The Hunting Tree

by Ike Hamill

  “Ozzy? Did you do this?” he asked under his breath. The corner of his mouth turned up at his slight joke.

  Mike tossed aside his stick and picked up the first bat by its tiny hands. He spun the body to see the neck. He poked at the dry wound and wondered why no scavengers had picked up the easy carrion.

  Diseased, he thought.

  He dropped the bat and wiped his hands on his jeans. His curiosity won out and he stepped back so he could lower his head to examine the bats further. Spinning around the decapitated, desiccated corpses, he counted five animals and got an unexpected clue as to why nothing had carried them off. A breath of cool air flowed out from under the big rock. Mike noticed that the deep shadow continued much farther than he had first thought, and the air emanating from the deep shadow harbored a disgusting, malevolent odor.

  Mike pushed back frantically to get away from the smell. It was the stink of death mixed with an unidentifiable stench that made him think of evil, hate, and murder. He couldn’t imagine a crow or raccoon being hungry enough to ignore this smell for a free meal of dead bat.

  He backed away even farther, and sat on a low rock that faced the cave. From his new vantage point he noticed that the color of the rocks surrounding the cave entrance didn’t appear as bleached and dry as the rest of the clearing. One of the rocks had been flipped on its back, exposing its bottom—stained dark brown with moisture—to the sun.

  Mike stood and considered the possibilities: perhaps a bear had moved the rock, eaten the bats, and then crawled in the cave to die? Perhaps a rabid wolf? Either way, Mike found himself ready to get back to “The Ledges” trail, and back to his car.

  He turned away from the bats and the small cave and almost managed to miss the most interesting feature of the clearing. Just two paces further, Mike spotted a footprint in a patch of loose sand. In the lee of a rock, the details of the footprint were unsullied. He counted five toes, spread wide to distribute the considerable weight associated with such a giant imprint.

  Mike put his own foot down next to the print. Even with his shoes, the mark in the sand dwarfed Mike’s feet. Balancing carefully, Mike put his other foot directly in front of the first. The length from the print’s naked heel to toes reached past the arch of Mike’s second foot.

  He uttered a low, barely audible whistle and squatted next to the enormous footprint. He reached around to the back of his belt and unclipped his cell phone. He pressed the button on the side to activate the camera.

  “What the hell?” he asked. The phone’s display was black. None of the buttons had any effect.

  Batteries must be dead, he thought.

  Mike straightened up, clipped the phone back on his belt and took one last look at the giant footprint before the long hike back to his car.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Crooked Tree - 3141 B.C.

  CROOKED TREE WATCHED THE SKINNY MAN washing the animal skins in the shallow pool. The river took a sharp bend just downstream where it squeezed between tall rock walls. This natural dam created some still, but reasonably fresh, shallows where one local family liked to wash the skins of their fresh kills.

  The skinny man, Crooked Tree’s prey, stood no more than a hundred paces from where Dr. Mike, the failed paranormal researcher, would eventually splash cold water on his face, thousands of years in the future. Crooked Tree only cared about the future in terms of the next few moments; the ones leading to him culling his sickly man from the pack. Even at this distance, Crooked Tree could smell the man’s disease. It was the worst kind of sickness, passed down between generations and not affecting the person until he was already of breeding age, already passed on to his children. First, Crooked Tree would remove the source, and then he would be free to take out the man’s offspring. He might remove his wife as well, as she had not shown enough instinct to avoid this man’s poisoned seed.

  Crooked Tree tilted his massive frame, moving in rhythm with the waving trees and silently covering the distance to the busy man. He had studied this man from a distance for several days, noting his habits. The man routinely broke away from his family at night and found chores to do away from their camp so he wouldn’t wake them with his racking cough.

  Crooked Tree wasn’t surprised to find him washing in the middle of the night, but stopped halfway to his prey and sniffed the air. He smelled fear. This man washing his skins in the moonlight shouldn’t be fearful, at least not yet. Considering this development for several seconds, Crooked Tree realized the source of the man’s fear—this man must be a coward, afraid to die of his cough. With that explained, he resumed his stalk and drew to within a few paces.

