by David Boyle
“One has only to listen.”
“Yeah right.”
“Tell you what,” Hayden said, draping an arm across his friend’s shoulder. “Why don’t you paddle on over there and count them yourself? That way, you’ll know and we’ll know whether Wheajo has his shit together. Good idea?”
“I’ll pass.”
Charlie stepped next to Mark. “Which one is that? That bright red one there?”
Mark stared along his arm. “I don’t know. Mars maybe. Or else a red giant. Why the interest all of a sudden?”
“There’s just so many stars. Sorry, I was just askin’.”
“It’s okay, Bull. It’s just that I got other things on my mind. We get home, I’ll teach you everything I know about stars and planets. Hell, I’ll even buy you a telescope.”
“I’d like that.”
“Good,” Mark said, trying mightily to hide his growing anxiety. “You say there’s more coming?” he asked of the alien.
“Yes.”
Tony was puffing nervously on a cigarette when Mark, Charlie, and Hayden strolled to the fire pit. The fire was down, flickering. Squeals and snarls of bickering dinosaurs permeated the air.
“Not good, is it?” he asked, when Mark settled into his chair.
“No, it’s not.” Mark grabbed a log from the stack and tossed it on the fire. “But… but we’ll be okay, really.”
Tony took a long twitchy drag on his cigarette. “That’s what I keep hearing.”
“Come on,” Ron said, crawling out from Tony’s tent with a half empty bottle of brandy. “Don’t do this to yourselves. Just stay out of sight until they leave. How long can one carcass last?”
“He’s right,” Hayden said. “Don’t go getting paranoid on us while we’re gone.” A snarl sizzled from the blackness, followed immediately by another. Two dinosaurs, fighting.
Mark looked at his partner. “That sound like paranoia to you?”
Ron took a swig, coughed, then handed the bottle to Mark. “Oooo, that’s smooth! Go ahead, Bennett. It’ll help get your mind on something else. Like all the other nasty shit we’ve been through.”
“Yeah, like the rapid at the end of the St. Croix trip,” Hayden said, settling beside him. “Why can’t I think of their name?”
Mark swallowed. “Damn… that is good,” he said, shaking off the burn. “Wake up, Prentler, I'm not going to hold this all night.” A hand reached over. “Oh, and those rapids? Big Beef. Right next to Three Mile Island.”
“That’s the one. I remember that little piece of shit island, standing there and looking downstream. Rapids as far as we could see. Us with everything we owned in rented canoes. I don’t know about you… but I was scared shitless.”
“Heck of a trip,” Charlie said, swirling a half empty beer. “Missed a good one, Delgado. You shoulda been there.”
Tony nodded. “Yeah, I've... I've heard that.”
Reminiscing was normally an excellent diversion. Normally that is, though not tonight. For tonight they were on the precipice of a day unlike any other, and the stories were no match for the unknowns that lay ahead.
The bottle was starting its second time around, yips and snarls punctuating the darkness when Ron held it to the light, one eye peering, then glanced about the campsite. “Wheajo, you slit eyed mother fucker. Get over here and finish this.” Wheajo came ahead, uncertain how to receive Ron’s offer. “Come on, come on,” he said, waving. “I’m not looking for a repeat of last night. And don’t worry, I didn’t spit in it.”
Tony gasped. “Ron!”
“Well I didn’t.”
“If he’s gonna finish that,” Mark said. “I say he’s on the hook for a toast.”
“Here, here,” said Hayden. “I’ll second that.” He checked that everyone had something to drink. “Give it a shot, Wheajo. And try not to get too technical.”
“I… I have never made a toast before.”
“Can you believe that?” Ron slapped his thigh. “I’ll be damn if we don’t have him at a loss for words. Fuck, when’s the last time that happened?”
“Ignore him,” Tony said, leaning close and under his breath, adding: “We do.” He smiled, offering Wheajo an intro. “To a…”
Wheajo followed along, “To a… successful application of our mutual….” Tony was shaking his head. “Too verbose?”
