Galway

by Matthew Thayer

  It wasn’t long before the wolves were back. Ten popped their heads up over the rise 30 feet away and eight ran away. Jones and I each bagged a shaggy male. We fetched my spear and his bolt convoy style, with all the Turtles moving together in a tight group. The baby must have picked up on the tension because he started crying his lungs out. Jones spoke the words on all of our minds when he asked Gray Beard if he wanted to find a sheltered piece of high ground to make a stand. With a chop of his arm, the storyteller signaled we would do the opposite. We kept on truckin’ west.

  Gray Beard ran us hard for two days and nights with only short breaks to pile up and nap while two people stood guard. A waning moon was with us both nights. Weak as it was, the extra light was all we needed. The wolves kept to the horizon, shadows on a rolling landscape of light grays and charcoals. Whenever we stopped, they would circle up and howl. Every once in a while, we’d howl back at ‘em. Each hour seemed to bring more reinforcements.

  At first, the wolves minded their manners while we were on the trail–unless Rhino was crying. Something about his bawling excited the pack. We were running out of food and trying to ration his meals. Pissed him off big time. Maria didn’t want to reward negative behavior, but letting him cry was not working. We did our best to keep him quiet.

  Whenever he cried, the wolves would start slinking in close to check out the noise. Some of the cockier ones even made full-on runs at us. Those dogs never got close enough to lay a tooth on anybody, but they did a good job of getting our blood pumping. There’s nothing like a wolf loping your way to take away the chill. Jones has such great range and accuracy with his new atlatl, we let him do most of the shooting. Over the first two days, he killed four and wounded six. I poked a couple too. It was enough to make them keep their distance.

  Gray Beard said the main army would show up on day three and, as usual, he had it timed out pretty much to the hour. We had been moving with one group of mammoth for so long, I was zoned out when he tooted on his bone flute to call a stop for the day. There were two hours of sunlight left, but he said it was time to get ready. Within 15 minutes, the old guy had found our best ice cave yet. With a narrow entry, natural choke points, secure walls and plenty of chambers for the clan to spread out, it was perfect.

  I thought it was magic the first few times he found our sleeping caves. He’d lead us off the mammoth highway and there would be a hole in the ice, or at least an overhang where we could get out of the wind and build a dung fire. After a while, though, I noticed the caves had a lot of similarities. All were shaped by erosion, and all were sited at the base of south-facing hillsides. I take it in the summer, when the sun is high in the sky for about 20 hours a day, there’s a big melt on top of the cap. There must be rivers and ponds all over the place. Gray Beard says it’s a wet and slushy place in the “season of long days.”

  Once we stuffed all our gear down the hole, Gray Beard divided us into two teams to look for dung and food. There had been shit everywhere when we started crossing the cap, but that source of fuel has pretty much played out. As the pickings got slimmer, we started scooping up every pie and crumb we saw. For the past couple days we hadn’t seen a speck of dung. So it was damn lucky when the sisters pried a couple big piles out of the snow not more than a stone’s throw from the cave. Maria called everybody in and we made a human chain to shuttle the pieces home.

  Gray Beard’s a pretty cool cucumber, but he was getting anxious as we lowered the last chunk of pie through the mouth of the cave. The way he was dancing from foot to foot, I thought maybe he had to take a leak.

  “Is there a problem, wise Father?” Maria asked.

  “There are always problems. You should ask if there is a solution.”

  “Is there?”

  “We will see soon. Look.”

  I had been too busy ferrying mammoth crap across the ice to notice the wolves had crept to within 150 feet. There were now so many they completely circled us. Gray Beard motioned Maria to pick up the papoose and disappear down through the hole as he tipped back his head and cut loose with a howl.

  “Go,” he said between breaths. He was howling again and the pack had closed to within 40 feet as I jumped feet first and landed next to Jones, Maria and the two drummers. Maria shoved a heavy spear into my hand as Gray Beard dropped through the hole just ahead of three snapping muzzles. We jabbed the hell out of those fuckers, driving our long, heavy spears into their jowls, throats and eyes. We went at it for at least an hour, so long that our arms tired and we had to be relieved by substitute stabbers. The chamber was painted red with wolf blood before the pack finally called off the attack. Did every damn dog have to stick its head through the hole and see for itself? Son of a bitch, it seemed like they would never stop coming!

  The second they pulled back to lick their wounds, we retreated behind the first choke point and sealed it off with blocks of ice with spears sticking through. Over the next few days we burned almost every chunk of turd to melt ice, cook what’s left of our food and try to get warm. Whenever we asked Gray Beard how long the wolves were going to stay–we could see and hear them through the ice–he would say, “The moon is coming. Wait for the moon.”

  I wasn’t the only one wondering if the old guy was starting to lose it. He had given the last of his rations to Rhino days ago. Was starvation making him loony? So many things he said made no sense.

  Let’s just say Gray Beard never would have been much of a coach. He’s not big on explaining things. If you want to learn from the dude, you need to keep your eyes open and pay attention to what his hands and eyes are doing. Even when it seems like nothing, the wheels are usually turning.

