Chapter 13

We damn near lost Remus as well.

It happened the day after I checked the freezer in the garage and saw that we were down to less than thirty pounds of buffalo meat. Our twin hunters decided it had been long enough since the ranger was poking around, and that it was probably safe to take another deer. I told them I was getting ready to order another buffalo from the ranch in Wyoming, but that I’d hold off to see how they did on their hunt.

The next morning, they left the cave through the hole under the birch tree before sunlight. They were, of course, incredibly good hunters, and there were so many deer in the area, we expected them back within a couple of hours ... three at the most. Five hours later, they still hadn’t shown up, and I was getting a little anxious because, even though their HEPA masks were fairly efficient, they didn’t filter out a hundred percent of the pollutants in the air and they didn’t last forever.

By noon, even unflappable Jellico was pacing the kitchen floor right along with me. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer and I told him I was going to take the ATV and ride into the woods beyond the back fence to see if I could find them.

I grabbed the gate opener from the Tundra and cranked up the ATV. From outside the gate I turned left and rode to the end of the wall, then turned toward the back of the property. It took me a while to ride the mile and a half through the trees and heavy brush, and then locate the birch tree. Those guys don’t leave trails, so I wasn’t sure which way to go from there.

I was about to head further along the fence line when I thought I heard something that sounded like a moan coming from off to my right and down the hill. I shut down the engine so I could hear better. Then I heard someone coughing and got off the ATV to walk toward where I thought it was coming from. I yelled, “Rom! Remy! It’s Jesse! Can you hear me?”

Another moan, this time a little louder. I thought I had a fix on the direction and started jogging. About sixty or seventy feet down the hill, I damn near stumbled over one of them lying face down in the leaves. I got a terrible sinking feeling in my chest because there was blood everywhere. I knelt down to check his pulse and saw that it was Romulus, and that’s when I heard Remus groaning behind me. I looked around and saw him propped up against a tree about twenty feet away, the shaft of an arrow protruding from right below his left collar bone.

Romulus had no pulse and I couldn’t see his chest moving. I crawled over to Remus and asked, “Jesus, man, what happened? I think Rom’s dead!”

Remus’ face was ashen, wet with sweat, and he was gasping for breath. He didn’t have his mask on, either. In answer to my question, he nodded his head and rasped, “Yeah ... dead! Gotta ... get him ... to hole ... cave ... now!”

“Oh, holy fuck!” I looked back and forth between the two of them a couple of times and said, “You first, Bro! You’re still alive!”

He nodded his agreement.

They each had to weigh at least two hundred pounds, so I didn’t think I could manage carrying them up the hill to the tree. I dashed back to the ATV and the birch tree. I grabbed the trunk of the tree and pulled. The ground around it lifted and fell to the side, opening the hole to the cave beneath it. I leaned into the darkness and shouted, “HELLO! ANYBODY! I NEED SOME HELP! NOW! HELLO!”

I couldn’t wait for an answer, so I jumped on the ATV and sped back down the hill to Remus. The guy was totally wasted, barely conscious. I got under his arm and lifted him enough that he could take about two steps toward the four-wheeler. I grabbed his right leg and lifted it over the seat then pushed his butt to the center. I climbed on behind him and rode the machine back up to the hole with him leaning back against me.

When I got to the hole, Errol’s face was just poking above ground level. He took one look at us and shouted to someone below him in the hole, “It’s as we feared! Go get Chiam and Liam, then find Ninnith and Grandfather!”

He scrambled up out of the hole and helped me drag Remus off the ATV.

“Where’s Romulus?” he demanded.

I nodded down the hill and gave him the bad news. “I’m afraid he’s dead. You get Remus inside and I’ll bring up Rom’s body!”

We managed to get Remus into a sitting position on the edge of the hole. When Liam showed up, we slid him over the edge so he could slide down the smooth, rocky tube into waiting arms.

As soon as they had him, I jumped back on the ATV and went back for Romulus. As I headed down the hill, Errol shouted, “Make sure you get anything they left behind!” I didn’t quite understand why that was so damned important, but I’d do what he wanted me to do.

Lothos met me back at the hole and helped me get Romulus’ body off the ATV and into the hole. Ahead of him, I dropped two bows, two quivers of arrows and a backpack into the hole. When everybody was clear, I tilted the barrel holding the tree back into place, then climbed onto the ATV and headed back to the house by way of the front gate.

There was nobody around when I rushed into the house. I figured they must all be in the cave, so I took the stairs four at a time to the basement and ran down the tunnel. From the main chamber, I could hear voices down the tunnel to Ninnith’s rooms, so I headed that way. There was a crowd outside her entryway.

I looked in and saw Ninnith on her knees beside Remus, holding his head up to feed him sips of some kind of liquid. I turned to Arrena and asked, “Shouldn’t we call for an ambulance?”

She shook her head and said, “Absolutely not! That would mean his death for sure!”

“What? Why?” That didn’t make any sense!

“Because he wouldn’t be able to tolerate some of the medications they’d give him. Don’t worry, Ninnith knows what to do. Why don’t you go down the tunnel and help Ellana prepare the room for his surgery?”

“Surgery?”

“Yes, to remove the arrow and stop the internal bleeding. Now, Go!”

I found Ellana washing down the center workbench in Errol’s shop with a bucket of hot, soapy water. After we dried it off, I helped her spread some clean sheets over it, then set another bucket of water onto a propane camp stove to sterilize the instruments she was unwrapping from cloth bundles. It appeared the Ennahai were actually prepared for this!

About the time the water was coming to a boil, I heard someone shout, “Here we come, Ellana! Are you ready?”

“I’m ready!” she shouted back.

Errol, Chiam, Liam and Lothos sidled in through the entry carrying Remus’ naked body and laid him on the draped work table. The arrow had been snapped or cut off a couple of inches from his chest. Whatever Ninnith had given him worked, because he was out cold. Either that, or he was unconscious from blood loss. At least he was breathing.

Everything moved like a very efficient operating room, every person seeming to have a duty to perform. Ellana poured some kind of solution over Remus’ wound and began draping sheets over the rest of his body while Ninnith stood at a basin of hot water mixed with some kind of strong-smelling herbs and scrubbed her hands and arms. Apparently, she was the clan physician, among her many other roles. What an amazing woman!

They both put on HEPA masks. As Ellana retrieved the instruments from the boiling water with a pair of tongs, Ninnith raised her voice and said “Everybody out now! I don’t want an audience and Remus doesn’t need your germs. Except for you, Errol; put on a mask and come hold this light on the wound.”

Arrena took my elbow and said, “Come, Jesse. You can help me prepare Romulus’ body for burial.”

He was laid out on his bed, his unseeing eyes fixed on the limestone ceiling. His shirt and down vest were soaked in his blood. I helped Arrena sit him up to get them off, then went to work unlacing his boots while she loosened his jeans. When he was stripped, I stood looking at the slim, powerfully built body. It was so hard to believe he was no longer alive. I counted five wounds in his chest and belly.

“What the hell could have done this to him?” I wondered out loud.

“It’s hard to say for sure, but those aren’t bullet wounds or knife wounds. Look at the tears in his skin. If I were to take a wild guess, and considering what they were doing, I’d say he was gored by a pair of antlers. We’ll have to wait until Remus can speak to know for sure.” She shook her head and sighed, “Losing his twin brother is going to just devastate him. I don’t believe they’ve ever been separated.”

She turned to me and instructed, “Go get us a bucket of warm water and some soap. We’ll get him cleaned up for the burial rites.”