by David Boyle
“Everybody down!”
The dinosaurs stormed past the gap like self-propelled battering rams, the pounding feet sending sand and leaves sailing. A snarl from down the beach was followed by the snapping of limbs as the would-be intruder fled into the forest. Then crashing sounds when the infuriated dome-heads followed the thing into the trees.
Charlie lay bracing the revolver. “Not very friendly, are they?”
Ron listened while the dinosaurs, like hounds on a scent, faded in the distance. He got to his knees, searching, the rifle across his chest. “You see what they were chasing, Prentler?”
“No. I was watching the heads.”
“Wheajo, how about…?” Ron twisted around.
“I did not,” Wheajo said, stepping from behind a dense cluster of ferns. “Nor did I hear the animal beforehand.” The alien looked to the mainland, clearly disturbed by that particular failing. “It is time to leave,” he added simply.
“I’m with you,” Charlie said, untangling himself from the weeds. “You can stay here until the moon comes up, McClure. But I’m outta here.”
Hayden rose to his feet. “Uh huh, and I’m right behind you.”
29
It was late afternoon, a smattering of clouds forming on the horizon when they finally exited the woods. They relished the shade as they strolled toward what was soon to be camp, pleased too that the dome-heads’ raucous pursuit had emptied the nearby beaches of everything save a few birds.
“Least we know we got the place to ourselves,” Charlie said, checking the clasp securing the handgun.
“Is good to be done with this,” Hayden said, thumping a chunk of driftwood with his spear. “And maybe now you can relax too, McClure. You drive me nuts when you get all hyper like that.”
Ron shrugged. “Okay, so I was a little strung out,” he said, watching as a flight of long billed pterosaurs soared across the lake. “Better safe than dinner I always say. Which reminds me. Charlie mentioned you and him found a good spot for camp.”
“Good is a relative and, I might add, rather nondescript term,” the alien replied. “However, the location does allow an adequate level of seclusion.”
Charlie piped in, “And don’t forget the great view.”
“If you insist. It also has a great view.”
“Now you’re getting the idea,” Hayden said, patting the alien’s blue-suited shoulder. “Come to think, if we set up fast enough, maybe we’ll have time to dig the jaws out of the sand. Be kind of cool to bring a complete skull home, wouldn’t it?”
“You want to mess around digging, be my guest,” Ron said, peeling the sling from his shoulder. “Me? I’m going to find a spot next to what I assume will be a big ole campfire—”
Charlie was nodding. “Got that straight.”
“—and stretch out and relax.” A tree jutted from the bank and over the water, Ron forced almost to his knees going under. “Careful with the spears guys.”
There were two more bends before they had any chance of seeing the cove, and Hayden was soon skipping stones across the water. “I know,” he said, flinging one in the direction of the nearby out island. “How about an egg run?”
“A what?” Charlie asked, the calls of unseen dinosaurs trumpeting across the lake.
“An egg run. We empty Ron’s boat and paddle to that first island. You know, the little one with the birds? Five’ll get you ten we can find some eggs for dinner.”
Ron never broke stride. “Knock your socks off. I’ll even do the cooking.”
“There will be no knocking of socks,” Wheajo said flatly, then to Hayden, “And no ‘egg run’. Nor any other unauthorized departure from the island.”
The alien was short on stature, but long on presence, and Hayden saw by the look there was no use in arguing. “Just a thought. No reason for you to get hyper too.” Charlie seemed ready to burst out laughing. “You’re a big help.”
Charlie smiled and kept walking.
The wind was picking up, the leaves high above rustling in the breeze. Minutes before they had passed the first major hiccup in the shoreline, and now they could see the riffled haze on the water where the forest parted and let the wind through. There were more dinosaurs, too, browsing en masse, their calls carrying from all parts of the lake. Ron and Charlie were getting proficient at attaching voices to faces, with Wheajo occasionally called upon to referee.
Hayden had fallen behind, and paused yet again to swipe at a piece of driftwood when a blur shot from underfoot. “Shit…!” He stared at the water, then stepped out and poked a clump of seaweed with the spear. “What would you say to crayfish for dinner? Bennett says they’re almost as good as lobster.”