“You could say that.”
Wheajo looked at the humans gathered around him, and for the first time saw friends. He paused a moment longer, and as he’d seen them do so many times before, held out the bottle. “To going home.”
They stood for a moment, stunned to silence. A tear welled in Tony’s eye, and to a man they chimed: “To going home.”
26
Hayden flipped open his sleeping bag, snarls sounding as someone hurried past the tent. He stared past the netting, the world outside still shrouded in gray. A whisper of smoke drizzled from the fire pit.
The whole night had been one duel after another, scavengers squabbling over the kill. Packs of them if the bickering was any indication, the snarls going silent twice during the night when the local bullies took their turn at the feast. Hayden gave his companion a poke, then reached for his pants. The man was unconscionable with how easily he was able to turn the world off. Hayden zipped open the tent. “Now, McClure. And next time I’m using a stick.”
“Just go, okay? I’ll be out when I get there.”
A patchy haze was on the river; snarls and stuttered roars pierced the gloom. Rivalries at work, scavengers and hunters alike quarrelling across the river. Wheajo stood watching by the landing; Tony yapping at Charlie in his tent. A flurry of snarls sounded, then a hiss nearby, Hayden gasping before he spotted tail feathers disappearing behind the woodpile. “You better run…!” He waited to see if Mike would poke his head out, and deciding not, hurried to the landing.
Wheajo held a hand up, crimson rippling his palm. “Eyes may be watching,” he said quietly, cautioning him to slow down. “I fear we must delay our departure lest we place our lives in jeopardy.”
“Hate to put it off, but with how unhappy everybody sounds, probably not a bad idea.” A snap sounded amid the snarls, Mark pulling up only seconds later. “Definitely not the morning I was bargaining for.”
“No kidding… And the plan is?”
“Wheajo thinks we should stay put until the party's over. And listening to them, I have to agree.”
Mark frowned. “I understand where you’re coming from. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking forward to you leaving. But what would you say to putting in across the island? Hit the river where the channel enters and you could get away without anybody noticing. I haven’t walked it off, but the channel can’t be that far past the tree stands.”
“Cúpaqs,” said Wheajo.
“Yeah, those. Eighty yards… maybe a hundred? It’s up to you, but I’m thinking it’s worth a look.”
“Have a back door to the river?” Hayden looked to Wheajo. “Taking out the deadfalls will take time, and even then we could end up having to portage. But if we could pull this off….”
The sun wasn’t up, but would be soon. “Even in typical circumstances, having such an exit could prove a valuable asset. I agree. We shall make the attempt.”
“Wow, that was easy,” Mark said, ignoring the snarls. “Tell you what. You guys grab something to eat. Pack your bedding. Whatever else you need to do. I’ll get Tony and we’ll have the boats in the water by the time you’re ready.”
“Sounds like a plan. Wheajo… you hungry?”
Mark shifted the packs to the stern of the Discovery, Tony watching as shadows skulked along the far shoreline. “Forget them. They’re way too aggravated with each other to give a damn about us.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
Mark took hold of the forward thwart. “Just grab on, okay?” He waited for Tony, then started for the trail… and winced to a stop almost immediately. “How about we switch sides?”
Tony stepped around the canoe. “Your back?”
“Yeah… hurts like a mother. Only don’t tell McClure that. Or Wheajo.”
“Not a word,” Tony assured him.
Even on level ground, the Discovery could be a bear to drag, and at every bit of 17 feet long by 30 inches wide, it was either too long or too wide to fit between the trees without having to force it. Fortunately, Ron and Charlie had erected the trail barriers high enough that the canoe cleared the lowermost spikes. Mark went first, then the Discovery, and finally Tony, both careful to avoid getting either stabbed or cut going under. Without the trail, getting the canoe as far as the cúpaqs in under an hour would have been nearly impossible. Even so, the effort proved an exhausting task, and Tony called for a break when they reached the clearing he and Charlie had started.
