I was wondering whether this was the work of the same men who had taken the photograph that had led us here, when the rope started to whine against the pulley again.
Challenger was on his way up.
I spent the next twenty minutes with my heart in my mouth, leaning over a vertiginous drop and trying to steady the rope from swinging too violently. After a while I heard what I at first thought was wind whistling through rocks, then had to smile; Challenger was coming up toward me singing at the top of his voice.
Five minutes after that, I helped him step alongside me on the ledge. The rope holds did not descend. Challenger saw me looking.
“We decided to stay in pairs,” he said. “I doubt that either Boyd or Smith have the strength left to raise the rope again; not for a while at least. Smith has given us three hours to explore. If we don’t pull on the rope in that time, he says he’s coming after us, one way or another.”
I looked around.
“I doubt if it will take that long, old chap,” I said. “This appears to be the end of the trip.”
“Nonsense,” Challenger said, lighting up one of his infamous cheroots. “They wouldn’t make all this effort just to light a fire and sing songs.”
He set about an examination of the site. I yielded to his authority, lit a smoke of my own, and joined in the search. We found what we were looking for mere minutes later.
A stone stairway had been hacked into the cliff; indeed, some parts of it looked as if it had been blasted from the rock face. The steps led up and away around a pinnacle many yards above us. It looked steep, but not precipitously so. Challenger already had his foot on the bottom step.
“An hour,” I said. “And no more. Then we turn back.”
He nodded in agreement and set off. I followed, knowing that I would be hard-pressed to keep the Professor to that promise.
The climb, though strenuous, proved simpler than I could have hoped. After half an hour of following behind Challenger, he stepped to one side to let me join him.
“I think we’ve arrived,” he said. I stepped up to his side.
We stood on a high rocky outcrop, looking down over a long glacial valley. It stretched off into the far distance, at least twenty miles long and two to three miles wide. Tall conifers lined the slopes on both sides below high snow-covered peaks. A large lake lay on the valley floor below us, with grass-covered plains dominating the long stretch away to the west. Several herds of large animals grazed on the plain, but it was too far to make out detail. They could only be bison, I thought, but there was something about these animals that just felt strange.
Challenger studied the ground around us.
“Someone wearing boots has walked here,” he said.
Tracks led away toward what looked like a deer track. I raised my head and followed the line of it. The thin path ran alongside a stream for several hundred yards, then led along the northern slopes just above the tree line. I headed toward the start of the track. I was almost there when I realized that Challenger had not followed. He stared at a point several miles away on the other side of the valley. A thin column of smoke rose high into the air from a series of caves at the base of the slopes.
Someone was alive down there.
Challenger was all for investigating further.
“We’ve come this far,” he said. “We can’t walk away now.”
“Yes,” I replied. “And we’ve left two good men waiting for us. We’re not prepared for an expedition. Besides, it would be dark before we got there. We should go back, and return when we have made adequate preparations.”
Challenger was clearly in no mood to listen to me, but his attention had been drawn away from the valley floor to the sky above us.
“Look, Malone,” he whispered.
I followed his gaze. High above, several hundred yards overhead, three birds soared. Even at this distance it was apparent that they were huge, each as big, if not bigger, than the one in the photograph that had led us here. As I watched, the largest of the birds tucked its wings in toward its body and dived, coming straight at us.
It got closer fast, coming at such a speed that we barely had time to react. I threw myself aside at the last possible moment and felt the wind from the bird’s wings waft against my face. The attacking eagle screeched in frustration, talons raking the air where I had just been. It skimmed the ground and stayed just airborne enough to clear the trees to our left. It banked off over the cliff edge, turned on a sixpence and came back toward us.
Challenger watched it coming. He wielded his walking stick like a broadsword and stood his ground as the bird, wings tucked close to its body, talons outstretched, powered toward him.
With a deft piece of footwork that belied his bulky frame Challenger stepped to one side and, with perfect timing, brought the stick around in a swipe, the heavy end catching the eagle flush on the head and caving in its skull. Momentum kept the rest of it going. It tumbled to the ground, bones snapping like matchsticks. The body landed in a tangle of broken wings at my feet.
The Professor turned and smiled at me.
“I do believe I may be the first unarmed man to bring down a Thunderbird,” he said, and laughed. “Just wait until I tell those old fogeys in the Royal Society about this one!”
“Let us hope we both live long enough to see it, old man,” I said, looking upward. The other two eagles were already on their way down. “To the trees,” I shouted. “It’s our only hope.”
Challenger didn’t need to be told twice; indeed, he beat me in the dash for the treeline. We just made it in time, as two dark shapes swooped past in tandem mere feet from our noses. I turned to congratulate the Professor on a close escape when my feet gave way beneath me and the ground crumbled underfoot. I slid off a concealed cliff edge and tumbled head over heels into empty space.
~3~
It was only blind luck that enabled me to survive the fall. It seemed that I tumbled forever, air rushing at my ears and a terrible fear gripping my guts. I expected at any moment to hit the ground with a crash that would surely kill me.
