“I’d run away from a tannery too,” she agreed, and then lapsed into silence.
They sat for a minute, Alec desperately wondering what to say next. “Natalie?” a voice called from the wagon.
“I better go,” the girl said, standing up. “Thanks for letting me sit with you,” she added as she returned to her wagon.
Alec continued to sit with his empty plate for another ten minutes, enjoying the trace of her fragrance. Then he stood and walked back to his wagon, where he drifted off to sleep with a smile.
The next morning the carnival’s progress slowed as the horses pulled the wagons up steep slopes. The trail they followed was barely wide enough for the wagons, and Alec was ordered with several others to go ahead of the caravan to cut back branches and trees, and to fill holes in the trail. The labor was hard, and Alec had blisters and an aching back when they stopped for the night. There no longer was a spot wide enough to circle the wagons, so they pulled up in two parallel groups side by side. Richard told Alec that he needed to arise early tomorrow to get started on the road-widening crew again. With that in mind, Alec tended his horses, ate a quick meal, and collapsed in his blankets for a sound night’s sleep.
The following day the crew worked at road duty all day long, and managed to keep ahead of the wagons as the horses slowly brought them up the second ridge they faced. Alec could see a third, steeper ridge ahead that they would have to cross, and he prayed that the path would be wide enough to not require much more work.
The heavy wagons tired the horses quickly that day, and Richard, who looked upon the horses as more valuable investments than many of his workers, decided to end the day’s travel early, while they were near the crown of the second ridge. Alec and the road crew were surprised but pleased to be whistled in early.
As they walked up to the wagons, Arthur the weight lifter called his name. “Alec, we need more water for the animals. Take these buckets and go find a clean spring.”
Alec groaned at the prospect of carrying heavy buckets up and down the mountainside, but all the other road crew workers scattered rapidly, and he had no one to help him.
After he tended to his horses, Alec picked up the buckets and the shoulder bar, and started down the slope looking for a source of water. They’d passed several, all of which were at the bottom of gullies and valleys. Two hundred yards from the camp he found a relatively shallow ravine. He tossed the buckets down to the bottom and then slid down the muddy side. When he got there he looked up and realized how difficult it was going to be to carry the buckets back up to the top.
With a groan, Alec filled each of the four buckets in a spring-fed pool, then grabbed one and started climbing up the slope, using both feet and one hand to slowly make progress. Half way up he grabbed a dead sapling that cracked under his weight, and he slid back to the bottom, broken tree still in hand. He silently cursed, then climbed up the ravine side again. As he stood at the top he looked down at himself. He was a muddy streak from shoulders to feet. He was going to look like a fool in camp, he thought to himself, embarrassed by the thought of Natalie seeing him so dirty.
And then suddenly he was down on his back. The ground shook beneath him, and he saw the trees shaking violently above him. A rending sound tore through the air, and he watched in disbelief as the road started to slide down the mountainside just yards beyond him. More of it crumbled away and a cloud of dust arose.
He sat there stunned, said a quick prayer of thanks for his preservation, then rose without thinking and ran with his buckets of water towards the camp, fearing what damage he might see there.
A tree was down across one of the wagons, but no other damage had occurred. Everyone was shaken by the earthquake and disturbed, but it turned out that only Alec had seen the damage done to the road. When he told Aristotle about it, the old man’s face turned grim. “The road behind us is gone, is it? I wonder if that’s to keep people out or to keep people in?” he mused.
“You don’t think there was a purpose to the earthquake, do you?” Alec asked.
“Alec, don’t discount any possibility,” the carnival ingenaire said. Alec studied him, thinking that suddenly Aristotle looked more alert, more sharp than before. “Come with me to see Richard,” Ari instructed, and Alec followed him through the tangle of wagons in search of the carnival leader.
They found him at the front of the caravan, putting a work crew together to fix the damaged wagon. “Richard, Alec reports that the road behind us was wiped out by the earthquake,” Ari began, and Alec repeated his description of seeing the road tumble away.
