Further: (Down The Path Book 2)

by Travis Mohrman

  “Darling, that won’t fool anybody.”

  +++

  Morning came quietly. With the colder temperatures the birds didn’t sing as loud as the sun was coming up. Cooper missed the great chorus of songs to start every day. He knew they would sing again after the cold days passed and he couldn’t wait to hear it.

  With his things packed neatly into his bag to conserve as much space as possible, he slung the bag onto his back and headed out the door towards the small cabin that Handro had been using. Lupe clung close to his heels.

  He found Handro on his porch, talking with Katherine and Aria. They all greeted each other and Rufus came out from behind one of the trees to nuzzle up to Lupe.

  “So, Handro, what do you think about having Lupe along for this little trip?”

  “Thank you for asking, but I just assumed she and her friend here were coming along. I am happy to have dogs on a journey. They are excellent at picking up on subtle details or cues that we might miss. Since you seem to be great at understanding what they are saying, I think it’s very helpful to have them along.” Handro was awkwardly petting Lupe while she and Rufus tugged at each other’s necks and Fry stared at them. “I just don’t have much experience with them personally.”

  “I believe this is the perfect time to learn then,” Aria said while setting down her empty tea mug. “We figured we could walk on down there with you.”

  Cooper knew there wasn’t any fanfare with this smaller expedition, but he was still happy to have some company on the walk down to where the boat was tied up. On the walk down, he thought of the supplies he had brought.

  He had stuffed several days of dried meat into his pack. He had hoped the sausages were already done, but they took many weeks to dry all the way and none were left from last season. The food was mainly in the pack for emergency purposes only. Between Handro and himself, he didn’t imagine finding things to eat would be too difficult, even with winter around the corner.

  Now with Lupe and Rufus along, he had even less to worry about involving food. They were both excellent at catching rodents and sharing them. The dog slobber rinsed right off, or at least that was what he always told himself.

  Cooper had also brought several long lengths of the thin twine they used for fishing and some of the skinny bamboo poles that Tom had lying around. He was hoping to have a meal or two of whiskerfish from the river. Even with all the new foods he had tried over the last year and a half, that whiskerfish was his favorite by far.

  As they arrived at the small boat, both dogs immediately jumped on board and settled into the bow. They were very excited to be going out on a boat again. Cooper remembered how Lupe had refused to ride on his raft built of logs when they had first met. He really couldn’t blame her. Looking back, it was a pretty rickety craft. Nothing like these actual boats the village had.

  After stowing his pack under one of the benches he turned back around to Aria and Katherine. They both looked sad and Cooper wasn’t totally sure why. It was a simple boat ride, nothing to worry about. The bigger dog, Fry, just stared at the boat. He seemed unsure if he wanted to go or not, but he never strayed far from Aria.

  “Sorry Cooper, but whenever people leave we just worry about them, is all,” Aria said.

  Katherine stepped up and tugged on both of his elbows, pulling his shirt tight. “Do you both have enough warm clothes? It might be warm down here but it will colder up there.”

  “We have plenty of supplies, but your concern is touching,” Handro said, appearing actually moved by their concern.

  “Ok, be careful and if you see anything just head back down here. We can send more people up again to investigate things. You’re just scouts.”

  “We will see you both in a few days. Look after John for me please, Katherine. He seemed fine with me leaving for a few days, but just watch that he doesn’t get depressed or have bad memories or anything.”

  “Of course, Cooper” she said while untying the boat and gently pushing it out into the water.

  Cooper fired up the motor. It sounded different than the ones that had propellers. This was a higher pitch, more whiny. Cooper hoped the sound wouldn’t get annoying on the ride. When he cranked the handle up to increase throttle the noise died back to a dull rumble and he had his answer. Leaning up against the motor as he steered away from the dock was actually relaxing, like a gentle, rumbly massage.

  The men waved their hands high in the sky as the two ladies on shore waved back. Both dogs stood up on the bow, noses high in the air, accepting every different scent that the moving boat was providing them.

  Their journey up the river had begun.

  Part II

  The Cold

  15

  The two dogs had continued air sniffing for most of the morning, but were now curled into a ball at the top of the boat. Cooper loved the boat. It was much faster than the barge. He didn’t want to break anything so he wasn’t operating at full throttle, but his bright red hair was still blowing in the chilly air.

  They made good time heading up the muddy river. Before long, they met up with the river heading to the northwest that they planned to explore. Back in the village they had taken to calling this river the Northwest River, as that was the direction it came from. It seemed slightly clearer than the one it dumped into. He couldn’t see fish swimming around in it, but he could see outlines of the bottom sometimes.

  The men had eaten a large breakfast in the village, so they didn’t need to stop for lunch. Handro was keeping his eyes fixed on the shoreline, looking for anything out of the ordinary that the floating square could have broken off of. At the speed they were traveling, it wasn’t long before they had gone farther than Handro had walked on the journey when he found the square.

  Cooper offered to let him drive but Handro seemed leery of it and continued to stare at the shoreline.

