Chapter 2: It's Just a Boar, Sawyer

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold, but it tastes pretty sweet served hot off the buffet table, too. That's what occurred to Sawyer as he searched through thick jungle for the tree frog which had disturbed his sleep for the past few nights. Even though it was only mid-morning, the day promised to be a real scorcher.

In a woodsy clearing, Sawyer almost stumbled over Hugo, who was crouched like a troll over a jar of Dharma ranch dressing. What an idiot, hiding food in the jungle, Sawyer thought. Like nobody's never going to find out.

It sure would be fun to make the big dummy squirm. So Sawyer circled Hugo like a cat closing in for the kill and demanded to know whether he had seen that noisy bastard of a frog, because by God, if he caught it, he was going to kill that little son-of-a-bitch. Then at the sight of gooey white ranch dressing dripping off Hugo's hand, Sawyer burst into ragged, humorless laughter.

Man, the big guy was touchy about getting caught with all this food, hollering like a genuine head case. There was something so pathetic about Hugo, though, that Sawyer stopped his own rant. Appeal softened his perspiring, twisted face, and he started to plead. "Hurley, you gotta help me. I got no sleep for three days now, and my arm hurts like a vindictive bitch, even with Jack's pills. Look, goddamnit, I won't tell, if you just show me where that little cheeping son-of-a-bitch went. So I can get some sleep."

All at once Hugo relented, but he didn't look happy about it. So the two of them set off into the jungle.

Where the hell were they, anyway? Sawyer didn't recognize any of the surrounding forest. Kate was right when she said that he couldn't follow a trail even if it was laid out in front of him like an airport runway. He and Sasquatch were heading right into the peeper-creeper heart of darkness, but Sawyer was too mad to worry about finding his way back to the sand-filled shelter he called home.

As morning changed to noon-time and the air shimmered with sunlight, as the day grew hotter and the jungle thicker, the appeal in Sawyer's face faded. "Where the hell we going, Pork-pie?"

Hugo didn't answer him, just kept plowing through the jungle like a human tank.

There was that damn chirping again, loud as a Fourth of July one-frog ragtime band, and Hugo ran towards it. The jungle floor must've had it in for the big lummox, though, as it caught his oversized feet and catapulted him to the ground with an "Oof" and a mighty thud.

In a slow-motion miracle, the shiny green and black tree frog leapt right across Sawyer's field of vision. He reached for it, and damn if it didn't seem like the little bastard wanted to be caught. The tree frog wiggled as Sawyer's hand closed around it. Now Sawyer was going to get his own back.

Hugo pleaded for the tiny thing's life, but Sawyer wasn't having any of that happy horse crap. What the hell was he babbling about, a Mrs. Tree Frog and a turtle named Stuart? And how did he get to be such a mess? That's what happens when a man spends his life on the couch playing Donkey Kong, stuffing his face with cheese nachos.

Contempt dripped off Sawyer, foul as the Dharma ranch dressing which still clung to Hurley's fingers.

Killing the noisy little son-of-a-bitch wouldn't return Sawyer's lost sleep, or make his pounding headache go away. No doubt there were thousands more frogs where this one came from, but this particular one had the great bad luck to wind up caught in Sawyer's strong fist. It was frogger reckoning time. As Sawyer squished it, the tiny bones within the frog's body crunched, then collapsed.

Sawyer looked briefly at the broken corpse before handing it to Hugo. The frog's blood shone pale pink on Hugo's wide palm. Then Sawyer turned away and strode off into the jungle, not caring enough to look behind him. Dumbo would probably do something stupid like bury it. Give it a funeral. That would be just like him.

Stumbling through the jungle, Sawyer tried to find the path back to the beach. Sweat poured into his eyes and made everything swim together in a green-gold sea of vegetation. Man, it was hot out here. The temperature must have gone up twenty degrees since he'd first set out this morning to look for that damned frog.

Jungle air hung sluggish and thick under the green canopy. Sawyer wiped his forehead, not thinking about the sticky slime which coated his hand, and the scratches on his forehead suddenly stung, as if bitten by fire ants. "Son of a bitch," he muttered as he rubbed his hand on his pants leg. Then he tried to clean his forehead, but the stuff was like glue, and all he did was move it around. Some got into his eye, and that burned like a red bitch from hell.

Cursing a blue streak now, Sawyer stumbled about blindly in the waist-high grass, water streaming from his eye. All the places he'd touched with that stuff burned: the palm of his hand, his face, and especially his eye, which was now entirely blurred. He'd be damned if he'd head back to the beach and bleat to Jack for help, just so Jack could give him that blank doctor stare which didn't quite cover the dislike in his eyes. Screw that. He'd lie down for a spell out here in the shade of the jungle instead. How bad could a little frog goo be, right?

