Neither of them had spoken for several minutes, just walking with their heads down, watching their steps. Frank was surprised when Pat shouted.
“We’re clear. Look. There’s a stream.”
They were indeed clear, but Frank’s heart sank.
We’ve gone in a circle.
They were back at the side of the stream that led down from the high outcrop. A hundred yards or so above them the black bodies of the large eagles still lay strewn on the ground.
“What are we going to do now Frank?” Pat asked. “What are we going to do? We done been walking for hours and we ain’t got nowhere.”
Frank studied the side of the stream. There was a path of sorts there, thinner than the one they had originally followed above the tree line, and one that dived alarmingly steeply down the hill.
But a path nonetheless.
“It’s up to you big man,” Frank said. “Do you want to go back to the Creek?”
Pat’s eyes went wide.
“No sir. We done came to find Jake. He’s down there somewhere.”
Frank looked at the stream path once more.
“Okay big fella. Down it is. Stay close behind me,” he said. “And put your feet where mine have been. We’ll take it slowly. And yell at me if it gets too scary for you.”
Pat nodded. He looked frightened again, but there was something else there that Frank was glad to see. It was determination.
Frank led them down. At first the descent proved relatively easy. He had a bad moment when his foot slipped and he almost tumbled, but Pat grabbed him by the arm and kept him from tumbling down the slope on his arse.
“Don’t worry Frank,” Pat said. “I’ll look after you.”
They were both laughing as they headed down the next part, but went quiet when the track got so steep that they had to put hands against the frozen ground to keep their balance.
Things got worse when they came to a lip and the stream tumbled over into a waterfall.
Frank inched forward towards the edge.
“Hold my belt Pat. I need to get a good look to see our way.”
The drop was only four feet, but that wasn’t what got Frank worried. The waterfall fed into a pool on a ledge. Bones and pieces of meat lay both in the water and around the edges. Frank saw immediately what had happened; the beasts brought their food this way, and pieces of it had been dropped and discarded as they scrambled up over the lip where Frank stood.
It’s like a damned abattoir.
“Okay Pat. We’re going down. There are some bones and meat and stuff down there. Just keep your eyes on my feet and follow me.”
“No beasties?” Pat said quietly, the fear back in his eyes. “You’re sure there ain’t no beasties?”
Frank clapped him on the shoulder.
“No beasties big man. Just dead meat. And the quicker we move, the quicker we’ll get past it. Come on.”
Frank lowered himself over the lip. He had to get his legs in the water to swing down onto the ledge below and gasped as the cold gripped him. Pat followed quickly behind. Frank saw that the big man had his eyes screwed shut as he came down. He took Pat’s hand.
“It’s okay Pat,” he said softly. “Let me lead you. We’ll get you past it.”
Tears leaked from the corners of Pat’s scrunched up eyes.
“I’m sorry Frank,” he said. “I guess I ain’t no more than a big baby.”
But he still didn’t open his eyes.
Frank started to pick his way through the gory mess on the ledge. Some of the parts were near as big as melons. He wasn’t about to tell Pat, but one looked suspiciously like a human thigh torn roughly from a hip.
Frank reached the edge of the ledge and saw with relief that the path was a lot less steep from here on down. His gaze followed its curve all the way to the valley floor. Three men stood beside the lake down in the distance.
“I see them Pat,” Frank said.
He didn’t get an answer from Pat. The big man was looking over to their right.
Something growled in the trees. The pine needles rustled.
Frank never got time to react. He turned just as it pounced on him. He only had time to register that it was huge, reddish orange and shaggy before it hit him. He still had hold of Pat. The big man’s grip tightened on Frank’s hand.
All three of them rolled away down the slope in a spray of snow.
13
Jake was fifty yards from the cave.
He’d had no more sightings of anyone there, but his mind was full of hope and expectation. What he hadn’t been expecting was the spear that flashed past his head. A second plunged into the ground at his feet.
“Get down man,” he heard the Squire yell. “We’re under attack.”
Jake’s army training took over. He threw himself onto his belly and got his pistol out in front of him, sighting along the barrel to the mouth of the cave. They had no cover. The ground was almost flat and mossy, any grass no more than 2 inches long.
If anyone up there has a gun we’re all goners.
Nothing moved.
The Squire crawled up next to him.
“Keep your head down lad. This isn’t the first time I’ve been in this situation.”
Another spear thudded into the ground near them. Jake was surprised by how small it was, but the stone head had been worked to a thin edge. It didn’t matter what size it was.
If one of them hits, it’s going to go right down to bone.
“We can’t just lie here,” Jake whispered. “Sooner or later one of us is going to get hit.”
The Squire smiled. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
“The British Army trains for this kind of thing lad. Cover me.”
Before Jake could argue the man fired six rapid shots from his pistol towards the cave mouth and squirmed forward on his elbows, moving as fast as a lizard on hot sand.
Jake send six more shots towards the cave. Two spears thudded down in the space between himself and the Squire, then all went quiet once more.
The Pastor edged up beside Jake as he reloaded.
“Have you seen anybody?” Jake asked.
