The Lost Valley, page 4
Erik was wavering, Danny saw that. But Jess took a step closer to Gus.
“Let me know how it goes,” she said to Noble. “Now that we know it’s there, we’ve got all the time in the world. What’s the rush?”
“It’s what we came for,” Noble said again, and there was a definite whine in his voice. He didn’t like being disobeyed, and it showed. Erik stepped over to stand beside Mike, but Jess stayed put near Gus and Danny.
“Okay then,” Noble said. “Keep a pot of coffee warm for us; we’ll be back before dark.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Danny said, but Noble’s stare was now fixed and unwavering.
He won’t back down now; he’s tasted enough defeat for one day.
Danny, Gus, and Jess headed north, while the other three cut off south and west, gingerly zigzagging their way across and down a steep, snow-covered slope.
“The fucking idiots are going to get themselves killed,” Danny said, but again Gus shrugged.
“I can’t be responsible for every dumbass on the planet,” he replied. “Come on. Let’s head for the trees. I need some coffee.”
The big man turned away, just as a high squeal echoed across the valley. Something came out of the trees to the north, a black shadow that rose, wings unfurling and beating, gaining height. It came on like a torpedo, an eagle with a wingspan so vast Danny couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It went over their heads ten feet up; close enough that they felt a draft as the wings beat. Each jet-black wing was as broad as a house door and half again as long, spanning what Danny would later estimate at nearly twenty feet tip to tip. Right there and then, he didn’t have time for thinking, for the impossible bird was already swooping down in a screeching attack on Noble’s group.
It caught the last of the three, Erik, on the back, huge talons hooking, not into his flesh but into his backpack, ripping it away with a squeal of frustration. Erik tumbled away under the bird, leaving a trail of red behind him in the snow as he rolled, gaining speed, tumbling off the hill. The bird’s wings beat twice and it launched itself upward in a tight spiral, squealing again in frustrated rage.
“Erik,” Jess shouted and before Danny thought to stop her was off and running toward the injured man.
Overhead, the eagle circled then swooped in another attack.
- Jess -
Her only thought was for her fallen friend. A red trail showed the path of his descent and Jess made directly for it. She was vaguely aware that Mike was approaching her position from the other side and looked up over his shoulder to see Noble making off at speed in frantic flight across and down the slope in the opposite direction. Erik, in the meantime, was still tumbling away down the slope. There was a distinct drop-off some way farther down and he was heading straight for it. From here, Jess had no idea how long a fall it might be; but even only a few meters would be enough to kill him if he landed on rock.
“Erik, hold on, I’m coming,” she shouted and headed for him, the snow flying at her heels as she plowed through it.
“Get down,” Gus shouted behind her. “Everybody down.”
It sounded like an order.
But if I obey it, I lose Erik.
She plowed on. Erik was trying desperately to get a hold somewhere on the snow, but his momentum was such that he was still accelerating, still moving farther away from Jess even as she put on a new burst of speed.
“Jess, look out,” Mike shouted from behind her, and she was suddenly aware of a black shadow falling on her from above. Instinct kicked in and she threw her body to her left, ducking and rolling in the same movement. But this wasn’t a gym; the presence of her backpack meant that her roll ended abruptly with her lying on her back on top of it, looking up as the eagle speared down, straight at her, talons reaching for her face.
She kicked away, propelling herself backward. The backpack acted like a sled, taking off and away at speed, dragging her along screaming behind it, the eagle once again squealing its frustration as she escaped it by less than a foot, a talon raking the air where her legs had been a second before.
Then there was no time to think of eagles, or Noble, or Erik. She saw the wounded man’s astonished look as she sped past him, unable to do anything to halt her descent, sliding ever faster down the slope.
She went over the drop-off like a ski-jumper, her heart in her mouth for three seconds of freefall before she landed hard, bounced twice on soft snow, and kept descending, the backpack still tugging her along. She was trapped in an icy runnel between the trees, a partially snow-covered frozen stream that now acted like a toboggan ride, funneling her away and down under an arch of pines.
All she could do was scream and hope.
Finally, after what seemed like an age of back-wrenching bouncing and ass-freezing sliding, the funnel spat her out. Once again, she flew, airborne, wondering whether this time was the end before she hit freezing water with a splash that knocked the wind out of her and immediately soaked her all the way through. She coughed, spluttered, and worried about drowning for all of three seconds before she realized the water she lay in was no more than six inches deep. She got to her knees, gingerly, expecting broken bones at the least, but it seemed all she had suffered was a bruised back and an affront to her dignity.
The first thing she did was look up. There was no sign of the others, just a wall of green and, impossibly high up, a white patch that must be the snow slope she’d fallen from. She was about to shout out when she noticed the silence around her. For the first time since her landing, she looked around at her surroundings.
The pond she’d landed in was in the middle of a patch of boggy ground. It was almost circular, about twenty feet in diameter…and all around the rim lay the carcasses of what looked to have been large deer of some kind. Most were almost totally skeletal and had obviously been there for some time, but one, only ten feet or so from where Jess knelt in the water, was still moist, still red, although most of the meat had been stripped from it.
