The going was tortuous through the thick foliage, and it was made worse by Tormodis moving so slowly behind. It seemed the closer they got to the target the worse Tormodis got, often stumbling over his footsteps or losing strength in his legs. Several times he went back down into the sand only to be helped back up again by Roger or Mel. The first hour was brutal, and Daniel quickly realized they were going to need a rest. He found a small stand of palms close together near a flowing stream, and he halted the expedition. Mel understood his intent without a word spoken. Everyone was getting tired and drenched with sweat from the thick heat and humidity. Maybe a stop would do them well. He found an old fallen palm with a large trunk and sat down comfortably on it to take his moment of rest. Daniel sat down beside him propping his rifle against the trunk of the tree to his left. He was looking into the sky at the heavy canopy of foliage overhead. “This always reminds me of Florida,” he said.
The comment startled Mel. “I didn’t realize you’d been to Florida.”
“Oh, yes.” Daniel replied, “It was before we left for Kentucky the first time. I made a trip there to see for myself what the land was like. I did not like it. Ole Sam…” He paused, looking over at the pitiful looking heap of Tormodis lying prostrate in the sand with his wife cradling his head in her lap. “The Sam I know, he came along with us. What a time that was.”
Mel seemed amused by this. “You didn’t care for it?”
“No, no.” Daniel responded. “Not enough game. There was nothing for a man to do but turn sand. I have to have the open land and a place to hunt, Mel. Nothing satisfies me more. And the swamps they are treacherous. “
An even more amusing thought crossed Mel’s mind that he almost kept to himself. But, Mel was terrible at keeping things to himself, much to everyone else’s annoyance. “You didn’t get lost down there did you?” He blurted out.
“Lost?” Daniel scoffed, smiling. “I’ve never been lost. I’ve been bewildered a few days, but not lost.”
Mel laughed quietly and admired Daniel’s wit. The man was not the uneducated country backwoods illiterate that history had made him out to be. Once again, the real thing proved far more appealing and real than the one-dimensional character from countless hack biographies. It wasn’t the first time Mel encountered the difference between real and fiction and probably wouldn’t be the last. They sat for a little while in silence. The sun was still coming up over the island. It was very early morning on Guam which was an advantage. People would not be stirring around until a few hours later. Perhaps that would be enough time to get some more tracking done before it got too hot to continue.
“This is where it started for you is it not?” Daniel asked casually as if most people in his life had trouble with reality breaks that needed fixing.
“Yes.” Mel answered surprised. “How’d you know?”
Daniel looked about again. “The land presents answers to its mysteries in its own time. You just have to be listening and watching when it does. I will follow what it gives me.”
“Well, I hope it answers quickly before this thing gets out of hand further. There might be a lot of lives at stake, Daniel.” Mel opined.
Daniel stood up, his nervous energy getting the better of him. He grabbed his rifle and looked into the jungle. “I will scout a little for us while you rest. “ He told Mel. Before he could object to the plan, Daniel was already gone into the jungle, swallowed by the dense vegetation.
Mel muttered to himself, “I hope he doesn’t go and get bewildered.”
It took longer for Tormodis to regain his strength this time than it did when they first arrived. Mel watched him slowly come around, almost forcing his body to comply as if will alone was enough. By the time he was on his feet again, two hours had passed. Roger was oddly quiet through the whole episode, his eyes darting around like he was expecting someone. But, there was no sign of anyone, including Daniel Boone. Mel began to worry over Daniel’s whereabouts. He realized that he was one of the greatest trackers of all time, but the alien nature of the island may have been too much for him to deal with. And without him present, Mel wasn’t sure what their next move should be. He was beginning to debate in his mind whether they should go looking for Daniel when the great tracker suddenly reappeared through a thicket of bushes. He had a very stern look on his face like he was deep in concentration. “We have to go this way.” He indicated, pointing back to the way he had just come. “I have located the beginning.”
Mel stood up and relaxed his worry, stretching his stiff legs from being uncomfortably seated on the palm tree for so long. “Good then. Off we go.”
