Nothing happens. There is no impact. I’m not lying on my back with a hungry sabre-toothed cat standing on my chest, drooling on my face. I open my eyes and lower the backpack. He is gone. I look behind me. He is standing, snarling at something I can’t see because of a group of trees and several huge bushes. Suddenly there is a roar and he backs up with the typical cat grace and a grizzly bear comes charging at him.
Holly shit to hell. I hide behind a tree and watch. The bear is bouncing and prancing up and down and back and forth on his front legs while letting out his “Get out of my face or I’ll rip you to shreds” growl. The cat is pacing slowly just out of range, keeping himself between the grizzly and me. Is he protecting me?
What I see from my viewpoint, and what the bear doesn’t see, is another sabre-toothed cat. It charges down the trail from behind him and leaps on his back. In a flash the grizzly is up on his hind legs, and for several seconds his roar fills the forest. I want to cover my ears and drop to my knees, or turn around and run like hell. Instead I white-knuckle the tree and remain mesmerized by the battle. He drops back to all fours, runs in my direction and then raises and roars again. The cat is hanging on, trying to engage his sabres into a killing, jugular vein bite. I think the bear is too big and the young cat’s sabres—he is about the same size and age as the first—are too small.
The bear roars once more and then drops to all fours and rolls onto his back. There is another roar—more like a scream—which comes from the cat who I expect isn’t going to be getting up very quickly. I am wrong. The bear is back on his feet without his rider and the two cats are now side-by-side, facing him down. I would guess that the bear outweighs each of the cats by a couple hundred pounds. I do not understand why one of them isn’t circling around behind him. Has he scared them? Do they know he is too much for them and now they’re going to face him down until he gives up and runs away, which is fine with me?
The grizzly is moving his head back and forth with no apparent intentions of retreating. The cats snarl and the huge bear opens his mouth big enough that my head could fit in, and roars. The cats don’t appear to be intimidated at all. And then there is papa, or uncle, or whatever sneaking through the trees, approaching the bear from the rear. This is why the little ones are staying together. They’re holding the grizzly’s attention until a more seasoned cat arrives on the scene. Now I see how small these two little cats really are. Papa easily outweighs the grizzly, and in my opinion, there will be no more contest.
I hold my breath. I don’t want the grizzly to die. I want to yell, “LOOK OUT!” but of course that would do nothing but put attention on me. Papa is taking his time, using stealth in his approach until he is less than twenty feet away. But he is not stealthy enough. Just as he rushes and leaps, the grizzly senses him and whips around, taking the huge cat head-on. Not only is the sabre-toothed cat an unheard of deadly challenge to this great king of the woods, but I’m sure the grizzly is more fierce than anything the sabre-toothed cats have tried to take down. Even the big animals, like buffalo and elk don’t put up a fight like the grizzly bear with claws that could rip his guts out in one swipe. The element of surprise is lost and now it is pure fight, a great advantage for the bear with his long-reach weapons. The big cat screams and rolls from the bear, blood gushing from his side. The two young cats rush in. The first takes a full force slam to the head from a fist full of grizzly claws. The second manages to sink a couple of sabres into the bear’s hindquarters before being knocked aside. He lands only a few feet from me. In a flash he is back on his feet. He approaches the bear but being alone now in the battle, he gets no closer than ten feet. The bear rushes at him and roars his anger, backing the cat against the tree behind which I now crouch. The tree shudders and bends as I sink to the ground with my hands against my ears. The roar is deafening, unending, and I know they are going to fight again and I will die in the middle of it.
And then it stops and all I hear is pounding and crashing. The tree is still shaking. I drop my hands and look up, and immediately realize that it is not the tree shaking. It is me.
The last I see of the grizzly is the brown of his coat as he disappears through the trees. The cats stand bleeding, watching him go, no desire to make chase, probably for the first time finding out what it’s like to get their butts whipped. I stay crouched, looking, hoping maybe they have forgotten about me. Whether they forgot me or not, I don’t know, but they seem to gather their collective tails and slowly walk down the slope. I am left alone, blessedly alone until I realize that Dad and Mom are yelling my name.
