“The other way,” laughed David, shoving his thumb in the opposite direction.
Wayne turned, embarrassed. “Yeah. Right.”
The others all stood, watching bemused, with hands on their hips as he walked into the forest on the other side of camp. The right direction.
They all hurried to collect their things and follow.
Timothy looked at Grandpa Jack questioningly. “What about the tents and stuff Grandpa Jack?”
“Oh, that’s ok, the porters will pack that up and load the ponies. They will pass us at about lunch time again today.”
“That hardly seems fair,” said Timothy, feeling embarrassed. Since they were little, they had all been taught to look after their own stuff and clean up after themselves.
“I understand your point Timothy, and I agree.” Grandpa Jack replied. “But for these guys, this is a job that pays well. And they would be embarrassed if you did it. Not to mention that then, maybe they wouldn’t be required and wouldn’t have a great job to help them provide for their families.”
“Ok, I understand. But I was hoping to learn how to do all of that,” he said quietly.
“I will talk to Tandin,” said Grandpa Jack. Maybe you can help pack up and travel with the horsemen today. Catch up with us at lunchtime?”
“That would be awesome Grandpa Jack, thank you so much.”
Grandpa Jack chatted briefly with Tandin and gave Timothy the thumbs up as he walked out of camp, catching up with Skye and David, who were the last to leave. As he caught up, David was munching a piece of Tibetan bread and trying to talk at the same time.
“What I need to tell you,” said David, addressing Skye and Grandpa Jack, “Is that Druk and I have reached the conclusion that we must work out who benefits from the extinction of Humanity. This is the key to understanding who still stands in our way. It may not be Humans.”
Skye and Grandpa Jack stopped and stood transfixed, looking at David as if he was talking a different language. He was about to speak again, when they both put up their hands to stop him talking while they processed that thought.
Together, they both said at the same time.
“They May Not Be Humans?”
Chapter 42
“Whoops,” said everyone.”
Timothy worked with Tandin’s eldest son, ‘Tandin’, to pack the inside of the cooking tent up and load all of the gear into bags that then got loaded onto the ponies.
Luckily, Tandin ‘junior’, spoke quite a bit of English, so they could chat as they worked. They started pulling pegs out of the ground to collapse the tent. Tandin showed him how to fold it just right, or it wouldn’t fit into its hessian sack.
This was the last bag to be loaded onto the ponies. Checking all of the loads one last time, Tandin senior talked quietly in the ear of the lead pony. This pony had a bright red crest of cloth tied into its forelock which he carried very proudly. After receiving his instructions and a gentle pat on the neck from the horse master, he led the other seven ponies onto the trail leading out of camp.
Tandin handed Timothy a chipped enamel mug full of steaming sweet tea and noticed that all the other men and boys were also enjoying one before following the ponies.
“Shouldn’t we be following the ponies?” asked Timothy, a little bit concerned that they would lose them in the thick forest. He took a long draught from his enamel mug.
Tandin junior replied to him. “My Father has given the lead pony his instructions Timothy. He knows the way and will not pass your family until we catch up with them later. Drink all of your tea, you are going to need the energy.”
Timothy looked at Tandin warily, “Why exactly will I need the energy?”
“Well,” Tandin responded a little cagily. “We give the ponies an hour head start, and then we run to catch up with them. My brothers and I use it as training. We want to get into the Bhutanese army, maybe special forces, we need to be very fit to be considered.”
Timothy just groaned. “Now I know why Grandpa Jack laughed when I said I wanted to help. He knew, didn’t he?”
“Oh Yeah, He knew. No doubt about it, I overheard Dad explaining it to him yesterday. Don’t worry though, we’ll go easy on you, today.”
Timothy looked at his half full cup of tea, it was now cool enough to finish the rest quickly. Before he did though, he thought of a question. “Yesterday, we only had black tea. Where did you get the milk?” He took another long draught.
“Oh, I milked one of the mares this morning. We usually just do that for ourselves as you westerners seem to react badly to the idea of it.”
Timothy involuntarily spat the contents from his mouth. It created a fine white spray that froze on contact with the air. “Sorry about that. I don’t have a problem with it, I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”
All the horsemen laughed uproariously at the joke. They all went on and on about it. Timothy felt like he had been played badly, but did his best to laugh along.
Tandin senior tapped him on the shoulder and passed him a small box. Timothy looked down at it and read, “Druk Brand, Milk Powder.” He looked up at Tandin who said, “Your Grandfather’s parcel arrived just before dawn.”
There was much laughter again and they all speculated about how Timothy was going to get them back for the practical joke, and how much fun that was going to be. Timothy couldn’t believe that they were actually looking forward to his revenge, and quietly said to himself that he wouldn’t let them down. He smiled a wry smile and suggested that maybe it was time to catch up to the ponies.
