Subject:  THEY Who Rule the World |
Author:
TRJ
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Date Posted: 11:20:42 04/16/01 Mon
Author Host/IP: host-209-214-104-30.bhm.bellsouth.net/209.214.104.30
The knife sliced through the white skin of the trout’s belly. Max scooped out the insides and threw the slimy organs to Jake who held the fish’s head between his large yellow paws as if it were a toy. The scales gleamed, flecks of silver as Max scraped them from the gutted body, a half dozen of them glinting on the back of his hand. His stomach growled as he cut the flesh from delicate bone. Today, Mother Earth had been bountiful.
He battered the fillets in corn meal and flour, the iron skillet on the two eyes Coleman stove, popping out oil. The failure of this expedition, the unshot roles of film, untouched in his camera bag were, for the moment, forgotten. He would eat, sun himself on a flat rock beside the stream and salvage what was left of his time and career. Three more days. If he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he would go home, cut his losses and move somewhere sunny and warm to expend the rest of his life’s energy.
“Come on, Jake,” Max called, spooning chunks of meat and gravy into the dog’s food dish, mixing it with the dry kibble the young lady vet had persuaded him to buy before he and Jake packed up and went in search for the grand grizzly.
Jake reluctantly came, full of fish innards. His golden eyes fixed on his master’s, then trailed to the blue dish. He sniffed the offering, took a bite then sprawled out on the ground in front of his lunch, head resting on forepaws. Since the day Max adopted him from the humane society in Cheyenne, he had not refused a meal.
“What’s the matter, old man?” Max asked, flipping the fish over.
Jake crawled on his belly, softly whining. His ears were back, the fur along his back standing, forming teepees up and down his back. For five years of traveling, the dog’s instincts were never wrong. He was the classic canary in a coal mine.
“Wish you could talk,” Max said, stooping down to scratch his companion behind the ears.
He knew it wouldn’t be long before thunder rumbled or some large cat or wolf would show themselves. Scanning the sky, he saw nothing but blue and white capped jagged mountain peaks in the distance. There was no cracking snap of a twig beneath a large animal’s weight. Nothing but a silent creeping chill nestling at the nape of his neck.
The trout, now on his plate didn’t look as appetizing, but he sat cross-legged on the ground, determined to eat it. It had cooked too long, the flaky white morsel dry and rubbery. He chewed, listening for a warning, but still, there was only the quiet of the wilderness, no growling mountain lion, no snarling, starved gray wolf. Jake was sleeping suddenly, muscles twitching as he dreamed. Whatever had spooked him must have passed, but within Max, the sensation of wariness remained.
He took the plate and the skillet down to the stream. Plunging his hands into the icy water, he scrubbed the dishes clean. He hummed to himself, gauging time by the position of the sun. It was well after noon and his chances of getting a glimpse of the resident grizzlies narrowed to nothing. Where were they? Where were all the animals? He hadn’t spotted as much as a sparrow since arriving. It was unnatural for this area, usually livid with wildlife.
For twenty-six years, he had made the rounds of natural forests, the African reserves and Asian jungles, capturing some of the most dangerous, most magnificent beasts ever to walk or swim. He was renowned for risking his life, going to extreme measures to get the perfect shot and until now, he had never been afraid. Where were his steeled nerves, his ice-cold blood, his steady hand?
Upstream, he heard a splash. The plate slipped from his hand and sunk down into the shallow water o rest on the smooth stones beneath. He strained his eyes but saw nothing. A rush of adrenaline charged through him until he shook all over. It erased his fear, his youth returning to him and he grabbed his camera, checked the film and took off, but not before grabbing the rifle from his tent. He had never shot an animal, not even in self-defense but that primal part of his brain, the survivalist within, hadn’t dismissed his intuitive fear from only a few minutes before.
“I’ll be back, big guy,” Max said, hoping Jake would sleep until he was finished.
With stealth that took him years to master, he went in the direction of the noise. Before he went out that morning, he had bathed with a special soap, usually used by hunters, to mask his scent. He needed to get as close as possible to his target without being picked up on. His clothes smelled of fried fish, cutting his camouflage, and if the noise- maker was a grizzly, he would be in trouble, but he did have the gun.
“Camera and foot of famous nature photo journalist found in pile of bear dung,” he thought to himself, laughing soundlessly, calming himself.
Through the branches of a fir tree he saw it. His breathing cut off, his heart resounded in his ears. Sweat drenched him, cold and sticky. With weighted arms, he lifted his camera and took five quick shots. Grizzly bears suddenly became unimportant.
It walked in the center of the stream, upright and tall, its lean body coated with thick blonde hair. Yeti, Sasquatch, Big Foot, names he had heard his entire life and he believed, but without proof. He had seen so-called freaks of nature, had experienced things deep within jungles that he couldn’t rationalize, but he never spoke of them, never captured them on film, but this was something earth shattering. It was so human like and he wasn’t a scientist, but he figured there could be only a chromosome or two separating him from it.
With his reputation, any photos he took would lend credence, almost definitive proof of the creature’s existence. He wasn’t a tabloid crackpot. There wasn’t a well-known nature or travel magazine in the world that he hadn’t worked for. He was someone people would listen to, would believe.
He watched as it continued north towards the waterfall where Max caught his lunch only an hour before. Ambition replaced misgiving and he followed, keeping out of sight. It never stopped to turn in his direction. It was oblivious to him.
With grace rarely seen, it waded through the water against the strong current up to its knees. He could see the muscles in its thighs and back but they weren’t hyperflexed.
“You’re one tough bastard,” he whispered under his breath, still in awe.
The rushing rumble of the waterfall broke up the quiet. Max expected it to stop, to grab for a fish or to bathe, but it continued onward through the rush of water, where it disappeared.
