MARK OF THE BEAST VI: SOJOURN
The next day started at the ass-crack of dawn, as I smelled sizzling seafood from the campfire outside. My brothers and I had stuffed ourselves onto the floor of their wigwam for the night, sleeping on scratchy hemp blankets over a dirt floor. Unfolding myself from our snoring heap, I parted the canvas flap over the door opening, and Steele's head snapped in my direction with speed unnatural for this early in the morning.
"Didn't know what to feed a mutant turtle for breakfast." He flipped the three shimmering fish in his worn skillet, herbs and drops of oil tumbling through the air. "I know some smaller ones are carnivores, so I caught a couple extra trout."
"We usually don't even think about breakfast for four or five more hours." I groaned, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. "But I appreciate it."
"Well, you're sure gonna need some sustenance for the day. We're packin' up camp and settin' for Somerset Reservoir." Removing the smoking pan from the fire, he replaced it with a cast-iron tea kettle. "At the very least, got to cross the New York state line by tomorrow." As he waited impatiently for the water to boil, he sharpened arrowheads against a shard of iron from within his quiver.
"You and Russ sure got some interesting lives." I noted offhandedly. "Like modern cavemen."
"It ain't that glamorous. Just followin' instinct, really." He pulled a spool of twine from his satchel and began fastening the sharp bits of flint to arrow shafts, biting the string to cut it. "You know, as mutants, you and I have got the best parts of both man and beast. All the smarts and ambition of a modern-day human, with the timeless instinct of a true animal. Maybe this is just spit-ballin', but I say it means somethin' special. Like, if men hadn't forfeited their instinct for comfort, they might be livin' akin to Russ and I. Makes me grateful for the life we've got."
"Why are you two so bent outta shape about humans?" I raised an eyebrow. "I mean, yeah, we're being chased by 'em too, but for most of life we'd just leave 'em alone and they'd do the same."
"That's 'cause you four ain't been hunted in the literal way. Even had some human friends, right? Well, look how their society repaid you. Chasin' you out here with us, where gettin' gunned down by a poacher would mean nothin' but making his day." He pointed with an arrowhead to the midsection of his thigh, where overlapping the his dark gray mottles, I noticed a band of scarlet in a pattern not unlike knotted barbed wire. Another circled his shoulder blade, two details I hadn't noticed in the dim light the night before. "Y'know how, once a bone's been broken, they say it won't ever break there again? Well, Russ and I have had our fair share of brushes with death, and every time, we mark it like so, to show we can't be broken there no more. Give it another ten years, and we'll be covered in 'em, makin' us either dead or unstoppable."
"That's…uh, some heavy shit." I murmured. The way the bobcat spoke sounded vaguely cultish, but every word bore conviction.
"I don't blame you for thinking me a bit touched." He laughed. "Comes from being out here just the two of us for so long, eh? When there's no society to keep the human parts of our minds occupied, they turn inward." He turned to me, eyes full of secrets. "You wouldn't happen to be familiar with the concept of 'gnosis', would you?"
"No, but…" My gaze turned to the opening of the hut, where Don stretched both arms up as he yawned. "…I know someone who probably is."
"You guys have tea all the way out here?" He gestured to the whistling pot in the embers. "I didn't think Camellia grew this far north."
"Ain't proper tea." Steele lined up small clay cups, and began pouring the fragrant green-brown liquid in. "Saint John's wort, canary grass, purple coneflower, and spearmint. Usually put in a bit of honey or syrup, dependin' on the season." He held the steaming mug out to Donnie, who eyed it suspiciously.
"That sounds…hallucinogenic. You drink this stuff every day?"
"Sure, caused a bit of a rush when I started brewin' it, but your mind gets used to it." His eyes narrowed knowingly. "That's gnosis."
"That's mania, is what it is." Don looked visibly startled.
"Put a sock in it, Don." I chuckled, snatching the cup from Steele's hand. "Forgive my brother. He's just used to being the only one who knows what he's talking about."
"Well, there's a lot your brother could stand to keep an open mind about. Stuff you can't learn in a book or a lab." At that, Don appeared steamed, and turned to stomp back into the wigwam. "Everything we put into our bodies out here is straight from the same interconnected nature that we're made of. Even though you and I both wouldn't be here if it weren't for man, we're the pinnacle of the natural world. Happenstance leading to nature protecting itself." I took a sip of the bitter liquid, suppressing a grimace before the honey cut through the flavor and made it palatable.
"Sure tastes like nature." I winced at the aftertaste.
"The natives here have used brews like this for millennia, you know. Between that, and smoking injun tobacco, it's no wonder those folks had such traditions of future-seers and witch doctors. They could see things that the eyes don't naturally reckon."
"How'd you learn all this shit about history and philosophy?" I inquired. "Seems like you're pretty cut off from any education out here."
