Prophecy (22 page)

Before they boarded, Rob urged Maggie to stay behind, but she refused. Whatever there was to see, she wanted to see. And she expressed it with a force-fulness that Rob had never seen in her before. He reluctantly agreed, and they boarded. The winds swept them swiftly up and toward the distant mountains.

By the time they reached the lake, the wind had shifted and they were flying against it, the pellets of rain blurring the helicopter’s windshield, so that their only view was out the side windows.

“If there were a large animal down there, could we see it from here?” Rob shouted to the pilot.

“How large?”

“Large.”

“Like a moose, you mean?”

“Larger.”

“There’s nothing larger than a moose around here.”

“Could we see it from here?”

“Oh, yeah. Moose, deer, bear. They start running when they hear the chopper. They’re easy to spot.”

“Keep your eyes open! I don’t want to land if there’s anything big down there!”

“We’ll find out right now. There’s the bend. I’ll sweep a three-mile circle.”

The helicopter tilted, circling low across the tops

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of the trees while Rob, Maggie, and Romona studied the ground below.

“That’s funny,” the pilot said. “There’s not a damn thing. Not even a deer.”

Romona, too, was puzzled. “This is a protected area. It’s usually filled with game.”

“Protected?” The pilot laughed. “That’s a joke. The Indians do all their poaching down there. They set bear traps, beaver traps … It looks like they finally wiped the place out.”

“That’s not true,” Romona protested. “My people do hunt there, but the reason they hunt there is because there’s so much game.”

“Well, there’s nothin’ down there now, is there, little sister?”

“Where’s the bend?” Rob asked.

“Right below us. See the crevice between the cliffs? Right there where the river comes out?”

Rob could see, far beneath him, the remains of a tent, torn and flapping in the wind. “Can we go down?”

“I’m not too crazy about the idea.”

“The wind’s too high?”

“Not yet, but these things can blow up fast.”

“If it’s at all possible, I’d like to go down.”

The pilot checked his instruments, then radioed back to the airport, requesting a weather report. He received it and nodded his approval. “They say it’s as bad as it’s going to get.”

“We can go down?”

“Yep.” He spoke into his headset again. “XJ23Y to base. Breaking radio contact now.” Then he turned to Rob. “Got to stay above the mountains to maintain radio contact. Once you get down in these gullies, the signal won’t carry.”

They descended in a swift verticle line and were suddenly buffeted by down drafts, the helicopter thrown off balance so suddenly that Maggie cried out in alarm. The small compartment swung around and stabilized, landing hard on the ground.

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“Shit,” the pilot muttered. “I didn’t like that at all.”

“Are we all right?”

“Yeah, but I’m not looking forward to that takeoff. You people take your time. Let’s wait till it dies down a little.”

Maggie was nauseated from the tumultuous landing and stayed behind with the pilot as Rob and Romona headed upriver into the crevice where Rob had spotted the remains of the tent. The environment was hissing with rain, and the force of the wind here at the base of the cliffs was double what it had been in the air. Maggie stepped out of the helicopter, hoping that the elements would refresh her and quiet the churning in her stomach. She pulled the hood of her parka over her head, wound her woolen scarf about her neck, and breathed deeply as she gazed off toward the mountainous horizon. The tips of the mountains were obscured by dark clouds, and there was lightning; the thunderheads pulsated and sent out a low rumble of thunder that slowly drifted across the lake.

“XJ23Y … is anybody reading?” the pilot called into his radio mike. “XJ23Y … can anybody read?” He switched it off and turned to Maggie. “I hope we haven’t gotten ourselves into a mess here.”

A quarter mile upriver, where the crevice narrowed to a tree-lined avenue of water, Rob and Romona stood in silence, gazing at the murder site. The signs of violence were awesome. Bushes were uprooted, tree limbs cracked, bits of clothing clung to the outstretched limbs of bushes and trees. The ground in front of the shredded tent was stained dark with blood. A child’s tennis shoe dangled from a tree. There were huge divots in the ground, as though a backhoe had run rampant; Romona spotted a large mound of earth and walked to it. She lowered herself to her knees and began to dig.

“What is it?” Rob asked as she scraped the dirt away.

She turned to him with puzzled eyes. “Defecation.” The rain fell on her face as she gazed up at Rob with

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confusion. “It’s buried in the way a cat would bury it.”

