Chapter 34

I was up quite early. It was still pitch-black outside and I was trying to be quiet so I didn’t wake anyone up. It wasn’t that hard, though I was surprised when Grandfather was at the table drinking coffee.

“Don’t look so surprised. Who do you think was going to drive the meat wagon?”

“I have no idea how this is supposed to go so I didn’t have a clue you’d be coming.”

“Well, just listen to Sammy and Fiti. And please don’t kill Felipe’s grandkids.”

I got all my stuff gathered next to the front door. Grandfather had made breakfast. It was delicious; corned beef hash and eggs a favorite of mine. Sammy came in as I was finishing up.

“Mr. Piotr, did you have to wake him up?”

“No, he’s good about that.”

Sammy gave me a beat up but serviceable pack to put my stuff in then we all walked out to the driveway where our rides were waiting.

There was a full-sized Ford pickup, the bed of which had been replaced with metal crates that held the dogs, who were ominously quiet and there was also a Chevy Suburban. When I went to throw my pack in the back of the Suburban, there was a sheet metal tub that had been installed in the area behind the backseat. It was explained to me that the killed hogs were placed back there and then covered with ice. It also made clean up easy cause it could be hosed out.

We got on the road and it took over an hour to get to where our starting point was. We had driven up Mount Ka’ala, stopping where the pavement ended. There was a dirt road that kept going to an observatory at the peak.

I couldn’t see a lot as we drove up the mountain due to it being still dark. As we came to a stop, I could see a little of what the terrain was in the headlights. This was going to be a rough hike.

While they were getting the dogs out of the truck and leashed, I took some time to slather on the ointment Sammy gave me. It wasn’t greasy as I thought it would be, which was a good thing, and though I figured it would smell horrible, it had a nice citrus scent.

Once the dogs were taken care of, Sammy came over to me and handed me something bundled up in a cloth. Unwrapping it, it was a beautiful leather sheath and apparently the blade I had handled yesterday that had been covered in tape.

While the handle was a brownish antler, there was something weird going with the blade. It was like a work of art, it had this really cool pattern that kinda looked like shark’s teeth. I was amazed at how great it looked all put together.

“This is for you. When your grandfather asked if I’d take you along with us hunting, I knew you’d need something to use which is why I had you try it out yesterday.”

“I don’t know what to say, it’s beautiful. I almost don’t want to use it.”

“Barnim, while it’s a beautiful piece, it was created to be used.”

I looked at Grandfather as I slid the leather sheath on my belt. He had the decency to shrug when I looked at him, we’d have to have a conversation later. I had to be shown what the leather thongs hanging off of it were for. Turned out they tied around my thigh to keep the sheath from flopping around.

The plan for the first day was to travel along the mountainside following the Makaleha stream down to the ocean side. By road it was about 7 miles, and in a straight line it was about 4. The route we were taking, which would take us away from the stream a lot, was almost 12 miles. Grandfather would meet us at several points along the road in about 2 to 3 hour intervals to see if we killed anything.

As I reached for my pack there was another one handed to me. It was three times the size and heavy as shit; I figured it was in the neighborhood of 60 lbs. Turned out in addition to the dog’s armor and the water, there was a bunch of rope and climbing harnesses. I could only imagine what it was all for and how the weight would affect me.

We moved out, with Sammy’s brother Fiti about 25 yards in front of us and Felipe’s grandkids about 10 yards behind us. There was a slight downward angle as walked and had been walking for about an hour when we caught up with Fiti. Then he said the first words I’d heard him say.

“You ready to have some fun big boy? It’s time to see if you can hang.”

The other two met up with the group, and then I saw the first obstacle of the day. There was about a 15 ft drop along a sheer cliff in front of us. In some spots there were trees growing out of the side as well as some bare spots.

I put the pack down so that they could pull out the ropes and harnesses. They were going lower the dogs down in the harnesses at a bare spot and then climb down themselves.

Fiti was lowered down first and took care of the dogs after they came down. I was surprised how well the first dog took to being lowered down in the harness; guess he was used to doing it by now. The other two were lowered down, then I watched as Sammy went down, lowering the big pack down after him.

I released the rope down to Sammy who looked up at me.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU”RE DOING?”

