CHAPTER X
The Red Eye
Ed, John, and Talking Owl found the hiking and camping gear they needed waiting for them at the entrance of Turtle Man's Great Lodge and together they set off for Hairless Bear. Fortunately the walk was short, as the Lodge was long ago positioned to be near Hairless Bear, and a path through the snow had already been cleared by other tribesmen. They each carried large backpacks, with Running Bear effortlessly carrying by far the largest pack that included the tent.
"Is it far, Princess?" Running Bear asked Talking Owl, as they set off.
"I prefer Talking Owl," she told the Mohican, but she smiled. "Why would you call me Princess?"
"I am sorry, Talking Owl; I mean you no disrespect. As I spied on all of you I formed provisional names for those of you for whom I did not yet have a proper name."
"But why choose to call me Princess?" she asked again.
"Your beauty and bearing made the name choice an obvious one," Running Bear explained. "I have spoken it in my head a thousand times and grown quite used to it."
She laughed before replying. "Continue to use it if you wish, Running Bear. I do not want to confuse you."
"Only if you will call me John," Running Bear answered.
"Agreed. To answer your question, John, we are almost half-way to the Hairless Bear already; hardly a challenge for a man that can travel into our remote reservation while carrying all of this heavy camping and surveillance gear."
Ed said nothing, largely because he was short of breath from hiking while carrying what he considered to be an enormous weight. He was relieved when they arrived at the site of Hairless Bear and he could take off the heavy backpack. A large area for their tent and campfire had been already been cleared of snow by the Tribe and hadn't yet drifted back. Even the Hairless Bear itself and the woodpile around it appeared to have been cleared of snow!
"Ieeee!" the usually taciturn Running Bear exclaimed, when he looked up at the rocky stone figure that towered above them. "It is much bigger than I expected from legend!"
"Most Stone-Coats in the Mountain are said to be smaller, though some are also said to be even larger," said Talking Owl.
"This one is large and realistic enough! Well over ten meters tall, I'd say! Maybe fifteen or more!"
"You favor the Metric system, John?" Talking Owl asked.
"Chiefly because it is not English, but also because it is far more sensible, Princess," Running Bear said.
John and the Princess were suddenly staring into each other's eyes. Ed couldn't be sure, but he thought that he saw Talking Owl blush. Maybe it was due to the cold.
"I'll set up the tent," Running Bear announced, breaking eye contact with Talking Owl as he shed his own backpack and started unloading tent-parts from it. "It's an NSA tent and provides good protection against cold. Plenty of room in it for two."
Talking Owl turned her attention to Ed, though he noticed that she frequently glanced towards Running Bear. "This is your big test, Ed Rumsfeld. Your best hope is to lie quietly in the tent and relax with eyes closed and ears covered, leaving your mind open to quiet, slow turtle thoughts. Their thoughts form very slowly in your head, I am told."
"Thoughts form pretty darn slowly in my head normally," Ed noted. "What you describe sounds like an easy job."
"Not at all. But in a short time you have learned to do all that I can do with other animals, so your potential must be truly great."
"I'll probably simply doze off," Ed noted.
"That could be a good thing, Raccoon. Turtle Man often receives his best communications when he sleeps or is on the edge of sleep."
"Great! I'm a damn good sleeper," Ed noted. "One of the very best."
"John won't let you overdo your sleep," Talking Owl said. "He has been briefed by Mouse on how to help you." She reached into a pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag full of small roundish objects. "Use these earplugs. They will stifle sounds that might otherwise distract you. Besides, John might snore." She shot John a smile.
"Or if Ed snores I might be the one to need the earplugs," noted John.
"Good luck to both of you," she said with another little smile, before turning away from them and walking back towards the Lodge.
Both men attentively watched her go, and missed her company already.
"Wow!" said Running Bear, when she was finally out of sight.
"Ditto," agreed Ed. "Princess is a damn good name for her! Of course I'm married to a cutie already and I'm damn near old enough to be Talking Owl's father. But I'm married, not dead."
"Is she married?" Running Bear asked.
As Running Bear finished setting up the tent Ed told him about the White Cloud/Talking Owl dilemma.
"So far I much like White Cloud," said Running Bear, "but he's a fool that doesn't deserve her if he values Clan leadership above her."
"She seems to like you," Ed noted.
Running Bear snorted. "She's possibly mildly amused by me. I'm a Mohican NSA agent and far below her status. No Ed Rumsfeld, I am an outsider here and a realist. She is far beyond my reach. But I'm only a man. She cannot be beyond my thoughts."
They spent the next hour setting up the camp. They constructed a circle of rocks to contain a campfire and put equipment in the tent. Most food was hung high in a tree by Running Bear. "That should keep our food away from wolves, bears, and your little cousins the raccoons," he explained.
