- Chapter 29






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Chapter 29
Marie shook her head forcefully.
"No, Barbara. Absolutely not."
If the cave had been tall enough and hadn't been so crammed with people, her anxiety would have had her on her feet and pacing around. "I agree that someone has to go for help. I know we can't move Joe. Or Lylah, or some others. And if the rest of us leave them behind, we might as well just shoot them now."
She shook her head again. "But there's no way both Frank and I go. Except for me, he's the only one here with any real outdoor skills. One of us has to stay behind or the rest of you don't have a chance of surviving until we bring back help."
"I've done some fishing . . ."
Barbara broke off, grimacing. "Okay, I always needed somebody else to bait the hook. But I'm sure there are enough of us who know enough, pooled together, that we can make it without the two of you."
It would be tempting to let that argument sway her, but Marie knew it was wrong. A number of the men and a few of the women in the group thought of themselves as outdoorsmen. But their experience with "roughing it" was a commercial campground with all their gear, up to and usually including either a trailer or a camper shell on a pickup. At a minimum, they'd had a tent and sleeping bags.
Hunting deer and fishing was as far as their experience went—either in a public forest or someone's private land. In the twenty-first century, in the middle of long-settled and secure North America. That bore about as much relationship to what they faced now as one of those stupid video games did to a real gunfight or a real battle.
The one and only really useful skill they had was that all of the C.O.s could shoot. Some of them were even good at it.
Swell. They had exactly two pistols among them, with a handful of rounds left. And one shotgun with no rounds left. They'd already used the three rounds it had once had to bring down some game and provide desperately needed food.
No, the only way they were going to survive was if someone went out there and found Hulbert and Blacklock. Or maybe the Cherokees, if they turned out to be friendly.
"Someone" meant either her or Nickerson. Frank probably didn't have her level of skills in the outdoors—he certainly didn't have Hulbert's—but he'd been in a military unit that had gotten a lot of training along those lines.
She rubbed her ankle and tried to think things through. The Spaniards were out there too, somewhere, and they were definitely not friendly. She had seen for herself what they did to prisoners. The Cherokee, Stephen McQuade, had been in bad shape when she found him.
De Soto would think the small band of guards was easy pickings, and he would be right. They weren't armed except for the pistols. They couldn't possibly protect themselves against a small army of conquistadores.
Or the prisoners, if they showed up.
No, the equation was hard and clear. Everyone else had to stay here in hiding, because that posed the least risk, while someone went and found Blacklock and the rest of the guards. And the rest was just as clear and hard also.
Joe coughed. His face turned white with the pain. "She's right, Marie. Have to go, both of you," he whispered.
He had spiked a fever during the night and it never went back down. Lylah Caldwell had told them he had developed pneumonia and was starting to dehydrate. If he drank something, it came back up in under three minutes, upsetting his electrolyte balance even more than it already was. Between the dehydration and the infection he wasn't going to last much longer. As for the few antibiotics she had snagged from the infirmary, they weren't going to help. The man was bleeding internally.
Marie didn't wait for him to finish what he was saying. He needed to save his strength and he'd already told her a half dozen times what he wanted.
"Joe, we can't do that. You know we can't."
"Can't go alone. Too dangerous." His voice was weak and she had to lean close to hear what he said.
He was right, as far it went. The first rule of surviving in a wilderness was not to be alone. Even something as simple as a stumble and a bad fall on a trail could kill you, if you were alone.
Read any of the manuals, and they'd tell you the same thing. But none of those manuals included a provision that you had to leave dozens of people behind with just two pistols and without any of the skills they needed to survive.
Not knowing what else to do, she patted Joe's arm gently. "Even if we're all together, we aren't safe. We were all there when the bear got you."
"Be dead, if alone."
Marie had to fight off the tears. Joe Schuler was already dead. He just hadn't died yet.
He would, though. Barbara and Lylah thought Jenny Radford might be able to help, if she could be found. They had developed a lot of faith in the woman in a very short period of time. Jenny, even more than Blacklock and Hulbert, was who they really wanted here.
But Marie knew it was too late. It had always been too late. It had been too late five seconds after the attack started. The creature had broken him apart inside. Only Joe's size and strength and excellent condition had kept him alive at all through the attack and for this long afterward. A fully staffed hospital with all the bells and whistles might not have been able to save him.
"I know," she said. "But we can't risk both of us leaving."