Tormodis looked at Margaret, who remained silent. Roger kept quiet. They all followed Daniel who led them further off into the jungle.
After several hours of beating their way through the thick jungle foliage, sweating from the heat and humidity, Daniel, finally stopped. He was watching the ground closely and occasionally stopped to inspect a plant or twig or a flower. Mel watched all of this in fascination. He was finally getting a chance to see the great man in action, although he hadn’t the slightest clue as to what Daniel was doing. When they came to a stop, he decided he would approach Daniel and ask some questions he was dying to know the answers to.
“Hey, um, Dan? I’ve got a question. Just curiosity.” Mel indicated
Daniel stood erect from where he had been inspecting the sand, his blue eyes almost twinkling with happiness. He propped himself up on his flintlock, and despite the heat and the pace they had been going and the sweat that was pouring out of his wet buckskin, he seemed very contented. “Yes?”
“Well, I was wondering about your tracking. I’ve been watching you, trying to figure it out. But, I can’t make anything out of what you’re doing.” Mel said, puzzled.
Daniel smiled. It wasn’t the first time someone had asked that question, and it never failed to amuse him. The idea of explaining his talent was, to him, like explaining why you sneeze or trying to describe an odor. It was nearly impossible to convey what came so naturally to him. He could teach the art of woodcraft, tracking an animal or a person. That was just a matter of looking for sign and knowing what it meant. But, this kind of tracking was different. He was looking for signs in reality and he had no more clue how he did it then did others. It was like a sense. It simply was, and it simply worked, and he understood what he gained from it so well that he was able to track parts of reality like a bloodhound. “Mel, have you ever followed a wisp of smoke from a campfire, watched where it floated in the sky?”
Mel seemed confused. “Sure,” He said confidently but apprehensively like he was being led into a moment of amusement at his expense.
Daniel leaned a little more on his long rifle. “It is easy to see the smoke for a time, is it not? You can see it in the air as it floats above?”
Mel’s confusion deepened. “Sure, most of the time, but then it disappears.”
Daniel’s smile broadened. “Yes! It does. But, do you think it is gone? How do you track the smoke after you can no longer see it?”
Mel thought for a moment, unsure. “Smell for it? Use your other senses?”
Boone seemed pleased with this answer. “Exactly! The other senses. There are more than just the ones in your head. The sign is always around you. You just have to know how to look for it. If a man moves from this place to that yonder, he will leave many signs along the way. It is also the same for the ages. When a time flows through a place, it leaves sign. What we are following is the passage of that time using another kind of sense.” It was the best analogy he could come up with, and he hoped it would suffice.
Mel narrowed his eyes in thought and gently nodded his head. He didn’t say anything for a few moments until finally his stern look gave way to his old nonchalant, carefree expression. “Sounds good. Lead on McDuff.”
The tracker seemed alarmed. “Who is this McDuff?”
“It’s just an expression. It means, please carry on and we’ll follow.” Mel explained.
“You have no idea, Dan.” Mel agreed and then they were off again.
After another ten minutes of working their way through the dense jungle foliage, the strain began to show on Tormodis’s face again. He and Margaret came to a stop near a large palm tree. He fell back against it, trying to use the trunk to hold himself up but his legs were too weak to take it, and he slid slowly down until he was seated in the short grass and sand. Margaret knelt down and looked in his face. He was pale, almost white; his breathing was labored, and his eyes were glazed over like he was about to slip into a coma. Daniel and Mel considered his plight and both debated in their minds what they should do. They were bound to a mission now, and that meant considerations for the wounded, sort of speak. But, what should be done.
Mel looked at Boone. “Maybe we should let him stay here? We don’t need him for anything do we?”
Daniel nodded. “Perhaps it would be best. He can recover while we finish the track. It is not much further. What say you, Sam?” He said analytically.
Tormodis, unable to speak now, waved his hand at them weakly trying to tell them to move on without him. Margaret agreed. “I’ll stay here with him. But, if he gets worse we may have to leave.”