  The skinny man stood up quickly—he must have sensed Crooked Tree’s presence—and spun around, wielding a short flint blade. Crooked Tree was stunned by the man’s defiance. Having judged this man a coward, he fully expected the man to run downstream or dive into the pool. He smiled in the moonlight and rose to his full height while spreading his arms wide.

  Thrusting his short blade towards the giant, the skinny man uttered a sharp “Yip,” to the night.

  Suddenly the forest exploded with noise. Faces emerged from the shallows of the river, spitting reed breathing-straws as they stood. From the forest floor, men materialized from the soft pine-needle carpet, scraping dirt from their eye sockets. Spinning his massive head, Crooked Tree gauged the team to include at least twenty attackers, carrying spears, knives, and clubs. They sported the colors and markings of several area families and consisted of the strongest and most skilled warriors of their clans. The circle tightened on Crooked Tree, cautiously, but deliberately.

  Crooked Tree lowered his torso, crouching, ready to spring on the first to reach him. The circle tightened their ranks until they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, just past Crooked Tree’s massive reach. The first attack whistled through the air and stung the side of his head, just behind his ear. He spun to see a man on a nearby rock, reloading his sling. The next jab hit his calf, and he spun back to see the retreating spear. He decided to waste no more time waiting.

  Crouching slightly closer to the ground, Crooked Tree exploded force through his thick legs and launched himself up and back. Another rock whistled by his face as he flew through the air, easily clearing the circle and landing behind a thick-muscled boy who carried a long sharpened bone. The young man spun to face Crooked Tree, leading with his weapon, but by the time he turned to face the giant, Crooked Tree connected with a single, skull-crushing blow. Crooked Tree ran north, along the river, hoping to break up the hunting party so he could kill them one-by-one without needing to cope with flying rocks. Several of the men whooped and gave chase.

  The river curved left, and as he followed it to the west, he sensed more men converging on his position. Crooked Tree stopped to asses their numbers. Clearly more men had joined the party; from the sound and smell, several dozen had formed a line and were sweeping through the woods.

  He considered the river behind him—it was deep and hard to cross, and he knew the legends as well as anyone: spirits couldn’t traverse running water. He would be swept away and disintegrated by the cleansing power of the river. He had no fear of death, but saw no point in testing the old wisdom. The men in front of him moved with no great skill. They sounded clumsy and haphazard. He knew their methods. They would have two lines, separated by enough distance so that if the first line was breached the second could collapse on the struggle. The men to the south were clearly well-trained and fearless. Crooked Tree decided to take his chances with the line in front. He found an appropriate tree: a tall oak with a full canopy of branches, high up the trunk. He executed another spectacular leap and grabbed the lowest branch, pulling himself up into the heights of the forest.

  Releasing a long, slow breath, Crooked Tree stopped breathing and slowed his heart. He waited.

  The inexperienced men of the front line crashed through the underbrush and jumped at every shadow. The forest rang with the occasional yip of a false sighting, quickly retracted by an
embarrassed man. They passed under his tree without detecting a trace of his presence.

  The second line moved with efficient silence. The men paused with each step, listening, looking, and sniffing the air. The two warriors who moved under the branches of Crooked Tree’s roost stopped and studied the ground. His launch had left rustled leaves and indentations in the ground.

  Crooked Tree didn’t wait for the men to complete their analysis. With his eyes shut and body nearly deactivated, he sensed their movements and whispered consultation. He pushed away from the trunk and plummeted to the ground, landing on his hands and feet just past their line. On either side of the tree the hunters whipped around. A spear flashed by Crooked Tree’s side. In one quick move, Crooked Tree spun and tore off through the woods, leaving the line of men yelling as they sprinted after him.

  Their cries called everyone to action.