Richard listened attentively, then thought for a second. “Thank you gentlemen. Let’s get a crew out front to inspect the road to make sure we can go forward, since we can’t go back now. Alec, will you take Jonso to go as far as you can in the daylight?” Alec and the clown looked at one another, then headed toward the road. Ari shook his head, and walked back to his wagon.
As Alec and Jonso walked rapidly along the road, they came past a half dozen places where large trees were down across the trail, but saw nothing else like the damage Alec had seen. In an hour’s time they made it down to the bottom of the ridge as the sun set. “It’ll take twice as long to climb back to the top,” Jonso complained. “Do you think we should just wait here for the wagons to pick us up tomorrow morning?”
Alec looked at the little clown, who started laughing. “Let’s get going my incredulous friend,” he said, and they began the climb back. Darkness fell before they were a third of the way up, and the sliver of a crescent moon in the sky gave virtually no light. They slowed their pace to make sure they stayed on the road, and kept up a lively chatter, consisting mostly of jokes on Jonso’s part, to keep them in touch with each other.
“Let’s stop for a breather,” Jonso said halfway up the mountain, breathing heavily. Alec obediently stopped, slightly ahead of his companion. After a minute he called, “Jonso, are you ready to go?”
There was no answer. Alec called again, and walked back several steps. In the darkness he couldn’t see anything, and he resorted to shuffling back and forth, trying to locate Jonso as he called out. Alec grew unnerved, and stopped calling. He didn’t hear a thing. Not even any animal noises were carried on the wind to him. After long moments frozen in uncertainty, Alec began creeping slowly up the hill, then broke into a trot, then burst into the strongest sprint he could manage while navigating the dark pathway, climbing the mountain as fast as he could. Adrenaline gave him endurance to pump his legs for several minutes until he nearly collapsed, gasping for breath. He kept walking slowly, then picked up his pace, and half an hour later spotted the fire of the caravan camp at the crest of the ridge.
He went to Richard’s wagon, still panting. “The road is fine all the way to the bottom, but Jonso disappeared in the darkness on the way back,” he reported nervously.
Chapter 2 – The Hunt for Jonso
“What do you mean disappeared?” Richard asked, and Alec recounted his tale. “Go tell Aristotle to join me here,” Richard told Alec when the story was done.
Alec ran to his own wagon and told the story again to Ari. “You had no warning of anything happening to him?” Ari asked. “No cry, no fall, no sounds afterwards?” He looked grim. “Well, I’m glad you’re alive to tell us,” he said, and went to meet Richard.
Alec went to the cooking wagon and ate the scraps for dinner. Others quickly joined him, as the rumor of the popular Jonso’s disappearance raced through the carnival camp. “He may have fallen and hit his head,” Schumer suggested, and many latched onto that. “We’ll find him in the morning,” Richard agreed, and people drifted away, whispering in small groups. “I’m glad you made it back, Alec,” Natalie said as she passed him on her return to a nervous night in her wagon.
Alec sat at the wagon and waited for Ari to return; he wanted to hear the ingenaire affirm that everything would be okay. But the wait dragged out to several minutes, so he leaned back against the wagon, closed his eyes for
a moment, and fell asleep.
When he awoke the next morning, he found his blanket spread over him, and other people already up and preparing to move. Alec sat up and worked a crick out of his neck, then tended to the horses. When he brought them back to the wagon Ari was already sitting on the bench. “What did you and Richard decide last night?” Alec asked him.
“We decided to send you up front with others to show them where Jonso was lost. Hopefully we’ll find him passed out by the side of the trail. Here, take this bacon and go see Richard,” Ari told him.
Eating his breakfast, Alec walked to the front wagon and found half a dozen others gathered there. “Lead them to the spot, Alec. We’ll have the wagons down soon,” Richard told him, and sent the group on its way.