“It’ll be fine. Just have the pack loaded up when I get down there.”

I moved over to one of the trees growing out of the side of the cliff. It looked big enough to hold my weight for a couple of minutes. As I sat on the edge, my foot barely touched the horizontal portion of the trunk. I was able to slide down and straddle the trunk. At that point it was only about 10 ft or so to the ground. Swinging my leg over, I gripped the trunk and let myself hang on, it was a couple of feet to drop. As soon as I landed and brushed myself off, Sammy was in my face.

“You wanna show off and be a big man, do that shit on your own time. You do what I say and only that. I’m not going to have you fucked up on my watch because you want to show off.”

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t fucking forget it.”

We continued on. I needed to be myself as I had never been one who tried to be part of the crowd. I don’t know why all of a sudden, I was doing just that. This was a potentially dangerous trip through the jungle and I needed to keep focused.

We were on a constant steep down slope and only 45 minutes after getting yelled at, my legs were feeling the strain and I was sweating like a whore in church. I just hoped I’d be able to make it through the next 2 days.

I got a brief respite when the ground started to flatten out. As the sun approached its zenith and was occasionally popping through the canopy, it was warming up quickly adding to the humidity.

The choice of wearing a pair of jeans was looking like a stupid move at this point. Whenever we took a break, I’d need to put on the shorts that were in my pack.

We went down a steep slope and then it flattened out again. After about 5 minutes, we ran into Fiti. The black tracking dog was antsy and prancing around.

I watched a conversation between Sammy and Fiti, and it seemed the dog had caught a scent. We waited for the catch dogs, who seeing the tracking dog also started getting antsy.

Fiti walked over. “Barnim, drop the big pack. Stay on Sammy’s hip and do whatever he says. This is your shot to redeem yourself from earlier.”

I dropped the pack, and then Jorge and Luiz started pulling out the armor for the dogs. They showed me how to cover their body from the front of the back legs to the shoulders, and up to just behind their ears. You could see the dogs knew what was going on, as once they got suited up, they began pulling at their leashes ready to go.

Sammy came over and explained how things were going to go. All of us would follow along about 10 yards behind Fiti and the tracking dog. When he signaled, he’d let the dog of his leash, and then the catch dogs would be let go as well. The chase would then be on. Fiti figured by the tracking dog’s antics that we were about 5 or 10 minutes behind whatever he caught wind of.

We’d been crisscrossing the stream and were a couple hundred yards from it. We moved forward for a few minutes before the tracking dog went nuts. Fiti turned around and nodded his head, then all the dogs were off like a shot.

Sammy grabbed me by the shirt.

“Drop the packs, stay on my hip and remember. Do exactly as I say.”

I dropped everything. Sammy took off running after the dogs and I was moving to keep up with him. Trying to run through fairly thick jungle undergrowth wasn’t fun. The further alone we went, the thicker it seemed to get. My size was a hindrance for moving quickly. Concentrating on following Sammy I wasn’t paying attention to the dogs.

I had to have a dozen scratches on my face and arms. I could feel that my face was wet and could only think I’d reopened the cut from the fight.

When I could hear the dogs, it was like they were just ahead. I could also hear the squealing of a hog. I could see maybe 5 ft in front of my face. Sammy and I crashed out of the undergrowth into the stream at about the same time.

The stream was maybe 10ft wide at this point and the other side was dotted here and there with undergrowth. There was a pool about 20 ft downstream from us where the dogs had the hog cornered.

All four of the catch dogs were centered around its head. Two had ahold of it by the base of its ears while one had ahold of its neck and the fourth had its jaws on a shoulder. The water in the pool was pretty red from the blood flowing from the hog.

One of the dogs was adding to it as it looked like he had a wound at the bottom of the armor by a front leg. I couldn’t see it clearly enough to tell how bad the wound was.

Fiti and the other two had shown up as we started towards the pool. They stayed on the bank as Fiti started to re-leash the tracking dog who was bouncing back and forth while barking.

I followed Sammy into the pool and as he grabbed for the hog, suddenly I heard a lot of racket coming from the far bank. There was a bunch of small trees getting shaken about and a lot of squealing.