“Here!” I yell back. I push to my feet and lean against the tree. My legs, no, my entire body feels like it has run a marathon, or I was the one who fought off the grizzly.
“Becky!”
“Here!” I yell again and pick up my backpack. Dad bursts onto the battlefield, a big stick in his hand. I throw my arms around him and bury my face in his chest.
Chapter 49
Zach
“What the hell was going on?” I’m holding on to her with one hand, the club in my other, still shaking from the terrible fear that arose in me when I heard the grizzly. “It sounded like you were being attacked.”
“No, but I was nearly in the middle of it.” She pushes away from me and looks at the ground. I follow her eyes. There is blood and animal fur. “It was a bear and three Smilodons.”
Tanya stumbles in and looks at what we are looking at. “A what?”
“A grizzly bear and three sabre-toothed cats,” Becky says.
Tanya throws her arms around her. “Oh God! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I think they were protecting me.”
“What?”
“I’m okay, Mom. I need to breathe.” Tanya eases up but she doesn’t let loose. “I got tired and fell behind. It was like I couldn’t keep up anymore; I was exhausted. The next thing I knew I couldn’t see you guys and then I had a little sabre-toothed cat for a hiking partner.”
“A hiking partner?”
“Yeah, Mom. He scared me at first but then it was like he just wanted to follow along, like a dog. We were doing fine together until suddenly he rushes ahead of me and the next thing I know he’s challenging a grizzly bear, who I would have walked right into. It was like he was protecting me. And then there comes another cat who leaps on the grizzly’s back, but the cat is too small and the grizzly is huge and rolls on the cat and they both come up snarling.” Becky is starting to get excited, reliving the fight. Her hands are gesturing and her eyes are flashing. “Then the third, much bigger sabre-toothed cat arrives, but his sneak attack doesn’t work and he and the bear collide face on. The bears huge claws are quicker than the sabre teeth. The cat is dispatched away missing a couple of huge chunks of meat. The other two cats make a lunge but by this time the bear is really pissed and he makes mince meat of them as well, but not before receiving a good hefty bite to his hind leg. The way he ran out of here you’d have no idea he was injured, though. The cats looked a little more bedraggled though. The big one was really bleeding.”
I combine the sounds I heard with the scene she’s describing and it’s not at all hard to get the entire picture. “Where did they go?” I look in all directions. I see nothing.
“The bear ran up that way and the cats limped down that way.”
Matt shows up and she repeats it all to him with even more animation. When she stops we stand quietly looking around at the battlefield. “Let’s get going,” I finally say. This time we all stay together. Matt is in front and I’m in the rear. Altogether we span a line no longer than eight yards, and we move quicker than we have all day. When we get to the point where I realized Becky wasn’t with us, Matt says, “Two tenths of a mile.”
Two city blocks. I had been apprehensive about where we were going, wondering why we didn’t just head straight for the police. Then I remember why we didn’t do that, yet it all seems rather crazy running for our lives, or maybe running straight to your deaths. Still, I can
’t wait to get there, as if it is the source of all salvation; that all our problems will be over.
“One tenth of a mile.”
I look ahead but there is only trees, trees, and more trees.
“Three hundred fifty feet,” he says, “Straight ahead.”
The only thing straight ahead are still trees. We slow a little, all of us afraid of what we might find, unsure as to what we’re looking for.
“Two sixty-five.”
Still nothing.
“Two hundred.”
How far is two hundred feet? Two thirds of a football field. Okay. Maybe we can’t see that far yet with the forest in our way.
“One fifty.”
Anytime now, I’m sure.
“One hundred.”
“I don’t see anything,” Tanya complains.
“Probably just through these trees,” I tell her.
“Fifty feet.”
We enter a meadow.
