The two of you sit sipping your coffee and stare into the night. When you can’t see much of anything at all, you become more dependent on the sounds you hear to gauge your surroundings. Some small animal is scurrying around in the bushes to your right, bats dart through the sky above you barely perceivable, the occasional hoot of an owl, the sound of tires on gravel.
“Did you hear that?” you ask.
“Hear what?”
“I thought I heard a vehicle on the road.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
You stay completely still, barely breathing while you scan the night for noises. It’s as silent as the inside of a tomb. So quiet you can hear your heart push the blood through your veins.
“I guess it must have been the wind,” you say.
Another reason to have two people on guard duty at night is that you can’t always trust your own senses. Staring into nothingness for hours on end can have strange effects on your sense of reality. Sometimes your mind overcompensates for a lack of sensory input and you see things that aren’t actually there. Flashes of light, a movement in the shadows, it helps to have a second person there to judge what is real and what’s in your imagination.
The wind picks up a gentle breeze which carries with it the distant sound of an engine. You tilt your ear in the direction of the sound and glance over at Raven.
“I heard that too,” they say.
“Well if you heard it too, then it can’t just be inside my head.”
You hesitate a moment before rising decisively “I’m going to check it out,” you announce, grabbing a walky-talky and a battery powered flood light “I’ll do a radio check when I reach the barricade.”
“You’d better take this too,” says Raven, handing you a can of bear spray. “If there’s someone out there sneaking around in the dark, they’re probably not friendly.”
“Stop it. You’re freaking me out,” you say, but you fasten the canister to your belt nonetheless.
The guard post is nothing more than two folding chairs and a fire pit beneath four posts and a makeshift roof. The real protection comes from the barricade about a hundred yards up the road. But out in the dark, beyond the psychological shelter of the guard post, you feel quite exposed. Your senses are on edge, you are hyper aware. Even the fall of your own feet on gravel seems so loud it would certainly drown out any other noises that may alert you to someone else in your presence. You pause and listen to the night as you approach the barricade. Pressing down softly on the talk button of the walky-talky, you speak to your partner back at the guard post. “Radio check.” Your own voice sounds hollow and shaky in your ears.
Raven’s response on the radio is crackly but reassuring. “Copy, I hear you, and I can see you as clear as day. Over”
You clip the radio to the front of your shirt and unfasten the bear spray by your side. Your grip around the handle of the floodlight is slippery with sweat, and it trembles ever so slightly as you hold it out before you like an oversized pistol. In the electric blue light from the halogen bulb the world looks as still as a photograph. You’re out of sight of the guard post now, so you stop to listen and check in with Raven.
“Still nothing,” you report into the mic before continuing cautiously up the road and around the bend.
From where you now stand the entire valley unfolds before you completely motionless, peaceful even. You turn off the light and watch the forest which never quite sleeps beneath the stars.
“I must be losing it,” you say to yourself and walk slowly back under the pale light of the moon.
It takes a while for you to calm down as the hours creep by uneventfully, and the night gradually transforms into dawn. The coffee has gone cold, and the two of you sit huddled underneath a blanket watching your breath come out in frosty little puffs.
Original photo by: VICFAN