by David Boyle
“Oh, they’re bitin’ alright. Just nothin’ big. Did hook a coupla reds. The ones Mike likes? Landed two that were maybe a foot long.”
“You did pitch the scraps.”
“Right, scraps. A couple of bites”—Mike was staring—“yeah, I’m talkin’ about you, and the things were gone.” Charlie stroked the dinosaur’s head, examining his pet from one end to the other. “He look bigger than when he got here?” A glow lit the sky, the crackling boom rumbling well to the south.
“It’s less than a month, Bull. How the fuck much bigger could he get?”
“Could be he is,” Mark retorted. “Dinosaurs were supposed to grow pretty fast. Last I read, duckbills were thought to be full grown in two to three years.”
“Gimme a break. Two years? Fuckers weigh tons when they’re full grown.” Ron shook his head. “Two years. Yeah, like I’m supposed to believe that.” A flash splintered the sky, the seconds-later booms reverberating on and on. A cool gust rattled the trees.
“That’s encouraging.” The next bolt caught Hayden staring, and he stood there blinking as the ear-shattering boom pummeled the campsite and echoed along the river. Then the sky let loose, wind-driven drops slanting into the trees, splattering his glasses and smiling face. “Oh yeah, I’m liking this one a lot.”
Charlie hurried toward his tent; Mark too, after plucking his shirts and socks from the line. “Feel like trying your luck, Wheajo? You’re only a few thousand in the hole.”
“My aptitude for poker is not, shall I say, adequate to the task.”
“You’re problem is you keep falling for McClure’s bluffs,” Mark said, flinching at the drops spattering his back. “Which I guess is my problem too.” The cloud gods had opened the spigots, the rain sweeping the campsite in sheets, hammering the tents, the leaves. “Last chance, Wheajo. You coming or not?”
“You may deal me out, I believe is the correct term.”
A giant flashbulb went off, the bolt still sizzling when the thunderclap boomed. Mark reached for his money bag, the one with the colored pebbles. “Keep your fingers crossed, Wheajo. This could be the one,” he said, and hurried to the next tent over. “Guess it’s too late to grab a chair.”
“You could say that,” Ron said, staring out the door at the rain, shuffling. “You find it yet?”
Hayden fished a flattened strip of wood from his pack, initials and accounts scratched into its side. “And you said I wouldn’t remember I put it there.” Three flashes lit the campsite, one right after the other, the air throbbing with the aerial explosions.
“Van Dyke, you playing or what?” Ron yelled at the wall, the rain droning.
“Maybe later,” came the reply.
Ron spread the cards across the wooden flat. They all drew. A brilliant flash turned the nylon walls momentarily white, the thunderclap booming. Mark turned a six; Hayden a four. Ron flipped an ace.
“You cheat.”
Ron slapped a hundred spot pebble on the floor. “Ante up, guys. And I hope you’re ready for this, cause I’m feeling lucky.”
*****
They kept watch on the river, and by noon of the second day were heartened to see it had risen well over a foot. Hayden and Ron watched from the landing, the rapid downstream roaring as never before. “Boulder’s smoking today,” Hayden said. “How much higher you think she’ll go?”
“After this? Hell, another foot, maybe a foot and a half. Be a good long while before Sabrefang makes it over again, that’s for sure.”
The entire forest rattled and shimmied, whipped by the wind. “I’d like to think this is what happens when everyone prays for a really big storm.”
“You run that by Tony, and I doubt he’d agree,” Ron said, watching a tree tumble past on the current. “Is one hell of a storm.”
Hayden could see Mark hunched by the fire pit. “I doubt it’ll happen for a while, but could I interest you in a cup of coffee?”
“Depends on whether it’s as diluted as the bug juice in that bota of his.”
A half dozen of a likely larger group of dinosaurs was grazing the meadow, not the least perturbed by the rain. “Uh huh,” Hayden said. “And in couple more days, you won’t even have that.”
