Taking the other half of the branch the dog had brought—this section was about three inches thick and five feet long—Stone put his weight on it and, pushing with all his arm strength, somehow rose up so he was standing. There, that’s better, Stone thought to himself, trying to trick himself into feeling positive. He looked around, up and down the river, then along the banks on each side and the towering mountain walls that formed the river valley, searching for a way out. The river, the sheer slopes, the raging foam, the early evening sky starting to lose its daytime luster, all possessed a certain dark beauty. But try as he might Martin Stone couldn’t see a single avenue of escape.
CHAPTER
Three
STONE hobbled around on his makeshift splint and crutch, testing out just how functional his leg was. And the answer was: not very. He felt as if he had been put through a meat grinder twice and then sewn back together again by somebody who had taken lessons from Dr. Frankenstein’s gardener. But the leg seemed to hold up, though a jolt of electricity ricocheted up and down his nervous system every time he put the slightest bit of weight on it. And the bleeding was slowing as a dark coagulation began forming on the outer skin.
The dog trotted happily along beside Stone. Now that Stone was up and about doubtless in no time he’d have them both out of there and off to a nice hot meal. No doubt about it. Already the canine, whose stomach was feeling quite empty after all the rescue operations, began visualizing meat and slabs of gravy-soaked bread, and saliva began flowing from between the opened jaws in a waterfall of anticipation.
“Come on dog, out of the way,” Stone said, mock smacking the creature with his hand for it kept walking right in front of him, making him half trip. He didn’t know what the hell kept rustling up a storm back in the thick but not very deep groves of trees. And he didn’t want to. Without his weapons—the pistols or the Bowie—he was a sitting duck, a sitting injured duck, that just about anything bigger than a groundhog wouldn’t have a hell of a lot of trouble taking out. The dog would have to be his defense and offense for the moment. And for one of the few times in their short but fiery relationship Stone was glad the animal was such a tough, brawling son of a bitch.
With Excaliber leading the way as a sort of furred minesweeper and Stone screaming out curses telling everything in the neighborhood with teeth or claws to get the fuck out of there, they made their way about ten yards into the dense thickets. Stone heard the sounds of things scuttling away a few yards off, but whatever was making the noise remained out of sight, which was just fine with Stone. The pit bull let out a little huff of air or a small growl every few seconds as its head turned back and forth surveying the shadows for danger.
Stone walked through the mini forest right up to the base of the mountain wall that loomed overhead. He didn’t even know what the hell he was looking for, but he sure wasn’t finding it. The rock peaks seemed impossibly high. Already Stone was starting to feel claustrophobic. He had to lean his head all the way back even to see the tops of the damned rock giants, which seemed to look down from all around him, laughing from their imperious heights. He was like a little squashed ant. And he knew it.
The ribbon of light overhead that was the sky began dimming like a bulb about to blow. A stiff wind suddenly spat down from the north, sweeping back and forth from mountain to mountain, sending leaves flying from each bank, depositing sheets of rotting vegetation into the churning liquid. Stone’s clothes were sopping wet and he knew that, with the temperature drop that would come when night fell, he was going to be one frozen human popsicle. Even his blood would harden like ice. Things weren’t exactly getting better. Stone searched himself again for the third time, praying that in his still dizzy state he’d overlooked something. But that wasn’t the case. There wasn’t a firemaking implement in his pockets. Not even a single match. And he wasn’t exactly the Boy Scout type. Besides, rubbing two sticks together for the next two hours would take every last bit of strength he had.
“When in Rome, do as the fucking Romans do,” Stone addressed the dog, as he sat down against a tree and began taking off his boots and pants, cutting up over the wounded leg to allow the splints to pull through. The dog rested on one side and watched with fascination as Stone stripped down buck naked. Not wearing clothes itself, it didn’t quite understand what they were, but it knew that the Chow Boy didn’t usually start ripping them off in the middle of nowhere. The canine once again began wondering about the sanity of its master with some apprehension.
