Chayton clawed at the dirt. He had been digging for a long time. His knife had held out so well that he had inspected it again. The word Toledo came to mind and he knew them to be of India and superior blades. He used his hands too in an attempt to spare the knife. He did not wish to go without it. It had been long enough in his mind when he finally found what he had been looking for. He wished he had brought flint and steel with him when he saw the dark, dreary opening. He entered keeping to the right wall, sliding his shoulder along it to keep track of where it was.
It hurt a little, but he could care less. If the scars he had found on his body were any witness, he had been shot at some point during his lifetime. And stabbed at another. They were all old scars, fully healed. The story they had to tell wasn't. He imagined it was the way of things. He was nervous as he supposed he should be, not able to see. He kept his left hand spread out in front of him just in case there was something out there for him to stumble on. He also walked slowly on the chance that water had caused stalagmites to form.
He believed that there was another part of this same tunnel on the other side of the hole. But he didn't care. He wasn't in that part. He was beginning to believe himself to be a man who spent little time with unnecessary details. What was necessary now was how far he was to the surface. There may be no way out, just a hole in the ground. He supposed it would be a fitting way to die. If some species in the far future found their way to the cavern, they would scratch their heads and wonder how the bones had gotten in there. He smiled for the first time in days.
Willard decided he was wrong in thinking the old man would help him. He clearly was not concerned about it. Willard had even shown him a picture of his family, it didn't have his uncles in it, but it had his wife and his cousin Amanda. The old man made some remark about Chayton still looking crazy but put no further attention to it. He was too distracted. He had been obsessed about something he had gotten in the mail. Willard had not been told what it was, but he could see it caused a stir in the old man. He had seen the address - it was in Vermont. Too many thousands of miles from where he meant to go. He felt that he should write it off as a mistake and leave. He would have to find some other way to find Chayton. He got up to get into his car and not look back.
"Where are you going?"
"To look for dad:" he retorted.
"You won't get far on your own. I've got a contact in Costa Rican intelligence."
"What about going to Vermont?"
"I'm not going to Vermont."
"Fine, let's talk to your contact. I sure haven't come up with anything."
"I'll go myself. The best thing you can do is go home."
"You expect me to sit and do nothing?"
"I expect you to show some sense. You have no proof and no leads." Ben rose from the chair. "There's more to it now."
"What do you mean?"
"In the last few years several of our comrades have died."
""That's what the package was. You think Chayton is dead too."
Ben put a hand on the boy's shoulder, "Go home. Combat is no place for noncombatants."
Willard stormed out mad at the world.
Leon never read overly well, not like some who could breathe life into the words. He muddled through as best he could; sometimes taking a day or two to read the paper, if he had one. He had spent most of his life wandering around the world. He had worked on board ships to different places. Then went ashore to travel for a few months. That was his education. His Shakespeare.
There were other kinds of reading. That was as clear to him as the sky above Mount Everest. What he read was troubling, something had visited his trap during the night. He could see that some small creature and a couple of fish had been eaten. He was no tracker, but he knew the blood was fairly fresh. He also knew that the killer was large enough to be noticed in a crowd. He had managed to avoid the big predators so far.
After a lifetime of dealing with his fair share of carnivores in places schoolchildren never learned, he knew that he had nothing to prove against them. Not like Ben who had made a career out of putting his stinking carcass in the way of lions and Cape buffalo, or Chayton who must have been dropped when he was born. There was nothing noble about standing your ground in front of one. It was better to hide.
It caused his ears to catch a lot of ribbing. He had been told by Athen that he looked like a burnt bush moving about. It kept him out of trouble. Along with his knowledge of folk medicine and poison. It was the only thing that kept him in equal footing with his wild comrades. Both Ben and Chayton, and whoever was unlucky enough to be with them, had needed doctoring over the last thirty years.