“Understood. Roger, you coming?” Mel asked his twin brother.
Roger looked at him uncertainly. His eyes were filled with a dread that Mel had not seen before. He shook his head no like he was afraid.
“You okay, Rog?” Mel asked him, suddenly realizing that Roger’s quietness the whole time had not been because he had nothing to say but because he was suffering from some malady as well.
Roger shook his head no again.
He had never seen his brother this way before. There was something clearly wrong. The Nexus was probably playing havoc with his senses as well. Roger was a Seer after all and that meant that he was open to a lot of the reality streams at one time. Being near the center of reality might be a bit unnerving. “Just stay here. We’ll be back in no time.” Mel told him as a gentle breeze swept through the small area and sent the palm fronds and leaves flapping about unexpectedly. The breeze was a welcome from the heat, but it came from the mountains in front of them. Daniel turned towards it and raised his eyes.
“We must hurry. There is something in this breeze, something not right.” He spoke softly.
The breeze didn’t let up. It continued rolling down on the area as Daniel and Mel set out again, this time alone, in search of a quarry that could be as unpredictable as the local weather.
The two of them pushed through the jungle side by side now. But, the distance they traveled was wrong. They had walked for another hour but didn’t seem to be any further ahead. In fact, the distance they should have traveled by now would normally have put them across the mountains and into the northern part of the island. But, clearly the mountains still loomed up in the distance ahead of them. It was almost as if they were walking in place, despite the jungle that passed by them. Daniel took this in stride, making no comment or indicating any concern. Mel noticed that the breeze was getting heavier. They were walking directly into it now, and it was starting to become a nuisance. Daniel had to remove his hat before it blew away and Mel was shielding his eyes from little pieces of debris. It was as if someone or something was working against them the closer they got to their target. Mel tried to dismiss this thinking and he kept up pace with Daniel. Finally, ten minutes later, over an hour since they left the others behind, Daniel suddenly stopped. He planted the butt of his long rifle in the sand in front of him and held out his right hand, pointing ahead.
“We are here!” He had to shout above the noise of the wind and the foliage.
Mel looked out at where the tracker was pointing, but he couldn’t see anything other than jungle. “Are you sure? I don’t see anything!” Even Mel’s short hair was whipping about on his head.
“We are at the start! It is time to move into the streams from here! We follow where it goes to find the break!” Daniel explained.
“Okay, how do we do that?” Mel seemed confused. “I mean what do you normally do?”
Daniel looked ahead again and then back to Mel. “Usually, I am with Sam! He takes care of this part!”
“You mean he opens a port! Why didn’t you tell me? We should have brought him along!” Mel seemed agitated by this twist of events.
“No, he could do nothing for us here!” Daniel explained. “I do not think he is able! It has never been this bad before, and Sam is not usually affected by the Nexus this bad!”
“Blast!” Mel muttered, and he glanced down at his 9000. For the first time, he noticed that his go light was green. They were near an active port, but it wasn’t one created by the Company. This port source was strong, the strongest he had ever seen. He had taken one glance at Daniel before he decided to push the button. The result was something else he had never seen. The port did not form around them as it would normally. The light did not envelope them. Instead, the wind grew harsher, and about thirty yards in front of them a strange port began to open. It wasn’t the normal kind of port with the unpleasant flash of blinding light and the searing pain on your retinas. This was an opening, a void, and around it twirled a multitude of fractured pieces of reality like a broken mirror in a whirlpool, reflecting the images around them as they turned and tumbled in the force of the orbit and splitting the white light like a prism sending multiple colors in all directions. The wind seemed to be coming from the black opening. “What is that!? Have you seen it like this before?” Mel shouted, almost drowned by the torrential sound of the wind now. The trees were starting to bend, and larger pieces of debris were in the air.
“No!” The Tracker quickly replied. “Never this bad!”
“This is troublesome,” Mel said too low to hear.
