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Authors: Gary Paulsen

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There was junk all over the place—boards and crates and boxes and bits of rags. A complete rubber raft sat in the middle of the room on the floor, and across it lay two fishing rods. The hang glider lay by the side wall, dumped in a heap. Amos could just make out his own clothes near the wreckage, also dumped in a heap. Everything seemed to be covered in a layer of dirty gunk—even the hang glider and the clothes.

“What’s all over everything?” Amos asked. “And why does it smell like that parrot has been here?”

“Everything is covered with guano,” Dunc said. “That’s why it smells.”

“Iguana—isn’t that a big lizard?”

“Not
iguana
, guano. That’s the name for bat poop. The ceiling is filled with bats. Thousands
and thousands of them. That’s what’s falling on you.”

Amos looked up, then quickly brought his face down. “You mean thousands of bats are going to the bathroom on me?”

Dunc nodded. Amos moved to the side and took up the cloth from the hang glider and covered himself with it.

“Don’t do that, Amos.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t touch the hang glider. It’s his.”

“What’s his? Who?”

“The glider. It belongs to Milt. See, some of the things are his and some are ours—well, I guess they’re all his now—and if you touch the things that are his, he gets all upset.”

Amos closed his eyes, shook his head, and opened them. “Look, Dunc, is all this supposed to make sense to me? Because if it is, I’m in deep trouble or maybe I got hit harder than I thought. I mean, I don’t even know how I got here. And where is the beast from the wilderness—Milt? And how do you know all this?”

Dunc held up his hand. “I don’t know for sure where he is or how long he’ll be gone. Sometimes he goes out for a minute or two, then he
might be gone for an hour. As to how you got here, Milt brought you—the same as me. We were talking in the dark, remember? Well, the next thing I knew, I had a hand over my mouth, and he carried me off, dragged me under water and up in here.”

“So why didn’t you run off when he came back for me?”

“It’s not that easy. I tried to get away three or four times, but he waited just outside the cave and caught me. He didn’t hurt me or anything—just carried me back in here. Then when you came and were out cold, I didn’t feel right about leaving without you.”

“How long have we been here?” Amos looked at his wrist, but his watch was gone. “And where’s my watch?”

“You were out most of the day. It’s late afternoon now. Milt has your watch. It’s—it’s sort of his now. Except that you can get it back. Well, maybe you can get it back.”

Amos nodded. “Well, good. All that makes sense to me now. We’ve been kidnapped by a wilderness monster named Milt who put us where bats can poop on us and owns all the things we used to own but maybe we can get
them back and even though he isn’t here we’re not allowed to run away.” He paused, took a breath. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you’re just about as wacky as this Milt guy. And I’m not going to wait around to see who’s worse—it’s time to leave.”

He stood and dusted bat guano off his shoulders and hair, moved to his clothes, and pulled them on.

Dunc joined him and started to dress but shook his head. “You’ll see. We won’t even get our clothes on. I mean, I’ve tried this before.”

He was wrong.

They did get their clothes on. As a matter of fact they were totally dressed, and Amos was at the edge of the pool ready to dive in and swim out to where the light shined the brightest.

The light suddenly went out as something blocked the entrance, and in a great shower of splashing water, Milt appeared in the pool just in front of Amos.

“See?” Dunc said. “I told you.”

Milt was carrying a spear, and on the end of it wiggled a fresh trout. He pushed the trout toward Amos’s face two or three times.

“He’s telling you to eat,” Dunc said. “He wants you to eat the fish.”

Amos hesitated only a second before hunger took over. He grabbed the fish and moved back by the rubber raft.

“Raw?” Dunc asked. “You’re going to eat it raw?”

Amos looked up, his eyes questioning. “Unless you’ve got a Twinkie.”

Dunc shook his head, and Amos nodded and bit into the fish.

.8

After giving the fish to Amos, Milt shook himself dry and moved to stand near the raft. He was dressed in a ragged pair of shorts and made no effort to avoid the dropping bat guano.

Amos took the fish out of his mouth. “It doesn’t taste quite as good as it looks. Is there some way we can cook it?”

Dunc shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him cook anything.”

“Does he talk at all or understand what we’re saying?” Amos turned to Milt and spoke slowly. “Do - you - have - a - stove - and - a - frying - pan?”

Milt crouched, watching him, a quiet smile on his face.

“Do-you-know-what-I’m-saying?”

There was no indication that Milt understood, and no indication that he
didn’t
understand either. Nothing.

“I haven’t heard him talk,” Dunc said. “But I think he knows what’s going on.”

“What I think is this guy is about three sandwiches short of a picnic,” Amos said, shrugging, slapping the trout against his leg. “I mean, there’s nobody home up there in the old bean.”

“Maybe so.”

“What’s to keep us from just saying so long and walking out of here?”

“Him. I tried it.”

“Well, I haven’t. And I’m going to.” He threw the fish on the ground, waved at Milt, and stepped toward the edge of the water that led out.

The effect was immediate and so fast, it was hard to see. Amos was halfway into the second step when Milt seemed to vanish from where he had been sitting and reappear in front of Amos. He did something with his hands and arms, and Amos was turned back, standing exactly as he
had been standing, looking at Dunc and holding the fish.

“See?” Dunc said.

“How did he do that?”

“I don’t know. It’s something about how he uses his hands and arms and things. He seems to flow from one place to another, and you don’t get to see it.” Dunc sighed and moved to stand next to Amos. “I tried three or four times to leave, and it was always the same. I just wound up back where I started from.”