Instead I plunged, feet first, into ice-cold water, the shock of which knocked all the breath from my body even as my momentum took me deeper. The surface was only a dim, shimmering light far above when I finally stopped descending and was able to start climbing my way back. My clothes sucked at me, threatening to drag me down, but I was loath to shuck them off, knowing full well that I would need all the warmth I could get, should I manage to reach the surface and get myself to shore.
My breath was almost gone as I broke through. I trod water, heaving in huge gulps of cold air.
It took several seconds to get my bearings. I had landed near the shore in the waters of the lake we had seen from above. The shoreline near me was a single cliff face going down into the water, and there would be no beaching spot for me there. I chose to go right, swimming as steadily as I could manage, heading for where I could see that the forest came down the side of the hill to meet the water.
I only just made it to shore. I might have done better by ditching the knapsack and my coat, but grave though my situation was, I knew it would be graver still to be lost in this wilderness without warmth or provisions. I dragged myself out of the water and fell to my knees on a gravel shore bounded by a dense forest of straggly pines.
I was barely given time to catch my breath when I heard the noise of something heavy crashing through the undergrowth, coming straight for me. I drew my pistol and raised it in front of me, even though I was quite sure that it would not work due to the soaking it had just received, but hoping that the mere sight of it might give any attacker pause.
“Malone?” a familiar voice bellowed. I lowered the gun as Challenger arrived at a run from the undergrowth.
He had obviously made his own descent from the cliff in some haste. His jacket was torn at the shoulder, he had small cuts at forehead and cheek where branches had whipped at his face, and he was caked in mud from toe to thigh. But he gav
e me a huge grin when he saw me at the waterside.
“Well met, lad. I thought I’d lost you.”
“It was a dashed close thing,” I said ruefully. I tried to stand, but my legs had gone to jelly with the effort of getting myself ashore, and I would have fallen flat on my face on the gravel had Challenger not caught me.
“You’re soaked through, man,” he said. “Get out of those clothes. I’ll get a fire going.”
I was in no position to protest. I did as I was bidden. Challenger collected dried wood and moss and managed to get a pretty decent fire going in short order. I sat as close to it as I dared and steam-dried my sodden clothing. I also took up his offer of a cheroot, my own tobacco pouch being as wet as my garments. While we smoked, Challenger told me of his descent to my side.
“I damned near joined you in the fall, Malone,” he said. “And would have, too. if I hadn’t managed to grab hold of a branch just in the nick of time. I didn’t see you fall, but I heard the splash, right enough. After that, I ran, trying only to keep going downhill, and not to get my damn fool self killed in the process.”
“And here we are,” I said. For the first time since my abrupt arrival on the valley floor I looked around.
And that was when I saw the skeleton.
“Challenger?” I managed to say. “What in blazes is that?”
He walked over, and I went to join him. The sight that met us there quickly quelled any relief I felt at surviving my fall.
The carcass of a large animal lay just beyond the tree line on the shore to our right. It had died some time ago, and most of the bones had been picked clean, but those that were left were strewn across a wide area. A huge skull lay in wet grass, empty eye sockets staring at us.
Bits of dry brown fur flapped in the wind, but there was nothing about the beast that I recognized. The rib cage was wide enough that two men could have walked inside it, and the thighbone was more than four feet long.
“Was it some kind of bear?” I asked.
Challenger shook his head. “The teeth are all wrong. And it’s too big to be a bison. But I’ve no idea what it was.”
Just where the bones lay, a stream came down from the hill above. The stream fed into the lake, and we were going to have to cross the water and skirt the lake if we were to reach the cave where we had earlier seen the smoke.
Challenger had seen the same thing. He strode toward the stream, looking for a place we might cross. I followed, aware that most of my clothing was still steaming by the fire, and a chill wind blew through the long johns that I had not removed.
The closer we got to the water, the more bones we found. By the time we reached the bank of the stream the ground was covered, not just with bones, but with small, chopped-up pieces of fur.
Challenger stood over a pile of bones, moving them around with his feet. He bent, and lifted a leather belt, and then a work boot. The remains of a foot were still inside it.
“I believe we may have found at least one of those we are seeking.”
We were both chastened by what we had seen, and smoked in silence for a time by the side of the fire. I checked my clothing. It was by no means dry, but it was dry enough to be put back on.
“Time’s a-wasting, Challenger,” I said. “We’re going to be late already. We had best get back to Boyd and Smith.”
If I had not taken the earlier fall, Challenger might not have been easily swayed to my point of view, but I was able to cite exhaustion, and cold as a factor on my side. In the end he agreed, reluctantly.
“But—and I have bad news here, Malone—we cannot go up the way I came down, for it involved several sheer drops that would be too risky.”
I looked at the stream to our right, and followed the line of it up through the trees. “Let’s follow that upwards,” I said. “Maybe there is a deer trail or some such.”
After agreeing to the plan, we carefully extinguished our fire, and minutes later headed along a track at the side of the small river.
