“Maybe,” Angela said. She put her hand on the billowing tent wall and gently slid her fingertips down the shifting material.
Yutu whimpered. Although he could not understand language, he understood tone and inflection.
“You folks doing alright?” Colbrick asked from his tent.
“We’re fine,” Bishop said, taking Angela’s bandaged hand in his and squeezing.
“How’s your tent holding up?” Colbrick asked.
“Just fine,” Bishop said. “These aren’t dime-store specials.”
“Yup.”
Lightning slithered across the sky, illuminating the tent walls with a surreal glow.
The wind. It sounded like the peaks were shooting tornados from their caves, one after the other. The tent walls vibrated with an intensity Angela had never seen despite years of camping with Bishop. She went to speak, and then shut her mouth. There was no need to add to the anxiety by asking Bishop how bad it was. She watched him, and he went to speak, but thought better of it himself.
Yutu sat in the corner and placed his muzzle upon his paws, his soft eyes gazing around the tent. Every few seconds, he let escape a soft growl. Not okay, not okay.
*
“What time is it?” Angela asked.
Bishop checked his watch. “One p.m.”
The winds receded, as if the storm needed to wind down rather than end abruptly, a testament to its overwhelming and unusual power.
“This son of a bitch is closing shop,” Colbrick muttered from his tent.
A sense of relief overcame all of them, even forcing Angela to smile. She unzipped the tent flap and observed the cool rain, how it glistened in the alpine air like diamonds. Everything smelled of ozone, the terrain lush with moisture.
Yutu darted out of the tent and paced the campsite, searching for the scent. Colbrick, Bishop, and Angela watched the precocious dog.
“You can do it, boy!” Angela said.
Yutu ran back to her and tilted his head, then ran away once more with his nose held high in the air. He moved to the north, paused, and then moved north again—this time a few yards. He shook his head and let out a yip, then trotted up the trail along the shale and boulders.
“That dog’s got a fine nose,” Colbrick said.
“We were lucky to find him,” Angela said.
“And he was even luckier to find us,” Bishop said.
Angela went to laugh, and then stopped herself when she pictured the desperate dog barking behind the window of the burning apartment. “Very lucky indeed,” she said instead.
*
“Guys, I think I agree with you about the killing,” Angela said, her breath heavy from the hiking.
“What about the killing?” Colbrick asked.
“What that Tuco guy said. I go kill them all and be right back!”
Colbrick and Bishop erupted in laughter.
“You got that right, Miss,” Colbrick said, grinning from ear to ear.
Bishop put his hand in Angela’s for the brief moment he could. The rugged terrain forced them to use both hands along the pass, and Bishop winced when he watched Angela grip the jagged rocks with the flappy bandages.
“How are your hands?” Bishop asked.
“They’re getting better,” she said, putting her .357 down and holding her hands out, palms up. “The bandages may look stupid but they help prevent blisters. I guess I’ve gotten used to them.”
“Why don’t we rewrap those suckers?” Bishop asked.
“No need. Save whatever we have for someone who really needs it. And Bishop—I get the horrible feeling that someone is going to need it soon.”
Bishop said nothing.
“Did you know when I was little my mother told me deja vu ran in our family?” Angela said. “I never believed it, but every once in a while, a specific scene in my life felt so dang familiar, like I had been in that exact scene before or dreamt it. And guess what? That awful storm—I’d seen that exact situation before, down to the color of the tent, the people I was with, the specific noises and even the color of Yutu’s fur. Now, when I thought of that or dreamt it many years ago, I didn’t know the who’s and why’s. All I knew was the single image, frozen like a vivid painting.”
Bishop nodded. He’d never been a psychic kind of person, but recent events and the startling dream with his father were spinning that viewpoint on its ass. Funny how experience had a way of setting you straight.
The air had taken on an angelic, diffused quality, lighting each mark and cut in the rocks with acute detail. Yutu scrambled up the vibrant rocks ahead of them, and they noticed his movement becoming more difficult. Sometimes, he had to leap from rock to rock, and none of this terrain must have felt good on his paws. This was not territory meant for dogs, for not even the wolves went this high in the Apex Range.
