by Russ Elliott
Kota just shook his head. “Okay, have it your way,” muttered the powerful native, releasing the frail shoulder. “Hope you don’t get too cold tonight!” The stern look in his eyes spoke louder than his words.
After Kota disappeared from the doorway, John rolled up his vest to use as a pillow and eased back on the bed. “What do you make of that? The chief is willing to give us his wife for the night but won’t let us take a look at a prehistoric fish?”
Brad laughed as he crawled onto his bed. “I guess a man’s got to draw the line somewhere, ay?” After slipping the pistol from the back of his pants, he laid it beside his hip. He leaned over on one elbow and looked at John. “You know the chief only sent his bokkie over here to keep an eye on us tonight.”
“Yeah,” replied John, tilting his hat down over his eyes. “I knew that, but I was starting to wonder if you did? For a minute, I thought your eyes were going to light her skirt on fire.”
“She wasn’t half bad. But I don’t think the tribe has much of a dental plan, ay?”
John heard Brad lie back down, but he could tell by the rustling straw his frustration wouldn’t let him sleep. He knew both of their thoughts were rehashing the day, thinking of the chief’s obvious lies about the fish and the mysterious doors that led to the lagoon. The thought of going back empty-handed was more than John could bear. Redemption for his career—everything—was about to slip through his fingers.
“Hey,” John whispered from under his hat. “I’ll bet what we want is on the other side of that wall . . . I can feel it.”
Brad sprang up on the side of his bed. “You read my mind, mate. You know they have those fish, but the chief doesn’t want to give us any because he thinks we might’ve whizzed in the ocean or something. You heard his whole spiel. All that environmental crap.” He swung his feet onto the sand floor. “Well, what are we sitting in here for?”
John adjusted the vest under his neck, “Relax, we’ll wait until morning. After what happened at dinner, we’d better not press our luck. I still have the gold. There’s a chance he’ll change his mind . . . if they really have those fish.”
A rebellious grumble from Brad, and he eased back onto the bed.
John released a slow breath. He tried to allow his surroundings to ease his tension. Palm fronds rustled gently outside the window. The doorway and walls shimmered in a golden glow of torchlight while a salty breeze swept beneath his hat and across his face. The hut was relaxing enough, but the tension of the expedition refused to let him sleep. He thought about previous encounters with unfamiliar tribes and how he’d never broken the first basic rule—always leave at the first sign of hostility. Never risk it. The chief had definitely shown hostility. And they were still there.
His mind went back to the dinner. He retraced every word he’d said to the chief and still didn’t have the slightest clue what had set him off. And the part about the ocean taking revenge—it made him wonder . . .
Before making a final attempt at sleep, John lifted the front of his hat. “Hey,” he whispered. “What do you make of what the chief said earlier?”
“Don’t know. Guess he’s a little wacko about losing his kid, ay. But he can’t blame us for that.”
“But he does blame us,” John said. “To him, we represent the outside world.”
“That’s whacked,” grumbled Brad.
“But that’s not the part I was talking about. It was when he said the ocean will take it all back . . . I guess, like reclaiming the life that was taken from it, avenging itself. Bizarre, huh? Any ideas on that one?”
“I don’t know, mate, but he sure was excited about it,” replied Brad as he stared at the ceiling, left hand resting on his pistol.
“Maybe he meant that if man continues to destroy all of the life in the ocean that he’ll eventually starve from depleting one of earth’s most valuable food sources?”
“Or maybe the old guy is just wound too tight!” suggested Brad as he pressed a button on his watch, as if setting the time.
John dropped his hat back down over his eyes. “I guess you’ve got a point.”
Brad woke abruptly when he felt a vibration on his left wrist. He turned off the silent alarm on his watch and looked at the glowing numbers. Three fifteen a.m. Been asleep for nearly five hours. Brad looked over at the bed across from him and heard a faint snore coming from beneath John’s hat.
Quietly, he slid to the side of his bed, trying not to rustle the straw. Another glance at John, and he reached back, grabbed his pistol, and slid it into his waistband.
