by David Boyle
Rifle cradled, Ron was halfway across the sandbar when he slowed to a stop, blinking. “My eyes need a break. You up to taking point?”
Charlie smiled. "No problem," he said, reaching to unbuckle the holster. “Been waitin' for you to ask.”
Charlie couldn’t recall there being a bank, much less how high it was, but find a way up and the visibility was way better than on the western end. The forest still had tons of ground cover, but this stuff was smaller. Shorter maybe, if that made sense. Or him getting a better feel for what he was looking at.
Like that time on the Peshtigo….
That day was warm and sunny too, surprising considering the storm the night before. Rumors in the campground were that Section III of the Peshtigo was in the twenties, a fool’s only level when flood stage measured in the high teens. Some folks packed up and left, though most decided to run the Wolf instead. Most, that is, except for him and his idiot friends: Ron, Mark, and a few other crazies, yakers mostly. He remembered being near terrified on the drive to the put-in, nervous when they finished the shuttle, and almost back to normal by the time they had paddles in the water. He remembered too, how calm the river was at the outset. Then that long sweeping first turn.
Every rapid he’d run before then had some kind of an out: eddies alongshore, flat spots where you could slow down and catch your breath. Not that one. He could see splintered waves even now, so sun-shiny white it hurt his eyes, the noise like sizzling thunder, the river a shore-to-shore gauntlet of seemingly indecipherable chaos, ripped and contorted by rocks above and below the surface… any one of which could have easily flipped the boat.
And what then, swim? he remembered thinking. In here…?
His instinct had told him to bail on the river, but that door had already closed. So he’d kept on paddling, the tumbling whiteness roaring on and on. A brace here. A draw there. His every stroke happening as if on its own. The whole ‘man against river’ thing became more him and the river, him riding the waves and still upright! And still the whiteness stretched away, seething. Come on river. Bring it on…!
Distant trumpets put an end to the visions, though Charlie was still smiling.
Surviving the Peshtigo that day had been purely due to experience. Knowing the strokes and how to use them. And most importantly, knowing exactly what to look for. Same here, he thought, searching the forest like a fork for the meatball. You can hide all you want, but I’m still gonna find you.
Some situations never changed.
Charlie and Ron were a good ways down when Ron finally signaled.
“About time,” Hayden said.
“They are exercising caution.”
“Caution I can live with. But I need to eat already. We’ve been on the go for days Wheajo, and I need more than a couple of pieces of jerky to keep going.” Hayden caught himself trading looks between the forests on opposite sides of the cove. “What do you make of this?”
The strip connecting the two islands spanned little more than a basketball court, yet the change in vegetation was profound. Most glaring was the ground cover. Or rather the lack of it. The lakeside part of the island had been impossible to see into. Here shafts of sunlight reached to the ground of an otherwise dark interior. Step to the ledge and glimpses could even be had of the lake on the other side. The trees were different as well; their sizes, their ages. In short, everything about this portion of the island was different. Not only did the bridge bordering the cove connect two separate land masses, it connected two seemingly unique ecosystems. But why so different?
The possible explanations were endless, though geology seemed the most straightforward. Different minerals, some toxic perhaps, were either promoting or inhibiting the various types of plants. But even if that were true, Hayden found it hard to believe that different minerals alone could account for the puzzling disparity in vegetation, for surely there were types that would like one or the other, if not both.
“Maybe it’s the shade. The sun gets in, but not everywhere all the time. The stuff along the edge is almost as thick.”
“Perhaps,” the alien allowed. Less sanguine than his lanky companion, Wheajo posited an alternative: that the dramatic lack of vegetation was the direct consequence of repeated browsing. The comment engendered a spontaneous recollection of the skeleton by the cove… and an abrupt halt to their heretofore academic conversation.