A few minutes later the nausea hit him. He rolled over just in time to avoid hurling onto his boots, and hadn't even covered the mess when another wave hit. He tried to lie down, but the bright sunbeams darted like spears through the treetops, stabbing his eyes. Maybe there was some more shade on up ahead. At least he wouldn't have to lie down near where he'd been sick.

When the jungle opened out into a clearing, Sawyer broke into a slow jog, trying desperately to get out of the sun. He cast one last defiant look back at the great glowing orb, set in a sky shot through with twisting, pulsing flares of purple and red. Just before the stabbing pain became too much to bear, Sawyer turned aside in horror. That blinding disk had stared back at him with the ferocity of everlasting judgment.

Man, what the hell was happening to him? Sawyer forged his way through thick curtains of creepers, grateful to hide in the shade, but why was there a big blue halo around each leaf? The pebbles at the path's edge seemed to vibrate. Goddamn, he could have sworn that some of them moved.

A few small brown rocks grew legs and began to crawl away. As the feathery leaves blew about, they left long trails of pure color behind them, the most intense blues, purples and greens that he had ever seen.

At least the nausea was gone. Sawyer pushed through an arch of branches hung with fragrant flowers into a shaded clearing, where he sunk to his knees.

On the other side of the clearing a few bushes rustled, and Sawyer half-hoped it was Hugo. He'd even apologize for the damn frog, if that'd make Dough Boy happy. Hugo was a soft touch, and it would be nice to have company on the walk back to the beach, now that he wasn't puking his guts out anymore.

Sawyer tried to pull himself to his feet, but something was wrong with the air, which rippled like clear jello embedded with glittery specks of trapped light. He pawed at the heavy jellied air, then he sat back down with a grunt.

Through the canopy poured a cascade of golden sun, what they called 'god-light' back home in Jasper, Alabama. The bushes rustled as loud as crackling paper. Every sound rang out crisper and more distinct, especially the swish of the wind-blown leaves.

Sawyer could swear the birds were laughing at him. A flock of little purple ones gathered on a tall bush, chattering and cackling. When they put their heads together, they looked like women gossiping, just like those stupid females back on the beach who always huddled together, yackity-yacking.

He picked up a stone to heave at the birds, then stopped in mid-motion. The blue veins on his hand stood out like tattoos, as if he had no skin at all. His grammar-school classroom used to have a model of The Visible Man, and that used to freak him out so bad as a kid, because all the muscles and organs shone red through the clear plastic shell. This was worse, though, as he could see his muscles move and the blood flow through his veins.

With a loud cry, Sawyer dropped the rock. Now he was scared, really scared. He pulled himself to his feet despite the weight of the air, and the jungle swayed like one of those cheap carnival rides in midsummer. You never could be sure if that bucket of bolts Tilt-a-Whirl was going to explode and send you hurtling to the ground below. But you got on anyway, because your girl would think you were a pussy if you didn't. Then you whirled around till you were sick. It was like that.

Down he went again, pushed by a surprise wind which rolled through the jungle like leafy thunder. Golden god-light surrounded him on all sides. He screwed his eyes shut against the brightness, when a riot of kaleidoscopic colors exploded behind his eyelids. The patterns swelled and ebbed in a delicate lace of pink, turquoise and the ever-present gold.

When Sawyer opened his eyes, he saw a little old woman squatting in front of him like a frog, naked from the waist up and wearing some kind of leafy green hula skirt. Long grey hair covered her shoulders, leaving her droopy breasts bare. He leaned back in surprise, falling on his backside.

Sawyer tried to clamber to his feet but failed. "Hey, Mrs. Yoda."

"Don't bother," she said. "You won't be able to get up. Not for awhile."

"What the hell?"

"What the hell yourself. Who do you think you are, anyway? Stupid haole."

Whatever that meant, it wasn't a compliment. He struggled to get control of his tongue. "You know, sweetheart, you could get a job posing for those vintage Playboy cartoons, the ones with the old lady, I mean. Don't you think you ought to put a top on?" All the same, his heart beat fast. She was about four and half feet tall from toe to crown, but she looked fierce. And mean.

When she held open her hand, there was that damned frog again, squished flat.

"So Jumbotron didn't bury it after all," Sawyer said.

"Sure, he did."

"Well, looks like you dug it up."

"Things can be in two places at once. But you are ignorant as crab spoor and don't know that."

"Hey, Bloody Mary, I didn't ask to get stuck on this damned island."

Her voice scratched like fingernails on stone. "To the damned, all things are damned."

"I don't have to listen to this. Just get the hell out of here and let me sleep it off." There was no way Sawyer was going to sleep, though. Things jumped out at him, way more alive and colorful than they ever ought to be. And he didn't dare close his eyes again.

A harsh screeching call from the jungle made Sawyer whirl around, and now his heart hammered against the wall of his chest. If he had thought things couldn't get any worse, he was wrong.

