The Lost Valley, page 5
“Whatever it takes,” he said.
Gus led the way along the slope north and east and was first to go under the canopy, following the blood trail down into semi-darkness. Mike kept his eyes on Gus’ back as he followed but Danny saw how pale the man’s face had gone. The shock might have lifted, but it wasn’t far away from coming back.
The trail wasn’t a long one. It ended in a small clearing on a flatter piece of ground on the hillside. All Danny saw was a splash of red on snow then Gus moved to stand between him, Mike, and the view of the clearing.
“There’s something here. I’ll go and have a look,” he said calmly, but Danny caught the look Gus gave him, and when Gus moved away, Danny stepped in to stop Mike being able to look past him.
“What is it?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know,” Danny replied, which was the truth.
But I can make a damned good guess.
His fears were confirmed when Gus returned. He looked pale, almost gray, as if ready to throw up. He addressed Mike first.
“You need to prepare yourself, lad.”
“Prepare myself? For what?
“It’s your pal; what’s left of him.”
Gus moved aside, Danny turned, and saw that the red was spread much further than he’d thought. Most of the clearing was splashed, red streaks on the white below and now that the way was clear, he smelled it too: copper and piss and shit all together. Almost in the center of the clearing, set out as if in ritual, were two large chunks of what looked like raw meat. One was a leg, shoeless, a pale foot showing all too clearly, and the other chunk was half of a torso, broken ribs puncturing what was left of the flesh. The other limbs, the rest of the torso, and the head were nowhere to be seen.
Mike took one look, gagged, and had to turn aside to throw up. Danny didn’t blame him one bit.
“Bear?” he asked Gus, but the big man shook his head.
“Bears are neater than whatever did this. This thing likes biting in big chunks. I’d say mountain lion, but if it is, it’s a big sucker.”
Danny was thinking of how big the eagle had been earlier. He didn’t want to think about a scaled-up big cat.
“Any sign of Jess?”
“Nope. No other tracks except the blood smear and what look like huge paw prints…again, I’m thinking cat. But go and look for yourself…if you’ve got the stomach for it. I’ll watch our lad here…he doesn’t need to see it.”
Danny wasn’t sure about the state of his stomach.
But if there is a big predator around, the more we know the better.
He stepped into the clearing, covering his mouth and nose with his left hand to try to mask the smell. Something hit him on the left shoulder and fell to the ground. He looked down to see a pine cone lying there. A second hit him on the top of the head.
He looked up. Noble was high in the branches of a tall pine, looking down at Danny. His face was ashen, and he didn’t speak at first, merely pointed, south and down the slope.
“It went that way,” he finally said.
It took Danny, with Mike’s help, ten minutes to talk Noble out of the tree; Gus refused outright to have anything to do with him. It was another five minutes after that before they got any information out of him.
“I was just trying to get away, anywhere away from that fucking huge bird,” he said. He was looking at the ground, not able to look Danny, or Gus in particular, in the eye. “I turned up here, just in time to hear something coming through the trees. I wasn’t stupid enough to speak and ask if it was any of you…I just got up the nearest big fucking tree I could find. And I’m damned glad I did, for the fucker dragged poor Erik in just a few seconds after I got up there.”
“Was he dead?” Mike asked, no more than a tremulous whisper.
“Long dead,” Noble replied, “as if that’s any consolation.”
“And you saw what dragged him in here?” Danny asked.
“Yep. It was a fucking cat, but the biggest damned thing you’ll ever see. You ever seen a Bengal Tiger? Think bigger. More russet in color, hairier, heavier in the shoulders, longer teeth…just bigger.”
“There’s nothing like that in these hills,” Danny said, and Noble laughed.
“There is now. And I vote we get the fuck out of here before it realizes it’s got a taste for us.”
“What about Jess?” Mike asked.
“What about her? Fuck her,” Noble said and got punched again, by Mike this time. It didn’t floor him the way Gus had done earlier but Danny saw that the surprise was even greater.
Mike turned to Gus.
“What’s your best guess as to where we find her?” he said.
Gus was still smiling at Noble’s discomfort when he answered.
“Down in the valley, if she’s anywhere. She’ll figure someone will look for her at the mine.”
“I’m not going anywhere except out of here,” Noble replied, and Gus finally spoke to him.
“And I’ll tell you what I told you before. Our contract is done. Feel free to fuck off. But we’re going to look for Jess.”
When they left the clearing a few minutes later heading downward, Noble followed closely at their backs.
Getting down proved to be more difficult than they’d imagined. There were some animal trails but mostly they criss-crossed the slopes rather than heading up to the tops or down to the valley floor. And it was slow going; Gus wasn’t taking any chances, as watchful and careful as he would have been tracking down an old Grizzly.
They found more blood thirty yards north of the clearing, but after that, it was as if both the big cat and any parts of what was left of poor Erik had simply vanished.
“It went off deeper,” Gus said in a whisper. “Under the canopy off-trail. And I’m not stupid enough to follow it. It’s the woman we need to find now. We’re going down the next trail we find heading that way.”