Hayden gathered the spears that had blown off the rack. Charlie was still recovering, but between him and Mark it was hard to know who was more of a stickler, and having muddied spear points simply would not do. The compass was set up alongside the rack, and Hayden checked to make sure the thing hadn’t filled with water. “You going to have that going today?” Hayden said, amazed as always to see the needle pointing south.
“You think this is easy?” Mark said, snatching a breath outside the smoke. “I’d like to see you get a fire going after a hurricane.” Mark slumped on his heels, frowning. “What’s the deal, Prentler? You look like you swallowed a bug.”
He still hadn’t budged. “The needle’s pointing south.”
“Uh huh,” Ron said, meandering from the landing. “And it’s been that way since we got here.”
“No, I mean dead south. As in right at the little S.” Hayden was trying mightily not to let it show, but a klaxon was blaring in his head. Everyone who’d heard him knew that south was most definitely not the right direction. South-southeast was.
Mark got up. “You’re reading it wrong,” he said on his way over, he and Ron and Wheajo converging on the only tree left standing since Day 1.
“It’s a compass, Mark. Look for yourself.”
Ron tried wiggling, but the pole was dead solid. “When’s the last time you checked?”
“Me?” Hayden shrugged. “Days ago. And I wouldn’t have looked now except for the spears.”
“Bennett, how ‘bout you?”
“Yesterday or the day before. Needle was good whenever it was.” There was an awful truth to their discovery. “You know what this means, don’t you…?”
Charlie hiked over when he saw them together, Mike prancing along at his side. “What’s the powwow about?” No one looked. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” McClure said. “We’re not sure.”
“Not sure of what?” Honks blared, far upriver.
“The dawzon has ceased functioning,” Wheajo said flatly. “How and why this has occurred is unknown.”
Charlie flinched as if he’d been punched in the face. “You gotta be shittin’ me. I mean really. We finally get the storm we’ve been waitin’ for, and the fuckin’ dawzon is outta gas!”
“And how’s this affect the transporter?” Hayden said.
“Power reserves cannot have been exhausted. To your question, there is no link, physical or otherwise, between the devices. The brizva should not have been affected.”
“All the time at the lake. The cuttin’… the haulin’. And for what?” Charlie was squirming, and he wasn’t alone. “This can’t be happening.”
Mark couldn’t take his eyes off the compass. “I don’t even know the right questions to ask. Could you have maybe set the dawzon on automatic cutoff?”
“The dawzon has no such capability.”
“Damn it, Wheajo, think!” Ron snarled. “You’re the only one here who knows how it works, so it’s up to you to figure out what went wrong.”
“I understand the need. However, without a physical examination I can but speculate why the dawzon has ceased functioning.”
Long seconds passed without a word being spoken. Hayden stared through the trees behind the tents. “With how fast the river’s moving, it’s going to be a while before we can make a run to the lake. There anything we can do in the meantime?”
“What do you think? We wait.”
“Yeah, for somethin’ else to get on the island. Or another big storm we’ll end up missin’.”
But Hayden was right. The river was high and still rising, and draining the watershed upstream was going to take time.
“With how much rain we’ve gotten, we’ll be lucky to get down there in under a week,” Mark said. “I doubt Sa
brefang is in the picture. But as far as getting the brizva charged, what’s the downside to waiting? As long as the dawzon isn’t losing power, whenever we go shouldn’t matter.”
“The brizva is in a passive configuration and can be excluded from time-dependent considerations, and if the dawzon has ceased functioning, its reactivation is irrelevant. There are, however, alternate modes of operation whereby the errcot would not exist, though I can postulate no mechanism by which such a transition could occur.”
Ron frowned. “You want to run that past me again?”
“Wheajo keeps dishin’, and you guys just keep on lappin’ it up.”
“The hell you talking about, Charlie?”
“It’s bullshit, McClure. Don’t cha see that? He’s got no more a fuckin’ clue about what happened than we do.”
