by Perrin Briar
Zoe heard a voice:
“Zoe! Cass! Come here! Quick!”
Bryan and Aaron waved from the edge of the jungle.
Zoe turned to the Natives.
“Come on!” she said.
They ran down the incline, as fast as their legs could carry them. Zoe swept Aaron up in her arms, forgetting how heavy he was, and smothered him with kisses. Bryan did the same with Cassie.
“How did you do this?” Zoe said.
“Just a little wrangling,” Bryan said. “I did it all the time on a farm when I was young. With bulls, of course, not dinosaurs.”
The Natives looked at Bryan, and then averted their gaze.
“Who are they?” Bryan said.
“Friends,” Zoe said. “They were going to help us get away before you rudely interrupted.”
“Sorry!” Bryan said.
The apemen emerged from their caves, the dinosaur stampede having vacated. Shard was not amused. He grunted and raised his arm. The apemen bolted forward, picking up spears without breaking step, and tore down the incline.
“I think that’s our cue to leave,” Bryan said.
“Agreed,” Zoe said.
They turned and ran.
59
The Natives’ speed was astonishing. They ran, leapt and hurdled over the obstacles as if they were a playground. Cawing Crow slowed when he noticed Zoe and the others falling behind. He made a whooping sound and the other Natives drew alongside them. Then Cawing Crow made a gesture with his hands and two Natives slowed further and disappeared into the jungle behind him.
Zoe wanted to tell them not to risk their lives, but she couldn’t spare the breath.
The jungle was alive with the cries of the beasts of the night, howling and growling and flashing white eyes. Zoe tripped and landed flat on her face. A black snake rose and pulled its head back to bite. A Native seized the snake under its jaw, spun it around, and threw it high into the tree canopy. Zoe’s heart thumped like the beating of a war drum.
There were growls and screams from the treetops, like animals provoked in a zoo.
Cawing Crow looked at two more Natives and, never breaking stride, made a sharp movement with his hand. The two warriors broke off and peeled away.
After a moment there were loud howls and roars, shouts and bellows. But the roars quickly absorbed the howls, and the sounds grew silent. The jungle ended and their feet came to soft sand. They were at the side of a large lake.
“Great!” Bryan said. “Now we’re trapped!”
Cawing Crow and the other Natives ran to a thick clutch of reeds and pulled out a pair of canoes.
The roars and grunts grew louder from the jungle, the darkness and its hidden dangers mawing open. The apemen threw themselves from the treetops and rolled into running positions on the sand.
Cassie’s eyes widened and she pointed at something behind Zoe.
“Zoe, look out!” she said.
A shape moved in Zoe’s peripheral vision.
Zoe dived aside as a giant snake snapped at her heels. It missed and struck the ground instead. The snake shook its head, dazed. Zoe backed away and picked up a stick, keeping her eyes firmly on the snake. The snake snapped at her again, but Zoe brought the stick across and smacked the snake aside the head.
The snake shot forward again, this time seizing the stick. It wrenched it from Zoe, tensed its muscles, and snapped the stick in half, jutting out like vampire fangs. It spat the stick remnants out and drew itself up taller, its slit of a mouth seeming to smile at Zoe. She knew she was done for. Its tongue, as thick as her arm, lolled out of its mouth and quivered in the air. The snake peeled back its thick lips and its six-inch fangs protruded.
The Natives hooted and threw themselves at the snake.
“Get in the boat!” Cawing Crow said. “Quick!”
The family did, hopping on board. Most of the Natives escaped the snake. One had his foot ensnared in a snake’s coil. The snake wrapped another coil around the Native, watching him with its dead black eyes. The warrior beat at the snake’s huge muscles, to no use.
The Natives pushed away from the bank and paddled away.
“Wait!” Zoe said. “The warrior! We have to save him!”
“He’s already dead,” Cawing Crow said.
The canoes pulled further across the lake. The apemen hurled spears at the canoes, a couple connecting, but none doing permanent damage. The metal in Shard’s head glinted with glow bug moonlight. They stood there watching as the canoes pulled away.
“Stab the warrior, please,” Zoe said under her breath. “Show mercy.”
But Shard and the other apemen only watched as the snake enveloped the warrior with its thick muscular coils, and then tensed its body. There were a series of pops as the man’s bones were snapped in two dozen places.
None of the Natives reacted.
Zoe shivered. It had nothing to do with the cold.
60
“It’s possible they might still be alive,” a seismologist from the fracking site said. “They could be trapped in a pocket of air beneath the surface.”
“How long do you think they have?” Rosetta said.
“Two days,” the seismologist said. “At the most.”
Rosetta had reassigned all staff from the fracking site to digging duty. She had also sent for as many Angelo Industries employees as she could find. They turned up by car and bus, each ready for a day of hard digging. They got to work straight away, hacking at the earth and piling it up to one side. There were two dozen diggers. Nowhere near enough, but it was a start.
They dug by hand with shovels and picks, otherwise risking chopping the family members in half. Rosetta only knew too well what it was like to lose a limb and she wished it upon no one.