The thought of dinosaurs swarming about the island was deeply unsettling. Yet where else could they go? There were always options, though neither Hayden nor Wheajo could see them. Not yet anyway. In the meantime, both agreed it would be best to keep Wheajo’s hypothesis to themselves. It was, after all, simply conjecture. Except that it actually made sense. Had not Ron also found skeletons? If there was any good to the situation, it lay in the fact that any animal gaining access to the island would be relatively easy to spot. Hopefully long before it reached the cove.
Hayden and Wheajo walked in silence, availing themselves of the novelty of a wide shoreline. Barely a stone’s-throw away, the latest of the out-islands stood like an overgrown breakwater, sandy hued water stretching in between. A pebble skipped across the water, well short. Then another. And before long Hayden was wading. The water was delightful, cool and wet… and so very clear.
A fish squirted out from some weeds.
“We ever get back here, I’m bringing my pole.”
Wheajo stepped out, and soon spotted more. “And if so, may I again use your spare?”
A warm grin spread across Prentler’s face. The alien was such a runt. “Sure thing. It’s yours whenever you want.”
*****
Hot and sweaty, Charlie punched his way through the tangle, branches snapping, and once to the bank hopped again into the sunlight, breathing hard and letting his eyes readjust to the light. They’d already done more hops than he figured they needed, him doing the ins and outs while McClure worked on a tan. Which maybe wasn’t fair seein’ as Ron had asked if he wanted the lead. Next time he’d know better.
There was a curve in the shoreline ahead, finally. At least they didn’t have much farther to go….
Ron trotted past a hefty chunk of driftwood. “Are you trying to make as much noise as you can?” There were pockets of shade where trees jutted over the bank, and Ron was quick to take advantage and get out of the sun. He gave the forest a once-over, then focused on Charlie. “Well, were you?”
“I tripped, okay?”
Ron wished he had something better to grind than his teeth. They were under a hundred yards to the mainland, close enough that even minor miscues could bring unwanted attention. “I could hear you coming all the way—”
“Ron… I got it.” Dinosaurs were spilling from various points around the lake. “I remember Mark talkin’ about how many dinosaurs there were.”
“And you thought it was BS.”
“Yeah.” Honks blared as another herd started from the forest not far to the southeast. Other calls drifted across the lake, many familiar, though most were not. “And maybe I….” Charlie shook his head. “Ah, forget it.”
“You’ve had something bugging you for the last fifteen minutes, and I’d rather hear about it than to find out myself later.” Ron flicked his fingers. “Out with it already.”
“It’s just… I think there’s somethin’ in there. I didn’t see anything. And I didn’t hear anything either.” Charlie sighed. “More a feeling. Like, I don’t know. Like I was bein’ watched.” He looked at Ron, half expecting a smile. “Sounds dumb, huh?”
Ron looked to the forest. “Only if you’re wrong.” Charlie was bedraggled, his camo stuck to his chest and back like a leaf-patterned second skin. Head into the woods at home smelling like Charlie and the most he could expect to see were rear ends and tails heading in the opposite direction. Here he was hoping the way he smelled would simply be ignored.
Ron studied which way the herd was headed. “You ready to switch?”
“Yeah, I did my time.” Charlie caught the
look on Ron’s face. “You didn’t think I was gonna argue, did you?”
“Maybe a little,” Ron said, trading the gun belt for his .30-06, which was pretty well slimed. “What the hell…?”
“It can get kinda creepy in there, and I guess I was more nervous than I thought.”
Ron stepped from the bank and into the sunlight. “Don’t worry about it. That’s what checkering is for.” He scanned the trees on the mainland, then back alongshore to where Hayden and Wheajo were waiting. “Same as before, Bull. Only this time I’ll be heading for the point, so keep tabs on me every so often.”
“I don’t know…. Wouldn’t it be safer to stay alongshore?”
“Maybe, except for the neighbors,” Ron said, giving the dinosaurs a long studied look. The animals weren’t in any hurry. But that could change, couldn’t it? “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. This has already cost more time than I expected, and the longer we’re here, the more likely somebody will get interested.”
