by David Boyle
Mark was trembling, ready to explode. “You’re killing me, Wheajo.”
“Your instincts were correct. The brizva is operational, and fully charged.”
Mark leaped up. “Yahoo…! No more maybes. No more worrying about storms! I told you, Wheajo! Didn’t I tell you!? You, me… fuck… everybody! We’re on our way now!
“Listen up future world…! We’re comin’ home!”
46
Mark couldn’t remember coiling the cable and stuffing it in the pack, or tying the raft together with the throw rope, or where he’d picked up all the scratches on his arms. None of which mattered. Not anymore. However many miles they had to go, him and Wheajo, McClure—who he imagined was going nuts wondering where they were—Hayden and Charlie were on their way home and didn’t even know it!
“There were times I didn’t think we’d pull this off,” Mark said, one leg dangling in the water, stroking.
“I too was apprehensive,” Wheajo admitted, glancing about the lake. “I will remember your persistence if again I encounter insuperable circumstances.”
“Got friends back at home that’ll be happy to see you?”
“Acquaintances. My actions will, of course, be questioned.”
A gentle surge sloshed between the logs. “You mean about letting yourself get captured.”
“More importantly, my equipment.”
“Yeah, allowing the wrong folks access to sensitive equipment can get serious even where I’m from,” Mark said, free at last to think beyond his next meal. “Tell you what. If you think it’d help, I’ll stay behind when you make your call and go through the whole story when your ship comes to get you. And I won’t be surprised if the other guys are willing to wait around too.” The big sauropods were gone, the carcass at the mouth of the swamp now being fed upon by two mid-sized predators. “Be kinda neat, actually. Maybe getting to see the inside of a starship.”
“You would speak on my behalf?”
“You and me? We’re us now, Wheajo. Might not cut any ice with your superiors. Then again, I can’t see as it would hurt.” A snarl echoed across the lake, one of the predators snapping at birds diving at the kill. “It’s up to you, Wheajo. Give it some thought when we get back.”
The pines whispered along the ridge, the freshening breeze gusting below the limestone bluff where tufted patches of fuzz swirled across the water. The raft twisted in the swells, the big logs thumping as they stroked toward shore. Long streamers of green began reaching from the depths. And soon thereafter the milky clouds stirred by the backwash of waves surging alongshore.
“Don’t see as we need the ropes anymore,” Mark said, watching the predators, stroking. “Is kind of a shame we can’t take this with us.” They hopped off when the raft made contact, then dragged it ashore with the next surge. Mark paused for a last loving look at the lake while Wheajo untied the spear. “Been a pleasure,” Mark said to the wilderness. He patted the raft. “You too. Thanks for the ride.”
Wheajo peeked over the bank. A second predator was slinking alongshore to the south, head low and intent on the carcass. “Come,” he said, paddle in hand. And they hurried toward the blaze marking the path at the edge of the forest.
*****
“You’ve got plenty of time. Even in the best case, we won’t be going anywhere until tomorrow.”
“Just tryin’ to get a jump on what to take and what to leave behind,” Charlie said, picking through the mess in his tent. “I’m not gonna bother with my shit, but I’m figurin’ Lorraine is gonna want whatever we can bring back of Tony’s.”
Hayden sighed. “You thought about what you’re going to tell her?”
“I tried a coupla times. And all I end up doin’ is gettin’ myself tied up in knots. How the hell ever that goes, I ain’t lookin’ forward to it.”
“You’ll probably just be filling in the blanks. Lorraine will already know he’s gone by the time we get to see her.” Charlie stared back, horrified. “The news guys? Unless we get back within a day or so of when we were supposed to, people will have been looking for us, and word that we’ve popped back from out of nowhere is going to hit the streets in hours.”
“Fuck, I hadn’t thought of that.” It wasn’t hard imagining the news vans and reporters. All of them yelling. The microphones. Lorraine standing at the door, and the look on her face. “Shit, we can’t let that happen. No frickin’ way.”