The Pastor shook his head. He took out his pair of pistols.
“But you’d best get moving lad. If we lie here too long our nuts will freeze to the ground.”
“Fine words for a Pastor,” Jake said.
“No man that hath his stones broken shall come nigh to the offerings of the Lord,” the Pastor said with a straight face.
“Now you’re just making shit up,” Jake replied.
The man in black smiled.
“Get thee hence lad,” he said. “I’ll cover you.”
Jake started shooting. Both the Squire and the Pastor joined in. The shots echoed around the valley. A hail of spears replied. One of them landed six inches from Jake’s nose. Another missed his left hip by less than that. But he reached the Squire’s side safely.
The Englishman smiled broadly as Jake crawled beside him.
“Dashed un-welcoming behavior,” he said. “Don’t you think?”
Jake reloaded again from his shoulder bag. The paper cartridges felt slightly damp. He hoped that was just the moisture from his fingers.
Otherwise we’re in real trouble.
The Squire finished loading his rifle.
“Twenty yards to go,” he said. “Let’s get the Pastor up here first, then we’ll go for it.”
Go for it?
“That’s your plan? That ain’t no kind of plan at all.”
Once more the Englishman smiled.
“Elegant in its simplicity, don’t you think?”
Jake and the Squire set up a covering fire as the Pastor squirmed across the gap towards them. More spears fell, but none got too close to them.
The Pastor crawled beside Jake.
“On three,” the Squire said. “Then we head for the cave. The Pastor has the most firepower so he goes first and we back him up. Once inside we take the cave then establish
a defensive perimeter.”
The military talk proved strangely reassuring for Jake. It gave him focus, reminded him that he had been in tight spots in the past and came out by working with the others of his team.
We can do this. I have to do this. George might be in that cave. So might the others.
They waited while the Pastor reloaded his pistols. Jake raised his head several inches, risking a look at the cave. Still nothing moved, but no more spears came in his direction.
“On three,” the Squire said. “One, Two…”
The Pastor went first. He ran forward in a crouch, swerving from side to side, guns blazing, the noise almost deafening. Jake backed him up as well as he could. He and the Squire followed behind and they covered the ground to the mouth of the cave in seconds.
He almost ran into the back of the Pastor. The man stood just inside the cave, guns raised and smoking. The man in black was not moving inside. Jake saw why when he joined him.
At first he only saw the children.
Hairy children?
He soon saw that his first impressions were wrong. These weren’t children. Yes, they were small, but their features, even obscured by the shaggy hair that seemed to cover them from head to foot, were those of adults. More than twenty of them stood just inside the cave. All were armed with spears or stone axes.
And none of them was more than thirty inches tall.
Jake was so taken aback that it took him several seconds to see the man lying at their feet, bound and trussed like a turkey, two stone spears pressed at his neck with enough weight to draw trickles of blood.
The intent was plain.
Come any closer and we kill him.
The man was thin, almost skeletal, cheekbones showing as sharp edges through skin that was gray and translucent. His eyes had sunk deep back in their sockets, looking like black pools of despair.
But Jake would recognize him anywhere. He was too dazed to notice when the small people disarmed them of their guns. He still couldn’t look away from the figure on the floor; the man who stared, eyes glazed and unfocussed, into a far distance.
George?
14
The tumble down the snowy hillside seemed to go on forever.
Pat screamed all the way.
Frank still had no idea what attacked them. He got momentary glimpses, of a bright blue eye, of a curved tooth near a foot long and a huge paw with claws like knives. All Frank knew was that he clung to a handful of orange fur.
And if I let go I’ll probably be dead in seconds.
Trees flashed past them. At any moment Frank expected to hit a tree or even a rock.
And that will be the end of that.
But, miraculously, they came to a halt, stopped by a long drift of snow. The orange beast snarled and jumped upright, so fast that Frank was left with some of its fur in his hand.
Frank stood, groggy and dizzy from the tumble.
Ten feet from him stood the largest cat he’d ever seen. He had once seen a mountain lion take a deer and thought that was impressive enough, but the creature that circled them now was bigger by far. Its body was ten feet long, held up by massive legs covered in the thick orange fur. The paws were as large as dinner plates and tipped with black claws. Muscles bunched along its shoulders and its shaggy coat rippled slightly in the wind. The furry tip of a long muscular tail swished behind it, but it was the front end that Frank focussed on.
If ever God made a pure killing machine, surely it looked like this.
Twin fangs hung over the lower jaw, each near a foot long. The beast salivated, dripping long ropes of stringy drool. Deep blue eyes stared fixedly at Frank. It purred, like a small kitten having its back scratched.
Frank was aware that Pat was still getting to his feet beside him.
“Are you okay big man?” he whispered.
The beast cocked its ears and studied them. Now that it had them cornered it seemed unsure as to what to do next.
Pat lifted the axe.
The cat looked at the weapon. It growled at them again, a rumbling sound that came from deep in its chest. It sounded like distant thunder.
“Easy Pat,” Frank said. “I think it’s as scared of us as we are of it.”
Pat laughed nervously.
“I ain’t ready to put a bet on that Frank.”
