The Lost Ark

by J. R. Rain

  * * *

  Faye stumbled and fell, reaching for her previously injured ankle. Behind, I could hear the bear crashing through the underbrush. I picked Faye up in my arms and moved as quickly as possible. We broke through the shrubs, and the ground became rocky, angling up toward the great limestone cliff.

  My arms shook and my feet felt leaden. I could hear the rapid click-click of the bear’s claws over the rocky earth. I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know the bear was gaining on us. I made for a cluster of boulders at the base of the pink-stoned cliff.

  I helped/threw Faye onto the boulder, and as I pulled myself up, swinging my right leg onto the rock, a powerful force knocked my left leg out into space. I dropped to my elbows, clawing at the surface of the boulder. The bear snorted below.

  “Sam!” Faye shrieked, gripping my forearms, giving me the leverage I needed. With her help, I flopped over onto the sun-baked rock, safe.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The bear paced before us, snorting and growling.

  Faye and I huddled together as far away from the female bear as possible, our backs pressed up against the hot surface of the smooth canyon wall. When she got tired of pacing, or realized that we were not just going to sacrifice ourselves to her, she lay down in the sun, pink tongue flopping out like a big happy man-eating dog. The bear lifted her massive head to the sun, and seemed to lose interest in us.

  “Treed,” I said. “Metaphorically speaking.”

  “What now?” Faye asked.

  “We wait.”

  Waves of heat shimmered off the granite boulder. Faye examined my left calf. The bear had ripped the material down to my skin, opening a minor wound. Blood ran steadily into my sock.

  “It’s going to get infected,” she said. “Who knows where those claws have been.”

  “I’ll clean it later.”

  There was no wind. I felt as if I were sitting in a frying pan. The bear didn’t move; a frozen, hulking statue.

  “Doesn’t it have something better to do,” said Faye, exasperated.

  “This is probably the better thing to do.”

  “Doesn’t it realize I have a father to find?”

  I was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question. A small wind moved over us. Somehow it made the heat even worse.

  “Is this your first bear encounter?” Faye asked.

  “Third. I’ve discovered that bears have real issues with folks getting between them and their young. Or standing next to one of their buried meals.”

  Faye shuddered. “I think I’ll have nightmares about bears and avalanches for the rest of my life,” she said.

  “Join the club,” I said.

  “I’d rather not. Think she might go to sleep?”

  “Maybe, although bears are diurnal,” I said.

  “As opposed to nocturnal,” she said.

  “You must be a college graduate.”

  My pant-leg was now air-conditioned. Our shoulders were touching. I saw that Faye’s hands were shaking in her lap. I reached out and gently took one and held it in my own. We said nothing for a long time.

  “She’s watching us,” said Faye. “Do you think she’s noticed that you’re holding my hand?”

  “She’s probably waiting to see what happens next.”

  A steady wind swept over us. A gift from God. I half-closed my eyes and felt the wind on my skin. The half-open part watched the bear. The coming and going of adrenaline had left me exhausted.

  As the sun continued to sink, and as the shadows deepened within the river canyon, my eyes threatened to close for the evening. The bear turned in a small circle and found a better position among the low grass and reeds. The reeds waved gently in the breeze.

  “Looks like a big cute dog,” I said. “In a man-eating sort of way.”

  “She’s too close to be cute,” Faye said.

  A gray-necked bunting swooped down low and hopped across the bare rocks looking for whatever gray-necked buntings look for. It pecked into a fissure and came away with a small white seed. Satisfied, the bunting flew over the low shrubs and down to the river. If only life could be so simple.

  Faye rested her head on my shoulder. I continued to watch the bear as the sun descended slowly and the night insects came out in full force and deep shadows formed within the limestone canyon. The night insects seemed to out-number the day insects.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The sun had set long ago. The night insects were busy. A pleasant breeze touched our skin and did its best to cool the warm rock beneath us.

