The Lost Valley, page 7
“Danny thinks we should wait for morning,” she said.
“Ooh, Danny now, is it?”
“What age are you? Twelve? Just shut the fuck up and let’s show Mike some respect.”
She thought he might continue to argue but he went back to sitting in the shadows, staring at the fire. Jess immediately put him out of her mind and turned back to Mike. She couldn’t just leave him lying there but equally had no idea what to do next. She didn’t know if Mike had been religious but she lowered her head and said a prayer remembered from childhood before carefully putting his exposed hand into the sleeping bag, pulling it over his head, and zipping the body up tight inside. Then she dragged it away. Noble didn’t move to help as she tugged and pulled. The bag slid easily, and it was only after she returned from leaving it in the chamber with the gold seam that she saw the reason: she’d left a wide trail of blood all the way down the corridor.
The scream welled up in her again. She fled the cramped shaft and headed for the entrance.
Danny was still in the shadows, leaning against the wall, looking almost casual.
“He was right, Mike’s dead,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “But there’s nothing we can do for him now. There is something you can do for me?”
“Anything,” she said. “Ask me anything. I need to be moving.”
“I hear you,” Danny replied. “Fetch a lamp, would you? I want a close look at those two I shot. I’ve been looking and looking…there’s something not right, but it’s too dark to see exactly what.”
Jess went back inside and took the oil lamp from the wall. They lit it with Danny’s lighter and both stayed very still as the wick flickered, expecting the new light to draw a fresh attack, but none came. Danny gave her the nod and she stepped out to where the bodies lay on the downward slope of spillage.
She immediately saw what had concerned Danny.
They don’t look fully human.
She bent closer. The body on top looked directly at her, eyes sunk deep under a heavy brow, a flat face below that with a nose that appeared squashed across the cheeks. The hair was long, black, and shaggy; the torso was broad-shouldered but looked strangely compacted. The upper half was naked, but there was a leather and fur kilt from waist to knees and the legs, although sturdy and muscular, seemed too small for the bulk of the body above. She estimated it—he—would be no more than five feet tall if standing.
She might not have made the connection if she hadn’t seen the mammoths earlier, but recognition came immediately, for this was another thing that surely belonged in a museum.
“I know something’s hinky,” Danny said at her back. “Tell me what it is?”
“Something’s hinky all right,” she replied. “They’re not Native Indian.”
“What are they then?”
The word didn’t seem adequate for the things on the ground beneath her.
“Neanderthals.”
- Then –
This will be my last entry. I write it from my deathbed, but at least it is a bed, something I never thought to experience again. They tell me I am in Banff, but it could be the one in Scotland rather than the Canadian one for all that I will see of it. I am in a small room with a single high window, and I am too enfeebled to get out of bed to look through it. They tell me I have been here for a week, but I will not see the end of this one.
I woke here in this too-soft bed with no memory other than a headlong flight upward through pine forest away from the horrors I had left on the valley floor. I know that my intention was to make for our camp on the rim. I have read the fevered passages I wrote when I reached that high camp at the pyramidal peak, but I have no recollection of writing them; indeed, to my eye, it reads like the hand of another man entirely. I also obviously had enough presence of mind to pack my writings in the rucksack; it lies here on the floor beside the bed. I arrived wearing it in a valley on a timber track near Jasper but again, how I might have got there has been wiped entirely for my memory. I lie here and think that might be for the best, for the sake of my sanity for however long I have left to me.
I take to my grave the shame of leaving my companions, my friends, to their horrific fate. The words I wrote in the journal remind me all too clearly but I do not have to read it for it to come back to me; the sight, the sounds, the smells are all there waiting for me every time I close my eyes. I shall take them into the long sleep of death with me as my penance.
“Johnson would not leave the cave. Gold fever mostly, but also terror at what waits for us in the valley. But we must leave him. We are not wanted here.”
“They ate Williamson. He was still alive when they took out his liver and I didn’t help him. I ran. God help me, I ran.”
The next part is where my memory has left me. But if the big cat was indeed after me on that mad flight up the valley side, I am glad to have that slate wiped clean.
“The tiger has found my scent. I hear it, padding along behind me. I have smeared myself in the shit of the tusked things to try to mask my smell. Dear God, it is rank.”
And the last, the climb up and out and up to the camp? My frostbitten fingers and toes are testimony to a sore trial. Perhaps it is for the best that too has gone from whatever is left of my mind.
“There is nothing I can do but climb and hide, climb and hide, but it is too cold now and the eagles are watching. At least the wolves have not followed me. Not yet…I left them enough meat to be going on with. God help me, I left them.”
I have asked my God for forgiveness, but as of yet, he has not answered me.
I have told no one here about the gold; I doubt my story would be believed in any case. I have entrusted this journal to the Presbyterian minister who has been spending these last hours with me and he has assured me it will be buried with me. It is apt that I take the story to my grave. It is where it belongs.
But if he is not true and someone is reading this in some time ahead, then beware.
Do not go into The Dreaming Indian Valley. Only hell waits for you there.