“Yeah, and Bennett drinks,” Ron said, less than enthused. “Just try to keep up, okay?”
“Ooo… there’s another one.”
The gangly human was as if a limkei, perpetually curious, always with a penchant to play and explore. Admirable qualities if properly cultivated, this was neither the place or time for frivolous inquisitions.
“I must insist that you refrain from… further…” Wheajo cocked an ear, the cyclic cheee cheee cheee unquestionably organic. Twitches in the foliage converged on the bank.
“Cru arkay!” he shouted, and cranked the spear back.
Hayden caught the startled looks on their faces, and Wheajo’s arm shooting forward. He pivoted around—What in God’s name!?—and was knee deep in the lake when the nearest of the dinosaurs sprang from shore. He tracked the thing, backpedaling, its arms curled forward as it sailed toward him, talons reaching…
gunshots blared, feathers bursting across the sand
…and he watched the point of his spear vanish in the animal’s chest, his fists jerking when the broadhead sliced in one side and out the other, the rufous-winged nightmare undeterred as it slid along the shaft and slammed his chest.
He splashed down gasping, and went under, bubbles swirling as he struggled to distance himself from the claws and talons, eel grass curling at his ankles, the impaled dinosaur flapping in a snarly frenzy as the once transparent water churned red.
The dinosaur’s companion flopped on the beach as Ron and Charlie searched the bloody commotion, legs and arms splashing, neither able to identify exactly where Hayden ended and the predator began. Wheajo yanked his spear free and slit the other’s throat, the animal still writhing when he hurried to shore.
The dinosaur humped from the water, blood gushing around the shaft—Pow!—meat and feathers sent flying. The shot was high, barely a graze, and had exactly the effect intended. The head came around, an arm clawing. Hayden kicked away…
And an instant later the rifle and handgun barked with a single ear-shattering roar.
Charlie rushed out and grabbed an arm. “Prentler? Jesus, you okay?” Hayden wobbled to his feet, nodding, coughing up spittle. Ron there a second later.
“We’re good here, Bull. Grab that spear before the thing floats away.”
“Just gimme a second, would ya?”
“You want to wait? Fine,” Ron said, pinning Prentler’s arm to his shoulder. “And when you get back, you can fight with whatever comes looking to finish the bastard off.” The thing with the spear through its chest twitched on the surface in an ever expanding pall of blood.
“Son-of-a-bitch. You sure you got him?”
“Just go,” said Ron, lugging Hayden onto the beach. “You damn near had your ass handed to you.” Hayden was coughing, blood streaming from his left shoulder and arm.
Charlie slogged ashore and tossed the spear. “How the fuck is he?”
Hayden clutched his belly, coughing. “I’m not dead, you know.” He shook his head, blinking. Wheajo was standing with a stern expression, a bloodied pile of feathers strung out behind him. “Got the other one, I see.”
“Yeah, after Wheajo skewered him. It wasn’t for him, you’d have had both the bastards on you.” Ron looked his friend over, almost but not quite chuckling when he noticed the teeth marks
in Prentler’s shoe. “You’re lucky he got you from the bottom and not the top.”
Hayden frowned. “Huh?”
“The other way around and you’d really have been fucked up.”
“Quit with the bullshittin’,” Charlie said, holstering the revolver and staring at Hayden’s shoulder. “What are we gonna do about that?”
Hayden peeked at his chest. “What are you…? Oh… I’m bleedin’.”
Charlie knelt beside him. “No kidding,” he said, pressing his hand to the gashes. “Like a damn pig. McClure, think of something! And fast.”
Wheajo peeled Charlie’s hand away, examining the wounds as one might damaged merchandise. The center slash had nicked bone, though he could also see that no major arteries had been severed. “Fortunately,” he said, sounding annoyed, “the wounds are superficial. Continue as you were,” he ordered, sliding Charlie’s hand none too gently in place. Hayden winced. “Come, and I will initiate repairs.”