“Oh fuck off, dog, don’t look at me like that,” Stone exclaimed, slapping his shirt out at the pit bull’s head. “Never seen a naked man before, for Christ’s sake?” Stone managed to remove all his garments from his battered body and, standing up, balancing on his green wood crutch, hung them on the low branches of a nearby white spruce. He looked around almost as if expecting a crowd to be watching this entire absurd procedure. But not a soul was out there except for the pit bull, which gave him a most curious glance.
“Pal, someday, if we ever get out of this, I’d like to get me an electric razor,” Stone said, addressing the canine with a waving finger. “And shave every last hair off that stinking body. Then we’ll see just who the hell smirks, and who slinks off like a snake in their nakedness.” As Stone spoke, gusting breezes came in with the cooling evening, and the clothes were whipped around in the air like store signs in a hurricane.
Stone sat down again taking deep breaths. It was pitiful how tired he was from just that much effort. He was beginning to feel like he was never going to get out. But Stone cursed himself for his pessimism. He knew he needed every bit of his willpower and a belief that he could get the hell out of all this, or he wouldn’t have a chance. As he undid the tourniquet around the leg to let the blood circulate through into the calf and foot, he thought how funny it was that the whole time he’d been out of the bunker, though he’d faced some tough bastards, he’d never really thought he was going to buy it. But now…. SHUT UP! SHUT UP! he commanded himself. He could almost see the major’s face hovering over the mists of the river, watching him, watching how Stone survived. If he survived. If he had what it took.
Stone had firmly decided that he wasn’t going to spend the night on the ground. He needed sleep so his body could heal even a little. But the idea of the various “Jaws” imitators out there nosing around his face wouldn’t be exactly conducive to hitting dreamland. He rose up after airing out the leg for a few minutes and surveyed the trees around him. One big old sucker that looked as if it had been growing since the Pleistocene had three branches arching out at just about ninety-degree angles from the trunk about ten feet up. It was perfect. Reaching it was another matter.
“Dog, I’m going to need your help again,” Stone said firmly, turning around. But the animal was already running off having a fine time of it. Stone didn’t appreciate the pit bull’s frolicking antics. A catastrophe was not the time or place to have fun. He’d have to talk to the mutt about that. The canine leaped around into the air, corkscrewing like some kind of deranged dolphin out of water. And then he raced back toward the river and went back into the water. You’d think the overactive beast would have had enough of the wet stuff after what they’d just been through, Stone thought with disgust. But as he saw a large silvery fish slither out of the animal’s grasp, he realized Excaliber was trying to scrounge up dinner.
“Good luck,” he snorted under his breath, having witnessed the animal’s fish-catching endeavors before. He turned back to the tree he hoped to sleep in. Well, he’d obviously have to do it all himself since the dog wasn’t going to be any help. Stark naked, somehow dragging back branches from the surrounding ground, Stone managed to get a bunch of them leaning against the tree so once he was up in it, he could just reach down, pull them up, and build a nice little condo in the sky. Simple, right? But then, as the wise man once said, “Theory is to reality, as dogs are to shit. That is, you step in it however much you try to avoid it.” Or something like that, though someh
ow he knew he’d gotten the saying a little mangled in translation.
He retrieved his clothes, which were actually wind dried, and spent a good half hour just getting them back on again. It was amazing, Stone realized as he struggled with even the simplest of tasks—like putting on his socks—how much one takes the most basic things for granted. Once he was fully dressed, Stone discovered that he couldn’t even get up the damn tree. It might as well have been Mt. Everest, for, as much as he leaped up at it, grabbed at it, and kicked at it, he just couldn’t get a grip.
At last he found a thick branch from among the ones he had gathered with enough smaller offshoots still on it that it created a crude ladder. Using this, he leaned up against the spruce, and scraping his arms and chest into reddened welts and bruises, somehow monkeyed his way up. He reached the three-branch intersection and, grabbing hold of a twisted piece of wood, pulled himself up. Breathing heavily, he surveyed the terrain around him with the first feeling of satisfaction he’d had since the whole fiasco began. At least he was safe for the night. Now he had to build his tree house.