  The first day of travel had provided no further clues but Cooper had been able to catch a whiskerfish for dinner in the evening. It was a very large fish and everyone, dogs included, went to sleep with very full stomachs.

  The second day was much the same as the first. The landscape didn’t seem to change very much. Rolling hills were on one side of the river and a large flat plain was on the other. The plains were a sea of grass. It was all the same height and it seemed to be the same kind of grass that went on forever. Cooper and Handro both enjoyed watching the wind whip through the grass as they cruised up river in the little boat.

  Because of the starkness of the landscape, any little change would stick out like prairie fire, so they were confident they hadn’t missed anything as they anchored the boat for the evening.

  That night, Handro had shown him a new technique to catch fish. They had left the boat and walked along the river’s edge until Handro signaled a good spot. The location he had chosen did not have any brush or structure that Cooper could see along it at all. Tom had taught him that this was the exact opposite of a good location to fish. Handro explained that it was exactly what they were looking for.

  “You want to kneel along the edge and dip both hands into the water, palms facing out. Put your arms in past the hands but not so far as your elbows,” the man explained.

  Cooper found the water to be extremely cold,much colder than the air. He shivered when he struck his hands into the water, but held them there as Handro was doing.

  “Now, curl your fingers up slightly, but not too much. Make a loose cup with both hands touching parallel to each other.”

  “Like I’m holding a large sausage!”

  “Yes, perfect. Now, we wait,” Handro said. Then he began staring at his hands submerged in the water. “What we want is for a tired fish to come down river and swim through this spot and look for cover. The only cover it will find is our hands. When they swim into our hands to rest, we quickly grab them and flip them onto the shore.”

  Cooper had serious doubts about this method and it wasn’t long before his hands were painfully cold. He had seen no fish swimm
ing around at all and they had been watching their hands for quite a while. The sun would be setting soon. The dogs had lost interest and went off to sniff new territory. Cooper hoped they caught a rodent or two so they had something fresh to eat!

  Handro hadn’t seemed to move even the slightest bit. The whole time they sat there, he was as still as one of the giant trees from the village. As Cooper watched him, he could have sworn that he actually was swaying ever so slightly, just like the trees did.

  Suddenly, an entire group of fish swam over to their hands. Cooper grew visibly excited about hauling a fish out of the water with his hands.

  Just as he tensed his muscles to lift one out, Handro spoke again. “Wait until they calm down. You need to be calm too. Everything needs to be done smoothly. Just a moment longer…”

  With a motion as smooth as the wind blowing the grass, Handro lifted a very large fish out the water. Cooper saw this as his only chance and in a much more jerking fashion ripped his own hands out of the water, sending icy cold droplets everywhere. He cast his hands toward shore and saw a small fish flying through the air. The redhead was uncertain if he had gripped it tight enough since he had lost much of the feeling in his hands.

  Hearing the commotion, the dogs came bungling back out of the woods. They instantly saw Coopers fish flopping on the bank and pounced on it. Lupe held it down with her paws and Rufus, after a long sniff, slowly tucked his head and started rolling on it.

  Handro had never released his fish and it was still twitching pointlessly in his dark hands. He quickly squeezed it behind the head and popped off a bit of spine. The underwater creature jerked violently for a moment and then stopped.

  Cooper went over to retrieve his prize from the dogs. Lifting it up, he could see it was smaller than Handro’s but decorated with the same beautiful colors. They were mostly silver with dark spots and a soft pink line running down each side. As he looked inside he could see rows of tiny, sharp teeth waiting to chomp anything careless enough to go inside.

  “These fish are called Trowt. I caught them frequently as a boy but only in the coldest streams. They are delicious; I think you will like them very much.” Both dogs were drooling as they stared at the fish. They were smaller than the large whiskerfish, but still much larger than the rodents.

  With the sun nearly down, Cooper built a fire while Handro gutted the fish. Soon enough, the men and dogs were both well fed. They both agreed that the flavor was outstanding, but the small bones that stayed in the meat were annoying and painful to accidentally chomp down on.

  Still, Cooper was shocked thinking back to how he had wrenched the fish out of the water with his bare hands and drifted off to sleep wondering what else he could catch with his hands.

  +++

  Several days had passed on the river and nothing had changed. Cooper knew they should be turning back soon. It was starting to get noticeably colder and they had used more than half their fuel.

  The entire trip was only supposed to be a few days and they had traveled one way for six days. The pair planned to motor back down the river and with the power of the current, the trip home should take half the time. Still, the redhead didn’t want people back at the village worried about him.

  As they rounded a bend in the river, they saw a drastic change up ahead. The river appeared to grow nearly ten times wider. Cooper had been watching the water getting clearer the further upstream they headed, but now it was nearly as transparent as the fuel they were using to power the boat.

  He piloted the small craft further upriver to where it grew fat and watched the bottom drop out from under them. Handro had been staring at the shore the whole time and had not noticed.

  “Hey Handro, look down!” Cooper yelled over the thrum of the motor.

  As the black haired man glanced over the side of the boat, his eyes grew wide. “What has happened? I can’t see the bottom anymore.”

