“Help!” he coughed. “Help me.”
In the other two lands there had been someone to help him, to guide him. Where was the person in this land? While struggling to keep his head above water Joey realized he was in a lake. He saw no signs of human life on the forested shores around him.
“Beezer,” he yelled. “BEEZER!” Beezer had given chocolate coins to Story; to Joey he had given a map that was going to kill him.
Joey swallowed more water and coughed. He realized that the reality of drowning was very near. His panic increased.
“BEEZER!” he cried.
Thoughts flashed through his desperate brain. “Pirates, blood-winged eagles, and then I drown in a lake.” In spite of his panic he almost laughed at the irony.
A thought came to him quietly. “You don’t have to drown. There is another choice.”
Joey looked about him again. The lake was large. It seemed nearly a mile to shore on one side. The other side—it was only 100 feet to shore. He was just 100 feet from life.
“You’re not going to get to watch me die here, Beezer,” he said. With angry determination Joey began dog-paddling toward the shore. He made painfully slow progress. He was tired and could barely keep his mouth and nose out of the water. He remembered his swimming lessons from what seemed to be another life.
“When you are tired you can just float on your back for a bit,” his swimming teacher had said. He could still see her chubby, smiling face as she said it.
Joey rolled over onto his back and filled his lungs with air. His legs started to sink, but when he kicked them they stayed near the surface. It worked. He got his breath back. Joey rolled back onto his stomach and continued with his half-dog paddle, half-breast stroke. The bank was getting closer.
“I’m going to make it,” he said. He felt the sweetness of confidence. With the confidence came an awareness of life in place of the death that had been so near a moment ago. He was aware of the cold water on his body. He was aware of each labored breath of air. There were smooth stones along the shore that he wanted to touch. He could smell the pines further up the shore.
“Yes,” Joey said. “I choose to live.”
Joey had to rest on his back twice more. The cold water sank into him and he shivered violently. In spite of his determination to live he grew tired. He realized choosing to live had a price.
Rolling back over to his stomach the third time he was startled when his hand struck a rock. Then he was elated—he was in shallow water. His legs were too weak to carry him so he dragged himself onto the warm, dry rocks of the shore. Exhausted he lay on his stomach on the rounded stones. The solid earth beneath him and the warm sun on his back brought him a comfort so deep that even spotting his map slowly sinking into the water 150 feet out bothered him only a little.
As he warmed in the sun Joey dozed off. While he dozed he dreamed about the captain and Tahee. He saw the captain calmly defying the pirates from his perch of death. He saw Tahee running like the wind to save the girl even though he knew he would die trying. He felt such pride as he saw them—pride that turned into joy. He wondered at how he felt until he realized it was because, when given the chance, he had acted like them. He was one of them; he was brave.
Suddenly the giant eagle was overhead; its fierce, yellow eye focused on him. A horrible cry sounded from its deadly sharp beak. Talons tightened around his waist and he was lifted high above the Earth where the eagle dropped him. He knew he would be all right. This had happened to him before—he had the map. As he fell he pulled the map from inside his shirt and began unfolding it. The wind whipped it violently and to his horror ripped it from his hands. He watched, breathless, as the map disappeared above him. He tumbled over to see the ground rising fast. Just before he hit Joey awoke with a jerk.
The rounded stones no longer felt comfortable. They pressed painfully against his body. Joey slowly sat up feeling sore and bruised. With the dream fresh in his mind his hand went to his chest. The map really was gone. Looking wildly around he didn’t see it anywhere. He touched his face remembering it had slapped against him. His eyes turned suddenly to the lake. What had he seen as he had fallen asleep? The wind had torn the map from his hands as he had fallen. It had fallen in the lake.
“Oh no,” he said fighting panic. He realized he had watched the map sink into the lake.
“Why didn’t I go get it?” Joey said in a shaky voice. He answered his own question. “Because I had just nearly drowned.” He shivered at the memory. Map or no map, he wasn’t going back into that lake, ever.