When word got out that the CEO of Angelo Industries had been buried by a sinkhole, the locals from Lakota went into their garden sheds for their own digging equipment and asked where they should dig. Bryan Angelo had brought stability to the area, an area that usually relied mainly on tourism for income.
A shout went up from the far side of the sinkhole. Rosetta held her breath. Murmurings from the other diggers as they paused to see what was happening. The digger, caked in mud, brought Rosetta what he’d found. It was a few items of clothing, still in perfect condition, if a little dirty. They were smaller than an adult’s clothes, and though Rosetta didn’t know Aaron Tate’s wardrobe, she would have bet good money it belonged to him.
“Thank you,” Rosetta said.
The worker nodded and returned to digging. Some of the other diggers left their plots and joined the man who had made the discovery. The sinkhole had shifted the earth, twirling it around, and there was no reason to suspect the family would be in the same place this clothing was found, but they continued to dig there anyway.
Simeon, the local baker, discovered a body, but it had been decomposing for at least a dozen years. The police were called in to remove it. Hopefully it would be the only death to come from this site.
When darkness came they installed lamps. Those in town who could not dig brought food for the diggers. They were all united by this one goal. They were owed a happy ending.
By morning, and a whole night of digging, the locals climbed out of the pit. They were covered head to foot in dirt, their fingernails black. Rosetta thanked them, despite having found nothing. The locals went home to sleep the rest of the day. Those from the city still had a long drive back.
There had been a dozen minor injuries and twice as many blackouts. And for all their effort they had found nothing. Nothing but a few pieces of clothing and camping equipment.
The sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon when they switched off the lamps. There was a chill, and one hundred plumes of mist billowed from the diggers’ mouths and evaporated. There was just the hollow sound of pickaxes smacking against hard rock, and shovels crunching into the earth.
Bryan, where are you?
61
The gentle
swaying of the canoe had lulled Zoe to the fringes of a deep sleep. She still had the gunpowder clenched tight in her hand – now a hard ball of condensed powder. She tucked it in her pocket. On the seat opposite her, Cassie and Aaron leaned against one another, fast asleep. A smile came to Zoe’s lips before she too fell asleep.
62
Zoe started awake, prodded by Cawing Crow. She yawned and stretched, and joined Bryan and the others as they were led into the jungle. The last thing she needed right then was another trek. Her eyes were heavy, and she could barely keep them open. She lost track of time, and after what felt like ten minutes, but could have been much longer, they came to a stop. Zoe leaned against a tree and felt herself falling asleep again.
Again, Cawing Crow prodded her, and she wanted to shout at him, to tell him to leave her alone and let her get some sleep, but she didn’t have the energy. Cawing Crow led the family up the tree using crude handholds nailed into the bark. Zoe’s muscles ached with the effort, but she was barely even aware of it.
They entered a room. Cawing Crow gestured to a bowl and a cloth that Zoe supposed was meant to be a towel, and then at the large square of blankets on the floor in the corner. A bed. A real bed. It was the most beautiful thing Zoe had ever seen. She and the others stumbled toward it and fell on top of it, not bothered that it wasn’t big enough for all four of them. They lay atop one another, and just slept.
63
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the walls and made constellations on the floor. The sounds of the jungle were especially loud here, the birds singing jubilantly.
Zoe sat up, her muscles aching, her bones popping. Her body felt lethargic and tired like she’d run a marathon. She got to her feet, hobbling toward the wash basin and splashing herself with cold water, letting it soak into her consciousness. She dried herself with the towel.
She turned to the others, still fast asleep. Zoe poked Bryan in the ribs. He grunted, snuffled, and then opened his eyes. He sat up and stretched.
“What time is it?” Bryan said.
“I don’t know,” Zoe said. “Late morning, I guess. Or afternoon.”
Bryan peered around at their room with heavy lidded eyes.
“Where are we?” he said.
“No idea,” Zoe said. “I remember climbing a tree last night, but that’s about it.”
Bryan shook his head. He didn’t remember a thing.
“Do you remember rescuing Cassie and me?” Zoe said.
“It rings a bell,” Bryan said.
“Thank you for coming to rescue us – so heroically too,” Zoe said.
Bryan shrugged.
“Someone had to save the maidens in distress,” he said.
“We had a plan, but I don’t know if it would have worked out,” Zoe said.
Bryan put his hands on her shoulders. They were strong, but gentle. Zoe had never noticed how big his hands were before.
“Don’t think about it,” Bryan said. “You’re safe now, and we’re going to keep it that way.”
“How did you manage to herd that many dinosaurs at the apeman village?” Zoe said.
“I used to work on a farm remember,” Bryan said. “I spent my summers wrangling large bulls. If you can jump out at an animal, especially when its sleeping and at rest, it’ll react without even thinking. They run in the opposite direction to wherever they were scared. Luckily they were grazing nearby.”
“My hero,” Zoe said.
There were more groans and grunts from the bed as Cassie and Aaron sat up, and then flopped back down.
There was a tentative rapping on the door. Bryan stiffened. No one came in.
“Hello?” Zoe said.
Cawing Crow poked his head inside.
“Ah,” he said. “You’re awake. I knocked earlier, but you were still asleep.”