  I was asleep when the old man poked his head into the chamber where Maria and I were curled up with the baby under every piece of clothing we owned. “The moon is almost here,” he whispered after nudging my toe with his boot. Pulling a fur cape from over my eyes, I saw the moon was already out, and shining bright enough for me to see the shadows of wolves nervously pacing above. There were more animals than ever, and they seemed riled up. Gray Beard motioned me to leave Maria and the baby behind and follow him to the cave’s entrance. “Bring your club.”

  It was so damn cold my teeth were chattering as I rolled my shoulders and tried to loosen up. I hadn’t the heart to pull my cape off those guys, so I was dressed in about half the clothes I usually wear. Touching the glowing, grayish-blue wall with his mittened hand, Gray Beard asked, “Do you feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  “The moon, it’s coming. Get Jones. Get everybody.”

  I felt sad for the guy as I walked and crawled to fetch the clan. He may have been hallucinating, but he was still the leader and I still owed him respect. Slowly, I began to feel a vibration building. I had felt a little something earlier, but thought it was the wolves fighting and running around upstairs. This was different, something big.

  “Wake up! Leonglauix needs us!”

  I was hustling back to Gray Beard when I heard the roar of wolves inside the cave. An alpha male and a couple of his buddies had breached the choke point. The alpha had Gray Beard pinned up against the wall, while the other two were fighting to squeeze through the narrow hole at the same time. All our spears were lined up on the wrong side of the cave. The meteorite club felt small in my hands as I strode toward the two struggling wolves. Gray Beard would have to handle the alpha on his own.

  With a great heave, the wolves busted though the roadblock together, snarling and snapping as they charged. If I had been wearing my cape and all the other heavy stuff, I would have been too slow to deflect their charge. I let them jump for my face before popping the wolf on the right with a side-armed hammer to its earhole. My feet felt light as feathers as I pivoted with the contact, guiding them cleanly past. The surviving wolf hadn’t turned halfway around before I crashed the meteorite through his skull. I turned just in time to see Gray Beard deliver a downward, two-handed death thrust to the twitching alpha’s ribcage.

  I
n dim light across the cave, Maria wore a sick look on her face, one that said I was probably going to get another lecture about family responsibility and not taking chances. (To her credit, that lecture has not yet been delivered.)

  Back in Hawaii, in the neighborhood where I grew up, there were plenty of tin-roofed houses like ours. Those metal roofs sounded like drums in the rain. You could hear a storm coming from miles away as the drumming got louder and louder until it was right on top of you. That’s what this sound reminded me of. It grew until it was thundering over us. The cave went black as the moon disappeared.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “More blood, honey?”

  Kaikane: “Drank enough already.”

  Duarte: “Are you sure, the vessels will freeze solid soon.”

  Kaikane: “I’ve had my fill.”

  Duarte: “Who would have thought something so basic could taste so fine?”

  Kaikane: “Helps if you’re starving. Look at Rhino, he’s sure working on that liver.”

  Duarte: “Our boy’s quite the little carnivore.”

  Kaikane: “Kid’s hungry.”

  From the log of Dr. Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  There was still sleep in my eyes as I watched the two wolves leap for Paul’s throat. They were too close and moving too quickly to miss, yet somehow he swept them to the side like a matador in a history clip on old Spain. Unlike those lithe men in their fancy suits, Paul didn’t stand there and wait for the return charge. He was on top of the wolves in a flash, wielding his meteorite club with calm precision.

  I suffered my own little death watching the fight. My first thought was the baby, and how he had already lost one set of parents–parents that faced doom together and died horrifically. If Paul had missed with his first swing, he was a dead man. And I probably would have been next. I tell myself everything worked out, everybody is all right, but when my thoughts travel down that road, I find myself breaking into a cold sweat. I came so close to losing him. What would I do without Paul?

  By the time Jones and the others arrived, the three of us had stuffed the wolf corpses headfirst through the choke point to seal the breach–and serve as warning to any other canines who wished to test our defenses. The ice roof above us began to shake. The Doppler effect was quite pronounced as the rumble of a thousand locomotives approached at high speed and then passed over.

  Though Leonglauix didn’t bother to explain events clearly to us–probably covering his ass in case his plan didn’t work–he had been waiting for the annual migration of the North’s great reindeer herd. He claimed he did not know if the herd would be headed east or west, but it usually makes its crossing about this time each year. If I understand correctly, the herd alternates summers in England and Ireland.

  The mass of animals is of unimaginable size. Once the passing started, it did not stop for three full days and nights. It swept the wolves away as if they were cottonwood dander. By rough calculations, for I do not have a way of measuring the width or density of the herd, I estimate it numbered about 1.2 million animals.

  The clan was on the verge of starvation. So much meat passing by had everybody grabbing spears and jabbering about the big hunt. Everybody but Gray Beard. The old man refused to allow us to remove the wolves. Instead, he began skinning their rear ends in the dappled moonlight. Pearl and Lucy were complaining loudly they would not eat the meat of smelly wolves when their protests were cut off by a thunderous crash outside the choke point.