Hayden kicked a log into the fire. “I’m going to check the river. They should be on their way by now, and I want to keep an eye out. When I get back, we’ll talk.”
Mike trotted after Hayden, stopped and looked back.
“Yeah, go on along. It’s okay,” Charlie said, flicking his wrist. He reached in his pocket and got his friend’s wedding band. “We’re not gonna let that happen, Tony. No way is she gonna get that kinda news from anybody but us.”
*****
Wheajo stood pressed against a tree, watching intently as a pair of ungainly quadrupeds shuffled slowly through the forest not fifteen yards to their left. He motioned to Mark, who came ahead, careful with the individual fronds to ensure they wouldn’t attract attention.
The animals were enormous, with bony plates covering the head and continuing up and along their wide, flattened backs and tails, a row of ridiculously huge spikes jutting along their flanks. The dinosaurs reminded Mark of wind-up toys, their tiny heads carrying brains likely no larger than the swelling of the spinal bundle encased within the bony club at the end of their tails. The armor made the animals essentially predator-proof, and, with their defense responses likely on automatic, Mark and Wheajo paid the animals the utmost respect.
The contented grunts faded as they slipped silently downhill, the air thick with the scent of flowers and rotting vegetation, and soon the smell of fresh dung. They slowed near the game trail, checking, then hurried across. Snarls sounded to the south, and honks to the north, the duckbills likely close enough to be within sight when they passed them on the river.
They hurried along the cobbles, pieces of the river soon glinting through the trees. And finally the Tripper, its distinctive lines and blood-red hues showing clearly against the drab gray of the river’s opposite bank.
“Pick it up,” said Mark, barely able to contain himself.
Useless to even try, Wheajo made no attempt to slow his human companion. Creature activities had abated during their search, and had since been on the increase. The big herbivores were but the latest of the animals in need of avoidance, and with their excursions to the lake complete, Wheajo was taking note of every animal encountered. Calls carried from seemingly every direction, the majority apparently too faint for the human to notice.
Wheajo moved quietly along the creekbed, searching the hillsides, the river. The canoe was secured along shore and immediately opposite the cobbles, Ron slouched and waiting until he spotted Mark. The two waved, one to the other. A shift in the vegetation showed above the bank. The wind perhaps? Wheajo slowed to allow a more thoroughly examine the area. Given the light available, the forest presented an anomalous blend of colors, portions of which formed what appeared to be a more extended pattern.
He continued toward the river, studying a particular parcel of foliage as his perspective on the forest changed….
Whatever the odds, Ron had about the same expectation of seeing Mark and Wheajo dragging the Rockfinder through the woods as he would being dealt a full house. As distinctive as fingernails on a blackboard, the sound of an aluminum canoe being hauled overland was as unmistakable as it was hard to mask, and he’d known the moment he spotted Mark that the strike to power up the brizva hadn’t happened. He realized, too, that he’d been lying to himself, and he was stunned at how desperately he’d been hoping he was wrong. The finger pointing would come soon enough, but what he wanted now, what he needed, were assurances that whatever the hell had gone wrong couldn’t possibly happen again.
“Tell me you fixed it!” Ron yelled across the river. Mark had what migh
t have been a paddle; Wheajo holding back as if to let him deliver the news.
“I wish there was an easier way to say this,” Mark shouted. “But the dawzon exploded!”
Ron sat for a second, blinking. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. The fucking dawzon exploded!” Mark hollered, the alien suddenly in a rush to join him. “The whole island looks like it was hit—”
“Move away!” Wheajo shouted. “You must hurry!”
Ron leaned over and yanked the knot loose, the painter spilling into the boat when he heard Mark yelling.
“There’s a dinosaur behind you! Move, Ron! You gotta get out of there!”
The Tripper splashed sideways when Ron stabbed the bank, then sat there wobbling while he struggled to free his paddle from the mud.
“Get moving already!” Mark yelled, panic in his voice.
