Navigating Early (27 page)

MacScott was obviously reliving this whole story as if it were happening all over again. How many times had he replayed that day in his mind? How many times had he wished he could have one more chance at that bull’s-eye? Actually, that was an idea.

I stood up a little straighter. “What Early is suggesting is that it’s a very small bull’s-eye. Maybe you could hit it if you just had another chance. I mean, you probably still wouldn’t hit the actual bull’s-eye, but you might at least hit the paper.”

The dread pirate’s eye narrowed. “What are you talking about? I could hit that bull’s-eye dead center five times in a row if I wanted to.”

“From in here, sure. It’s a tiny little cave.”

MacScott sneered. “You think I’m stupid, don’t you. You don’t want me to kill you right here in this cave. You want me to take you outside to prove I can hit this bull’s-eye, so that you’ll have a better chance of getting away. Is that right?”

I didn’t answer.

“Is that right, Jackie?” Early asked.

“Pretty much,” I grumbled.

“That’s a good idea. I like that idea,” said Early. “Do you like that idea, Mr. MacScott?”

“A challenge,” he mused. “Marksmanship and a hunt all in one.” He seemed to warm to the idea. “All right. Why don’t we go outside, get ourselves some fresh air. I’ll take four shots at the bull’s-eye and still have two bullets left.”

MacScott walked behind us, gun at our backs, as we headed out under the waterfall. I nearly lost my balance on the slippery rocks, but Early and I made it to the bank only slightly damp from our efforts.

“There’s a good sycamore tree about forty paces off. Tack it up there and you can make your move.”

Early and I headed for the tree. Once we were out of
earshot, Early asked the worst question he could possibly ask.

“Which direction should we go in?”

Our lives depended on the answer to that question. And the obvious answer was, in the opposite direction of MacScott and his gun.

Early smoothed the paper bull’s-eye and reached to attach it to the tree, stabbing it through with my pocketknife. He paused, looking at me expectantly.

I glanced around in a panic. The first shot was fired, the bullet hitting the center of the bull’s-eye, right between Early and me.

“Let’s go that way!” I yelled as Early and I ran in the direction opposite MacScott. We started off as the day turned to dusk, and as MacScott raised his gun and took his second shot.

There was no right or wrong way to go. We simply tried to run away fast. Still, you can’t just run around like a chicken with its head cut off. I’d seen a chicken with its head cut off, and it didn’t get very far. Within seconds we heard two more shots, one after another. The sound echoed in the woods, but Early and I had plotted our course and we stuck with it, tacking this way and that, heading in what we thought was a northerly direction.

It would have been a good course, too. A kind of grand steeplechase that consisted of jumping through bogs filled with wet, rotting leaves, dodging low-hanging branches, crawling under a fallen tree, and scaling a treacherous and rocky slope. But that last part landed us in trouble.

We’d been running hard, our heavy breathing seeming
to echo all around us, when I realized we’d run into a steep and rocky incline. Turning back, we heard a loud thrashing sound not far behind us. We’d had the advantage of youth, and with it speed, but MacScott had the greater advantage: experience in these woods. It dawned on me then that he’d pointed us toward the sycamore tree for a reason. He knew these woods better than anybody and knew how to steer us into a trap. Now it was too late.

“We’ll have to climb it.” I knew it wouldn’t be a problem for Early. He’d proven himself to be a nimble climber back at Gunnar’s place. And sure enough, he clambered up and reached the top before I’d gotten halfway there. I stuck my feet carefully here and there, struggling for footing while dirt and rocks skittered down the slope. I grabbed for any root, branch, or handhold I could find.

Panting and perspiring, I reached for a sturdy-looking tree root jutting out from the rock wall.
If I can just get a good hold there and then hoist myself the rest of the way …
I reached into the open space beneath the exposed root when I saw a wet clump of leaves move. Before I could react, a snake clamped down on my hand, and I fell down, down, down, landing with a thud on my back at the bottom of the rocky incline.

30
 

I
n a flash, Early was at my side. “Jackie, are you okay? I thought we were going to climb up.” He must have slid down the hill as fast as I had fallen down it.

“That was the plan.” I groaned, looking at the bite marks on my hand. “Do you think it was a poisonous snake?”

“No, it wasn’t poisonous.”

I breathed a sigh of relief—until he continued.

“Poison is something that is swallowed or inhaled. So, no, it’s not a poisonous snake. It might be a
venomous
snake, though. The timber rattlesnake is a venomous snake. It’s venom that gets into your body when a snake bites, and that can kill you. Or it might only destroy the muscle and tissue in your arm, and then you’d have to amputate it.”

My heart was pounding, probably sending snake venom
racing throughout my body. I tried to calm down. He was already applying some of his lavender-scented snakebite ointment.

“Shh, listen,” I said.

“I don’t hear anything,” said Early.

“Exactly, so let’s get out of here. Maybe MacScott cut around to grab us at the top of the hill. Now we can go back the way we came and hopefully—”

My
hopefully
was interrupted just short of the hopeful part when MacScott arrived, blocking our escape. I tried to inch away in the dirt, but I could only scoot a few feet off to the side. There was nowhere to go. MacScott had us trapped, and he knew it. He walked slowly toward us.

“I hit the bull’s-eye four times. So I have two bullets left.” He cocked the gun. But suddenly MacScott’s expression changed. His jaw went slack, and the gun barrel lowered a couple of inches.