  “Now we hunt,” Gray Beard said as he signaled Bongo and Conga to pull the semi-flayed wolf carcasses away from the hole. “Fralista, Doo-Art! Gather cook bags,” he ordered. “Bring them to me.”

  Though I wasn’t there to see it, Paul said the reindeer that plunged into the cave’s first chamber was quite a kicker. By the time Fralista and I returned with three leather bags, the gang had secured loops of braided leather around both of the flailing reindeer’s back legs. Keeping well clear of the thrashes, they pulled together to stretch the legs through the choke point until the hole was once again clogged. When there were enough arms wrapped around the legs to hold them somewhat still, I crawled underneath to position the bags while Gray Beard deftly severed an artery in each leg with his razor-sharp flint blade.

  The moment the stiff, well-used bags were full, we applied tourniquets to shut off the arteries and then began gorging on blood. It is much tastier when it is warm. Turtle shell bowls were brought out, capes and sleeping furs spread on the ground as we shared a true Paleolithic picnic in the dark. Rhino loved the blood, and of course the liver, once we were able to harvest the reindeer’s organs. It was the first time any of us felt warm and content in a long while.

  Gray Beard let us dine in peace for about 25 minutes, but once the reindeer twitched its last twitch, the clan leader began cracking his whip.

  “Have any of you noticed how this animal blocks our only exit from the cave? Do you think we should section it into pieces before it freezes solid and the job becomes impossible? Come on Turtles! Wake up!”

  The ensuing race reminded me of our recent efforts with three bobolox. The carcass truly was sealing us in. I’m not so sure our very lives depended on moving it, but it would have been a bugger of a job to hack a new exit through the two-foot-thick ice. Even with the animal still flexible, it was bloody, difficult work in such a confined space. Gray Beard did most of the initial cutting, and after quite a struggle we were able to use spear points to disjoint the hind quarters at the hip sockets and drag them into the cave. A crew immediately began slicing thin steaks before the meat froze solid. Once the back legs were out of the way, there was just enough space for the smallest and slimmest of us to wriggle through.

  It was an all-girl crew that stood scratching heads and wondering where the hell to begin. The animal must have weighed at least 1,100 pounds. Above us was nothing but shadows and noise, hooves on ice, snorting and bawling and the steady, raspy breathing of animals on a long-distance run. I couldn’t stop glancing up to the rim of the newly enlarged entrance. Where were the wolves? If this reindeer fell in our hole, didn’t it stand to reason another might soon do the same?

  The deer’s wide antlers had become wedged between the walls of the cave, pinning the head in a way that made it virtually impossible to move. Not only was it too heavy, it was stuck tight. Fralista, Lucy and Pearl were having no luck reaching underneath the dead animal to harvest its organs. Forcing my attention away from the rim and to the problem at hand, I asked myself, “What would Gray Beard do?” The problem was the head.

  “Fralista, the head. We must remove it first.”

  In the moonlight it was impossible to read the look that passed across her oval face, but before she could countermand my order, Lucy and Pearl had already voiced agreement. The neck muscles steamed as we slashed them open with our flint blades. Sawing through tendons, ligaments, trachea and whatever else that connected the deer’s head to its body, the girls opened a channel for me to probe with a spear point for a spot between vertebrae. With a wet cracking sound, the body separated from the 250-pound head and dropped to the cave’s floor. Suspended from the walls, the head hung for a few seconds before twisting and crashing down. If Fralista hadn’t yanked me out of the way, I would have been crushed under an antler.

  Only by working together were we able to maneuver the head out of the way, against the far wall. With us pushing, and the men pulling from inside, we slid the reindeer’s torso through the choke point and into the second chamber. Once the point was sealed tight with bloody wolf carcasses, the feast truly began.

  We ate until we could eat no more, then slept until we were hungry again. It was just too damn cold to do anything else. Our forced semi-hibernation is scheduled to end tomorrow. Gray Beard says even if the bitter cold snap continues, the cycle of the moon dictates we must leave. The next stretch of ice we are to cover gives the entire cap its name–”Killer Ice.” If we hurry, we’ll have no more than five days without fire
or shelter.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “I have been wondering about your libido.”

  Hunter: “My libido’s fine thank you.”

  Bolzano: “If so, where are your wives? You have so many sons, where are the women?”

  Hunter: “Sometimes, I like to take a decade off.”

  From the log of Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  It has been a month since I last sat down to drain my heart and soul into this journal. We have been moving at such a frenetic pace, there is rarely time. A lame excuse if I ever heard one. The truth is, I have nothing much to say. Who wants to read another dissertation on mourning my friends?

  Tomon and Gertie never stray far from my thoughts. I miss them–along with the other members of the Green Turtle Clan. I miss them all. After trailing in their wake for so long, it is comforting to think we may actually reunite soon. Though I do not believe I can maintain this accelerated rate much longer, Father says if we continue to press we should overtake them within the next day or two.

  He has run west to attempt making contact with the clan, while I recover in the first dry cave we have inhabited in almost two months. That is a long time sleeping on the ice and open ground. Granted, I was warm and protected by Father’s force field most nights, but dreaming his dreams is a hefty price to pay. He has shifted a tremendous weight atop my shoulders.