Dragging up the long pieces of wood and lashing them together with some vines he had found was virtually impossible. There was room only for him up there, and manipulating the difficult-to-hold branches was frustrating.
“Oh Christ,” Stone said at last, completely exasperated, as he shoved the five pieces he’d pulled up back down to the ground, where they banged together with dull thuds. He lay back against the hard bank and tried to find a comfortable position, which was difficult. But after about five minutes, using his jacket as a mattress, he found something approximating comfort, if not actually being it. Scarcely had his muscles begun relaxing when he heard loud barking at the base of the tree. Stone glanced down to see the dog with a huge, still flapping fish at his feet, posing happily in front of his prey, one paw on the long, gasping mountain trout, like some tourist from the city here on summer vacation. The animal looked up expectantly.
“Good boy,” Stone laughed, as he felt his stomach growl. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d eaten. There had been supplies in the Harley—tins of chocolate, hard-bread, emergency rations for a few days. God, he’d give his right testicle for a fucking Spam sandwich right now. The pit bull grabbed hold of the big fish, its scales a silvery orange in the very last rays of the dying sun, which sank suddenly away like a drowning man beneath the waves of night. Excaliber gripped the fish firmly in his jaws and then crunched hard twice. The trout stopped moving. The dog leaned up against the side of the tree and held the fish up toward Stone, who was genuinely touched by the gesture.
“Son of a bitch, you are a decent little fucker, aren’t you,” Stone said, feeling a little misty-eyed that, though not a person in this whole fucked-up world seemed to like him (in fact most were trying to kill him), this one waterlogged mutt did care. “Thanks pal, I’m deeply touched,” Stone said, as the dog slid back down to the ground. “But not tonight. Without fire I don’t think I’d quite savor the taste of cold raw fish. But go ahead man, eat it up. Do your goldfish routine.”
The pit bull did not have to be told to eat. It ripped into the fish with a savage fury, taking down a good third of it with a single immense snap of its jaws. The chewing sounds, the bones crunching, the odor of fish that wafted up to Stone got to his stomach like a rocket. It just growled and growled even when he poked it and slapped at it to pipe down. All that he could see in his mind were steaks and fries, and all that was on the menu was ground-up raw fish. Yet the more Stone tried to deny it the hungrier he became. Sushi, he suddenly remembered eating Sushi in Denver. That was raw fish. It was sliced thin of course, and marinated in herbs and vinegar and God knew what weird Japanese ceremonial voodoo juice, and cut up with swords and chants. But still it was just plain ol’ raw fucking fish. Right?
Stone leaned over the tree and saw the pit bull preparing to launch itself at the main and meatier part of the fish, which it had been holding as the main course. “Hold it, you pig,” Stone screamed down, waving his hand to ward the dog off. The thought of even this wretched dinner vanishing forever into the furred mouth was beyond his ability to cope. And in his sudden fear of going mealless Stone misjudged a little. His hand slipped free from its branch and suddenly, like a meteor falling from the black heavens, he tumbled out of his perch.
“Shiiiiiiiitttt!” he managed to squeak out as the ground came up at him. Fortunately for Stone, the landing site of his greed-induced fall was a thick bush a good five feet high. He slammed into the thing stomach first and felt the whole piece of vegetation give and half topple over. But it held him. Not a piece of his body even touched the ground. Extricating himself from the scratching bush, another dozen or so red welts across his face and arms, Stone managed to stand on one leg, leaning against the tree.
“Don’t say a fucking word, dog,” Stone snarled as the pit bull stood back about six feet, its eyes wide in terror when it saw Stone hurtling down.
“We share, right? Share,” Stone said, leaning over and grabbing a whole eight-inch-long section of what looked like the tenderest part. He lifted the delicacy to his mouth and nearly gagged, for half-chewed fish, with dog saliva, dirt, and whatnot all over it was not the most pleasing thing he had ever had laid before him on a dining table. But his stomach made noises again, and Stone, vowing to have the damned thing removed if he ever had the chance, stuffed a big slab of fish into his mouth as if it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.