Rob turned and moved farther upriver into the trees. Romona paused for a long moment, then followed.

At the helicopter, the pilot had stepped out into the rain beside Maggie, and was watching the fomenting clouds with concern.

“It’s moving in fast. Maybe it’ll move out fast.” He nodded as if to reassure himself. “Yeah, it’ll probably blow over pretty quick.” His eyes moved to the marshy shores where the lake curled inward to form Mary’s Bend. There the cattails and high grasses swirled with increasing fury. “Remember what I said about poachers?” He pointed toward the marsh. “See those poles, over there? That’s a beaver trap. Probably got some dead beavers in it. They catch their necks in it and drown.”

Maggie’s eyes followed his gesture and she spotted the poles, jutting stiffly upward among the pliable, bending cattails.

‘Til tell you,” the pilot continued, “I’m as fair-minded as the next guy, but one of these days these Indians gotta be taught a lesson. Used to be when you caught an Indian poaching you just strung him up by the heels to the nearest tree. Can’t do that any more. They gettin’ like the blacks. You lay a hand on an Indian …”

Having heard all she cared to, Maggie walked away, heading toward the marsh. As the pilot watched her go, he snickered to himself, amused that he had offended her.

Upriver, within the deepening confines of the crevice, Rob and Romona found another place where violence had occurred. The tattered remains of two sleeping bags were scattered throughout the foliage, the smashed remnant of an alarm clock was flattened against the ground. Thunder rumbled overhead and Rob lifted his eyes. His gaze fastened on a gash about six feet above his head in the trunk of a tree. As he

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moved nearer, he could see within the whitened gash, the mark of three huge claws. “Romona?”

She hurried to him.

“What could have done that?” he asked.

“A bear perhaps.”

“That high?”

“It could have climbed.”

“Look higher.”

Above the gash, caught in a section of splintered bark, was a swatch of thick black fur. Romona quickly broke a dried sapling about ten feet long and used it to dislodge the fur, which wafted down into her waiting hands. As she examined it, the expression on her face told Rob that it was unlike anything she had ever seen before.

“What is it?” he asked.

She handed it to him, and he spread it apart, revealing hardened fibers within, almost like the quills of a feather. The thunder rolled louder, and Rob was swept with a chill.

“It’s not bear, is it?” he said quietly.

“No.”

“What is it, then?”

Her eyes were distant, set somewhere deep within the forest. “It’s Katahdin, Mr. Vern,” she said darkly. “He’s no longer a legend.”

The foliage behind them suddenly erupted. Romona cried out. A figure rushed toward them.

It was John Hawks. His face was covered with dried blood that emanated from a gash in his forehead and his eyes were blank with shock. He stopped suddenly and held up a wad of the thick, black fur.

“You’ve seen this?” he cried.

“Yes,” Rob answered.

“It’s here. What you said is here!”

Romona ran to him and they clung to each other, their faces gripped with anguish.

“I want to find it,” Rob said firmly. “I want the truth to be known.”

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“Truth?” Hawks shouted. “There is no truth here! This is the manifestation of lies!”

The thunder clapped loudly; as it faded, they heard something that sounded like a scream. It echoed off the cliff walls and melted into the whine of the rising wind that whistled through the crevice. Hawks, Romona, and Rob stood immobile. The scream came again. It was Maggie. Rob whirled, stumbling over boulders as he raced away. Hawks overtook him and Romona struggled behind. As they rounded a bend, they suddenly stopped. Maggie stood in the midst of the swirling cattails, her hands clasped to her head, her eyes wide with alarm. The pilot was near her, his posture frozen, as if he had become paralyzed in mid-step. Both were staring into the marsh. The sky burst with a flash of lightning and a sharp crackle of thunder. Maggie’s eyes turned toward Rob, and he could see that she was in near shock. He ran toward her, Hawks and Romona following; when they reached her, she raised a trembling finger and pointed to the ground.

They all recoiled in horror.

