I hand her the knife and step back.
“You’re holding the knife and the rod at the wrong angles, and you’re jerking them together. Don’t force it so much. Go fast, but also go smooth and steady,” Biyu says as she crawls on her side to the fire. “Watch.”
In a single motion, the ferro rod spits a long, bright stream of sparks like a dragon. An edge of a potato chip smolders before turning orange. The orange spreads across the chip and into another. Then another. And another. In a few seconds, a flame appears and grows into the wood shavings. Those catch quickly and send fire up the teepee of sticks.
Once again, I’m left wondering whether there’s more to my client than what she told me originally. It’s not that a woman can’t figure out a ferro rod. It’s that she’s supposed to be a journalist covering…actually, I don’t know. That’s as far as we went in the conversation before she named her number. I sorely needed the cash, so I said yes before my better sense could talk me out of the job.
“Tell me something, Biyu,” I say as I load larger and larger sticks into the fire. “Why are we here anyway? You wanted to travel all this way to do what, take pictures of the trees?”
Biyu shuffles back to her nook against a boulder. With a grunt, she repositions her leg.
“I’ll tell you when we find it,” Biyu says.
“Maybe you could help me out, because I’m not sure I’ll know what it is when I find it. What is it?”
“That’s all for now,” Biyu says.
“All we have is time. Let’s talk,” I say.
“It’s not important. We need to rest. In the morning, that’s when we’ll start looking.”
“I don’t suppose those psychos with the rifles have anything to do with why we’re here, do they?” I say.
Biyu shakes her head. “I have no idea what they want.”
I turn to Fiddler and aim a thumb back toward Biyu. “You buying this?”
“All I know is she contacted me over the Internet. I wrote a blog post about The Pit a few years ago for a high school project. We had to write about a place we visited often growing up. The Pit was it. We never went down into it, though,” Fiddler says and nods to Biyu. “She only hired me to get her to The Pit, not into it.”
I hold off on adding more wood to the fire. It’s putting out a nice heat now.
Turning back to Biyu, I say, “So you traveled alone from China to a foreign country, hired two strangers, rented a mule and booked it to one of the most remote spots on the continent, and you won’t tell us why. Did I get that right?” I say.
I really need to figure this shit out before I agree to jobs.
“It’ll make sense soon,” Biyu says and closes her eyes.
“Yeah, it better,” I say. “I’m getting the three of us out of here alive, and I don’t plan on sticking around to find whatever it is. That’s my priority until you can explain why it is worth a bunch of psychos trying to kill us.”
“Soon,” Biyu says again.
“Sure. Soon,” I say.
We sit in silence around the fire and sense the sun going down. I make a crude drying rack next to the fire using branches and paracord from the bracelet. We strip off our wet clothes and hang them to dry, ignoring how awkward it makes us feel. Wet clothes equal hypothermia. We’ll stay warmer without them.
I pass the time by sharpening four-pointed spears for each of us. They start as regular spears fashioned from branches, but I make two vertical cuts to turn the single point into four. Next I slip small sticks into the gaps to hold the points open, then tie them in place using paracord.
“What’s this?” Fiddler says when I pass him one.
“It’s called a gig. Makes it easier to spear small animals. You see something come by tonight, don’t let it get away,” I say.
I pass Biyu a gig as well. That gives me time to check the wound on her calf. It’s not bleeding anymore, which is good, but I worry about it becoming infected. If I had just a little more water, I could clean the wound out completely and cauterize it with the knife. I’m not sure of the idea, though. Seems like something I’d see on TV, as Fiddler would say.
Biyu keeps the pressure on the wound by tying her makeshift bandage tightly against it. It’ll have to do for now. I give her a smile and roll some grapefruit-sized rocks up to the fire.
“I’ll take first watch,” I say after it’s apparent the other two won’t be up much longer. “When it gets too hard to stay awake, I’ll wake one of you up. Toss more wood on the fire if it’s low, but only use the big pieces that burn slowly. If you’re cold and the fire isn’t hot enough, grab one of these rocks. They’ll hold the heat in reserve, and they should get us through the night. We’ll keep the rotation going until the sun comes up. Deal?”