Joey knew losing the map was serious. How serious it was hadn’t sunk in yet. He pushed the matter to the back of his mind and slowly got to his feet. He wanted to have a look around. The lake was large. It might take a full day to walk around it. On this side of the lake the shoreline was rocky. On the other side pine trees came right down to the water’s edge.
As he walked along the shoreline Joey found a round, flat stone perfect for skipping. Forcing his sore body to obey him he threw the stone giving it good spin with his finger. The stone skipped five times on the lake’s mirror-like surface. His dad would have liked that. One of their favorite walks in Oakley passed by a small pond. His dad was an avid rock skipper. Joey skipped more rocks, each time watching the line of circles from each skip spread until they were no longer discernible.
He heard the sound of the wind in the pines and realized how silent this world was. There were no jeering pirates or flocks of chattering birds. Nearby flies buzzed around a dead fish that had washed up on shore. Other than them there was only the breeze in the pine boughs sounding like distant rushing water. It was a lonely sound.
Joey looked behind him and saw a rock-strewn meadow with tall grass. Red wildflowers punctuated the green. Large bushy shrubs grew on the far side toward the tree-line. The pine trees started where a steep hill began. It wasn’t a mountain—more of a tall hill with a bald spot on top. Joey decided that from up there he could get a good look around.
Remembering how Tahee travelled Joey started off at a run. Soreness in his hips quickly slowed him. Joey pulled his waistband down a little and looked at his hips. There was a large, purple bruise there about the size of his hand. He remembered the crushing pressure of the eagle’s talons.
He stared at the bruise proudly for a moment before carefully covering it back up. He liked what it represented. He had been brave. He imagined showing it to Glory and Story and telling them the story. The sound of the lonely wind in the pine boughs brought the troubling fact about the lost map back to mind. How would he get back to tell them his stories? He pushed the problem out of mind by thinking of Beezer. Beezer might have seen him in his magic bubbles.
“Did you see that, Beezer?” Joey said. “I did good.” He punched the air at an imaginary foe and then raised his arms in victory.
It took a long time to climb the hill. Joey guessed maybe two or three hours. He was sweating and breathing hard when he came out of the trees onto the bald spot at the top.
“Oh, wow,” he said, as he caught sight of the magnificent view.
The lake lay in a wide, forested valley. The dark waters of the lake harmonized with the dark green of the pine trees. Joey could see the rushing waters of a creek winding its way through the forest into the lake.
The forest of pines filled the valley and the hills beyond. The pines thinned when they reached the mountains far away. The mountains rose sharply. Cliffs and rocks filled its slopes. Snow glistened in the crevasses. Scattered here and there in the forest were meadows that stood out as spots of light green. Joey could make out the white trunks of quaking aspens at the edges of the meadows.
Looking behind him Joey saw more hills. The hills got progressively taller and rockier until they were mountains. The mountains were much closer this direction. The air was clear and he could make out the details of a jagged ridgeline with the scree on a steep slope below. Large patches of snow lay on shaded slopes.
This land was big an
d beautiful. As far as Joey could tell he was the only human being there. A feeling of smallness and loneliness came over him. He felt uneasy as the issue of the lost map came to mind again. Joey picked up a stone and threw it off the face of the hill. It arced out and downward before being lost in the trees below.
Beezer had made it clear that he needed the map to return home. He had lost the map. Could it be true that he might be in this land forever?
“This will be your greatest test,” Beezer had said of the world he was now in. Joey understood now. There were no pirates. There were no giant eagles. There was just him and no magic map. He couldn’t go home.
Joey’s knees went weak. He sat down hard on the hilltop.
“Beezer? Henrietta?” he said weakly. All he heard in response was the wind in the pines.
The next word that came to mind was too much.
“Mom?”
His new found courage gave out and he began to cry. He lay on his back and looked up at the wide, blue sky and let the tears run back into his ears. The empty sky was too lonely. He rolled over onto his stomach and cried into his arms.
