The Godsend Backfire: The Beginning

by Harold Straugh

  “Perhaps I should be as cold as the ice, so I don’t feel anything,” I said to her not expecting her to fully understand my concept.

  “I’d much rather die than live a life like that,” she said, then got up and walked away, I looked over at Amaruq and he followed.

  I’ll give it to the brat, she was smart for her age, but her dad was Mylicious. I wondered for a minute what it would be like to have kids, a wife, a family. Then I shook the horrible thought from my head. I wouldn’t have made a good father at the time, I couldn’t even embrace myself, much less anyone else.

  Soon, there was nothing left of the leg-quarters except bone. Mylicious looked at me and wiped his mouth, “I shall make you something out of one of these bones brothers, I think you’ll appreciate it.”

  “I’m sure I will,” I said, curious on what he was going to make me.

  Mylicious and Yura came back over to me, the rest of pack, including the wife and kids left. Mylicious sat down next to me on one side and Yura on the other.

  “Where are they going?” I asked.

  “To get some fish, they’ll be back tomorrow, they must go a few islands over, where things aren’t so frozen. I like to fish here, it’s harder to catch something though. Yura likes to fish the way I do as well.”

  “How do you fish here?” I asked.

  “We head out to the only frozen lake on the land, I have holes cut into it, we drop our bait and wait,” Yura said.

  “No spears?” I asked, only to get a chuckle from Mylicious. He pointed to the spools with the hooks on them.

  After we cleaned up the mess by the fire pit, put the bones off to the side and the metal rods up against the ice-wall, we each grabbed a spool and headed down the fifth tunnel. Once again there were steps carved out, but this tunnel was lined with torches. The tunnel was six-feet wide and at least eight-feet tall.

  We walked for several miles through the tunnel before surfacing above ground. Then we literally took two steps before Mylicious announced we were on the lake. I noticed three torches off in the distance.

  “That’s my where my holes are at to get to the fish,” Mylicious said.

  “Built this entrance a little close to the lake, didn’t you?”

  “All I have I had to do is punch through third step down and I’ll flood my home. It’s in case of an invasion, I can get away quickly and drown them even quicker.”

  “Isn’t the ice thick on this lake?”

  “Indeed it is, thirty-five swipes with my claws, which is just an inch above the third step,” Mylicious said, he truly was the smartest of us all.

  “Yura, did you grab the bait?” Mylicious asked.

  “Yes, I did,” she said and produced a small, gallon sized, burlap sack. There was blood dripping out the bottom of the sack. She opened it and showed me it’s contents. There were pinkish pieces of meat, cut up into three-inch cubes. I looked at Yura and then at Mylicious.

  “Yeti balls,” Mylicious said with a laugh, “the fish out here love them.”

  “I do not want to know how you figured that out,” I said and laughed a little myself.

  We walked out to the three torches, each marking a hole, that was three-feet by three-feet, that slightly iced over. Mylicious and Yura, produced hatchets from their waist band and started hacking away at the ice that had formed on the holes. Once he was done, he tossed me his hatchet and I started chipping away at the ice. Shards of it flew up and hit me in the face. With each blow though, the hard ice, gave way and soon, the hatchet went through the last bit of ice and I almost lost it in the water.

  I watched as Mylicious took two chucks of Yeti testicle and put them through the hook. The hook looked to be made of metal, it was thick and about four-inches long, “I made these myself,” Mylicious said as he lowered the meat into the water, “Now you want to get it to the bottom, then bring it up a little. Each spool has enough line on it to reach the bottom. Once you bring it up a little, you’ll have to move it up and down a little, every so often.”

  “How will I know when I get one?” I asked, I had never fished that way, before.

  “Oh, you’ll know,” Yura said.

  So, I went over to my hole, the wind was brutal over the lake, and dropped my baited hook into the water. I followed my brother’s directions. The spool the line rested on was wood, it was hollowed out in the middle, which was lined in fur. I looked over and both Yura and Mylicious had their hands in the center of spool, keeping their hands warm. Mine were only slightly cold, but I liked the way the inside of the spool felt.