“Thirty feet.”
A small meadow.
Matt stops and says, “Here.”
“Where?” Becky turns slowly. “Where, Matt?”
The meadow is about 70 or 80 feet in diameter surrounded on three sides by forest, on the fourth side by a mountain—well, not a mountain; more like a hill of solid rock.
“Here,” Matt repeats.
Becky snatches the GPS from his hand and starts pushing buttons. After a few minutes she says, “He’s right. This is P7. There’s nothing here. She must have made a mistake.”
“What about the entrance?” Tanya says.
We all look at her.
“That’s what she said. You should be able to find the entrance.”
“That’s right.” I remember her words now, spoken as more of an afterthought as though we would know what she was talking about. “‘You should be able to find the entrance with no problem,’ were her exact words.” We turn together toward the wall of rock.
“A cave or a tunnel,” Tanya says and we all step forward, spreading out.
“There is nothing here but rock,” Tanya says.
“Through the trees.” I look at Becky. “That’s what else she said. Through the trees.”
The only trees on this side of the meadow are three entangled Douglas firs with a base of white flowered bushes like we’ve seen throughout this trek. They seem to all be growing out of the base of the rock wall. We approach and surround it. “Wait,” I say and step up to the bushes and look for a way past. At first I don’t see anything and then suddenly there it is, on the far side. I push the bushes aside and slip under a six-foot rock overhang and find myself in an entryway to a cave. I step back out and wave the others in.
“It’s cold in here,” Tanya says as she enters. She crosses her arms and rubs her shoulders.
“And we’re still wet, Dad. Where’s the food? She said there would be food here.”
Becky’s right. There’s nothing. “You still have that flashlight, Matt?” He hands it to me. I step deeper into the cave and turn it on. The light is good for a few seconds and then it goes very dim. In a minute it is useless, but what I manage to see in the time it does give me light is absolutely nothing. I return to where I can see the girls and Matt silhouetted by daylight. “Maybe this isn’t it.”
“But it has to be,” Becky complains. “Maybe it’s farther in.”
“There’s no light. She can’t have assumed we’d have flashlights.”
“Maybe there’re torches or something we can light.”
I ignore Becky’s ridiculous comment.
“Oh! I have a flashlight.” Tanya digs around in her purse and comes up with her little penlight that operates off of one AAA battery. She places it in my hand. I remember buying three of them on Christmas Eve for everyone’s stockings. They do put out a good light, but . . . I choose not to criticize. It is, after all, better than Matt’s dead flashlight.
We’re all still wet except Matt, and I have to agree with Tanya. It’s cold in here. Someone needs to explore this cave a little further and logic says is should be Matt. “Why don’t you guys go out in the sun where it is warmer and I’ll look around some more?” I can’t say that I trust Matt. His mental state is anything but steady. “Matt. I’d like to have you with me but I don’t want them alone. It’d be a good idea if you stay with them.”
“Okay.”
“You can’t go alone.” Tanya’s voice is a combination of whine and directive.
“I’m not going to go very far, not with a little penlight.” She is shivering. “You’d better get out there before you go into hypothermia.”
“But. . .”
“There is no other reasonable alternative,” I say.
“We can wait,” she says. “We almost lost Reba because she got separated from us. I don’t want to take that same chance with you. You don’t know what’s in there. Could be another grizzly, or an entire sabre-toothed cat den.”
I can’t argue with her logic.
“We can go out and dry in the sun. She said she’d be only a couple of hours behind us. It took us at least an hour longer to get here than it should have so she may not be very long.”
I turn on the penlight and shine it into the throat of the cave. It disappears into darkness. “Okay.” I turn it off and start to lead out.
“Wait!” Becky walks in deeper. “What was that?”
“What was what?” I swing back around with the penlight.
“I saw something glint, like shiny metal.” I’m moving the light back and forth. “No. Up. Higher.
