Opalescence

by Ron Rayborne

  A cooling breeze lifted his hair. Tom strode back to his pack, arms loaded with more of the purple star fruits, and to Little, still sleeping. She awoke, bleary-eyed, at his approach and woofed, then seeing him, lay back down. As he had no more of the Ramoceros left to give her, he brought her some of the tasty new produce he’d found. To his amazement, after sniffing it, she too “wolfed” it down, which was all the testimony he needed. If anyone should know, it would be her. He ate another. Then Tom lay back, board piano in hand, and, lightly playing, gazed at the stars through the slowly swaying branches above. Now and then, one shot across the heavens leaving a long white trace, which soon faded. Tom watched until his head nodded and eyes refused to stay open. He’d wanted to write something in his journal for Julie, but by then the fire had dimmed, and so, after a few more moments, he put the board down and turned on his side once more to sleep.

  At daybreak, Tom was awakened by the sound of a jay-like bird cawing loudly above them. It appeared annoyed by their presence, which it had somehow missed the day before. He rubbed his face and discovered that there were little itchy bumps above his beard line as well as on his arms. The mosquitos had had their way with him while he slept. He grumbled. There was a cost to following the river, especially where it slowed.

  He rose and bathed in a pool of cold water while Little hunted. It was good to know that she was back to normal. The rest had done them both good. Further, the mystery fruit hadn’t killed them. He again stuffed himself. Little arrived with one small animal, which again the P.I. had no knowledge of. He let her have it, but filled a bag that he hung from his belt chockablock with the fruit. Then they set out.

  In an hour, the bag began to drip purple juice from the bottom and they were forced to eat as much as they could, then discard the rest. Though he’d not seen any more of the strange star fruit since they’d left camp, he did not think that lack of food would be a problem. His repertoire of edibles was increasing daily.

  Around mid-morning, the river began a long, gradual curve to the south, which made Tom happy. They continued under the line of trees that grew reliably around it in case the day turned hot again. Some time later, they dropped into a bottomland of cool, soft sand, in which were the prints of numerous animals. The way was slower here and sand often filled Tom’s shoes, which he’d have to stop and dump. Finally, he took them off and tied them to the top of his pack — securely. He did not want to find later on that he’d lost one. While this move did not necessarily make the going easier, it was immensely more pleasurable. The feel of sand under his feet was luxurious.

  Then he thought, As long as I’m staying under the trees, I might as well wear as little as possible. And so, removing everything but his shorts, from which the gun hung, and of course the backpack, he carried on.

  An hour later, they came to an open area, thick with Cattails. The river here, Tom noticed, further slowed and began to spread out. No, not the river they’d been following, this was a shallow arm of it. There were Cattails far as he could see, bordering, and within that arm. He walked to the right, over a little rise. Still, the Cattails continued. Tom sighed. Always the obstacles, he moaned. Heading back a bit for perspective, he pivoted and looked again at the way forward. It was choked. Shaking his head, he walked the other way, then saw a thin trail through the reeds. Following it visually, he could see where it came out a quarter-mile or so distant. An animal route. Who knew how long it had been here. Anyway, since it was open, shoulder width at least, they decided to take it.

  The ground here was mushy, like a shallow bog, and they picked and sloshed their way through. Funny thing about Cattails, they have these tight, sausage-shaped things at the tops of the plant that are packed full of tiny seeds. When the time is right, and the wind blowing, they release these seeds, which then float on parachute-like filaments in the air, drifting upwards and out, sometimes for miles, hopefully coming to rest in another riparian environment. There, they can begin life anew. But the seeds can also be released by the slightest brush of something rubbing against the sausage-shaped thing — something like a shoulder, which is exactly what Tom and his aelurodon companion provided as they strolled through the shallow marsh. Suddenly there were tiny white seeds aloft everywhere. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. They floated high, carried to the sky by the subtlest of whispers. In short order, Tom and Little were covered. At first startled, Tom laughed. Laughed at the sight of Little speckled white, laughed at yet another wonder he’d never known about until now. What a world! On the other side, they shook clothes, hair and fur free, sending hundreds more seeds flying, then recommenced their journey.