He picked up the cooler and the case containing the lighting equipment and tiptoed toward the door. Brad looked from side to side before stepping outside the hut. He searched for the darkest unlit areas of the village while mentally plotting his course.
Carefully, he followed a series of shadows that led him through a maze of tiny huts. The night air was invigorating. The damp mist felt good against the tight skin of his bare shoulders and arms. Adrenaline raced through his veins. Muscles coiled beneath his skin like springs begging for release. Moments like these were what he lived for, to feel the adrenaline, the juices flowing. And the juices were definitely flowing now.
He ran across a lit walkway and disappeared into another series of shadows. His mind raced. No more talking, no more bending over backward trying not to offend these savages. Time to cut through the crap and get what we came here for.
At any moment he could be discovered, and that excited him even more. He took pride in his raw nerve, daring himself to press forward into situations where few would follow. Just let one of those savages step from the shadows and try to stop me. He laughed, stepping past another hut. We’ll see what happens then, ay.
He passed a fishing net strung between two palm trees and found himself in front of the massive wooden wall. To his far left, he saw the light from the torches illuminating the enormous doors. He glanced over his shoulder and saw no one. Quickly, he approached the wall and set the case and cooler within its shadow.
He looked up the eighteen-foot structure and thought of how difficult it was going to be to get over. Then he recalled the hundred-thousand-dollar incentive the professor had offered him for the return of a new species, and the wall didn’t seem nearly as high.
He unlocked the case and removed a rope with knots spaced two feet apart. He uncoiled the rope until he reached the grappling hook at its end. Twirling it around, he released it toward the top of the wall. The silver hook flashed in the night sky, and with a light clank, landed between the pointed tops of the logs. Brad pulled back on the rope until he felt the hook’s claws bite deep into the wood.
He reached back into the case and extracted another rope. After tying one end of the rope to the handle of the case and cooler, he tied a large knot at the opposite end. With an overhand toss, the heavy knot flew over the wall beside the grappling hook.
He again reached into the case. “Oh, now we wouldn’t want to leave you behind,” he whispered as he pulled out a MAC-10 machine gun. He tossed the strap over his shoulder. “Okay. Time to get down to business,” he muttered. He grabbed the knotted rope and began to scale the wall.
Within seconds, he reached the pointed tops of the logs. Carefully, he pulled his leg to the inside of the wall and braced himself at the top. Looking down inside the wall, there was total darkness. About thirty yards out from the wall was a dark stretch of sand that led to the shimmering water of the lagoon. Beyond the dark shoreline, he could see evenly spaced torches that went out deep into the water, outlining the lagoon in a series of illuminated red dots.
Brad reached over and grabbed the rope attached to the case and cooler. He pulled them up beside him. He slid the awkward bundle over the pointed tips and slowly lowered it down until he felt the rope go slack in his hand.
“My turn,” he muttered. He turned the hook and put it on the outside of the wall, allowing the knotted rope to drop to the inside. He looked down to make sure it wasn’t tangled, but co
uld see only a few yards of knotted rope leading into blackness. Descending the wall, he misjudged the location of one of the knots. He lost his grip.
Helplessly, he plummeted through darkness for what seemed like forever, until he hit the ground with his back, emitting a loud, squishy sound.
To his relief, the landing was soft and almost painless. He took a moment to catch his breath, staring up at the night sky. “What’s that smell?” He looked around in total darkness. He struggled to sit up in the soft mud.
He reached down and wiped a thick substance from the side of his pants, and before his fingertips reached his nose, he stopped. Manure! How in the—? His thought was interrupted as he felt a huge, wet tongue slide across his face. He kicked back in horror, falling flat into the excrement. His right hand fumbled through his pants pocket for his flashlight.
The beam shot in all directions, searching the darkness. It fell across two huge eyes peering back at him from behind flared nostrils. He pushed backward, sliding through the muck. His shoulder hit something large and furry. A loud “mmmoooo” echoed around him, and a long tail brushed across his face.
