by David Boyle
Tony was standing nearby, grinning; Mark trying to catch his breath. “It is so good to see you’re alive,” Charlie said, tears of relief streaming down his cheek. “Tony told me what all happened, you know, by the rapids? I just… I mean, how do you thank somebody for saving your life?”
Mark smiled. “You just did, Charlie, and that’s good enough for me.”
Tony embraced him as well. “That it all worked out is the main thing.” He took a second to collect his thoughts. “I feel so much better now that you and Ron and Hayden are back, safe and sound!”
“The safe I’ll agree with,” Hayden said, stepping from the trail. “The sound”—he waggled a hand—“not so much.”
“You talkin’ about him or me?”
Hayden laughed. “You put it that way… I guess all of us.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Mark quipped, the difference in Tony suddenly registering. “Did you actually shave?”
“I was going to let it go,” Tony said, stroking his chin. “But I realized I’d end up looking like you and Prentler, and neither one of you need the competition.”
“I heard that,” Hayden called from his tent.
Tony winked at Charlie. “You hungry?”
“Shit yes,” Mark said. “Hell, about now, bark and beetles would sound good.”
“I can do way better than that. Can you last half an hour?”
“Half an hour…?”
“Whining already?” Hayden said, zipping up as he stepped from Ron’s tent.
“One lousy granola bar goes just so far, Prentler.”
“Jugs are filled, so go get yourselves cleaned up,” Tony said. “Charlie, would you mind building up the fire?”
The campsite was soon bustling with activity, people scurrying about, cleaning and tidying up, everyone thoroughly enjoying the togetherness, smoky curls soon twirling skyward, crackles filling the air.
The mound of pine boughs was still growing, minutes later, when Hayden noticed Chef Delgado hovering over a steamy pot of Mulligan stew. “You seen Wheajo lately?”
“Not since this morning,” Tony answered, stirring. “He had Charlie’s knapsack on when I spotted him checking on us. Make whatever you want of that, but I haven’t seen him since.”
“And he didn’t say anything?”
“Not a word.” Tony sniffed, then tasted his spoon. “Say, while you’re here, would you mind filling the water jugs? The river’s getting clearer, but the water still needs to settle before we can use it. And with what the three of you just used, we’re down to almost nothing.”
Hayden grabbed the empties and headed for the landing, Ron adding to the woodpile. “Before we get too settled,” he said, brushing off the pine needles, “how about taking a look at Charlie’s boat? I think you’ll get a kick out of Bennett’s alterations.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlie asked, a snickered ‘You’ll see’ from Ron making him all the more nervous. The dents he expected. The holes he did not. “What the hell…?” There were pegs poking along the hull, two sets each on opposite sides of the boat. “Are these from her?”
“No, fortunately,” Mark said, wincing on his way to join them. “She would have crushed it. These are from a dinosaur that came by last night and apparently had a hard on for aluminum lizards.”
“No shit? Damn…,” said Charlie. “Had to be some kinda big. I mean hell, look at the width of that bite.”
“And you were where?” Chef Tony asked, still with a spoon in his hand.
“I would have sworn I didn’t get any, but I had to have been asleep. Either that or the ridge is farther away than I’m picturing. Anyway, I was in a tree at the time.”
They stood there, waiting. “You gonna just leave us hangin’? Then what fuckin’ happened?”
“A whole lot actually—which I’ll tell you about later—the important part for now being that I was a basket case by the time I got to the river. And the boat’s gone. And where I left it is torn to shreds. So here I am, running around like a crazy person, and when I find the thing… it’s full of holes!”
“Doesn’t sound like a fun morning,” Tony said.
“To tell the truth, it was an astounding morning, which, like I said, I’ll tell you about. Anyway… I’m a million miles from home, and there’s no way in hell I’m walking back. And I’m still freaking out when I realize the holes aren’t all that raggedy. I look closer… almost the same shape too.” Mark shrugged. “After that it was a matter of whittling these plugs.
“Things leak like crazy, but they did get me home.”