Neither am I big man. Neither am I.
Frank had lost the rifle somewhere on the tumble down the hill, but he still had the pistol. The beast watched, curious, as he drew it carefully from the holster. It didn’t back off. And it didn’t growl as it had when it saw the axe.
It has no fear of the weapon. It has never seen a firearm. That gives me an advantage.
Frank checked the weapon. It was fully loaded, but the gun felt damp. He could only hope that the cartridges had kept dry.
“What we do now Frank?” Pat whispered.
“I guess I’m gonna have to shoot it.”
The beast circled them slowly. It opened its mouth and roared, the noise sending small birds flying skyward from the trees nearby.
Frank brought up the gun.
“If you’re going to shoot it, do it now Frank,” Pat said. “Before I pish my pants.”
Before Frank could fire, a volley of shots rang out from the valley behind them. The beast roared again, and sprang straight at him.
Frank got one shot in, but it was rushed. He didn’t see whether he’d hit it or not as he rolled aside. One of the beast’s paws caught him on the left shoulder. It felt like being hit by a hammer. Claws dug deep, through Frank’s jerkin and into his flesh. He had a sudden flash of ice cold pain, then heat as blood poured down inside his shirt. He rolled away fast, but when he brought up the handgun the barrel was full of impacted snow. He had no time to clear it. The beast was already turning back towards him.
“Run Pat,” he shouted. “Get free while you can.”
Once more the big man had other ideas. As he had done when protecting the horses, Pat stepped between the big cat and Frank.
“You ain’t gonna have him,” he said, raising the axe above his head. “I ain’t gonna let you.”
The cat rushed him. As if he’d been doing it all his life Pat stepped nimbly to one side as it reached him. He brought the axe down, hard. It bit deep into the beast’s shoulder just behind the neck. Blood spurted.
The cat yelped in pain.
Pat roared, as loud a sound as any made by the cat. He ran straight for it, swinging the axe above his head.
The cat turned and fled. The last thing Frank saw was the furry tip of its tail flicking as it went into the trees. A line of blood traced its path in the snow.
Pat stood there, axe raised, waiting to see if the beast would return.
Frank’s shoulder suddenly decided to become aware of the wound. The pain caused blackness to creep at the edges of his vision. He pushed himself upright, and then forced himself to smile as Pat turned back to him.
“You okay Frank?” Pat said. Blood dripped thickly from the end of the axe in his hand.
“Thanks to you big fella,” Frank said. “I owe you one.”
Somewhere nearby the cat roared in pain and anger.
“We need to get somewhere under cover,” Frank said. “I’ve got a wound that needs binding. And yon kitty-cat might come back.”
Pat’s eyes went big as he looked at the torn cloth of Frank’s jacket, and the blood seeping from beneath it.
“Are you sure you’re okay Frank?”
Again Frank managed a smile, although in truth he was more tired than he’d been at any time since Shiloh.
“Let’s find somewhere to rest,” he said. “I’ll feel better after a rest.”
He walked towards Pat. He managed three shuffling steps. The blackness came at him in a rush.
“Frank!” he heard Pat shout.
Then he heard no more.
15
Jake was still in shock as the small people herded the men inside the cave. He felt the points of several
spears poke him in the ass with every step he took.
“You ever seen anything like these Squire?” Jake whispered.
A spear jabbed him in the buttock. Jake decided keeping quiet might be a good idea.
The small people jabbered among themselves, a high, almost sing-song language that was completely incomprehensible. Jake tried to make out any word he might recognize, but soon gave up.
They were marched through a large cave that was obviously the main living area. A small hearth contained the fire that they’d seen smoking. Straw and moss pallets served as the only bedding. Stones had been hollowed to serve as bowls for food, but there was no sign that these people knew anything at all about metal. The people themselves were naked, apart from the fact that several of them wore necklaces made of wood and bone.
And there ain’t no sign of no gold neither.
The men were pushed through to the back of the main cave and into an alcove. They were poked and prodded with the spears until they got the message.
We’re meant to sit.
Once they got down onto the ground the three men were swiftly and efficiently tied up, bound tight with stiff rope that looked to be made of coarse hair. Jake and the Squire still had their sabers, but their hands were tied so firmly there was no chance of reaching them. They were left alone in the near-dark. There was just enough light reaching this far into the cave for them to see each other’s faces.
“Why didn’t you shoot man,” the Squire said to the Pastor. “We could have taken them all easily.”
The Pastor took a while to reply. He seemed lost in thought.
“Ain’t never shot a child afore,” he said quietly. “And I ain’t intending to start now.”
“These are not children,” the Squire said. “I’ve seen their like before…”
The Pastor snorted. “Save it Squire. We’ve all heard your tales.”
“And some of them are even true,” the Squire replied. “I may embellish some of the points from time to time…but some are indeed true. Four years ago I was in Africa, babysitting a mad Scotsman who was trying to bring Christ to the heathens. He failed, mostly, but that’s beside the point. There are small people in the jungle there; pygmies they call them. They too all run around naked as the day they are born, and they are near as small as these. Not as hairy though.”
The Valley Page 6
