I was laying on my back resting letting my eyes drift upward to the blue sky overhead, as I contemplated the second act of the drama that I was embroiled in. Not too long after Trent’s disappearance in walked my granddaughter. I watched her gracefully comb some of her wet hair behind one ear. What a positive sign that was.
Uh Oh!
I began to sense I was in trouble, if the measured tone of her stride toward me was any indication. I kept my features serene, as she quietly sat down on a rock close beside me. Her face was hard to read and I hoped mine was too.
“You meddle too much in other people’s affairs grandfather. You put him up to that didn’t you?”
I nodded admitting my guilt.
“You’ve always pushed too hard!” She stated with emphasis.
I nodded again.
She looked away and I couldn’t get a read on what she was thinking.
“Is it working?”
She nodded slowly, “Maybe.” She said softly. Her eyes came back to mine and I saw the raw pain she’d been masking.
Emotion rose in her tone, as she started talking, “I thought I lost everything! But he says it’s all still there! I want to believe him! I want the future we had planned together, but I don’t know if I can.…..” She said her voice trailing off miserable sounding.
“Avoid disappointing him?” I filled in for her.
She nodded emphatically before saying, “I feel thin. I feel like if I try too much I’ll snap and go crazy!”
I nodded in understanding more deep than she knew.
She grew quiet and I watched the emotions and self-doubts that swirled across her face.
“I was tortured once.”
Her eyes abruptly halted from her thoughts and showed surprised instead, “When?”
“Long before you were born.”
“You’ve never talked about it.” She said softly prompting.
“Well, as I’m sure you can attest to, it’s not something you want to remember let alone talk about with anyone. In a way it’s quite humiliating isn’t it?”
“Yes!” She intoned emphatically, but I went on, as if I hadn’t heard her speak.
“All of your basic concepts of self and life and the way you live it yanked out and exposed. Turned on end and broken. I know the crisis of identity you’re going through honey. Some of your struggle will be with you for the rest of your life, but it doesn’t have to define you or be how you’re known by.”
“Who helped you?” She asked softly.
“Your grandmother. She was an amazing woman. I kept telling her that I wasn’t the same man that I was before. She just kept telling me and treating me like I was and one day I realized that I was.”
I reached out to gently touch her taped together fingers. “Trent’s that person for you.”
She nodded, as tears fell freely down her face.
“He can help you pick up the pieces, but it’s going to take Divine help to glue them all back together.”
She nodded.
“Do you mind if I pray with you?”
“I would like that!”
And that’s what I did.
Having been done praying for a few moments and just basking in the peace that comes, when needed most, I decided it was time to complete this positively upturned day. I made my way up to my feet slowly. Taking her good hand I pulled her up and roundly smacked Deshavi on the bottom.
She backed away from me in surprise rubbing at her rear as she did so, “What was that for?”
“To keep you from getting too complacent. Go on with you now! There’s reconstruction work to be done.”
“Now?” She asked uncertainly.
“Yes now! What are you waiting for, a golden invitation?”
She smiled at me, the first in what seemed like an age. She came to me then and her arms looped around me in a hug, which I gently returned.
She drew back a little, “You’ve always pushed too hard, but you’ve always been there for me to. Thank you grandpa for everything!”
I watched her go then. I shook my head, as I thought to myself how odd it was that the battles and torments of one’s own past could become the object lessons and encouragements needed to help the younger generation through the difficulties they faced in the present. It was sort of like I had been paving the way forward for them with my life. I liked being able to do it for them, but I just wished I hadn’t had to experience what I had just the same. Still, if what happens to one in life is largely unavoidable, then at least some of the bad occurrences I had suffered were turning out with more positive endings to them.
Deshavi’s foot snapped a twig and Trent looked around and showed surprise at seeing her. They were at the opening of the cut and it was colder there. Deshavi, with her arms wrapped around herself, for warmth, surprised Trent even further by stepping up against his chest.
Before he could frame a question of why or ask what was wrong she looked up and sincerely asked, “Could you just please hold me and tell me I’m pretty?”
Trent’s arms closed around her with a gentle firmness. “You were never pretty Deshavi. You’ve always been nothing but beautiful to me!”
I stuttered to awakeness by reason of a persistent nightly urge. Oh it sucked to get old, especially always having to go at night! Grumpily I got up and left the campsite to deal with my pressing need. When I came back to the campsite I stirred up the embers of the dying fire into a small blaze, as I like the extra heat at night.
I got up from the fire and started to head back for my blanket and pallet of dried grass, when I saw something that gave me pause. I stepped closer wanting to see more of what the firelight had revealed. I had noticed that Deshavi and Trent had bedded down closer to each other and now I knew why.
Both of them lay on their sides facing each other with one outstretched arm toward one another. There in the dust that lay between them their fingers were entwined with each other, in a firm clasp that hadn’t let go, even while they slept. Deshavi’s face was so peaceful.
