“A trap! Then why are we going there?”
“Because it’s our only choice. As long as we know what he’s up to, we can counter-move and hold him to a check instead of a checkmate. We’ve got to keep moving. If he realizes we’re up to his plan, he may change tactics, maybe get more aggressive. We need those rocks, and we need them badly. We also need the firewood. With that maybe we can win a stalemate.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Me too, I think. “We’re going to have some great tales for our grandchildren, along with pictures.” There’s a piece of my brain that keeps saying over and over in a little girl voice, ‘I want my daddy. . . I want my daddy.’ I have to keep pushing it away because there is a fear in me that I’ll turn into that little eight-year old girl and sit down on the ground and cry . . .
. . . and then die.
“Here is what I think they’re doing. As soon as we get to the opening to the rocks, Joey and Billy, as well as Ike himself maybe, will gather together side-by-side to face us, expecting that both of us will turn to face them. Very logical, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Meanwhile Butch is circling around up to the meadow and is probably right now preparing to enter the rocks from the other end.”
“Oh!” Matt’s light bulb goes on.
“He’ll take us down with both of our backs turned.”
“We stay back to back.”
“Right. Once we’re inside, there is one room, about the size of a small bedroom, where we can sit down. It is like a cave except there are openings above that let in light. It has one narrow entry, so narrow that we’ll have to take our packs off to go in. It is definitely narrower than these guys shoulders. In case they have some team mates who are small enough to get in, we build a fire at the entrance.”
“For how long?” He’s seeing some validity to my rationalization, a possible way out.
“Until someone comes looking for us. Maybe your dad, who you can raise on your radio.”
“How much farther to go?”
“Twenty feet, and the way is completely clear. Ike has opened the trap.”
“I don’t like the sound of it that way.”
“He doesn’t yet know that it is a two-way trap. We will be trapped in, but they will be trapped out.” I glance at the ground around me. I’m facing only rocks right now as Joey has moved well around to my right, totally giving up the approach. “I’m going to pick up as much wood and twigs as I can reach. I know you have all three back there. Are you okay?”
I begin to worry when he doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, then, “I think so. Ike hasn’t moved. It’s only Joey and Billy who are following close.”
“I’m picking up wood now.” I wish I could get more, but there isn’t much within reach. I rip up a couple of handfuls of dry grass and stuff that into a pocket.
“This is weird,” Matt says.
“What?”
“Calling them by name.”
“It’s my way of keeping track of them and explaining my theory. I’ve got all the wood I can reach. Can you get some?”
“I’ll try.”
I wait and watch. I see nothing in the trees or the rocks. I’m sure that I could probably turn my back to the rocks and not have to worry. Ike has issued his orders, I’m sure, and Butch is waiting just inside, out of sight, probably drooling on the odors of deer and elk who have been making their beds in there. I do turn my head enough that I can see Matt from the corner of my eye. He’s trying to pick something up without looking down at it. He gets it and then stands up.
“Okay,” he says.
There is a long tree branch with bunches of dried up leaves on it. I’ve had my eye on it since the thought of a fire came to me. It is ten feet to the left of the rock entrance. “We’re going to move to my left a bit so we can reach a dead tree branch. If you can get your hand on it, you can drag it in behind us.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going there. Stay with me.” We angle sideways. Once close I say, “Okay. Let’s turn a bit so you can grab it. I’ll watch Joe and Bill.
Matt gets a hold of the branch and then we are standing side-by-side, slightly turned away from each other, our backs against the rocks. “Let’s do it,” he says. We shuffle to the entrance and I start in. Matt follows. We’re getting the knack of this defensive maneuvering.
“What’re they doing?” I ask.
“Exactly what you said. Ike is moving up with the other two.”
I’m moving slowly, not knowing when to expect to encounter Butch.
“They’re altogether now, watching us. Have you seen the other one yet?”
“No. We’re going to turn now and those guys are going to be out of sight.” It bothers me that I haven’t seen Butch yet. “Look up. He may be coming from the top. I’m heading for that bedroom-size cave I explored earlier. I’m sure that once in there, we’ll be safe. Right now my concern is that he could drop right down on us. All he would see is the top of our heads and that won’t keep him back.
“I don’t see anything. The others are out of sight now.”
“Let’s hurry.” We turn another bend and enter the largest chamber, and there is Butch. Even though I’ve been expecting him, I stop short and jump back, stifling a scream.
“What!” Matt’s voice is alarmed.
“Butch’s right here. He’s between us and the place I’m heading for.”
“He’ll move, right?”
“He’d better. Watch over our heads. Have any of them come in behind us yet?”
“One is poking his head around the corner and looking. I don’t think there is room for more than one. They’ll have to enter in single file.”
“I’ll bet one is going around to back up Butch. Ike is probably finding a way to get above us.” I take a deep breath. “I’m going to show Butch here that he can’t place us in check that easy.”
“Be careful.”
I laugh. “I’m about to charge at a sabre-toothed cat and you tell me to be careful. I have no idea what being careful entails.”
He laughs back. “Me neither.”