- Danny -
The long night had just taken another turn into the Twilight Zone, although Danny couldn’t see how this new information made any difference to their situation. He had Jess step away from the dead and come back behind him in the entrance. The sleet had died off, taking the wind with it, leaving behind only steady drizzle. He still couldn’t see much more than a few yards down the slope, and the only sound was the drip and splash of water from the top of the entrance above him to the rock at his feet.
“I could handle another coffee?” he said.
“We’d need water,” she replied. “We’re out.”
Danny waved at the drip. “Fetch the pot and sit it under here. It won’t be much, but we’re going to need it in the morning. Any stew left?”
“Two tins. It’s going to be a simple breakfast.”
“At least we’ll be alive to eat it.”
As soon as it was out, he knew it was the wrong thing to have said. Her eyes clouded and she turned away, leaving Danny alone to rue letting his tongue run faster than his brain.
He continued to peer out into the darkness. His watch told him it was the early hours of the morning. Strangely, he wasn’t feeling tired, despite, or perhaps because of, the events since they left the safety of their high camp the morning before. Everything after that ran like a blur in the projector in his head—Noble’s arrogant stupidity, the first eagle attack, the carnage at Erik’s kill site, the beast, and Gus with it rolling away into the trees, and now the two dead bodies at his feet. Neanderthals was what Jess had said, and he vaguely remembered pictures from a long-forgotten book. Cavemen he’d have called them in his boyhood days, but these were no slow-minded, cartoon club-wielders; the viciousness and speed of their attacks proved the lie to the stereotype.
Jess returned and put the stew pot under the largest area of dripping water then left again without speaking. Danny was thinking about cigarettes again, and beer, a lot of beer. Every part of him wanted to take off, head for the high camp then home, to Jasper, the security of a well-known bar and the oblivion of people, loud music and booze. But that would be letting Gus down even more than he had already.
He shared Gus’ last views on Noble—that one could get back on his own for all Danny cared. Jess was his job now, getting her out of here and somewhere where neither of them had to look at dead bodies of things that shouldn’t be. Maybe she’d even join him for a drink. That was a pleasant enough daydream to be going on with, and he indulged it for a while before he realized he wasn’t really on watch any more, just woolgathering.
After that, he tried to pay attention. Every so often, he’d glance at the dead bodies outside, reminding himself of the threat that might still be out there in the dark, watching and waiting for an opening. On top of that, the sound of water dripping into the metal pot was certainly annoying enough to ensure he stayed in the present.
Jess surprised him into a startled jump some time later by returning to check the pot.
“Coffee coming up in five,” she said as she carried the pot away and gave him a small smile that made him think he hadn’t made too big a faux-pas earlier.
There had been no sign of Noble for hours but Danny didn’t really care enough at first to ask when Jess returned with two mugs. She replaced the pot under the drips.
“I put Mike inside his bag,” she said softly. “He’s down in the bottom chamber. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Noble?”
“Still sitting on his ass. He hasn’t said a word.”
“And you? How are you holding up?”
“You really want to know? I’m a frazzled wreck. I need a hot bath and a cold beer, not necessarily in that order. Tell me you can get us out of here.”
“I think you could probably get yourself out,” Danny said, “but I’ll take the lead. As soon as it starts getting light.”
“What about Mike…?”
“We’ll have to leave him where he lies. We certainly can’t carry him. But the authorities will look after him, once we’ve got out and made a report.”
“Noble might have something to say about that.”
“Noble can go fuck himself,” Danny replied and was surprised to get a laugh in reply.
“I’m sure he’d try if he thought it would help him get the gold. It’s all he cares about.”
“I thought I saw a hint of remorse earlier?”
“If there was, he’s buried it,” Jess replied.
They drank their coffee in a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable.
“I have a confession,” Jess said a few minutes later. “I need to pee. I couldn’t go inside, with Noble there, and I couldn’t go down in the shaft with Mike lying down there. So I’m just going to step outside. I’d be grateful if you’d make sure nothing kills me.”
“I’ve got your back,” Danny replied with a grin. “Then you can do the same for me.”
He tried not to listen to the tinkle of water on rock. Thankfully, it didn’t last long, and Jess returned only a minute later. He handed her the rifle.
“You know what you’re doing with one of these?” he asked.
“Sure,” she replied, checking it was loaded. “I point it at the bad guys, pull the trigger, and keep firing until they go away.”
“Just don’t shoot me,” he replied. “I’ll be back.”
He stepped outside into the drizzle, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable. He sidled to one side of the entrance, away from the bodies, suddenly feeling self-conscious as he unzipped his fly. But the relief was worth it. He finished up and was tucking away when he heard it—a soft flutter, wings in the dark. He ducked, rolled, and came up beside Jess, turning and retrieving the rifle in one smooth movement just in time to see a huge eagle settle on the dead bodies outside and start to tear bloody lumps of flesh from the exposed torso.
“Oh, just fuck off,” he whispered and took aim. Jess stopped him by putting a hand on the barrel. She bent and lifted a fist-sized rock from the ground and, with a throw that would impress any baseball fan, hit the bird squarely in the chest. It gave out a surprised squawk and took off, awkwardly for the first two beats of the wings, and then disappeared smoothly away into the night.