There’s no response. Despite the conditions, Biyu and Fiddler fall into a hard sleep.
I watch the stars to keep awake. They’re the greatest show on Earth, and out here the Milky Way lives up to its name. The white haze stretches from one horizon of The Pit to the other.
Leaning back against a boulder, I think about how minute my situation in The Pit is compared to the enormity of the universe. Somewhere out there are entire galaxies crashing into each other, black holes devouring reality itself, meteors ending planets’ chances at life, radiation broiling the fabric of space-time and giant red suns eating their young. Within all that chaos, Earth itself is locked in a sort of cosmic Pit all its own, dodging extinction at every turn of its axis. And in a weird way, maybe one brought on by the delirium of this awful day, I feel more connected to the dirt beneath my feet than ever before. That I’m alive and here at all is proof there’s a way forward despite the astronomical odds.
I stir the coals of the fire with the dull end of my gig, taking care that it doesn’t catch fire. My eyes blink twice to make sure I’m not still looking at the sky, because two stars the size of eyeballs stare back at me from behind a rocky monolith not 20 feet away.
11.
The eyes blink, one after the other. At first I think they’re fireflies flickering on and off. But those bugs don’t hover in place like these two lights.
Between the night, my exhaustion and dehydration, I can’t tell whether the eyes are human or animal. But they’re there, all right, just beyond the reach of the light from the fire, watching me wrap my fingers around the handle of the ESEE knife.
Coyote? Raccoon? Bear? Or maybe…Wendigo?
I stay put, watching and waiting. I’ve encountered enough wild animals on my adventures to know not to close the distance. That’s seen as a threat. Most animals are more curious than anything else. If they want to hurt you, they’ll let you know it.
I feel something cool tug at my bare ankle and slide up my leg. My mind pictures a tentacle stretching from the eyes to my leg in an attempt to drag me away from the fire. I instinctively jerk my leg backward in resistance, and a cold coil of pressure squeezes into the muscles of my calf.
I look down at my leg, but I can’t tell what’s going on. My mind’s stuck on this picture of a tentacle, so I swipe at the air beyond my leg. I should’ve just looked at my leg, but my brain isn’t firing on all cylinders.
When I stop wasting time thinking of tentacles, I can see what’s actually wrapped itself around me: a thick bullsnake, probably on the hunt for a mouse dinner. I recognize its green and black pattern immediately. Bullsnakes are common to this part of Minnesota, and unlike rattlesnakes, aren’t poisonous. That doesn’t mean they can’t be ornery bastards.
I glance back at the eyes beyond the fire, but they’re gone. My heartbeat says to panic, but for once today my nerves remain steady. I don’t want the bullsnake to think my leg is anything but a log until it’s too late, because I don’t see a snake. I see breakfast.
The snake gradually releases its grip and resumes sliding up my leg. I keep my hands steady and wait until I get a good look at its head. Once it comes into view, I make the kill in one quick motion. My left hand grabs the snake behind the head while my right decapi
tates it with the ESEE knife. Even after breaking down the branches, the blade is still sharp enough to give the snake the dignity of a painless death, although it takes a moment for both halves to realize what’s happened.
I place the snake’s body to the side and look for the eyes again. They’re back, and I swear they’re grinning at me in amusement, if that’s possible.
You think this is funny?
“What are you looking at, Wendigo?” I say to the eyes.
They blink once as if they’re surprised I can talk. Then they disappear. In my state, I’m still not sure if I imagined them the whole time.
It won’t be long before we all realize there’s nothing imaginary about them at all.
12.
Long Beard crawls out of his tent in the morning, cigarette at the ready. The first puff of the morning always tastes the best. Silent Man hands him a steaming cup of coffee and a fresh biscuit baked over the campfire.