  After a while, Tom started to note, subconsciously, that the river was beginning another incremental turn to the right, to the west. They continued on, but he felt a slight nagging about something, something not quite right, although he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then he discovered that, except for the wayward compass, the PinPointer map did not work in this forest. It apparently needed at least two reference points to function, yet the trees were blocking both Julie and Jaqzen’s signal. What’s more, with no hills around to climb, he couldn’t even ascertain his general position. It was dispiriting. Hoping for clearance, Tom continued his walk southwest.

  Yet, days passed, and it seemed that they would never reach the sea. The way just seemed to go on and on.

  One afternoon, Little took off after something through a thicket of brambles and understory which climbed a low hill. Seconds later, there was a kerfuffle, loud squawking and the sound of brush being violently disturbed. Then silence. Tom waited. After a minute, out came Little with a large turkey-like bird in her mouth, obviously expired. Lunchtime.

  He hadn’t the slightest idea how to deal with the feathers and just began to pluck. Keenly interested, Little wanted to help, but Tom kept her back. Then, done, he cleared a suitably sized area, built a small fire and roasted the avian on a willow spit. Turkey indeed! He’d remembered the other time he’d had one, again with his mother. Thanksgiving. She said, You always need to be thankful for what you have. They had nothing, nothing but each other. He was thankful.

  Little ate with passion and Tom watched her, noticing just how big she was getting. He guessed she must weigh close to eighty pounds now. Meanwhile, he was getting slimmer and leaner. He wondered if she was moonlighting, eating while he slept. Perhaps. But he was happy for it. He needed her as large and strong as she could be. After lunch, they upped and continued on their way.

  Eating so much made Tom sluggish. When he was tired again, he sat down for a rest under a giant maple. It, in turn, was shaded by an even larger sycamore. Puffing, Tom held his staff at arm’s length, hand at the top and casually glanced at it, though without really seeing. He hummed, turning it around, admiring the smoothness of the bark. His humming stopped. He frowned now, shocked. There was a long, wide crack in it.

  “What?” he said, appalled. “Already? Humph! Guess they don’t make walking sticks like they used to!” Tom put his fingers in the rift; the madrone stick was weak. In the hot air it had soon dried out and expanded. He’d need another. Still, he liked its smooth texture and ruddy color and wished he could find one like it. One that wouldn’t split that is. At any rate, he’d hold onto this one until he could find a suitable replacement.

  The following afternoon, after hiking all morning, Tom noticed off to his left, on the riverside, some huge puffy things hanging in the trees, occasionally engulfing them entirely. Subconsciously, while noting their presence, he’d avoided changing course to walk over and investigate. If he did that every time something new and interesting happened by, his progress would be considerably slowed. Tom continued on, but the numbers of strange puffballs increased. With another mile, the giant lacy puffs were growing further away from the riverbank and closer to their footpath. He regarded them with puzzlement. They had an airy, almost ethereal texture. Another mile on and their numbers began to decline, and then, finally, they were gone. When he’d not seen any for a
quarter-hour and had forgotten about them, suddenly there was one more. A big puff of the wispy stuff in a ball shape, hanging from a branch.

  Curiosity got the better of him, and, as it was only a hundred feet away or so, he decided to go have a look after all. Tom strode over.

  When he was within twenty feet, however, he slowed down. There was movement within that mass. It was alive with movement. Still, he came closer. Presently, his earlier look of hopeful interest was replaced with a look of horrified disgust. He shuddered. Spiders! Thousands of them. It was a giant web, and these tiny arachnids, generally solitary, were functioning in some macabre cooperation. But why? Was it so that they could catch large prey?

  The thought reeled him. Tom backed up. While he found their alien design fascinating, all those legs and eyes, there was also something about spiders that had always given him the creeps. He had an almost genetic repulsion to them, and this nest amplified that instinctive arachnophobia infinitely. Tom turned and trotted out fast as he could with his heavy pack.