"Ain't quite the type to watch the news or nothin'." He threw his whole mug back, licking his lips to savor the brew. "But we've got a few cabins we lodge up at on our route. All abandoned by humans, some with books and whatnot in 'em. I ain't one to read nothin' but maps, though Russ's enough of a bookworm for the both of us. One of our ol' stomps is just three days' trek out from here; it's where we stop before we get to the compound. Which reminds me…did you boys have a plan as to where you're going? 'Cause you're more than welcome to tag along."
"I don't know what the others were thinking. But I guess there's nowhere better to go than somewhere new." I thought.
"I figure we're six of the only seven mutants, countin' your gator friend, here on the East Coast. Tell me that ain't the universe bringing us together for something." He grinned sagely.
My brothers all emerged from the tent, and Russet trudged out from the woods with a huge pot full of moss and ferns as we set about de-boning and slicing the fish. As he sat down with us at the fire, I noticed the same tattooed markings that Steele bore on his neck, knee, and bicep. The scarlet nearly blended with the dark brown of his fur, but to a trained eye, they were visible. I wondered just how severe their injuries had been that they felt compelled to mark them permanently.
Through breakfast, my stomach was pretty soured by the foul-tasting tea, so while I wasn't eating, I started to pick up on the dynamics between the wily bobcat and the more level-headed moose. Everything Steele spoke about, he rambled with wordy energy like a politician, while it was tough to coax more than a handful of words from Russet at a time, even after his mug of tea perked him up some. The two of them both talked with a backwater Northern accent, but Russet's seemed far stronger, if only from him speaking so slowly in his booming bass. Despite that, the moose came off as the brains of the pair, with the cat doing ninety percent of the talking.
Ever since Steele's rebuff when he woke up, Don seemed wary of the both of them, though he and Russet shared a lot of knowledge about biology and other nerd bullshit. Leo's eyes lit up when he caught Russet meditating silently in a fern patch after breakfast, and joined him. After a cup of tea (which Don insisted Leo stayed away from) Mike's energy seemed as boundless as Steele's, and the two chatted endlessly while we took down the wigwam and helped pack their bags.
It couldn't have been later than nine AM when we set out northbound, Steele's nose buried in a map at the front of the pack while Russet hauled his axe and heavy tent poles across his back behind us. Sandwiched between them, we struggled to keep up with their fleet pace after the first few hours, as they walked up mountains like the ground was still flat. Our path wound us through the wilderness of the Green Mountains, as far away from towns and roads as we could possibly travel.
Maybe it was just the tea, but the vividness I saw every color with made me appreciate just how alien the carved earth looked when its trees were ablaze with autumn. Every craggy ridge and marshy bog nearly took my breath away. Steele's words from the night before started to sink in; as my feet carried me through paradise, I began to consider how animals were designed to live, and how the world out there held a beauty unlike anything in the city. It gave me a vague feeling of being right at home.
My contemplative state lasted until we climbed off the back face of Mount Snow, where the reservoir we'd set as our destination was splayed out before us as the sun danced closer to the western horizon. Following the trickle of a mountain brook rather than an actual trail, our path was crossed by shrubs and saplings more often than not. Thinking nothing of where I stepped, my foot planted between a mossy rock and a thicket of grass, and as I lifted it forward, a red-hot pain erupted in a ring around my ankle. I screamed out, falling to my knees and jerking it only to increase the intensity. In a flash, the others flocked to me in a circle.
"Beaver snare." Steele noted, bending down with claws unsheathed as he gripped around the cut with both hands. I looked over my shoulder to see a cascade of blood pouring from the incision, a perfect circle of razor wire cutting through my ankle like cheese. "Stay still, eh?" He expertly slid a claw under the cable, which drew tighter with every jostling movement I made, until it snapped off and fell to the ground. His free hand fished around in the satchel at his waist until it revealed a thumb-sized glass vial full of murky green liquid.
"You're not honestly pouring that muck on there, are you?" Don gasped.
"It's tincture of willow bark and thyme." Russet drawled. "Helps soothe the pain of the alcohol disinfectin' the wound." I winced at the sting as he poured it on, but in a second, it was comparatively numb.
"And to think I called it a waste of good moonshine." Steele laughed as he rubbed the salve into the gash, totally coating the area. "Watch your step from here on out, huh?"
My head was starting to feel light, either from the loss of blood or the grave panic my hazy mind had entered. Russet yanked a fistful of dry grass from the ground beside me, striking his axe blade to the flint on his belt until the weeds caught ablaze. Steele bent my knee to raise the wounded ankle, making the blood flow all but stop, and I bit my lip to contain an anguished cry as the salve caught fire and flashed momentarily, leaving my skin sizzling.
"All good and cauterized." Russet observed. "Only thing worse than walkin' on a slashed leg is walkin' on an infected one. 'Cause let it rot, and real quick, you got no leg at all." I shuddered at the imagery.
"Don't fret, bud." A bloody paw clasped my shoulder reassuringly. Doesn't look like it nicked any more than your scales and some blood vessels." Again he doused the wound in salve, and pulled a strip of gauze from his pouch to wrap my ankle in a tight cuff. "Just keep your weight off it for a spell." Russet handed me one of the smaller tent poles, and I cringed a bit as I leaned on the stick to stand upright. Mike grabbed the bag I'd been carrying, lightening my load so I could cautiously limp down the mountainside.