 
Barbara decided she had to end the argument. She still didn't think Marie was right, but what she knew for sure was that the argument itself was taking a terrible toll on Schuler. It had to end or he would.
"That's enough, Joe. After thinking about it, Marie's right. We can only afford for one of them to be gone. So, Marie can stay with us, and Frank can go for Andy and the others."
"No," Marie and Frank said simultaneously. Marie, forcefully; Frank, wincing apologetically.
"Marie goes and I stay," he said. "We don't have any choice."
He motioned to his bruised and swollen feet. "I've been sitting here thinking. And the only thing that comes into my head is a damn poem. It's the one about the one-penny nail getting lost. Do you remember it? A horse lost its shoe because of it. And because of that the horse was lost, and then the message. And because of that a battle was lost. And because of that a war was lost." Now he laughed bitterly. "Well, I've lost both shoes."
Barbara looked at his feet and almost cringed. Not so much at their condition but at her own cowardice. She knew he was right—had known it even when she made the proposal. It was just that if only one of them could stay behind, she wanted it to be the short brunette with the upturned nose and the light scattering of freckles. Small or not, female or not, Marie made her feel safe. Frank Nickerson didn't. He was probably good at surviving—maybe just as good as Marie—but the woman had saved dozens of people, not him. Nickerson was just one of those she'd saved.
But now, looking at the angry red streaks beginning to creep up his legs, she knew he was a patient, not a guardian.
Joe coughed again, then moaned. "You win," he whispered. "Go get Andy."
Barbara Ray, relieved the argument was over, snatched up a damp rag and began washing Joe's face and neck, trying to cool him down. She used her head to motion for them to leave so she could do what needed doing. The LPN's refusal to give up was the only reason the lieutenant was still alive. She had spent hours keeping him cooled. And more hours, tapping his back to knock the phlegm lose, then holding him tight as he coughed it up. When she got too worn out to continue, Casey Fisher would spell her for a while.
"He has to rest," she hissed.
 
Marie looked at the pistol, longingly. "Keep it. It might make a difference."
"What about you?" Nickerson asked.
Marie, using Joe's pocketknife to sharpen the end of the walking stick she had snagged the day before, shrugged. "I'm taking three days' food. I'm not planning to stop for anything. No hunting, not even fishing. And the truth is, I'm less likely to be hunted by something than you are. There's only one of me. There are lots of you. Every carnivore within ten miles knows you're here, by now. And if the prisoners find you, you're going to need everything you can lay your hands on. Two pistols isn't enough as it is."
She sat on the ground, loosening the laces to her shoes and then retying them. "If I don't get back by the time the food runs out, send someone hunting. But I'd start by trying to spear fish in the creek. For that—"
Frank waved his hand. "Yeah, I know. Thin blades, two or three, tied onto the shaft. And cut little barbs in the end or the fish will squirm loose." Smiling a little, he hefted the makeshift spear in his left hand. They'd made over a dozen of those, by now. They were just sharpened poles with fire-hardened tips. "These won't hardly do."
Marie nodded. "If a dangerous looking animal comes around, pile everyone into the cave. Stay there even through the night, even if some of you have to sleep standing up." She looked at the spear in his hand. "Except for maybe a giant dinosaur, no predator's going to try forcing its way into a cave past a dozen of those sticking out. Even if it does, you can probably kill it."
She hadn't been looking at him while she talked. Now, her shoes tied, she stood up and did. She looked him right in the eyes. "The last thing. Frank, you and I both know that Joe's probably not going to make it."
Frank sighed and looked away. But he didn't argue the point.
"Okay, then. If and when Joe dies, take care of the body right away. Don't leave it in the camp, whatever you do. You couldn't bury it deep enough to do any good. And you sure as hell don't want to burn it. The smell would attract everything for miles. Get him at least a mile away from here."
Nickerson nodded, his jaws tight.
She tightened her own jaws. "And now comes the worst part. Don't take the time to bury it. It's not worth the risk. You'll be running enough risk just carrying the body. Not too much, I don't think, if you do it right away. But if you leave it lying while you take the time to dig a grave deep enough that scavengers wouldn't just pull it up, it'll start to go ripe in this heat and moisture. Don't forget that most predators are also scavengers."
Frank was holding his breath. Suddenly, he let it out in a little burst. "Shit," he said. But it wasn't an argument, it was just a pained acknowledgement of the truth.
"Just pick your spot, dump the corpse, and then hightail it back here. We can make up some kind of memorial for Joe later."
