by Mez Blume
I took a deep breath and tried to sound upbeat. “I think I hear a waterfall upstream. Wanna see if we can find it?”
Imogen made a face of utter exasperation. “I don’t care,” she snapped. “Just get me away from these blood-sucking little monsters.”
Leaving the bucket on the rock to collect on our way back, I led the way upstream, towards the faint rumbling sound. The path took us uphill, and soon the river’s banks rose steeply up on either side so that we were walking along a deep ravine with the river winding, gurgling and tumbling down little falls below.
I have to hand it to Imogen, it was a tiring hike, but she stayed right on my heels. She’s always been good at sports, though I think the swarm of pursuing gnats especially motivated her. The crashing sound grew louder with each step until it drowned out all other forest sounds. Just around the next bend, we were both stopped by a fine mist moistening our faces. I lifted my eyes up from the trail, and up and up and up. The cascade must have been as tall as a six- or seven-story building. It thundered down into a foamy cauldron of rocks and rainbow mist.
“Oh. My. Gosh.”
“I know,” I agreed, my eyes fixed on the falls.
“Oh my gosh. Oh my Gosh. OH MY GOSH!”
Imogen’s uncharacteristic enthusiasm made me turn and look at her. That’s when I realised she hadn’t even noticed the waterfall. Her eyes were glued on some tree roots in the path. I tried to see what was so fascinating about them, then, quick as a wink, one of the roots moved. It coiled itself up into a cinnamon roll shape, and I knew exactly why Imogen had turned so white. She threw herself behind me, grabbed my arm and squeezed while peering over my shoulder. At the same time the snake drew its head back, making an S with its neck, and hissed.
Imogen’s killer grip on my arm slackened. Before I could so much as take a step back away from the snake, she shot like a loose arrow up the trail, straight for the waterfall.
“Imogen, careful!” I shouted. Forgetting the snake, I took off after her. “It’ll be super slippery up there!”
She didn’t hear a word. With knees high, she sprinted, leaping over boulders and roots as if competing in a 100-meter hurdle race. She didn’t stop until she reached the slippery wet rock face that the waterfall spilled over.
“Imogen, it’s ok!” I called. “The snake is way back there!”
But she looked just like a trapped animal, eyes darting in every direction in search of an escape. Then, as I watched, she vanished, right behind the thundering waterfall.
I caught up to the spot a few seconds later, sliding on stones covered in wet, green slime, and discovered, to my relief, the opening behind the waterfall. She had disappeared inside a cave. I found her just inside in a huddle, hugging her knees.
“I. Hate. Snakes. More. Than anything.” The words came out in shaky bullets of breath.
“Well, I’m pretty sure you outran it.” I decided best not to mention that there were very likely to be more snakes inside this damp, dark cave.
Imogen didn’t seem to hear or see me. She just stared at her knees, eyes glazed over, rocking back and forth. This was taking over-reacting to a whole new level. I took my water bottle from my rucksack and offered it to her. She gave a jerk with her head, so I had a swig instead. As it appeared I might be waiting some time for Imogen to get a grip, I figured I might as well have a wander around the cave.
As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I realised it was much bigger that I’d originally thought. Brushing the lichen-covered stone wall with my fingertips, I followed the curve of the cave deeper back, into a sort of alcove. A hole in the earth above allowed a shaft of hazy sunlight to spill onto the alcove floor. The earth looked worn smooth. Right in the middle was a pile of what looked like bits of singed charcoal and white dust. I crouched down to examine it and noticed, there in the shadows against the cave wall, a row of clay pots.
“That is seriously primitive.”
Imogen’s voice so unexpectedly close behind made me start and lose my balance. My hand flew out to catch my weight and knocked into one of the pots. It swivelled and crashed into the pot beside it, cracking it right down its middle. Some sort of reddish brown, swirling goo oozed out onto the dirt floor.
“Great. That was probably some kind of ancient artefact,” I growled. Not that Imogen was listening.
