by Dan Dillard
LEGENDARY
It had to be there. The ultrasonic gear didn't show quite what he was looking for but he continued to dig nonetheless. His students dug right along with him until the funding ran out. Then he sent them on their way. They had learned enough to get the grade. For him, it was his life's work. For him, it was ok that he had gotten a divorce four years prior and mortgaged his own home when the grant money ran out. It was all worth it. He continued to dig. When he got to the depth he could safely achieve with the shovel, he switched to brushes so as not to damage any relic he might find. Then he saw what he was looking for. The bone shone brightly in hazy beam cast by the fluorescent work lamp. It was much larger than he expected.
He brushed away the ancient specks of soil and dust until he made out a hip joint. It told him the direction he needed to move toward to find the head. That would tell him what he was dealing with. And if his calculations were correct, he would never want for anything again. It would change everything.
He slid his body over guessing at the distance and began to brush again. He used a larger brush this time, impatience gnawing at his belly like a hungry animal. He gently scrubbed the earth away from his prize and wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, eyes wide in anticipation. So much of his life had been devoted to this task. So much he had given up, so many had called him a fool. Then bone peeked at him from beneath a brush stroke. He changed out the wide tool for a more delicate one and kept at his task.
A tooth!
Then more teeth, again larger than average, and the familiar elongated jaw. He continued on at a maddening pace, being ever so cautious as not to damage anything. Then he blinked. He'd held his eyes open so long that they were blurry when he opened them, but once they cleared he saw exactly what he'd hoped for ever since he was a boy. He blinked again in astonishment and also to make sure it wasn't a figment of his imagination. He blinked a third time just to be safe and then he grabbed the work lamp and placed it just above the skull before him on its stand. He pointed the light down at the skeleton head.
It was the remains of a horse. A large horse's bones lay preserved in the ground with a single horn jutting from the center of its forehead.
He stared in awe and amazement for a full minute while his mind raced around as clumsily as an excited puppy. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. He raised his hands in the air, and then brought them back down and placed them on his cheeks. He was utterly confused and astounded.
Dr. William Abernathy quietly pumped a fist and then crawled from the dig-site to jump up and down like a kid who just got what he wanted for Christmas. He rushed through the small camp to his tent and shuffled inside. Both hands went elbow deep into his backpack to grab the bottle of Dom and his digital camera. The camera was tucked into his shirt pocket as he got a plastic cup from the makeshift desk. He walked back outside and smacked the tip of the bottle on a tree and poured bubbling liquid from the shattered neck into a plastic cup. Then he tossed the bottle in the woods and took a drink.
"Littering be damned! This changes everything. Everything!" he said.
He gulped the rest of the champagne, rummaged back into his pocket for his camera and rushed back to the glorious hole and its magical treasure. The work lights gave enough illumination for video and he set the digital camera to 'film with sound' and pressed the shutter button. It started counting time on the tiny LCD screen. He turned the lens on himself.
"Montana. Ten miles south of Eureka. William Abernathy, Jr., eleven June, two thousand and nine," he said and cleared his throat before he continued.
A tear swelled in his eye as the realization of a life's work came to light. William Abernathy was now going to be famous. No longer the underpaid college professor who preferred field work to the snotty, rich kids he taught, but famous.
"The dig has continued even against the naysayers wishes. It has continued even against the odds. Against the loss of my students and my assistant to pulled funding and a general lack of faith."
He adjusted his posture and brought the camera around to get a dramatic close up for the I-told-you-so moment. He grinned triumphantly at the small aperture.
"Yet here I stand ready to film this most wondrous of discoveries. This which will change everything we've told our children about fairy tale. This will change the rules completely and forever. This, friends, is the remains of the legendary unicorn."
In his mind he played a fanfare by a symphony orchestra at the reveal. In reality it wasn't quite as dramatic. He rotated the camera to point at the familiar and yet odd skeleton and then double and triple checked to see if it was in focus and bright enough in the artificial light. The picture looked fake on the camera. It looked fake in the excavation as well. It was too surreal to comprehend. The good doctor had spent his life in pursuit of some cryptozoological critter or mythological beast. Here it was.