The two men entered the tent and sat down across from each other. The ground under the tent was frozen solid and it was colder than a refrigerator inside, but at least there was no wind or drifting snow to contend with. "What is this stuff?" Ed asked about the small parcels of food that John had left in the tent.
"MREs, Ed. Genuine government issue Meals Ready to Eat: dehydrated goodies. When it gets dark later we'll get our fire going and cook it up in a pot of hot water. Then we'll eat like kings. Well, like kings on a shitty restricted diet maybe."
"Swell! We wouldn't want to over-eat."
"Actually we'll both be eating and drinking more than usual, Ed. Out here in the cold we'll burn a lot of calories, breathe a lot of dry air, and make a lot of yellow snow. In the meantime let's talk about our mission. As Mouse explained it to me, my mission is to support you, and your mission is to learn how to telepathically talk with turtles and then mind-meld with this stone statue of a bear."
"Very true," agreed Ed.
"It all sounds a bit crazy to me. Could it be simply some kind of ruse to get me away from the artifact study?"
"I don't think so," said Ed. "My, but you are the suspicious sort, aren't you?"
"I'm NSA. And I'm also the sort of man that likes to be sure about what's going on around him, Ed."
"Me too, John."
"The bear-shaped rock formation creeps me out," admitted John.
"Me too," Ed admitted. "My spidey sense is tingling."
"Maybe it's supposed to creep us out," said John. "This whole Stone-Coat thing has had Native Americans creeped-out for centuries. Maybe the Tribe still doesn't trust me and putting me out here with you keeps me out of their hair."
Ed was quiet for a few moments before he replied. "Mouse told me that they sent you out here largely because you know how to set up your nice warm NSA tent and how to camp-out and keep me comfortable in the cold."
"When did she tell you that?"
"Just now, telepathically. I'm afraid that she's been eavesdropping on our thoughts. Human telepathy is her specialty, even at a distance. Don't expect to keep many secrets from her."
"That creeps me out almost as much as does Hairless Bear," said John, "but that sort of thing has also been long rumored of this Tribe."
"I'm getting to know and trust these people, and I'm getting rather used to telepathy," admitted Ed. "It's a gift. A creepy gift, but a sort of nifty one too. And I've learned how to do it a lot better over the last couple of weeks. I've shared thoughts with a lot of critters, but I'm still not at all sold on talking to turtles or on the existence of slee
ping Stone-Coat Ice Giants. My friends and I plan to prove to the Tribe that Stone-Coats don't exist so that they can move out of these cold mountains to someplace warmer and nicer."
John laughed. "White men are always thinking of nice warm swamps and deserts to move their beloved red brothers to. I wonder what Mouse thinks of your plan? But I want to get to the bottom of this Stone-Coat business also."
"Why?"
"Like your Uncle Jack I have a great curiosity about Native American myths. I'd like to know if there is something real behind this one. I sort of hope that there is, actually."
"You do?"
"Native Americans have a lot of myths and there is a lot of wisdom tied up in them. I wouldn't mind finding out that there is some truth behind some of them. Call it a hobby."
"You're a complex guy, John."
"You are also. I'm supposed to let you do telepathy with turtles as you rest quietly here in the tent. Nothing simple about that."
"I suppose," Ed admitted.
"While it's still light outside I'll let you get to it while I have a look around the camp area some more. I like to know where it is that I'm sleeping."
"Sounds like a plan," Ed remarked, as John Running Bear slipped out of the tent and zipped it closed behind him.
Ed opened his sleeping bag and lay down upon it. Being on the padded bag was softer and warmer than being directly on the tent floor but the ground beneath was still relatively hard and irregular. However there was something primal and reassuring about lying on the solid ground; Ed felt like he was somehow part of the Earth and not merely laying upon it.
He relaxed, closed his eyes, and began to telepathically take inventory of the creatures in the area. Aside from John and a few rodents and birds, nothing was readily apparent nearby, though a bit further off he sensed wolves. This was a quiet, deserted patch of woods, all right! He wasn't looking forward to spending the night without Mary; this would be the first time they would be sleeping apart since they were married. He was glad that she was safe at the Lodge though, instead of being camped alongside Hairless Bear. He was also very glad for the company of the stoic Mohican. He couldn't imagine spending the night here alone, even though he still didn't believe in Stone-Coats. However, though he couldn't see it he was acutely aware that Hairless Bear towered only a couple of giant steps away.
John Running Bear circled the camp area several times, creating pathways through the snow and becoming familiar with every square foot and every rock, tree, and bush. It would be a dark, moonless night, but he would be able to move about quietly even without a flashlight, if he had to. He looked for evidence of other humans besides himself and Ed, but found none. Further away from the camp and the pathway to it he found only his own footprints and those of a few animals in the two-foot-deep snow. This included numerous wolf and bear tracks, arranged in a rough circle some distance from Hairless Bear. The Tribe clan animals seemed to be watching Hairless Bear from what they considered to be a safe distance. He in fact sensed several wolves nearby.
