Prophecy (27 page)

In a far corner of the small cabin M’rai rocked slowly, uttering his soft, mournful chant.

As Romona knelt over the pilot, applying a wet towel to his forehead, she glanced through the open door and saw that the sky had turned gray. She was worried about Hawks, for it had been over an hour since he left the village to scout for help.

The pilot moaned and rolled his head, waving his hand as if to push the towel away. Romona moved to where she could see his eyes. They were open again and seemed clearer than before.

“The plane …” he whispered.

She took his hand and gently massaged it.

“I can fly it,” he pleaded.

“We’ll be safe soon.”

“I can fly us … out of here …”

“They’re coming for us.”

“She’ll think I crashed …”

“No …”

He whimpered and his face contorted as he tried to keep his tears in. “I’m sorry …”

“You’re going to be all right.”

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He wept, then slipped into unconsciousness. Romona rose and moved outside.

Rob was standing in the center of the village, his eyes fixed in an upward stare.

“No sign?” she asked.

He shook his head. “We should have taken the road.”

“We couldn’t have carried the stretcher fifteen miles.”

“We’re going to have to spend the night here.”

Each saw dread in the other’s eyes. Their silence was broken by John Hawks, who came running toward them through the trees.

“Mr. Vern!” he shouted as he raced into the clearing. “Three quarters of a mile …” he panted, “where they’re surveying trees, they’ve left a skidder.”

“A skidder?”

“They use it for transporting equipment. They’re like tanks, they can move through anything.”

“Will it run?” Rob asked urgently.

“I can cross the wires.”

“How long will it take?”

“It’s flat ground, we can get there in thirty minutes.”

“To get to town.”

“Three hours, maybe four.”

“It will be night by then,” Romona said.

“It will be night here, too,” Rob responded.

“We have some shelter here,” she answered.

“Those cabins are matchsticks. If we’ve got to face the darkness, let’s be close to town.”

“I agree,” Hawks said.

“All right,” Romona answered.

“Let’s go!”

They hurried into the cabin and emerged with the stretcher, Romona once again helping M’rai, Maggie following with the bundled-up creature in her arms. Hawks still had the archer’s bow and quiver strapped to his back, and the rifle was in the stretcher. Darkness was descending, but they moved with power now. The possibility of escape had renewed their strength.

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Maggie straggled to keep up with Rob; she studied bis face as she moved alongside him. The veins protruded on his neck as he fought to keep the stretcher aloft; his jaw was clenched with a sense of purpose. Their eyes met and they exchanged a reassuring nod. Rob was barely able to speak as he struggled with the stretcher.

“We’re going to get through it, Maggie.”

“I know.”

The trees ahead of them looked unending, as deep and dark as eternity. It felt as though they were moving on a treadmill, going nowhere, for there was no change in the landscape to mark their progress.

Maggie felt a quick spasm go through the body of the infant creature, and she looked down, opening the cloth around its face. Both eyes were open, and it stared up at her with a kind of blank affection, the kind of mindless trust one sees on the face of an infant watching its mother. Maggie quickly covered the face and focused hard on the forest. She prayed the creature would not cry out She could not bare to watch it be slaughtered.

“There!” Hawks shouted.

They broke into a run, reaching the crest of a rise, where they gazed out over an area of forest laid waste by men and machines. The trees had been reduced to stumps, the ground pounded to pulp beneath boots and wheels. Disposable drinking cans and paper garbage littered the ground; a giant vehicle stood in the center, looking like a mechanical king of this domain.

“Look at the size of it!” Rob hissed.

It was made of heavy steel, tall as a steamroller, with rubber tires that were five feet in circumference. A narrow glass-enclosed driver’s compartment protruded from the top of it, and a half-dozen stick-shift rods could be seen surrounding the driver’s wheel.

“Can you drive it?” Rob asked Hawks.

“I’m about to learn. Wait here till I get it running.”

They lowered the stretcher and Hawks raced across

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the clearing, swinging himself up into the driver’s compartment and disappearing from view as he slipped beneath the steering wheel.

As Maggie watched, a small, muffled sound came from the parcel in her arms. She pushed the shawl down hard toward the creature’s face, but caused it to struggle and squeal louder. Rob heard it, and Romona heard it too; she quickly approached, glaring into Rob’s eyes.

