Chapter #10The Hunter's Lessons, Part 3 by: Nostrum   Their fire was still burning, but the light of morning was filtering into the cave when Marty was gently shaken awake by Mireya. "Merry Christmas, Marty," she said with a smile.
He winced, and sat up. "Y-yeah. M-merry Christmas to you too, Mireya."
She sat down beside him, and held out a pack of fruitcake and a tin cup of hot chocolate. "Want some?"
"I don't like fruitcake," he said sullenly.
Mireya shrugged. "Me neither. But it's good for the trip ahead, and it's a Christmas tradition for some. You miss them, don't you?" she added when Marty shivered.
He shivered again. "It's gonna be the second Christmas without them." He took the piece of fruitcake that Mireya offered him and, with tears in his eyes, took a small bite. "My brother and I didn't like fruitcake, but Mom did."
Mireya rubbed his back, then picked up a bar of a milky sweet bar loaded with nuts and broke off a piece. "Here," she offered. "This was more traditional back at my house."
Marty took a careful bite. It was tough at first, cracking on his teeth, but it was sweet and chewy. The taste was completely different from the fruitcake. "What's this?" he asked.
"Turrón. Nougat, I think it's known here. Mami used to buy that and assorted nuts for Christmas. Didn't like it at first, but I grew up to it. I also miss my mom too, you know."
Marty managed a small smile and took another bite. "I think I like this better."
"Good! Get ready. We're gonna keep on the trail, see if we can find what's causing the ruckus today."
--
It was after one in the afternoon, and they were deep in the forest when Mireya stopped Marty. "What's that?" he asked as the growl echoed again. "A bear?"
Mireya only said, "Follow me, make no sound, and don't do something stupid."
Marty trailed her close as Mireya picked her way between the close-growing trees and through overgrown bushes and grass. She angled in toward the sounds rather than plunging straight for them, then slowed up and stopped short as the trees thinned suddenly into a clearing. She sniffed at the air. Blood, she thought. Fresh. She glanced at Marty, but he only blinked back. He doesn't smell it, or doesn't know what it is.
"Stay here," she told Marty as she felt at her pockets for a spare magazine. "Be ready to run. Without me if I can't follow."
"But--"
"What did I say, kiddo? No questioning!" Marty made a face, but nodded.
Mireya made the sign of the cross as she stepped into the clearing, her rifle at the ready. The ground sloped down – they were on a shallow hillside – and she paused warily at the sight of three humps of brown fur nestled in the dead grass.
They were bears. Dead bears, and dying. Two had been torn almost asunder, ripped open from the neck to the belly in a single, tearing blow. The third was still alive, wallowing on its back, its shallow breath coming in painful heaves. A vicious gash had opened its belly, and its pink guts showed. Poor thing will die horribly, Mireya thought.
She had no time to wonder that bears were out and active when they should have been hibernating before she saw a fourth bear, on the other side of the clearing, rear up onto his hind legs and roar into the forest. Its back was to her, and Mireya kept a wary eye on the enraged grizzly as she crept back up the hillside the way she'd come. She knelt behind a cluster of small, half-buried boulders and lowered her rifle. But she didn't train it on the bear, for that wasn't what she was frightened of.
Whatever had attacked this family had claws as sharp and long as hunting knives, with enough strength to tear open two fully grown grizzlies in a single blow. Worse, it would have had to stand on two legs.
So it was probably not another bear. Nor would it be wolves, which hunt in packs and avoid bears. Mireya couldn't help gulping as she pondered then discarded all the obvious, and least dangerous, possibilities.
Then the breeze shifted, and on it came a gagging stench. Something moved in the trees, and she readied her rifle. It's trying to flank the bear, she thought. And it's working. The grizzly fell back onto its forepaws, and sniffed at the air. Mireya wiped a palm on her knee, and loaded a round into the rifle.
She had only a glimpse of an onrushing yellow mop of fur as the thing lunged from the forest into the clearing, but she got off a shot before it had covered half the distance to the unwary bear. The crack of the gunshot rent the air, and the intruder wheeled toward her.
Mireya cursed her luck as she threw herself onto her stomach in the tall grass. One of these. Just what I didn't want to face.
Ettins are built for killing. It had gorilla-like arms, ending in long, wicked sharp talons, and fang-like tusks in a jaw strong enough to take a head off with a single bite. Its eyes were black like onyx.
Mireya sighted through the scope as the howling grizzly threw itself at the ettin which, almost casually, batted it away with a single blow; blood sprayed from its shoulder as the grizzly staggered to one side. Mireya pulled the bolt on her rifle and lined up another shot through the scope.
But the ettin was wary now, and as the limping grizzly lumbered at it, it faded back into the woods, losing definition like smoke on the wind. Mireya scrambled about in the grass, trying to keep the ettin in sight, and was driven against her instincts deeper into the clearing. To her relief, the grizzly remained concentrated on the ettin, now a shapeless smear of murky smog that floated between the tree boles, and its jaws dripped with saliva and blood as it limped after.
Mireya's pulse pounded in her ears when she realized that the ettin, in trying to flank her and the bear both, had drawn closer to Marty than to her. She broke her attention long enough to look for him.
He was gone.
I told you to stay put! she wanted to scream as she swung about to search out the ettin. But it had faded to invisibility, cloaked in forest colors. The gun slipped inside her grip.
She startled at a hard growl from the grizzly, and saw it rear onto his hind legs and swivel to face her. It was a mistake – and she knew it was a mistake even as she turned her head – but she glanced over her shoulder to find that she had backed her way too close to the grizzly's dead companions.
The ettin broke cover, and Mireya saw only a red, slavering tongue, bone-white fangs, gleaming tusks, and doll-like eyes as the thing flew straight at her.
She pointed the rifle, and squeezed the trigger.
It stumbled, but borne still by hatred and inertia it fell onto her. The blow knocked the rifle away, but with her free hand she yanked the hunting knife from her belt and slashed at its throat. The blade sank deep into yielding flesh. Mireya nearly fainted as the thing's musk – a stench of brimstone and rotten flesh – fell over her like an avalanche.
She felt, rather than saw, as something knocked the ettin from atop her, and she scuttled away through the broken grass. Only when she banged her shoulder against a tree did she turn around to stare through streaming eyes at the battle within the clearing.
It was over. The grizzly crouched in the grass, tearing and snuffling at the ground, as though searching for something it had dropped. With its one good paw it tore at the earth, then fell back onto his haunches and sniffed at the air with a puzzled but pained expression.
But the yellow stain on the air, and the stench, told Mireya that the ettin had gone, killed by the grizzly even if it had left no corpse the distraught bear could rend and tear in its anger and grief.
But the grizzly was itself still a danger, for even in its wounded state, she doubted she could outrun it over the broken forest ground. She ached all over; the knife was a weight in her hand, and her rifle lay in the grass not two feet from where the grizzly now hunched. And yet, even though it looked this way and that, even directly at her, it didn't seem to notice her. Slowly, with infinite caution, Mireya crawled back under the eaves of the wood, making the sign of the cross and muttering Gracias, Dios mío. Gracias, as she went.
She had backed up only a few feet when a hand fell onto her shoulder. She wheeled with a barely suppressed yelp.
It was Marty, and he was pale and wide-eyed.
But he wasn't alone. Jeff stood beside him, his eyes blazing with anger. "Just what the hell were you doing with my brother?" he growled at her. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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