“A cow? A cow!” Brad swung the light around and found that he was sitting in the middle of a cow pasture. He jumped to his feet. “I can’t believe it. An eighteen-foot pointed fence for a bunch of cows? This is whacked! Must be one of those cow-worshipping tribes!” He began to calm down, still not believing that a cow had spooked him like that. The best he could tell, they looked like the Braunvieh cows he’d seen in South Africa’s Northern Cape. He turned his flashlight toward the base of the wall and spotted the case and cooler. He untied the rope from the handles. Holding the flashlight in his mouth, he picked up the case and cooler and made his way through the muddy pasture.
Ahead, behind the silhouettes of the cows, he saw water shimmering in the moonlight. He approached the edge of the mushy grass. He climbed over a short, wooden fence, and crossed a sandy area about twenty-five feet wide that separated the pasture from the lagoon.
Finally, Brad reached a wooden dock. It was about eight feet wide and arced around the lagoon as far as the darkness would allow him to see. Quietly, he set the case and cooler on the dock and took the flashlight from his mouth. He glanced left then right. Still no sign of anyone.
Brad turned off the flashlight. The darkness was even greater until his eyes slowly adjusted. The clouds inched past the moon, and he could now see the immense size of the lagoon. He walked closer to the edge of the dock. In the distance, he could see the dock’s support pilings silhouetted against the shimmering waters. Although the dock and the pilings were only shadows, he could still see how they surrounded the lagoon and seemed to separate it from the outside ocean.
Exactly as the professor described it.
Brad noticed how the pilings were evenly spaced. A lit torch was on top of every fourth piling. He estimated that the distance between pilings was around six to eight feet—a gap narrow enough to prevent larger boats from entering, yet wide enough to accommodate the natives’ canoes. To his far left, the east side of the lagoon disappeared into a vast cavern as if being swallowed by a giant mouth.
He turned and looked back toward the wall. Just to the right of the fenced pasture—the one he had just mucked his way through—were the enormous wooden doors. Torchlight flickered across their pointed tops. Inside the doorway was a twenty-foot-wide sand walkway that led to the base of the lagoon. Where the sand met the shallows, he saw some type of tall, rounded sculpture, but couldn’t make it out.
He looked back at the fenced-in cow pasture that ran along the inside of the wall for about two hundred feet. From the silhouetted humped backs, he estimated that there were at least sixty head of cattle. He laughed.
“The whole tribe is nothing but a bunch of nuts worshipping cows. Unbelievable! They’re eating those stinking fish when they could be having steak every night. Now I know they’re whacked!” He said this aloud, and the words became the darkness too. Nothing.
Brad turned his attention to the dock once again. It rose about six feet above the water and followed the pilings out into the lagoon and beyond to obscurity. Picking up the case and cooler, he walked around the west side of the dock where it extended farther over the water. The strong ocean wind whistled between the planks. Five yards in the distance, he saw three wooden barrels—each about the size of an oil drum.
The deep mooing sounds faded as Brad pressed on. Passing a torch, he entered a dimly lit section of the dock. His foot slipped and he almost fell, catching himself on the case. “Ahg!” he snorted, looking down. “What’s this slop?” He set down the case and cooler and took out his flashlight to inspect the slippery surface. The light reflected a shiny, red liquid. Brad stooped down and touched it, smelled it, confirming his suspicion.
Blood. It was fresh, not yet coagulated, and it hadn’t been there long. Playing the light around the area, he discovered the substance covered the entire section of the dock where he stood. Waving his flashlight around the perimeter of the stain, he searched for the source of the blood. He spotted a red trail leading to one of the barrels. Leaving the case and cooler behind, Brad walked closer. The light followed a red streak that ran up the side of the first barrel. The coppery smell of blood was thick in the air.