Ron started digging the instant his paddle was free, the thrash of vegetation growing ever louder. He didn’t need to look, Mark was doing that— “Faster, Ron! Faster! The thing’s almost on top of you!”—his arms pumping to the sound of labored breathing. Clumps of earth shot-gunned the water, and he flinched around, gasping, the animal atop the bank shy an arm and a piece of its shoulder, the wound a festering mass.
Smelling of rot, the emaciated predator roared as Ron stroked across the current, fallen limbs snapping when the dinosaur leaped from the bank…
Pow!
…its teeth raking his sleeve before the head slammed down barely inches from his leg. The starboard gunnel buckled, and Ron tumbled past the animal’s snout, his paddle and rifle similarly ejected in the instants before the Tripper went under, the dinosaur snapping at the water.
Groping, stunned by the suddenness of the attack, Ron hit bottom to the muffled boom of the revolver. A quick shove and he popped to the surface, sucking air, trying to get his bearings, the dinosaur roaring its displeasure. He splashed toward the overturned Tripper, the yards like miles and the pain-ravaged predator closing when he ducked beneath the gunnel and into the bubble beyond. He grabbed the nearest thwart, water sloshing in the near darkness when jaws clamped the boat. Hard plastic slammed down on his head, scrapes sounding along the hull as the canoe surged to the surface, a wall of scales showing briefly beside the canoe when he wrenched it back over his head.
Pow!
Again the jolt to his head, water splashing across his face while teeth and claws assaulted the hull. The jiggling stopped, and the Tripper bobbed to the surface, Ron with his face pressed to the vastly reduced bubble of air. He held tight to the thwart, listening. On land the bastard could keep at it as long as it wanted. But in water this deep?
Something hard slammed the side of his leg—Son-of-a—and momentarily started the canoe spinning.
Holding firm, Ron stared along the pinkish hollow of the canoe. Another jolt, more scraping… only this time at the very end of the canoe. A lifetime ago he’d stopped in an eddy somewhere on the Wolf and talked briefly with a guy who, like him, was in love with his Tripper, and who went on and on about how slippery the things were on rocks. Ron looked with grateful eyes along the wrinkled hull of his boat. Same goes for teeth.
*****
The Tripper burped to the surface, the predator again snapping at the overturned hull, a sliver of fabric dangling from its jaw. Mark leveled the revolver. “You bastard!” he snarled, and clicked the hammer back, a hand at once reaching to force the barrel down.
“Look there!” Dinosaurs were approaching, heads shifting through the cover barely a hundred yards upriver. Definitely not plant eaters. Wheajo shoved Mark behind a vine-riddled cluster of trees. “Recharge your weapon,” he said, watching dinosaurs surge through the woods, leaping and snarling, a few yipping excitedly as if sensing an easy meal.
Closer now….
An animal raced past on their left, then three more on their right, the nearby foliage rustling with the passage of many animals. Two more streaked past. And finally, the last three.
The fading footfalls were soon replaced by the sounds of splashing as the pack surged en masse across the river, the big predator quickly up the bank and into the forest. Mark knelt amongst the ferns, staring off, the revolver quivering in his lap. Wheajo scanned the hillside. Heads were up, animals of different types focused on the commotion across the river; a line of vegetation shimmying beyond them. “Come, we must proceed.”
“What about Ron?”
Wheajo hesitated. “I fear he is beyond our help.” There was no sign of the Tripper, the river beside the bank churning as the pack hunters splashed ashore and charged into the forest.
Mark beat his palms against his forehead. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. First Delgado… now McClure.” Tears streamed down his face.
“I too, feel their loss. However, we must leave, for we have much ground to cover before nightfall.”
Mark got shakily to his feet, staring, the Tripper and his friend and partner gone. His fist ached from the repeated shots, his heart from the knowledge he’d been unable to warn Ron in time. His mind a blur, he stumbled after Wheajo, the oftentimes scratchy vegetation unnoticed.
Wheajo stopped behind a cycad not long after, waiting there as Mark shuffled beside him, tears yet streaming down his face. “There are animals ahead. Continue this behavior and we may well meet the same end as your friend.”