Running Bear at last turned his attentions to Hairless Bear. He climbed the great mound of fire-wood that surrounded it to get a closer look, snapping photos with his small ruggedized digital camera as he went. Half way up he noticed rock that almost poked through the wood-pile. He cleared away some of the wood and was astonished to discover a huge stone hand with three fingers each as long and nearly as thick as his own body! They matched perfectly the Bear Claw being studied back at the lab, including scales that sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. After taking a couple of dozen photos he covered the clawed hand back up with firewood. When he did so he noticed that some of the wood looked like it was partly eaten away. It wasn't singed; it seemed to have simply melted away!
He continued climbing towards the head. He expected to find a vaguely shaped rock, but the closer he got to it the more it looked like a perfectly shaped head. It was much bigger than it looked to be from ground level; instead of being as large as an elephant's head, it was closer in size to an entire elephant. He didn't see ears or nostrils, but otherwise it looked much like the head of a huge creature of some sort; a bear perhaps, or a muskrat or beaver. The apparent eye on the side of the head he faced was a round black area saucer in size, while the 'skin' of the head was covered with the same big gem-like scales as the fingers.
John had expected to find vaguely shaped granite, not a perfectly formed head and hand with distinct scales! What the hell?
He cleared away firewood covering a massive shoulder and this time paid more attention to the wood as he removed it. Pieces in direct contact with Hairless Bear were clearly being eaten away. The wood didn't look singed; it simply seemed to have disappeared where it had been touching the surface of the Stone-Coat. Curious, John pressed his leather gloved hand against Hairless Bear for a few seconds and then examined the glove closely. "Damn!" we muttered when he realized that half of the thickness of the glove was simply gone! If he had kept his hand pressed against Hairless Bear a few seconds longer, he had no doubt that it would have also eaten away the surface of his hand! He put the partly eaten-away glove and a wood sample into a pocket and snapped more photos of the head before noticing that something was different about the eye.
The eye wasn't black anymore, but was glowing bright red, and it seemed to be staring directly at him! Dred and fear that he hadn't felt since he was a small child rushed through him and after reflexively snapping one more photo he half ran, half tumbled down the wood pile! He ended up lying on his back on the ground near the campfire and staring up at Hairless Bear, half expecting it to come fully alive and reach for him with its huge clawed hands! Hairless Bear didn't move, and as he watched the eye faded from glowing red back to dull black.
Ed heard the commotion and emerged from the tent to find the usually stoic Mohican lying on the ground and staring wide-eyed up at Hairless Bear. Ed could easily sense the fear in John's chaotic thoughts, even though the Mohican wasn't strongly telepathic. "What happened? Are you alright?"
John took a deep breath, sat up, and wiped his face off with his coat sleeve before responding. "I'll be alright. Nothing's broken physically, I think. It's getting dark soon; let's start our fire and then I'll tell you what I think just happened."
It took a quiet twenty minutes, a warm fire, and a shot of brandy before John would describe to Ed what had happened. He kept glancing up at Hairless Bear, Ed noticed, as he told his story.
"You aren't just making all that up to scare the hell out of me are you?" Ed responded.
"Not likely, but you can check it out for yourself. He handed his camera to Ed. Why don't you study my photos in the comfort of the tent while I fix our MRE stew?"
Fifteen minutes later Ed emerged from the tent with a haunted look and John Running Bear handed him the brandy flask and a cup of hot chunky stew. They each sat down in in front of the campfire on their little folding camping chairs and ate their stew and passed the brandy flask back and forth until it was all gone while they stared up at Hairless Bear.
"Holy crap, Running Bear!" Ed said at last. "What the hell!"
"I take it that my photos match up with my story."
"Glowing red eye and everything! Just as significant, Hairless Bear used to be only a vaguely shaped figure in stone, without a perfect head and arm and so forth with gemstone scales! Now after a few cold days it's a slimmed-down statue with pebbly looking scales that look like they might be made of ice or diamonds! Just like the Bear Claw!"
"Things will get even more dramatic if it starts moving," said Running Bear. "At that point this bear plans to run from that one."
"Let's not jump the gun, John. You have to admit that nothing that we've seen so far couldn't have been done using human technology. Think about it. The Tribe pulled a switch on us somehow and brought in an animated statue and put it on top of the Hairless Bear rock. The mechanical eye is driven by some sort of motion detector. I've got a little glow in the dark garden gnome back in storage at the Lodge that g
ets charged up by sunlight and says "keep off the grass" when it detects motion. The Bear Claw and what you saw could have been manufactured by the Tribe as an elaborate hoax set up to creep us both out.