  On the edge of the forest, he looked back and around, but didn’t see any more nests. He thought about that long swath of them he’d walked by. All those spiders. Must have been millions, no, billions of them. Involuntarily, he shuddered again, a queasy feeling in his gut.

  They walked on for hours, having seen no more spider nests before Tom felt safe enough to take another rest under the canopy. Yet, during that time, he could not stop thinking about them. He’d have nightmares. Thankfully though, having not noticed any of their nests before that afternoon, nor after the last one, it appeared that this was just a bizarre, localized oddity of nature, an isolated pocket of creepiness in an otherwise delightful forest. What he didn’t know was that, if occasionally a species became overly abundant, it was temporary, an aid in natural selection. Tomorrow the flocks of pest control aves would arrive.

  The river began another modest swing west and Tom decided to cross it next chance he could to get to the other side before they got too far off track. He’d look for an opening in the trees made by the wildlife, some pathway that likely went all the way through. Why blaze a new trail when they could just use one others had already made? He perceived that the river was again slowing. Now it just burbled along gently. The ground under his feet was getting wetter. Evidently, the river was broadening some. They might have to walk across a knee-high section.

  As they progressed, Tom would grab a bite from the various fruits he had now learned were good to eat. Nothing was saved of the turkey; whatever Tom had left, quite a lot, Little had eaten with rapidity, bones and all. She was a proficient bone eater, as a matter of fact. It accounted for a goodly percentage of her diet. Before they’d left the foothills, he watched as she’d crunched her way through the Ramoceros, including the sturdy thigh bones. She was growing and her jaws were becoming heavy and powerful. Teeth large and sharp. Muscles working dramatically. Small pieces of bone would show up in her stool, he noted.

  Though beefier, Little was active and still liked to chase things. Unfortunately, ground squirrels, always her favorite, were, these days, too agile for her, and, frustrated, she would set to digging madly at their dwellings, destroying in seconds what had taken them hours to build. Then, unsuccessful at the hunt, she’d give up and walk away nonchalantly as if she’d never actually meant to catch one. Tom pet her as they strolled. Her back was now to his fingertips. She had the same thick red-brown hair with black tips as did her mother. Unlike the Carpocyon, her fur was always clean, or if it got dirty, say by walking through mud, soon as it dried the dirt would simply fall off, leaving her unsullied.

  Whenever he started to get too cozy in his assumptions about her endearing qualities, however, she would blow them away in a display of raw, barbarous violence. Now that she had to take down slower, and bigger, game, she was coming into her own. It disturbed him, but he had to accept it as a part of the natural order. All the same, he would turn away in sadness from the cries and carnage of her victims.

  Even her play now was getting too rough, though she didn’t know it. When he rested, she would sometimes amble over to him, pushing with her weight and knocking him off the log or rock he sat on. She would then escalate with more pushing, and even growling and mouthing him, placing an arm or leg in her chops and biting down — though mildly. But it unnerved him. She was a wild animal. Perhaps she didn’t have an “off” button if pushed too far. He thought now of the irony of her name: Little. Might have to change that.

  Peering up at a dull, humming resonance, a large, slowly moving swarm of bees, not an uncommon spectacle in the middle Miocene, was abuzz over the tree tops, making their leisurely way to a new home. Tom gaped until they passed from view.

  At evening, they bedded down under the sky, sans fire, still no sea in sight. He’d also not seen any sign of a path through the waterlogged land to their left. He wanted a wide one, not trusting an extended walk on a narrow trail through deep forest that might end at nothing. He thought that there had to be one, and tried to push down an indefinable feeling of foreboding that creased his brow. Too, no signal from Julie for this long was worrying, but he consoled himself with the conviction that he was traveling in the right direction.

  The mosquitos were merciless that night, as were his dreams.

  The next morning was exquisite, cool breezes blowing away his fears. Bright blue sky framed by springgreen leaves and bright bird song. Were they meadowlarks or some extinct version? Tom wondered, smiling.