  “Yeah, that’s because it got very deep. Listen, I think we may want to go ahead and turn around to head back. We haven’t seen anything and they are going to be worried about us by now.”

  “I agree, but it’s already past midday. Let’s look around here a little more and then start back in the morning.” Handro had not taken his eyes off the water.

  The plan made sense to Cooper, so he began zig-zagging the boat around, looking at both shores. Both sides of this river, if he could still call it that, were bordered by rolling hills. Unlike the hills from the village though, these weren’t covered with trees. They had short shrubs growing all over them and craggy rock outcroppings. It certainly fit with the wasteland description he had heard of the far north.

  “Wait! Stop the boat!” yelled Handro, anxiously pointing into the water. “I just saw something down there.”

  Cooper looked over and saw only inky black water. He turned the motor onto idle and continued staring. The clouds parted for a brief second and light cascaded down from the sky, piercing the blackness and revealing humongous shapes under the water.

  “What the hell is that?” exclaimed Cooper.

  “I don’t know, but there are dozens of them. They looked to be mechanical. I can’t see into the water now, though.”

  Cooper also couldn’t make the shapes out anymore. For a brief second he had seen what looked like massive wheels under the water, linked side by side like one giant roller.

  The little boat floated there, waiting for enough sunshine to penetrate the water and reveal the secrets again. Finally, their waiting paid off as the clouds thinned and light spilled out between cracks in the sky’s armor.

  Now the dogs had taken interest as well. They had no clue what they were looking for, but the interest of the men had spurred them to think it was some kind of a threat. They both stood on the bow, hair standing straight up between their shoulder blades and emitting low growls.

  Cooper could see the same giant roller, but as he engaged the throttle just slightly, he saw another set of rollers and another. He counted eight rollers under the water and each one seemed to span the entire width of the river. He could see the wheels were revolving around a central shaft running through each set of rollers. The wheels stayed anchored in place, but revolved around the shaft. They were being pushed by the current.

  “I think we need to go to shore and look around. In all of my journeys, I have never seen anything like this. It’s obviously man made.”

  Cooper agreed and began looking at both sides of the river to decide which to go to. While they both had rolling hills, the side to the south also looked to have a long, skinny, flat field. People like to build things on flat areas, so Cooper headed in that direction.

  As they pulled up to the shore, both pooches bounded off the small craft and went tromping into the scrubland. They were sniffing everything but also chasing each other, happy to be able to stretch their legs.

  Handro stepped out of the boat and Cooper circled back around to line up perpendicular to where the shore sloped into the water. They had done this several times now, so they had a routine down. Handro stood to one side as Cooper juiced the throttle and propelled the small craft up onto the bank. Since it had no prop, they didn’t need to worry about damaging anything as long as the bank didn’t have large rocks to crash into.

  As Cooper hit the shore, Handro grabbed the side of the boat and pulled it farther up onto the shore. Then he took the anchor, walked it out a distance into the field and planted it firmly in the dirt. Cooper dropped off some of their gear and then gave the anchor line a stout tug, making sure it was secure.

  Happy that the boat couldn’t somehow float away with the rising water, the two men stood looking out over the rows of underwater wheels. The wind had started picking up speed and was getting progressively colder. Cooper wasn’t sure that he had ever felt air as cold as this and was getting slightly worried, but Handro seemed totally confident as usual, and this put the redhead more at ease.

  “Let’s build a sleeping structure and then explore. I want to try to find ou
t if those wheels are attached to anything,” said Handro.

  Cooper began looking around for anything to build a structure out of, but didn’t come up with much. He thought of bringing the tent out but decided it was too windy and would just be aggravating because it wasn’t really made for two grown adults. They would use the tent if they had too, but he wanted to look around some more.

  After some searching, Cooper was able to find some dead branches from the smattering of trees that grew along the river. It was a long haul to drag them back to where they would camp, but it was worth it. With the boat pulled onto shore, they were using that as the wall of their structure on the windy side. The small craft broke the wind effecttively.

  By leaning the branches against the boat and then crossing other branches over the top, Cooper had created a sturdy roof. It was not high off the ground though. With the cold temperatures they would rely on body heat to warm the small area, so a lofty camp they could stand inside would result in a colder night.

  Cooper had scrounged a great deal of the dry grass from all around the site and created a thick layer of the soft material to sleep in. Since the layer of grass had thousands of air pockets inside the mass, this was not only for comfort. The grass bed also insulated them from the cold ground and their own heat would fill all those tiny air pockets.

  Now he just had to come up with a roof. The squares from the thatching of the branches were too large to use grass only. Handro had pulled out a dozen of the small scrub shrubs and was stomping on them.

  “Are we going to burn those?” Cooper asked.

  “No, I was thinking this could be our roof. When I stomp them flat they are thin, but still strong.”

  Handro handed Cooper one of the flattened shrubs. He spun it around in his hands and it did remain mostly flat. It would make a pretty good roof layer. The redhead also started yanking the small dry shrubs from the earth and stomping on them.