  I put one hand on top off the spool to keep it from spinning and moved my bait up and down and done that for many of hours. I was about to give up out of boredom, when I felt some weight on the end of the line, then my line took off and my spool started spinning. I didn’t know what to do, so I looked over at Mylicious, but Yura had her line pulled up and was headed my way.

  She took the spool from me and sat it down, then slowly, one hand over the other, started pulling the line up out of the water. Every few seconds the line would race back in the water.

  “You have a good one here,” she looked up at me, raised an eyebrow and smiled.

  Mylicious stayed where he was at, while Yura pulled my fish in. After about five minutes, my fish surfaced. It actually came up out of the hole, it was four-feet long, it had a long, toothy mouth, four fins, two in front and two back, that it used to scurry across the ice and a large, curved dorsal fin that shot out about a foot past its tail. It didn’t have scales either, but skin like catfish or trout. Now it couldn’t gain traction, but it was scary to see it trying to go after Yura, snapping its jaws at her. She, calmly, took out her hatchet and stuck it in the skull of the fish.

  “That’ll be some good eating tonight,” she said as she removed the hook from the fish’s jaw, “Let’s try to get a few more.”

  I hooked more Yeti testicles on my hook and repeated the process. I knew what to do now when I hooked another one, so it was back to the waiting game. Mylicious hooked one shortly after, his fish was little bigger than mine, but met the same fate. Once the fish started biting there wasn’t a waiting game. It was soon my turn again and this time I pulled in the fish solo. I did realize after I pulled the fish out, I didn’t have a hatchet, and with my bow and arrow, were back by the fire, I quickly just punched the fish in the head as hard as I could. I got a strange look from the other two, but it worked, it’s brains oozed out the wound.

  The fishing was good for about two hours, then after that, the biting ceased. Mylicious wrapped his line up on the spool and looked over at me, “They’ve moved on brother, we will try again in a few days,” he said.

  “Moved on?”

  “There’s an inlet from the ocean, that runs through this lake, they’ve went back out or to another part of the lake. I will say, we never know what we are going to catch here, but these are here the most.”

  I had twelve fish in total, Mylicious had a few more, fifteen to be exact and Yura had only five, but it was more than enough. I wandered at first how we were going to move them, then noticed Yura hadn’t wound up her spool. She ran her hook through the gills and mouth of each of fish about three times over, then handed me the spool.

  “You caught the bigger fish, you get to haul the load,” she smiled.

  She obviously didn’t know my strength, so pulling almost five-hundred-pounds of fish across the ice, wasn’t hard at all. Once I got them to the steps, Yura unstrung the fish and simply threw them down the steps. Once inside, we carried them down the fourth tunnel to the left of the main doorway.

  That walkway led up and into basically, a large freezer, there weren’t as many torches and I could see their breath’s again. There were rows upon rows of meat and fish. They had the meat to one side of the massive freezer, a center walkway and the fish on the other. We loaded all but one fish, on massive hooks that were anchored to the ceiling with chains and large spikes. I was in awe the size of the room.

  “It to
ok me three days to make this and if you think this is nice, you should see the rooms,” Mylicious said, proud of his work.

  “How many rooms are this in this place?” I asked.

  “Each child has their own room and each member of the pack has their own room, of course Mila and I have our room,” he said as he hoisted a fish up on hook.

  I thought for a second, on where I would stay, but the thought escaped me. I turned my attention back to the massive room of meat and fish. Mylicious had enough food for ten or more years in there.

  We left the freezer area and headed back to the main room. It was there, I noticed the fire was going down. Yura had me follow her outside to a pile of wood that was well hidden under the snow. She picked up an arm full, as so did I, and carried it down and set it next to the fire. We done this a few more times before Yura informed that was enough and try to find some dry pieces, from the pieces we brought it. We found about ten and tossed them on the fire. The wood had a white bark to it and took a minute to burn, but when it did burn, it gave off a lot of heat.