I guess it didn’t matter what age you lived to, the right combination of things could still make one lose it and cry like an emotional baby. I wiped at my tears, as I turned away from the touching scene of renewal.
“Oh God please help me get these two home safe, even if it comes at the cost of my own life!” I whispered out fervently into the night.
It was hard leaving our sheltered little warm haven to head back out into the cold harshness of the wilderness beyond, but it had to be done. The snow was deep, but not a problem due to the work of my idle hands over the past several days. I hadn’t had the best materials to work with, but I’d been able to fashion some crude, but effective snowshoes during our time in the cut. We moved out easily overtop the snow on them and headed south. We had meat left over from our kills, some edible roots I had managed to find and some rations yet. It was about the best you could ask for in Siberia.
Chapter Sixteen
Three Fires
A day turned into a week. The skies remained clear and our progress south was completely unimpeded by man or nature alike. I sensed that it wasn’t to last though.
It was terrible to cast such a gloomy dispersion on such a positive vibe, as what we had going on in the present. When I had awoken this morning something just hadn’t set well about the new day and as a result I had kept on my guard, even more so than usual.
I let Trent lead, while I followed in the rear with my rifle clutched in my arms. Trent had noticed and as a result he was more on edge than typical as well. Only Deshavi seemed oblivious to the tension of the day and I tried to purposely keep it so. Perhaps nothing would happen and everything would be fine and I was just having an off sixth sense day.
Yeah, I doubted that though.
Chantry had always said that one of my finest skills of being an agent was that I seemed to sense, when things were about to go wrong, before anyone else did. Surviving through the situati
ons, that I had up till now, seemed to bear out the efficacy of that six sense somewhat. Truthfully though, I had been lucky more than anything else. It was one thing to sense danger ahead, but it was an entirely different set of circumstances and skills needed in order to deflect whatever curveball way the danger came at you.
My attention was drawn to Deshavi. She walked in between Trent and I and she was currently looking upward and making faces at the angry chattering squirrels whose pine grove we were trespassing in. She had really opened up over the past week and smiles had been a much more common appearance on her face.
I glanced up despairingly at the chattering squirrels and Deshavi must’ve noticed, “What’s the matter? Don’t you like squirrels anymore? You used to keep them as tame as pets around the house when I was growing up.”
I shook my head, “I only did that for you and those were Idaho squirrels, these are Siberian.”
“So? What’s the difference? They’re still just squirrels.” She said not understanding.
How different and much harsher Siberia was then much of the rest of the world. There was a whole different set of rules in play here.
“In the deep winter, when food is at its scarcest these same squirrels that you’re making faces at have been known to pack together and bring down large prey. They turn completely carnivorous in order to survive. Humans have been on the menu quite a few times over the years.”
Deshavi looked appalled and looked up now at the chattering nut hurling throng in the trees with new awareness. I hated to destroy her image of the cute peaceable looking creatures, but it was best that she knew what nature was capable of in Siberia. Nature often could and did bite, when you least expected it.
The squirrels abruptly halted their chattering and there was silence in the forest. In a way I relaxed and yet my grip on my rifle tightened. Our hunters, in this scene were not human, which in a way was good, but it was a bit like starving to death and having the option of eating one of two bugs. Which did you choose? The bigger one or the smaller one? Whichever you chose it still wasn’t going to taste good.
I caught sight of a fast-moving patch of gray fur off to our right in the pine grove. An ancient enemy was stalking us, wolves. Trent must’ve seen it too, because he glanced back concerned, and I mouthed, “Keep walking.”
He nodded and we kept going on, as Deshavi walked between us keeping a wary eye directed upward at the silently watching squirrels. Occasionally carnivorous squirrels were the least of our problems at the moment. True I had a rifle cradled in my arms and ammunition enough to easily take out several packs of wolves, but I didn’t want to use them for fear of bringing down our human hunters upon us. Humans by far were the worst predator of all.
The wolves would likely shadow us, until dark, before closing in. I glanced down at the rifle in my hands and reflected on what a change had occurred over the period of time of the past several centuries. Here I was again in the lands that my ancestors had passed through on their great migration to the Americas and yet everything was so different now.
After the discovery of the skull and Ted’s initial explanation of the Ice Age to me I had pestered him for more of his knowledge of the time period, as I had become quite fascinated by it. This pack of gray wolves hounding us were small reason for concern, in comparison to the threats that my ancestors had to deal with on a daily basis, and they hadn’t had the high powered weapons that I did. The archaeological evidence seemed to suggest that the colonization of the Americas, instead of taking place during one massive migration of peoples, had instead occurred in smaller movements of people at a time spaced out over long periods of time.
Some reasons for the slowed migration could’ve been that people lost the skills needed to build ships capable of ocean voyage or perhaps parts of the land bridge became impassable by rising water or heavy storms for years at a time.