Once again completely ignoring me, she was squinting at something on the cave wall.
Getting to my feet and brushing the dirt and goo off my knees, I had a look to see what she was on about. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before. The entire back wall of the alcove was decorated with a mural unlike any painting I’d ever seen before. It was clearly extremely old and the paint had faded, yet I knew the yellow, brown and red objects in an instant. They were horses— dozens of them in mid-gallop, their manes and tails streaking behind them like streamers. Some lowered their heads; others held their necks high and proud. But every one of them seemed to be in full sprint ahead.
“What was that?” Imogen whispered.
“Don’t know.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the horses. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, I thought, to be riding one of them, the wind rushing past, galloping away from Imogen and her rolling eyes?
“Katie?”
Something about the wildness, the otherworldliness of those horses made my heart drum against my chest.
“Katie, do you hear that? I think it’s thunder.”
Maybe it wasn’t my heart beating after all. It does sound like thunder, I thought vaguely. No, not thunder. Hooves. Hundreds of thundering hooves. The moment the thought formed in my mind, my eyes played a trick on me. The mane of the painted horse I was staring at waved as if blown by a real breeze. I gasped as the same horse reared its head and lowered it again.
“Katie, snap out of it!”
But I couldn’t. My breath caught in my chest. I watched wide eyed as, in unison, the horses picked up their legs and broke into a stationary gallop, their hoof beats in perfect sync with the thundering rhythm pounding in my chest.
I was vaguely aware of Imogen’s boa constrictor-tight grip on my arm. Almost at the exact moment she grabbed me, an invisible arm wrenched me forward, headfirst into the cave wall. But I never felt the cold stone against my head. I felt nothing but the weightlessness of free-falling and Imogen’s frightened fingers clenching my wrist for dear life.
4
Stampede
It felt like a dream. Just as it had before. I closed my eyes, or at least I thought I had, yet a cyclone of colour whirled past, browns melting into greens of a hundred different shades. When at last the swirling came to a halt with a soft but sudden thud, I opened my eyes. It was not the roof of the cave that met them, but rather soft, silvery sunlight slipping through the lacy gaps in a canopy of tall, tall trees. The trickle of a gentle river harmonised with the high chirrups of a blackbird. I might have lain there in that tranquil setting for some time, my mind floating somewhere between sleeping and waking, were it not for the throbbing pain shooting up my right arm.
There was a reason for the pain, but my mind couldn’t quite recall what it was. Had I broken it? No, that wasn’t it. Drowsily, my head flopped to the right, my eyes travelled down the aching arm and landed on the petrified face of my cousin Imogen, her fingers still clutching my wrist so tightly my hand had lost all feeling. One look at Imogen brought everything rushing back into full waking memory. I sat upright, trying with my other hand to gently pry Imogen’s fingers loose. She wasn’t moving. Just staring straight upward, mouth open.
“Imogen?”
Nothing. I checked. She was still breathing. Her chest rose and fell steadily. That was something.
“Immy? Do you think you could let go of my wrist now? I can’t do much to help you with one hand.”
She gasped in a gulp of air as if just surfacing from a long stint under water. “What. Just. Happened?”
Relieved as I was that she could speak, I found myself at a loss for an answer. I knew exac
tly what had happened. There was no doubt in my now less-muddled mind that we’d just been tripped into another magic painting. Those painted horses had carried us away to the past, and who knew how far? But instinct told me Imogen wasn’t likely to respond well to this explanation. I would have to break the truth to her gently or she was likely to have a complete meltdown in the middle of the forest… the last thing we needed on top of being stranded and defenceless in an unknown place and time. I’d have to string her along with a half-truth… I wracked my brain for something convincing. Meanwhile Imogen’s head flopped towards me, eyes boring into mine.
“Katie. Tell me. I got bit by that snake, didn’t I?”
My mouth opened, but before I could answer, her head rolled away so she was gazing at the sky again. “This is it. I’m actually going to die in this God-forsaken wilderness of America.” She looked at me again. “Katie, I can’t die yet. I’ve… I’ve never even kissed a boy.”
