by Nick Thacker
In front of these he found baskets made from the sinewy skins of animals, with lids fashioned from skin and bones. The leatherwork was remarkable, and he reached down to grab one. He examined it closer, handing the light to the doctor. Stamped into the sides and top of the basket were designs and symbols that he couldn’t interpret. They swirled around the edges, leaving no section of leather untouched.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. He twisted the top of the basket, finding the lid secured tightly, either by design or from years of rest. He gave the lid a harder twist and felt a pop.
The top of the basket came off, sending dust shooting through the air. He waved it away and dropped the lid to the ground.
He saw what was inside, and only then realized how heavy the basket was. He turned the basket upside down, emptying its contents onto the cave floor. Hundreds of silver coins sprinkled out, bouncing off the rock and rolling around.
“For the glory of...” The doctor said, his voice hoarse.
“I imagine this is the sort of thing we have come here for,” Nikolai said. He scooped up a handful of the silver coins and held them up to the light. “Do you recognize these?”
“No. I have never seen such a design.”
Upon the surface of each coin was a remarkably intricate design; either hand carved or stamped. It featured the bust of a native man, and Nikolai could even see the outline of a frown on his face. He was surrounded by what looked like fire, each wisp carefully measured and drawn.
He flipped it over in his hand. The back was a reflection of the front, with the same native man frowning up at them. The fire, however, was markedly absent from this side. In its place were swirls and lines, which looked to be framing the man in the center.
“Fire on one side, wind on the other,” Nikolai whispered. “A dichotomy. What could it represent?”
“What is in the other baskets?” the doctor asked. He reached for another, trying at first to lift it from the ground. The basket slid a few inches toward him but stayed on the floor. “I believe this one is considerably heavier, sir,” he said.
Nikolai reached down and twisted the lid free. He pushed the basket over with his right foot and watched as silver coins fell out. Reaching down, he could see that the same design as the other coins appeared on these as well.
“Doctor,” he said, “return and wake the men. Bring them here, and bring the satchels as well. There are at least twenty of these baskets spread throughout this room, and if each contains even a portion of what is in these first two, it should be more than enough to justify a return home.”
Nikolai wasn’t greedy, but he felt the stirrings of excitement growing in his chest. He would share this treasure with his men without question, but he needed to be sure of what he had found. He moved to the back of the cavern, now standing directly in front of the pile of skeletons. Reaching down, he lifted the lid on one of the baskets that had been placed close to the back.
More dust spread outward from the freshly opened container, and he blinked and waved it away with his free hand. He moved the torch down closer to the top of the basket and peered inside.
It was empty.
He frowned, and reached for the basket nearest it. He lifted the lid on this one as well.
Empty, save for a few small tools.
He considered calling the doctor back, but stopped himself. Why would they bury them here, he wondered. Why would they place a nearly empty basket next to a tribute to their deceased loved ones?
Had someone come before him? Someone who had found the baskets and emptied some of them? Again, it didn’t make sense. Anyone who had explored this came before them would certainly have emptied it of its treasures. They would not have left anything behind of value, and they wouldn’t have put the lids back on each basket.
But these two baskets were empty, right? He looked again, this time lifting one of the baskets to eye level and turning it. He could see the fine sinewy lines of the bottom, woven together and sewn shut. A few tools shifted at the bottom; what looked like a few small pipes, a bowl made of clay, and some other small sticks and rocks.
He coughed and realized for the first time how thick the dust in the air had become. Waving his hands, he backed away from the burial site. He coughed again, and this time, felt his lungs strain with the effort.
He turned away from the room and walked back upward until the cave ceiling closed in on him. He stepped out of it and into the small clearing. Night had fallen completely, and millions of stars peered down on him. He fell to his knees, trying to catch his breath. He sucked in air, forcing his lungs back open again. He struggled forward, then rolled onto his back in the snow. Nikolai calmed his thinking and shut his eyes.
Breathe. He willed himself to breathe, in and out, until he felt the dust clearing from his system. His breaths became normal and controlled.
Just then, he heard the footsteps of his men running toward the clearing. He stood and brushed the snow from his back. He lifted his head and walked towards the edge of the woods. “Have you retrieved the satchels?”
“We have, sir. Where is the cave?” The voice was Lev’s, the huge bear of a man tumbling out of the woods first. His eyes were wide, and his breath was heavy, pouring out of his mouth and nose in great bursts. Nikolai enjoyed the man’s company, as Lev was the only one among them who was as dedicated a naturalist and as knowledgeable as he. He bore scars on his face and body from a lifetime serving his homeland as a soldier and a woodsman.
Nikolai pointed behind him, and Lev nodded. The group, fifteen men in all, trotted by Nikolai and entered the small cave. Soon, three of them emerged with their satchels heavy, filled with the burden of the jingling coins. The ordeal took only thirty minutes, and they joined Nikolai in the clearing when they were finished. Only four of the baskets had been empty, including the two Nikolai had found.