Charlie wasn’t convinced.
“Call the guys down and let them know what’s happening. And these look like the same dopes as the ones by the island, so don’t look so glum.” Ron hurried off in a hunched-over trot. “I’ll signal you when it’s clear.”
A flurry of shrieky grunts echoed across the lake: weird, scary sounds that only dinosaurs could make.
“And if it’s not?” Charlie asked, waiting for an answer that never came.
Making any headway at all required vigilance, the constantly changing cover doing its best to either pick his pockets or snag the rifle. Yet Ron had learned long ago that the notion of the silent hunter was a myth, and that some sounds simply couldn’t be avoided. The trick was in making the swish of a frond or the rattle of a branch blend with the background so that anyone, or anything, would simply ignore whatever noise had occurred.
Ron searched about the forest, planning his next move, and when the next gust ruffled the trees hurried through the clumped vegetation. He stopped beside a leafy bloom, listening, and scanned the island’s interior from east to west.
The forest was crisscrossed with downed trees, many laying one atop another and covered with moss, a few rotting from the top down like immense dugout canoes. A lush carpet of leaves covered the ground, damp and spongy, as if after a rain. And everywhere he looked, new shoots were sprouting. Straight ones, leafy ones. Nice and tender, likely bursting with flavor, and with a life span measured in days.
He moved cautiously from one monstrous tree to the next, relying on their bulk to break his silhouette. And there, often for minutes at a time, he watched for anything stirring. The forest had the aura of a grand cathedral, with rough barked trees for columns, high vaulted ceilings, beams of sunlight streaming in. And as bright as it was outside, there were recessed pockets where it was surprisingly dim. Quiet too, except for the birds singing far off—that feeling again—like a choir.
A rustling in the leaves….
The rifle came up. Safety off.
Ron peered along the barrel, his pulse on the upswing. What was it Charlie had said? ‘There’s something in there…’
A whiskered nose poked out from the leaves not ten feet away, twitching, sniffing the air. Like a fur ball with legs, the thing skittered up the side of a log, stopped for a second as if to say ‘Hi’, then scurried away and disappeared.
Ron collapsed against the tree. “You little shithead.” He closed his eyes, breathing hard and trying to regain his composure. Some big time hunter you are, he thought, peeved at having been rattled by a rodent no bigger than his dick! Next time he’d know better than to let Charlie’s commentary go to his head.
A mouse for Christ’s sake!
Wiser for the diversion, if no less cautious, Ron studied the glow at the end of the island. It was almost as if someone had left a door open, with indirect sunlight bleeding through an archway in the trees. While he couldn’t see the water, being close enough to make out which trees were on the mainland filled him with trepidation. Like it or not, the trackway was his destination, and the ragged hole in the forest is where it led in.
One final all-encompassing check.
No movement, none at all.
Skirting the deadfalls and skulking from tree to tree, Ron eventually joined up with the earthen highway thirty yards short of the water at the end of the island. The trees showing through the arch looked like any other, their crowns bright and fluffy with a sun-shiny glow. And out front a wide sandy beach overlooking the lake, the driftwood polished and waiting as if trinkets for kids on vacation. All in all, a wonderful place for a stroll.
Just remember to bring your machine gun.
A quick search of the beach south to north showed…
“You guys are new.” He focused—Coming or going?—then shifted to get a better view. “That figures.”
The animals were roughly the same size and shape as duckbills, but had really screwy looking heads. Big and puffy. Stupid looking really. Stupid and slow, and still coming.
There were answers written in the mud to his right, and dinosaurs of unknown disposition to his left. Play his cards right and maybe he could still pull it off. He had no intention of coming back, and wasn’t willing to pass up the chance of finding out what he really wanted to know. And he did have his rifle.
Ron jogged along the trackway, and once he was deep enough, started waving. He only hoped Charlie and the others could see him.
