Encounter at Selkirk Ridge

As a quick note, this was for a word limited contest. The limit was 2500 words, and this is 2489. I'd love constructive suggestions, but please keep the word limit in mind.

ENCOUNTER AT SELKIRK RIDGE

By Jordan Lapp

         The battle was ferocious.

         Jamie watched the two ants struggling over the tiny crumb from his cheese sandwich. One ant had a large chunk of bread in its mandibles and was yanking frantically at the prize, while the other used the heavy weight of its thorax to push the bread into its opponent and presumably crush it under its weight. The two ants fought like wrestlers long past their prime, circling each other in the ring, and launching themselves at each other only to collide into a tangle of arms and legs.

         “Jamie, come look at this!” called an insistent voice. Jamie sighed and turned. He was in no rush to answer the other man’s summons. Instead, he crumpled the now empty sandwich wrapping into a ball and stuffed it into his pack. He was careful to check the area where he had eaten his lunch for stray litter. It wouldn’t do to leave the small clearing in worse shape than when they had arrived.

         The two men worked for Fortrex Management Group, a subsidiary of one of the logging companies that operated in British Columbia’s far north east. Every summer hundreds of workers were bused or flown into remote regions of the province, deposited in the midst of clear cut mountainside, and put to work planting trees to replace the ones that had been cut.

         Some, like Jamie, were full-time students during the rest of the year, and did the back breaking work in the summer months to try to scrape together enough money for next year’s tuition.

         Sergei, on the other hand, was part of a select group that called themselves the “Old Boys”. Mostly immigrants, all were hard workers, a valuable characteristic in a job that paid by the tree.

         Sergei bounded over to where Jamie was tightening up his knapsack. The pack was small, no more than a single compartment with a collapsible metal spade dangling by a cheap plastic clasp on the outside.

         “Jamie, I have been calling for you. Sergei has found something on the mountain,” Sergei said with a barely discernable Russian accent, “Come. Look.”

         “Sergei, I really have to get back to work,” said Jamie, indicating with a wave the two nearly full satchels of saplings, but the Russian wouldn’t hear a word of it, and soon he found himself weaving his way up the side of the mountain.

         The path Sergei led him up was actually an old rockslide. The once jagged rocks were now mostly covered with loose dirt with clumps of grass, a sure sign that the slide was more than a season old.

         “Come. Come. Hurry,” said Sergei from up ahead. He was standing on a boulder waving his arms as if he seriously believed that Jamie would otherwise miss him. They were above the tree line now, and the Russian’s red plaid shirt stuck out like a sore thumb.

         Cursing fortune for assigning him a patch next to the overly enthusiastic Russian, Jamie quickly closed the remaining few yards and got to the older man just as he leapt off the huge slab of granite and landed in front of a small cave.

         “Here,” Sergei said, indicating the mouth of the cave with a dramatic flourish.

         It was nothing more than a gap between rocks. From a distance it would be invisible. The older man would have had to have been practically on top of it in order to spot the narrow opening.

         “Sergei, you went in here?” asked Jamie.

         “I eat lunch with you, when I see golden glow from mountain. You were playing with bugs, so I climb up here,” explained the older man. “Here I show you.”

         With that, he quickly squatted and wedged his shoulders between the rocks. He was slim and tall, but it was still a narrow fit. He slid into the cave until only his beaten leather hiking boots stuck out of the opening.

         “Jaime. Pull,” yelled his muffled voice after a few moments. He quickly bent down and seized the wiggling boots. Leaning back, he slowly began to pull the older man out of the hole.

         Cradling something preciously, the old tree planter got to his feet. By this point, Jamie’s curiosity was piqued and he leaned over the other man’s shoulder impatiently trying to catch a glimpse of what he was holding.

         “Wait,” Sergei said curtly in his mild accent. Retreating a few steps, he turned and faced the younger man. He was clutching a small cloth bundle in both hands. One edge of the worn fabric was torn away and Jamie could make out a metallic golden surface. This must have been what Sergei saw earlier.

         “You are book schooled, yes?” asked the older man.

