Galway

by Matthew Thayer

  Sal and I have no way to prove it, but it seems this area draws upon a deep-water current from the north. We shared the notion with our Hawaiian waterman and after a day of keeping tabs on the tides and direction of flotsam, he agreed we might be on to something.

  When Bolzano does allow me to vent, to put voice to my worries and fears, his father is usually first on the agenda. Is he coming? Will he be bringing his Sons? I did not see what happened inside the field. Sal claims he stabbed his father a dozen times, and while there is no way to fully corroborate his account, the blood splattered across his face and hands, as well as the baby, had to come from someone.

  When asked to rate the chances the wounds he administered will prove fatal, he gives me different numbers every time, but never odds better than 50-50. We both saw Mitch recover from a lion mauling in less than 24 hours. The fire we built over his now-gray force field should have been hot enough to melt aluminum, but we all witnessed how the flames remained shielded from the field’s perimeter. The bigger we built our fire, the wider the dead zone expanded. Was the field pulling energy from the fire itself?

  Nobody likes talking about it, but I’m not the only one who expects Mitch to turn up. It’s just a matter of time. I’ve already told Paul, if it’s torture that asshole wants, just smash my head with the meteorite club and get it over with.

  I suppose I can’t end an entry on such a morbid note. On day four, just before sunset, the first pillar issued a loud crack and toppled in a fountain of sparks, bringing the lintel it was supporting and the adjacent pillar down with it. I wish I could say the rest followed like dominos, but only two others fell before morning when the boys could wade out and risk being crushed to feed the fires with enough wood to bring down the rest. It took all day. Minutes after the last one fell, we put on our helmets and headed north into the dark without a look back.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “I’ll talk to you on the other side, OK?”

  Jones” Huh?”

  Duarte: “I know you’re hurting, but I’m not going to bug you.”

  Jones: “Good.”

  From the log of Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  At the conclusion of a two-day trek chock full of strangeness and oddity, it seems only fitting this evening’s supper resembles an armored dinosaur straight out of the Mesozoic. Lucy and Pearl flushed the 100-kilo tank from the ruins of a native habitation site this afternoon, and now lead the detail roasting it upside down inside its own shell. I hope the taste lives up to the wonderful aroma wafting up from the riverbank.

  With its clubbed tail and armor plating, the beast put up quite the donnybrook before Jones was able to silence it with a dart through the neck. The waddling herbivore bears striking, reptilian resemblance to an Anklyosaurus.

  Dr. Duarte assisted with the butchering, however, and confirms it is actually a placental mammal, a Glyptodon, making it a long lost cousin of the South American armadillo and not T-Rex.

  I have established my quarters in one of the rings of cut stones and naked mammoth tusks situated on the uppermost terrace of the deserted Fish Eater Camp. As it grows dark, I wish my dog Izzie was here to keep me company and sound the alarm should trouble skulk near. Instead, I wear my helmet and scan the approaches every 15 seconds both visually and thermally. I should camp with the others, but it has been too long without privacy–and the sound of rushing water keeps me awake at night.

  Did Leonglauix have his fingers crossed behind his back when he told the clan the combination of man-smell and smoke will keep alpha predators away? I have absolutely no doubt this wide spit of gravel and ferns once supported a vibrant population, one capable of mustering the power to strike fear in any beast. The mammoth tusk tent frames point to their capabilities.

  Sandwiched between a bend of the river’s south fork and a matching inward curl of sheer cliff, the Fish Eater village may have housed as many as 80 residents in its heyday. Everywhere are rock tables and benches and fire hearths. Paving stone paths lead from terrace to terrace, all covered by thick, velvety moss. Stone-lined gutters, ditches really, follow the grade to direct rainwater away from home sites.