  Faye slept soundly, breathing lightly, while I drifted in and out of sleep. The bear, however, never strayed far, and each time I opened my eyes, she was there, waiting. Sometimes she would switch positions, lying on her side or back.

  Once I had opened my eyes to discover she was staring up at me just a few feet from the boulder. I sat up, startled, my heart pounding. Next to me Faye stirred and made a cute sleeping noise. Wafting up from the bear was the stink of putrid fish. The stink was anything but cute.

  “You need a bath,” I said to her.

  The bear didn’t move, although her ears might have twitched. After a staring contest (in which I won), she lumbered back to the clearing and plunked back down with a groan.

  Finally, after dozing for an unknown amount of time, I opened my eyes to discover the bear was gone. I touched Faye’s shoulder. She awakened instantly.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  “The bear...?”

  “Gone.”

  She sat up. “I’m ready.”

  * * *

  We moved north along the base of the limestone cliff, away from the river and away from the bear. Pools of moonlight guided our way. I could still hear the sound of the river in the background: insistent, clean, powerful. The hum of insects filled the night air—and even my hair.

  “Thirsty?” I asked after awhile.

  “Very.”

  I changed course and headed for the river. There, frothing whitecaps gleamed under the faint moonlight, churning over unseen rocks. Most important, the river was bear-free. At the water’s edge, the buzz of insects reached such a frenzied crescendo, that I just wanted to yell: “Quiet!”

  Faye slapped her neck, looked at her hand, then wiped the bug guts in the grass. “Please tell me malaria isn’t alive and well in Turkey.”

  “You’ve had your shots, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” I said. “Now think unappetizing thoughts.”

  To contain the water, a tortoise shell, sea shell, or a hollowed rock would have worked nicely. With none around, I improvised. I removed my jacket and unbuttoned my hood, dipping the water-resistant nylon into the fast-moving current and coming up with a hood-full of water. I added an iodine pill, waited for it to dissolve, then cinched the hood with the drawstring and swirled the contents. A moment later, I took a drink. The water had a slightly chemical taste, like drinking pool water. But most important it was quenching, and safe. I drank about half and handed the rest to Faye. She was careful not to spill.

  “So what happens when you drink unpurified water?” she asked, handing back the empty hood, which I reapplied to my jacket.

  I said, “In your immediate future would be cholera, typhoid and flukes, which bore into your bloodstream and live as parasites and cause diseases. Not good. Luckily, iodine tablets take care of all that.”

  She sighed. “So what do we do for food, sir?”

  I thought about that, then removed my boots and socks and waded out into the cold river, moving slowly along the shallows.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Hunting,” I said. “Men do these sorts of things.”

  A rock shifted under my bare foot. I reached into the water and felt around under the rock. Nothing but muck. I moved farther upriver. Faye kept pace along the riverbank.

  “Whatever you hope to find under those rocks can just stay there. I’ve lost my appetite.”

&n
bsp; “I think you’ll change your mind when you get hungry enough.”

  Another rock shifted. I stopped and pried it up and something scurried over my boot. I plunged both hands into the water, coming up with a writhing crayfish. I held it up proudly.

  “Yummy,” said Faye.

  I ignored her and continued upriver until I found another such creature under another such rock. Back on the riverbank, I used a flat, sharp-edged volcanic rock to dig a pit. I surrounded the pit with medium-sized rocks, large enough to deflect some of the wind, but not large enough to deflect all the wind. I collected some dry grass, twigs and reeds for fuel; and finally used two smaller branches to spear the crayfish.

  Now came the hard part. With my pocketknife, I struck down on a medium-sized rock, but failed to produce a spark. I struck again and again, the steel blade clashing off the rock.

  “I think you killed it, Sam,” said Faye. “What can I do to help?”

  “Pray,” I said.

