Karen was up late reading and had to force herself out of bed at 06:45 if she was to shower and meet her friend for breakfast in town that Saturday morning. She should have known the boys were up to something when she came down into the kitchen and found the four of them silently shoveling cold cereal into their mouths.
“Hey guys, what’s up?” she circled the table in awe since she knew they were still up surfing the Internet and quietly scheming when she went to bed.
“Oh nothing, we just figured it was a beautiful day to waste and we should get up and go for a walk,” Lex volunteered.
“Oh sure, and I’ll bet you have some dry Florida land for sale cheap,” Karen mocked him.
“What?” Lex didn’t understand the inference.
“I suppose that if I told you to stay out of the bush, I would be wasting my breath.” Karen knew moving young boys to a place with the wild all around them, was like putting a bowl of candy in front of them and telling them not to eat any. “Well, your uncle has taken you along the trails many times and you should know how to be safe in the bush by now. Tommy you know the trails up on the ridge, be careful and make sure you take these.” She removed two bear air horns from the case in the cupboard that Jeff had given her and plunked them down on the table.
“You mean we can go?” Ricky unwittingly confessed their intention.
“I’d rather you didn’t, but if you have to, be careful,” Karen admitted as she tussled Ricky’s hair and ran up the stairs. As she got ready for her breakfast date, she calmed herself with the knowledge that bear encounters were extremely rare given the number of bears in close proximity to them. Bears wanted nothing to do with people and would go out of their way to avoid them. It was only on the rare occasions that people surprised a bear that there were problems. Karen seriously doubted that four boys crashing through the bush could surprise a bear.
“You know maybe these aren’t a bad idea,” said Gary examining the bear horn. “I don’t want to surprise anything out there and if we blast these every few minutes we will be letting the animals know that we are around.”
“That’s what there for, dork!” Tommy snarled at Gary.
“Oh, I thought they were to scare a bear, if you saw one,” Gary shrunk back in his chair.
“Ya know, you can be a real jerk!” Ricky said to Tommy defending his friend, while Lex ate his cereal with his head down.
“I hope you boys can get along today,” Karen broke in as she came into the kitchen pulling on her jacket. “And if you are going into the bush I need you to stick to the trail and stick together. No splitting up and heading off in different directions. Do I make myself clear?” She looked each boy in the eye in turn to make sure they nodded in agreement. “Tommy?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tommy agreed.
“If you are not home by noon, I will send your uncle after you and make sure Tommy’s dad is told when he returns. Is that clear?” Karen knew that if there was one person her boys respected it was their Uncle Jeff. And as for Tommy, the mere mention of telling his father about any misbehavior on his part got his full attention.
After Karen drove off at 07:30 the boys got dressed and started filling their backpacks with bottled water and snacks for their trek toward the ridge. They were on the trail by 08:00 and figured they had plenty of time before noon to find the spot where Ricky had found the stones and get back for lunch. After 30 minutes they were almost at the spot where they met Tommy firing his .22 rifle and decided they had better backtrack down the trail paying closer attention in looking for the path to the stones. The forest seemed different now that all of the flowers and ferns were beginning to die back.
Ricky seemed to have no trouble finding the path working from the down slope direction and they were on their way into the bush in 10 minutes.
“Are you sure this is the path?” Gary asked looking around.
“Yup, see that large red cedar right there? The stones are on the other side of it,” Ricky was certain.
“Good,” Gary raised the air horn above his head and let off a long blast until Lex grabbed the horn from him.
“Geez, Gary! Are you trying to make us all deaf?” Lex admonished him.
“I just wanted to make sure everything around knew we were here,” Gary said, nervously looking around.
“Yeah well I think you succeeded numb nuts,” Tommy verbally jabbed Gary.
“See? What did I tell ya?” Ricky said standing beside a perfectly symmetrical cone of smooth red stones as the others rounded the massive trunk.
“Wow!” exclaimed Tommy as he stared at the pile of red stones between two huge cedar roots couched by emerald green ferns, still wet with the morning mist. “The way they glisten in the dappling sunlight reminds me of like, …rubies, no, peeling back the skin of a pomegranate to find the seeds glistening, each cloistered as a pearl in its own shell, beckoning us to enter a realm heretofore unknown,” Tommy fell to his knees in front of the pile and held one up to a beam of light making its way through the forest canopy.
The three boys standing looked at each other mouths open as if they had just seen Bigfoot. They were in such awe of the words just uttered by this person they had previously considered to be a Neanderthal, an ignoramus; it took a few moments for one of them to speak.
“Man, now I’ve seen everything,” mused Gary, “we come out here to find a lost species and we really do find one. Just not the one we expected.”
Ricky and Lex laughed and turned their backs on Tommy shaking their heads.
“What?” Tommy turned to look at Gary, confused.
“Are you making fun of me?” Tommy snapped out of his reverie and stood up looking menacingly at Gary.
“So what now?” said Lex stepping in between Gary and Tommy.
“Let’s look around and see if we can find anything else unusual,” volunteered Ricky, setting his backpack down.