She knew Frank would have already thought of everything she was saying. But telling him what to do made it easier for her to leave, somehow.
She handed Nickerson the knife. "You may as well take this too, I guess."
But Frank shook his head. "Not a chance, Marie. It's the only real tool and weapon you have. Not much of the first and even less of the second, but it's something. It might save your life, and I can't see where it's critical for us one way or the other. If we need cutting edges, there are stones around we can use to sharpen belt buckles."
She decided he was probably right, and tucked the knife away. She was on the verge of giving Frank some more advice, but stopped herself. At this point, she was just jabbering at the man.
He and Barbara Ray went with her to the creek. Once they got there, she knelt and soaked her T-shirt in the water, then rolled it loosely and wrapped it in some big leaves they'd found from a plant that looked tropical but wasn't any plant she knew. That was the closest thing to a water bottle they could manage. She should be able to find enough water along the way to keep it water-logged.
She started to get up but Frank pointed at the creek. "Not so fast. You need to hydrate as much as you can before taking off."
He was right. She was just feeling nervous and wanting to get on with it.
"Thanks." She dropped to the ground and drank as much as she could hold. The water would bring her body temperature down, and that would mean she would have to burn extra calories to warm back up. But for now, the calories were something she could spare more than she could the risk of searching for water along the way. Water drew animals and animals drew predators.
"Marie," Barbara said, tears in her eyes. "I would go if I thought I could do it."
"I know, Barbara. I'll be fine."
"Do you think you can find Andy and Jenny?" The nurse looked toward the cave entrance. "I wouldn't even know where to start."
"Rod told me where they were going. It's about a two-day journey from here, I figure."
"Will the Indian camp still be there?" Nickerson asked.
"It doesn't matter. If they've moved on, I'll be able to follow them. They couldn't have gone too far. According to Stephen McQuade, there were about three hundred people in his Cherokee group, many of them elderly or children. They'll be moving slowly enough for me to catch up with them."
Barbara gave her a hug, "God bless you, girl."
 
When she was out of sight of the cave, Marie stopped to look around. She wanted to make sure she could find it again. Even though she had a knife, she couldn't mark a trail on the trees as she went. Blazing trees was as obvious to pursuers as to the pursued. She needed something the prisoners or Spaniards would miss if they decided to track her.
She'd use twigs, stones and patches of downed grass. She found a branch that was small enough to go unnoticed but large enough it would take a significant wind to move it, and laid it against the base of one of the trees. She placed it on the side facing the setting sun. Her next marker would face sunrise. Rotating her marks was one of the little tricks she had learned as a kid, but it was something that would be missed by anyone but the most experienced tracker.
She started walking. About an hour later she came across an old set of prints.
She shivered a little. They were big enough that she could almost lie down in one of them if she curled up.
Well, not really. But they sure looked that big. She tried to imagine the size of the creature that had left the prints and then broke off the exercise before she scared herself into running back to the cave.
Besides, she didn't think the tracks had been made by a predator anyway. As big as they were, they had to be a dinosaur tracks, and she'd gotten a lesson in basic dinosaurology from Jeff Edelman. She'd paid very close attention.
In the Cretaceous, big land predators belonged to the theropod group of dinosaurs. From giant multiton tyrannosaurs down to velociraptors the size of a big turkey, they were all theropods. At least, so far as Jeff knew. That meant they were all two-legged, walked something like birds—and, more to the point, all had birdlike feet.
She looked down at the tracks. No bird in the world had left those tracks. They looked more like something a gigantic elephant might have left.
So, feeling a little better, she continued on her way.
The better feeling faded soon enough, though, as other alternatives came to her.
First, they only thought they were somewhere—somewhen—in the late Cretaceous. But even Jeff, whose theory that was, had admitted that some of the creatures they'd seen belonged to much earlier periods.
She tried to remember the names of the earlier periods in the Earth's evolutionary history.
Permian was one of them, she remembered. What did giant Permian predators look like? For all she knew, they looked like gigantic elephants with fangs instead of tusks.
The second alternative was even worse, though, in a way. At least if she got caught and eaten by a predator, there'd be some sort of purpose to her death. Even if it was just the primitive purpose in the tiny brain of a prehistoric monster. But she could also imagine herself being squashed flat by a giant herbivore, simply because it didn't notice her at all.
That was a really creepy thought. It wouldn't happen in the daytime, sure. Unless she'd been hurt in an accident and couldn't move, she was certain she could get out of the way of a dinosaur just lumbering along.
