Draigkhiun: Chapter Two, Section VIII

VIII

The first serious frost of the year came that night. With the earliest traces of daylight in the predawn sky, the crystals lay upon the grass in a bejeweled quilt. It twinkled and glowed in the gaining light and crackled under our feet as we made our way out of the camp. As the last person through, I recharged the camp perimeter and walked quickly to catch up with Cali and Pap.

All three of us were going to work along the river this morning. Over the night, the warm water would act as a natural heater within the thick growth. Antallop would be quick to take advantage of it in the cold. I was going to cross the river at a nearby ford and follow the opposite bank north, towards the swamp, where I could re-cross at several places. It was clear and cold now, but yesterday’s winds prophesied rain or sleet. I could feel it. I knew the antallop could feel it and would seek the best shelter.

Pap and Cali would work this side of the river until midday and then swing out into the grass before coming back to camp. I intended to hunt towards the edge of the swamp until two hours before nightfall. I would cut straight across the open country to get back but I wasn’t necessarily sure I could do it all by nightfall.

Walking at the rear, I watched Cali stretch her legs to match steps with her grandfather. She was tall, like the rest of the family, and had that inherited, distance-eating stride. I still couldn’t stop thinking of her and Diana as terrified little girls coming to us from Astoria. It hurt to realize I would not be around for their Dahshcavil. I would be across the galaxy.

I thought of Pap’s hunting story from Cairibhe. Instead of his case of buck fever I thought of the reason he was on Cairibhe: the Histaklii war. He wasn’t there on vacation. The clinics on Cairibhe were the leaders in regenerative therapies. Watching Pap walk, I was amazed at how well he did it. He normally had a fluidic motion to everything he did—like a stream flowing over a gravel bed. His faint limp, exacerbated by the start of the rainy season, was the only indication that he had lost both legs and his left arm to the war.

They stopped and I eased up to where they stood.

“Are you still planning on trying to hunt into the swamp?” Pap asked quietly.

“Yes. I think there’s going to be rain this afternoon.”

Pap stretched his right leg a little.

“I’ll bet on sleet.” He looked around before fixing me with his eyes. “Plan on being back into camp by nightfall, Caleb.”

“I have no intention of being out after dark,” I potentially lied, “why?”

“Nothing, just an uneasy feeling,” he made a subtle clawing gesture towards the ground with his free hand. He had seen draig tracks, yesterday, and didn’t want to scare Cali. “Are you sure you don’t want to hunt with us?”

I casually jabbed a thumb towards the side of the river I intended to hunt. Pap shook his head, slightly, and pointed at his feet. The sign had indicated the draig was on this side of the river.

“Positive,” I lied again. “I’ll be fine.” I felt cold and gripped my rifle a little tighter. I wasn’t going to let fear ruin my plans. We had seen their tracks on other hunts; some mornings, they were right along our perimeters. Over the years we’d been awakened by their roars and howls in the middle of the night. But, to my knowledge, even Pap had never seen one close and alive through all the years we’d hunted this area.

“Do me a favor, Caleb, and keep a distance-time log on your GPS.”

“I’m already a step ahead of you.” Chronological readouts registered at the back of my mind. Using the camp coordinates as my base point, I could get a travel time estimate to the camp at any time. I intended to use it.

“Go nieri antaw laht, Uncail,” Cali whispered, wishing me good luck.

“And to you,” I replied.

“Tchavir ayreh mor do,” Pap warned. He stared at me for a long time. In years past, he would have ordered me to stay with him if I didn’t have a partner. In my guts I was wishing either Collin or Zeke was here to partner up with.

I nodded at Pap and Cali and turned to work my way down to the river. I walked about a half-kilometer to a spot I knew well. There were a series of flat-topped boulders that formed a natural bridge. I double-checked my rifle to make sure there wasn’t a cartridge in the chamber, slung its strap over my shoulder and neck, and jumped across on the boulders. I splashed a little at the far bank. As soon as I had my rifle unslung, I chambered a cartridge and worked my way up the bank.

I looked back. River crossings were mystical to Shondrean. They occurred between times as well as places. They were transitions. I felt my life was finally in transition.