The climb proved relatively easy to start with, and I began to hope for a simple trip back to our camp. But my hopes were to be dashed as the trail we followed came to a halt at a deep pool below a waterfall whose top was six feet and more above our heads. Challenger started to look for handholds in the rock face to the side of the falls.
“I think I can see a way up,” he said after a minute or so. Personally I wasn’t quite so sure, but I trusted to his judgement. I held my breath as he boosted himself up to the first hold; a thin crack in the rock that was only just visible from where I stood. Despite his bulk, Challenger’s upper-body strength served him well in the situation, and he pulled himself up and away from me at some speed. I was by no means certain of my own ability to follow where he led.
I waited until his feet were several feet above my head, took a deep breath, and approached the rock, gingerly reaching for the first hold.
Something growled in the thicket to my right.
“Challenger?” I said, as loudly as I dared.
“I heard it,” he said. “Stay there. I’m coming back down.”
I didn’t have time to disagree. The undergrowth rustled, and a beast came out of the woods, its eyes fixed on me. It was a cat, the likes of which I have never seen, some four feet tall at the shoulder, heavily built and shaggy all over, with reddish-brown fur and a wicked-looking pair of fangs protruding six inches below its lower jaw. I reached, slowly, for my pistol. I had tried to dry it out at the fireside earlier, but I was unsure whether it would ever recover from the soaking it had taken after my fall. I was also pretty sure that the small weapon would not intimidate the beast in any way. The cat had naked hunger in its eyes as it padded closer. My finger tightened on the trigger.
At the same instant that I fired, Challenger leapt from the rock with a roar like a crazed bull. The sound of the shot echoed around the valley, and the beast turned tail and fled, gone as quickly as it had come.
“Smilodon fatalis,” Challenger said as he came to my side. “Fascinating.”
“And what’s one of those when it’s at home?” I asked—after I remembered to breathe.
“In the common vernacular, a saber-toothed tiger,” Challenger said. “And we may be the first men to see one for ten thousand years.”
I wasn’t too sure of that, remembering the bones and remains we had found on the valley floor below. As I was about to point this fact out to Challenger, a new sound echoed around the valley: another gunshot, from somewhere above us. It was quickly followed by a shout.
“Challenger? Are you there?”
It was Boyd, and he was close by. We shouted ourselves almost hoarse for several minutes, and soon the youngster looked down at us from the lip of the falls above.
“I have Smith here with me too,” he called down. “And we have a rope. We’ll have you up alongside us in a jiffy.”
He was as good as his word. Minutes later, all four of us stood above the waterfall. It was only when Challenger went pale and grabbed my arm that I turned to look at the view over the valley. We had a clear view down the whole length, and now that we were closer, I could clearly see the herds of beasts on the prairie. I could also clearly see the nature of the beasts themselves, although I could not quite believe my eyes.
Grazing not a mile from our viewpoint was a herd of around twenty. At first I thought they were elephants, for trunks and tusks were clearly visible. But where elephants are tough and leathery, these beasts were as shaggy as the tiger we had just encountered, and their tusks were huge and curved, much bigger than any I had seen before.
“Mammoths, as I live and breathe,” Challenger whispered. “Hundreds of them.”
I followed his gaze along the length of the valley. Herds of grazing beasts were dotted at intervals along its whole length. There were indeed, as Challenger had said, literally hundreds of animals in view.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Challenger said.
“No,” I replied with a smile. “But I’m sure
you’ll tell me, old boy.”
“It’s a relict population,” Boyd said, a grin stretching across his features.
“More than that,” Challenger replied. “It’s a whole relict ecosystem, bounded by the high cliffs of this valley, locked in here since the last ice age. Eagles above, a top predator in the forests, and the herds of prey below. It’s a classic formation. We should also find smaller predators in the area, and also other prey animals. And …”
I stopped him before he became too garrulous.
“It’s not completely untouched, old man,” I said. “Remember the belt and boots we found? And then there’s the matter of the smoke we saw coming from the cave on the other side of the valley. Men have been here before us … might even still be here.”
Right on cue a column of smoke rose from the same cave as previously.
“We need to get down there,” Challenger said.
“Steady on, old chap,” I replied. “I thought the plan was to return to camp for the night?”
I looked to our two companions from the Smithsonian for support. Unfortunately, I had forgotten the common bond between these scientist chaps. Boyd immediately agreed with Challenger.
“Strike while the iron’s hot, I say,” the youngster said. Smith said nothing, merely shrugged, and shouldered a rucksack that looked twice his own body weight.
“I promise you, Malone,” Challenger said. “We’ll be back in camp by nightfall.”
I looked at the sky. The sun was already beginning its descent down the western rim of the long valley.
By the time we arrived on the valley floor again it was obvious, to me at least, that we had little chance of getting back to camp that evening. My best hope seemed to be for a dry cave, and I had that in mind as we walked across what proved to be a very damp plain. Progress was slow due to frequent diversions round boggy holes filled with dark stagnant water, and we were plagued all the way by large black flies whose bite was as ferocious as any I had come across in the Amazon.
Professor Challenger: The Kew Growths and Other Stories Page 17