Not many in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area can pack in as much gear as the three did. Then again, most people abide by the hard rule of no motorized vehicles inside the BWCA. Three ATVs draped in camouflage netting rest beside the oversized tents.
Long Beard thanks Silent Man for the breakfast before heading to the rim where Orange Face set up the infrared equipment.
“Well? What’d I miss last night?” Long Beard says.
Orange Face sips on the thermos of cold coffee that kept him going through the night. “I seen the damnedest thing. Picked up something big moving down there walking on two legs, but it wasn’t no slut chink and it wasn’t her two race traitor boyfriends neither.”
“Oh?” Long Beard says.
“I don’t know, dad. Maybe your stories about the Wendigo are true after all. Because what I saw, it didn’t look human. But at the same time, it did look like a human, too,” Orange Face says. “I wanted to pop it, but I figured I needed to run it by you first.”
Long Beard takes a drag from the cigarette. “That’ll teach you to doubt me, boy. You seen the Wendigo, tell you what. It’s down there, even if the whole world says it ain’t. We know the world can be wrong about lots of things. It just takes someone smart enough to see the truth.”
“Sort of like how the mud races are tearing down everything the white man built to make this world great. Everyone’s afraid of saying it, but it’s true,” Orange Face says. He points to the tattoo of the 14 on his wrist. “You raised me up to know better, and this here is a reminder of the 14 words: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Long Beard nods and says, “That’s why finding this stone is so important.”
Orange Face packs up the night vision equipment and shouts for more coffee from Silent Man. “Hurry it up. I can’t run on fumes all day.”
“You sure you don’t want some shut eye? You were up all night,” Long Beard says.
“I’ll be fine so long as the coffee keeps coming.”
Long Beard takes a step closer toward Orange Face. Looks into his tired eyes. “You’re not doing that dope, that speed shit, again, are you? The kikes running the government came up with that shit for a reason. It doesn’t belong in a white body.”
“Nah, dad, it ain’t like that anymore. Some stupid spic whore tricked me into using it one time, but that was it,” Orange Face says and looks away. He wonders how long the speed will last before he crashes. The trick is to ease into it. The coffee helps.
“Don’t blame me for asking. If you’d kept your dick inside pure pussy like I told you there wouldn’t be any issues. So now I have to ask, and I’ll keep asking no matter how old you get, because you’re my son,” Long Beard says. “This is why the races should live separately, if there are to be other races at all.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Orange Face says. “But trust me, dad. I’m running on coffee and coffee only. Promise.”
“Good. Best not break that promise like last time,” Long Beard says while Silent Man comes over with a refill for Orange Face’s thermos.
Bringing his sons together, Long Beard says, “Now listen up. Here’s how we’re going to keep an eye on those three shits down there.”
13.
Biyu and Fiddler survive the night well enough, although neither woke to relieve my watch. I’m irritated, but I couldn’t sleep anyway after seeing those eyes last night. I decide not to tell them about it after the first rays of sun appear. Instead I keep their focus on why I’m holding the bandana and the canteen.
“Good morning,” I say after peeling my dry lips apart. My muscles throb and the headache is back, two telltale signs of dehydration. “Anyone up for a nice, long drink of water?”
“And where do you plan on getting that? There a garden hose around here I missed?” Fiddler says.
His pale skin is even ashier than normal. Biyu isn’t looking too good, either. She struggles to keep her eyes open.
“It’s all around us,” I say.
“You’ve lost it,” Fiddler says.
“Not yet,” I say. “You know that old trick of trapping condensation into a cup beneath a hole in a tarp?”
“No.”
“Bear with me then. In summer months, the night’s cool temperatures condense water in the warm air into dewdrops that cover the ground. The idea with the cup and tarp is to guide the dew drops into the cup.”
“You lost me,” Fiddler says.
“Let him talk,” Biyu says.
“Think of The Pit as one giant cup, with the land around the rim as the tarp. We’re sitting in the middle of gallons and gallons of fresh dew,” I say and hold up the bandana. “All we have to do is get it before the sun burns it off.”