         “Well, yes. I’m in university during the year. I’m a Biology major though, I don’t know much History,” he confessed.

         The Russian shook his head in dismissal. To him, what Jamie studied was unimportant. Anyone that went to university was just smart.

         “You tell me,” he asked, “What is this?”

         Jamie leaned in close as Sergei slowly pulled the fabric away from the object. It was tightly wrapped, but the Russian was careful not to rip the cloth, so it was several agonizing seconds before he could finally see what it hid.

         What he saw took Jamie’s breath away. It was a small statue of a stylized raven, made entirely of gold. “Damn,” he cursed. ”It looks native, but I didn’t know that any of the tribes around here worked with gold.”

         “You know what it is, yes?” asked the Russian excitedly.

         “No, not exactly. It might really be some native artifact from around here, but I don’t remember seeing any gold statues in the Museum of Natural History,” he answered. “Maybe it’s a fake, but if that thing’s solid gold it’s worth a fortune!”

         Sergei’s whole face lit up and he nearly danced a jig before remembering the fragility of what he had in his hands. Instead, he held the object out at arms length as if to see it in all its majesty.

         “I knew this day would come! All these years of struggle. Gone. Sergei is rich!” he cried, his face nearly split in two by a big toothy smile.

         Jamie was ecstatic. He could put down his spade that instant and never have to work another awful day planting trees. His share of whatever that statue was worth would set him up for life. He was about to whoop for joy when something that Sergei had said made him stop short.

         “Wait a minute, Sergei. You’re rich? What about me?” he asked, his face creasing in a frown. The older man slowly lost his smile and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

         “What do you mean, Jamie? Sergei found this. It is Sergei’s,” he said clutching the statue to his chest protectively. Instinctively, he took a step back from the younger man.

         Betrayal lanced through Jamie like a dagger and he felt sick to his stomach. His dreams of living the high life were replaced by season after season of back breaking work, while the Russian lived in luxury. The old bastard would make the evening news for sure, but Jamie wouldn’t even see it. He would be soothing aching muscles in a tiny tent on the edge of a clear cut.

         “Dammit Sergei, I pulled you out of that cave,” he said.

         Sergei just waved his hands dismissively. “It was nothing for Sergei to climb into cave. Sergei could climb out again.”

         “Well. You wouldn’t have known what it was if I hadn’t told you,” Jamie countered weakly.

         “Gold. It is gold,” said the older man raising his eyebrows, “Are you saying that Sergei doesn’t know gold when it is put under his nose? No, I take this to camp now. Tomorrow I leave for Vancouver. Maybe I get a helicopter to fly me there,” he said miming the twirling rotors with one arm.

         The old tree planter rewrapped the golden statue then turned to start climbing back down the rockslide. Jamie was at a loss. He felt hollow inside, as if where once his dreams had lived, now there was nothing but broken glass. Then something hot and fiery filled the empty place.

         He reached out an arm, grabbed Sergei by the shoulder and spun the Russian back to face him. “Sergei, half of that statue is mine,” he barked.

         The Russian slowly turned red, heating up like a stove element. “Jamie. Do not touch me. You college kids make me sick. You come up here every year so that you can earn money and live like kings in the winter,” he said. ”We Old Boys toil to support our families. Go. Go to your flashy cars and your big bosomed women. I too am now rich.” To emphasize his point, the older man roughly shoved Jamie away then started back down the mountain.

         Jamie was outraged. Not only was the Russian greedy enough to want all of the money from the statue, he was also arrogant enough to assault someone who had helped him claim his prize. Jamie’s face screwed up in anger and, spinning the older man around again, he lashed out with a wicked punch that sent Sergei sprawling into the broken rocks.

         A look of confusion passed over the Russian’s features as he lay in the dirt and rocks, as if he couldn’t divine what he had done to deserve the blow, then the pain of it registered and he leapt to his feet. Leaving the statue on the ground, he clenched his hands into fists and charged.