  Soon the sun started disappearing, and Yura yawned, “Brother, where would like to sleep tonight?” Mylicious asked.

  “I don’t sleep, remember?” I asked.

  “I did forget that, I’m sorry brother, I don’t think I would like that.”

  “I don’t like it, everyone else gets to sleep, dream….rest and I am awake always, mind wandering all always,” I said, my voice trailing off.

  “I feel for you,” Yura said and put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t, I’ve grown accustomed to it,” I said.

  Yura a had sad look on her face, “I’m going to lie down, today was eventful and took a lot out of me.”

  “Rest well, tomorrow we have to go get wood to build a new boat,” Mylicious said. “and for the celebration.”

  “What celebration would that be?”

  “Well, with the full moon upon us soon, it’s a mating celebration, we make a big deal out of it” he said with a gleam in his eyes.

  “Oh! I don’t have to be here for that?” I asked.

  Yura stopped walking to the tunnel that led to the rooms and I caught her looking back at me.

  “No, of course not, you can stay down here and clean some of the fish, or eat some meat,” Mylicious said.

  He mentioned fish and reminded me of the fish we had left out in my main area, “What about that, aren’t you going to eat that tonight?”

  “I will clean it tonight, and get up and make it for the rest of the pack when they return. It’s been a long day, so you can help me with this cleaning of the fish, then I’m off to sleep myself.”

  “I really do hate the fact you and Derium can sleep,” I said, getting some weight off my chest.

  “I’m envious you don’t, I could get so much more done if I didn’t get tired,” he said and walked over to the fish. He dragged it over to a certain area that was carved in between the fourth and fifth tunnel, the ice was stained red a little there. Hanging up on the wall, were four different knives and cleaver.

  Mylicious pointed and smiled, “I made these too!”

  “I figured as much,” I said as he grabbed a large rod and a hammer. The hammer had a square head and a large wooden handle.

  “First, we spike it to the ground,” he said, he put the tip of the spike on the fish’s head and then struck the end with the hammer, driving the spike through the fish’s head and into the iced-floor, “Then we will cut by here,” he took a small, curved knife off the wall and cut right behind the gills, up to the spine. “Then we will cut down the back to the tail and on the underbelly, the same way.” He took and made the cut, following the spine down to the tail, then slightly turning the fish sideways and cut from underbelly down to bottom part of the tail, “now is the fun part,” he took and cut just slightly under the skin about ten inches in length. Then he rolled the loose skin under and towards the inside of the fish. He grabbed, with both hands, where he rolled skin up and pulled.

  The skin came loose, making an odd tearing sound as it came loose from the meat. He rolled it up and set it aside, then went to the other side of the fish and repeated the process. He then got a bigger knife and started to cut from behind the gill towards the spine, then slowly back, towards the tail. He tilted the fish and repeated the process, “You have to be careful not to get the guts, then the fish is ruined.”

  I watched him work, after removing one side, he took the guts out and then cut the other side off. He took and cut the esophagus out right behind the gill and then cut the anus out, careful not to cut the anus any further away from the entrance to it. He carefully dragged the fish’s digestive track over and set it next to the rolled-up skin.

  “I save just about everything, we travel to another land twice a season. Mila, and Tapeesa make jewelry from the bones, Yura and Amka make clothing. I’ve trained my boy and Tarkik and Kallik in making weapons. I could teach you if you want.’

  “I don’t think I’m going to stay that long, to be honest brother, I appreciate it,” I said as a look of disappointment came over the look of my brother’s face.

  “Are you planning to part ways after you help me find Derium’s head?”

  “I haven’t said I was going to help you, I said I would think about it,” I said getting angered a little.

  “I have to take this outside and clean it out,” Mylicious said and grabbed the digestive tract of the fish, “Alone!’” he added as he took the digestive tract up the entrance that led to the lake.

  I stood in silence and looked at the rest of the fish for a minute, then heard Yura, “He’s really wanted you to find Derium for a while now. He’s been talking like it being an adventure for you two.”