  She must have prayed hard, because my next swipe produced a white hot spark that caught in the dry grass. Blowing gently, the spark blossomed into a burning flower. I turned the grass over until the entire bundle was ablaze. I added the thicker reeds for kindling, and shortly we had a campfire. Ten minutes later, stomach gnawing at me like a caged rat, I set the cooked shellfish on two lotus leaves.

  “They’re hot,” I said.

  She dove in immediately. “Ouch!”

  I smiled and blew on mine, then split the shell and removed the white meat. Soon, the caged rat was happy.

  Faye followed my lead and took a small bite, although bite might have been too strong of a word. She chewed it like a mouse nibbling on cheese. Her next bite was much bigger. I think she approved. For dessert, I ate the lotus plant itself, which tasted like seaweed. Faye declined hers.

  “Full?” I asked.

  “Full enough not to eat my plate,” she said. “How are we going to sleep?”

  “We’ll be fine next to the fire.”

  “What about bears?” she asked.

  “We’ll take it one bear at a time.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  There were no bears that night, and when I awoke in the morning, Faye was using my arm as a pillow, brown hair completely covering her face. I hoped she could breathe through all that. I moved her head gently as she made tiny mewing noises like a stretching cat.

  Although the morning was still dark, the sky was beginning to brighten. My breath frosted before me as I added more fuel to the fire, which blazed up nicely. As Faye slept, I whittled a portion of the crayfish shell into a sharp point, then carved a small elderberry branch to the size I wanted, then wove the fibers of fresh reeds into something resembling twine, then used the twine to attach the sharpened shell to the branch. When finished, I held the contraption up for inspection.

  “Cute,” said Faye from behind me, voice groggy. “But what the hell is it?”

  I looked over my shoulder. There was a leaf in her hair, and crease lines from my coat on her cheeks. “It’s a fishing hook.”

  She yawned. “Of course. How silly of me to ask.”

  I spent the next few minutes undoing our shoelaces and then tying them together into a sixteen foot line. During that time Faye left for some privacy, returning shortly and sitting next to me. “It’s beautiful up here,” she said.

  “No one’s ever accused Mount Ararat of not being beautiful,” I said.

  “It would be more beautiful if we had some coffee.”

  “If we find some dandelions, I’ll grind the roots for coffee.”

  Faye shook her head. “Where did you learn all this stuff?”

  “On assignment with The National Geographic, you pick up a thing or two.”

  At the river’s edge, the sky was now pale blue, although the sun was still hidden behind the limestone cliffs. Clear water swept quickly over smooth rocks, gurgling pleasantly. I baited the hook with crayfish entrails and tossed it near a cluster of water mint, and waited. The smell of mud and mildew was strong in the air. There were other smells, too, but I couldn’t place them, try as I might. Faye stayed near the fire, watching me with her head cradled in her hands.

  Twenty minutes elapsed. I shifted positions on the rock. A bright green oval leaf floated past on the current. I decided to count all the oval leaves on the current, but after ten minutes, there were no more leaves. Slow day for oval leaves.

  I pulled in the hook, checked the bait, then tossed it near a small island of rocks near shore. Fifteen minutes later, something hit hard, the line zigzagging crazily. I hauled the laces in hand over hand until a silver, whiskered snout broke the surface near shore. The catfish flopped about madly, splashing like a child on vacation. With a smooth riverock and a well-delivered blow between its bulging eyes, its fighting came to an abrupt end.

  Faye said, “Poor thing.”

  I gutted the poor thing and removed two huge filets and cooked them over the fire and we had a hell of a breakfast.

  “Ideally, we smoke the rest of the fish, but we don’t have the time. If the weather were cool enough the meat would last another day. But this canyon is too warm, and the meat would spoil within hours.”

  “So we leave it?” she said.

  I took a last bite, making sure my belly was full. “Yes, we leave it.” I said.

  And we did.

  * * *

  With little excitement, we followed the river until noon, although we did come across a jackrabbit that would have made for a good lunch. I made a sort of half-hearted effort for it, knowing that rabbits generally need to be trapped. As it hopped happily away, I noticed Faye using tiny hand movements to urge it on.