There’s a predator around here somewhere.
Out here in the mountains, it could be wolf, bear, or mountain lion. She didn’t want to meet any of the three.
They’ll come for me. Gus and Danny will come for me.
That was as may be, but standing out in the open in a feeding ground wasn’t the best plan for waiting. It was when she turned to look across the valley that she knew where she should go. The cave mouth—mine entrance, if that was what it was—showed as a darker hole up the slope and it didn’t look like a difficult scramble to get to it.
They’ll know to look for me there. And even if they don’t, Noble will find me. Nothing’s going to keep him from his gold.
She stood, again gingerly, winced as her back flared in deep muscular pain, then lifted her totally sodden, tattered backpack and started across the valley floor.
There was no sign of any other life in the immediate vicinity, although there was a large herd of something way to the west, lost in a misty haze thick enough to obscure exactly what they might be. Jess’ gaze kept flickering upward to the sky, but it appeared the eagle had lost interest with her rapid leaving of its territory. She also kept checking the higher slopes, hoping to see signs of the guides, but there was no sight, or sound, of them. After a time, she concentrated on the dark mouth of the cave ahead, and, ignoring the constant throb of pain from her bruised back, made a straight line for it.
She paused only once, when she almost stumbled over a skeleton by the side of a dried-up pond. It wasn’t the size of the rib cage that impressed her, although she saw that she could probably get her whole body inside it; it was the pair of antlers and the skull that she couldn’t look away from. The antlers were heavy, almost spade-like and thick, and with a span wider than her outstretched arms fingertip to fingertip. She’d seen its like before, in a museum, on a skeleton labeled Giant Elk (extinct). These remains were old, but not that old. Somebody in a museum was going to be changing labels.
As she neared the sloping trail that led to the cave mouth, she was starting to hope that Noble might even be there already, but she knew that wasn’t possible—her own descent from the heights couldn’t have been any more rapid.
The trail itself was a rutted track through gravel. Noble had been right earlier: it was definitely a spill heap running down from the cave itself. Somebody had been mining here, although it had been many years in the past.
As she started to climb away from the valley floor, she saw other signs that this was human activity. Discarded tools and implements lay at the side of the track; a rusted pick axe with a broken handle, a corroded tin bucket with a fist-sized hole in it, and an old leather saddlebag, little more than dry scraps of material. It was while she was studying the bag that a gunshot echoed around the valley, followed by a second. It was answered by a trumpeting bellow from the west. She looked that way and found she was now high enough to see past and through the mist to the herd.
Her breath caught in her throat and her heart raced, all thought of the gunshots forgotten at the sight of the herd, thirty or more of them, another museum piece that would need to be relabeled to allow for the fact that wooly mammoths still walked the earth.
- Then -
We are in the third day in this strange valley. There are wonders here, and I do not merely speak of the gold we have uncovered, for the treasure seems, to me, to be the least of the marvels this place holds.
We came off the hill early in the morning, having descended into the verdant valley the Indian guides’ map had led us to. Johnson’s geologist’s eye immediately identified a spot on the far side of the valley from our point of descent, a shallow cave, as our most likely point of access to any seam. We set off across the valley floor toward it.
Almost as soon as we were off the hill, we discovered all manner of skeletons, some of which were obviously large deer but others of beasts we could not identify, and others still of beasts we recognized but much larger than the norm in the outside world. Some of the remains were obviously ancient but others still bore flesh, some of it wetly red.
Johnson and Williamson kept a tight grip on their rifles as we moved across open ground, but no live animals approached us. We could see several distinct herds of larger beasts farther to the north and west up the valley, but for now, they were keeping their distance. We were able to reach the cave mouth without being disturbed in our walk.
Once we were there, Johnson directed activities. He was as excited as I have ever seen a man. It was infectious in the extreme and had us all scurrying hither and thither in a rush to get started. We set charges and, using the four sticks of dynamite we had brought with us, blew a great hole in the hill. We set up camp in the mouth of the entrance, put Jeffries and Franks on guard, and the rest of us set to hewing into the rock with a vengeance.
It quickly became apparent that we would need better tools, and possibly more dynamite, to do a proper job but even in that first day, we had been rewarded with the find of two nuggets the size of the first joint of my little figure.
We celebrated that first night by making a large dent in a bottle of bourbon and if anyone but me heard the strange bellows, roars, and howls that echoed around the valley, none spoke of it, all of us lost in our seemingly achievable dreams of fortune and glory.
I slept better than I have in months, but I fear it was more to do with the bourbon than from any peace of mind. I cannot shake the image of that great eagle blocking the stars, and I fear that apprehension for the return journey has already got a grip on me.
But it has to be said, day two has gone even better than the first, for we made good progress despite our rudimentary tools, the rock being riven with faults that allowed it to be easily split and carted out of the shaft. The hardest part has been in transporting the spillage up and outside, and we have taken to dumping it down the slope just outside the cave mouth, where there is already a scar on the hillside to mark our presence
But it has all been made worthwhile by the fulfillment of all our dreams. Williamson found it just after noon and by God, it is huge.