“OK, let’s take a few minutes but nobody leave the sight of the group, only a few feet and stay in the light.”
The red cedar was large enough to drive their uncle’s Ford pickup straight through and still leave a couple of feet on each side. After ten minutes of looking around the saplings and ferns surrounding the cedar the boys wandered back to the stone pile.
“Didn’t you guys say you dug to the bottom of that pile of clam shells you found?” asked Tommy.
“Mussel shells,” Ricky corrected Tommy.
“Do you think there is anything under this pile of red stones?” Gary pondered aloud.
“Let’s see,” Tommy fell to his knees once again and started removing the stones from the top of the pile.
“Do you really think we should be doing this?” questioned Lex.
“Yeah, are we going to be able to rebuild it the way we found it?” asked Ricky.
“We’ll rebuild it just the way we found it,” Tommy said removing the stones one by one and then layer by layer until he had removed about two feet off the top of the cone and a cream color began to show between the stones.
“I don’t think this was a very good idea, Tommy. We shouldn’t be messing with this and I don’t know if we can put it back the way we found it,” Lex said voicing the concern of the others as they began nervously looking around.
Tommy ignored his friend’s trepidation as the anticipation of a treasure just fuelled Tommy’s desire to get at what it was that was buried below. He now heaved the stones out of the hole faster and faster with no regard as to how he was going to rebuild the cone, until he reached down one last time and pulled out a large skull.
“Wow, look at this! It must be almost twice the size of my head!” Tommy squealed with excitement.
“Put it back,” said Lex, “this is wrong. We’re not grave robbers.”
“Are you kidding? This isn’t human! Look at it!” cried Tommy. The skull was indeed much larger than any human skull and was kind of flat on top with ridges of bone above the eye sockets, a huge jaw and teeth worn smooth.
“All the more reason to
put it back,” said Ricky.
“No way,” said Tommy as he hurriedly dumped everything from his backpack and wrapped the skull in a sweatshirt and stuffed it back in his pack. “My dad has been looking for something like this his entire life. He is going to be so proud of me,” Tommy said as he turned tail toward the path and began to jog.
“Where are you going?” yelled Gary.
“Haven’t you been listening? I am taking this to show my dad,” Tommy yelled over his shoulder before disappearing down the path, toward the trail, on his way home.
“What should we do?” Ricky looked to Lex.
“We shouldn’t have come, but what is done is done. Let’s get outta here,” Lex was anxiously looking around.
“But shouldn’t we fill this back in? I can see more bones down there,” Ricky was distraught with the thought of leaving an open grave.
“Lex is right,” Gary said. “I don’t want to get caught grave robbing an Old One, do you?”
Ricky followed Lex and Gary along the path to the trail and home. He couldn’t believe how sour this whole thing had gone. He just wanted to impress his friends. But this adventure had gone wrong real fast.
As they got to the trail they found Tommy standing there waiting for them.
“I thought you were going home?” said Lex.
“My dad is gone to Prince George, remember? I am supposed to stay at your place and go home after school Monday.” Tommy recounted.
“Well you’re not bringing that skull to our place,” Ricky stepped forward and was adamant.
Just then Lex felt something whiz by his head and heard it bounce off the tree on the other side of the trail and roll to their feet. Ricky and Lex looked at each other horrified when they saw it was a smooth red stone.
“Run!” Gary absorbed the stone’s message instantly and took off around the other boys and down the trail as fast as his legs could carry him.
“Leave this!” Lex said grabbing the pack on Tommy’s back but Tommy wrenched himself free, pushed Lex to the ground and ran off after Gary.
Ricky helped Lex up as they heard the “Whoosh! Whoosh! Thump! Thump!” sound in the bush and then felt a couple more stones whiz by them.
“Let’s go!” Ricky said pulling Lex up to run down the trail after their friends.
Running down that trail was longest 15 minutes of the boy’s lives. It sounded as though they had a team of horses crashing through the bush behind them. They were so scared none of them were going to take the chance of tripping up by looking behind them to see what it was. When they finally made it to the house they crashed in with no regard of the noise. Without a word to each other they locked every door and took up positions to view the field open field next to the house.
Karen was in the kitchen making sandwiches when the boys crashed in and was mystified by the looks of horror on their faces. “What the hell is going on!” she demanded.
“Something is after us!” Ricky yelled. “Something big!”
Karen looked out each window with the boys and waited for a few minutes for everyone to settle down. “What was it? A bear?”
“Bigfoot!” shouted Gary, not taking his eyes off the ridge.
“Oh, this is getting out of hand…” Karen began to say as they all heard a loud thump, thump on the back deck as something bounced and then smacked into glass. As they all ran to see what it was they immediately noticed the outside pane of glass on the sliding glass door was shattered into a spider web pattern. Moving closer they could all see a smooth red stone lying on the deck.
Karen reached in her jeans and flipped open her cell phone, pressing a speed dial number. “Jeff, how fast can you get here? Ten minutes? We need you at the house as fast as possible.”
When Jeff pulled in the driveway a few minutes later, everything seemed calm. He walked to the kitchen door and Ricky unbolted the heavy solid core inside door and let him in.