If the men were jovial before, they were near ecstatic now. They knew their leader was a fair and honest man, and they would each get a good portion of the discovery. The primary cartographer among them, Roruk, began scratching some notes into a small notebook he had produced from his pocket. He measured the edges of the clearing, counting each step as he went and drawing them into this book.
When he finished, he nodded to Nikolai, and they returned to the main camp.
“We leave tomorrow,” Nikolai said as the other men gathered around. “We have added too much weight to continue the expedition for now, and it will be a burden already with the water and food we must carry with us.”
Cheers erupted around the fire, and the men broke into song. Nikolai wondered how men could be so merry without the aid of spirits and drink, but he did not stifle the mood.
He silently stepped away from the doctor and Lev and entered his tent. As the leader of this expedition, he shared it with no other man, and he enjoyed the privilege. He slipped off his parka and nestled onto his cot.
The noise around the campfire grew, but Nikolai could hardly hear it. He felt as if his mind was on fire, as if his head was being held above a pot of boiling water. He began to sweat, and his hands and arms began to itch. He struggled to stifle the burning sensation, and he almost considered calling out for the doctor’s aid. Before he could, however, he drifted into a welcome and deep sleep.
3
1704, Northwest Territory, Canada
Nikolai awoke the next morning to an odd sound.
Silence.
Pure, pristine winter silence. He recognized it immediately, as it brought him back to his youth. He had not heard the sound since they had left Russia, as moving with a group of almost thirty men guaranteed that every moment would be filled with some sound or another. It was as if the heavy layer of white powder surrounding the camp had sucked from the air every last sound wave. They were in a noiseless vacuum. Most men resisted this kind of silence, for it was more intense than any other. Nikolai would normally have welcomed it with a sharp sniff and a deep, satisfying sigh, but this morning should not have been so q
uiet.
He threw the blankets off and stood next to his cot. His head brushed the top pole of his tent as he walked forward and opened the flaps. The fire had long since diminished to cold ash, but wisps of charred dust rose through the gentle breeze, giving the appearance of smoke. The cluster of tents was situated in a circle around the fire, like spokes on a wagon wheel. His tent was the northernmost one, and separated from the others on each side by a few rows of trees. The tents were traditional, two vertical poles and a horizontal one resting atop them, with canvas stretched over it and staked into the ground at the corners. Each of the tents was immaculately placed, perfectly spaced, and set up to look exactly the same. His men were good men, Nikolai knew, and they cared deeply for these small details. He moved to his left, to the doctor’s tent.
“Doctor? Lev?” He called into the tent. He entered, finding the two men on each side of the tent still sleeping beneath mounds of blankets and furs. He kicked at the doctor’s cot with an unlaced boot and asked again.
Hearing nothing in return, Nikolai pulled the blankets from the man’s head. The outermost blanket, a thick woven fabric, caught on something, and he struggled to pull it down. After a more forceful tug, the blanket snapped back from the man’s head. Nikolai stumbled backward as he saw what lay in front of him. The flesh of the doctor’s face had been eaten away by a rash, red boils covering the surface of his skin. A portion of the skin on the poor man’s forehead had been stuck to the blanket, glued there by dried tissue and blood. The doctor’s eyes were open, but they were glazed over in death.
Nikolai instinctively lifted a hand to his mouth, struggling to hold back the vomit he felt rising in his throat. He pulled the blanket away completely, and found every inch of exposed skin on the doctor’s body covered in similar boils. He moved towards Lev’s cot and lifted his blanket as well.
More rash. More boils.
Lev had also passed sometime during the night. Both men lay peacefully in their blankets, looking upward at the ceiling of the tent with blank eyes. Nikolai moved away, closing the flap behind him. He looked down at his own hands and arms and noticed a rash had spread and thickened over most of his skin.
It was no longer itchy, but he felt the heat radiating from his skin on the places around his body that had been infected. Last night it was just his hands and arms, but now he felt it over his shoulders, neck, and upper back.
He checked two more tents, finding the same horrifying faces staring up at him in each one. All of his men — all twenty-seven of them — were dead.
He was the sole survivor in an expedition that was now thousands of miles away from home, in one of the remotest places known to man.
Another tree cracked in the distance, and he knew that winter was about to set in for good.
4
Present Day, Yellowstone National Park
Harvey “Ben” Bennett watched the end of his rifle peek through the small space between the two bushes. He readjusted his left knee, moving a rock to the side of the bush he had crushed under his jeans. He held the rifle steady, using a stray branch as a platform. He watched the scene through the end of the scope.
The grizzly was busy rummaging through the food from an overturned cooler in the clearing. The male, small for his age but no less dangerous, grunted in delight as he discovered bits of bacon and pancakes from that morning's breakfast.
The campers had long since fled, calling the main park line and complaining of a nuisance bear in the area. They were worried the bear would enter their camp and scare their kids, or worse.
Worried the bear would do what it was designed to do, Ben thought.
These types of campers were the worst kind. They left a mess, complained constantly, and ruined the sanctity of the ecosystem they'd stumbled into.