Seriously? That was all she could think about on the verge of life and death? I couldn’t let her go on like this. “The snake didn’t get you, Im. You ran into the cave, remember? Then you … you kind of fell.”
Imogen’s eyebrows knitted together as she tried to think back. “Did I?”
I gulped. Why did I have to be such a terrible liar? “Yea, yea, you did. ’Cause, well, what happened was—”
I didn’t have a clue what I was about to say. I guess I’ll never know, because right at that moment, the ground began to quiver, faintly at first, then a little stronger until it became an audible rhythm— boom BOOM. Boom BOOM.
Imogen sat up, her eyes darting in every direction. “What’s that?”
I scrambled to my feet, listening, feeling the rhythm in the earth beneath me. The beat was growing closer and harder at a manic speed. “It sounds like… horses,” I said.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the ground began to rumble like an earthquake. Then they burst into view, dozens of frantic-looking horses. These were not painted, but steaming flesh and hot blood, and they were storming their way up the trail straight towards us like a runaway train. They would thunder down on us in less time than it would take to shout for help. There was no time to think. I threw my whole body headfirst into Imogen. The momentum of the tackle sent us both rolling off the trail into a tangle of underbrush. When we stopped rolling, I looked back at the torrent of hooves beating the ground where Imogen had been lying a second earlier, but had to turn away again from the smothering cloud of dust kicking up.
“WE NEED TO MOVE!” I half shouted, half choked.
Together we scrambled to our feet, staggering over the trembling ground, and scrambled up a hill of boulders until we were high enough to escape the dust. Still coughing and gasping for breath, we both sat down on a broad, flat surface of the boulder where we could look down and watch the stampede from safety. The horses just kept coming, three abreast down the trail.
Then, as the herd finally thinned out at the back, a horse came into view with a rider on its back. Then two others followed. The men looked rough and wore broadbrimmed hats and rugged clothes and boots. I noticed a gun holster strapped to the leader’s belt. All three were shouting — “YA! YA! Gidyap!”— goading the stampede forward.
Beside me, Imogen seemed to have lost interest in what was going on below. She was brushing the dirt off her arms and looking incredibly put out, though at least no longer panicked. “Ok. We nearly just died. What is this, the wild West or something?”
“Shhhhh.” I put my finger over my mouth and listened. “Why is it suddenly so quiet?” I whispered.
She rolled her eyes, expressing how much she couldn’t care less. I crept to the other side of the boulder. From my new vantage point, I could see the trail open up into a wide clearing. A small lean-to cabin stood against the trees to one side. The last of the horses were being driven past it by the men’s shouts, onward down some new vein of the forest. But in the torrent of running horses, one stationary horse, tall and grey, stood out. His rider sat still as a statue watching the herd pass. He sat very upright and wore a smart navy uniform with gold buttons, some sort of officer’s hat, and white gloves. Squinting, I could just make out his straight golden hair that brushed the tops of his shoulders and his matching beard. But I couldn’t quite get a good look at his face.
As if he’d sensed me watching, his head suddenly tilted. He was looking right at me! I dropped down instantly, squatting behind a bunch of fern fronds. But then it hit me. What if this is our only chance of getting help? After all, we were lost in the middle of a wood. It didn’t even look the same as it had when we’d gone to fetch the water. The trails were wider, the trees bigger; the whole place felt wilder and more dangerous. And here was some kind of soldier, someone respectable who would at least see that we got safely out of the woods.
As I squatted there, contemplating whether or not to give up our hiding place to the golden-haired rider, another pair of thundering hooves came racing down the trail, along with what sounded like someone shouting hysterically. I parted the fern frond and saw the new rider yank his horse to a halt in the clearing as the last of the herders shot away. A brown-skinned man with a long black ponytail leapt from the horse and ran panting to the gentleman rider’s side.
“What’s this one on about?” Imogen asked, shuffling up beside me on her elbows.