Charlie tried one peg after another. “You hammer them in with a rock?”
“With how many dinosaurs there are in the area, that wouldn’t have been a good idea. It’s not like I didn’t have to persuade them, but they’re as tight as they are mostly because of the water.”
Ron mentioned the dinosaurs and how he and Hayden had missed Mark’s take-out, and how “…on our way back, we started seeing shavings on the water. We knew they were coming from Mark, but until we saw the boat we couldn’t come up with what the fuck he’d been working on.”
“Yeah, yeah, and we can talk more about that later,” Ron said, reaching into his pocket. “But if you really want to see something cool….” He held out a tooth.
“Whoa…!” Charlie gasped. “Where’d you get that?”
Hayden and Mark had some too. “We figured you guys’d like some remembrances,” Hayden said, divvying out a pocketful of teeth.
Charlie ran a thumb along an edge. “How fuckin’ neat is this…! Still sticky too. The owner give ‘em up willingly, or’d you have to butter ‘im up some?”
“A little of both actually,” Ron said. “You might say we helped Mr. Explorer here out of a touchy situation.”
The tooth filled Charlie’s hand to near overflowing. “Gotta take one hell of a mouth to carry these around. How much lead did he take anyway?”
“Three rounds, and all of them through the chest. He was on his feet for a good while after, so I guess you could say we got lucky he didn’t keep coming.”
“I’ll say,” said Tony, turning a tooth over in his hand. “Have we seen this one before, or was this one different?”
“The head was narrower, but it did have two fingers, so it could have been a sub-specie. Then again, it could just as well have been a juvenile.” Mark shrugged. “We’re lucky, maybe someone can identify these when we get home.”
Between the teeth and his canoe, Charlie was struggling to take it all in. “Lotsa shit to happen all in one day. Fuckin’ place is somethin’ else.”
Hayden smiled. “Wait until Mark tells you about his lake.”
“What lake?” Tony said.
“How about after we eat?” Mark said. “I’m starving, and I know—”
“Holy mackerel… my stew!” Tony yelped, sprinting away to the sound of laughter. “I don’t know what you guys think is so funny. It’s your dinner too.”
Still chuckling at Tony’s frustration, Hayden spotted movement in the woods barely a minute later. “Guess who’s coming to dinner?”
Ron twisted around. “Where’s he been off to?”
“Wherever, he’s got a gunnysack full of something,” Mark said, leaving Tony to salvage dinner, he and the others hurrying over to help.
“I see you’ve been busy,” Hayden said, eyeing the muddied poles. “Only I’m not sure with what.”
Wheajo tipped a shoulder, pointing. “F’si visfy ny uerk, dei jubjo!”
Hayden grabbed the pack. “Okay okay, I got—” The knapsack was heavier than he expected. “What all have you got in here… rocks?”
Wheajo slapped his hand. “Fynut telct,” he said, directing him to follow and hurrying into camp.
Hayden snagged the strap with his elbow. “Anybody ever mention how irritating you can be?”
“You guys catch that?” said Charlie, staring daggers into the alien’s back. “He walked past Mark like he wasn’t even t
here. Didn’t look. Didn’t say nothin’. What the fuck kind of person does that?”
“Forget it, Bull. It’s not worth getting yourself worked up about.”
“Pretty cruddy if you ask me.”
Wheajo finished adjusting his translator. “Cruddy?”
“Last you knew, Mark was dead. And now you just walk past him…? What’s with you that you can’t even bother to say ‘hi’?”
“Another human custom I presume.”
“Fuck you, custom! You don’t have to be human to be civilized!” Charlie seemed ready to break a tooth.
“Settle down, guys,” Tony hollered from the fire. “You can get back to arguing after dinner.”
Ron pulled up, sniffing, and peered into the pot. “You’re going to love this, Wheajo. It’s got an ugly streak that reminds me of you.”
“You take that back, McClure. I haven’t poisoned anybody yet.”