*****
As antsy as everyone was to get to the lake, they also knew that with the river at flood stage, it wouldn’t matter how many paddles were in the water. Ride the current early, and whoever went downriver wouldn’t be back anytime soon.
The river rose through the days following the storm, and held at the high point for an additional two days before finally starting down. After weeks of watching the sky, it was hard to focus on the river with the knowledge that they’d possibly missed their best chance at getting the brizva charged.
Fishing was a waste, and when not out foraging or hunting, they gathered around the campfire, telling stories, often long into the night, on one occasion managing to coax Wheajo into relating some of his exploits as well, and about the twin star system the Grotky called home. Had they been talking before his capture, Wheajo was reasonably certain he’d have been able to locate Ty, a star that orbited the galaxy an estimated 680 light years from earth.
When gathered in the tent they left the door open to allow Mike to come and go as he pleased, the dinosaur scampering from the sometimes noisy conversations. Mike was never comfortable around the alien, but had grown sufficiently confident that he could grudgingly occupy the same space as Wheajo without the two getting into a fight.
The shoreline below the landing was wide enough to walk by the fifth day, the river showing signs of clearing on day seven, the same day as the latest storm to blow through.
“That’s two inches from last night,” Hayden said, checking the stump below the landing. “Another six, and I’d be willing to take a shot downriver.”
“You do know you’re not on the list,” Mark said, shoving Mike’s snout away from his pocket. “I was talking to Wheajo about the brizva, and the subject came up of who he’d be taking on this next trip.”
“He happen to say why?”
“You mean why me and not you?” Hayden nodded. “Nope, never did. I do know he’s been watching the meadow lately, so I’m guessing he’s looking for someone who knows the animals.”
“You talked about the brizva?”
“Not a lot.” Mark went to a knee, stroking the dinosaur’s neck. “I got nothing in my pockets, see? Now go away already.”
The dinosaur padded over to Hayden. “Thanks a lot,” Hayden said, extending an open hand. “Yeah, sniff all you want. I don’t have anything either.”
Relaxing under the lean-to, Charlie patted his thigh. “You’re a goof ball, you know that?” he said, scratching Mike’s chin when the dinosaur trotted over. “So, what’s the story?”
“Yeah right, story. You know how Wheajo is. Unless he’s positive, he’s negative. Almost like McClure.
“What I keep coming back to is where you guys set the canoe up. There’s not much to see, even through the binoculars, but from my perspective, it’s in the perfect position with or without the dawzon.”
Hayden glimpsed three dinosaurs racing across the meadow. “For regular storms, the lake probably is the best place around. But with this last one? I hate to say this, but we might have gotten lucky if we’d dragged the Rockfinder into one of the trees at the end of the island here.”
“My point exactly. And Wheajo said another thing that’s been squirreling around in my head.”
“What’s that?”
“He mentioned the dawzon going into an alternate mode, and that’s why it’s not affecting the compass. But what if it didn’t? What if the shift, the change, the whatever the hell happened, only knocked the output down? For talking points, let’s say Wheajo set the dawzon to ten, and now it’s at, fuck, let’s say three. With that storm, and that perfect location….”
Charlie’s mouth dropped open. “Holy…. Maybe it did get hit.”
“See there? We are on the same wavelength.” Mark looked to Hayden. “Where’s the hole in what I’m saying?”
“I don’t know if there is one.”
Hayden hadn’t answered with the conviction Mark expected. “Except?”
“We checked the islands, Mark, all of them, and I didn’t see any that looked to have been hit by lightning. I’ll give you it’s a good location, but shouldn’t we have seen something? A burn on the side of a tree. Something.”
“Okay, so maybe you’ve got a point. But think about all the rivers we’ve been on. We’re talking hundreds of miles, and off-hand I can only remember seeing like five trees that were hit by lightning. And you know there had to be more, only we couldn’t see them because most aren’t in the open.”
“It’s more than that, man. Back home, you’re lookin’ for anything, including scorched trees. Here what you’re lookin’ for is critters. Specially on the lake where the sons-a’-bitches are everywhere.” Charlie was growing a smile for the first time in days.