I move the light up and back and forth and then spot what she is talking about. What it is I have no idea, but it is definitely man-made. I shine the light to the floor and walk in that direction. Once I’m reasonably close I bring the light up. “It’s a lantern. Do you have those matches, Becky?”
“No. I left them.”
“I’ll bet there are matches there,” Tanya says. “If I was going to leave a lantern where I could get to it all the time, I’d leave matches with it. Not a lighter because that could run out of fuel too. Wooden matches in a waterproof container.”
“Well whoever left this here didn’t think about that. There’s just a lantern.” I hook my fingers around the silver-coated handle and lift the lantern from the shelf. As soon as I do a metal object rolls off the shelf and rattles to the floor with a clang.
“Was that the matches?” There is no amusement in her voice.
“How the hell do I know?” I get down on my hands and knees and poke the beam of the little flashlight here and there. It can’t have gone very far. The floor is dirt so it should have just stayed where it fell. But then it did sound like it hit something. I sit back on my feet and shine the light between my knees. There is a small flat stone. I stand and step back. It didn’t bounce very far. It was under my foot in the soft dirt.
“Got it.”
It takes me a minute of fumbling, part of it trying to find a place to strike the match while holding the penlight in my mouth. I eventually discover a striker pad imbedded in the bottom of the match container. The rest is easy and the cave comes dimly alive. “Let me look around a minute,” I say. There is a small vestibule to one side that goes no farther. To the other side is an opening that seems to keep on going. I follow it until I’m fairly certain of what it is and then return to where the girls are standing, still shivering. They had moved farther into the cave when the lantern came on. Matt is still just inside the entrance as if he is unwilling to go any farther.
“Remember when Aileen said not to leave the main passage?”
“Yes.” Tanya’s teeth are chattering.
“That’s what we have here. There’s a passage that leads somewhere. Obviously that’s where we’re supposed to go.”
“We’ve got to get warm and dry first,” Tanya whines. “I’m freezing.”
“Me too.” Becky does some jumping jacks.
“I agree. I’m thinking we could gather some wood and build a fire right here, in the cave.�
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“I’m all for that.” We all turn to head toward where Matt is standing, and then freeze.
“Matt,” Becky says softly. “Come here.”
He shakes his head.
“This is not an option, Matt,” I say, trying to copy Becky’s soft tone. “There is a sabre-toothed cat behind you.”
He slowly turns around and then backs toward us, away from the oversized feline standing under the tree which is our only exit. Becky steps forward and takes his hand. “It’s okay,” she says to him, but I think it is directed at all of us. “He’s our friend.”
“Then go up and shake his paw,” I say.
Becky starts to move forward as if to do so. “No!” Tanya says. “He was just kidding.”
“I know, but I bet I could, except that he’ll be too scared of me to let me get that close.”
“Please don’t!”
Although I sort of agree with Becky, I more agree with the logical thinking of her mother. “Let’s not take stupid chances.” Becky steps back.
“What do we do now?” Tanya takes my hand and grips it hard. Another cat appears just behind the first. “Are they going to let us out?”
When a third appears on the other side of the entrance I say, “I don’t think so.” He then moves around us, staying against the wall, eventually coming to the entrance to the passage. The first two step a little closer.
“They’re surrounding us.” Tanya’s voice has a tremor and her other hand grips my arm.
“No they’re not,” Becky says; “at least not with the intent of harming us. They want us to follow them.”
There is a dead silence while the rest of us chew on Becky’s observation; Tanya and I anyway. It seems that Matt has retreated to somewhere and, once again, Becky has pulled him under her wing.
Tanya shakes her head. “No. I don’t believe that. You read too much of that fantasy garbage. I think we need to hook together in a circle facing out and force our way out of here into the open. We’re trapped in here.” She grabs Matt’s free hand and pulls him close to her. Becky comes with him. Tanya’s choices are to either go crazy with fear or to take control. “Make the circle, damn it! Becky, go around and hook up with your dad. Don’t be stupid.”
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 67