Nobody talked in the early morning shade, with the sun still below the next ridge and wisps of fog clinging to the hillside treetops. Alec walked for an hour as the crew cleared small trees from the trail, then started looking carefully at the road in front of him, tracing in reverse the dusty tracks he had made coming up the hill. The long strides of his sprint shortened to the smaller strides where he had trotted. “Stop everyone. We’re almost there. Here’s where I started running hard, so it should be in the next fifty yards,” he told them as he followed his tracks down. He came to the spot where he had gone back and forth, shuffling around trying to find Jonso, and then he came to the spot where two sets of prints showed that both of them had walked up the hill.
“He’s got to be around here,” he informed the others, who had hung back. “Start looking closely along the sides.”
Moments later there was a yell, and everyone ran over to see what someone had found. Alec craned to look over a shoulder. “What is it?” Alec asked, unable to see anything. Seconds later the group silently parted to give him a view, and one man pointed down. In the dust of the road was a human-sized footprint, with three long toes.
“What is it?” Alec repeated. The group was silent. “Could it be a bear, or a mountain lion?” he asked.
A noise above them caused all their necks to swivel, as the lead wagon of the caravan came into view on the road. They all stood silently by the footprint as Richard rode a white horse out in front of the wagon. “Have you found him?” Richard called from a hundred paces away.
“Come see what we found,” one man finally said, and Richard rode forward to dismount beside them. He kneeled to look at the print they found then looked up at them, his face waxy pale. “Have you seen anything else?” he asked in a choked voice, as his fingers nervously played with his mustache. Everyone silently shook their heads no. “You,” he pointed at Alec, “go get Aristotle.”
Alec ran up the trail past the wagons in their line and reached Ari at the end. “Richard said to bring you to the front. There’s a footprint where Jonso disappeared.”
Ari looked at Alec’s stricken face, then set the brake, tied off the reins and climbed down from the wagon. He moved with surprising spryness to the front of the wagon train and stooped to see the print. He looked at Richard, and shook his head slightly. “Is there any other trace of the man?” Ari asked, and watched all heads shake no.
Richard stood up. “We’ll need to get to Riverside as quickly as possible. Let’s get moving. Alec, you said the trail was clear to the bottom of the mountain?” he asked. Alec nodded. “Then get the axes and picks going to clear the trail up the next ridge. Same crew we used yesterday plus more. Everyone start moving, and stay with a partner.”
Alec sighed and took a shovel as he headed down the hill ahead of the train. The crewmembers stayed in close proximity to one another as they walked ahead, and glanced nervously around the forest. When they reached the bottom of the mountain they followed the trail along a valley floor that was clear of problems, then set to work cutting and hacking up the next ridge.
The work crew worked hard all day and opened the trail most of the way up the ridge, muscles aching in every extremity by the end. Richard came riding to inspect them. “Keep going to the top of the ridge, and the caravan will catch up with you; they’re only a quarter of a mile behind you now,” he said.
The weary members of the road crew finished the trail to the ridge top in time to watch the sun set behind them in the west. “Hey, look over there,” one voice called out. Everyone turned, and to the south they could see a number of fires burning in a distance valley. “Those must be in Riverside,” someone else said, as they stood and watched.
Soon they heard the approach of the carnival wagons, pulled by the weary horses, and then the wagons were at the ridge top as well. “Road workers get first in line for dinner,” Richard announced, as someone gestured for him to look at the fires burning off in the distance. “There it is ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a rapacious tone. “Soon the gold and silver coins from Riverside will be pouring into our pockets, and you’ll all earn big bonuses. Then we’ll be able to float on rafts down the Griffey River to Goldenfields, and earn more money for selling the timbers we ride on!” he claimed.
The mood of the camp grew brighter as the sight of Riverside and Richard’s predictions slightly eased their fear about Jonso’s disappearance. Alec led the line past the dinner wagon when the perfunctory meal was hastily prepared, and sat down to eat. Others came and ate as well, and Alec listened to the talk around him, then dragged himself to bed under Ari’s wagon.
When Alec awoke the next morning, he felt a sense of anticipation. He wasn’t as focused as most others seemed to be on the riches Richard assured would soon be theirs. Alec was looking forward to the comfort of being around other people. He’d enjoyed the forest as a place to relax away from people, but now this forest gave him a different feeling. It felt unfriendly and threatening, and he was jumpy with the feeling that he was being watched. Alec fed and groomed the horses, then led them back to Ari’s wagon, talking to them primarily to calm himself.
