Joseph Bruchac Page 3

  Sure enough, when I turned around to shoot a murderous glare at the snowball-throwing culprit, twenty feet behind us stood Pits. The fingers of his right hand were still splayed out from the act of throwing.

  “Oops,” he said.

  Pathetic, I thought. Even at that range he couldn’t hit what he was aiming for. And he’s no better at swinging a bat. Even though he’s three times as wide as Devo, Pits is half as athletic and twice as timid.

  “Want to eat?” Devo asked. Then, before anyone could answer, he added, “Race you!”

  As usual he yelled it back over his shoulder after he had gotten a flying head start. The three of us hit the door to the dining hall together.

  As I puzzled over the mystery meat that was making a halfhearted last stand between the two halves of a baked potato old enough to vote, Pits looked across the table at us.

  “Did that story Scoops was telling us about Grendel creep you guys out like it did me?” he said as he used his fork to shape his potatoes into a miniature mountain with a ski slope runing down its side. I took a mouthful of tie-dyed peas and carrots. “Mumph,” I said. It was all the answer he deserved after whacking me with that snowball.

  “Well,” Pits said, “it freaked me out. Made me feel like somebody or something was walking over my grave.”

  He flattened the ski slope and split the mountain in half with his spoon.

  Devo raised his eyebrows at me. I ignored him.

  “Shoot,” Pits said. “I know. I’m an idiot. Everything freaks me out. I wish I was like you, Armie. Scared of nothing and nobody. Shoot.”

  Shoot indeed, I thought.

  6

  RESEARCH

  A WEEK HAD PASSED since I’d first gazed down at the dark pond. A week since I had heard that voice that wasn’t a voice. A week since that fox had stepped in front of me. For seven days I had been trying hard not to think about what had happened, trying to tell myself I’d imagined it. As a result, it was all that I could think about. I was, indeed, creeped out.

  But where other, saner people run away from the things that scare them, can you guess what my brilliant strategy is? Right. Lower my head and charge.

  But I wasn’t quite that stupid. Even though I knew I had to go back there, I’d take it slow, scope out the situation. It was the weekend again, so I had plenty of time to do that.

  One weekend a month, if you hadn’t screwed up so badly that you got too many demerits, you were allowed to leave the campus overnight. You could visit family if they were close enough, go off to see friends, take in a concert, or do an overnight camping trip. You just had to be back in time for dinner on Sunday night.

  Though I wanted to, I couldn’t see my parents this weekend because they were both out of town. Mom was in Los Angeles at a Native American Litigators Conference and Dad was in Phoenix for a board meeting at the Heard Museum. I needed to talk with them, Mom especially, about all of this. But I couldn’t do it over the phone. I’ve never been able to talk about anything serious over the phone. In fact, I find it hard to use more than one syllable at a time in any phone conversation.

  Hi. ’Kay. Yup. Fine. No. Yeah. Bye.

  That’s typical of my half of a phone dialogue. I’m a little better at writing. And, yes, I do have a computer and I know how to send e-mail. Duh. But I couldn’t write about this. I tried, but after seeing the words “Hi Mom” appear on my screen, I realized I just couldn’t do it this way. Delete.

  And I needed to know more. So I decided to do some research.

  I gave Grayson my itinerary. I was going to hike the Long Ridge trail and spend the night in the lean-to below Bald Hill. I was a qualified winter camper, so he had no problem with that. Plus, like you might expect from someone working at North Mountain, he was a hiking nut.

  “You know, I’m a winter forty-sixer myself,” he said. “Just bagged my last mountaintop in January, Mount Marcy. Saved the tallest for the last. Maybe,” he added with a smile, “we can do a high peak together sometime.”

  “Yeah,” I said. But not this time.

  I put everything I needed into my pack. The winter sleeping bag, the flashlight, the thermos, my fire-making kit, an extra pair of thermal socks, food enough for three days, all the usual things. Last of all, hefting it in my hand before I did so, I hung my hatchet on my belt.

  I knew that they’d have one of the local rangers check later to see if I had actually signed in at the trailhead, so that was where I went first. From there it was a five-mile bushwhack across a series of ridges to get to where I was really headed.

  So, by midday, I found myself sitting on the hill above the dark pond, which lay so innocently below the cliff. After getting to within a half mile of it, I had begun to circle in.

  Not going in a straight line, I’d figured, would keep me from being caught again, make me aware of the fact that I was being called. I also took it slow, my eyes wide open, listening with my ears and my inner senses as well. I saw plenty of animal tracks at first, but the closer I got to the pond, the fewer footprints there were in the snow. I hadn’t felt that strange pull. I was almost disappointed.

  I kept an eye out for the fox. No sign. Not even a single fox track. But I wasn’t too surprised. I’d been lucky in more ways than one to see her that last time. Although everything was still covered deep with snow, the days were longer now. It was mid-March, the time when female foxes go into their dens to give birth. She was probably down in her hole, taking care of her new cubs. I’d passed one place that had looked to be a likely denning spot. It was a sandy ridge less than half a mile from the pond, but I hadn’t climbed it. I wanted to give her and her little ones some privacy.