Joey had been crying his entire life. A sense of shame always accompanied his tears. The shame was born out of the fear behind his tears. Today as he cried he felt no shame. After a few minutes Joey became aware of this. His tears slowed.
“Why?” he thought. “Why am I not ashamed to cry? Is it because I’m not afraid?” Oh, but he was afraid. He was afraid of dying here slowly, all alone. He was afraid he would never see his family again.
“So, if I’m afraid why am I not ashamed?” Joey’s tears stopped now. He rolled over and sat up. Below him he saw a hawk. It flew in wide circles sailing on unmoving wings. As it circled it rose slowly on warm updrafts from the valley. Around and around it went ascending each time without a flap of its wings. The hawk continued its silent circling until it was high above Joey’s head. It had a nobility and control in its flight that reminded Joey of Captain Call and Tahee. The bird didn’t seem to be hunting. Instead it seemed to be flying for the sheer joy of it.
“I’m afraid, but I’m not afraid,” Joey said. He wasn’t sure what that meant. He knew it represented a change in him. Standing Joey picked up another stone and threw it. It flew much farther than the first stone before getting lost in the trees below. Then he turned and started down the hill.
His stomach growled. He wished Tahee were here now. He would know how to get some food. Joey wended his way through the pines kicking large pinecones that had fallen. One fell just in front of him and rolled across the dry needles that cushioned the ground. Another fell and bounced off his head. He picked up the pinecone and studied it.
In cub scouts his den mother had shown them how she was harvesting pine nuts that year. The pine nuts were hard to get out of the cone unless you heated them. She put them in the oven for a while on low heat. It wasn’t long before he and the other scouts were able to free the nuts from the warm cones, remove the shells, and eat the chewy, pungent nuts.
These freshly fallen cones had nuts in them, but how would he get them out? He wished he had his Swiss Army knife. His dad had given it to him on his eighth birthday. He never carried that knife for fear of losing it. He kept it on his desk in his room.
Joey’s hand went instinctively to his pocket. He caught his breath. Reaching into his pocket he pulled the knife out. He stared at it disbelieving. He didn’t remember grabbing it before he left. He opened the main blade. It was still shiny and sharp. He hardly ever used it. He closed the blade and turned the fat, little knife over. From a receptacle on the other side he pulled out a narrow little flint and steel. He struck them together. Sparks flew.
At the bottom of the hill where the slope leveled off Joey cleared a spot and prepared to build a fire. He had seen demonstrations of fire building using a flint and steel in scouts. Just last night he had watched Tahee do this. Joey knew he could do this. He had to. Tahee had pulled a little ball of shredded bark out of his bag and used a bit of it to start the fire. Joey set about gathering pine needles and small pieces of bark.
Tahee had his fire going in two minutes. Joey worked for forty-five minutes. Three times he gave up in frustration. Each time his growling stomach made him try again. Finally he saw a tiny flame spring to life. Joey’s excitement over the first flame was quickly snuffed out when he realized he didn’t have any wood ready to keep the starter flame going. The second fire started easier simply because he knew he could do it. He had dry pine boughs ready this time. The fire began to crackle and pop. Joey got up and strutted around the fire.
“I did it! I built a fire!” He shouted to the trees, to the lake, and the mountains. “If Dad could see this,” he said feeling more confident than he had ever felt before. “Beezer, do you see this?” He looked in the fire half hoping to see Beezer’s face in there looking back. There was no Beezer and no answer. There was just the crackling of the fire.
Joey fought back a feeling of disappointment in not having anyone to show what he had done. He began gathering pine cones and placing them by the fire. It wasn’t as simple as putting them in an oven with controlled heat like his den mother had. Several pine cones burned in the fire. Eventually he succeeded in breaking out some pine nuts. He put the nuts into his mouth one at a time and cracked the shells with his teeth. Then he peeled the nuts out with his fingers. They were fat, sweet, and piney.