The enamel mugs were rinsed and stowed into one of the boys’ backpacks. They rattled and clanked against each other as he jogged off into the forest.
Timothy regarded himself as quite fit, he had played Aussie Rules football last season at home. That seemed like a long time ago now. As he broke into a jog, he realised that the older boys, while not taller than him, had a hard look about them. These were young mountain men who did this day in and day out. He hoped they went easy on him.
He slung his bed roll over his shoulder, same as the others, and followed them into the forest. He soon realised that this sort of running was very different. On the footy field, there was an even surface which you could rely on while you concentrated on the ball and the game. Here, the trail was made up of rocks and sticks and roots and holes. He had to watch every step and as a result he found it very hard to know where he was going. If Tandin hadn’t been sticking right with him, he would be lost very soon.
After about an hour, Tandin explained to him that it is much easier to run lightly from obstacle to obstacle. “Think about how a Snow Leopard would do this. Be light on your feet, and enjoy each obstacle and trail feature. Imagine them helping you rather than hindering you.”
Tandin senior was out in front with his youngest son. Tandin Junior was with Timothy, and the two middle sons, twins, were bringing up the rear.
A bit later, Timothy was able to look ahead for a short while as there was a smooth section of trail. They were making very good time, so much so, that he felt that they would catch up with the main group at any turn. He could see Tandin senior and the youngest son about fifty metres ahead. He saw Tandin reach with his right hand across to his left hip to grab something on the run.
He turned slightly to his right, never breaking stride and turned enough to make eye contact with Tandin junior. Unspoken words were exchanged between the two and suddenly Timothy could see a wicked looking curved knife in Tandin’s right hand. He gripped it overhand as he looked out to the right side of the trail as if he was preparing to defend himself.
Timothy saw a yellow and brown striped flash and the mighty roar of a Tiger as it leapt from the undergrowth. Tandin’s blade came up to meet the charge and the two became a tumbling blur as they both rolled off the left side of the track.
Tandin junior put on the gas to get there and help. Timothy noticed him drawing his own blade, just like his Father’s. There was yelling, screams, and roars
from up ahead.
Suddenly, hands grabbed Timothy from behind and dragged him to the bushes on the right side. A hand went over his mouth before he could yell out. But a calm voice let him know that it was the two twins.
They motioned for him to stay here, hidden. They drew their own blades and crept forward towards the fight, splitting up left and right.
Just as they did so, they saw the Tiger run roaring up the trail in the opposite direction, bleeding badly. Timothy and the two twins sprinted up to where the fight had been, fearing the worst.
They saw the two boys kneeling over their very bloody Father. Was that his blood, or the Tiger’s? He could hear a voice. It was Tandin Senior’s.
“Tiger’s are bloody cowards I tell you. Fight back and they don’t know what to do but run. BLOODY COWARD,” he yelled after the Tiger. “Help me up boys. Ok, I’ve got a few bad cuts here, there’s some cloths we can use for bandages in my bedroll. Wherever that is.” Blood was actively spurting from two of the cuts.
Timothy, realising that he was seeing arterial blood spurting, looked around for the bedroll and found it up in a nearby rhododendron tree. He unrolled it and extracted the dirty cloth from the bedroll. It looked like it had been used to wipe the sweat off the horses.
“We can’t use this, it’s filthy, you’ll get infected.” Said Timothy, very concerned.
Tandin replied, “Well it’s better to deal with infection later than to bleed to death now I suppose.” He passed out, hitting his head against the rocky ground.
Timothy ripped his shirt off. “Get compression on those wounds right now, just use your hands if you have to. I’ll cut this up into bandage strips.”
It took seven of Tandin’s sons’ eight hands to put pressure on every bloody cut to try stopping the blood loss. It felt like it wasn’t enough, but slowly, as Timothy replaced each hand with a tight bandage, the blood flow stopped.
Timothy started to shiver as the cold caught up with his cooling body. The adrenalin that had kicked in during the attack was wearing off.
Noticing this, Tandin junior started getting everyone’s blankets out, wrapping around their shoulders in turn.
“The last thing we need right now is for anyone else to go into shock,” Tandin said, looking down at his badly wounded Father, checking again that he was still breathing. Fortunately he was, just.
“I don’t understand why they attacked your Father, Tandin, this isn’t your fight. You were just helping us, they should have attacked me or the lead group with David in it.”
Tandin looked Timothy in the eye. “Maybe they did.”
They all looked at him shocked.
“Listen. This is our fight too you know,” Tandin said rather forcefully. “And believe me when I say that we will do anything to help. But I think they attacked us because they are trying to slow you down. Right now, they know that we have to make a decision to either get our Father to help, which would take all four of us to do that, or leave him to die and keep helping you.”
“Well, we don’t even need to think about that, do we? We get your Father to help, right away. It’s not even a question.” Timothy could feel an emotion that he had never experienced before. It was anger. But it was also tinged with grim determination. “You four will get your Father to help immediately, I will go on alone. The others can’t be that far ahead.”