“The sooner the better, far as I’m concerned.” Charlie didn't quite know how to handle him and keep the cuts closed at the same time. “Think you can walk?”
“It’s his shoulder for Christ sake,” said Ron, not so gently helping Hayden to his feet. “Course he can walk… right, Prentler?”
“If you say so.”
Wheajo snatched the spear from the beach. “And bring the animals,” he said, starting for the cove.
Charlie looked to the thoroughly bloodied attackers. “What the hell for?”
The alien never slowed. “To imbue a modicum of value to this most untimely incident.”
Hayden gritted his teeth. “What… did he say?”
Ron got him moving. “He said we’re having turkey for dinner.”
“Oh.”
They’d dragged the Tripper past the cycads and worked the curved portions of the bow and stern into the sand until their plastic table was seated flush to the ground. Woozy and shirtless, Hayden was trying hard not to slide off the hull while Wheajo pinched the deepest of the wounds closed. “Easy there Wheajo. That… ouch, hurts.”
Wheajo ignored him. “Remain still,” he said, directing the frosted globe of the yaltok slowly across the man’s shoulder. Hayden gritted his teeth, squirming. “I said remain still.”
“But it hurts.” Hayden didn’t want to look, seeing as it was his shoulder that was messed up, but watched anyway. The yaltok, as was true of the dawzon, apparently had far more utility than Wheajo had let on. The alien was thorough if not gentle, and with each passage of the yaltok he could feel a tingly sensation around the wound. Already the bleeding had stopped, which by itself was amazing.
“Drink.”
“But I already feel like I’m going to bust.”
“You have lost a substantial amount of blood, and you must replace the fluids. Is that so difficult for you to comprehend?”
At least the bota was nearly empty. “Okay…. Ouch!” Hayden slugged down another jolt of the too warm and overly diluted Kool Aid. He could see Charlie, a short ways alongshore, hacking at the second dinosaur. It was too bad they couldn’t use more of the things. But there was no way to stop the meat from spoiling, so they’d use what they could and throw the rest away.
“Ow, ow, ow…! You’re almost finished, right?”
Wheajo made an adjustment in the settings. “Almost,” he said, once again passing the yaltok across his shoulder. Hayden tried to pull back. But Wheajo held firm.
“What exactly did you do on your ship? Were you the guy with the hood?”
“I was Second Armud to the science officer. And you?”
“You mean my occupation? I’m an industrial engineer—Ouch! Watch that, okay?—though lately I was beginning to feel more like a firefighter.”
Wheajo nodded, seemingly impressed. “A dangerous occupation.”
“Well… not exactly. It’s just that the way things were—”
“How’s it coming?” Ron said, walking over with another armload of wood for the fire.
“Okay I think. Wheajo?”
“Your physiology and mine are not so dissimilar as it might first appear,” he said, examining the wounds.
Ron leaned to get a better look. “Wow, good job Wheajo. You do all that with that thingamajiggy?”
Another humanism. “Yes. And perhaps we can end your treatment”—Hayden sighed—“for now.”
“Aw….”
“Prentler, shut the hell up. Wheajo’s already got you pretty well put back together.” Ron shook his head, and to Wheajo said: “He gives you any shit… let me know and I’ll hold him down for you. And if he gives us both shit, we’ll get Bull to help.”
“Gee thanks, McClure. I’ll remember that.”
Ron said nothing and instead followed the big evergreen into the sky, looking to tomorrow when the really tough part would begin. “And when you’re done here, I could use some help setting up the tent.”
Wheajo acknowledged Ron’s request as he set to shredding what was left of Hayden’s shirt. He bound up the major gashes and secured the human’s wrist to his belt. And just before leaving gave strict instructions to limit his activities.
Hayden tried moving his shoulder. “At least let me give Charlie a hand,” he said, wincing. “Or get firewood. Unload the canoes. Something.”
Wheajo paused. “And if I were to insist otherwise?”
A grin wrinkled his bearded cheek. “I promise I won’t do any heavy lifting. I mean, you got me all tied up.” His eyes pleaded. “You gotta let me do something or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
The alien turned and strutted away. “Humans.”