“Who would’ve known pine trees could taste so good?” he thought. It got easier as he kept at it, but like eating sunflower seeds, it was a lot of work with little reward.
By the time his fingers were too sore to pick out any more pine nuts the growling in his stomach quieted. Still, he was hungry for something else. Joey walked to the edge of the lake. He wondered if there were fish in there. In answer he saw a tiny ripple form in a perfect circle when a fish touched the surface of the water. Farther out another circle formed.
“I wish I had a fishing pole,” he said.
He walked along the edge of the lake toward the stream he had seen from the mountainside. After an hour he could hear the sound of water rushing over rocks. It wasn’t hard to find after that. The creek was twenty feet across where it entered the lake and not too deep. Joey was able to hop across the creek on rocks.
From a large rock in the middle of the creek he leaned down and drank the cool, clear water. While he drank he saw a fish dart by no more than a foot away. It was so close he could have reached out and touched it. He didn’t like fish, but he was so hungry it looked good. How could he catch one? Tahee had a spear with a sharp, stone spearhead on the end.
Joey hopped back to the shore and looked for spear-making materials. He was disappointed when he didn’t find anything that would work. The dead pine boughs were all bent. If he got lucky and found a good stick would he get lucky again and find a sharp rock? In the movies the natives had always just had spears—he had never seen them make one.
Joey wandered along the stream watching for fish. It wasn’t long before he hit the jackpot. He came to a large rock that sat in the stream by the bank. Behind it was a quiet pool that was six or seven feet deep. In it Joey saw several fish rising and sinking. They waited patiently for food to float into the pool from the water flowing past. Joey sat down and hungrily watched them for several minutes. They moved so slowly that he could catch them with a net . . . if he had a net.
Joey sat up with a sudden thought. He had passed under a dead pine tree just a little ways back. One of the bottom branches had a dense growth of what looked like dead twigs on the end. His dad had told him it was called mistletoe. This wasn’t the kind that people kiss under at Christmas. It was a kind of parasite that eventually kills pine trees. Joey ran back and found it. The growth was dense enough to stand against the water and the weight of a fish, but loose enough to let the water through. It wasn’t a very good net, but it might work.
Joey broke the branch off. It had a good four foot reach. He ran back to the pool and put the tangled end in. I
t wanted to float, but with effort he was able to keep the end under a few feet. The fish scattered at first. Joey stood very still like he had seen Tahee do when spearing fish. Slowly the fish calmed down and slowly returned to where they had gathered to wait for food to drift into their pool.
Joey wanted to scream as he watched the fish swim under his makeshift net and hide there. Eventually his patience paid off. A fish that had darted out into the edge of the moving water swam back above the tangle. Joey pulled with all his might. He watched in disbelieving joy as a fish sailed through the air above his head and landed, flopping, in the dirt under the trees behind him.
Joey whooped for joy and ran to the fish to make sure it wouldn’t find its way back to the water. He banged its head on a rock until it quit flopping. It was a big fish, maybe a foot long, with black spots on its side.
“I caught a fish. I caught a fish. I caught a fish!” he sang as he danced around holding the fish above his head. For a moment he pictured Story and Glory dancing with him. They would be so excited if they were there. The thought of them made him stop his dance, his joy suddenly gone.
Joey noticed the sun had gone behind the hill. He was in deep shade. Holding his slippery fish in both hands he began the hike back to his camp.
His fire was still smoldering when he got there. Adding twigs and pine needles while blowing softly he was able to build flames again. Using his knife he gutted the fish. Compared to Tahee he made a mess of it. Tahee cooked the fish evenly over coals he had prepared. Joey pretty much burned his fish over a fire that was too hot. He ate most of the fish hungrily anyway.
Just above the mountains a strip of sky burned red. Directly overhead the sky was black. An early star was out. It was getting cool. Joey felt uneasy at the pending night. He wished for the protective walls of his attic room. Looking out across the lake he could feel the open miles surrounding him. It was going to get cold.
Joey and the Magic Map Page 20