Bishop wondered what had become of the magnificent Kilmeister wolf pack which called these mountains home. They were gone with everything else save for the lone grizzly bear at Big J and a few birds.
The Apex Mountains were a cruel, twisted sort. From the valley, they induced a warming flood of wonder. But when upon their rugged, omnipresent peaks, they mocked mortality. Bishop glanced up an imposing cliff and noticed something that sent his heart into his throat. Halfway up the cliff on an unreachable ledge rested a circular intertwining of branches and other woody debris. And for a moment, Bishop thought he saw a slight movement inside the bulging nest. He squinted in the half-sun, and a tiny, ruffled head poked above the nest. The creature wailed, its powerful call echoing off the cliff sides of the isolated cirque.
A golden eagle fledgling.
Bishop pointed to the nest, and Angela and Colbrick let out whoops of joy upon seeing the clumsy fledgling.
“Oh my gosh,” Angela said. “Where’s momma?”
“She has to be around,” Bishop said, putting an arm around her.
Colbrick spit and held out his hand towards the fledgling, giving it a thumbs-up. “You can bet your teeth momma’s around,” Colbrick said. “This eaglet couldn’t survive a couple days without her.”
“I hope so,” Angela said.
An answer came in the form of a gliding shadow that rippled across the rocks.
This time, it was a native.
The great bird did not cry.
They turned their heads to follow the dark shape, and when the sun lit upon its brown and golden feathers, they let out an inspired sigh. The eagle’s shiny, hooked beak reflected the vitality in the air, and its talons gripped something that made their jaws drop. Clutched and impaled on the mother eagle’s talons, was a winged creature with bright, green eyes. The faint, looped mimicry of an eagle cry emitted from its puffy midsection.
The eagle studied them with keen eyes and pulled higher so she could loft down upon the nest. Her black talons dug into the small flier, and green ooze dripped from its bloated midsection onto the shale with a sickening plop. The looping mimicry ceased, and the green eyes faded.
The great bird lofted into the nest, laid the meaty morsel in front of the fledgling, then nudged the meat with her beak.
“Well I’ll be,” Colbrick said, shaking his head. “She figured out how to hunt the fliers.”
“The small ones at least,” Angela said. “I’d prefer her to kill the big ones.”
“And I’d prefer to snap my fingers and have all these bastards gone,” Colbrick said. “But shit don’t work like that. Any time one of these bastards dies, it’s a victory.”
Angela gazed up at the nest and nodded. “You’re right.”
“Did you guys notice the looping cry?” Bishop asked.
“Yup.”
“I wonder if she figured out how to lay a trap,” Bishop said. “Maybe she just perched in a dark corner, cried out a few times and waited for them to come.”
“I doubt it,” Colbrick said. “Golden’s ambush from above their prey. I’m guessin’ this golden soared above the fliers and picked this small one off the back of the ca
rrier at great velocity. Maybe she cried as she dove, and the small flier tried to mimic her before she caught hold. There might be a squadron of fliers out there who are mimicking this golden right now, unaware of what happened to this small one.”
“Plausible,” Angela said, staring up at the nest as the fledgling poked at and then tore into the bloated flier. “This is all great, but it raises more questions. Like…how many golden eagles does the U.S. have?”
“Not many,” Colbrick said.
“What about bald eagles?” Angela asked.
“I know what you’re getting at, but no good,” Colbrick said. “Bald’s are scavengers. A lot different from goldens. Goldens live in remote, western areas. Their numbers dropped because of poaching and pesticides, but they hung on pretty good in the Rockies and in the arid lands between here and the Pacific.”
Bishop nodded. As an avid wildlife enthusiast, he knew all of this, but didn’t want to irk Colbrick. Most locals didn’t care for tourists to one-up them.
“It could be that the goldens have learned to prey on the small fliers. So could red-tails,” Bishop said.