  Leonglauix is such a sage fellow. He had to know we were close, but rather than building the place up with words, the wily leader allowed us to experience the marvel for the first time in our own unique way. The trail had dwindled to a narrow goat track and we were shuffling sideways with our bellies pressed to the smooth rock wall when we rounded the final turn and beheld the terraced village. Bisected with paths and ramps, dotted with 27 mammoth-tusk structures looming up out of the ground, the picturesque hamlet may not have been as impressive as Machu Picchu, but ran a very close second.

  Gradually the trail widened, allowing us to walk three abreast as we descended to the stone beach where the abandoned village fronted a deep green river. Many years had passed since a human built a fire or took the time to reset a paving stone gone askew. Leather coverings for the tusk frames have long since moldered away, or been eaten by the porcupines and other incessant gnawers. Some wooden structures, also shrouded in moss and lichen, still stand, including fish smoking racks, clothes poles, benches and Y-shaped rotisserie supports. Bushes and young trees sprouting from home sites and the middle of trails bear witness to the camp’s extended disuse.

  It did not come as a complete surprise to find the camp unpopulated. The sorry condition of trail markers and makeshift bridges during our hike inland provided clues that man had been absent for years if not decades. Leonglauix expressed his concern before leaving the coast. While we moderns were committing arson against Earth’s most diabolically, unsettlingly beautiful piece of architecture to date, he and the boys took the time to scout several kilometers up the valley trail. Their reports of hornless rhino herds and aggressive giant otter proved to be spot on, as did their warning there would be many crossings of streams and larger tributaries.

  We had not put one kilometer behind us before spotting our first giant otter. The clan was preparing to cross a tributary deeper than I am tall when the three-meter-long, reddish-brown animal floated by on its back with a headless swan pinned between its powerful front paws. Ignoring the bevy of birds hovering and chattering over its head, the otter buried its teeth into a rent in the bird’s breast.

  I wish I could say that was the last stream we were forced to ford. There were dozens, each crossing scaring the bejeebers out of me. Whether wading knee deep or kicking the surface to foam as I tried to hold my clothes over my head to keep them dry, thoughts of shark were foremost in my mind. The main river runs fast, brown and is three kilometers wide at the mouth. While navigating the up-and-down trail paralleling the powerful channel, we spied many, many triangular fins slicing across the top of the water, and despite what the others may say, not all were river porpoise. If sharks inhabit the main channel, what would prevent them from detouring up side streams for a nosh? Nothing, but the fords were well marked on both sides of the tributaries with stone cairns blanketed in moss, so we crossed where the trail said to and hoped for the best.

  That’s one positive byproduct of our encounter with the towering hornless rhinoceroses. They took my mind off the goddamn sharks. We nearly stumbled into the crash during its afternoon siesta. How the shaggy, 10-meter-long animals failed to take note of our approach is beyond me. The Green Turtle Clan was not bothering to quiet walk, but rather announcing itself with clacking spears, loud conversation and toots on bone flutes. Even so, we suddenly found the ground shaking and the forest being torn apart as the two-story-tall behemoths unfolded themselves from the ground and briefly took flight before stopping and slowly returning.

  You have heard the saying the best defense is a good offense? Well, there are also times when it is better to slink away and live to fight another day. This was the latter and, thankfully, they let us flee with nothing more than angry snorts and stomps of their trash-can-sized feet.

  The eveni
ng sun had dropped below the wide canyon rim and I was beginning to fear the storyteller might keep us marching long into the night. He finally called a halt on a grassy bluff overlooking the river. The location was near a seep of fresh water and high enough elevation to escape most of the mosquitos and sailing spiders. The clan immediately went to work gathering wood, building a big fire and making the best of the situation.

  With spring racing toward summer and the countryside bursting with life, we had no shortage of fresh food. The clan’s gathering bags bulged with pickings from the trail as we settled in for the night’s potluck dinner. Kaikane contributed two salmon and a pike; Lucy and Pearl, morels, currants and ground nuts; Leonglauix, an assortment of grubs, locust and grasshopper; Bongo and Conga, nettles and greens; Fralista and Jones, a very heated and public argument over nothing at all.