Fiddler rolls his eyes. “This is so stupid.”
Biyu reaches her hand up above her head and runs it down the side of the boulder. Her fingers drip with condensation. “He’s right. Chase, this is brilliant,” she says.
“I’ll mop up the dew with the bandana and wring it out into the canteen. Once it’s full, I’ll use the Steripen to disinfect the water for good measure. We’ll have plenty to drink, with enough left over to clean out that wound on your leg, Biyu,” I say.
Fiddler remains unconvinced until I fill the canteen up for the first time. Then he’s right there next to me, running his cotton socks along the boulders and squeezing them into the canteen. I don’t care that the socks are disgusting. They fill the canteen twice as fast.
We’re forced to venture outside the camp after drying the boulders nearby. The monoliths make our chore especially convenient, pooling the dew into fresh puddles at their bases.
We drink, joke and laugh from the giddiness hydration brings, then drink some more. Even Biyu finds the strength to help collect water, balancing herself with the gig. The shot of energy propels us back into our clothes, save for Biyu’s jeans, crusted dry overnight by the fire.
I rinse out Biyu’s wounded calf before passing the canteen to Fiddler to fill up again. It gives me a better look at the injury. Sure enough, the shot split her calf muscle open. Biyu stays quiet and avoids looking at it. She’s probably thinking the same thing I am.
She needs to get to a hospital before gangrene hits, and there’s only one way to buy her time.
“Do you want me to...?” I start to say.
Biyu cuts me off.“Just do it,” she says.
I bury the blade of the ESEE knife in a pile of the hottest coals left over from the fire. After letting the metal cook for a good 10 minutes, I wrap the wet bandana around the handle and look to Biyu. She closes her eyes and nods.
My eyes close as well as I lower the flat of the blade to Biyu’s calf. I hear a sizzle as the hot metal sears her wound shut. Anyone else would’ve screamed, but Biyu bites her lip and refuses to make a sound. It’s brutal, but it works the way I imagine it should. Time will tell whether it keeps infection away.
“That deserves some breakfast,” I say after wrapping the wound back up.
“What’s on the menu?” Biyu says.
I show her the snake before skinning it, gutting it and tossing a coil of meat whole onto the coals.
“Snake’s not so bad, so long as you don’t taste it,” I say, although I’m not sure about that. In my travels to faraway places, the cuisine varied from surprisingly passable to downright revolting. Snake is usually top tier in the bush, but I get the feeling this old bull will be gamey.
“I know. In China, snakes are like chicken in the States,” Biyu says. “Thank you, Chase. We’ll eat well.”
Fiddler seems less impressed after he returns with more wood. “Can’t we just eat the chips or the granola bar?” he says.
“The granola bar is our backup food should we eat every snake down here. The chips are our best fire starter in case it rains. Think of this bullsnake as a breakfast burrito inside an all-natural wrapper,” I say. “It’s no worse than what you’d get a gas station.”
“I don’t know. Are you sure it isn’t poisonous?” Fiddler says.
“I’ll take the first bite and let you know,” I say with a wink.
We let the snake cook in the coals for about 30 minutes per Biyu’s advice. She tells me it’s done when the flesh is firm. After giving it a poke, I fish the cooked snake out with the gig and rinse the coals away.
“You know, some foodie hipster somewhere would pay a lot of money for the privilege of eating this meal,” I say as I use the knife to portion the meat. “Lucky for us, we get to eat for free.”
I pile the meat onto the bandana before handing pieces out to Biyu and Fiddler. There must be a couple pounds here. Big snake.
Biyu dives right in before I can take the first bite I promised. After seeing how well it goes down, Fiddler and I follow suit.
It’s delicious. They say an appetite is the best seasoning, but the wonderful meat tastes like smoked chicken, only a little chewier. Water from the canteen washes it down nicely. Were it not for the psychos with the rifles, I could get used to this kind of living.
Chase Baker and the Vikings' Secret (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book 5) Page 4