“Red-tails?” Angela asked. “As in the hawk?”
“Yes,” Bishop said. “Very populous across the U.S. You’ve seen them.”
“Red-tails aren’t nearly the size of goldens,” Colbrick said.
“True,” Bishop said.
“They still might take a small flier, though, but I doubt anything bigger,” Colbrick said. “Now the golden—they’re known to take young deer and mountain goats, maybe even a bear cub—”
“Which means they could take out other new arrivals,” Angela said.
“Yup.”
High above them, the mother golden eagle cried out as she looked upon her fledgling. The mother angled her massive head, opened her wings and cried again while hopping in place.
“What’s she doing?” Angela asked.
“She’s not happy,” Bishop said.
A puzzling scraping and clacking came from down mountain.
“Dear God, look below us,” Colbrick said.
They did, and whatever triumph they’d felt from the golden faded to dismay as they witnessed a legion of secapods crawling and clicking a hundred yards below. The ground seethed with glistening secapods, going as far back to the tree line in some spots, like an undulating carpet of maggots seizing the countryside.
“Move,” Bishop said. “Move now.”
“Where’s Yutu?” Angela asked, panicking. “Yutu?”
Yutu trotted to Angela from his wide advantage on the trail.
“Stay by my side, OK, boy?” she said.
They scrambled up the jumble, cutting their hands and ankles. “Something tipped them off,” Angela said. “Did the leaf squeal?”
“Shit, I forgot to feed it,”’ Colbrick said, huffing as he looked for a foothold. He stopped, opened the pack, took out the jar, and threw it.
“Bishop, the eagles,” Angela said, pointing to the nest.
“They’ll be fine,” Bishop said. “The secapods have no way of getting to them.”
The swelling carpet of secapods crept up the mountain, the clicking and garbling resonating to the survivors in random waves. Baby secapods struggled to keep up with the adults, disappearing and reappearing in large crevices that their parents groped over. Some of the babies rode the flat midsections like tourists on a bus. Many of the adult secapods had the flashing tags, and they all pulsed in unison. Bishop counted ninety-four beats per minute.
The talus and bus-sized boulders made for slow passage. When they reached a massive rock face with a wide ledge, they realized they could go no further, and would have to retrace their steps a hundred yards in order to find a workable route. Yutu went to make his way back down the mountain, and Angela grabbed him by the scruff and yanked him back.
“Uh-uh,” she said. “You’re not going near those secapods. See these bandages?”
Yutu panted and paced, anxious to continue on the scent trail.
Below them, the mass of secapods crept closer, their sandy grunting echoing in the stillness.
The golden eagle shrieked.
“Well, this is it, folks,” Colbrick said, spitting and taking off his pack, an unsavory gleam in his eyes. “We don’t have enough bullets for this, not even close.” He carefully grasped the sticks of dynamite. “Four for the secapods and four for us.”
“Stop it,” Angela said.
The carpet of secapods poked and prodded their way up the jumble, some of the disgusting things falling into the cracks between boulders and getting impaled by their sibling’s legs. Their bulbous eyes rotated gleefully, and rivulets of milky liquid dripped from their moist underbellies.
Angela held out her .357 and clenched her teeth. Yutu looked below while pacing the ledge. Bishop watched the golden eagle, for something was in the air, an intangible quality he detected which the others had not. It wasn’t all that different from the sensation he got while watching the diving peregrine falcons from his office window.
The giant golden hopped in place and spread its wings, releasing a chilling cry that pierced louder than before. The secapods groped closer. Bishop could hit them with a rock if he tried. The baby secapods squealed and grew frenetic as they closed in.
Colbrick intertwined the dynamite wicks and held a match between thumb and forefinger.
Angela grabbed Bishop’s hand.
“I love you. You know that, right?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“I love you too, more than anything,” he said, meeting her eyes.
The eagle cried again, louder.
The secapod clacking grew maddening as they groped to within thirty yards. Their single eyes rotated atop their flounder midsections as they searched for the best kill approach.