They came across a frozen stream running away downhill some five minutes later. Gus led the way as they carefully picked their way in a steep descent, every footstep a trial in staying upright, every breath held in anticipation of a slip that might send them tumbling away between the trees.
“This is bloody pointless,” Noble said at Danny’s back. “She fell off the cliff. She’s gone, and we all know it.”
“I know no such thing,” Gus said ahead of them and bent to pick up something off a rock. He passed it back via Mick to Danny, who showed it to Noble—a silver rucksack buckle.
“I helped her tighten these up this morning,” Danny said. “She passed this way.”
“Passed, or was dragged,” Noble said, then went quiet when he saw the look in Danny’s eyes.
“You’ve been punched twice today already,” Danny went on. “If you want to make it three for three, just keep on running that big fucking mouth of yours.”
Noble looked like he might want to argue but Gus quieted them both with a sharp low whistle. When Danny looked to the older man, Gus pointed through the trees and raised his rifle.
Danny had just got his own weapon raised when something came out of the canopy at a rush that sent branches flying and wood splintering.
At first, all Danny knew was that it was big and rust-colored. He caught a glimpse of a gaping mouth that contained long, curving teeth that looked longer than his hand width, and then it was on them. Gus got off one shot—Danny didn’t know if it hit the beast or not, but a second later, it had barreled into the big guide, and both Gus and the big cat rolled and tumbled away under the trees. Danny sent a shot after it and saw a burst of red at the back of its left thigh where he hit it. But it didn’t slow. It let out a roar that told of pain, but more of defiance then both it and Gus were gone as a deep silence fell around them.
Danny didn’t stop to think. He ducked under the canopy and went after them, all though of caution forgotten, the tracks and fresh blood, an easy trail to follow. He was vaguely aware of somebody thrashing along behind him, but whether it was Mick or Noble, or both, he didn’t care.
“Gus!” he shouted.
He didn’t get an answer.
- Jess -
Jess had stood, open-mouthed, staring at the mammoths for a long time, her brain trying to process information she knew to be impossible but unable to deny her eyes. She was vaguely aware that she was also listening, hoping for another gunshot, another sign that she wasn’t alone with this impossible view. But the valley had fallen silent again, the mammoths having gone back to whatever it was that mammoths did up here in the high valley.
Something shifted under her feet, forcing her to look down, and that broke the spell that had held her. She stood on a decaying piece of leather saddlebag, a reminder that someone had been here before her.
And that someone might have left something that I’ll need to survive.
She forced herself to concentrate on the path and not return to gazing up the valley, and headed up the slope toward the cave mouth.
As she climbed higher, she found more evidence of mining; small spoil heaps, gouges in the rock that could only have come from tools, and more discarded, rusting, and broken implements. At the mouth of the cave itself she found an oil lamp hanging on a hook driven into the wall, and saw another some eight feet inside, beyond which it was too dark to see. She had no means of lighting the lamps so she set about a survey of what little she could see without having to go deeper into the dark.
There wasn’t much to find. The cave wasn’t a cave at all, but a worked shaft. Judging by the echoes, it went quite some way down into the side of the valley, but without a light to guide her, Jess was loath to venture beyond the reach of the light from outside. Even that was going dimmer by the second. She went back to the entrance and looked to the sky; it had gone slate gray, visibly darker than before. The snowy high slopes from where she’d fallen were now concealed by low clouds, and there was a damp chill in the air that spoke of harsher weather to come.
She began gathering anything she could find to make a fire, although she still didn’t have anything to use to get one going.
But I’ll bang rocks together if it comes down to it.
She found some dry wood and scraps of worn clothing that might be useful as tinder. She began piling it in a small heap inside the mouth of the mine, and had just turned to look for more when she saw three figures heading toward her across the valley floor.
Only three?
At first, she tried to persuade herself that the others had stayed up top, and that perhaps Gus had stayed with a wounded Erik while these three came for her. But as they got closer, it only needed one look in their faces to understand the story was a different, more terrible one.
Mike came to her first.
“Erik?” she said, and a shake of Mike’s head was all that was needed. She saw the rest in Danny’s pale face.
“Your friend, the big man?”
“Gone the same way as Erik,” Danny said, his voice dull. “At least I think so. We haven’t found either of them yet.”
“Then they could still be alive?”
Danny shook his head, but didn’t speak. It was Noble’s insensitivity that finally got her the information she didn’t want to hear.
“There was too much blood for the big man to have made it,” he said. “And Erik was torn to bits like an angry kid with a straw doll. I saw it and—”
“That’s enough,” Mike said softly. “She knows all she needs to know for now.”
She saw Danny look around. The weather was closing in fast, heavy gray clouds rolling down the slopes.
“We head back,” he said. “We head back right now. If we move fast, we might beat the weather and make last night’s camp by nightfall.”
A mixture of sleet and rain started to spatter on the ground. At the same time, the wind got up out of nowhere, whistling along the length of the valley.
“You were saying?” Noble said sarcastically.