About 15 ft back up the stream on the far side, a fucking huge hog came bursting out of the tree line. In the blink of an eye he was moving towards the tangle that was the first hog, the dogs and Sammy.

I hadn’t even realized it, but I’d started moving towards this new hog. The thought that was running through my head was to distract it and lure it away. I remembered there were a couple of trees that I could attempt to climb. I knew if it got close to me, I was totally fucking screwed.

I had a plan, it was a completely fucking stupid plan, but it was a plan.

A brief thought flashed through my mind. Mom, Grandfather, and Grandmother would probably beat me within an inch of my life if I survived this. The plan seemed kind of reasonable when I started it. I was to move to the right and climb a tree on the far bank with the hog following me. Everyone would be safe.

I was running knife in hand at the hog, and ... well, things rarely go to plan, it’s how you adapt that creates character and experience. This instance proved to be no different, though there was a variable I didn’t know and couldn’t factor in.

The hog was a lot fucking faster than I’d initially estimated based on its size. We were almost on top of each other when I made my move towards the bank. The hog seemed to have a similar instinct; it made a move to its right to avoid us running headlong into each other.

There was a huge flashing pain in my left thigh, then I got yanked back into the stream. Somehow the hogs fucking head was attached to my leg. We both were in a heap in the stream, thank god it was only about a foot deep where we landed in a heap.

Then there was screaming in my head, “stab the fucking thing”! Good advice. I remembered that I’d had the knife in my hand as I was running. Well, OSHA would have frowned on that in the workplace.

I made the awkward attempt to stab the hog when I realized the blade was no longer in my hand. Turning my head, I saw that I had dropped it in the stream, when all of a sudden, the hog shook its head and there was another flare of pain in my thigh. It was pulling one way and I was pulling the other to try and reach the blade.

Being tall came in fucking handy. I was able to reach the blade, though it felt weird in my right hand. I drove the knife into the hog, who was trying to drag me across the stream. There was a lot of squealing and blood everywhere. Then I felt pain in my lower leg. I kept driving the blade into the hog till it stopped moving.

I collapsed back, surprisingly just a foot from the bank in a couple of inches of water. I was soaked and covered in blood.

I tried to push the hog away from me and my leg moved with it. Looking down I noticed two very important things. The hog had one of its tusks imbedded through the knife sheath. Though more importantly, I was bleeding heavily from the front and outside of my left leg. There were two gashes in my jeans that the blood was pouring through.

Looking up, I could see Sammy moving towards me and his mouth was moving but I couldn’t hear anything. There was a rushing noise in my ears and I took a deep breath and let myself calm down.

“I can’t hear what you are saying.”

Sammy kept moving towards me shaking his head. I finally heard him say something.

“Can you fucking hear me now you fucking idiot?”

“Yep.”

“Just what the fuck were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed; did you think of that you fucking moron?”

He looked pissed off. I was fucking in trouble now.

“You are a fucking idiot, I’m going to...”

It was at that point he saw my leg and the stream of blood that was pouring out of it.

“Fucking hell. FITI, BRING ME THE SUTURE KIT RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.”

It must have been worse than I thought after my first glance. Sammy was kneeling next to me putting pressure on both of the cuts. He looked back towards the other guys.

“FUCKING HURRY UP FITI!!” I laid there as they got to work and thought about bitching when they sliced open my jeans.

I just laid back. I wasn’t interested in watching. It wasn’t that I was squeamish, just all of a sudden, I was extremely tired. Fiti smacked me in the face.

“Don’t you dare go to sleep on us, and just what the fuck were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t, I just sort of reacted.”

“Good thing you did. You were the only one to notice that thing. We were all focused on the other one and didn’t even hear or see it until you were yelling at it.”

“So, what was I yelling?”

“You just kept yelling “bring it on you fat fucker”. Kind of strange, but it worked for you.”

I could feel it every time Sammy put another stitch into my leg. This was something I’d have to have pain meds for if I had to go through it again. There were groans and whimpers as he worked, and I wasn’t the least bit ashamed. Sammy turned to say something, and I figured I was about to get bitched out again.

“Barnim, as much as I want to be pissed at you, your actions kept the hog from attacking one of us unaware, though you are still a fucking idiot. You’re going to have some serious bruising where the thongs cut into your skin and where it looks like the hog kicked you.”