The seam is more than six feet wide where it shows near the mouth of the shaft and appears to be widening where it disappears into the rock. If we can but get the right tools and equipment up to this place, there is a fortune to be had, enough that none of us shall ever want for anything again in this life.
We are all going to be rich men.
- Danny -
Danny had only been able to stand and watch as first Jess then Erik tumbled away down the slope. They fell off the edge out of sight while Danny was still taking his first steps to go to their rescue. Then his whole attention had to be on the eagle, which, having failed to grab the woman, was already circling again, looking for a fresh target.
Noble was off and away somewhere to the east, Mike stood at the spot where Jess had fallen, looking around, confused and bewildered. Only Gus seemed to have a handle on the situation. He knelt on one knee, rifle raised, tracking the eagle.
“Come closer, ya bastard thing,” the big man muttered. “I’ll have you.”
Danny did what he should have done earlier: he joined Gus in taking aim. The bird tucked its wings in for a dive and fell out of the air, heading straight for Mike.
Both men fired at almost the same moment. Danny missed, he knew that as soon as he pulled the trigger, but Gus’ shot hit the bird in the meat of its body and it tumbled over in the air, twice, before spreading its wings and coming out of the dive. It dripped blood on Danny’s head as it swooped away overhead. Gus tried another shot, but if he hit it, it didn’t slow. Seconds later, the bird was soaring away over the top of the trees to the north, where it quickly dipped out of view.
“You got it,” Danny said and clapped the big man’s shoulder.
“Buggering thing was too big,” Gus replied. “That shot would have stopped a bear, but it took it and kept flying. How did it get so buggering big?”
Danny knew the big man wasn’t expecting him to answer, which was just as well, as he didn’t have a clue how to begin. He helped Gus to his feet then went to check on Mike.
The man was obviously in shock, his glazed eyes and slack jaw evidence to that. But he wasn’t injured so Danny left him alone for the time being. He looked east along the slope, looking for Noble, but the man was nowhere to be seen.
“Well, this has gone to shit and back real fast, hasn’t it?” Gus said.
“What’ll we do now, boss?” Danny asked.
The big man pointed down the bloody trail to the drop-off.
“We’d best go check on those two first. Noble can look after himself for a bit, I’m sure. His legs seemed to be working well enough last I saw of him.”
Danny went first down the slope, taking it slow and making sure each foot was firmly planted before venturing lower. He followed the blood trail down. Judging by the spillage, Erik was wounded badly. As Danny descended, he listened, hoping to hear a cry for help from beyond the drop-off but now that even the eagle was silent, the whole valley appeared to have fallen into a hushed expectancy. As he approached the drop-off, Danny knew that he didn’t want to look over; what he was likely to see would haunt him for a very long time.
But they might be alive. Or at least, Jess might be. I have to look.
When he did pluck up the courage to venture to the edge and look over, it proved to be an anticlimax. There was a ten-foot drop to the tree line below, no sign of any bodies, but a blood trail that continued downward to be lost under the canopy.
Gus arrived at Danny’s back, with a still lost-looking Mike at his side.
“Anything?” the older man asked.
Danny pointed to the blood.
“They went farther down by the looks of things,” he said.
“Then we should too, I guess,” Gus replied. “I don’t have any qualms about leaving Noble up here, but that woman saved my life not an hour ago. I owe it to her to do what I can.”
Danny looked along below the drop both left and right, then pointed out a spot where the slope butted up hard against a few taller trees.
“It’ll be a bit of a scramble, but we might get down there?”
“Might is as good as it’s going to get for a while, lad,” Gus said. “Come on. Let’s see if we can get the flock back together.”
They had to push Mike around like a doll to get him to move along the ledge, and Danny stayed between the man and the drop-off; Mike didn’t look aware enough of where he was to be trusted not to fall off the edge. And when they reached where the trees butted against the slope, Gus and Danny had to manhandle Mike down through the branches between them, dumping him in a bank of soft snow like a discarded rucksack.
Danny joined Gus in heading for the blood trail. It was worse than it had looked from overhead—a meter-wide smear heading north and east, more along the slope than down.
“What does that look like to you, lad?” Gus said, speaking softly and keeping his voice low. There was a quiet watchfulness in the big man now that Danny recognized from previous hunting trips.
“It looks like something was dragged off,” Danny replied, pointing, “that way.”
“That’s what it looks like to me too,” Gus said grimly.
They returned to where they’d left Mike. The man was standing upright now and looking about him, still obviously confused, but closer to the land of the living than he had been. Gus took him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye.
“We need you here and now, man,” he said. “Your friends are in trouble, and I can’t spare time to look after you too. Are you with us?”
Mike’s eyes finally focused.
“They’re alive?” he whispered.
“They might be,” Gus answered. “But they could also be in deep trouble. Are you with us?” he asked again, more forcibly this time. Mike nodded.