Even then, Danny was all for making the attempt to get out of the valley, but Jess was still battered and bruised, and Mike looked dead on his feet.
“None of us are in much of a state for a hike right now, Danny,” she said. “And at least we’ve got shelter here.”
“You’re all my responsibility now,” Danny replied. “I just want to do what’s right by you.”
“What’s right is we get a fire going, get some rest, and head back at first light. How does a pot of coffee sound?”
“Sounds might fine to me.”
While Jess was persuading Danny to stay, Noble and Mike, their excitement overriding any trepidation they might have, were already making their way down the tunnel, lighting oil lamps with Danny’s lighter as they went. Jess heard their excited chatter fade off down the shaft but strangely felt no desire to join them. Any gold-lust that might have driven her to come here had just as quickly been driven out of her by the disasters of the day.
Besides, Danny looked like a man in sore need of a friend. She stayed with him as he got the camp stove going and started brewing coffee, the small ritual seeming to calm him and ground him back in a reality he’d been drifting away from.
“Is there any hope?” she said quietly.
“For Erik, none at all. Noble was right about that at least. As for Gus…I’m pretty sure he’s gone. There was too much blood, and there were no more shots. He would have used his weapon if he was able. What the hell have we walked into here?”
She told him about the mammoths, and he laughed bitterly.
“I’ll see your hairy elephants and raise you a fucking saber-toothed tiger,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that’s what got the others. But I’ll be damned if I can figure any of this out. Giant eagles, mammoths, and tigers should be extinct. This kind of shit doesn’t happen in Canada.”
“It’s some kind of relict environment,” Jess said. “A lost world.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s not fucking lost now.”
Danny handed her a mug of coffee.
“Shouldn’t you be away down the hole with the others looking for your gold?”
“Right now, coffee wins,” she said and realized she meant it.
But when Mike’s excited call came up the shaft seconds later, her resistance faded.
“We’ve found it! We’re rich!” he shouted.
Danny managed a thin smile.
“At least somebody’s happy.” He took Jess’ coffee cup from her. “You should go and see what all the excitement’s about. I’ll watch the door. Holler if you need anything.”
Mike was still shouting excitedly as Jess made her way down the shaft, her shadow flitting and dancing in the flickering light from the lamps.
It got warmer as she descended, but she didn’t have to go far. After less than twenty paces, the passage opened into a wider chamber. Mike and Noble stood at the far side from her, a lantern raised. A seam of golden sparkles a yard and more at its widest ran all along the far side of the chamber, broadening as it disappeared deeper into the rock
“We’re rich,” Noble said. “We’re all fucking rich.”
“Yeah. All of us but Erik,” Jess said.
“Don’t be a party pooper, Jess,” Noble said. “Let me enjoy the moment.”
She bit her tongue and didn’t reply. Her attention had been caught, not by the gold seam but by something else on the rock face to her right.
“Get that light over here, Mike,” she said.
“There’s no gold on that wall,” Noble replied.
“It’s not the gold I’m worried about,” she said and had Mike get the lamp right up close to the rock face. Someone had been painting on a flat area. There were broad, flat handprints in red and white, alongside spear-wielding stick figures that were obviously meant to be human and others with horned antlers sprouting from their heads that were obviously not. To the left of that were depictions of animals, mammoth and deer in the main, herds of them, being chased by more of the stick figures.
“I saw that when we came in,” Noble said. “Ancient Native art, of no interest to us.”
“Native, yes, but ancient? I think not,” Jess replied. “You don’t get it yet, do you? This isn’t a cave…it’s a mineshaft, dug out by the miners we came looking for. So these paintings are relatively recent.”
“So?” Noble said.
“So, we might not be alone in this valley,” Jess replied. “And if there are indigenous people here, the gold isn’t ours. It’s theirs.”
Noble was still fuming when they left the chamber and headed back up to where Danny had another pot of coffee brewing on the stove.
“What they don’t know can’t hurt them,” Noble said. “We can stake a claim, get the digging down, and be out of here with nobody any the wiser.”
“That’s not the way things work,” Jess said. “And you know it. There are licenses to apply for, rules to follow. The government—”
“Fuck the government. We found it. It’s ours.”
Noble had reverted to childhood arguments, and Jess knew there would be no convincing him on the matter until they were well away from the site and clearer heads could prevail.
And it looks like we’re not going anywhere anytime soon.
Sleet was coming down heavy now outside the entrance and the wind whistled across the opening, setting the flames of their small fire guttering and flickering.
“Well?” Danny said, directing his question at her. “Are you rich?”
“That remains to be seen,” she replied, taking a fresh mug of coffee. “But there’s something else you should know.”
She told him about the paintings on the wall of the cavern, and he looked thoughtful.
“There’s long been stories of tribes out in the hills, people that fled north to escape the Indian Wars and resettlements in the USA way back when. Maybe we’ve stumbled on one of them.”
“Given the way today’s gone,” Jess replied, “I’m keeping an open mind on everything.”
- Then -