Early and I turned our heads to follow the pirate’s gaze. It was the bear.

Black as night and bleary with sleep, it lumbered out from a recess in the stone wall behind us. Its massive body swaggered and swayed as if it were shaking the sleep from its back. We’d never actually seen the bear before, just its tracks and droppings. But here we were, face to face. There was no question that this was the Great Appalachian Bear—its left eye was mangled where MacScott said his bullet had ripped into it.
Tit for tat
, as MacScott had said. There was nowhere to run, even if we’d had any running
left in us. My hand was screaming with pain, and Captain MacScott did not seem inclined to let us quietly take our leave.

But he was in just as much danger as we were. And this was the bear he’d been tracking for so long. So why was he just standing there?

His face twisted in a pained expression. He stared at the bear with his one eye. And the bear, with its mangled face, seemed to hold an equally pained expression as it stared back, its hackles raised. I wondered if each beast saw something familiar in the other.

We would never know, as MacScott raised his gun, aiming at Early or me—I’m not sure which—and fired. A second later, pain still coursed up my arm, but not from being shot. Had he hit Early?

I was frozen with fear.

The great black bear, awesome as Ursa Major, wagged her head from side to side, and her bellow shook the nearby passage of the Appalachian Trail. I say
her
, but the truth is, we had no way to tell. There were no female markings. No cubs in sight. But I knew. I knew her like I knew my own mother. It was in her bearing—her absolute authority over us two boys locked in her gaze. And it was in her unwavering will to keep us alive.

She raised her body upright, to her full height. MacScott shot again, hitting the dirt just in front of the bear’s massive paws. He must’ve been shaken—he’d missed. He cocked the gun one more time, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger. It only clicked. Empty. Then she was on him. I
would have looked away, but I couldn’t. It was a sight, like a violent lightning storm, that demands to be witnessed. Mesmerizing and terrifying all at once. Then it was over and the bear was gone. All was still.

Too still.

My head was spinning, and sweat ran into my eyes. I turned my attention away from MacScott’s mauled body. Martin Johannsen’s gun rested in his upturned palms as if he were presenting a gift.

There was Early, lying on the ground.

The next few minutes played out like a kind of dream, blurry and warped. I made my way over to him. Had he been shot? I checked for blood. There was none. And he was breathing. But his eyes were rolled back in his head, and his body was twitching. He was having a seizure, but this one was worse than any I’d seen before. I tried to lift his head. Maybe he needed water. I ran over to MacScott’s pack to see if he had a canteen.

“No, Early …,” I said, maybe more to myself than to him.

I was still trying to wrest the pack open when I heard a rustling in the bushes and a grizzled figure emerged from the trees. At first I thought it was the bear returning, but it was a man. A hairy, grizzled woodsman.

He walked over and knelt down, lifting Early’s head and cradling him to his chest. I knew I was not seeing things clearly. I could feel the heat of a fever emanating from the bite on my skin, and my body was racked with chills, so I wasn’t sure if I was having some kind of dream or venom-filled hallucination. The man tilted Early to the side. After
a few more seconds, the jerking stopped. Early’s body relaxed, and he opened his eyes. Then he reached out his small white hand, placing it on the woodsman’s bearded face, and said one word.

“Fisher.”

31
 

M
y vision was a little blurry, and I squinted to see if I could find a resemblance to the youthful face from the trophy cabinet, Number 67. To see why Early would think this was his brother. But all I could make out were the gaunt features and hollow-looking eyes of the bearded man. A lumberjack who’d felled his last tree and hadn’t another swing of the ax left in him.

Early smiled a distant smile at me. “See, Jackie? I told you we’d find him. We found Fisher.” His words sounded as if they were coming down a long tunnel, and it seemed that by the time they reached my ears, his mouth was already saying something else.

“Jackie, you don’t look so good. I knew there were some timber rattlers left in these woods. I just knew it.”

After that, I only had snapshots in my mind of the events that followed, and they didn’t make a lot of sense. First, the lumberjack picked me up, but then he changed
into a great bear carrying me through the woods. I knew my feverish mind was playing tricks on me, but which was crazier—being carried by a great black bear, or by the dead Morton Hill legend and soldier Fisher Auden? Great breaths of air heaved and puffed against my face from whoever or whatever was carrying me. I could hear Early talking in hushed tones as he walked along beside.

“I knew you were alive, Fisher. They said you were dead and that the numbers were all disappearing, but I didn’t believe them. You were just lost. But you’re not lost anymore, Fisher, because I found you.” Early continued, and I heard snatches of his tales of skeletons and caves and waterfalls and bears.

More snapshots of trees and rocks and creeks—then I was in a house tucked back in the woods. Eustasia Johannsen’s house. I was in a quilted bed but dreamed of the bear and Early. They were sitting on a bench outside my window. The bear was thin, as if he were on the starving end of a long hibernation. He lowered his shaggy head and shed heavy tears. His shoulders heaved as he cried, and the only sounds I heard were from deep, ragged breaths.

Early put his arm around the bear’s sagging shoulders. “You can come back,” he said. “Just like Superman did after the kryptonite almost got him. And like Pi did when he kept his eyes on the bright star named for him.”

That was when the bear spoke. His words were slow and dreamy, all running together, as in a song on a record playing at slow speed. They made Early cry.