Mark settled into his chair while Tony dished out an eclectic plate of steamy brown goo. “You get to be first, Mr. Bennett. And again, welcome back.”
Mark thanked him profusely, his the honor of being served by none other than The World’s Greatest Chef. An honor maybe, Mark was glad with how dark it had gotten as he tentatively probed the dish with his fork. His plate seemed to contain a little of everything, and Mark was about to take a precautionary bite when he was startled by a purple head poking from under his arm.
“Don’t worry. He’s friendly.”
Mark carefully elbowed the dinosaur away. “Hi there, Shorty. You’re hungry too, huh?”
Charlie stood beaming. “His name is Mike.”
“Right,” Mark said, patting the dinosaur’s head, at the same time careful not to lower his plate. “Hello, Mike. You remind me of a dog I used to own. Hardly ever around except when it was time to eat.”
There was a glow in Charlie’s eyes. “If he bothers you, just boot him in the butt. Gently.”
“I don’t think so. I like my foot too much. Besides, he’s kinda cute.”
Tony joined them, eventually, everyone clustered around the fire, eating, drinking, and listening as, between bites, Mark told the story of his adventure downriver.
“I just wish you could have seen her expression. Especially those eyes. It was like she could fucking taste me.”
Mark got to his feet. “So here I am, waiting for the starter’s gun to go off. And there’s no way she’s getting through the deadfall, and when she heads into the woods… zoom! Off I go, paddling like mad into the reeds. The canoe weighs like a ton, and once I’m in I give it a shove and head the other way. Slosh slosh through this weedy shit, fish or whatever the fuck they were zipping away, the reeds cutting my damn shins. And I look over, and here’s Sabrefang, pounding through the woods. Whole trees flying through the air. I mean, shit flying every which way….”
“Just so you know… he exaggerates.”
“It’s my story, Prentler… and I hardly ever exaggerate….
“So I pile into this mucky, reedy, awful smelling crap, and pull it around my head. I'm shaking like a leaf, and here she comes, flying off the bank. Sploosh…! The water settles… and no shit, it’s like the damn river’s on fire, her all black and orange. Those teeth.” Mark leaned forward and bunched up his lip, his arms tucked to his chest. “The fingers are going…,” he said, demonstrating, “the fucker close enough that I could hit her with a rock, the eyes searching for her oh-so-yummy Big Mac.”
“What he meant to say was Little Mac,” Ron said, swirling his beer.
“You too… quit with the interrupting.” Hayden cracked up laughing. “Okay, so she’s looking for her Little Mac—that’d be me—with her head twitching, you know, back and forth. And the tail’s going two forty. Duh… which way did he go?” he said, scratching his head for emphasis. “There’s this splash nearby... and now she’s looking... and just like that she's pounding across the frickin' river, and I mean like straight at me....”
“That had to be scary.” Tony fidgeted the ash from his cigarette. “How close did she get?”
“You say that like she stopped. And she didn’t. She just kept right on coming and passed me no farther than from here to Ron’s tent!” Tony and Charlie gasped. “I am not shitting. That close. I had my face pretty much buried in the water, shit raining down, and when I picked my nose up to catch a breath she is standing there and ripping that frickin’ reed bed all to shreds. I mean… look at my arms. I’m gonna have goose bumps every time I think about it.”
Charlie swallowed. “But she never spotted you.”
Mark took a slug from his beer. “I don’t think so… What really gets me is thinking about having to get as far away from the canoe as I could. The fish or whatever were a definite distraction, but if I hadn’t done that, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
“Had to be terrifying,” said Tony. “So how did you get away?”
“I can’t say as I did Tony. It was more she gave up looking. It wasn’t all of a sudden or anything, but once she started away the bitch never turned back. She kept at the reeds for ten minutes, maybe a little longer. And after that, she dragged her ass across the river and took off.”
Mark went on about finding the wash and the dry creek bed leading into the forest. About how he could have stayed near the river, and instead looked at the hillside and thought, “What the hell? Why not see what’s up there? So I follow the creek up, hit this amazing trail that I’ll tell you about later, and finally get to the top of the ridge.
