~~~
“C’mon, spaz!” Robert called back to his younger brother, who was still climbing over a small ridge of granite and river stones. They had found the stream that flowed out of the springs, or at least Robert assumed he had, and started following it upwards through the little valley. Most people called it the ‘cut’ in the mountain side, but there were really several little valleys caused by snow run off or by little streams or rivers that flowed out of the mountains. This valley must be called the cut because after it rose above the roots of the mountains inwards towards Loafer Mountain itself it opened up. From the town of Maple Springs a back wall of sheer cliff face could be seen at the highest point of the cut and Robert assumed the spring was probably just below that.
“You know, we’re never going to find the springs if you stop to dissect every single bug or animal you find.”
“Yeah, but that was a deer caucus back there!”
“A what? Do you mean a ‘deer carcass’?”
Robert had heard the word ‘caucus’ from his dad the year before in Iowa and knew it had something to do with electing a president, but he wasn’t sure what it meant. He did know that his little brother was acting like a doofus again though.
“You know we’ll never get to the springs today if you don’t keep moving.”
Ricky’s response actually made a little sense: “Yes, but isn’t the whole point of exploring to see what you find? And if there’s a carcass that means there were hunters up here!”
“Probably last fall during hunt season, though…you goober.” Rob sometimes needed a moment to stretch his little-brother-name-calling vocabulary a bit.
Ricky was managing to catch up all the same.
“It was cool. You could see the eye sockets and stuff.”
Rob stopped and turned to look at his little brother.
“You didn’t touch it did you?”
“Well…with a stick, yes.”
“Don’t touch me if you used your hands. You’re gonna get sick that way.”
Robert wasn’t entirely sure if a deer carcass that had been sitting out all winter would still be dangerous, but he knew two things: one, Ricky was likely to go poking and playing with a dead animal; two, Ricky was likely to eat his sandwich in his pack and also touch Robert with those same hands without washing them. He decided he’d better try to force the little monster to wash his hands once they got up to the spring before they ate their lunches.
Of course the very first thing Ricky did once he caught up to Rob was latch onto his left sleeve with one of those very hands. Robert moaned in disgust, but Ricky’s head was cocked to one side and he was peering up through the Aspens that surrounded them. They were high up now, and if the boys were to look northwest they would have a beautiful view nearly one-hundred miles away between the mountains on the north end of their valley. But that was definitely not what Ricky was doing. For a moment, before he remembered his little brother was too much of a doofus to every really get scared, it looked to Robert as though Ricky was nervous.
“Did you hear that?” Ricky said breathlessly.
It was probably the only time that day Robert was going to get to enjoy Ricky speaking in a non-yelling voice. He stopped and looked around too.
“Yeah, I do! It’s the spring! I think we’re almost there.”
Rob turned to head up the slope of the valley towards the back end of the cut. He thought he could just make out the cliff-faced wall at the back of the cut and knew what he’d said must be true.
“No. No! That’s not what I mean,” Ricky continued in a raspy voice, his hand still grasping Rob’s sleeve.
Together they listened for a moment. There was something rustling through the leaves of the scrub oak and brush moving up the valley of the cut, most likely in the direction of the spring. It seemed like it must be relatively big, although not bear-sized. Robert began wondering if Ricky spooked a little more easily than he ever would have thought when the noise quieted as it moved away.
“Probably just a deer, doofus,” he said.
Ricky was looking nervously around still. But it didn’t deter him. Perhaps it was not fear that had shone on his face but curiosity. He grabbed his pack and motioned for Rob to follow.
“C’mon, Robbie! Let’s see where it went! Maybe it’s getting a drink at the spring or something.”
Robert tried to roll his eyes and shoulders and begin a complaint, but Ricky was already heaving off up the hill and he’d have to keep track of him anyway.
“You know, it could be a bear or something. You really want to find out?”
“Yes!” Ricky replied several steps ahead. “I do, for sure!”
Little did they understand the true risks of tracking poor little Kile. Kile was named from his kind’s first adopted man-speech they learned from humans in Norway many centuries before. The word meant “tickle”. Of his kind, Kile was probably the most befitting of such a pleasant name, for all the rest of his tribe were particularly loathsome among their loathsome species and had names such as Djevelen (devil) or Bogstank (bog stench). Normally, of course, the cave dwellers didn’t come out in daylight, and generally stayed far from humans due to the human’s tendency to dispatch them whenever they’d met in the past. It is true though, that if given the chance they in turn would more likely eat a human than to offer a hand in greeting. So for all involved it was generally better that trolls and humans did not mix. Kile on the other hand didn’t see it that way, and his little act of spying and his “accidental” alert he raised with the little human was all part of his mischievous little plan.