  Jones spirals ever deeper into depression. Unfortunately, his native woman has decided the way to “cure” him is by administering a generous application of tough love. She refuses to give Jones the space and quiet he so desperately desires. Why, after two years of enduring his sullen bouts of silence without complaint, Fralista has now decided to make this an issue, I do not understand. Jones wants nothing more than to curl up alone somewhere dark and safe and take a long nap, but duty on the trail forces him to keep close and guard the clan. The way Fralista has been badgering him I would not be surprised if Jones soon absents himself for a few days to get his head straight.

  After a fitful night with little sleep, I arose before dawn to tiptoe through the sleeping bodies strewn by the fire in search of a private spot to perform my morning constitutional. Through the mists and dewy ferns I let an animal trail lead me downhill toward the river. Traipsing alone in unfamiliar territory is not an activity generally sanctioned by our clan leader, but I had my heavy club strapped over my shoulder and three throwing spears clenched in my hand.

  I have not spent the past two years with my eyes and ears closed. By observing my native friends, learning the lessons they have been so generous to teach, I know how to spot danger and how to move through the trees as silent as the wind. Quiet walking down a spur trail, I arrived at the edge of the bank just in time to witness a bloody standoff between one of the giant otters and an adult male wolf.

  With a head wider than my waist, the wolf loomed over the carcass of a beached river porpoise, scavenging his breakfast perhaps 40 meters away from my hiding spot in the trees. Nonplussed by an otter exploding out of the river screeching and snarling, the dark brown canine kept his head buried in the porpoise’s ribcage. If the growls carried to me, I imagine the otter had no trouble hearing them, but on it charged. Only an instant before impact did the wolf realize it was not facing a bluff.

  Turning to snap the otter’s head off, the wolf instead found its jaws closing over the tip of the flying torpedo’s tail. Squirming under its much-heavier adversary, the otter attacked the soft belly between rib cage and scrotum. Roaring in defiance, the wolf snapped at the snake-like body whipping and wrapping around its torso, finally locking its jaws around the otter’s midsection. I left them in a stalemate, expecting neither to survive. An hour later, however, when I brought the clan down to see, both animals were gone, and the porpoise had become the domain of raven and raptor.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “Are those what I think they are?”

  Bolzano: “If the word you are searching for is ‘gravestones,’ then yes.”

  Kaikane: “Look at ‘em all.”

  Bolzano: “Please, Doctor Duarte, before you begin your desecration, let us make an inspection first.”

  Duarte: “Desecration? These monuments are the desecration!”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  Gray Beard crawled out of his fern bed in a talkative mood today. The old guy told us all about how the Fish Eater Camp used to be full of people and dogs and cool gear like fish nets and toilet seats. He says they had a floating dock tied off at the edge of the river just downstream and that’s where everybody did their business–or else. First time you got caught taking a dump or piss around camp you got your ass whipped. Do it twice and you were banned. Sounds like King Franz and King Tam Tam didn’t kid around.

  Maria got Gray Beard started with a question by the breakfast fire. Pretty soon he was leading us all over the place, showing us where the big shots lived and the house sites of girls he shacked up with. Lucy and Pearl were all ears. We Green Turtles had heard most of the stories before, but as the memories came back to him there were a lot of new details added in. It helps to have a visual of the place to understand what he’s talking about.

  Under the two kings, everybody had a job to do. Maybe I’m reading between the lines, but it sounds like they figured out what people were good at and made it their career. There were path builders, fishers, hunters, cooks and dudes who “danced with trees,” whatever that means. He showed us where they netted smelt and reeled in giant sturgeon using ropes and wooden cranks. I could almost hear Maria’s teeth grinding as the infractions piled up.

