Footprints of Thunder (53 page)

“Damn. Maybe Coop and the bitch was right. Sounds like there are more of those things around. Maybe bigger ones.”

The sounds of splintering and thumping continued but gradually drifted off. One by one the men judged the noise to be far enough away and then turned and walked back to the fire. Butler was the last to go. John waited until Butler had enough time to walk to camp, and then pulled his leg out of the puddle.

He worked his anger back up so he would have the courage to continue and then crawled forward, inch by inch, as silently as possible, trying not to sway the grasses and ferns. He reached the trampled-down portion and pushed his head out far enough to see down the newly created path. The men still circled the fire. When John looked to the left Cubby poked out of the grass, gave him a thumbs-up sign, and crawled to the nearest bike as John did the same. The plan was to cut a fuel line and the spark plug wires on each one—otherwise they could cannibalize one bike to fix another.

Ripman’s stolen knife was sharp and the fuel line cut easily. The spark plug wires, however, were deep in the engine and John had trouble reaching. He switched from the smooth edge to the serrated edge and sawed more than halfway through the wire, seeing no point in cutting any further. On the second one the spark plug wires were easy to cut. He found some tubing—the fuel line?—and cut through it. He approached his last bike, the one closest to the fire, slowly on his hands and knees. The men were talking softly now, poking at the fire with sticks, and passing around a bottle.

John sawed through one spark plug wire, and then another, but he had trouble reaching the remaining wires from this side. However, the cut fuel line immediately began dripping gas.

He turned to crawl back and realized Cubby was gone, his earmarked destruction apparently complete. John was debating whether to follow Cubby’s path back, or his own, when he heard a “pssst,” and turned to see Cubby’s face poking out of the grass on the other side of the bikes. Checking the men again, John crept across the makeshift parking lot. Cubby disappeared into the grass as he approached, and John followed. A few yards away, Cubby waited. Putting his mouth to John’s ear he whispered, “Help me find that man they killed. He’s around here somewhere. But be quiet.”

John was too scared to risk asking why. They split up but kept each other in sight. After a few minutes Cubby motioned John over, a pistol in his hand.

“They forgot about this,” he whispered. “See what else we can find.”

John looked reluctantly at the body, and his stomach rolled. He was glad that it was dark because the body was being consumed by the small inhabitants of the forest. John tenderly patted at the dead man’s many pockets, avoiding the crawling insects. The pockets on his chest were sticky with partially dried blood and John could only poke at those. They found a package of blood-soaked Camel cigarettes and a Bic lighter in one shirt pocket. A wallet, comb, and loose change were in the pants, with a huge set of keys that jingled when they pulled them out, freezing John and Cubby in a minute of panic. They found two spare magazines for the pistol in a vest pocket, and cartridges for his rifle were in another. They also found three block-style Hershey bars and a roll of mint Lifesavers.

“You think they left his rifle on his bike?” John asked, in a barely audible voice.

“No, I checked. I think his bike was that blue one.”

Then they took the shortest path back to the trees. The splintering and roaring returned as they faded into the forest.

“You know who that is, don’t you, John?”

“I know what it is.”

“It’s your old buddy One Eye. He’s looking for you, John. Wants a little midnight snack.”

“Up yours. Give me one of those Hershey bars.”

“Let’s find a good hiding spot for the night first.” They looked for a high spot this time, remembering their experience in the fallen trees, but couldn’t find a tree they could climb. Instead they found a fallen tree that had sprouted a mini forest of its own, with young trees twelve inches in diameter forming a semicircle. The boys hid in the middle of the enclosure and filled the gaps with branches.

They ate the Hershey bars and drank from their canteens, talking briefly about the success of their mission and sharing the good feeling that comes of managing one’s fear—they had ridden the most dangerous roller coaster in the world and walked away with bragging rights. It was hours before they fell asleep.

51. The Mean Bird

Therefore, hear what the lord has planned…. The young of the flock will be dragged away; he will completely destroy their pasture…. Look! An eagle will soar and swoop down, spreading its wings.

—
Jeremiah, 49:20-22

The I-5 Mountain, Oregon

PostQuilt: Tuesday, 10:05
P.M.
PST

C
hrissy woke up hurt and crying for her mommy. But Mommy didn’t come. No one came. She finally controlled her tears, but couldn’t keep sobs from wracking her body. When she sat up her arm ached, and she screamed and then began to cry again. But when she screamed something big moved behind her. It was dark, but she could see the big bird staring at her. She instinctively froze, and tried very hard to hold in her crying. She remembered the big bird. A mean bird, not like the one on TV.

Chrissy remembered the bird knocking her to the ground and then hurting her arm and shoulder. The mean bird wouldn’t leave her alone and kept hurting her. Then it picked her up into the sky. She remembered seeing her mommy running to get her, and being lifted out of reach and floated up in the sky and her arm and shoulder hurting worse and worse. She remembered yelling at the mean bird to put her down, to let her go. But the bird just lifted her higher and higher. Round and round they went, getting farther and farther from Mommy. The bird kept flying close to the mountain and then away from the mountain. Chrissy remembered yelling down to her mommy, yelling for help. Then she remembered falling. The bad bird had fallen too. They had fallen down toward the mountain. She didn’t remember anything after that.