"It did that. I'm very glad that Talking Owl packed us some brandy. And she's beautiful and smart too, all the way through, and that's not just the brandy and hormones talking, that's keen Native American senses and wisdom."
Ed was glad to see that his gnome argument, the brandy, and thoughts of Talking Owl had calmed and cheered John considerably. Ed refused more brandy for himself. "Drinking is a young man's game, John, and it mostly just makes me dizzy and tired as hell. It's early but I'm going to try to get some sleep. Too bad walkie-talkie radios don't work this near the Mountain. We'll have to wait until tomorrow to tell the others what happened."
"YOU ALREADY TOLD ME," said Mouse in his head. "I'LL PASS IT ON TO THE OTHERS TONIGHT. DREAM WITH THE TURTLES, RACCOON."
"RODGER THAT," Ed responded, as he helped John add some last wood to the fire and walked a bit away from camp to make some yellow snow before bedding down in the tent in his freezing cold sleeping bag. He shivered violently for at least ten minutes before the bag was heated by his body enough for him to be reasonably comfortable. He was putting earplugs into his ears when Running Bear entered the tent. "Want some earplugs, John?"
"No thanks; if that thing out there starts moving I want to hear it coming. I placed an empty MRE can on the woodpile that will cause a ruckus if the monster bear makes a move. You just relax and ask those turtles what the hell is going on."
Still feeling the effects of the brandy, Ed felt very relaxed. Even with the earplugs in it wasn't totally quiet though, even with no sound it was never quiet for him anymore. There was a constant murmuring of thoughts from everywhere, animal and human. He was getting better at tuning them out though, and he did so now, humans, mice, birds, and so forth: everything that he had come to recognize through his training.
Something still remained though; slow and quiet thoughts on the edge of his perception. In his alcohol slowed mind he began to think of the Mohawk word for turtle: "A'NO:WARA, A' - NO: - WA - RA, A' --- NO: ---WA ---RA. He gradually slowed his thoughts to the pace of the throbbing background, and as he repeated the word, he pictured the wood-turtle photo that Doc had discovered in the library.
After thinking the word slowly over a dozen limes he paused and started to doze off, but all the while he 'listened' to the slow background murmurings. Gradually a word began to form in his mind, vague and uncertain at first, but over a period of several minutes it became "STONE-COATS," followed in a few minutes by the words "HUNGRY" and "WAKE" and then finally a frightful visual image of Hairless Bear. The creature's eyes glowed red!
The vision caused Ed to fully wake and find himself in a totally dark tent. He sat up, located his flashlight and turned it on to discover Running Bear already sitting up with his sleeping bag wrapped around his broad shoulders and staring back at him.
"What finely woke you?" John asked. "You were murmuring in your sleep. I thought that you were having a nightmare."
"Or a vision," Ed told him. "Maybe it was all only a dream." He told John what he 'heard' and saw.
"The Mohawk take their dreams very seriously, but I do not believe this was only a dream, I think it was turtles. Tell me more about what the Hairless Bear of your vision looked like."
"It looked as much like a mole, prairie dog, or groundhog as a bear, though I guess that because it was whitish it looked as much like a polar bear as anything. But it had big long fingers and toes nothing like a bear. They were more like clawed hands than bear paws, but hands with two fingers plus a thumb, as though they were made to grab things. Big things, I bet."
"You could have noticed all that from my photos of the hand and then dreamed about it," said Running Bear. "But it could also be a message from the turtles. Do you want more brandy?"
"Not if it causes nightmares," Ed said. "Oh, and it had teeth like a beaver," he remarked, as he turned off the flashlight and he and Running Bear lay back down for more sleep.
"Teeth weren't showing in any of my photos," said John. "They weren't pointy teeth like those of a bear?"
"No, it had giant incisors like a beaver. Maybe the Tribe should have named it Hairless Beaver or Hairless Gopher instead of Hairless Bear. At least that wouldn't sound as scary."
Running Bear laughed. "A giant man-eating beaver or gopher would be scary enough!"
Both men slept, but for Ed strange dreams returned, again in the form of a slow constant message of warning. But Ed also sensed something else deeper in the background; a subtle but immensely powerful murmuring of a multitude similar to that of the jants, but it was clearly not the jants. There seemed to be countess thousands of hungry beings close by, beginning to stir from a long sleep and calling out like waking babies that demanded to be fed. Their thought was powerful but almost beyond the range of his perception, like a sound too deep to be heard. From it a single concept formed in Ed's mind: HUNGER!
Ed again woke in the darkness but this time he didn't wake Running Bear. Instead he simply broadcast thoughts about his dreams as strongly as he could in the hope that Mouse would receive them.
"RECEIVED," he sensed her immediate reply. Satisfied, he went back to sleep again, and this time though he could more easily sense the turtle warnings and Stone-Coat bleating he slept well.