I take another deep breath, grit my teeth and run forward. Butch jumps back. The bundle of firewood in my arms shifts, falls, and then tangles in my feet and suddenly I’m pitching forward again, visualizing him pouncing on me before I can get my face turned back at him. Before it happens, though, he is already moving backwards, away from me and it is in that split second, before he regroups and realizes his advantage, that I am able to roll and scramble to my knees.
“What happened?” Matt’s voice is much louder than it needs to be.
“I fell. I’m fine. Butch has backed off. The way is clear now. I just need a second to gather the wood again and then get to my feet.” It is only fifteen feet to the opening into the cave. Instead of carrying the wood there, I throw it at the entrance one piece at a time. Butch watches each one with interest, as though he is a kitten ready to play. When I’m done, his eyes come back to me. I stand and say, “Okay. Let’s go.”
“Right behind you.”
I look to the top of the rocks, huge boulders standing up to two stories high. I don’t see Ike. “Look up,” I remind Matt.
“I am. Nothing.”
“Their plan has gone wrong so Ike is going to have to get more involved again, or they’re going to have to find dinner somewhere else.”
“That works for me.”
“I’m at the entrance now. I’m taking off my pack and going in.”
Without a word he drops the branch and his load of firewood, and then does the same. We both stand and look out from our safe habitat. Ike appears at the top of one of the boulders. With little concern for the height, he drops into the chamber we just vacated, and then suddenly all four sabre-toothed faces are looking in at us. “Ike looks a little pissed off,” I say. “I wonder how long it’ll be before they lose interest in us and go elsewhere for their dining delight?”
“I have n
o idea. We have a good ten hours before dark. Maybe our dads will come looking for us before then.”
“What if they do and the cats get them?”
We both go silent for a while after that. I crawl part way out and give our four wardens the evil eye. They run into each other backing up. I grab chunks of wood and pull it in to Matt, who stacks if off to one side. The tree limb is last. It takes up half the space. “Do we have enough to burn all night?”
“Not even close,” Matt says.
“We’ll have to go out and get more. There’s driftwood laying throughout these rocks.”
“Maybe some of them will go away later,” he says. “We can go out then.”
I pick up my camera and turn it on. I want to get pictures of the four of them. I bring the view finder to my eye and touch the shudder release lightly to focus. The motor whirls, but all I see is a blur. I look to see that it’s not in manual focus. I try again. It’s not working. I turn it off and back on, and then see the scratches and dirt. “Shit to hell!”
“What?” Matt asks.
“I broke my camera. It won’t focus.”
“Maybe it’s the batteries.”
“It’s got fresh batteries.” I hold it out to him. “Look at it. It happened when I fell. Those bastards made me break it.” I wanted to call them something much stronger, but Matt’s presence softens my tongue. “I love my camera. I took good care of it.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I switch to preview to see the shots that I’ve already taken. Everything is blurry. They could be pictures of dogs. The last good picture I took was of Matt’s back side as we walked down the trail. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” And then everything on my insides that has held together for the last . . . however long we faced down the sabre-toothed cats, comes apart, and I start crying. I can’t stop it, and I can’t hide it.
“It’s okay,” Matt says.
“No! It’s not okay!” I turn my back to him and then go sit down next to my pack. I put my camera in my lap, pull my knees up to my chest, and let myself cry.
Chapter 24
It’s five minutes before I get myself under control. Matt is fooling with his GPS radio, probably his way of not dealing with a sobbing female. I wipe my face as best I can and then pull my computer from my pack. I open the file called ZJ 2000—Zach’s Journal—and supply the password when asked. When I first stole it from Dad’s computer, I read a few pages. I was bored until he wrote about some other little girl he met on a plane with whom he recited Green Eggs and Ham. I was actually jealous. He hadn’t done Green Eggs and Ham with me, or Christi, for years. I know being jealous is stupid, but I still feel it a little. I skip that part and start where he arrived at Sans Sanssabre.
I wonder why Dad took the job? He was told so little, given hardly any instructions as to what they wanted him to do. I laugh at the snake that startled him when he first saw the three young sabre-toothed cats. Matt looks at me. I make my face serious and turn back to the journal.
When I get to the part about Aileen and the feelings Dad had for her, I want to shut it off, but my curiosity keeps me reading. I’m not as shocked as I could have been as I had already seen the gory details in Sam’s mind, but I am surprised that Dad had put it all in writing. He didn’t go through every erotic touch, or the actual act. This is only the R-rated version. Instead he wrote his feelings. “The bastard!”
“What?”
I look up at Matt. “Sorry. Thinking out loud.”
She was Aileen Bravelli. When did she become Samantha Sikorski, and why? Why didn’t she tell me she knew my father?
She’s a paleontologist! No wonder she knows so much. And it’s because of her that Smilodon was brought back to life. I keep on reading and find out that my mother showed up by surprise and caught the two of them in their affair. But it is a bad place, this Sans Sanssabre, and the three of them join together and plan an escape. It’s crazy—in a blizzard against a bunch of sabre-toothed cats. I learn that Matt and I did the exact right thing in facing them back-to-back. And then Mom goes nuts. I totally understand that happening. There is a fight between them in the blizzard and with cats surrounding them until . . .
