Chapter #25Where the Wild Things Are, Part 2 by: Seuzz   It's too late to do anything about the bear, and you carefully withdraw from it. But when you're a safe distance you make a slow circuit, searching the ground.
You find nothing that points definitely in one direction or another.
The problem is that the bear is a fresh kill, no more than a day old, and by your reckoning your quarry would have passed this spot no less than four days ago, five if it was moving fast. So either it moved slow; or it lingered here; or—
You look back at The Devil's Molars, and sigh deeply.
Or it's now on its way back to the other side of those ridges.
You suck in a cheek and chew over the dilemma.
You might as well flip a coin, for if you chase it in one direction there's a half-chance the thing will be heading in the other. And if it has backtracked on itself, you'll find a trail leading in both directions.
You pull at your nose.
Well, if the thing has backtracked, and you follow it away from the ridgeline, then eventually you will follow its loop back toward the ridge. You'll lose maybe a week by going the wrong way ... Ugh.
But it's still better than the alternative: If you track it back to the ridge, and over, you might only be following its old trail, and you'd never realize it until you're back to where you were five days ago, at that same ravine.
You scout the area more carefully until you've found a fresh set of marks that point toward a line of trees on the other side of this open hillside. You follow these marks until you reach the forest's edge, then strip off your hoodie and tie it to a branch. It takes you an hour to return to the "causeway", find a way back onto it, retrieve your pack, and return to the spot you'd marked. You resettle everything on your shoulders, and plunge into the woods.
The thing will have a nest, likely in a clough, and either the clough will be in the deep woods or it will be itself choked with trees. As you wind your way deeper into the trees, you concentrate on the bent and shredded foliage that marks the thing's passage, not the deepening gloom which probably has nothing to do with your quarry.
Probably.
* * * * *
The slope you are traversing gradually steepens as the day wears on, so that it becomes harder to push your way through the underbrush. That also thickens, further impeding your passage, though it makes it easier to follow the trail. You would hazard that the thing was moving more or less in a straight line, but after an hour you consult the compass, and find that you're actually bent forty-five degrees from the direction you thought you were traveling. You don't know whether to hope or dread that you're on the curve of a loop.
The hills also curve as you move onto ever higher slopes, and a kind of twilight descends at around three in the afternoon. But you can't tell if it's from clouds or from the sun passing behind the crest of these hills. You'd like to climb one of the trees, to see how much thicker the woods are going to become, but none of them look sturdy enough. You drop your pack long enough to take out some more bread and water, and to engage in some quick and feverish strategizing. This is not the kind of place to get caught after sundown, not with the signs looking as fresh as they are.
You make a quick decision, and pull out the hatchet. Keeping your pack in view at all times you make a widening circuit, stripping the larger trees of dry, thick branches and collecting a great armful of firewood. After thirty minutes, you've a great pile that you secure to the sides of your pack with bungee cords and Velcro straps.
Nock nock nock. You pause as you're lifting your pack, and listen. The hollow, regular sound raps out a dozen times from all sides, and then is still. For two minutes you tense, listening, but it does not resume.
And then, as you're about to swing the pack on, you see the wolf.
It's a scrawny tan and gray thing, and its head is low as it peers at you from around a tree. It freezes as you catch sight of it, and its ears flatten.
Slowly you sink to one knee and push your head out toward it. It hunches and steps back, but doesn't withdraw.
You loosen the muscles in your throat, and let out a carefully calibrated growl: low and throaty.
Its ears snap up, but it doesn't advance.
You repeat the growl, louder.
Its eyes locked on you, it trots out from behind the tree and makes a quick arc around you. You turn, keeping your own face to it. When it stops, you modulate the growl into a low, mournful howl.
It turns fully toward you, its ears erect but its head down, and takes a few cautious steps toward you. As it comes, you pant and blow from deeply in your chest. Its pace quickens.
When it is only a dozen yards away, you whimper through your nose. The wolf pauses, and lifts its head. You tighten your grip on the hatchet, and follow the whimper with a soft, high-pitched yowl coupled with a chittering in the back of your throat.
The wolf explodes straight up into the air, falling onto its side when it lands. Its paws skitter madly as it tries backing away, and when it regains its composure its ears are flat and its lips peeled back to show every fang. But it doesn't bark or howl, but dashes sideways, still watching you. You stand, and it bolts into the woods with its tail between its legs. It's a good twenty seconds before the sound of its retreat dies away.
It's a wise wolf that recognizes that sound you made, and has lived to run from it a second time.
You almost wish you'd made it a friend, instead of warning it off. But it will live longer this way.
You hope.
* * * * *
You continue your pursuit of the trail, but much more slowly. At each trampled or broken bit you pause to make a wide circuit, scouting the woods for some kind of defensible position for the night. It is really starting to get dark before you find a spot that you think will work: a bank of enormous, half-buried boulders that rest like a rampart extending from a short cliff face that is topped by a dense thicket of brush and small trees. With your back to that cliff—and protected by the trees above—you should be safe from all sides.
Assuming you don't fall asleep.
Before dropping your pack onto the forest floor below you take from it blankets and food, the portable burner, and all your coffee and water; weapons; and the firewood. In the encroaching gloom you scoop loose grass and fallen leaves into a heap, and cover it with the wood.
But you do not light it, not yet, not until you must, for you remember that knocking you heard earlier. You save out one of the short, thick pieces of wood, and with one of your knives carefully whittle at it as the water for your coffee boils.
Night comes, and under the forest eaves the only light comes from the eerie blue flames from the propane burner. After making your second cup you turn it off and put it away. You don't want the light attracting anything; nor do you need it interfering with your night vision.
High above, branches creak in the occasional gust of wind; below, on the forest carpet, comes the occasional rustle of passing nightlife. These don't bother you, and neither do the patches of darker shadow against the black night, for as long as there is movement in the forest, you are quite safe. You wrap the blanket about you, whittling more slowly and carefully, feeling your work as you proceed, and staring watchfully into the dark.
You allow yourself to relax a little at the light hoot of an owl. It's almost like being in your own backyard.
You can't be sure, but you think a silver gleam low in the sky shows the Moon's position; it seems about the time for it to be rising. You shift position on the rock and lay your whittling knife away. You lay the big knife on your knee.
The branches continue to creak, and that puts you off your guard; you suddenly stiffen when you realize there is no more shuffling in the underbrush.
You cross your legs and wedge the whittled wood at your crotch, like a thick, erect phallus, and grip it with both hands. Without breathing out the words you chant quickly and quietly, turning your head only fractionally to glare into the dark.
Halfway through the complex incantation, you raise one hand over your head and wave it about. There is no reply.
Grimly, you grip the phallus more tightly and chant more quickly, urgently. In your mind you are gently pushing a sleeping giant, rocking him softly back and forth, leaning in with each effort, releasing him as he falls back, then pushing again as he rolls back toward his resting place. And as you work, the vision of something immense and heavy, like a fallen redwood, grows more vivid in your imagination, until it seems to appear before you. Even the boulders beneath you seem to sway.
But still you listen intently to the forest noises. Or to their absence. The wind has died, but the silence grows deeper and emptier. The blackness around you comes to resemble a maw.
And still there is no answer to your chant.
A heavy branch snaps.
That's it. Fire is your only chance now.
But as you reach for your Zippo, a wavering figure as tall as the trees looms on your left.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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