  The trees around them he photographed. Names came up that meant nothing to him. Lawson Cypress, Arborvitae, Fir, Malosma, Poplar, Bald Cypress and Sour Gum. Tom put the P.I. away when he found food. Sweet fruit, and farther out, avocados. Little was not happy about it, but she ate them anyway. Fasting was patently not in the Aelurodon vocabulary.

  He found a possible replacement for the split madrone. Manzanita was also attractively smooth-barked and ruddy colored, perhaps more so, and it appeared to be very hard. Problem was, unlike madrone, it was usually twisted and crooked. Finally, he found one that was passably linear. He took it with the handsaw and fashioned it, while they sat under an avocado tree in an open space.

  A woodpecker sounded. Tom, glancing up, happened to notice movement out of the corner of his eye. Casually, he looked that way to see a huge beast walking ponderously down a grassy bank on the far edge of the meadow. His eyes went wide. More than huge, it was gigantic. Another Aelurodon? Maybe. But this seemed bigger. Fetching the P.I. Tom stealthily snapped a picture. Amphicyon it said. Bear-dog. With its long legs he imagined that it could easily run down any potential prey. It looked to be made of solid muscle, and they rippled with its every burly step. Its mouth, open to aid in cooling and capturing scent, displayed four huge canine teeth. A born killer. It had to be four or five hundred pounds. Probably a male. Truly awe-inspiring. Thank goodness it hadn’t seen them. But then Little saw it. Her ears pricked, hackles raised and body stiffened. At first, simply staring, she then began to growl, a deep sonorous rumble from her chest. It was a vibration he felt. Tom dropped his food and threw his arms around her in case she was thinking to go after it. Surely if she were to fight such a giant she would be torn to pieces.

  “Easy, girl,” he whispered, swallowing hard. “Shhh.” He was fairly sure that his pistol wouldn’t stop that thing, should it charge.

  Little ceased growling, seemingly aware of the extreme danger, but kept her attention fully on the other. Tom knew that were he to give the word, or if she were to misunderstand a word, she would be off. Off to her death, that is. That couldn’t happen. He held on tighter, and together they watched the beast, as, lumbering, it disappeared into the far forest.

  An hour afterwards, though, an even more awe-inspiring, even more frightening sight met his eyes. He knew something was changing when he could see sky through the forest in front of him. When he could hear a sound of distant roaring and a wind began to penetrate and blow their way. Finally, coming out of that Miocene forest, he stepped bac
k, staggered at the sight.

  The inland sea! They’d made it! It was incredible! It was beauteous! He’d never, ever seen anything like it before, even in his dreams. There was nothing, nothing in his life that had ever, could ever prepare him for this, this immense expanse of blue water, which Julie variously called the San Joachin and Temblor Seas. Waves lapped gently on the shore in a soft lullaby. Birds dived into the waters, then reemerged and took flight again. Shearwaters and auks, gannets and albatrosses, avocets and a seagull-like bird, Fulmarus miocaenus. Another flock of these latter squabbled in high notes on the beach to his right over a dead sand crab.

  High in the sky, though, was a true wonder. Soaring slowly in wide, graceful circles, there were three of them, Osteodontornis, the Miocene king of birds. Tom shielded his eyes from the sun as he watched them, then they welled up and he dropped to his knees in the soft, warm sand. Little just stood, eyes half closed in the wind, and stared, solemnly, out at that giant ocean of blue.

  If anything could be described as beautiful, this was it, and in that moment something happened. The place struck a chord in him so deep he didn’t know it existed. An ancient, primeval note, one that said, This is home. This is where you were meant to be. And it all came together, everything he’d been feeling subconsciously. This world. This time. This is real. This is home. The lovely and the fearful. The easy and the hard.

  The hard. There was a problem. As ever. That quiet, meandering river on his left, he now discovered, was, in truth quite, quite wide — and deep, for it had, unknown to him as they’d trekked through the forest, been joined by others coming from those high Sierran mountains. Now it flowed heavily into that prehistoric inland sea, whitecaps on its tips.