But what about at night, when she was asleep? She'd have to sleep sometime.
She and Frank had already considered the possibility of her sleeping in the trees. But neither one of them thought that was really such a good idea. First of all, because they had no idea what lurked in the trees. Even in the world they knew, some big predators could climb trees. And once you were in a tree, you were pretty well stuck there if something came after you. You might not have much of a chance of running away on land, but at least you had some.
The biggest problem, though, was the simplest. Sleeping in the trees sounded great in adventure stories, but in the real world people tossed and turned in their sleep. Marie knew for sure she did. She'd never been married, but she'd had several boyfriends. Two of them had lived with her for a while. Both of them had made wisecracks about waking up to find Marie sprawled every whichaway on the bed.
That was fine on a queen size bed whose mattress wasn't more than hip-high off the floor. Not fine, perched in the fork of some tree branches thirty feet off the ground.
And they had no rope she could use to tie herself down. Tying together strips of cloth was another one of those things that sounded great in stories but Marie had her doubts about. And they didn't have enough suitable cloth anyway, unless they stripped somebody of the one and only suit of clothing they had. Which was skimpy enough as it was, since most of them had been caught by the prisoners while asleep.
No, she'd have to sleep somewhere on the ground. She was hoping she could find a cave, or at least a decent-sized rock overhang.
On the bright side—so she told herself, anyway—the tracks were leading in the same general direction she needed to go. She decided to follow them, on the supposition that an animal that big probably scared away other animals added to the hypothesis—very dicey, this one was—that an animal that big would also find it hard to turn around. And both of which were irrelevant anyway, since she could tell that the tracks were at least three days old.
But . . . at least it gave her an orientation. She'd be less likely to just get lost.
After she'd traveled perhaps another two miles, however, her heart skipped a beat. The tracks she had been following were now covered by the tracks of another creature. Creatures, rather. These tracks were smaller, but they were obviously made by a pack and were just as obviously tracking the larger beast.
Abstractly, Marie knew that what she was seeing was old news, at least three to four days old. She also knew the pack animals weren't following footprints. They would be following a scent trail. That was the one trail every creature left and any creature but man could follow.
Her father's words from the past came back to her. If you're ever in the woods unarmed and on the run, pray like hell you're running from a human. They're easy. A bear or wolf pack is a lot harder to beat, but if you use your head and haven't pissed off lady luck, you can even beat them.
"Yeah, maybe," she whispered to his memory. "But does Lady Luck help with monsters?"
Days old or not, she wanted nothing to do with whatever creatures had left those tracks. Those did look like something giant birds might have left. She angled off to the north. The big tracks had been starting to veer a little too much to the south anyway.
 
She didn't find a cave, or a good overhang. But she did find something she hoped would be just as good if not better. A huge old tree, dead now, struck by lightning. But the lightning or maybe a series of lightning strikes had hollowed out the interior. It was a bit like a tall and narrow teepee with walls made out of thick wood instead of hide.
It was a squeeze getting through the opening, and the interior was just barely big enough for her to stretch out. She was very tired, by now. Not exhausted, exactly, but pretty close. She'd been pushing hard since she left.
She had enough energy to eat, and drink. Then she lay down and tried to sleep.
Normally, Marie slept easily. But she couldn't keep her mind from pondering a question. How strong was the trunk left by even a huge tree, once it was dead and hollowed out? And how much did a really huge dinosaur weigh? If it was big enough, it might just topple over the whole tree, blundering around in the dark.
It was a stupid thing to worry about, and she knew it. First, because really big animals were diurnal, not nocturnal. She couldn't think of a single really big animal that moved around at night. Living by night posed problems that could only be solved at a price, evolutionarily speaking. And if you were big enough, who cared what saw you in daylight?
Second, it was stupid because the real danger she faced was that of a nocturnal predator who was not much if any bigger than she was, and could fit through the opening.
Still, she couldn't help brooding over the horrible ignominy of ending her life as an accidental byproduct of a damn animal's clumsiness. Here lies Marie Keehn. Look close and you might spot a little crushed bone or two mixed in with the bark and wood splinters.
But, eventually, she fell asleep. She even slept through the night, and slept well. When she woke up in the morning, she found herself sprawled almost ninety degrees from the orientation she'd had when she lay down.
How had she managed that, in this tight a space?
She almost giggled, then. She was pretty sure Rod Hulbert would prove to be a light sleeper. If she did survive all this—and he did—she was probably looking at a lot of mornings filled with wisecracks.
 
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