“Holy shit to hell!”
“What?”
“Aileen, er . . .ah, Sam is supposed to be dead. They thought she was eaten by Smilodon.”
“What are you reading?”
“My dad’s private journal from when he was here eight years ago.”
“He lets you read his private journal?”
“Of course not. I stole it. Sam is not Sam. Her real name is Aileen Bravelli. The night that my dad lost his eye, my mother watched her getting carried off by a sabre-toothed cat.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know, but here it is.”
“Your dad also writes fiction. Are you sure that isn’t a novel he’s working on?”
I look at Matt. “I’m sure. Believe me, I’m sure. He wrote everything. My dad had an affair with Sam, which I learned about this morning, and it’s all right here in his words. Back then her name was Aileen.”
“How do you know that this Aileen is Sam? Maybe he had two affairs, or maybe he changed her name in the journal to protect her.”
“If I told you how I know, you wouldn’t believe me, so just leave it at that. Reading this I know why she changed her identity. What I don’t know is how she survived.”
“He doesn’t say?”
“Maybe he does. Let me finish it.” Matt gets up and looks out. I return to reading. Dad’s accounting of his recovery at Sans Sanssabre and then his ultimate escape with the help of Matt’s dad captures all my attention and I pay no further mind to Matt. When I finally reach the last word on the last page, I close the file and shutdown the computer. He didn’t say how Aileen survived, didn’t even hint that she might have survived. But he had to have known all along about Samantha Sikorski. Maybe they’ve been having a long distance affair. As soon as he got my letter he knew right where I was going because Sam had been talking to him about me.
Wow!
What would Mom do if she knew that coming up here to find me was a convenient excuse for Dad to have a sexual interlude with his girlfriend? What a crock! Did I screw up or what! He and Sam were probably jumping up and down for joy when I took off. “I was suckered.”
“You were what?”
“I was suckered into this trip. All this time I thought it was my idea to come to Montana. Instead Sam somehow talked me into it so that Dad would have an excuse to come see her.”
“He wrote that in there?”
“No. I’m smart enough to put all the clues together, though. He knew right where I was.”
“I don’t think he did.”
I glare at him. Who does he think he is to question me?
“He came to my dad to ask for advice on how to find you.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I was sitting right there with them this morning when your dad told us why he was here. He had no idea where to look. He was asking for help.”
“And you guys brought him right to me. So you were the ones talking to Sam. You gave me away.”
“No. We had no idea.” He sits down. “We took advantage of your dad being here. Sam was holding a meeting of the sabre organization and we thought it would be cool to bring the famous Sabre-toothed Zach along. It was just a couple of hours and then he would be on his way in search of you. Believe me, we were just as shocked as you and your dad when you came waltzing down those stairs.”
“And you’re probably lying through your teeth because men will do anything to protect their cheating kind.”
“What in the hell do you know about men? You’re only sixteen.”
“Seventeen!”
“Only kids have to defend their age.”
“Who froze like a statue out there to the point that a seventeen year old female had to take charge and get us out of trouble?”
“Who peed her pants?�
�
“You bastard!” I turn my back and hug my knees to my chest. Shit on you and go to hell!
Chapter 25
Zach
I’m not lost for very long. Just about the time I decide I’m going to have to turn around, or worse yet, dig for the map that’s in a jumble on the backseat, Highway 2 swings from near straight east to north. The mountains to the east look familiar. Less than five minutes later I see the broken down tractor, and then the red barn. Before long I’m heading east again on the gravel road. Soon it is just dirt, and then occasional ruts. I’m at half the speed of Brian. I’m a guy and I know I’m supposed to like this stuff . . . I sort of do, and I sort of don’t.
By the time I come to the gate I’m feeling very anxious about being gone for so long. And then something else occurs to me. My cell phone doesn’t work up here. Thus, neither does Becky’s. That means she must have made the call to her mom from Sam’s phone. Did Sam’s number show up on Tanya’s caller ID? Will she think to look? She thinks that Becky called from her cell phone. Maybe because Sam is private, she has her number blocked from caller ID, and maybe she’s unlisted in all the phone directories. Maybe Tanya will not be able to find her number, and maybe she will never have the opportunity to talk to the woman who nearly destroyed our marriage, the woman who is supposed to be dead.
A lot of maybes. And why am I so worried about Tanya finding out? It’s not as though I’ve done something I should feel guilty about. I’m being paranoid over nothing. I should call Tanya and level with her, tell her I’ll pull Becky out and bring her straight home. Simple as that. It’s just that it doesn’t feel that simple.
“The Spirit of Smilodon,” I say out loud as I open the gate sporting the three foot wrought iron letters SS, for Samantha Sikorski, and the sign that reads, ‘PRIVATE’. There is no mailbox. Do spirits have mailing addresses? I drive through and then close the gate. In another minute or two I’m looking across the Sikorski homestead. Do spirits live in huge mountain homes?
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 53