Another theory was that the direct competition and fight for survival against the super predators that were alive during the Ice Age had done much to slow down the migration of man. Caves seemed essential to the early settler’s success at surviving the harsh elements, but even there they had met with competition. Cave bears, saber tooth tigers and perhaps worst of all, the cave hyenas, all claimed the caves the settlers needed to survive.
There was a lot of evidence that the fight for these caves had gone back and forth like a game of tug-of-war with different species and mankind trading off the same caves over and over through the years, with man eventually becoming the dominant factor.
While gray wolves such as those stalking us right now had existed in their current form during that time they would of been a mild foe in comparison with their larger cousins the Dare Wolf. On average the Dare Wolf had been at least 25 percent larger than the largest gray wolf. They had been built with stronger stockier frames and their jaw walls were much more powerful than a gray wolves’. It was thought that they had roamed in packs of sixty or more at a time.
You would’ve needed a cartridge belt fed machine gun to taking out a pack of those beasts, if they were on your trail. One had to wonder how man had survived at all faced with such challenges and yet we had and now mankind had virtually mastered every force of nature, save for weather and acts of God. If my ancestors could survive against the monsters the way they had, with stone tipped spears, then I was going to survive against a pack of gray wolves, if only as a matter of principle.
I saw what I had been looking for up ahead. There was a deadfall tree with plenty of dry wood to be had.
“We’ll camp beside that tree.”
Deshavi looked back puzzled at me, as it was but late afternoon and we typically traveled until just before dark. At that same moment a wolf howled nearby letting loose it’s awful lilting melody that had struck fear into the hearts of man for countless generations. It had no less impact on Deshavi.
She froze in place, as even more howls erupted around us and further out in the distance. They were calling in the pack. I urged Deshavi along and we were soon at the tree. I made three fires that formed a triangle of which we were in the middle of and as it got darker we worked hard to pile up extra firewood; in order to make the fires last through the night.
As darkness fell so did the inhibitions of the wolf pack in attacking humans. They came in at us on darting forays trying to grab a hold of one of us and pull us out beyond the heat of the flames. We beat them off with torches. It was a long and sleepless night. That night was followed by two more just like it.
By day they shadow stalked along beside us and at night they were our living nightmares. It didn’t take long to see why my ancestors had needed caves so critically, as a point of survival. Not only had they been a source of shelter from the elements, but if attacked they only had to defend the mouth of the cave and not there back and sides to.
A wolf’s persistence, in a hunt, was usually what paid out for them, but I had a plan to disrupt that strategy. I had diverted our course more to the southwest at the first appearance of the wolves and on the morning of the fourth day it paid off. I watched, as two wolves ranging out in front of us a ways suddenly stopped with their noses held up to the breeze. Excited activity followed among the pack, as a whole, and then they were gone.
Trent looked around at me, “What spooked them off?” He asked with bloodshot eyes.
“Must’ve been something they smelled.”
“Another wolf pack’s territory?” He asked.
“No another predator.”
Deshavi spoke up, “But what other predators are there here besides wolves unless you mean….!” Her voice trailed off, as her eyes got big.
“Tigers?” She squeaked out.
“Yep, we are now officially in tiger country. Last home of the mega-cats.”
They both looked at me, as if I was crazy, but they didn’t say anything as my strategy had gotten rid of the wolves. It was a curious thing the relationship between the wolves and the giant tigers of this land.
No one had ever documented an instance of tigers hunting down wolves for prey or eliminating them as a competing predator, but wolf packs avoided tiger territory, as if it had the plague. Rarely, were wolves ever seen, in an area frequented by tigers. They respected the great cats, as did I.
Both Trent and Deshavi were regarding the surrounding landscape more indepthly than they had, when we were being hounded by wolves and I couldn’t resist a little jabbing humor, “What’s the matter? Scared of the big bad tiger?”
They both gave me dark looks and I chuckled.
“Don’t you think coming here is about like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, grandpa?”
“If we were in India dealing with Bengal Tigers I would agree with your analogy, but we’re not. Siberian Tigers rarely attack people and usually they have good reason to, when they do. There are only a handful of recorded incidents of them attacking anyone and usually it was, because something was wrong with the tiger physically. So perhaps, unlike you two, I at least am going to sleep well tonight.”
Neither of them looked convinced though of the safety of our travel arrangements. The area we were entering now was more mountainous and I really hoped that all the reports I’d heard about its striped denizens were true. I might have to sleep with one eye open anyway.
We made slower time in the up-and-down terrain and I was unable to augment our food supply like I had wanted to. We saw red deer on several occasions and the overwhelming desire to use the rifles was a sharp urge to overcome. We might go hungry some, but if we were able to get out of here by being so careful to not alert others to our presence and get home, we could eat then to our hearts content.
We got a break with a small mountain stream we came across that had a good supply of fish in it. We stayed there by the stream for a day resting and fishing and then we moved on.
It snowed several times, but nothing that made the way impassible to us. It was still early in the season for serious winter weather, but I could feel it coming like a slowly squeezing menace in the back of my head.
Agent out of Time (The Agents for Good) Page 13