  A nuthatch flew down and perched on the rim of my hat. I pulled some sunflower seeds out of my breast pocket and held out my hand. The nuthatch jumped down and started pecking, hitting my palm twice for every time it hit the seeds. Then a chickadee came fluttering in and I had to dig out more seeds and hold out my other hand. Otherwise they would have been squabbling with each other. Birds can be such a pain. Although it did make me feel a little better to have them as company.

  Everything was quiet in the valley below. Probably too quiet. But what did I expect? Something out of Jurassic Park to smash its head up through the ice and come howling up the slope gnashing foot-long fangs? An active imagination is not always your friend. Maybe I was just being too sensitive. Maybe I really was just imagining it all. However, the fact remained that I’d learned a few things as I’d grown older.

  One was something that the Shawnees have always known. There are lots of things that can kill you. This world really is a dangerous place. To be so afraid that you cannot live your life is dumb. But to be so unaware that you stumble into danger like a rabbit blundering into a snare is even dumber.

  So I sat on that hill looking down on the dark pond. If I waited long enough, I thought, I would see something.

  I was right.

  7

  WATCHING

  IF YOU CAN SIT still in the forest, you can become invisible. Make your mind calm as well as your body and you become part of the landscape, one with the trees and the hills. That is part of our old Shawnee way. When we had to fight, our enemies usually found it hard to find us if we didn’t want to be seen.

  The camouflage jacket I was wearing made it easier for me to blend in as I leaned back against the trunk of a big cedar tree whose overhanging branches reached almost down to the ground. There, in the mottled light and shade, even eyes that were only a stone’s throw away would find it hard to see me. Only a quick motion on my part or my scent could give me away.

  Animals know this way of becoming invisible even better than people. The moose have come back into the mountains around the school. They’re even bigger than cows. A moose can be six feet tall at the shoulder and some of them have horns on them the size of the front bumper on a Cadillac. But big as they are, not many people ever see a moose unless it decides to stroll out into the middle of the road.

 
; The place I had chosen to watch from was good in lots of ways. I had a clear view of the whole valley below, not just the pond but even the stone cliff that rose above it. Half a dozen trees clung to that cliff. The biggest of them, right on the top, was a tall old dead pine with jagged and broken branches. I was far enough away that the trees looked small as matchsticks. If anything moved in the snow-covered valley below, it should be easy for me to see it and far enough away for me to move to safety if it looked dangerous. I had made sure that there was a clear path behind me from my place of shelter.

  Always make sure you know your escape route. Dad told me that. Living between the Russians and Iranians on one side and the Turks on the other made every surviving Armenian a natural escape artist. Over the centuries Armenians had gotten really good at knowing the best escape routes. My dad’s great-grandfather was one of those who escaped the Turks back when they tried to wipe out the whole Armenian nation, about a century ago. They almost succeeded. Every year on April 24 we light a candle and think about the one and a half million other Armenians who didn’t escape in 1915.

  My hiding place was also well out of the wind. A lot of people don’t understand how important that is when you are outside in the winter. While the sun is shining, you may not notice the wind. But as soon as the sun goes behind a cloud, even a little wind can cut through you like a knife. Of course I had on the kind of warm clothing, layers of it, that would keep in my body heat. When you go to a school in the north country that emphasizes the outdoors, you can take it for granted that you’ll know how to dress warm, whether you’re a Shawnee or a Saudi Arabian.

  I drank a little of the hot cocoa in my thermos, stuck it under my coat, and pulled the wool ski mask back over my face so that only my eyes were exposed below the brim of my insulated cap. Then I watched. Without moving.

  As the sun moved across the sky it became clearer to me than ever before that there was an invisible line around the pond. Nothing seemed to come very close to it. I saw rabbits, red squirrels, a family of raccoons, several deer—and every one of them detoured around the pond. Even the little shrews steered clear of it. It wasn’t like learned behavior. It was as if they could see or smell or hear—or sense—something that warned them away like the yellow tape around a crime scene. It was creepy.

  None of those tracks led in, like before. I wondered why none of those animals had been drawn in. Had they wised up to the danger? Or was it just that whatever was there under the dark water wasn’t trying to draw anything in right now? Did it go to sleep after it ate, like a big snake? I didn’t have an answer. I just kept watching.

  The whole surface of the pond was no longer covered with ice as it had been when I first saw it that day with the fox. The southern edge was completely free of ice. Perhaps it was because the air was warmer or because the sun had been shining on the surface. Or it might have been because of springs bubbling up warmer water from far below. I had no way of knowing for sure, but it troubled me. It made me even more certain than I had been before that the fox had saved me—from falling through thin ice at the very least, if not from something worse that I didn’t want to think about.

  I kept watching. Eventually the deer came by again. There were five of them. A big one, the buck, was in front. They were gradually moving upslope, heading more or less in my direction. In all likelihood they’d find a place to bed down not far from where I was sitting.

  I looked back down at the pond. Quiet, too quiet. Something was going to happen. I could feel it. I just didn’t know what or when. I watched as the sun moved toward the western edge of the sky. As soon as it reached the tops of the trees, I decided, that would be it. Whether anything had happened or not, I would be out of there.