I turned and began to pick my way through the myriad game trails that formed a maze in the dense willows that grew along the river. They grew to almost three meters in height, adding to the labyrinthine sense. I made sure to keep the sound and smells of the river on my right as I continued to move quietly along the trails. With a few exceptions I wanted to stay as close to the river as possible until I reached the swamp at its headwaters.

Pap had wanted to watch the edge of the river bottom to try and catch antallop moving to and fro. I was gambling that they would stay close to their beds and not venture out into the grass. A storm was brewing and they would want the shelter and high-fat browse of the willow and cedar.

It was slower going than I anticipated and the sun was well above dawn before I had finished my first two kilometers. Through the canopy of the willows I could feel the sun radiating down. There was not a breath of wind. As the morning sun graced the plains with its warmth, the frost began to melt and turn to light mist. Added with the mist rising from the Sruh Antallop, it all began to coalesce into fog. My visibility became even worse. I debated making my way onto the plains after all.

My heart started beating hard enough to bruise the inside of my ribs. I took a moment to hold my breath to keep from panting. Off the corner of my sight, just thirty meters ahead and to the left, the faint silhouette of a large animal had quietly moved. I was a little shocked to realize that I had my rifle to my shoulder, with my finger resting lightly on the trigger and my thumb pushing the safety switch forward. My instincts had taken over.

I calmed down and watched where I had seen the animal move, still keeping my rifle on my shoulder. Nothing moved for the several minutes I measured by my heart pounding into my ears. I slowly made my way over to where the animal had been. I glanced down at the damp, sandy soil. There were the tracks of a decent-sized antallop, heading south. They were pointy so it indicated a doe. I had decided that any antallop was a good antallop for today.

I studied the ground some more and felt cold nausea. I clutched my rifle tight and frantically began to search through the willows. I had to fight the urge to go running blindly out into the grass, screaming for Pap. That kind of blind panic would get me killed.

The set of antallop prints was decent. The bipedal, four-clawed draig tracks were far more impressive.

I wasn’t sure, at first, which of them I had seen—the antallop or the draig. But I was sure that it was all too close for comfort. I hazarded a glance towards the tracks again. Both sets were crisply imprinted, so they were fresh. The draig’s tracks crossed over the antallop’s a few meters further on. The draig was definitely stalking the antallop, so that was what I’d seen.

I wanted to be sick.

I had let fear rule most of my younger life. I was terrified of all sorts of shadows. When I was little I would make Zeke push my bureau across our closet door at night. But I convinced myself that I had never truly known terror until that moment. I wanted to curl up under the sand until I knew that the big, bad monster was gone.

I wished now I had stayed with Pap and Cali.

Age and experience helped me regain control over my terror. I stood as still and quiet as I could; just watching, listening and sniffing the air wafting with the fog and through the willows. I strained for the slightest hint of anything nasty. Unbidden, my consciousness slipped beyond my body. I visualized being only an essence that could drift along with the fog. The intensity of the situation and the duration of my alert brought me into an unplanned meditation.

Except for the thumping of my heart, everything remained still as death.

The chronometer in my GPS registered the passing of a quarter-hour. I began to relax and regroup within myself. Everything remained a little too quiet—not even a squirrel chittered. But the wildlife may have been sparse to begin with. I lowered my rifle and began to move on.

I quickly decided to change plans. I was going to move out into the grass and still follow this side of the river northward. I would have plenty of visibility out there as I made my way to the next ford, a series of gravel bars, more than four kilometers ahead of me. The transitional greenery was thinner there as well.

I would make faster time if I headed out of the river bottom. I wanted to get back to camp as fast as possible. The tracks headed south, the direction I had come from, so there was no way I was backtracking to the first crossing. My hunting was definitively over for the day.

After an eternity of agitated adrenaline rushes and false alarms I emerged, unscathed, from the greenery of the river bottom. It was late morning and the sun was warm. It was calming after every little noise played with my “fight or flight” instincts.