Great, more pain and bleeding. Going over what happened in my mind, I had gotten lucky on a magnitude that I didn’t quite understand. Stuff like this had been happening since I got sent back by the Agen, I was never this lucky the first go around. Two sayings came to mind. “Step in shit and come out smelling like a rose” plus “God takes care of drunks and fools”. Relying on luck was going run out eventually. Hell, this could have been a lot worse.

It took Sammy about 15 minutes or so to finish stitching up my leg.

“Well, it won’t look pretty as I’m used to patching up dogs and there’ll be a lot of scarring, you’re the first human injury from the hogs on one of our hunts.”

“Well, it’ll be ok. Chicks dig scars.”

They both laughed. Then an odd thought hit me. Grandmother and Mom were going to do what the hog couldn’t; they were going to kill me.

Sammi and his brother helped me up and I noticed that they’d dispatched the first hog. Fiti turned to patch up the dog that had got wounded. Sammy nudged me out of my day dreaming.

“OK, take these and drink as much water as you can stand. We’ve got more than a mile to the first meeting spot. Find a branch that you can use to support some of your weight.”

I hobbled around after taking the over-the-counter pain pills he gave me and drinking a lot of water. I was glad of the pills, as there was pain radiating all through my left leg as I searched for a branch. I finally found a branch that would work, and it took me a couple minutes to hack on it so I could use it. Sammy came over to where I was standing, and then he turned my body to face a specific direction.

“Now, keep moving in this direction and you’ll run into the road. When you do, find somewhere to sit down. We’ll be a few minutes behind you as we have a few things to finish up. Now go.”

I started hobbling in the direction he set me. I was moving at a snail’s pace as my leg was throbbing in pain and I was watching where my foot landed. It was essential that I kept from tripping or stepping on anything that would jar my leg more than necessary. The pills weren’t really doing anything as with every step I felt a jolt through my left leg.

I didn’t know how long I’d been walking when a break was necessary. Sitting down on a log, I started puking. It was only a couple of times, but I didn’t think it was a good sign.

Soon I heard a rustling. If it was another hog, I wasn’t going to be able to put up much of a fight. As Fiti came through the brush, I took my hand off the handle and relaxed.

“Well, at least I kept in the right direction.”

“Yeah, though you tuckered out quick.”

“Uh, leg injury.”

“Quit being a pussy. They’re coming up behind me, so get moving. We’re only about a quarter of the way to the road.”

I rinsed my mouth out, then drank some water before getting up. Now in addition to the pain, my leg was suddenly stiff. I started moving a little faster than before and the pain was just barely tolerable. The sooner I got this over, the sooner I could keel over.

It was tough slogging and the canteen I had was completely empty before I knew it. My mouth was starting to get really dry and I was getting dizzy when I finally broke out onto the road.

Looking around, I could see the truck was aways down the road to left. Turning to the left, I headed towards the truck, and about halfway I was done. Grandfather saw me and was heading towards me when I crumpled to the ground.

As he approached, I heard him say, “So where is everyone else, and get up off the ground. I can’t believe you’re that beat after only the first leg and ... HOLY FUCK, your grandmother and mother are going to kill me. It was my idea for you to go with Sammy.”

“Good to see you too Grandfather. I’m doing well. How are you doing?”

He ran back to the truck and backed it up to where I was laying on the ground and then helped me up and into the backseat.

“You look fucking pale. Here, drink this water.”

He went to checking my leg as I was guzzling the water as fast as I could. He removed the blood-soaked strips of jean they used to apply pressure to the wounds. There was still a little bleeding going on. He pulled a first aid kit from under the seat and started wrapping my thigh with a roll of gauze.

“So, what happened? It should have been a fairly simple outing.”

“Well, I decided that I wanted to ride the hog like it was a horsey.”

“You’re not fucking funny. Now tell me what happened.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. It all happened so fast that I wasn’t really thinking just doing.”

He finished wrapping my leg as the rest of the group came out of the woods. I hadn’t been off by a whole lot; they were only slightly closer to the truck than I had been.

Hogs were stuffed in the back and the ice was pushed around till they were mostly covered, with ice stuffed in the chest cavities.