         Sergei was incandescent and he screamed curses at Jamie in his native tongue. Incensed, he rained blow after blow down on Jamie’s chest. Jamie tried to give as good as he got, but he was no fighter and was forced to give ground.

         Too late he felt the sharp stone against his heel. His eyes went wide and he yelled in fear as he started to topple. His arms wind milled frantically and he caught the edge of Sergei’s plaid shirt with one hand. He meant to use it to steady himself, but the Russian was off balance and they both rolled down the hill, still punching and kicking wildly at each other.

         All Jamie could see were rocks, sky, and crazed Russian, all spinning in a topsy-turvy tunnel in his vision. It was all he could do to defend himself against the Russian’s blows, while trying to avoid splitting his skull on one of the pointed rocks. Finally they crashed to a halt in the thin clumps of alpine plants and dirt at the base of the slide.

         Unfortunately, Jamie had ended up pinned under Sergei and the older man, bleeding from a dozen small cuts sustained in the fall, was incensed beyond reason. The old man’s eyes bulged out of his head and the tendons in his throat knotted grotesquely. With an incomprehensible roar he reached down, grabbed Jamie’s neck with both hands and began to throttle him.

         Terrified by this escalation, Jamie rammed a knee into Sergei’s groin, but the old man barely flinched. He desperately pried at the Russian’s hands around his throat but they were like iron. Sergei was fighting with the strength of a man not fully in command of his faculties.

         Slowly but surely, Jamie’s windpipe was being crushed. He struggled valiantly under Sergei, but couldn’t budge him. The older man was a stone, hard and unyielding. With cold clarity, he realized that if he didn’t get free soon, the Russian was going to kill him.

         Then he remembered the collapsible spade still attached to his backpack. The small plastic clasp that kept it securely fastened and out of his way was nearly broken.

         His vision was beginning to fade around the edges, and stars darted wildly before his eyes. Normally the spade hung from the side of his pack within easy reach, but Jamie had landed awkwardly and the shovel was now pinned underneath him.

         He looked up into his killer’s eyes and tried to beg for forgiveness but he couldn’t summon the breath and only managed a sickly gurgle. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. There was no shred of compassion or humanity in Sergei’s eyes. Sergei the friendly, hardworking human being had been left at the top of the slide. There was only Sergei the killer now.

         Jamie was so frightened of what he saw in those eyes that he strained with all his might to reach behind him, but he could only grab the blade. Nearly sobbing with desperation, he pushed himself further until his arm screamed in protest. Soon it felt as if he tendons were going to snap, but better that than death, he thought, and slowly but surely, his hand crept up the beaten metal. Just when he knew with a certainty that he could go no further, his hand seized the shaft. His fingers closing on the spade, Jaime pulled with a strength he hadn’t know he had and would never have again. With the quietest of cracks the clasp gave way, and he nearly wept with relief.

         It was almost too late.
All he could make out through his oxygen deprived vision was the dark shadow of Sergei perched on his chest. With a sobbing grunt Jamie sent the blade of the shovel in a wide arc toward his head.

         The Russian never knew what hit him. One minute he was a killer and the next he was dead.

         Jamie lay where he was for a long time, the gravity of what he had done pressing down on him. All he could see were Sergei’s dead eyes staring down at him. Finally, his strength returned to him and, pushing the body off of him, he got to his feet.

         He paced nervously in the clearing, shooting frightened glances at the body. There was only one thing to do.

         He went to the body’s legs and began the long task of hauling it back up the hill to the small cave. It took some prying, but Sergei had fit into the small opening before, and he did again. When it was done, he said a silent prayer and tossed his planting spade into the dark opening.

         He rose to his feet, scanned the rocks and found what he was looking for exactly where Sergei had left it. Deftly, he picked it up and stuffed it into his pack before turning back to the trail and starting the long walk back to base camp.

         In a couple of minutes, the mountainside was again quiet. A chill wind blew, scattering small chunks of gravel into the air. In the distance a Stellar’s Jay chirped an intricate mating call. And in the clearing below, a solitary ant worked its way back to its mound, carrying a large chunk of cheese sandwich on its back.