He stopped the recording and set the camera to the optimal settings and snapped a photo. Then he snapped another and another and another. Every conceivable angle was covered in triplicate. He pulled a tape measure from his pocket for scale and to gather some preliminary stats and then rushed back to his tent to copy the files to his hard drive and print them out. He typed furiously describing the discovery with measurements and other data. For a moment he eyeballed the air-modem that hung from the side of the laptop and considered sending the images back to his colleagues at the university. "Let them wait," he said and shoved the camera back into his backpack.
One good night's sleep and he would be on the road with his findings. "Let's see them deny my funding requests now. I'll have a team back here in seventy-two hours."
Dr. Abernathy made a quick flourish through the dig dousing the work lights and covering the skeleton with a tarp. Back in the small tent, he took off his shirt. Then he dug out a hand full of baby-wipes and mopped his face and armpits. Then he tossed them into a plastic grocery sack that was serving as his trash can and lay down on an army-style cot. Even through the excitement, his body relaxed. He had found his treasure and had proof in hand. Years of frustration vanished. Tension washed away and he fell fast asleep.
He slept until something tickled his nose. First he swished his hand at his face to shoo away the offender, but it persisted. He opened his eyes and listened for the familiar sound of a buzzing fly or mosquito. Flapping wings, he heard, but it wasn't a familiar buzz. It was larger and slower. He grabbed for an LED lantern and punched the button. It glowed in his face causing his eyes to adjust. The fluttering went from one ear, behind his head to the other ear.
"Curious," he said and squinted to see if he could get a look at the intruder.
It flitted one way and then another, always in the shadows. Abernathy caught a quick glimpse and it shocked him.
"What are you?" he asked the air and thinking maybe he had a bird in the tent.
The flurry of small wings stopped at the peak of the tent and hovered down toward the doctor. Then it landed on his blanket at his knees. A small thing. A small humanoid creature with wings. Its blood red eyes looked at him, piercing in the low light. The blue-skinned creature took a few steps forward and stopped. It looked like man and insect had somehow meshed together. Shiny-clear dragonfly wings poked from its back. It walked as gracefully as it flew.
"Quit gawking," it said.
Dr. Abernathy was astonished. It spoke? He assumed he was dreaming. A figment of a fairy caused by the discovery of the unicorn. Maybe the discovery was a dream as well?
"What? Unicorns are fine, but fairies aren't?" it said.
"Wha?" was all he could manage.
"You've got information that I can't let get out. That corpse out there, while fascinating, was an unfortunate mistake for you to make," said the tiny winged man.
"You are a fairy? Good Lord! You must let me take your photograph," he gushed, drunk with excitement.
"No. No no no. No, see that's what I'm talking about. This cannot get out. Absolutely not!"
It stomped around on his leg and then took flight, hovering just inches from the Dr.'s face.
"You speak English," the doctor stammered.
"And nineteen other languages. Moving on."
"But?how?"
"We have urgent business to discuss, sir," it said.
"I have to document this?you. This is huge!"
"No, see that's the problem,"
"My tiny friend, there's no problem. You are a wonder. You're-why, you're real!"
"That's the problem," the fairy said.
"I don't understand."
The fairy darted around his head and then centered back in front of his nose. "Given the choice, sir, would you rather be real or legendary?"
The question flustered the doctor and he shook his head. Abernathy shoved a hand into his backpack never taking his eyes from the flying man.
"But this discovery is?"
"Is dangerous for all of us," it interrupted and fluttered to and fro in the tent.
Abernathy's hand finally found what it searched for and he pulled out his camera. He snapped pictures wildly attempting to capture the tiny critter on film. It was like trying to photograph a hummingbird in midflight.
"Be still, won't you?" he pleaded.
The fairy dodged and darted. After several attempts he stopped long enough to browse the photos he'd taken.
"Too dark."
"Too blurry."
"Damn!" he exclaimed followed by, "Aha! I got one. And another! Proof of fairies and unicorns in the same night!"
The little creature shook its head and left the tent with some words of wisdom.
"I can see this will take more muscle than I have. I suggest you rethink your actions. Consider the consequences for our kind. Consider them carefully, Dr. Abernathy."
"It knows my name," he said. "Remarkable. Come back! What else is there?"
The doctor sat dumbfounded for a moment and then burst forward to look out of the tent's opening. Then he returned to his cot and began thumbing through the pictures of the magical critters on his camera. He was about to plug it into his laptop for backup when a violent thud occurred outside his tent.