Bishop squeezed Angela’s hand.
Manic whooshing came from the cliffs.
Dark, blurry projectiles screamed down from the highest crags, plumage flattened by speed, their keen, vengeful eyes riveted to the secapods. The feathered missiles let out the echoing cry of the nesting golden eagle.
Down they came, zipping through the air like organic missiles, zinging into the cirque, feathers rippling from the velocity.
The cries, the cries.
The vengeful cries.
Bishop looked up through a watery prism of tears as the air force of golden eagles shone down from the heavens, talons outstretched and ten-foot wingspans unfurled as they slammed into the glistening secapods, popping the bulbous eyes in fantastical, violent bursts that splattered goo in all directions.
The secapods reached up with their hairy legs and claws, but the goldens were too fast and went for the eyes, their beaks eviscerating the ocular pudding like a fork into sunny-side up eggs. Each puncture of eye triggered a shrill scream from the secapods and accelerated clacking. When the secapods grew too numerous, the eagles retreated to the air and soared over the creatures, their shadows creating uneven light on the glistening backs and eyes. The secapods gazed wearily to the sky, growing quiet, waiting for the next assault. Once the secapods were blinded, the goldens would dig their talons into the flat midsections and stab their beaks down with the force of a hammer swung by a gorilla.
The survivors watched, awestruck by the swarming concoction of feathers, claws, and flesh. The constant beating of wings and breath ushered hot air up the mountain and the scent of raw, exposed flesh—the kind of scent which offends the nostrils in bright, eye-watering flashes. The goldens thrashed the mountainside with the timing and bombast of an orchestra on speed, moving methodically from one secapod to the next, shrieking, flapping, ripping.
Yutu leaped from the dead-end ledge and trotted down towards the fray in an attempt to find a different path to the scent.
“Well, let’s get to it,” Colbrick said, repacking the dynamite and following Yutu.
Angela and Bishop did the same.
The group moved to within feet of the seething mass, and the spectacle became all th
e more gruesome. Above the mass of golden eagles soared the magnificent nesting golden, surveying the battlefield like a general. Above her, the fledgling also watched, taking in the battle as an important life lesson.
The group retraced their steps to a fork in the path they’d seen earlier, and chose what had seemed to be the incorrect route before. They scrambled up the jumble, following Yutu and his sensitive nose. When they reached the top of a dominant incline on the new path, Angela and Bishop looked back to the battle. Most of the secapods were dead, and many were maimed beyond repair—some crawling in circles with soup dripping from where an eye used to be and others limping along with missing legs. One lethal, hopping eagle remained, making sure to jab its hooked beak into a nerve core in the maimed survivors, letting out a cry for each secapod killed. Then the eagles beat their majestic wings and rocketed to the cliffs, many carrying secapod parts to feed their young which were hidden away in dark nooks in this last haven for the rare predator birds. Up and up they flew, disappearing into the sky like zigzagging fireworks, their silhouettes swallowed by the hot light of the sun.
All that remained was the first mother golden eagle, and she lofted into the nest with a chunky piece of secapod. She dropped the chunk into the nest and nudged it towards her big-eyed fledgling, which in turn ripped into the meat with a hearty relish. The great bird watched them with weary but keen eyes, for humans had not been kind to them, not at all.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Angela said.
Bishop shook his head, stunned. “For whatever reason, they helped us.”
“Or they were hungry,” Colbrick said, gripping his sawed-off.
“Don’t you think the timing—?”
“Timing schmiming,” Colbrick said. “Just some hungry birds.”
“Always have to play devil’s advocate, don’t you?” Angela asked.
Colbrick smiled. “Gotcha. You’re damn right that was something special. They saved our behinds.”
Angela smiled.
Bishop looked back to the nest. He couldn’t make out much of it thanks to the gleaming sun, but what he did see made him feel almost human again. The great bird fed her fledgling, passing on survival skills to ensure the continuation of the species. Bishop stood straight and strong, then saluted the bird.
The Invasive Page 24