Leon had a fine memory for what plants he had seen looked. These had been roughed up a bit. He supposed the little creature had come to drink and the big creature had come to eat. Then the big creature had fooled with his net. He could see several tears that would need patching up. There was a small red fish he was not familiar with inside, and he leaned forward to retrieve it.
He gripped the net and pulled it towards him. The fish did a fine job of flopping around. He had the fish on the bank and was pulling on the net when he saw it. It was deadly looking. This white creature with feathers and claws. He had frozen for a second, his mind blank. His next action was to reach for his knife to throw it. Something he hadn't done in more years than he cared to admit.
He cursed himself for a double damn fool. But the words were so mangled that nature stopped to figure out what he said. He could see the nostrils sniffing to figure out what the foul smelling was. He had the knife and was about to give a flick of his forearm that Chayton could outdo sleepwalking, when the creature vanished. Lon sat in the wet mud and sand, It took a long time for his heart to start it's beating.
Chayton groped in the dark. His sense of time told him that he had been stumbling around for hours. He had walked into several stalagmites. He had been tripped each time. Now he walked slowly, painfully. He tried to stick to the wall as best he could. He failed at it as often as he succeeded. He saw images beyond the darkness. Images of another place, had he been there? He saw a wall of cut stone, and smelled fish. There was another smell he recognize...napalm. It was far off. At least it smelled that way. The structure was circular. A well, perhaps? He had been here. The images were fleeting and left as soon as they came, like photographs flipped to show movement. He stumbled again, got up again. There were no more images. He had been plagued by shadows before. Why not now? It didn't matter. He saw little point in it any more. The creature had been walking better. He had tried to kill himself before. Why not die. Why not die?
"You had a vision." He stopped at the sound of the voice. He couldn't see the speaker but he recognized the voice. It was the dead man.
"Yes".
"You find yourself in holes a lot?"
"I wouldn't know."
"Do you know how you became imprisoned?"
For a brief moment he sensed an undeniable truth. "I was taken there."
"Did you commit a crime?"
"I don't know."
"Not much of a vision apparently."
"No."
"Well that has to be that."
He knew the figure was gone. It was in his mind. He knew this. Why did he feel the need to answer? There were so many questions. He had somehow kept his way without running into anything else. Until he found himself flat on his back. He had walked into something hard. When he fell there was a rattle, he felt around. Bones. Some creature must have wandered in here and died. He turned himself around to push himself up from his knees. The bones rattled rolling away from him. He absentmindedly supposed he had touched a thigh bone. It was harder to get up than it was to find himself on the ground.
He got one leg under him in the darkness. Hoping not to trip once he pushed himself up. He put a hand on the ground next to him and felt...ribs? He groped further along. There were more rib bones then he felt the neck. He didn't have to feel further to recognize his species. The bones were old. They had been here a long time. He stood and felt to see what he had bumped into. It was rectangular. He felt along the side of it; there were inscriptions.
He felt them to see what they were. Ideograms. A bird. A jaguar. A...snake. There were diagonal lines he could make no sense of in the dark. He felt his way to the top. Dried straw. He dug through the brittle stuff, until he reached the other end where the straw wasn't. The bones rolled away from his feet. He could imagine them rolling along the cavern floor. His hand fell. It seemed to be a bowl. He inched along the altar(that was the only explanation) until he could bring his hand out of it.
He slid his hand along until...there was something on the edge. It was metallic but not extremely hard. Gold? He felt it over. It was the width of his two fists if he held them together. He felt upwards. There was a stick on the end. He carefully pulled it out. It had to be a torch and when there was a torch...he felt around the object and found a small rock. He laid down the torch. He took his knife from his sheath and struck it against the rock.
He lit the torch. Saw the small amount of light it produced dance on the cavern walls. There were two skeletons in the room. A skull lay next to his feet. The alter was engraved in gold script. There were symbols in the form of animals. Spiders. Caiman. He stared at it for a moment. It was only remotely interesting to him. What interested him was how all this got down here in the first place. With the aid light provided, it was not long before he found the exit. It was a tight squeeze, but he pulled himself out of the hole.