Within the hour Ron and Wheajo had cleared sites beneath the palms, put up the tent and a lean-to, tossed in their dump bags, and gotten a decent start on a woodpile. Their most recent acquisitions had been sliced and diced—“Got parts from all over,” Charlie said on his return—pieces of which were piled on a frond, a skewered chunk already sizzling over the fire.
Still, dinner was going to take time, and with daylight remaining everyone save Hayden went to examine the big evergreen. Sore and uncomfortable, Hayden was happy to tend the fire and make sure dinner didn’t burn.
At nearly two hundred feet tall and seven feet in diameter at its base, the evergreen was the largest of its kind on the island. The stubs of old branches jutted like fractured spokes near the bottom, the recently deceased above them giving way to the living, each set smaller in diameter than the set thereafter, rings of branches ever more closely packed until all one could see near the top was a fuzzy green and brown maze.
Larger by far than any to be found in the Midwest, the evergreen was an intimidating piece of work close up. Ron stared at the stubs, scratching his head. “How the hell are we going to get up there?”
Scores of fallen limbs lay scattered at the base of the evergreen. “We can worry about that tomorrow. I want this over with. And the sooner the better, cause I’m starved.”
“In which case you may begin here,” Wheajo said, indicating his chosen path through the scrub. “Remove only what is necessary.”
Charlie got a grip on the axe. “And here I woulda taken ‘em all out,” he sniveled, wagging his head at McClure. “Thanks for pointing that out, Wheajo.”
“You are qite welcome.”
Small trees and brush were soon falling, the axe and hatchet at work opening a trail between their soon-to-be worksite and camp. Green cuttings were shoved into the bushes off trail, the rest dragged into camp. Hopefully, if they timed it right, their work site would be ready before dinner was.
Another limb clunked onto the pile. “It’s good we got a lot of this shit, cause once it gets going this stuff is going to burn like a mother.” Ron slumped with a groan alongside the Tripper and got the canteen from Hayden. “Started without us I see. Stuff any good?”
“It’s okay I guess.”
Ron slugged down a gulp. “That didn’t sound encouraging.” He capped off and tossed the canteen to Charlie, then pulled o
ut his knife. “You hurting? Or does it taste that bad?”
Hayden scooched away from the fire. “A little of—ow!—both actually.”
“You need anything?” Charlie asked, waiting while Ron and Wheajo carved into the meat. “Something better to lean on… a sleeping bag maybe, or…?”
Hayden waved him off. “No, I’m okay. I’m just sorry I couldn’t give you guys a hand.” The woodpile had most definitely grown. “There anything left in there to clean up?”
“We got most of it out,” Ron said, sniffing the meat. “Now at least you can walk without getting tangled.” He took a bite, chewed for a second. “It’s different alright. Like a cross between flank steak and chicken. Texture’s not bad.” He swallowed. “Does have a weird aftertaste.”
“Perhaps a consequence of its diet. The animals were carnivores.”
Charlie swallowed. “Bugs me how close the pricks let us get. What was it, a coupla yards maybe?” He turned the bone in his hand. Tossed it in the fire. “Had that happen while I was bow huntin’ once, pheasant and bunnies. I’m pokin’ along and this cock comes bustin’ outta the ground like two feet away… wings goin’ two-forty, cacklin’… shittin’ like they do. A million frickin’ colors and I never knew the prick was there. Got me flustered to where I never did take the shot.”
“The few times I went we hunted over dogs,” said Ron, “so we always pretty much knew where they were sitting. And now that you mention, I’m thinking the bastards didn’t attack right off because there were three of us. So they watched us go by and waited for Mr. Straggler here.”
Wheajo nodded. “A likely scenario.”
Just listening had Hayden squirming. “Before you guys take that any further, I was wondering if you could give me another treatment?”
Wheajo peeked under the bandage. The area around the wounds was swollen of course, but all were sealed. “Tissue regeneration is progressing normally, and a follow up now may be premature.”