“Hey little brother, what’s going on?” Uncle Jeff said and thought it was strange that Ricky didn’t answer or meet his eyes. That is, until he got into the kitchen and saw something stranger.
Karen and four boys were standing around the kitchen looking at a large skull on a burgundy towel in the center of the kitchen table.
“Oh…My…God,” Jeff said as he slowly circled a skull the like’s of which he had never seen.
“OMG? OMG?” Gary repeated as he began backing out of the kitchen in a daze, “WTF OMG? OMG BTW FYI U U U U U AKA FUBARed TTYL,” Gary giggled like a madman, pointing to each one of them in turn, obviously upset and beginning to unravel heading for the door.
Ricky grabbed Gary by the arm and slapped him on the face. “Cut it out Gary!” then shoved him in a kitchen chair.
“JK. JK,” Gary acquiesced raising his arms in surrender then resting his head on the table.
“We’re all sticking together until we can figure this out,” Ricky said looking around.
“Oh, all for one and one for all,” Gary said mockingly, looking at Tommy. “Well he should have thought of that before he took the skull. Jerk!” Gary screamed across the table at Tommy.
“Jeff?” Karen snapped her fingers in front of Jeff’s face to snap him out of his skull-induced trance.
“OK, settle down boys.” Uncle Jeff said without taking his eyes off the table, leaning against the kitchen counter with a .306 slung over his shoulder. “I can’t believe what you boys have found. This will change everything.”
“We can’t keep it Uncle Jeff,” Lex said.
“What d'ya mean, we can’t keep it? Anthropologists have been looking for concrete evidence of the Old One’s forever. This is a major discovery. You boys will be famous!” Uncle Jeff could barely keep his excitement in check.
“We have to give it back,” said Ricky.
“Give it back?” asked Uncle Jeff laughing, “Give it back to whom?” Jeff said looking around the room but again, no one would meet his eyes but Karen. “OK, spill it. Where did you find the skull?” Jeff finally asked the critical question.
“We ah, kind of, dug it up,” volunteered Tommy.
“Kind of dug it up, where?” asked Uncle Jeff.
“On the ridge,” piped in Ricky. “We told Gary and Tommy about how we found the midden with the polished green lava stones beneath it and got the idea to look below the cone of stones we found on the ridge. When we removed a bunch of stones from the top we found the skull below and other bones below that.”
“I understand your curiosity and I suppose I am to blame for fuelling it but what would possess you to rob a grave? That’s one of the biggest taboos in any society,” Uncle Jeff was shocked.
The boys were all looking at Tommy, and he knew it was up to him to respond for the group. “All I could think of was how happy it would make my dad to see this. I thought we would all be rich and famous. I wasn’t thinking”
“Yeah, well now we have Bigfoot after us because of you,” Gary pointed at Tommy.
“That’s why I called you,” said Karen. “I don’t know what these boys have gotten into but come take a look at the sliding door.”
“Who do you think could have done that? They were all inside with me when I heard that rock hit the glass. They have ticked someone off enough to throw rocks at our house.”
“I don’t know but I think we had better put the skull back just to be on the safe side,” Jeff took out his phone and made a couple of calls.
Within the hour four of Jeff’s friends showed up with rifles of their own and Jeff came back into the kitchen and put the skull into the backpack. “We are going to put this back were it belongs.”
“I’m coming too,” Ricky said jumping up and grabbing his jacket.
“Not a chance, buster!” Karen said ripping the jacket from him.
“Your mom’s right, Ricky. It’s too dangerous. There is no telling what you boys have awakened.”
“But I know where the stone pile is …” Ricky really wanted to go, to somehow make up for what they had don
e.
“I know where it is too, remember? Now you boys stay inside until I get back and take care of your mom.” Jeff said pulling Karen outside the kitchen door.
“Now, take my .306 and keep it at the ready, just in case. Bill and Larry are armed and will be in their truck at the end of the driveway if you need them.” Jeff nodded in Bill and Larry’s direction and they waved at Karen as they sat on the tailgate of their truck, smoking.
“Isn’t this a little much for someone throwing rocks at the house?” Karen really did wonder if all the men in her life were over the top reactionaries.
“We’ll be back in an hour or two,” said Jeff rubbing her shoulder and smiling.
“OK, men let’s go,” Jeff signaled his two friends to follow, “it’s not far, maybe 20 minutes up the trail. I just hope I can remember where the path off the trail is.”
They had no problem finding the path. As they got close they began to find the smooth red stones strewn all over the trail, like ripe apples had fallen from an invisible tree. The path itself looked like a dozen men had marched up and down along its length; all of the ferns were stomped into the ground. They reached the giant red cedar but the stone pile was gone. All that remained was a hole about chest deep to Jeff. No bones or stones were in sight anywhere in the area. The men were alone and the forest was still.
Jeff realized the skull had to be returned to the Old One’s and considered leaving it in the hole by the red cedar. But he felt this was not the proper way to redeem themselves for their transgression into the Old One’s realm. He just knew it wouldn’t be that simple.