“And I crest the rise, and holy shit, there’s a lake there! Think of the most beautiful back woods lake you’ve ever seen, and this one is better. Gorgeous. Beautiful. It’s just too hard to describe. It’s like the most picturesque post card you ever saw, only better. It’s not a small lake either.”
“Sounds like condo heaven,” Tony said. “How big?”
Mark frowned. “Gotta be like two… maybe three miles long, and something over a half mile wide.” Wheajo had been sitting back, simply listening, but stirred at his mention of a lake. “It’s got an odd shape. There’s a swamp along the south side, and forest pretty much right to the edge along the west, where I was. The shoreline just north of me was like fifteen feet high, and further to the north looked like it could go even higher.
“Couldn’t see all the way to the north end, but it looked pretty hilly, which is what I suspect we’d find if we headed straight east from here. So hills pretty much form the whole eastern part of the lake, with the one across from me sloping into the lake toward the islands. Open patches here and there, like the one here by the rapid. Could be there’s a bay off to the—”
“Islands?” Wheajo asked. “How many, and how large?” The alien’s meddlesome entry caught everyone by surprise, Mike included, the dinosaur prancing quickly into the darkness.
“Three or four,” Mark said, curious, but seeming not to mind. “I didn’t spend a lot of time looking, but the center one is pretty big. Hard to see from where I was, but an eighth of a mile maybe? Half the size of this one, and probably less.”
“You must show me the exact configuration of the lake, the islands, and their relationship to the surrounding topography.”
There was what sounded like excitement in the alien’s voice, which Mark found amusing. “I’m getting there, Wheajo, just let me—”
“You may continue your discourse after you have described the lake and its islands. Not before.”
Ron glared across the fire, irritated by the alien’s tone. “Where the hell do you get off telling anybody how to tell their story?”
“My rationale requires no explanation,” Wheajo said, turning from McClure as if he’d ceased to exist. “You shall describe the islands now.”
“Sure… sure thing,” Mark said, remembering his one and only lie detector test and the tension he’d felt when the guy across the table asked him his name.
“That’s it. I’ve had it with you already!” Ron snarled, on his feet and storming around the fire. “And
I don’t know who you think you are, but nobody cuts me off like that. Especially not some fucking alien who doesn’t even belong on the same planet as us!” Ron had only once gotten this close to Wheajo, the others frightened by what he might do, towering as he did over the alien.
Wheajo looked up. “You will return to your place and allow your friend to continue.”
Tony could see the murderous look in Ron’s eyes. “Ron, please. Why don’t you sit down?”
“Mind your own business, Delgado!” Ron reached forward. “And you….”
Wheajo stepped aside, a hand in an instant around Ron’s neck and another at his waist, a twisting tug all the alien needed to flip the human squarely onto his back. Ron thumped to the ground, blinking, a two-thumped hand wrapped firmly about his throat. Gasps sounded all around, the onlookers to their feet.
“Sit down!” the alien demanded, veins bulging across Ron’s forehead when he started for Wheajo’s hand. The arms relaxed, as did the alien’s grip on his throat. “You will listen to me carefully! All of you!” he said, his tone firm and unwavering. “You will, from this moment forward, do exactly as I say if you have any desire to leave this world alive.” He looked Ron squarely in the eye. “You understand only force, and so it shall be.
“I have no desire to harm you, but your continued antagonisms will no longer be tolerated.” The fire flickered nearby, the darkness and light accentuating the alien’s every feature. There was a peculiar tone to Wheajo’s voice. Not hateful or mean. Not even angry. More simply cold and calculating. “Have I made myself clear?” he said, fractionally relaxing his grip. “A yes or no will suffice.”
“Yes,” Ron hissed, his anger barely in check when he got to his feet. “You ever try that again, and by God I’ll kill you.” Embarrassed at having been so easily overpowered, a still seething McClure stormed into the darkness to the other’s collective relief.