Littered with cuttings and easily large enough to fit the Discovery, the clearing beneath the oaks was an airy oasis in an otherwise densely forested section of woods, and a good place to catch one’s breath. Mark was pleased with how the platforms were situated, yet saw too that Wheajo’s so-called cúpaqs were far from complete.
Mark was focused on the nearer of the oaks, the wheels already turning…
“How are we going to get through that? Mark… Mark?”
“Huh?”
“How do we do this? And… which way do we go?”
“The shortest route is this way,” Mark said. “Hang tight and I’ll check.”
“Hang tight yourself. You’re not going anywhere without me.” Tony reached into the boat and unbuckled the dump bags. “No use leaving these behind.”
“That makes sense,” Mark said. “Give me that one. You take the axe and the other one.” Tony handed over a dump bag which Mark promptly hiked onto his shoulder. “Glad one of us is thinking.”
“If we’re going, might as well make our next trip easier.”
“I love my canoe, only not so much going overland.” Mark swept the forest with his flashlight, eyeballing a path through the trees. “And you and me? We’re gonna do just fine together.
“This way.”
They nicked bark from the trees on their way to the channel, and not long after found a reasonable put-in. With little current and a whole lot of trees, opening a route to the river was going to take some serious effort. They offloaded the dump bags and started back, following the markers while far enough separated that they were able to find and mark a less encumbered route. There were two big deadfalls that had to be detoured around, but by the time they reached the cúpaqs, they’d cleared away the worst of the movable obstructions and eliminated most of the kinks they’d encountered on their initial foray to the channel.
It took a good twenty minutes to hack their way back to the clearing, and easily as long to push, shove, and otherwise manhandle the Discovery to their channel side put-in.
Mark dumped another branch on the pile before collapsing beside the bank. “Least they’ll know which way to come,” he panted, the water in the channel gurgling between the branches of an old blowdown.
“I need something to drink,” Tony said, sweat streaming down the sides of his face. “And I don’t mean alcohol.”
“Except for the branches and shit, I’d think about taking a dip.”
Tony swallowed. “You’re not, are you?”
“Nah, just thinking out loud.” Mark sighed. “And here I told Prentler we’d have all the boats here. What a joke that was.”
Tony got to his feet. “Why should we have all the fun?”
Mark nodded. “Guess that was kinda selfish of me.”
“I meant what I said, Mark. I have to get something to drink. You ready?”
“Hell no.” They started back anyway.
Mark and Tony had just passed the cúpaqs when Ron and Charlie came barreling along the trail, a brilliantly plumed and very excited dinosaur nipping at the stern as the Tripper skidded and bounced along the stumps. “Grab on or get out of the way!” Ron shouted.
“Aye, gladly sire,” Tony said, graciously stepping aside.
“Shakespeare?”
“Actually I think it was Robin Hood.” Tony watched as the canoe carved furrow #2 into the dirt, Mike stopping just long enough to give them a sniff before prancing after his master.
The fights were still going when they got to camp, Tony slugging gulps from the water jug when Mark caught the metallic hiss. “Holy shit, Wheajo, stop! The frickin’ patches aren’t welded on for Christ sake! Give us a minute to cool down and we’ll give you a hand with that.”
Wheajo considered the tape stuck to the hull, then left the Rockfinder where it was and grabbed the dawzon assembly, the sapling with the brizva, and the last of the yellow dump bags, and without a word trotted off along the trail.
Tony wiped his mouth. “In a hurry, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, I’m just glad I caught him.” Mark was liberally covered with green and brown bits of whatever. “I feel like I’ve spent the morning under my car. I’m going to hit the river and rinse off. You interested?”
“Maybe later. Right now I’m thinking about passing out.”
Mark peered around the tree next to the landing. The boys across the river had quieted down, which was kind of spooky on account he knew the dinosaurs hadn’t actually gone anywhere. The mist was thinning, the trees a shade more green than gray, and barely a leaf stirring. No predators though.