“We have been here for nearly two hours Timothy. It will be dark soon. Yes, we need help, but there may be a smarter way. There is a house about an hour up the trail. Let’s cut two strong poles and use the blankets to make a stretcher. With five of us, that means we can rotate with one resting. Let’s get him to a warm fire as our first priority.
Within ten minutes, they laid Tandin senior on the stretcher with the two left over blankets, spare clothing and everyone’s shirts piled on top of him to try and keep him warm. The four sons lifted him up and slowly brought the pace up to a jog. Timothy tagged along behind, grim determination ensuring he kept up.
“Timothy, I notice you have a watch. Please time us for ten minutes rotation.” Said Tandin, taking control of the situation.
“No problems. Is there any help at this house up ahead?”
“No. The owners are our friends, but they have moved to Paro for the winter, the house will be empty, but there will be firewood and emergency food. The ponies will have caught up to your Grandfather and will stay with them until we catch up.
Just as they were about to stop after the first ten minutes to make the first porter rotation, they saw a big lump in the trail ahead. It was hard to make out what it was, as it was getting quite dim in the dark forest, deep in the valley.
As they got closer, they realised that it was a horse, one of the ponies. Its load was still attached and there was blood everywhere.
“The Tiger must have caught up with the team and attacked the trailing ponies,” said Tandin, kneeling over the still warm body of the pony. “Now I’m really angry guys.”
Timothy thought for a moment. “Don’t do anything rash Tandin, that’s what they want. Distract us from our mission. First task, get your Dad safe. Second task, do whatever the Tiger is trying to prevent us from doing.”
Tandin eyeballed Timothy, not sure if he could control the rage he was feeling towards the Tiger. It was one thing to attack us, but another thing all together to attack one of their animals. But he knew Timothy was right, focus on the first priority. “Let’s keep moving. I will take lead. Timothy, You’re on the porter gang, ten minutes, but this time we run, ok?”
No-one complained as they lifted the stretcher bearing Tandin senior, onto their shoulders. They jogged off along the rocky trail. How Tandin stayed on the stretcher during this rough ride Timothy would never know, as they could not all move smoothly together.
It was lucky they all took their shirts off, despite the cold, they were all sweating profusely. As the ten minute mark approached, Timothy couldn’t wait to stop, he was struggling, and his shoulder already ached terribly where the heavy pole was digging into it further with every jolt from the trail.
When they finally stopped for changeover, it dawned on Timothy that he wouldn’t actually be getting a rest, just a change of position. At least now his left shoulder would get to hurt enough to match his right. They jogged on.
After two more changes and a stumble from Timothy that sent the whole troupe, including the stretcher skidding along a muddy section of trail, they entered a clearing that housed a traditional Bhutanese stone home. There was smoke coming from the chimney and the rest of the ponies were grazing nervously around the fenced yard. They had been unloaded.
***
David, Skye, Flynn, Wayne, Lurch and Grandpa Jack were huddling around the meagre little fire with Pemma and Sonam when they heard the ponies whinny.
“Everyone out,” yelled Grandpa Jack. “The Tiger is back. Make as much noise as you can.”
They all went tearing down the stone steps that led from the rear of the house. They were yelling, screaming and banging a few pots that they had found in the kitchen.
Grandpa Jack was the picture of relief when he saw the five boys emerge from the forest. They all rushed over to help them with their load.
Timothy didn’t stop talking as he told them all what had happened. Grandpa Jack shushed him, “Tell us later, right now I want to get you all next to the fire and warm. Hypothermia will set in very quickly when you have been sweating in this temperature. When your body cools too quickly, you can go into shock. So, get your wet clothes off by the fire and we will find you all something else to wear while they dry. Your kit bags are in there as well. There is tea on the stove.
When Skye finally made it back inside, she needed somewhere else to look. There were five naked boys getting changed by the fire. Pema and Sonam laughed when they saw her embarrassment, “Come on Skye, come sit with us and you can look the other way if you prefer. We prefer the view from this direction.”
Skye noticed Grandpa Jack looking very worried,
huddled over Tandin senior. He had been moved to a bed that had been brought in by the fire. She ignored her Grandmothers, and went to see if she could help.
“He is moving in and out of consciousness. I suppose that’s a good thing. By the look of him, he has lost a lot of blood. We are at about three thousand six hundred metres altitude now, which isn’t good if you have lost blood.” He pointed towards two of the blood soaked bandages. “We are going to have to find something to stitch those with. Start searching the house for any sort of needle and thread.”
Skye sprung into action and at the same time connected telepathically to David.
“Still no luck,” David said. “I can’t connect to her. I have also tried getting a flashnet link to Priscilla, but there is no connection.”
Land Of The Thunder Dragon Page 22