Daniel smiled. “That is where we have to go!” He picked up his rifle and braced himself against the strong wind, waiting for Mel to move ahead.
“You’re kidding, right?!” Mel put his hand on top of his head, but he forgot he wasn’t wearing a hat.
Margaret’s concern grew as the wind around them began to pick up. She noticed her husband move in a short display of pain whenever the wind increased. She knew it wasn’t going to be much longer before they had to port out. Roger was crying now, mumbling and holding onto the trunk of a palm tree for protection from the myriad of things that were shooting through his mind like a thousand horrible movies flashed in two-second increments all at the same time. It was getting intolerable. If Tor blacked out, she would lose her only means of porting out. Action needed to be taken and soon. She stood up, unsure what she was looking for, and braced herself against the wind with a hand on the trunk of the palm. Just then a movement occurred around her like a ripple in the fabric of space. It looked like someone had shaken reality like a piece of thin foil. The image in front of them changed and seemed to compress in like space was trying to fit everything into smaller bits. The trees changed, the land changed and then she saw Mel and Daniel standing there about 35 yards away, looking back at her just as stunned as she was looking at them. In front of them, she noticed the multi-colored circle around a black hole center that was swirling in mid-air. She shielded her eyes with her hand as the wind picked up two-fold.
“What in the…?!” She yelled out.
Mel glanced quickly over at Boone, his expression twisted in sheer surprise, before turning back to Margaret in the distance. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted with all the strength of his lungs. “It’s bending space now!”
She couldn’t hear him and shrugged at him.
“It’s bending space! Get out of here! Get Roger and Tor out of here!” He waved at her.
She could tell by his gestures that it was time for them to go. She turned quickly back to her husband, prepared to get him up and ported out before it tore out his mind. But, she found him unconscio
us now and unable to respond no matter how furiously she shook him. She looked around desperately, then back to Mel and Daniel. Now the scene in front of her had changed once more. There seemed to be a hundred Mels and a hundred Daniels standing there together looking blankly at her. All of the Mels tried to shout at her one more time.
“Margaret!” They all said at the same time, completely incomprehensible.
She couldn’t hear them because of the loud wind being thrown out by the power of the sphere and the fact that so many Mels were all trying to talk at the same time.
“Margaret!” They all said again. This time, he seemed to notice the problem and he turned to his numerous doppelgangers standing around him and shouted. “Shut up! I’m trying to talk!” The other Mel’s shrugged their shoulders and flipped him off. He turned back to Margaret and shouted to her. “Get Roger out of here! Go back to Pete! He’s at the Emporium! Find Pete! He’ll know what to do next!”
“What!?” Margaret shouted back.
Mel’s shoulders fell, and he looked at her dejected. “Are you serious?” He said, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He looked around at his other selves. “Okay, how about a couple of you guys help me out here.” Once again he tried to speak to her above the sound of the wind and the energy. “Take Roger and get out of here!” 6 of them said together. It was loud enough to be heard.
“I’m trying! Sam’s out!” Margaret coupled her hands over her mouth to get enough volume.
None of the Mel’s acted like they understood. They just repeated: “Back to Pete! Look for the Emporium in Tumon! You’ll find him there! You’ll be safe there!” They shouted.
She bristled at him realizing how ridiculous this game was becoming. She decided to do something that she rarely ever did around other people. It was something meant only for Tormodis. No one else was supposed to know she could do it. That was what they had agreed upon in the beginning. She bent space around herself and Roger and her husband and instantly moved the three of them a mile and a half south of their previous location to the middle of an open field overlooking the calm blue ocean. The sky overhead was bright, clear and blue and the only breeze was the one coming from the soft turquoise waters. Margaret had a little ability of her own and had managed to keep it completely secret. She looked down at her husband who was opening his eyes now, his pain and his distress easing. “Time to go, Sam,” She said to him. Roger nodded silently beside them in agreement happy that his waking nightmare was over.
Rick Carter's First Big Adventure (Pete's Barbecue Book 1) Page 23