Chrissy stifled another sob and stared back at the bird. It was a few feet away from her, lying in a pile of its wings. She could see the bird was hurt. There was blood on its wing. Then the big bird opened its mouth and screeched. Chrissy screamed and tried to crawl away from it, but her arm hurt her. Instead, she put her good arm down and pushed herself up. She looked back to see the bird struggling to get up too, trying to get its wings out of the way, so it could get to its feet. Suddenly the bird lunged at her, its big beak poking toward her face. Chrissy screamed again and backed farther away as the bird struggled once more to get up. She looked for a place to get away from the bad bird, and ran to the edge of the ledge and looked over. It was so far down she got dizzy. She looked back at the bad bird. It would be up again soon.

Chrissy wanted to run, but there was no place to go. She wanted to hide but there was no place to hide. Chrissy ran to the wall of the mountain and tried to climb up. But there was no place to climb to even if she had two arms. Turning, she saw the bad bird stand up. Then it stumbled toward her, dragging the hurt wing. Chrissy tried scrambling up the wall again but couldn’t get up. When she looked back again the bird was right behind her, and it jabbed at her with its beak. She tried to run out of the way but tripped and fell. Her hand and arm went deep into a shadow at the bottom of the rock wall and she landed on her sore arm. It made her hurt bad again. The bad bird was hopping and fluttering around. Chrissy knew it would hurt her again. She felt with her good arm in the shadow. It was a crack that got bigger ahead of her. Chrissy wriggled forward and down until she got herself all into the hole.

The bad bird was outside. Chrissy could see it looking at the hole. It jabbed its beak into the hole, making Chrissy scream and cry. She wriggled deeper into the hole. The bad bird jabbed again and again. It was like some mean game that her brother, Matt, would play. Chrissy finally learned the bird couldn’t reach her. Then she refused to play anymore, and lay quiet, out of its reach. It stayed outside her hidey hole and looked at her. Sometimes it opened its mouth and screeched at her.

“Go away, you bad mean bird!” she yelled back.

The bird jabbed and screeched some more, but finally it hopped away, dragging its hurt wing across the hole. Now Chrissy couldn’t see.

“You mean bird!” she screamed again. Then she wondered how she’d see her mommy when she came. Chrissy cried again. “You mean bird,” she said. “I hate you.” She lay there holding her hurting arm and crying for her mommy until she fell asleep an hour later. When she woke, it was pitch black in her hidey hole.

52. Tropical Snow

We was watching Lucy on TV when, crash—a naked body came through the roof. If that wasn’t strange enough, the police said it was frozen.

—
Josh Hinson, Jacksonville, Florida, July 15,1959

Hilo, Island of Hawaii, Hawaii

PostQuilt: Tuesday, 8:15
P.M.
AHT

T
he streets of Hilo were strangely quiet, the tourists and residents glued to the news. Debris in the street announced every grocery store as they drove their rental car out of the city. Just like on Oahu, those stores with goods left had armed guards. They had expected vandalized grocery stores, but they soon encountered looted department stores and electronics stores. Most disturbing of all were the gutted liquor stores. But the countryside was quiet and dark, with few vehicles on the road, and Carrollee resumed her usual animation as they began the climb to the observatories on Mauna Kea.

“Let me see if I can remember her name,” Carrollee teased. “You only dated her two or three times, I believe. Scored right away, though, didn’t you? Your ear is turning red. I’ll take that as a yes. What was that name? Barbie? No, I’m thinking of her figure. Bunny? No, now I’m confusing her name and sexual tendencies. Fluffy? No, that was her personality. Floozy? No, now I’m thinking of her moral character. What was her name? Oh yes, Bree-geet.”

“Bridgette.”

“That’s what I said, Bree-geet. What makes you think Bree-geet will let you use her telescope? As I remember it you two didn’t part as friends.”

“We were friendly. We split because, well, she didn’t think I was ambitious enough.”

“Oh yeah, that was it. She waited … I think it was a week wasn’t it? … before moving in with that Canadian. He had better prospects,
oui
?
Comprenez-vous
?”

“She waited a month. Anyway, it’s not her telescope. Dr. Paulson was supposed to contact her and authorize the photos. If everything went right she should have it set up by the time we get there.”

“
Tres bien
.”

“Clampee votre
mouth shut, will ya?”

“
Oui
.”

Carrollee turned and looked out the window, pleased with the pins she had poked into Emmett in just a few minutes. Now they slowly left the lush tropical forest behind as they traveled to the higher elevations.

When Emmett had received the PresNet message from the President’s science advisor he had nearly panicked. But Dr. Paulson said nothing about Emmett’s unauthorized access, he was only interested in Emmett’s model.

“You do understand the implications?” he asked.

Emmett assured him he did.

“And have you thought of verifying your theory?” Emmett had confessed inadequate math skills, but Dr. Paulson had something much simpler in mind. Emmett quickly agreed with the idea; after all, he was a player now.

Emmett had feared he wouldn’t be able to break Carrollee away from her incubating eggs, but it had been easy. Nearly an army of volunteers was protecting the site now, and nothing exciting would happen until the eggs hatched. Emmett explained the purpose of the trip vaguely and then emphasized it would take only a few hours. Carrollee quickly agreed to come along and even seemed eager to spend more time with Emmett, who was surprised and glad.