Jess looked at Danny and grinned.
“Nice arm,” he said.
The big cat answered with a roar from out in the night that echoed around the mineshaft.
“It’s the bodies,” Danny said once they were sure an attack wasn’t imminent. “They’re attracting scavengers.”
“As long as they’re not after us, I’m not sure I care,” Jess replied.
Danny was silent. The first glimmer of a plan was starting to form. He didn’t speak of it, not while it wasn’t fully formed.
Besides, I’m pretty sure she’s not going to like it.
The night passed without further incident. Jess stayed by his side and they talked in low voices. Rather, Jess talked, Danny mostly listened to her tell of Toronto, the big city, and eventually of memories of Erik and Mike. She had tears in her eyes several times but she kept on talking. After a while, Danny realized that it wasn’t just her coming to terms with the death of her friends; she was also doing it to keep him awake. And it worked.
I’ve never felt less like sleeping.
She only stopped when a glimmer of gray light showed far in the east above the rim of the valley.
“Breakfast?” she asked, bending to retrieve the pot.
“You betcha,” he replied. “Coffee first for me, I think. Best get Noble to eat something if you can. We’ve got a long climb ahead of us.”
While Jess was gone, he took a risk. He left the entrance and went to where the two dead bodies lay. Using his hunting knife, he cut deep, open wounds in the chests and bellies, then rolled the dead off the path and down into a gully to the north. There was almost enough light now to see the valley floor. The earlier drizzle had lifted, the clouds now risen up almost to the valley rim. Nothing appeared to be moving and there was no sound but his own breathing.
This had better work, he muttered then went back to the entrance to wait for Jess’ return.
Noble joined them in the entrance for coffee and stew. They ate in silence then prepared to move out. Danny took the heaviest of the packs but even then it was much lighter than it had been the day before, empty now of water and stew tins. Noble wanted to leave immediately.
“No,” Danny said. “We wait.”
“Wait for what?”
Danny pointed out over the valley floor. The big cat was stalking across the open ground, occasionally lifting its head to sniff the air, but mostly heading directly for their position.
“For that,” Danny said.
The cat came forward then veered off, heading for the gully to the side of the track. It was only then that he saw Jess notice the bodies had gone. Danny shrugged at her querying look.
“We needed a diversion.”
- Jess -
When Danny finally said run, Jess didn’t wait to be invited. She tried not to look down into the gully but couldn’t help herself. The cat—too small a word for the monster that loomed over the bodies—tore at the torso of one of the Neanderthals, ripping it in two pieces with no apparent effort. Blood coated the huge russet head from nostrils to ears and its long, tufted tail swished from side to side as if in pleasure at the meal. It had a wound at the thigh at the rear, red and suppurating, but the cat was more interested in feasting.
“Run!” Noble shouted at her back and pushed past her, almost toppling her off the path and down toward the feeding cat. Danny saved her, grabbing her arm until she’d retained her balance. Noble was already off at speed down the slope.
“If I catch him, I’ll fucking shoot him,” Danny said.
“Let me punch him first,” Jess replied.
With Danny right beside her, she headed down. She was concentrating on keeping her feet so she didn’t look up until she was almost on level ground—just in time to see Noble fall to the ground, pole-axed by a fist-sized rock that came from somewhere to the north. He tried, feebly, to get to his feet. When he put a hand to his head, it came away red.
“Help him,” Danny said. “I’ll hold them off.”
Jess ran to Noble’s side. She looked north only once she’d reached him to see a small band of stocky, kilted figures advancing along the foot of the valley’s side. Danny fired a shot above their heads and they stopped, as if confused by the sound.
The big cat had no such qualms. It bounded up out of the gully from where it had been hidden and leapt among the Neanderthals.
Danny didn’t wait to see the outcome. He turned to Jess.
“We’ve got our diversion. Get the fuck out of here.”
He ran over, took one of Noble’s arms while Jess took the other and the three of them headed away south and east with all the speed they could muster. Piercing yells of rage and terror from the Neanderthals echoed around them, mixed with the bellowing roars of the tiger. There was a battle ongoing at their backs, but Jess didn’t dare waste the time to look back to see the outcome.
The other side of the valley looked a long way away.
Their cause wasn’t helped by the fact that Noble was staggering along like a drunkard, his neck and shoulders bright red with fresh blood.
“We have to stop,” Jess said after several minutes. “We need to dress that wound; otherwise, he’ll be a dead weight before we know it.”
Danny led them south to a boggy hollow where they could keep low and hopefully out of sight. He knelt at Jess’ side as they lowered Noble to the ground, but stayed there, rifle raised, while she worked on the back of Noble’s head.
He already had an egg-sized lump there with an inch-long open wound seeping blood out over his collar. She got it cleaned as best as she could manage, stuffed the wound with cotton swab, and wrapped a crude bandage ‘round and ‘round Noble’s head from forehead to nape of the neck and round again and again until it looked like he was wearing a turban.