Nadine waited for the human's return. It had been a long time. The sun had gone into its home long ago. The moon had come out. The human had not returned. She wondered what had happened to him. Her ribs were healed. She had not called her pack out of curiosity about the human but she called them now. She warned them not to come, but to stay at the nest. She imagined them to be angry at her, but she did not care. She was the Alpha. She had won that right and could easily do so again. For now she believed it best to learn what she could about humans. She had changed her views once she realized what they were capable of. If the human did not come soon, she would have to find him. She did not want him to meet her pack yet. There would be trouble if that happened this soon. She fell asleep before she could think more.
Quick Foot had been sleeping with his mate when he was awoken by the call. He had stood up groggily unsure of what he had heard. Soon he entire pack was on its feet. The jungle was silent. Not an insect stirred, all silent except for the Alpha's call. Quick Foot felt regret, he would have to return the position. He started to lead the pack toward the voice. His sense of hearing had picked out her location. Then came the warning to stay away. He did so grudgingly.
Hamilton had flown to Costa Rica. It had taken most of a day. He was weary,like he was after all the plane trips he had ever taken. He checked in a hotel then slept in an abandoned shack across town. He could speak Spanish and the Mayan and Incan dialects well. They knew him there. He kept a low profile anyway. On the second day his hotel room was broken into. They evidently had found he wasn't there. He moved several times once the fact he was being followed revealed itself. His contact would report to him in a few days.
Leon sat in his platform in the treetop. He was scaling the two fish he had found, the red one and another that looked the color of freshly disked earth, a dirty brown. He had caught it in a completely different kind of trap. One with a tunnel that led fish in and a flap that kept them there. He didn't have to use bait. Fish were curious creatures. His thoughts had followed the white feathered creature all evening; he had seen nothing like it. He was afraid he would get no sleep tonight.
The Utahraptor that had never lost control; who did not growl or snarl like the others, relied on her time-honored rules to guide her. Here was one of the scale -less ones living in her territory. It had been about to attack her and she had ducked around one of the tall non living things and bolted noiselessly into the jungle. The creature had made some kind of noise. That was all she knew She could have limited communication with the Velociraptors, but not the creatures without scales. The rest of the light was spent trying to fill the large gaps in her knowledge of the creatures.
It had been several days since Chayton had come back from wherever he had gone off to. Firelight danced in the little cave. It shone on the humans grayish head. His eyes made a startling contrast. Nadine was excited, she sat stiffly on her haunches trying to imitate the human...Chayton. He was drawing letters with his index finger on the one place in the cave with dirt. They had gone through the entire alphabet six times by sound, all so he could write her name. But there it was, right there in the dirt. She tried to use one of the short claws on her hand to make the funny tracks and after several tries managed a crude imitation. The human looked off for a moment.
"It might be easier with the big one." She stood up, her stiff muscles had protested the position she had put them in, and found that it was easier with her toe claw. Soon she had an even better version of her name written in the dirt. Chayton wrote his name and she copied it. Then he wrote something else which she had no difficulty with but couldn't read. Chayton again went through the alphabet until she acknowledged that the word, or words as they appeared to be two of them, was "teach me." She pointed with her snout to his name that had been written down and said it in her guttural speech. She was proud that he finally got it right, but she was even prouder of the fact that he was a little slower at learning than she.
They went to sleep one across from the other. Chayton had banked the fire though there was little chance of it getting out of control. It was an ever present concern. Chayton put up a bold front, but in truth he was in constant turmoil. After leaving the death trap, it was a simple matter to find his way back. He actually wasn't far away. It was a good thing to know. He wondered constantly why he had not allowed himself to die in the cavern. Nadine could certainly get along without him now. He finally decided that he would live to see her rejoined with her pride. It wouldn't be long, perhaps tomorrow or the day after.