"You sure you're alright, bro?" Mike's watery eyes met mine.
"Think I'll be fine." I muttered. "Just a scratch."
"What you really need is more tea." Russet smiled. "Takes your mind off your body for a while."
Sure enough, while Steele and my brothers gathered birch bark for the wigwam as the sky began to darken, the moose and I sat by the budding campfire overlooking the reservoir, waiting for the weathered kettle to steam over.
"It's a butter of chamomile and marigold." He explained as he thumbed a coating of amber paste over my now-healing gash. "I know the one in purple don't trust my medicine, but it's all tried and true. Not like I'm pickin' random flowers and rubbin' on a cut to see what'll happen. All these cures have been used far longer than humans have practiced science."
"No complaints on my end." I sighed. "Stuff hurts less than peroxide, even."
The others returned with heaps of white bark sheets, and a few more flexible poles to make a wider hut. I helped as best I could on a bum foot, holding it together in the middle and lashing them together with twine as the walls went up around me. While the five of us worked to raise the structure, Steele was perched in a tree nearby, one eye baring down the shaft of his arrow. Against the purple and orange backdrop of sunset, his feline sight caught motion on the wind, and in a flurry, three ducks fell from the V crossing the sky. We watched in morbid curiosity as he bled the birds into the boiling pot of herbs and roots, before finding a flat stone on which to gut them and dig out the meat inside. Despite the gruesome scene of preparation, the soup was hearty with the taste meadow onions and wild rice.
From a long day of hiking, there was nothing our bodies craved more than a belly full of food and a restful sleep. Within an hour or two of tossing and turning on the floor, I regretted the second helping of tea I'd taken with dinner. Its effect was a strange, wandering euphoria that changed my perception, but lying inside the wigwam with my eyes closed, all I could sense was the dressings on my ankle getting itchy. Giving up on falling in and out of slumber, I gingerly stepped out of the hut, and down the ridge to the shore of the lake where I could wash my wound and get some energy out.
Leaving the snoring pile of turtles behind me, I became aware of laughter up ahead. The moonlight painted an otherworldly scene, the trees all vibrating as a gentle breeze rolled through them. Everything was bleached in an eerie white glow, the world feeling smaller and smaller beneath my feet as I dragged my lame foot down toward the two silhouettes at the sitting waist-deep in the water. I clung to the shadows, making out the figure of Russet's antlers and hoping they wouldn't notice me approaching.
Steele took a swig of the clear liquid in the canteen, passing it back to Russet as he traded for the long wooden pipe, with fingers of fragrant smoke dancing off its bowl.
"No chance, bud." The bobcat wiped a mirthful tear from his eye, speaking with a bit of a slur. "The red one and the blue one have gotta be shackin' up."
"First day you meet someone new and you're already makin' these crazy assumptions." He chuckled, pouring the canteen straight down his throat. "Ain't you seen the way they all look at each other? They're all so close knit, I'd say you sayin' one's beddin' the other don't mean nothin'."
"Spoil-sport, always steppin' on my ideas." Steele pouted dramatically. "Never let me have any fun."
"You take that back." The moose boomed, turning his head to inch his lips toward the cat's. They froze in place, though, as their eyes registered me listening, hunched over in the shadows nearby.
"A spectator, huh?" Steele observed, gesturing to come closer. "We'd have offered for you to celebrate with us, but you four seemed dog tired."
"Celebrate what?"
"Findin' more beasts like us." Russet took another long slurp from the canteen, potent moonshine on his breath. "Can't rightly drink like this any ol' night. Us finding each other means something special." He passed the leather bottle my way, and with a curious sniff, I choked back a gulp of it.
"Ah…Been too long." I smiled, savoring the burn in my throat.
"We stock back up on moonshine when we get to the cabin in a couple days. Figure there's no harm in finishin' what we got tonight."
The three of us polished off the bottle, lounging there in the brisk water. Shooting the breeze with me, they didn't seem so caught up in their spiels about nature or the universe or that usual bullshit. It relaxed me to hear their stories, the freedom of living under an open sky opening my mind to how constrictive the sewers were. These two were timeless; like cowboys in the old West and ancient Greek mariners on an odyssey wrapped into one. It brought me back to my childhood, daydreaming of being a knight or samurai, living life on the edge and by my own rules.
When the bottle ran dry and the mosquitos became unbearable, we moved back to the fire pit, sharing the tobacco pipe between us. The memories of our conversations were a blur, but after a bit of persuading, I remember Russ heating up a long iron needle in the fire, and producing a bottle of vibrant scarlet pigment. When I retired to the wigwam to crash for the night, a fresh band of scarlet chains were inked around my ankle, under another coat of salve and fresh gauze. I don't know how I ever pictured getting my first tattoo, but this defied expectation.
Beastly long chapter, twice as big as the last one!
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!