Something enormous crashed through the foliage, snapping twigs and leaves as it approached. Loud thumps echoed from gigantic hooves. It looked like a man riding a boar, but what a boar, almost the size of a small elephant.

In his confusion Sawyer said, "Hurley?" because at first glance the boar rider looked a bit like Hugo, only bigger and with more muscle. The man's long black hair fell in ringlets over his huge shoulders. Legs like tree-trunks gripped the boar's shaggy sides. But his face was the worst, because he looked like one crazy mother. If some guy sitting next to you at the bar flashed that insane grin, you'd turn right around and walk the hell out of there, hoping he didn't follow you into the parking lot.

The boar studied Sawyer with a knowing expression. It narrowed its piggy brown eyes and grunted out, "Hey, Sawyer. Long time no see. Get your tent all fixed up?"

I did not just hear that.

The huge man's voice boomed out, "Haumea, is this guy bothering you?"

The old woman didn't answer, just showed the crushed frog to the big fellow. He folded his arms over his gut and looked down at Sawyer with genuine regret. "Aw, man, why'd you have to go and do that?"

"Because he's a dumb-ass," the boar remarked.

Without waiting for an answer, the man said to Sawyer, "You married?"

"What?"

"Answer Kamapua'a," Haumea said in a voice just like Sawyer's Granny. You didn't mess with Granny when she got that tone, or you were likely to get the strap across your behind in two seconds flat.

"No, sir," and Sawyer drew the "sir" out with a long sneer. "I'm not."

Kamapua'a shook his great head and gave a heavy sigh. "If you were, you'd know what it's like to have a mother-in-law. Because, see, now you've pissed off my mother-in-law, and she's going to go complaining to my wife Pele. She gets Pele all riled up, then Pele tries to rile me up, and before you know it, I'm sleeping on the beach."

Unfolding his round arms, Kamapua'a climbed down from his mount. His white teeth flashed in his grinning wide mouth as he stuck his face right into Sawyer's. "And I'm not the kind of guy who likes to sleep on the beach, get it?"

"Got it, loud and clear." Sawyer's tone indicated that he didn't.

Graceful as a dancer, Kamapua'a squatted so low that his head was level with Sawyer's, and his belly almost brushed the ground. "Apologize."

"Hell, no. It was just a damn frog. You're worse than Hurley, getting all worked up about it."

Kamapua'a fixed Sawyer with a warning glare. "Let me tell you something. When Pele gets a wild hair up her honeypot to start a revolution in Hawai'i or something, I go along, because revolutions have the best parties, you know? See, me and Pele, we're modern. We can mix, and we know that you people are just butt-ignorant.

"Most times you're not even evil, 'cause you don't have what it takes to be evil. You're just stupid. Stupid and weak. But my mother-in-law here," and Kamapua'a waved a hand the size of a tapas plate towards Haumea, "She's old-fashioned. She doesn't cut you people any slack."

"Sounds like she's right out of the Old Testament," Sawyer said. "A regular Mrs. Fire and Brimstone."

Kamapua'a smacked Sawyer playfully on the arm. Fortunately it wasn't the one with the healing bullet wound, but it still hurt like hell, and Sawyer fell over.

When Sawyer pulled himself upright, Kamapua'a's grin had gotten even wider. "Yeah, bro, it's like that. She's like that. So if I were you, I'd man up and say you're sorry. Since it's taken you so damn long, your apology better be real pretty, too."

Sawyer glared at the two of them. The wild colors were starting to fade, and the birds just put out ordinary chirping rather than gossip. That powerful headache was back as well. "Screw you," Sawyer said. "Screw you and your damn boar rodeo, too."

Haumea just sighed. "A life for a life." She opened her mouth and swallowed the frog like it was candy.

The boar shook its shaggy brown head from side to side. "You did it now, Sawyer. You're gonna be real sorry." Then it knelt down so that Kamapua'a could lift the old woman on board, before climbing up himself.

"You'll be OK in a few hours," Kamapua'a said to Sawyer. "And one more thing. No need to breathe a word about catching Hurley with that food stash in the jungle. I like that boy, so don't you go busting his balls."

Then, without so much as a backward glance, Kamapua'a, Haumea, and the boar trotted off into the jungle.

Sawyer sat there in a daze, before finally dozing off. When he woke up, the headache was mostly gone, and the jungle had returned to its normal shimmer of green and heat. He rubbed his eyes with his shirt, careful not to use his bare hand in case some of that poisonous glop remained.

It had to be a dream, because the alternative was too terrible to think about. What a dream, though, worse than what you get from drinking that home-brewed rotgut back at the old place, the kind laced with a little wood-alcohol or formaldehyde. Stuff that would really mess with your head.

It wasn't until he got to his feet to find his way back to the beach that he noticed the large and distinct pile of boar scat.

"Son of a bitch," Sawyer said.

(continued)