The sound of swarming flies grew louder with each step. He looked over the side of the barrel. The beam of his flashlight found a pair of brown eyes looking back at him from the severed head of a cow floating in the dark-red liquid. Brad jumped back and almost slipped again. Swatting an onslaught of flies, he looked over at the second barrel. Floating in a pool of blood was a long section of intestine coiled in the barrel like a snake. “These people are sick!” Brad gasped, stepping back in disgust.
Shaking his head, he eased back to the case and cooler, picked them up, and continued to head farther along the shadowy dock. The wooden planks creaked beneath his every step.
As he walked over the water, he could feel the dock beginning to sway from the strong waves and ocean wind. He refocused on his agenda. He murmured to himself, “Okay, the coelacanth is a deep-water fish, but the other one is a shallow-water fish. The one with the long body and three-pronged tail, the Rhipidian . . . or Rhapidis . . .Radipis . . .who names these doff fishes anyway?” He gazed over the lagoon as moonlight danced off its black surface.
Suddenly, something flew out of the water and landed on the dock about three yards in front of him. Startled, he dropped the case and cooler and shined his flashlight toward the fluttering sound. The beam reflected off the rainbow-colored scales of the strange creature as it desperately flapped its large wing-like fins against the dock.
Brad looked closer at the bizarre fish. “Jislaaik! You’re like no flying fish I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what you are, but I’ll bet you’re prehistoric!”
The fluttering sound intensified as the fish drew itself closer to the edge of the dock then flopped back into the lagoon. Brad walked to the edge of the dock and stared across the water. Suddenly, toward the middle of the lagoon, dozens of what looked like these same creatures burst from the surface. Moonlight reflected from their multicolored scales as the fish soared through the air like birds then simultaneously plunged back into the water on the far side of the lagoon.
Brad’s face lit up. “I . . . I’ve got to get one of those in my cooler!” He stepped back to his case and opened it. “Oowee yes, it’s payday, mate! Forget the other two fishes—whatever. That’s yesterday’s news. I’m bringing me back one of these guys!”
He slipped the machine gun from his shoulder and quietly laid it on the dock. He reached into the case and pulled out a three-foot fishing net. Quickly, he slipped a long extension into the handle, making sure it would be long enough to drop the net deep beneath the surface. Reaching back into the case for the underwater light, he mentally rehearsed his plan:
After I net the fish, I’ll put a little water in the cooler from the shallow area of the lagoon. The fish should be okay in the co
oler for at least thirty-five minutes. That should give me plenty of time to get to the aquarium in the chopper. Then I’ll come back for John.
He glanced back to the wall.
But I’m not going to be leaving the same way I came, not with the cooler partially filled with water. I gotta use those doors. But if anyone sees me . . . let ’em try to stop me.
Satisfied with his plan, Brad set the net on the dock. He then reached back into the case and extracted the underwater light along with an extension for its handle. He imagined himself sneaking back into the hut after dropping off the fish in the helicopter’s aquarium. He nearly laughed aloud as he thought how John would probably crap himself after hearing what he’d done.
After slipping in the extension, Brad laid the underwater light beside the net. Quickly, he walked to the cooler and slid it close to the edge of the dock. He opened the top, making sure it was ready for the catch. Then he angled the flashlight so that its beam glared off the side of the cooler, illuminating it in the darkness.
“Just one of you little guys, that’s all I need.” He crept to the edge of the dock. Dropping to his knees, he picked up the light head and slowly lowered it down to the cold, black surface. A glance over his shoulder showed the glowing cooler with its mouth open wide. He lay down flat on the dock with his head and arms extended over the edge. The moist planks cooled his chest.
Brad lowered the light about ten feet beneath the surface.
“Okay, who’s the lucky winner?” he whispered. “Which one of you little guys wants to take a trip . . . be famous? Just one of you for my cooler . . . that’s all I need!”
With the click of a switch, a yellow hue illuminated the shape before—the massive shape before him—not a flying fish but a creature that virtually filled the lagoon before him and beyond. An enormous reptilian head. A thick neck that tapered back into a pair of sprawling paddle fins. The tip of its nose just beneath his face.