  He moved away from the river at a pace which no man could match, but the hunters had numbers. Their well-positioned reinforcements swarmed from the south as another contingent cut off his escape to the north. His flight took him into the arms of the cliffs to the west. As Crooked Tree broke from the forest, he beheld the white cliffs, stark in the moonlight. A warm breeze cooled his skin and he sniffed its message. Not dozens, but hundreds of men swept up from the south.

  They must have summoned every family from either end of the long valley and all the way to the saltwater, he thought. His systematic killings in the past few months had finally prodded the families into action.

  Crooked Tree turned his head slowly and processed the information his ears reported. Aside from the cliffs, every avenue was cut off. He could try to fight his way through the line, but they might collapse on his position too quickly for him to escape. He bounded towards the cliffs and pulled himself up the vertical rock face gracefully and quickly. He had ascended halfway to the top before the first warriors burst from the tree line, into the clearing at the bottom of the rock face.

  Not all families shared the same language, so when the hunters spotted him climbing the rocks, they whooped and yipped. Those armed with slings sent missiles hurtling up at Crooked Tree, but his grip was strong and the rocks lacked any velocity by the time they reached him. Just a few arm-lengths from the top, the rocks stopped coming from below. He risked a glance down, expecting to see his pursuers defeated. Crooked Tree was surprised to see that they had all backed away to the edge of the woods—the clearing below was empty.

  A single man below cupped his hands around his mouth and uttered a high, lonesome “whoop” into the night. That’s when Crooked Tree heard the rustling above him. He understood at once: this had been their intention all along, to get him exposed on the rock face. He looked down and considered the consequence of attempting a jump. He had survived such a fall once, and that was before he’d been converted to a supernatural spirit, but he suspected that his powers had limits. Pulling himself up, he continued to climb and figured he would take his chances with whomever was meant to fight him at the top.

  The hunters had no intention of letting him summit the cliff. The whoop had been their signal to begin the avalanche. As he climbed, dozens of small rocks bounced off his shoulders and then the large boulders began to fall. He managed to pull himself close to the cliff face and avoid the first few tumbling boulders, but then he misjudged and a huge, sharp rock the size of a bear cub thumped his forehead. His hands and feet clung to the wall, but his body slumped away from the face and became an easy target for the falling rocks.

  Several seconds passed with Crooked Tree continuously pelted by rocks. He started to pull himself back up, getting renewed strength from his anger, when another heavy stone connected with his chest, ripping his right hand from the wall. He clamped his jaw shut as two of his claw-like fingernails were stripped from his fingers. He batted his hand back towards the cliff, trying to regain purchase, but before he could grip the cliff, another rock connected with his left wrist. Splitting in two, the radius bone tore through his skin and muscle. It jabbed out into the moonlight. His left hand fell from the wall and he spun as he fell.

  Crooked Tree thought about his brother as he tumbled through the cool night air.

  He landed flat, chest down, on the sharp rocks of the clearing. His massive body shook the ground as he hit and most of the hunters backed up a step reflexively. Several more stones, hurled from above, caught up with him. Pain ripped through his flesh—the first he’d felt since he had become a spirit. He laid still, trying to catch his breath, until the first spear drove into his thigh. His head came up and he spotted his potential salvation—one of the tumbling stones had knocked aside a rock, revealing a cave entrance. Pulling with his broken hands, he lost more fingernails and chunks of flesh to the sharp rocks. His legs dangled useless at the end of his torso, his spine shattered from the fall. Men emerged from the trees, screaming their bloodlust. Their spears reached him first.

  Crooked Tree reached the small mouth of the cave just as the first warrior landed on his back, trying to work his crude flint blade between Crooked Tree’s ribs. He thrust one mammoth arm backward, crushing the man’s chest and launching him towards the next two attackers. A loose rock fell on its own and took out three other men, missing Crooked Tree’s foot by a hand-length.