  “Did he ever tell you what Derium did to me?” I asked. Something told me the complete story wasn’t told.

  “No he didn’t, all he said was Derium had done you wrong,” Yura said.

  “Have a seat, I have a story to tell you.” I said and motioned to the bench by the fire.

  I told her my story, told her everything and she listened like Noemi listened. The only difference was, when I finished my story with Yura, she had tears in her eyes.

  “Mylicious didn’t tell me all that,” she said.

  “Because it’s hard for me to,” he said, as he appeared through the doorway, “I wish you wouldn’t keep bringing it up, Roldian.”

  “If you wouldn’t have left it out, I wouldn’t have had to tell her,” I said and raised an eyebrow, while narrowing my eyes.

  He shook his head and tossed the emptied digestive track next to the fish skins and threw his hands up, “I’m gong to lie down, you’ve given me an ache in my head.”

  He disappeared down the middle tunnel and that left me with Yura, “I thought you were tired?” I asked.

  “I was, but I didn’t want to be rude to the guest. You’re interesting to me,” she smiled.

  “As you are to me, I don’t seem very interesting to Kallik,”

  She took a deep breath, the mere name seemed to bother her, “I don’t like Kallik, during the last full moon he cornered me and if not for Mylicious, who knows what would have happened. He can mate with any female, I need a bond to mate,” she looked at me with a sparkle in her eye, but I dismissed it.

  “How old are you?” she asked suddenly.

  I had never thought about before, I can’t remember any type of acknowledgement for my age, I remembered being young and then I just stopped aging, “I don’t know, I’ve been down here for close to two-hundred-years. Yourself?”

  “I believe I’m in my sixties now,” she said, shocking me.

  “You don’t look a day over twenty,” I joked.

  “That’s when I stopped aging, I could pick it back up if I wanted to, but I’m happy at this age.”

  “Pick it back up?”

  “Mylicious won’t age ever because he chooses not to. If I want to look like my age, I can change that, but once I go forward with age, I can’t go
back.”

  “That’s different,” I said, wondering why Mylicious never told me he could age if he wanted to. These choices they got that I didn’t was really starting to get to me.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’ll never be okay,” I said. I got up and put some more wood on the fire and looked at the two large chunks of fish, just lying on the iced ground. Their pink meat seemed almost transparent in spots.

  “I guess he didn’t want to finish the fish, you got him really riled up,” she laughed a little. She walked over and grabbed the long knife that Mylicious was using and cut the two, four-foot fish sections down to, eight, one-foot sections. “Can you help me carry these?”

  I got up and grabbed half of the pieces of fish and took them to the freezer. Yura smelled her hands and cringed up her face, “I take it he didn’t show you where to wash up?”

  “No, I just kind of started helping out,” I said, noticing the smelling emanating from myself.

  “Follow me,” she said, and I followed her down and around to the second tunnel. It was carved out straight. There were torches spaced every three feet, but I didn’t understand why they needed them, they could see perfectly fine in the dark. At the end of the tunnel, there was a smaller, rounded room. There was a large stone basin in the middle, with burnt logs and ash under it, next to it, was a cauldron of sorts. It was rough, like there was a coating to it that hadn’t been sanded down.

  “Let me guess, Mylicious made that?”

  “He’s made just about everything. This was his prison at one point in time, he locked himself in here for many of years, before seeking out Mila and the rest of us. Then, when he and Mila fell in love, he added things, like the bath,” she said and pointed to big stone basin, “We fill it up, heat it up and bathe, naturally the females draw the baths for the males..”

  “What? They can’t get their own water and light the fire?”

  “That’s just the way it is,” she said.

  “No, it ‘s not!” I said, a little angered at that fact.

  “It’s been that way for many of moon. I don’t mind either. The females draw their own bath and Mylicious makes sure the males don’t bother us, even with his own kids, Amaruq isn’t allowed in here. If you like I can draw you bath tomorrow?”