“Damn,” he cursed, kicking rocks into the stream.
This was the deepest part and the water had been up to the creature’s waist. It would, at the center, rise to Max’s chin. He hesitated, giving up, then changing his mind. He yanked off his hiking boots and took off his pants, draping them around his neck. The camera would be impossible to preserve. He looped the strap around a branch and checked to see if it was secure. The rifle, he would have to carry over his head.
Satisfied, he stepped into the frigid water. The current pushed against him and he struggled to keep upright. He was soon up to his knees and he staggered to go further. Sharp stones bit at his feet. When the water was to his waist, he thought of turning back and stopped.
He lost his footing and couldn’t keep from falling. The gun flew from his hands. He tumbled face forward, his head striking rock, turning his vision into an array of sparks and fireworks. The air was knocked from his lungs and he inhaled water. He bobbed up to the top sputtering, blood stinging his eyes.
Anger and pain gripped him, mingling with the renowned Pearce determination. He lunged and with half a dozen strokes he swam beneath the cascade to the lip of a cave. His arms shook as he pulled himself up, his body strained. He wiped the blood from his face and took a deep breath, his chest aching.
His shoes and pants were lost. The cold leaked through his skin, penetrating his muscles. Coughing, he stood, a deep chill rattling his bones. He stretched, trying to generate heat. He had to get moving to stave off hypothermia.
“What the hell am I doing?” he asked himself, propping against the cave wall.
Why was he here risking his life to track a beast triple his size who could, without doubt, rip him to pieces with its gigantic hands? He had photos, his reputation, yet here he was, half-naked, his camera hanging from a tree limb, and his only mans of protection was on the bottom of the streambed. What people had been saying for the past few years was true. All his time away from civilization had made him lose his mind. He was insane.
He was going back. He would throw his gear into the jeep, gather up Jake and head home, wherever that was these days. The camera, he would leave swinging in the tree after he stripped it of film. As a matter of fact, he was going to leave all of his equipment. His sanity would be intact, his self-respect renewed. Turning around, he said goodbye to this strange journey, to the astonishing twist of nature so rare to the human eye it was believed not to exist.
“Adios compadre,” he mumbled, then stopped in mid-rotation.
The cave was lined with electric light bulbs glowing against the dark. Max stared at paintings adorning the evenly hewn walls. They pulsed with life, an essence that was magnetic. So many sensations swallowed him. It was an exquisite heat licking away his coldness as he was constricted, squeezed. He was drawn in, his will dissolved, choice taken away from him.
This was the sweetest euphoria, the way the walls tightened, contracted around him. He touched the stone, the hallway ringed and throbbing, slick with a mucous-like oil. Drawings of women in various stages of procreation and childbirth lined the way, such sensuous images. He was overtaken by a love that went beyond any other love. It was adoration, devotion, worship. This was a holy place, a divine sanctuary.
His legs weak, he dropped down on his hands and knees. A burning tingle fingered his lower abdomen as he crawled. He stopped to rest, to enjoy the caressing vibrations, but he was being pulled along. He didn’t fight. He didn’t have the desire to.
There was an intense pressure pressing down on him, so soft, so deliciously wet and yielding. A million tongues passed over his body, but the weight increased, breathing becoming difficult. He gasped as invisible hands closed around his throat. He was suffocating.
He ejaculated seconds before his bladder emptied. His bowels loosened and the stench of his own fluids filled his nostrils with every breath he tried to steal. Vomit rose up in his esophagus, cutting off his airway even more.
Death. His was it, lying in piss and puke, shit and semen. This was dying and he was ready. He closed his eyes to avoid seeing the gaunt face of the Reaper but there were no shadowy forms, no bright light. There was only his heart thudding stubbornly.
Coming back to himself, those things he felt only seconds before were a distant echo. Some unseen force wasn’t carrying him along. Strong hands were clasped around his wrists, dragging him, his lifeless and emptied body. The creature had him.
“Is he dead?” a man asked.
He didn’t speak English. What language was it? Nothing Max had ever heard. How could he understand?
“Close enough,” a female answered.
There were muted whispers, then someone, in an authoritative tone inquired, “Who is he?”
“Max Pearce, nature photographer. His record is clean and a genetic scan shows he is not capable of translating, nor can he see our true form,” the woman who spoke before replied.
More hissing whispers, then the leader’s voice. “Get him cleaned up and dressed. We will deal with him later. There are more important things at hand.”
Someone stripped him of his shirt and underwear. They scrubbed his flesh with steel wool, then was sprayed off with cold water. Roughly, he was dressed.
“Close your mind off,” instinct yelled from the pit of his exhausted being. “If they know you can comprehend, you will be killed.”
He let himself drift as the doors to his thoughts slammed shut and locked. His mind went to Jake, still sleeping in the sun.
“Jake, I’ll be back,” he told him. “Hold down the fort. When I get there, were getting the hell out of Dodge.”
They left him on the floor of their meeting room. He looked around, eyelids half closed, spying them sitting around a large table, twelve of them.
“Most important on our agenda is the U.S. presidential election,” the one in charge announced. “If the ballots are recounted, our man won’t be taking the oath in January. We get him in, then we doctor the numbers. Ahira, what is the word from the high court?”
The female yeti stood, slender, her small breasts hidden beneath reddish hair. “The justices have been briefed and are in line. We have proceeded and presented the listing of cabinet members to the president elect.”
“Will he accept?”
She smiled, “He knows the rules of the game.”
“Splendid. Everything is in motion. Now, take this human out of here. We can’t afford to take any chances at this juncture.”
There was the scraping of chairs. Max closed his eyes tightly and relaxed, his arms and legs limp.
“Hope the poor bastard isn’t in New York at the end of July,” one of them laughed as they carried him out into a world balanced on a pin.
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