“Don’t know yet,” I whispered. “Just listen.”
The man’s words came in heaves and grunts. He had evidently been riding as fast as he could go to catch up with the others. “Lieutenant Lovegood. The Great Spirit sends you to help me.” He clutched his heaving chest with one hand and pointed with the other. “Those men. Bandits. They steal my father’s horses, all but one. They steal many horses from my village. They kill our pigs and steers. Our meat. I thank the Great Spirit he has sent you at our time of need.”
The officer remained a statue during the man’s plea for help. Now he nudged his horse forward and walked it in a circle around the man. “You are certain these men took your father’s horses?”
“Yes. And many others from the village. I ride after them. I never lose sight until I find you, for I know you and your men can do more than just I can on my one slow mare.”
The officer stopped circling and looked down at the man. “Leave it to me,” he replied flatly. The man bowed his head to show his gratitude. While his eyes were lowered, the officer lifted his pistol and took aim.
Without a second thought, I sprang up from my hiding place and screamed, “STOP!”
Just as quickly, Imogen reached up with both arms and yanked me back down, and only just in time. At the sound of my scream, the golden-haired officer turned his aim towards me and sent a bullet zipping through the air above our heads.
With my heart in my throat, I separated the ferns in front of me and peeked through. The officer’s horse had reared up at the sound of the gunfire. The man with the ponytail stumbled back, but not quickly enough. The horse’s raised front hooves pummelled down against the man’s scull. Imogen and I both clasped our hands over our mouths as he wilted to the ground. With a last searching, piercing look in our direction, the officer turned the horse and galloped off, full speed down the trail.
Imogen and I turned stunned faces towards one other. She was white as ash, and from my clammy palms, I guessed I didn’t look much better. I felt sick with the thought that I’d almost turned us over to that officer. To think that it might have been us left to die on the forest floor.
To die… Could the man really be dead? What was this horrible time we’d fallen into that we’d already had to dodge a bullet in the first ten minutes?
Whatever we’d got ourselves into, I couldn’t just lie there hiding in the ferns forever. With a shaky breath, I pushed myself up onto my knees. “I’m going down,” I announced.
“Katie, are you mad?” Imogen remained crouched in the ferns, looking at me wild-eyed. “You were just nearly shot! And there’s a man covered in blood down ther
e!”
“Exactly,” I said, feeling my resolution rise. “So if we don’t do something about it, who do you think will?” But I felt another tiny pinch of guilt when, as I started the climb down, Imogen muttered under her breath, “You’re welcome for saving your life.”
5
Friends and Foes
“Do you think he’s dead? Or just comatose? Oh my days, that is a lot of blood.”
While Imogen helpfully stood a few paces off stating the obvious, I tentatively knelt down beside the wounded man. With a wave of relief, I watched as his chest rose then fell ever so slightly. He wasn’t dead after all. Knowing that gave me the courage to creep closer until I was peering down into his face.
My first thought on closer inspection was how young the man was. Probably not more than twenty years old, his brown skin smooth as deer hide. Then my eyes wandered from his face to the blood oozing from his shaved temple and matting up his long, black ponytail in a pool beneath his head. My stomach lurched, and I looked away. Just the sight of his wound made my own head throb, and my hand automatically flew up to the scar beneath my hair, a permanent reminder of my riding accident. Come on, Katie. Get a grip, I coached myself. I could hear Imogen making little moaning noises behind me. This was no time for squeamishness. I had to keep my head.
“What are you gonna do with him?” Imogen asked apprehensively.
I let a big breath of air I’d been holding escape through my lips. “Not sure. But we need to stop the blood. That much I know.”
I pulled off the blue bandana I’d tied around my hair that morning and, gently as I could, wrapped it around the man’s head, tying it off in a tight knot. The blood immediately stained the blue a dark purple, but it seemed to do the trick. His face looked so calm and dignified. He was actually very handsome, though I didn’t say so out loud. “I think he might be a … a Cherokee,” I said.