  The hole in the rocks was just high enough to accommodate his giant frame. Through the opening, the floor fell away, allowing Crooked Tree to fold his torso under and pull his legs through quickly. Facing out towards the entrance, he brought his bloody hand up in time to fend off the next attacker by crushing the warrior’s cheekbone back into his brain. The man fell limp, helping to seal the cave, but was pulled back by the next eager stalker. Crooked Tree found a rock that fit his fist and hurled it at the next man who appeared, silhouetted by the night sky.

  Spears came through next, one driving into his shoulder, but they did little to injure Crooked Tree and offered him more weapons for his defense. He jabbed through the opening, killing several more men before the attacks subsided. Crooked Tree cocked an ear towards the hole and found a flat rock, flecked with shiny mica, to reflect the moonlight around his cave. The burrow was small for his big body, and offered no other avenue for escape. Turning his attention back to himself, he gripped his left hand and pulled, tucking the sharp bone back into his skin. His teeth were clamped so tight that one of his molars cracked, but he didn’t utter a sound.

  He pulled himself slightly closer to the opening and heard the din of a large crowd, debating their course of action. Crooked Tree’s deliberation was short and easy. He would stay put, healing faster than the hunting party could imagine, and kill them one-by-one as they tried to attack.

  By the time the group made their next move, the night had worn thin. The moon had set, and the stars began to fade. Using his keen senses, he smelled their smoke. He wondered if they knew how nocturnal he had become; wondered if they were just waiting for the daylight to stage their final attack. Although it had been a while since Crooked Tree had been awake in the sunlight, he suspected it wasn’t impossible for him.

  The hunting party grew quiet just before their next move. Creeping feet approached and Crooked Tree readied himself for battle. Even without feasting on victims, he’d had time to heal. His legs mostly worked, although he wanted to avoid testing their power, and the bone of his left arm had nearly knit back together. He armed himself with a long spear and a heavy rock and kept his eyes trained on the opening.

  The next thing through the hole wasn’t a spear or a man, but a log. A smoldering log, giving off thick, acrid smoke rolled down through the opening and landed next to Crooked Tree’s hand. He picked it up to cast it back out, but it collided with two more logs coming in and all three rolled back into the hole. Soon his cave was thick with gray smoke and Crooked Tree couldn’t take a deep breath without coughing it back out. His cave grew dark; the men placed a large rock over his exit.

  Crooked Tree shoved the rock aside with one of the burning logs, but an instant later it w
as replaced with another boulder. He fought back and forth with the men trying to block the cave, but the smoke took its toll. Each stone blocked the hole a little more. The walls of his cave shook with the next rock they dropped into place. He imagined the size of a rock required to knock the dust from the walls and pictured dozens of men hefting it into place. Ready or not, he decided it was time to test his legs. Pulling in a thin lungful of air from the only crack in the wall that still smelled fresh, Crooked Tree braced his feet against the cave floor and pressed his shoulder into the obstruction. He felt it move, but not nearly enough. The most he could accomplish was to shift the rocks a few inches.

  The exertion spent the rest of his energy. Crooked Tree sunk to the floor of the cave and pulled shallow breaths by pressing his nose to the crack in the wall. Outside the cave, he heard the men piling on rock after rock, sealing him in with the smoky logs.

  He drifted into a trance, robbed of his consciousness and silently suffocating in his tomb.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Davey

  “USUALLY BY THE THIRD VISIT, my guests start to talk a little bit,” said John.

  John was the first adult Davey had met who insisted on being called by his first name. He had been impressed for about fifteen minutes, and then found the soft-spoken man both boring and irritating. John’s bald head was accented by a thin beard. Davey guessed that the little man would rather die before getting dirt under his fingernails or going to a hockey game.

  “How is school going, David?” asked John.

  Davey generally ignored the doctor’s statements, but he was too polite to not respond to a direct question.

  “Okay, I guess,” said Davey. He squirmed in the big leather chair.

  “I thought I heard that perhaps you had a bit of trouble this week,” stated John.