  “I see you were rooting for the rabbit,” I said.

  “It was so cute.”

  “When you’re hungry enough,” I said, “cute will be the last thing on your mind.”

  We stopped near a bend in the river. Here I found more lotus plants. Faye could barely contain her excitement. I pointed out that the rabbit would have tasted better. She ignored me. We sat in the shade of a boulder and drank the purified water from the nylon hood, and ate the lotus plants.

  “How many tablets do we have left?” Faye asked.

  “There’s still a few,” I said.

  The river bubbled serenely over submerged rocks. The wind made swishing sounds through the reeds. I said, “Higher up, the snow is safe to eat, so we won’t need the tablets.”

  “The same way rainwater is safe to drink.”

  I nodded. “Ideally we melt the snow, as it takes our bodies less energy to process warm water than cold water, but either way it should be safe to drink.”

  We moved upriver until I found a switchback trail that led up the steep canyon wall. “This is our stop,” I said.

  The path was no wider than a bookshelf. To make matters worse, loose rock littered the way, just in case we started getting too comfortable. Brown hawks circled above, taking the easy way.

  We climbed the narrow trail steadily for a half hour. Below, the river looked thread-like. At this height, the river was too narrow and shallow to protect us should we fall.

  Faye suddenly grabbed my arm and leaned back against the warm rock, breathing quickly. “I can’t make it, Sam.” There was panic and exhaustion in her voice.

  “Sure you can,” I said.

  She took a few breaths. “Is that your idea of a pep-talk?”

  The wind slammed us hard. I gripped her hand. The sun shone straight down onto her up-turned face, which glowed almost angelically. Then again, I could be biased. The hawk screeched, perhaps encouraging Faye onward. The wind made moaning noises not of this earth.

  I waited, feeling the warmth of the wall against my back, the wind in my hair. The hawk banked to port and grew steadily smaller. It looked like a kite.

  “Take as long as you need,” I said.

  Faye squeezed my hand, eyes closed tight. Finally, as if tapping into some inner strength, she said she was okay. I asked if she was su
re and she nodded, and we moved forward again.

  A short while later, the ledge opened onto a grassy plateau, and Faye sank to her knees and thanked all the gods and saints and lesser deities she had ever known or heard of.

  Here, the temperature was near freezing, but we were dressed warmly. The grass was sweet on the wind, as if it had been freshly cut. Or freshly chewed. Faye looked at me, face ashen. “That was scary, Sam.”

  “It was,” I said. “But you did a good job, Faye Roberts.”

  And when she had collected herself, we continued across the grassy plateau for the remainder of the afternoon.

  * * *

  The plateau ended in a sharp cliff, and we looked down into the massive Ahora Gorge as a mighty river surged far, far below. The cliffs were staggered and multi-colored, and seemed to have been carved by the hand of a master sculptor.

  Faye held her hand to her chest. “It’s beautiful.”

  We followed a path along the cliff’s edge that afforded a perfect view into the gorge. Here, the wind was fierce and the sun was only an illusion.

  And as patches of snow accumulated into larger clumps, we reached the terminus, or snout, of the Abich I glacier.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  As we lacked the crampons and climbing gear necessary to scale the twenty foot snout, we searched instead for an alternate route onto the glacier. As we walked, I explained that a snout is the forward most extension of the glacier, the same way a snout is the forward most protuberance of an animal.

  “Thank you for the lecture, Sam, but I happen to know a thing or two about glaciology.”

  “Really? Cryptology and glaciology. That’s a hell of a resume.”

  We came across a jumbled pile of boulders. The boulders were evidence of the glacier’s immense strength, pushing the huge rocks around like toys. The boulders, however, were a perfect platform onto the glacier. We hopped from boulder to boulder until I stopped next to a young puff adder thermo-regulating in the sun. The snake was oblivious to us, soaking in as much of the sun as possible.