The ancient course of the river had eroded a huge swath of the country, forming a gently sloping hillside. The former embankment created a straight, flat ridgeline about ten meters wide at the top. I climbed it and found a comfortable place to see around me, down into the rolling terrain and tall grass and river greenery. I sat down and started to collect the fragments of my shattered nerve.

I began to doubt myself and my decision to go to Terra. I was in trouble if I continued to act the same way as this morning. I thought of Pap and wondered how he could ever have handled combat.

I slowly scanned the terrain with my binoculars. Nothing moved. I looked south, towards our camp, and saw nothing. Black clouds built in the north, far beyond the swamp. It would be a wet afternoon.

I was still feeling sick so I took a long drink from my canteen and started to eat my lunch. I ate it all without ever realizing that I had. Shocked to find that two sandwiches disappeared so easily, I still felt a little better.

I spent another half-hour scanning the terrain with my binoculars. I was hoping that I might see where the draig had killed the antallop. It would be an interesting thing to observe. Mostly, it would be comforting to know that the draig was preoccupied, well away from me. I saw nothing.

I decided it was time to go. I followed the old embankment for as long as it stayed higher than the rest of the terrain. It ended in a sudden drop-off. The terrain beyond was unusually flat. With the exception of the greenbelt along the river bottom, the flora was sparse in the black sand that extended for kilometers. I would have excellent visibility in all directions.

The black, sandy soil betrayed me as I worked my way down the remaining slope. A slide started under my feet and I rolled the last ten meters or so. I quickly stood up and inspected my rifle. It looked okay. I activated the diagnostic on my scope. It was okay as well.

The clouds began to build up overhead as I walked. The land took on a feeling of near-death that I could not shake from my mind. I had had the feeling while crossing this terrain before. I was always glad to be through it. I wasn’t the only one. This area was named Follav Duhv on all the maps. It may have been known as the Black Hollow, but there was one good thing about it—no draig had ever been observed on its soil. Still, I kept several hundred meters between the river bottom and myself as I hiked. I constantly checked my back trail as I hurried along. Nothing came after me and I slowed my pace.

I did stop to gaze at the river where it widened out. The sluggish water formed a lake of sorts. The large amounts of basalt, obsidian and that dark sand made the water appear black. Other than sparse, coarse grass, there was no growth along the river here. It was like this for a kilometer. I shivered at the dead feeling of it. Paul had told me that some members of his congregation referred to this particular spot as the Ballah Ifrahn, or the Entrance to Hell, after coming here.

Scoffing at the entire concept of Hell, I also started to laugh at my asinine behavior of the morning. One chance encounter, that should have made me excited, had brought the terrified little boy out of me, ruining my hunt. I could not believe how severely I overreacted. I wasn’t sure if I would say anything to my father about it.

I walked on feeling a little less frantic. It was better to confront and realize the inanity of these feelings here rather than on Terra. As I walked away from the Ballah Ifrahn, I hoped I was walking away from the fears of my childhood.

The flat ridgeline of the old embankment arose from the Follav Duhv and resumed a kilometer further. The grass was taller and the greenbelt was lush along the river again. Alder and cedar began to outnumber the willow. I smelled the swamp on the air. It loomed before me in a green wall another five kilometers distant.

I wondered how many antallop I had missed along the river in my panic. The Follav Duhv would have been the perfect place to cache an animal until Pap and Cali could meet me with the ATHV. I felt like slapping myself for my stupid panic.

The resumption of the ridge was my cue to bushwhack to the river for a quick return to camp. My GPS told me that it would only take an hour to cut across country and reach camp from the other side of the river. I had five hours of daylight left. I debated salvaging my original plan and hunt the river to the next crossing, about half the remaining distance to the swamp.

I stood for a few minutes, trying to decide. The darkening skies decided for me and I walked towards the river.

The sky was growing even darker and the leaves rustled in the breeze as I approached the river. I didn’t care how big of a fool I had felt, it was time to return. Even the weather reaffirmed it.

I stopped. I hadn’t felt any breeze. The waist-high grass, in which I was standing, hadn’t stirred.

The leaves rustled again. A bit of greenery detached itself, shifted hue, and my world was no longer under my feet.

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