Was that good?
Sounding faintly above the hiss of the rapids was the all-too-distinct chatter of teeth scraping bone. Big ones too. A rex maybe? The second tier guys were there, of course, watching and waiting in the various foyers for the counter to reopen. Why they weren't yipping seemed a bit strange. Then too, he didn't know the rules. The river wasn't as muddy as it had been, the water approaching its former translucence. He looked across, sweat trickling down his face and arms. “They wouldn’t give a shit, would they…?” He thought for a second—“Ah, fuck it”—and skidded down the embankment.
The river was the essence of serenity; the sun ready to make an appearance, cotton candy clouds floating in the distance. He dipped a hand and rinsed his arm, the wetness so very refreshing. Winged ghosts were forming up, circling the forest, the woods themselves uncannily quiet. A snippet of color winked briefly through the trees. He looked, saw nothing, and went back to attending the scratches on his arms.
Leaves rustled softly in a non-existent breeze, Mark taking but little notice when a slow crunch got him looking. Something was moving through the forest.
Something big.
Ron was buckling a dry bag into the Tripper, Charlie and Wheajo chopping a ways down the channel when Mark came trotting through the forest. Ron could see right off they had another problem. “What is it this time?”
“She’s back.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You’re leaving, and I’m not. So no, I ain’t fucking kidding.” Hayden came winding through the trees.
“Tell me it gets better,” Ron said, splashes sounding as Charlie and Wheajo wrangled another log from the channel.
“I can do that. There’s like three or four tight spots we might have trouble getting around. And two bridges we’ll need to squeeze under. I am a little worried about the first one on account of how close it is to the water. But get past it and one or two other spots and we should be okay.
“Bennett, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I wish I had. Ghosts don’t bite; she does.”
“Your Sabrefang?”
“To hell with that, mine. And I only got a glimpse, but I'm the next thing to positive it was her.”
Ron glanced along the channel. “Have Wheajo give you a hand with Charlie’s boat, Prentler. And don’t forget the paddles this time.”
“You guys are still going?”
“Shit yeah we’re going. With her here, hell, that’s one less thing we need to worry about on the river.”
“That supposed to make me feel better?”
“It is
what it is, Bennett. Keep a low profile and you’ll be fine.” He hooked a thumb at one of the deadfalls. “You didn’t happen to bring a saw, did you?”
“No, but I could run and get my scuba knife.”
“Maybe later,” Ron said. “Let’s see how far we get without it.”
News of Sabrefang’s reappearance served well to steel their resolve. The canoes went into the channel, the packs and dump bags and whatever else parceled into the three while Wheajo and Hayden returned to camp for a last and final check.
Charlie knelt beside Mike, careful to avoid the dinosaur’s claws as it nuzzled the long strands of his hair. “Be good while I’m gone, okay?” he said, scratching the feathered head while the animal licked his cheek. “Keep an eye on him for me, would ya?”
Tony managed a wan smile. “We will, Bull. We’ll take good care of him. Promise.”
A foot less water would aggravate the problem, the issue being whether they’d be able to find or cut slots around the fallen timber wide enough to fit the boats. A less than fun way to start the trip, clearing the channel beat the snot out of having to drag the boats over and over through the forest.
“Charlie, grab the hatchet so we can get started. Late as it is, I’d rather not waste any more time.”
“How about I come with you instead and we let Charlie work on the big stuff? I can paddle while you cut, and if we can’t make it through, I’ll be there to help drag. Or I can stay here with Tony and we can laugh our asses off while you guys figure out how to use an axe while standing in the canoes.”
Ron smiled. “You’re determined to be part of our little adventure one way or another, aren’t you, Mark? Sure, come on down. We can use the help.
“Tony, you okay here?”
Standing on the bank, tears welling, Tony could only nod.
They were finally clear of the wooded archway, if not quite past the last of the deadfalls. An all pervasive hiss filled the air, white tufts dancing on the water ahead.