The horses secured, Alec walked back to the front and grabbed his axe to clear the brush and the trees along the trail to Riverside. It was all downhill to Riverside, and Richard told them to expect to reach the town by mid-afternoon if the way stayed clear for the wagons to travel. Alec and the crew worked industriously to open the way, eager to see the town at last. Within a couple of hours they found the trail itself growing wider and less restricted, a happy sign of a busier road closer to the town. Soon they agreed to stop and wait for the wagons to catch them, since no further work was needed. Not far away the river was running, dappled sunlight reflecting off the ripples occasionally.
Before long they heard the wagons coming, and saw Richard again on his horse, leading the caravan and scouting for trouble. “Why’s everyone here?” he asked, riding to the group of resting men.
“The road needs no further work. We’ve hardly had to do a thing the past mile,” an older groom explained.
“In that case, everyone climb aboard your wagons as they pass, and we’ll roll into Riverside,” Richard instructed them with a genuine grin. They stood waiting as the wagons came into view, the horses showing none of the strain of the previous day’s climb up the steep ridge.
Alec watched each wagon go by. He anticipated the arrival of the dancers’ bright home, and felt brighter himself when he saw Natalie sitting on the bench up front. “Hello Alec,” she hailed him with a smile.
“Hello Natalie!” he returned the greeting, and then with courage that he didn’t know he had, he called out to her, “Wouldn’t you like to ride in an ingenaire’s wagon at the back of the caravan for a change?” He blushed at his own temerity in blurting out the question.
To his surprise, Natalie turned to her friends. “I’m going to see what the view’s like in the back,” she declared, and she jumped down so that her momentum carried her right into Alec’s arms. They stood there for a moment, both surprised by the contact, and then she backed away a step. “Do you promise the view will be especially good?” she asked.
“Well, actually, no,” Alec admitted, and laughed. “It’s just a
view of the wagons in front of us!” A few minutes later Ari came rolling into view.
Natalie and Alec climbed aboard the last wagon in the train. “Happy to have a ride for a change?” Ari asked Alec with a grin. “You’ve had a fair amount of work these past three days, haven’t you? Go ahead and sit back and rest so you’ll be prepared for whatever comes next.
“I appreciate the company you brought with you,” he continued. “Natalie, good to see you again,” he added. She smiled demurely, and Alec sensed that the two shared something he knew nothing about.
“Ari, what type of footprint was that back there where Jonso disappeared?” Alec asked the question that had troubled him all morning.
Aristotle’s grin disappeared. “Truth be told, it’s one I’ve rarely seen in real life myself,” Ari answered, with an answer Alec knew was an evasion.
“But you know what it is, don’t you?” Alec persisted.
“I’ve got an idea,” Ari agreed. “Since you’re going to make an issue out of it, I’ll tell you that it looked like a lacerta track.”
Alec felt his head lighten, and fear clutched his heart. He heard Natalie take a sharp breath. “You mean a lacerta got Jonso?” he asked. Ari nodded his head. “Dear God in heaven, protect us all,” Alec prayed quickly.
“Saying your prayers is a good idea. Keeping you eyes and ears open and your head low is a good idea too,” Ari warned him in a serious tone. “Richard knows now that this is a dangerous place, and he’s going to get us through and out of Riverside as fast as possible. We’ll only be here a day or two, so just be careful and stay close to me.”
Alec heard the warning in Ari’s voice. “You think the earthquake and the lacertii are all part of something bigger, don’t you?” he asked in a moment of insight.
“That’s very perceptive. Yes, I do, Alec, and I think it’s interesting that you were the one closest to the road falling away and the attack of the lacertii. Maybe it’s coincidence, but I think you need to be careful, my friend. Be sure to make your own luck these next few days,” Ari said, looking directly at him, and Alec saw Natalie staring at him as well. Alec nodded, and fell silent, watching the forest that had become a threatening presence once more.
Visions of Power Page 3