The trail was pure muck where it entered the water, with footprints heading both to and from the mainland. To and from, and stacked one over another with enough leaves and twigs thrown in to make deciphering which track went down when like trying to sequence craters on the moon. Ron was still investigating, but the tracks appeared exclusively three-toed.
Charlie came slinking along the trail, minutes later, the revolver dangling in his fist, Hayden and Wheajo with their spears and following in his wake. The dome heads were still well to the north, tails flagging in the sunshine as their owners cropped the new growth bordering the trees.
Ron was busy picking leaves from the mud, his latest reveal exposing the crescent-shaped impression of a toenail. “See anything on your way over?”
Hayden dropped to a knee. “Not until now,” he said, peering through the trees.
Charlie switched from studying the tracks to the dinosaurs. He could hear the weird, almost dog-like barks whenever the breeze died. “Who invited the heads?”
“One might imagine the creatures asking the same of us.”
“Very funny, Wheajo.”
“Stay calm,” Ron said, straightening up and glancing over his shoulder. “We’ll be okay so long as we don’t stay long.”
“Yeah, well, we’re here too long already if you ask me.”
Tan on top with stripes running along the body, the dinosaurs were easily as big as some of the duckbills they’d encountered, the whole herd moving in unison like a school of fish, turning at the same time, looking in the same direction. Almost every move with an odd bob of the big dome heads. They were either all up, or all down, as if they could care less about predators.
“If we knew who these belonged to, sorting tracks would tell us something. But we don’t, McClure, and I’d just as soon we get the hell out of here. I don’t like the looks of these guys.”
“We’re watching, Bull. And you say that like we haven’t made any connections. So tell me if I’m all wet.” Three clear sets of prints marched off into the water, the rest a mass of partials. “These two are from bills,” Ron said. “Look close and you can see the hoof prints…. And then there’s this guy. Right foot… left foot. Best I can tell there’s only one set, so he was probably a loner. And whatever kind it was, the toe prints are rounded, so he’s not something to worry about either.
“So while we can’t match prints to particular animals, we can say something about numbers and types. Here’s one for you, Wheajo. If there aren’t claw marks, the track is most likely from a plant eater. That a fair statement
?”
“In my experience, yes.”
“And hippos kill more people than all the lions in Africa,” Charlie said. “And so do Cape Buffalo. So not havin’ claws really ain’t sayin’ much.”
“Didn’t know about the hippos, but yeah, there are probably lots of plant eaters we need to stay clear of. And I guess that’s my point. If a leaf eater strolls in here, he’s got lots of shit to munch on, and all we need to do is keep an eye on him. If a predator gets on, could be us he’s looking to munch. Which makes a really big difference in my book.”
“Mine too,” Hayden said, more interested in dinosaurs than tracks.
“And yeah, it rained recently, but so far I haven’t seen any sign of bad guys.”
Wheajo had a discerning eye, and almost immediately identified two other sets of prints; one with claws, the other not. Charlie spotted another, which brought the tally to six. Based on limited evidence, in the last one to two weeks the island had been visited by only one predator.
Ron was still searching, just in case.
Hayden was keeping tabs on the dome-heads in relation to a point of shadow that stretched from the out island to the beach. He couldn’t get a handle on it exactly, but there was something about the way the animals interacted—cocky and arrogant to the point of belligerence—that made him wish he was watching from farther away. Preferably through binoculars. One thing was certain: once the dinosaurs reached the shadow he’d call an end to this… this futzing in the mud that Ron seemed to think was so all-fired important.
And if they still hadn’t started? Well, that was their business. After that, they’d have to catch him.
A bony head jerked up, Wrroooof…!
“That didn’t sound good,” said Charlie.
…the rest mimicking the first, a score of mean-spirited eyes soon glaring along the beach.
Hayden’s fist tightened on the spear as the frighteningly wolfish barks became a din, the entire herd thundering along the beach a heartbeat later.