  True, I had prepared as if I was going to be there all night. Whenever I go into the woods, even for a short hike, I always bring with me the few things I need for a survival situation. Warm clothes, something to make fire, and a knife. I had cleared away the snow down to the earth. That was easy to do, for there wasn’t much snow under those overhanging cedar boughs, though it was at least two feet deep all around the tree. I had placed down a layer of dry birch bark gathered from trees by the trail as I walked along. Then I had built on top of it a little tipi shape of tinder and twigs and sticks. All I needed was a single match to make a quick fire.

  I had also gathered a good-size pile of dry wood, broken into two-foot lengths, and stacked it beside me. There was more than enough to feed a fire through a whole night. If you have ever tried to find dry wood in the forest, late at night in the winter without a flashlight, then you’ll understand why I did this almost as a matter of reflex.

  But all of that was just in case I was there overnight. Just in case. And that was one “just in case” I had no intention of experiencing. I’d never worried before about being alone in the woods at night. But this time was different. No way was I going to stay here after dark. Even though I felt warm and comfortable, I was leaving before dusk. I stared down into the valley at the pond. The sun edged down a little closer to the treetops, and I blinked my eyes, just once.

  When I opened them, there was nothing around me but darkness. A wave of panic washed over me. I had fallen asleep. I didn’t know how long I’d slept and I didn’t know how late it was, but the moon had not yet risen. I was alone in the darkness.

  Then I heard a sound and I knew I was not alone. Something large was moving in the brush right next to me.

  8

  THE SCREAM

  MY HEART WAS POUNDING. I felt as if my head was going to explode. Then I realized I was holding my breath. I let it out a little at a time then breathed in slowly, forcing my heart to slow down and my ears to listen. I closed my eyes. Trying to see was just confusing me. I needed to let my other senses speak to me before I did anything. When you get frightened in the dark, the worst thing you can do is act too fast, jump up, and start running blindly.

  Those who hunt in the dark count on that. Have you ever heard the long, eerie call of a horned owl suddenly coming out of the forest night? I love that sound, even when it startles me. But a mouse or a vole hiding in the leaves or a bird trying to sleep on a limb doesn’t love that sound. That call, so terrifyingly close, means death to them. It makes them jump or make some other quick motion that the owl can hear. Then, on silent wings, the owl swoops in with its claws spread out. Wham!

  So, with my eyes closed, I stayed still and listened. And the next sound that I heard, a soft snort and then the muffled thump of a hoof on the frozen earth, reassured me. Deer. The small herd of deer that I had seen downslope in the twilight had come to bed down around my cedar. It shouldn’t have been that big a surprise. The spot I’d chosen—shelter from the wind, low branches to browse—was a natural bedding area for deer.

  Even more than foxes, deer stay in one area of the forest. They must have been able to pick up my scent, because now I could smell them. But they knew I meant them no harm.

  The way they were moving around, though, showed that they were nervous. Deer don’t go on living for long if they lose that nervous edge. I tried not to think about the fact that they might have come up to huddle around me because there was more safety in numbers.

  I did think about lighting my fire, then decided not to. I was warm enough. The fire would bother the deer. Aside from dogs—and the occasional wolf who’s thinking about taking that same path his canine cousin took a million years ago when he came trotting in out of the darkness—humans seem to be the only big animals drawn in by a fire.

  Hester, another of the kids at the school, is from Australia. She told me that once when she and her da were camping in the outback, he told her to look out into the darkness beyond their campfire. Dozens of pairs of golden-green eyes were staring at them.

  “Dingos,” her father said. “No worries. Just lonely.”

  I settled back down against the tree. It was so late now I figured I would just stay the night. The hood of my parka was folded like a pillow behind my neck and I fel
l asleep again.

  Then I heard the scream.

  There isn’t any way to describe it with words. All I can say is that it ripped through the night like a flint blade slicing through skin. I banged my head back against the tree trunk so hard that I stunned myself for a moment. A bright flash of light sparked in front of my eyes like a shooting star. It stopped me from jumping up, even though every instinct in me told me to run.

  The scream came again. Louder and closer. Something thudded into me, knocking me back against the tree. It was breathing hard, trying to shove by me as its feet churned the earth. I covered my face with my arms to keep from being struck by the panicked deer’s hooves as it broke free and thrashed through the low branches of the cedar, trying to escape down the hill.

  There was still no moon and the night was dark, but I knew the deer could see better than I could. They were scattering, running panicked in every direction away from the old cedar. Breaking branches, tangling themselves up in saplings, falling, getting up again. The voices of all their ancestors were telling them what to do.

  Get away! Run, run! Get away!

  Some of them were making bleating noises, almost like sheep. They were scared out of their heads. So was I. But I was also remembering the lessons that both my mother and my father had taught me over the years.

  Don’t run until you know what danger you are running from. And where it is. Wait. Listen.

  A desperate cry came out of the night from farther down the slope. It wasn’t the same creature that had made those first screams. Then that cry was suddenly choked off.