Cawing Crow was more handsome than Cassie had realized. He had bronzed skin, a twinkle in his eye, and a kind smile that no doubt made him popular with the ladies.
“Are you hungry?” Cawing Crow said.
Zoe’s stomach grumbled in response. She was so hungry she’d forgotten she was starving.
Cawing Crow stepped outside and said something in a foreign language, and then came back inside. He took out a wrapped leaf, tied together with a root. He handed it to Zoe.
“For your pains,” he said, pointing to Zoe’s arm where she had purple bruises.
“Thank you,” Zoe said.
She took the bottle and moved to Cassie. She began applying the poultice to Cassie’s arm first. The apemen had left dark marks on both their arms. Zoe touched them tenderly, but Cassie still flinched.
Bryan clearly felt awkward in the young man’s presence. He turned to Cawing Crow.
“What’s going on around here?” he said. “Why did the apemen want to kill you?”
“It’s a long story,” Cawing Crow said. “We have been fighting many years. They killed many of us.”
“How many of you are there?” Bryan said.
“Not many,” Cawing Crow said. “A few hundred.”
There had been thousands of apemen the night they were to be sacrificed. No wonder the Natives feared for their lives.
Someone stopped at the door and spoke to Cawing Crow. He turned to the family.
“They are ready for you now,” he said.
“‘They’ who?” Bryan said.
“The village,” Cawing Crow said with a smile.
64
Cawing Crow stepped out first, onto a narrow walkway that wrapped around the tree. On a level par with them, nestled in the branches of other trees, were dozens of small huts like the one they had just emerged out of. They were quaint, with straw rooves and mud walls. The family wrapped their hands around the railing and noticed hundreds of black-haired people on the ground in front of them. The Natives raised one hand and beamed with big smiles.
“They certainly look happy to see us,” Bryan said.
“Er, Mom,” Aaron said. “What’s going on?”
“I have no idea,” Zoe said.
An old man with a deeply creased face approached them. He wore a big headdress of feathers and dinosaur teeth. He hugged each of them in turn. He said something they couldn’t understand.
“Welcome,” Cawing Crow said, translating for him.
“We thank you for coming to us today,” the Chief said. “It has been over two and a half thousand suns since you were last here.”
Zoe did the math in her head.
“Seven years,” she said.
“You have met, battled and beaten the apemen who threaten us,” the Chief said. “Already we receive good omens. In the long days that come, you will lead us to great victory. Though our members are not many, our strength and spirit are strong. Come, join us and feast on our bounty.”
The family exchanged uneasy glances. Lead? Victory? They were all beginning to feel sick to the stomach.
The table was stuffed full with food. The meat glistened with grease, and though Zoe was a vegetarian, it looked mesmerizing even to her. The vegetables were large, some cooked, others left raw. There were birds, giant eggs, and bowls of fruit – many Zoe had never seen before.
The family sat down, ready to dig in. They looked up. The locals stood around, watching with great interest.
“Have they eaten?” Zoe said. “I don’t want to eat their food.”
“We have much food,” Cawing Crow said. “We are mighty hunters.”
“We should be selling tickets,” Bryan said.
The family dug in, not even stopping for air. They hadn’t eaten much besides a little fruit and raw vegetables the past couple of days. The tribespeople chatted amongst themselves as the family ate, pointing at each of them, slapping one another on the back.
The Chief of the tribe sidled up close to them.
“Tell me, do our ancestors still ride the Great Plains and hunt the buffalo?” he said, via Cawing Crow.
Zoe looked from him to Cawing Crow and then back again.
<
br /> “Do your stories have anything to do with white men?” she said.
The Chief shook his head.
“Only that our ancestors hunted the Great Plains on majestic horses,” he said.
Zoe nodded, and then smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “They ride the Great Plains to this day.”
The Chief grinned ear to ear. He raised his voice and the tribe roared with delight.
“They must be a wonderful sight,” he said.
“They are,” Zoe said.
She pushed her plate aside. She suddenly didn’t feel very hungry. When the others had finished, the Chief clapped his hands, and the Natives carried the food away. But something was nagging at Zoe.
“Cawing Crow,” she said. “None of the other tribespeople can speak English. How is it you can?”
“It is my duty to learn,” Cawing Crow said. “One day I will become Chief. Besides, I studied even after they went.”
“They went?” Zoe said with a frown. “After who went?”
“Smoking Stick and Gentle Teacher,” Cawing Crow said. “The other white people.”
65
The Native village was wide and sprawling, their homes on the very fringes of the jungle, but already the Natives were hard at work on a more permanent structure. The Native American Indians smiled at the family as they passed, and then bent back down over the stones and doorways they were chiseling into the rock. Trees grew, weakened, and collapsed. Stone had none of these detriments.
Zoe paused, turning to look back over the jungle. They were on a slight rise and she could see over the whole canopy. On the opposite wall were the grey cracks of the place where they had begun their journey, spat out and almost crushed by the sinkhole. She was surprised to find they had arrived where they had intended.
HONK!
Zoe started, leaping back, as a hadrosaur with a large rock in its front paws approached the caves and set it down. There was a man on the dinosaur’s back, sitting in a saddle, pulling on the reins.
