Chapter 16

Act 3

Scene 2

Paul knew he was going to have to take chances to make it to his destination and back before dark. He paused for a moment, just out of earshot of the camp to defocus his sense of sight. Defocusing sight was a discipline taught for use in hostile territory, it worked because if consciousness is focused on one thing, then everything else must be out of focus. By removing focus, all senses could seek danger that would otherwise be missed by being focused tightly somewhere else. He took a deep breath and stepped off with the ground eating, loose-limbed stride of the infantry. The biggest danger of defocusing sight was from a motionless ambush, since with vision defocused it lost some acuity, even if it made noticing motion easier.

He followed the channel through the mangroves to a tiny pond. Growing sounds of wildlife made Paul's approach cautious. He looked for a vantage point that would give him a view over the pond, and a chance to see a broad range of native wildlife. He spotted a partially fallen palm tree that hung out over the underbrush. Climbing carefully on his belly, he slithered high enough to watch all of the activity. Thousands of long legged birds were wading in the shallows along the edge. They seemed to be sifting through the mud for crustaceans, like flamingos, and even had the same distinctive pink pigment to their feathers from eating a diet of shrimp. Drifting slowly through the clear deep waters, large rounded slow moving shapes were grazing from below on the thick carpet of water hyacinth at the surface. Dugongs or Manatees, Paul wasn't sure with the distortion of the water. Then, a group of small deer like animals came to the waters edge. They had short, pronged horns rising from the back of their head near their ears. Some also had another single horn that branched into a Y rising straight up from their nose.

Paul looked at them and muttered, "Never seen an animal like that, I wonder what it is?"

A large dark shape moved out of the brush to the waters edge, and Paul looked at it in wonder. It was nearly the size of an elephant, and looked as if it might be a distant relative, since it had tusks. But where an elephant has two upward curving tusks, this animal had four. One set of tusks, about six feet long, curved down from the lower jaw, and one set, at least eight feet long, curved up from the upper jaw. It had a short prehensile trunk or long flexible nose, which was constantly questing. Suddenly, something flashed toward the deer. Paul's eyes barely had time to catch the action. Hooked claws snatched one of the smaller does hindquarters and pulled the doomed deer to the ground. Holding down its prey, the spotted cat latched onto the base of the neck and the doe convulsed. Paul broke out his binoculars, and focused in to get a close up, more detailed view.

The cat was the size of a leopard, but satisfied that its prey was dead, it released its hold on the dead doe, revealing four-inch long fangs, covered in the doe's lifeblood. A saber-toothed cat! Every species of saber-toothed cat had been extinct for thousands of years in North America. Only a few birds near the attack, and the rest of the herd of weird dear were alarmed by the attack. Less than a minute later, the cat dragged off his kill, and life at the pond went on undisturbed.

Paul edged back down his tree. Satisfied his few minutes of observing the pond had been worthwhile. Now, he knew more about the sorts of animals to expect in this strange place. The elephant thing would be easy to avoid, but a saber-toothed cat was a problem. From what he'd seen, they were ambush hunters, and the cat was easily big enough to look on humans as prey.

Paul worked around the pond, keeping the shore in sight, but staying away from the edge. The myriad of footprints of all sorts of animals told a confusing story of hundreds of animals that he hadn't seen in his brief observations. Paul shook his head. He knew pushing on this speed was reckless. But his young niece might be near death, and his sense of guilt, responsibility and worry drove him on.

The thick underbrush was more reminiscent of the jungles of Southeast Asia. Some of the plants were even recognizable from his times in the Philippines and Malaysia and others he had only seen near the Nile delta. There were elephant ears, stands of papyrus, and many other exotic tropical plants, all mixed in with species he didn't know at all. Paul paused for a drink halfway from the pond to the point Evan had marked on the map showing the location of the building. He mopped his brow. Underneath the forest canopy everything was in dappled in shade, the light was filtered through several layers of leaves, but the air was moist and hot.

Paul started onward, but had only gone a hundred yards when he saw a break in the forest ahead. Slowing, he carefully crept to the edge of the opening. The trees and the thick canopy ended, but what he saw was perhaps even more amazing. Tall, thick clumps of bamboo grew to tremendous heights. Tilting his head back from his vantage point just inside the edge of the forest, Paul couldn't make out the tops of the largest of the bamboo.

The some of the bamboo was eight feet in diameter, with the typical growth ridges spaced every six feet or so. Paul started to enter the grove of giant bamboo, but then, he heard voices. He dropped to the ground, and searched for the origin of the voices. The strange acoustics of the stand thwarted him, so he silently crawled back into the forest undergrowth. Then, he began to make his way around the edge of the grove. Even muffled by the undergrowth, the voices grew louder, and the sound of axes and saws joined in.