Mark blinked, trying to focus. “What?”
“Look there.”
Duckbills were browsing the trees not eighty yards away, and while not being noticed wasn’t a surprise, the fact that he hadn’t noticed them most definitely was. Stunned by Ron’s death and wondering what he could have done to prevent it, he had clearly lost sight of the here and now. He looked to Wheajo. “You’re right. I wasn’t watching. I won’t let it happen again.”
“Indeed,” Wheajo said, his patience at an end. “Follow me.”
They moved quietly through the forest, Mark struggling to stay above his emotions and focus instead on the miles of forest that lay ahead. Whether on the island or off, dying here was only a matter of time. Stay one day longer than absolutely necessary, even an hour, and any one of them could be next. Wheajo was carrying their ticket home, and for now Mark knew he had no choice but to put Ron out of his mind. He stripped away the tears, more determined than ever that no one else would die here.
They worked toward the river after skirting the duckbills, every inch new and unexplored despite having been passed on multiple occasions. A nerve-racking hundred yards passed, then not quite an additional two when Wheajo dropped to a knee. Another batch of dinosaurs, the streaks on their flanks and blue-green necks belonging to animals neither had seen before.
“We can’t keep doing this. With how far it is back, it’ll be dark long before we get anywhere near the island.”
“You have an alternative?”
Mark tipped his hat to the hillside. “We take the trail. Definitely have to watch, but we’ll make way better time there than through this shit.”
Wheajo considered the forest. “Presuming the trail follows the river, the ability to move unimpeded may well outweigh the risks. We will proceed as you suggest.”
They stalked quietly past the long-necked browsers, then angled uphill toward the trail. The river slipped away as they climbed left and around a series of deadfalls, then through a bushy thicket to a break in the trees. The highway was there, fresh tracks heading in both directions.
They crept onto the trail, heads swinging, and headed north at a trot.
*****
The canoe was bent at an angle, but get the thing out of the water and it should still be fixable. Ron was hanging on the gunnel a yard past the bow and studying the snags reaching from shore. There was a gap here somewhere, he just needed to find it. The river was still dropping, patches of shoreline beginning to show. Find something to grab onto and he’d get the hell out of the river. And dropping or not, the river was still fast. If he’d kept better track, he’d have a better feel
for how far he was from the creek. A mile? Two? And every minute spent in the water was only adding to it.
He’d waited too long to get out from under, though with how close the bastard had come to ripping his friggen arm off, he hadn’t been all that keen on possibly adding flavor to the plastic. Then the other snarls, whatever the fuck that was about. And now Mark and Wheajo, no doubt thinking he was dead. “Uh huh. Except I’m not.”
Limbs with leaves were snagged in the branches of an old deadfall poking from the bank just ahead. Ron swept his arm through the water, searching, and yeah, the shore looked reasonably clear beyond.
He bit down on the painter, waiting, and started toward shore once clear of the outermost snags. He backstroked away, tensing as the rope straightened and went taut, then applied every ounce of effort he had left into hauling the Tripper toward shore. He drifted along, stroking, the rope tugging hard at his teeth. A hand touched bottom, and he took hold of the rope and rolled on his belly, groping with one hand while being dragged along by the boat with the other. A root poked from the bank. He grabbed on, the flooded Tripper growling immediately, the root slipping quickly through his water-softened fingers as the heavy canoe inched toward shore.
Another root, but still too fast. He watched as the next slipped toward him, and shoved a foot down before taking hold. His toe carved along the muddy bottom, but his grip was holding, and the Tripper finally came to a stop, the current relaxing its grip as he reeled in the painter.
Ron crawled ashore, panting, and jerked the Tripper onto the mud beside him. “All stop,” he groaned, his chin sagging to his chest. He sat for a minute, the odometer no longer turning, and stared upriver. Unless he’d already missed it, his paddle was somewhere upstream, and he was now on the lookout to make sure it didn’t get past him.