“You said-”

“Please,” Maggie interrupted.

“Maggie …”

“It’ll stop.”

“Kill it!” Romona demanded.

But their voices were drowned out by the cornbustion of the skidder’s motor. Exhaust fumes poured from a verticle pipe and Hawks jumped down.

“Let’s go!” he shouted, running up and grabbing the stretcher.

“John,” Romona protested.

“Let’s go!” he demanded, cutting her off.

Romona whirled angrily toward Maggie.

“It’s quiet!” Maggie insisted. “It stopped!”

“Let’s go,” Rob commanded.

They raced from the trees to the skidder, Rob and Hawks tying the stretcher on with ropes that hung from the running board. Romona climbed onto the open flatbed at the rear that was surrounded with a heavy metal railing. She pulled M’rai up beside her, Rob did the same with Maggie, and Hawks jumped into the driver’s compartment, snagged for a moment by the archer’s bow strapped to his back.

“I’ll hold that for you!” Rob yelled to him.

Hawks shook his head and eased behind the wheel, pulling levers that made the vehicle suddenly lurch forward, then back. M’rai lost his balance, but Rob managed to grab him before he fell.

“Hold tight to the rail!” Rob shouted over the din of the motor. “Everybody get secured!”

Maggie pulled close to the railing, unwittingly push-

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ing the parcel in her arms close to her face, and she could hear a sound coming from within. It was not a squeal, it was a purr. She could feel the gentle rumbling beneath her chin.

“Give me the rifle,” Rob called to Romona.

She grabbed it up from the stretcher and handed it across, then braced her body behind M’rai, gripping the railing on either side of him to hold him in place.

“Everybody set?” Hawks called.

“Go!” Rob commanded.

The vehicle lurched and spun aboutface, the passengers clinging tight until it stabilized and started forward. The sound of the motor was louder when the vehicle was in gear, and it vibrated like a jackhammer as it bumped across boulders that were strewn in its way. Rob climbed over the railing and edged his way to the driver’s compartment.

“How do we get there?” he asked Hawks.

“There’s a riverbed that leads to the lake. We’ll follow the shoreline to the road.”

“My car’s near there.”

“I’d rather travel in this!” Hawks answered, pounding the heavy metal dashboard with his fist. Rob nodded and edged back to where the others were, crawling over the railing and bracing his body behind Maggie, as Romona had done with M’rai.

Night was coming fast and a sharp wind had risen, blowing the trees. Perched on their metallic stallion, they felt exhilarated, like soldiers returning alive from battle.

In the driver’s compartment, Hawks’s body vibrated in every fiber as he clung to the shift levers. He glanced at the gas gauge; it was less than half full. There was a roll of heavy tape on the floor near his feet; he grabbed it, and using his teeth, ripped off a piece and plastered it across the gas gauge. He didn’t want to know.

As darkness began to take hold, the vehicle emerged from a thinly forested area, and onto an expanse of rolling hills. Hawks knew that the impenetrable tree

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line to the right stood between them and the lake. There was a dry riverbed somewhere ahead that ran directly through the trees and down to the shore. As a child, Hawks used to race the length of it, from the top of the hills to the shore, and take flight the last few feet, leaping headlong into the water. It was this riverbed that he was looking for, but in the near darkness the landscape looked suddenly unfamiliar.

He glanced behind them, wondering if he had passed it, and saw that the clouds had parted over the distant mountains, revealing a full, glowing moon. Once darkness fell, it would light the landscape almost as clear as day. The difficult time was now, before the shadows came to define the landmarks along the way. Then he saw a streak of yellow through the trees ahead and to the right. It was the reflection of the moon on the lake, calm and peaceful below them. Hawks could even make out the darkened mound in the center of the water, the island where Rob and Maggie’s cabin stood. It was all the more frustrating to see the lake, for Hawks could not find the avenue of access to it.

“There’s the lake,” Rob called. “It’s just below us.”

“I see it!” Hawks shouted.

“Where’s the riverbed?”

“I’ve lost it.”

“Turn on the headlights.”