“Would be nice,” Hayden said.
Charlie was staring, this time into the future. “Holy Christ,” he said softly, crossing himself after the words left his mouth. “Could be we’ll be home in a coupla days.”
“Just slow down, okay? If I thought you’d get this revved up, I wouldn’t have said anything. No matter how you slice it, we’re a long ways from being able to make that kind of jump.”
“I hear ya. But damn… I got goose bumps just thinkin’ about it.” Hayden, too, had that far off look in his eyes.
Mark eyed the waterline on the stump below the landing, the river gurgling behind the stubby set of roots. “A couple more guys. Two days and chances are we’ll know whether any of what we just said has anything to do with reality.”
*****
“Indeed it was, though not its track. While far ranging, the electrical component may not have included the lake.”
“Will you guys stop already? This back and forth is drivin’ me crazy! I’m finished, ya hear me? I’m done. Worn out. Spent.” They were all staring. “Look at me! I’m a damn cripple because of this place. My best friend’s dead. I’ve nearly been killed… twice! Had my foot ripped off by the bitch across the river. And now I want out. I mean it. No more, Wheajo. Not a fuckin’ word about that transporter thing of yours not bein’ charged.”
“Charlie, we talked about this.”
“You know what I see when I close my eyes at night? I see her. And Tony. Or what was left of him…”
“Charlie, stop it.”
“…and none of it’s goin’ away. I see her sometimes, poundin’ alongshore, the splashin’ ringin’ in my ears.” Charlie was shaking. “And I see her rippin’ at Mike… and then it’s not him, it’s me on the ground, and I can’t get away….”
“Charlie, it’s been days since anyone—”
“What good are they? I mean really? What good are the cúpaqs to a cripple?”
“You win, Bull. Okay?” Ron had heard enough too. “And to a cripple they are useless. Thing is, I’ve dealt with people who’ve had some really bad things happen to them. And I learned that being a cripple has a lot to do with what happens in your head. Maybe you are a cripple, Charlie. And that’s too bad, ‘cause the guy I drove with to the put-in wouldn’t have needed legs to get into either of the safe trees.
“You want to feel sorry for yourself? Fine. To tell the truth, I’m happy you’re gett
ing all this crap out of your system.
“Just remember how I was with Wheajo. I really did want to kill him. And I might have if you guys didn’t stop me. And even then, Wheajo was straight with us. All the bullshit I laid on him, and he never flinched. Not once. And now all he’s trying to do is stop you from going off the deep end. So vent if you want. Just keep in mind he’s trying to be honest.” Ron paused to see if Charlie had anything to say. “Believe me, I’d love it if the brizva is charged. Thing is, what we believe doesn’t change anything. You think different, that’s okay. Just don’t get so tied up in knots that you go ape shit on us when we come back empty handed.”
“You can be a real ass sometimes, you know that?”
“Maybe so. I just call ‘em how I see ‘em.”
Charlie turned. “If I was outta line, Wheajo, I’m sorry. Just no more talk about your transporter thing not bein’ charged. And if you gotta… do it when I ain’t around.”
“I will speak of it no further.”
Charlie was propped on his crutch, staring out over the river. The sky was cloudy, and there seemed yet the chance of rain.
“How you doing, Bull?”
“Not so good, Hayden. How ‘bout you?”
“Come on, relax. Tomorrow’s a big day. Turns out right, we could be on our way home the day after.”
“Even you, huh?”
“I don’t follow you. Even me what?”
“You’re not sure either.”
“I am sure. But a lot of things can still go wrong.”
“See what I mean?”
“I’m not playing this game, Charlie. We’re about to cook up some of the dinosaur Ron and Mark caught the other day, and I wanted to know if you’re interested.”
Mike was nearby, nosing through the bushes with the flowers in bloom, snapping at butterflies. “Goofy shit.” Hayden was watching too. “You have no idea how much that little guy means to me.”