People treated camping like a luxury all-inclusive resort vacation. As if nature was designed specifically to please them. Ben hated them, almost as much as hated this part of his job.
Nuisance animals, everything from raccoons to grizzlies, were a major turnoff for visitors and tourists, and therefore a problem. People had no idea how to handle animals looking for an easy meal and tended to freak out and assume they were under attack rather than calmly leave the scene and find a ranger.
Ben slid a round into the chamber and took aim. He closed each eye in turn, checking the distance and trying to gauge where the bear would move next. His left eye provided him a view of the attached manometer as he peered through the scope, allowing him to adjust for pressure without losing sight of the target. The aluminum barrel and American Walnut stock felt warm in his hands; alive. It was a comfortable weapon, and Ben was satisfied with the department’s purchase of these relocation tools.
He watched the bear’s thick neck muscles throb as he tore off a chunk of cardboard from the pile of smelly trash he'd found.
That was the other thing Ben hated about these people. They had no intention of learning anything — how to cook, what to eat in the woods, how to find food — they just wanted the comforts of home in a temporary excursion from reality.
The bear straightened its neck slightly, and Ben suddenly caught a glimpse of his left eye.
The eye glistened with age, a sheen of gray sparkling in the corner.
Mo.
Ben recognized the grizzly from the other times he’d encountered it down here. He had helped a few crews move him only months ago last summer, and again two years prior to that.
Ben sighed, and focused on the air leaving his lungs. He sucked in a quick, small breath, and held it in. He counted to five and pulled the trigger.
The soft popping sound took him by surprise — it always did. The juxtaposition of the man-made machine he'd just fired was severely out of place in this pristine environment, and he was immediately remorseful.
The bear bristled and sat straighter, its back still to Ben. He turned slowly, his head lolling around as the tranquilizer began to take effect. Mo wouldn’t charge him. The projectile dart alone wouldn’t have alarmed the bear any more than if a small branch had fallen on him, but Ben knew the two milligrams of Etorphine and acepromazine maleate compound the dart had just injected into the side of the bear would be more than enough to drop it.
Ben waited, not wanting to alert the bear. Angering or exciting an animal just before they fell asleep would cause undue stress, and it may even put them in danger. After a few more seconds, the bear let out a low moan as it stood on its hind feet. It turned in a circle, unsteady on its feet, then fell back to the ground. The grizzly lay down on the damp leaves, and his head fell to the forest floor.
Ben waited a full minute, then stepped out of his hiding spot. He pushed through the bushes, not bothering to spread the brambles apart before he walked forward. He crossed the clearing and stood next to the animal.
"Sorry about that, Mo," he said softly. "Let's get you back up north again." He removed the small CO2 cartridge from under the barrel of the rifle and dropped it in his pocket. He crouched down and found the red feather-tipped dart protruding from the bear’s left flank.
The dart was expensive and reusable, and the department prohibited rangers from leaving them in the parks, even if they were damaged or destroyed.
Ben unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and rotated the knob at the top.
"This is Harvey Bennett," he said into the device. "I've got Mo dropped up here; requesting assistance to get him cleared."
The radio crackled, then came to life.
"Affirmative, Bennett, thanks. We're sending out a crew — tag the location and stand by for location verification."
Ben replaced the radio and removed his phone. He opened an app on the home screen and clicked around a few times, setting his current location into the device's memory, then turned on the GPS beacon.
Within minutes, a crew of four men and two women arrived at the campsite and began strapping the grizzly onto a board.
The rangers would move Mo to another area of the park with less human t
raffic. He would eventually wander down again, drawn to the enticing opportunity ignorant campers left him.
This was Mo's third repositioning, and Ben was worried it would be his last.
Don't come back down here, Mo, Ben willed the sleeping giant. I won't be able to help you out again.
5
The Chevy hiccuped over an invisible pothole in the road, and the aging suspension compensated with a clicking sound and a groan. Ben pulled the truck to the left, easing it back to the center of the small dirt road. He reached out instinctively and turned up the radio, the country song already blaring through the strained cabin speakers.
“You really don’t like to talk, do you?” Ben’s passenger yelled. The young man sitting to Ben’s right glanced over at him.
Ben kept his attention on the uneven road lying before them, not responding. Carlos Rivera turned back and looked out his side window. Over the past hour, Ben had hardly spoken, and what he had said was mainly instructive, telling Rivera to “call in to base” or “check Mo” in the truck bed. Rivera complied each time, but his offers to engage in conversation had been met with silence.
They drove on for another fifteen minutes, moving slowly over bumps and holes in the road. Finally, Ben pulled off the road and began guiding the truck over a small plain toward the edge of the forest. Behind it, a small mountain lifted itself from the flat ground, shadowed by Antler Peak to the north. As they drove, Ben took in the surroundings — it was beautiful, pristine. He took a deep breath and turned the radio back down.
“No, I don’t much care for talking,” he said. Rivera looked over and frowned as Ben continued. “I guess I always feel like I don’t know what to say. You’re a decent kid, Rivera. Thanks for helping out today.”