In his desperation to see in the dark, Hawks had forgotten that the vehicle had lights. He found a switch and snapped it on; a spotlight beamed on the terrain that rumbled toward and beneath them. There was a lever above Hawk’s head; he grabbed it and swiveled the spotlight, sweeping the beam through the trees. With sudden relief he recognized a landmark, a huge rock sharply configurated like an arrowhead. They used to call it M’ahay’ah, the “protector.” The riverbed was only a few hundred yards ahead.

“We’re going to make it!” Hawks called back. “We’re more than halfway!”

The group on the back of the vehicle looked at one

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another in triumph; except for M’rai, whose eyes were on the trees. Rob noticed it and edged close to him.

“Do you see something in there?”

“I see everything in there.”

“We’re going to make it, old man.”

“No,” M’rai answered. Then he turned and looked at Rob. “Can you stop the car?”

Rob stared at him in amazement.

“I wish to get out here,” M’rai said. “You will be saved if I can get out here.”

“Why?”

“I can speak with Katahdin. He knows my love for him. I will make him understand about taking his child.”

The vehicle suddenly lurched to a stop, the spotlight swiveling in all directions.

“Thank you,” M’rai said.

Romona grabbed hold of him. “M’rai!”

“He’s waiting for me just there,” M’rai complained.

Rob grabbed the old man’s arms and held firm. “Why did we stop?” he shouted to Hawks.

“The cut to the lake! It’s supposed to be here!”

“It’s grown over with ferns …” Romona shouted.

“Let me please go down before he gets angry,” M’rai protested.

“Tie him to the rail,” Rob ordered. “Tie him up.” Then he edged to the driver’s compartment. “Keep moving! Keep it going!”

“There’s nowhere to go if we pass the riverbed!”

“To your right,” Romona said. “Look for the ferns.”

“Where?” called Hawks, swiveling the spotlight

“It should be over there!”

From beside Romona, a sharp squeal rose from the parcel in Maggie’s arms. Maggie desperately pushed the cloth wrapping down upon the creature’s face, but the animal began to struggle, its cry of panic rising in intensity.

“Throw it out!” Romona cried. “It will kill us all!”

“Katahdin is here!” M’rai declared.

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“Get moving!” Rob ordered. “Get it going!”

“There’s nowhere to go!” Hawks shouted.

“Just move it!”

Hawks jerked a shift lever and the mighty vehicle lurched backward, all grabbing the railing to keep from being thrown. The creature in Maggie’s arms freed one of its paws, the sharp talons waving viciously in front of her eyes, but as she clung to the railing, she was helpless to stop it.

“Rob!” she called.

“Drop it!” he commanded as he edged toward her.

Maggie stepped back to let the parcel drop, but the talons hooked into her blouse, the creature squealing in loud, piercing cries.

“Throw it out!” Romona screamed.

“I can’t!”

“There’s the cut!” Hawks yelled. “There’re the ferns!”

His spotlight swiveled to one side of them, and Romona gasped in fear. Their heads spun around, and they saw it. The reflection of two huge saucerlike eyes staring back at them from the center of the light beam.

“God!” Maggie screamed.

“Move it!” Rob shouted. “Fast!”

“Holy Mother …” Hawks moaned as he fumbled with the shift levers. The vehicle lurched forward, Romona and M’rai falling to the floor.

“It’s coming!” Maggie shrieked.

She fumbled with the surging bundle in her arms, then looked up to see the foliage explode behind them as the huge specter of the beast charged into the clearing. Hawks pushed the accelerator to the floor, speeding blindly into the darkness, the vehicle bumping and lurching as the beast gained steadily from behind. Against the moonlight it could be seen only as a mountainous shadow, growing larger with each second. Then the skidder collided with a tree stump, knocking everyone to the floor. Hawks fumbled with the gears, and the vehicle spun, barreling down-226

ward with the speed of a roller coaster toward the trees.

Maggie sobbed as she clung to the floor, the squirming bundle pinned beneath her. Rob fumbled in his pocket, pulling out a bullet and throwing it into the rifle chamber. Grabbing the railing, he aimed at the mountainous shadow, but the vehicle swerved as he fired and the shot went wild. The beast was almost on them now, the vehicle running sideways on a hill, tilted at a precarious angle.