Crash! Thud! Crack!
His eyes darted to his left.
Smash! Crash! Crunch!
He stumbled to his feet with his lantern one hand, camera in the other and ducked through the zippered door to the outside world. Holding up the lantern, he couldn't see what was causing the ruckus, but it was coming from the dig site. He marched toward it with purpose. "Who's there?" he demanded and took another step.
"Who is there?" That time with more authority.
The fairy fluttered back near his face and hovered.
"Those are what you might call trolls. They can't understand you, so don't waste your time," it said.
"What are they doing?" Abernathy asked.
"They are destroying evidence. I wouldn't interrupt them."
"They can't..."
"They can and have. Now they are going to finish with your toys. A computer I believe it's called?"
"You wouldn't dare!" he protested.
"No, not me. Them," the fairy said and pointed a blue finger at the doctor's tent.
In an instant, it was thrashed about by creatures that looked like black-furred, bipedal hogs. They would've towered over the human and he had no desire to approach them. What he did may have been worse. He pulled the camera from his pocket and began to take more pictures. Then he ran.
He passed by the dig site and noticed the unicorn's skull was smashed, its horn missing and all of his equipment was destroyed. He tucked the camera into his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap as he scampered through the woods.
"I have all I need," he said to himself.
His mind swirled with thoughts of fame and fortune, films about his life, and women. Oh the women would finally love him! He ran, leaping and ducking through the dark like a wild beast. He would get back to the main road. There was a lodge two miles north from there where his truck was parked and then it was on the road with the gold.
That thought was cut off by something grabbing his left calf. More accurately, something biting his calf. He fell to the earth with a crushing thump, shattering his right forearm. Pain rushed through him like thunder filling the vacuum caused by lightning. When he rolled over, the same fairy fluttered above him.
"You sir, are ignorant," it said.
"I have what I need, leave me be," he replied clutching his arm.
"I can't do that. I told you. We want to be legendary. We don't want to be sideshow freaks or displays."
"I can make you famous!" he said.
"We are already famous. We are already worshipped."
Abernathy felt the throbbing in his arm and saw the shadows of other creatures approaching. Skeletal and wheezing, they lumbered closer.
"What are those?" he shuddered and began to pedal backwards with his feet.
"You would call those goblins," said the fairy.
Three of them came into view. Their Gray skin hung loose, like that of an elderly person and they each had swollen bellies. Their eyes were large like any other nocturnal creature and they blinked with multiple eyelids. The teeth beneath those eyes were jagged and pearly white. He could hear their breathing, mechanical and rough.
"What do they want?" he asked.
"My guess is that they are going to eat you. It's really the only choice I have."
"Eat-eat me?" he shrieked.
He scrambled and kicked his feet in defense. The goblins long, wiry arms reached for him, their teeth gnashing. The doctor flailed and punched, even with his broken arm.
"You had your chance, sir," it said and fluttered away to the sound of Dr. William Abernathy's screams.
..ooOOoo..
The sun shone brightly on the wilderness the next morning. It was as if it were smiling at the Earth. Birds were busy building nests and preparing for the coming of spring. New foliage stretched toward the warmth of that star and turned brilliant with flowers. The breeze blew cool and inviting across the hills and through the trees.
A father and his young son hiked along a path from their campsite on the lake. It weaved through trees and along cliff edges. The boy looked at each pebble with amazement, then to his father for approval. Both giggled at the wonder of it all.
Months had passed since the university professor stopped reporting in. The local police and wildlife authorities wrote it off as a bear attack. Police never found a body, only the thrashed tent. Claw marks in the fabric fit the profile. The dig had been filled in by rain by the time anyone knew the doctor was missing.
"Dad?"
"What's up, kiddo?"
"Do you believe in fairies?"
"Sure. They live all around these parts. They protect the woodland creatures from harm," he made up.
The little boy wandered on, dragging his toes in the dirt behind him and kicking over stones. He wandered down the hillside, slightly off the main path, and peeked in a hollowed out log.
"Careful, son. Don't get too far," the father warned.
The boy reached his arm into the log after a small parcel. What he pulled out was a shredded backpack. A leather patch on the top said "Abernathy" and inside was a single crumpled sheet of paper. It was a printed photograph of a horse's skull?with a single horn that jutted out from the center of its forehead.