There, in the marsh, at the water’s edge, hanging from a poacher’s net, were two grotesquely misshapen creatures. Their body surface was mottled pink and black; they were about eighteen inches long. One was dead and fully extended, hanging head down from the hooked claws of its stunted hind legs. Its body was long and thin, in the shape of a four-legged animal, but it had skin folds stretched between its clawed hand and its sides, like those of a bat. It was an evolutionary mockery. The head was long and furless, with an exocephalic brain that protruded in pink folds from the side of the skull; the snout was narrow, with sharp teeth jutting upward from an underslung jaw. And the eyes were huge, blank as fish eyes, dominating the surface of the face.

The rain began to drive harder, the wind rising in gale force as the group stood in stunned silence. Hawks’s mouth was hard with bitterness. Romona

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was rigid, gazing down from the corners of her eyes.

“What the hell are they?” the pilot gasped.

No one answered.

“My people lived with this legend all their lives,” Hawks said through his teeth. “Now this will be taken from them, too.”

“One’s alive,” Romona said.

The second of the two creatures was bobbing on the gentle swell of the water, belly up, its teeth snarled in the net. Its eyes were half opened, and its small chest heaved in labored, pumping gasps.

“We’ve got to get it warm,” Rob said. “It’s dying of exposure.”

“Leave it here,” Hawks hissed. “Let it die.”

Rob turned in sudden outrage. “Leave it here? Do you know what this is? This is evidence! This is what’s going to save your forest!”

Hawks looked long at Rob, then turned to the pilot. “Your knife.”

“No!” Rob shouted.

“I’m going to cut it free.”

Hawks took the pilot’s knife and waded into the water, Rob beside him. In an instant the creature was free. Rob lifted it into his arms. “Take the other one, too.”

Following Rob’s order, Hawks cut the dead one free, but he was reluctant to touch it.

“Take it.”

“Why?”

“I want them both.”

“Why?” Hawks challenged.

“I can open it up and find out what it’s made of! I can find out what it feeds on! I can find out why it exists.”

“You’ve got that one!”

“I’m keeping this one alive,” Rob vowed. “This one’s going to stay alive. It’s not going to go into a bottle of formaldehyde and be put on a shelf! If I can keep this alive, there’s nobody who’ll be able to ignore it!”

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Hawks snatched up the dead creature by its hind leg; slime dripped from its nose and mouth as it rose from the water.

Maggie watched with glazed eyes.

“It’s got to be wrapped,” Rob ordered as he waded to the shore. “Maggie?”

She turned to him, blank-faced.

“Your scarf.”

“What?” she asked weakly.

“Give it to me.”

Numbly following orders, Maggie pulled out her woolen scarf and Rob wrapped the small creature in it. It looked like a child of the devil wrapped in swaddling cloth.

“Let’s go,” Rob commanded.

“Look at those trees!” the pilot shouted in the rising wind. “That’s forty miles an hour! I can’t lift off in this!”

Rob grimaced with frustration. The trees were being lashed by a wind that howled as it wound through the crevice. “We’ve got to get out of here!” he demanded.

“We’ll get blown into the walls! You saw what happened coming down here. Its worse now.”

“I’ve got to get somewhere warm! I’ve got to keep this alive.”

“Take shelter. It’ll blow over.”

“How long?”

“Few hours, maybe less!”

“That’s too long!”

“I can’t do it!”

Rob turned to Hawks in desperation. “Where’s your village?”

“Too far.”

“Ten miles,” Romona said.

“Isn’t there somewhere closer?”

“Nothing,” Hawks replied.

“My grandfather!” Romona exclaimed.

“Those are just tents.”

“We can be there in two hours. If we follow the river …”

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“In two hours the storm might blow over,” Rob protested.

“It might not,” the pilot contradicted.

Rob’s eyes were desperate as he gazed into the angry sky.

“M’rai’s camp,” Hawks urged.

“Those tents aren’t warm enough!” Rob insisted.

“We can make them warm.”

“We can build fires within,” Romona added.

“Can we go there, please?” Maggie asked with anguish.

“I think you better do it,” advised the pilot.

“There’s no other choice,” Hawks said.

“We could wait here in the helicopter,” Rob said.

“I don’t want to wait here.” Hawks’s voice carried a warning that gave Rob pause. They were completely vulnerable out here, in the helicopter or out of it. They were possibly standing in the very lair of the animal that had caused the destruction. Judging by the height of the claw marks Rob had seen in the tree, it stood at least fifteen feet tall. He didn’t know if it had reached up or reached down to make those marks. If they waited in the helicopter, they might find themselves trapped.