It tasted like shit. Exactly as he expected. How they turned this stuff into food was beyond his wildest imagination. For the cold, wet, salty mess in his mouth was more like something that should be vomited out rather than taken in. But after the first bite stayed down—even after a minute—Stone chewed desultory munches from the trout carcass. The pit bull seemed to be having the time of its life, chomping hard, then throwing bits of fish in the air and catching them, barking after each successful toss and catch, then looking over at Stone.
“Chill out,” Stone snarled. “I hate happy dogs. Didn’t I tell you that? So eat your fucking fish and look depressed, like I do.” The dog either didn’t or wouldn’t understand his words and just kept munching away making loud sounds of gratification every few seconds. Stone had eaten about a dozen or so careful slow bites to make sure he avoided the bones, when he heard it. It was very soft at first, just some branches snapping in the now darkened woods covered with a sheet of gray and black. Excaliber stopped his chewing too and stood straight up, his ears cocking up into radarlike dishes searching for the enemy.
They saw it at the same time—a large shape that loomed about forty yards off, up on its hind legs. And now he knew for sure that somebody up there hated his goddamned guts. It was a grizzly! A monster, a good ten feet as it stood up on legs the size of tree trunks. Black as midnight with a thick glistening coat. It sniffed at the air, its huge wet nose pumping in and out like a bellows. The fish—shit, the damned carnivore had smelled the meal. Stone threw the remnants of what he held in his hands down and leaped to his feet, grabbing at his walking stick. For an instant he looked toward the river, wondering if it might be the best avenue of escape. But the bear was already circling around in a slow curve, cutting off any such retreat. The son of a bitch had been bred for tens of thousands of years to know just what the hell it was doing and just how to catch, and kill, prey.
Excaliber began growling, his ears flattening back, fur bristling, but Stone called angrily to the dog as he backed away toward the tree he had been lying in. “Get over here, dog, over here, don’t even think about messing with that bastard or you’re pit bull stew—you hear me?” The pit bull, which had taken on dobermans, wolves, outlaws, even a lion, knew he was outclassed. This thing had to weigh a ton. It would be like attacking a tank. Backing off slowly, but growling like a motherfucker just to show the huge carnivore, now about twenty yards off and closing fast, that he could fight the overgrown teddy bear if he wanted to, Excaliber moved back until he was righ
t against the base of the tree.
“Now, come on,” Stone screamed as he fumblingly erected the makeshift ladder he had made for himself earlier. He scrambled up the branch commanding himself to stay calm. But his heart didn’t seem to want to listen as it pounded away inside.
Somehow, grunting with bursts of pain as he put any weight on the broken leg, Stone scrambled up the ladder and set himself on the ledge created by the conjoining branches of the tree. It wasn’t going to be high enough—he could see that even as he looked back down. The fucking bear could stand this high. But it would just have to do because Stone wasn’t going any higher.
“Come on, dog, dammit, jump, get up this thing,” Stone screamed, looking down to where the dog had gone into hunting posture, lining up the approaching grizzly with its three-pointed stance—tail, shoulders, and nose all lined up straight at the creature’s throat. The bear stopped for a minute as it came rumbling through the shrubbery about forty feet off. It stood up again to its full height. It was a monster. The ears of the beast were almost level with Stone, and suddenly his little tree house seemed like a joke.
As Excaliber saw the thing stand up, whatever vague thoughts the dog had been harboring about taking on the beast in a one-on-one quickly vanished like so many bloody bubbles in the wind. It turned and tore up the branch, scrambling along it like a monkey. Stone helped the dog get aboard on the juncture and kicked the ladder away—not that the bear needed it. He reached around behind him and found the stick he had left before, a good stout green thing about three inches thick and five feet or so long. It looked like a toothpick in his hands as his eyes caught the carnivore coming through the rye. The bear at first seemed more interested in the fish that had been left behind, perhaps knowing that its two treed friends weren’t booking any flights to Hong Kong. It hardly bothered to look up at them, but nosed around in the dirt, snorting up pieces of trout and gulping them down in big bites without even chewing. Stone gulped as well, and heard Excaliber making a funny sound deep in his throat.
The Cutthroat Cannibals Page 3