  Gray Beard said this is his third time to visit the camp, and first in many, many hands of seasons. “Not since my hair was brown. At least four dogs ago.” On his first trip, he traveled north to find his birth father, but took the wrong way and only made it to this camp through dumb luck. I thought his dad was the clan leader who served before him, but we were to find out that wasn’t the case at all.

  Nobody told him how to cross the ice. He came up through the southern swamps and along the coast where the chances of one man surviving on his own are between nil and none. After a year or two of northward travel, he made friends with some young Fish Eater guys down in the marshlands while they survived an autumn snowstorm together. When the weather cleared, his new buddies brought him back to their home camp to meet the clan. And that’s where he got to know the three powerful men running the place, with one of them turning out be his true birth father, the top dog, the Hunter.

  You should have seen Sal’s head snap to attention when he heard that! The old man turned toward the tall Italian and made the hand sign for “my brother.”

  Bolzano had a dazed look as he held both hands palms up. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me before this day?”

  Gray Beard gave him a chuck on the arm.

  “Have we not been brothers from the start?” the old man asked in Green Turtle dialect. “Did you not feel the connection between us? What we call each other does not change the fact we were clan from the day we met. You with your sick stomach and broken feet. Remember?

  “When I learned the Hunter who does not grow old was also your father, I did not like it. He is a bad man. I did not tell you that you were my brother because I do not want you to turn lazy, to think you can get away with not listening to what I say. I am the older and wiser brother. Do not forget that!”

  Sal had tears running down his cheeks as he grabbed Gray Beard in a bear hug and lifted him off his feet. It’s funny, but now that we know, the family connection is not hard to spot. They’re both tall and have the same eyes. When Sal’s hair and beard go full gray, then we’ll really see it.

  Well, that set off a morning full of conversation. Did Lucy and Pearl know they were related to Leonglauix? Sure. They thought everybody knew. Fralista didn’t, but jokes she’s going to have to start calling Sal “Lomplomp,” which means uncle. The only one not excited by the news was Jones. While the clan was busy gabbing, I saw him snag a spear and head off into the trees.

  It was just the start of an amazing day. I’m trying to tell it in order and not get ahead of myself, but it’s hard. Not only did we meet some new people, we may have found our way out of here. If things go right, in four or five days, we’ll be able to ditch the Hunter and his Sons for good.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “Where’s Jones?”

  Kaikane: “Haven’t seen him since Gray Beard was showing us around camp.” />
  Duarte: “Yesterday?”

  Kaikane: “Yep.”

  From the log of Capt. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  If you’re logged on, you know I’m not coming back. I expect it’s Duarte reading this shit, but it could be Cpl. Sal. You’re both nosy. Either way, don’t bother looking, you’ll never find me. And if you do, I’ll already be gone.

  Suicide’s the plan. Head’s been outta whack for too long. My time to go. I’m ready. Soldiers who ate their guns back in the day, I thought they were weaklings. I understand now.

  Hard as it is to write this crap, don’t want any of you fuckers beatin’ yourselves up over my problem. It’s nothing any of you did. If you could’ve helped you would’ve. You tried.

  Best thing to do for me is go on with your lives, be happy, explore this fucked-up world like we were supposed to.

  Need to keep a sharp eye, and your heads outta your asses. Hunter’s coming. I feel it.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “Look at the fireflies.”

  Bolzano: “I have read about this phenomena, but never witnessed it firsthand. Have you?”

  Duarte: “Not like this. The Eastern United States still had fireflies in the summer months, but they were non-synchronic, as were the ones we encountered more recently in Bordeaux and Tuscany.”

  Bolzano: “How do they flash in such perfect unison?”

  Duarte: “I have no idea. It’s beautiful.”

  Bolzano: “Mesmerizing. Listen to Bongo and Conga on the Big Drum. Their rhythm matches the insects perfectly with, of course, their own twist.”

  Duarte: “Skipping every third and fifth beat.”

  Bolzano: “You do hear it. Good ear, Dottoressa.”