Paul stopped behind a tree when he was first able to make out movement through the undergrowth and the bamboo. He stepped out of the undergrowth and moved closer at an oblique angle. He stopped behind one of the clumps of huge bamboo shoots fifty feet away from the men and peered through to watch them. Two men, grunted with effort to pull a long saw though one of the largest stalks of bamboo. Paul heard voices from above, looked up and spotted four more men hanging from other stalks of bamboo about a hundred feet up.

A few of the words exchanged carried to him and Paul grew excited. The words were in English, albeit heavily accented and vaguely Shakespearian.

A voice bellowed from above, "How long doust thou plan to make us 'ang 'ere?"

The two men on the saw stopped, roughly halfway through the prodigious bamboo's girth. Paul was able to see them clearly as they poised looking upward. Both men were stripped to the waist and slicked with sweat. They had an odd combination of dark complexions and long straight red hair bound into ponytails that fell to their waists. Both men had huge ropes of muscle cording in backs and arms. One of them laughed loudly, then cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted.

"Well Master Scot! Be yea a venturing ta try thy hand at the saw?"

"Nay, Master Williamson! Prayeth thee continue, lest we dangle 'ere all afternoon."

Paul was curious as to the role of the men suspended above in cutting down the huge bamboo stalk. He worked to one side of the stand he'd been hiding behind and looked up to the men above. Each man was suspended by a rope harness attached to another of the large stalks of bamboo. Above each was a heavy block and tackle with ropes attached to the stalk that was being cut. For the first time, Paul was able to see the tops of the tallest bamboo shoots. They towered nearly three hundred feet above. The men's plan appeared to be to ease the nearly three hundred foot tall bamboo to the ground after cutting. Letting it down slowly instead falling all in a rush. Paul could see that it would be both safer and less likely to damage the bamboo.

Paul turned back to watch the two men beginning to saw again. With a sudden high-pitched whine of rope sliding over rope, all four men suspended above came speeding to the ground. Paul stepped back a bit, but too late. As soon as each man struck the ground, they disconnected their harness from the ropes and began to circle the stand of bamboo Paul had been watching from.

As one man stepped in front of him, Paul saw another coming from the rear. One held a wicked looking double bladed steel ax with a long haft, the other a gleaming, double edged knife so long it could also be a short sword. The other two men from above crab-walked out to the flanks holding short bows at the ready. Paul watched warily, and was careful to make no sudden moves when they stopped ten feet from him and glared at him menacingly.

The man with the axe shook it at Paul's chest and said, "Who be yea? Lurkin' 'bout like a thief or knave?"

The two bare-chested men who had been working the saw walked up. They were both huge, towering well over six and a half feet. One grasped the ax gently and forced it down with casual ease. He raised his voice to carry, "Nay, Master Scot. He hath not the look about him of a thief, nor nay, a knave. Methinks yon gentleman couldst shoot out thy gizzard afore thy ax couldst do yea good. Who art thou traveler?"

Paul applied his keenly developed ear for dialects and accents. Even so, he struggled to parse the big man's speech. Shakespearian wording with a heavy Scot's brogue was, indeed, a tough combination. He squared his shoulders and answered, "My name is Paul White. We were chased ashore by Pirates. My young niece sustained a head injury, so I came looking for medical assistance."

Muttering rose from the men at the mention of pirates. As soon as Paul finished speaking, the other bare-chested man started directing the others. "Jon, hie thee back to the village. Sayeth unto the priest to gird for an unlucky baern. Come brothers, we needs make ready to follow this fine fellow and aide in his quest! How far, pray tell, is thine encampment?"

Smiling his gratitude. Paul answered, "No more than a mile and a half through the forest. We need to loop around a small pond, then follow the river."

The men scattered, and in moments returned wearing thick leather hauberks and bearing either a long spear with a wicked two-foot long steel points or bows. When they had all assembled, the older of the big men stuck out his hand and shook Paul's.

"I be called Ambrose, and these, my younger brothers be Eli, Joseph, Adam, and Peter. Your speech and apparel doth set you apart. Prayeth tell me thy story whilst on the trek. We needs must move thy party to our village before nightfall."

Paul turned and began to jog next to Ambrose. He noticed all of the men keeping a sharp eye on the forest around them. They moved as well through the undergrowth as any Paul had ever seen, and he'd be out with Seals, Army Spec Ops, and Marine Corps Force Recon. As soon as they'd all settled into a rhythm, Paul began to tell his tale.

"This morning, we set sail from near Cape Hatteras National Seashore along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We were struck by a severe thunderstorm when lightning stuck something in mid air. A ring of purple fire opened right before us. When we went through we passed out and awoke in a sunny clear sky."

Eli argued, "What sayest thou? N'er heard tell of any o' those places."

Suddenly Ambrose planted his heels and skidded to a stop. With wonder in his voice, he asked, "Couldst thou be a newcomer?"