“Look”—Amos pointed at Milt with the fish—“you don’t understand. This is wrong. You’re holding us against our will, and if you don’t let us go, we’ll turn you in to the proper authorities. Now we’re going to go, and you’re not going to do anything to stop us. Come on, Dunc.”

Amos turned, took a step, and the same thing happened. He was back where he started from—unhurt, almost untouched. Just moved. And Milt crouched next to the raft, smiling quietly.

“If he does that again, I’m going to get mad,” Amos said.

Milt turned suddenly, moved to the side wall of the cave where there were some boxes
stacked, and rummaged for a moment. He returned with a checkerboard and a box of checkers.

“Uh-oh,” Dunc said. “He wants to play checkers.”

“What?” Amos turned.

“He loves checkers. But he plays for things. Maybe that’s how he owns all the stuff in here. Maybe he won it.”

“Dunc—are you all right?”

“I had to play him three games and he won all my clothes and the glider. He’s incredible—you can’t beat him. Now he wants to play you.”

Milt set the board on a box in front of Amos and went to the pile of Amos’s clothes. He brought them over and dumped them in a pile next to the board, then motioned Amos to sit. Then he went to a box on the other side of the raft and came back with a candle in a glass jar, which he lighted and put down next to the board.

Amos slowly knelt in front of the board, and Milt quickly put all the pieces in place. Milt hid two in his palms behind his back, then held his clenched hands out.

Amos picked the right hand.

Milt opened it to show a black checker. He turned the board so that Amos had black, and he motioned for Amos to make a move.

Amos moved a checker. He looked up at Dunc. “This is completely crazy. I mean, yesterday morning we were hang gliding, and I was waiting to go on a rafting trip with Melissa and …” He trailed off as Milt moved one of his men.

Amos studied the board. He moved one of his men.

Milt moved.

Amos moved.

Dunc yawned.

Milt moved.

Dunc yawned again. His eyes closed.

Amos moved.

Milt moved.

.9

“King me, sucker!”

It was a loud yell, and it snapped Dunc out of his sleep. He had been dreaming of a hamburger. Not eating it, just watching it cook, sizzling in the pan with a piece of cheese on top of it and two pieces of bacon. For part of a second he couldn’t remember where he was, and he kept smelling the hamburger cooking.

Then his eyes opened.

“You’re dead now—I’ve got a king in back of your lines! I’ll shred you! I’ll tear you to pieces!”

Dunc sat up. Amos and Milt were still by the rubber boat with the checkerboard on a box, hunched over, except there were some differences.
Everything in the cave—all the boxes, the rubber raft, the fishing rods, the clothing, everything—was in a huge pile behind Amos.

Milt sat in his shorts, covered with hair but nothing else.

The smell hadn’t gone away—the smell of something cooking. It was so real, Dunc could even hear the sound of sizzling. He shook his head. It was still there. Then he saw it. A small fire had burned down to coals, and a pan of something was cooking on it.

“Amos?” Dunc said. “Is that something cooking?”

Amos didn’t look up. He ignored Dunc and concentrated on the game.

“Amos?”

Amos looked up quickly, irritated at the interruption. “What?”

“Is that something cooking?”

“Well, of course it is. There’s some trout and Spam in the pan, and some freeze-dried hash browns. I saved some for you. Milt and I already ate.”

“Milt and you already ate—”

“Well, I had to let him use the stove and borrow
some Spam, or he would have had to go out for another fish. But yes, we already ate. You’ve been asleep for hours.”

Amos stopped talking as Milt jumped two pieces, grinned, and motioned for Amos to give him a king.

“See?” Amos said. “You bothered me, and he got a king. Now I’ll be all day destroying him.”

He turned back to the game and ignored Dunc again.

Dunc moved over to the pan that was cooking on the bed of coals. It was covered with a lid, which was just as well because the lid was covered with bat guano.
Everything
was covered with bat guano.

In the pan lay about a quarter of the trout, several pieces of Spam, and a generous plop of hash browns. There was also a large spoon—the kind the army uses in mess gear that shows up in surplus stores. For about half a second Dunc hesitated, thinking of who might have used the spoon before him. Then he shrugged and dug in. It took him three minutes flat to eat everything in the pan except the trout bones.

“Bingo!” Amos yelled from the board. “You
fell right into my trap—you’re mine! I now own your shorts.”

Dunc moved back to the board. Amos was leaning back on his haunches looking triumphantly at Milt, who was crouched on his feet.

“You’ve won his shorts?” Dunc said.

“You bet.” Amos nodded. “That’ll teach him to mess with the checker master.”

“Checker master?”

Amos nodded. “I’m deadly. It comes from when I was small. You know my uncle Alfred, who picks at his feet all the time?”

Dunc nodded.

“Well, he used to make me play checkers with him until I beat him. And he’s really good at checkers. The thing is, he’d sit there and pick between his toes while we played. Pick, pick, pick—and it smelled. It was enough to make you throw up. My only chance was to get good enough to beat him so I could get away from him.”

“And now you’re the checker master,” Dunc said. “I didn’t even know it.”

Amos cocked his head. “I’m a mysterious kind of guy.”

“I couldn’t come close to beating him.” Dunc
pointed in back of Amos. “And now you’ve won all this?”

Amos nodded. “Everything in the room is mine, including his shorts.”

BOOK: Dunc Breaks the Record
11.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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