“The someone I know that’s looking, he’d always kept his eye on the Great Bear,” Early continued. “But then he got lost.”
“I figured’s much.” MacScott’s words were slurred. “It takes some doin’ to track that bear. She’ll lead you deep into the woods, only to double back and come up behind you.” MacScott held his glass of ale in front of him, gazing deep into the cloudy liquid as if he might find the Great Bear within his murky sights.
“Pi, that’s his name,” he explained to MacScott and his men. “He got lost. But he remembered a story about an ancient burial ground—big, watery caves where people went to bury their dark secrets and accidental treasures.”
MacScott stared at Early, his interest suddenly piqued and his eyes smoldering. “Go on,” he said. “Tell me about this cave. This place of buried secrets and treasures.”
He motioned to the barmaid, who set about preparing sandwiches and hot soup and refilling the men’s glasses with ale and whiskey.
Early continued his story, starting from a place I hadn’t heard before.
Land of Lost Souls
PI WAS LOST. He sailed under stars he did not recognize. The Great Bear eluded him. He knew he had traveled far to the south, and in that strange sky, there was a group of stars that formed what looked like a cross or perhaps a spear. But what did it matter? There was nowhere to go. No one to find. The shell necklace his mother made had become a heavy burden—a weight he could no longer bear around his neck. He removed the string of shells and placed it in a pouch with a strap that he slung across his shoulder.
But he remembered a story he’d heard from the Thinkers. They told of an ancient burial ground. A place of great, cavernous tombs. Catacombs, they called them, where the dead were laid to rest. But not all of the dead rested.
Many brought their burdens of life and roamed the catacombs, trying to shed these burdens. From one soul to the next, they tried to fix the unfixable. These souls roamed the halls of rock tombs, uttering words they wished they had said or grasping to take back words they wished had been left unspoken. They turned this way and that, trying to retrace steps from the road gone bad or searching for the path not taken.
When Pi had first heard of this place, it had sounded horrible. A place where desperate souls tried to find meaning for the random happenings of life. He shuddered to think of it and wanted never to go to such a miserable place. But now, the caves, the darkness, the souls—they beckoned him to join their ranks, to wander in their world of loss and regret. He would find this place. He would join those souls, these kindred spirits who had no direction and no hope. He would carry his own burdens to this place.
After many months of sailing with no real direction, the ocean currents somehow landed his boat on a rocky shore. It felt good to have his feet on solid ground. No more rocking and listing on the waves. So he left his boat behind and set off. He walked and walked. And as he made his way inland, the trees grew large and thick around him, buffering him on all sides. The dense foliage dimmed the bright sunlight. Fallen leaves muffled the sounds around him, so that he could hear the rhythm of his own breathing—and he thought if he strained hard enough to listen, he might hear his own heartbeat. It felt as if the world were growing smaller around him. But the feeling was strangely comforting.
Then he realized he was not alone. At first it was just a movement, a flutter of leaves or a branch twitching back and forth. Then a glimpse of something passing just out of sight. Eventually he saw them. Real people, but not real too. Pi could see them, but there was a transparency to them, as if one could see them but see through them at the same time.
Other than that, this translucence, they were just men and women going about normal daily tasks of chopping wood, washing clothes, honing tools. They lived near one another but separately, in tents and huts. They spoke to one another, but only words of necessity.
Pi eventually took his place among them, set up his own tent and his own work. But still he wondered, Who are these people, and why are they here? As he watched them from a distance, he considered them a group apart from himself. Until one day, as he placed twigs together to make a fire, he noticed his own hands—the thin sheerness of them, their translucence—and suddenly he saw everything clearly.
I am one of them.
He saw it in his hands as clearly as he saw it in their faces. The grief, the loss, the pain. This was a land of lost souls. Human beings who had weathered great storms in life, had suffered unspeakable loss, had been put to painful tests of existence, and still remained standing—but just barely. These people, like Pi, had been drawn to this place by shifting currents and fickle winds and had all ended up here for the same reason: to bury their dark secrets and accidental treasures.
17
Dark secrets and accidental treasures. The words drifted their way into my drowsy head. The heat from the hearth had warmed me through, and with a couple of corned beef sandwiches in my stomach, my eyelids drooped and I shifted in my seat, trying to stay awake. MacScott’s men were full of ale and heavy with sleep, but MacScott’s eye remained open, glowering, as Early continued his story. MacScott traced his finger over the wooden grain of the gun stock, almost in a caress. Early had captured the pirate’s attention in a way that was both admirable and frightening.
I heard Early in a distant, far-off way. It was as if I were on a boat, floating in the middle of a lazy stream, with wakefulness on one bank and sleep on the other.
Dream took over, and I felt myself floating in the world of Pi, translucent, among the lost souls. I saw the faces of the men and women going about their chores, but I realized that the things they were doing didn’t lead to anything, didn’t accomplish any task. A young man in overalls placed kindling in a campfire but cooked no food. A bearded man cut down a tree but left it where it fell. A woman wearing an apron hung little-boy denims on a line to dry, but … there was no little boy to wear them. I wanted to move on. To row away from this place. But I had no oars. I clutched the sides of the boat. My hands were light and sheer. Translucent. I am one of them, I said, rousing from my dream.
My heart was pounding. MacScott’s chin rested on his chest, his rifle cradled in his arms. He and his men slept soundly, but I couldn’t hear Early. He wasn’t sitting at the hearth. I clutched the arms of the easy chair, glancing at my hands to make sure they were solid. But still my heart pounded. I was one of them. I was lost. I’d felt this way before. At the regatta. I had been trying to row my way back to the dock in a sinking boat. Early had called out his commands that guided me back. Where was Early now?
I recalled Early’s telling of Pi being hauled aboard the pirate ship. And yes, Pi’s nighttime storytelling on the ship kept him alive, but still he was thrown into the brig every morning. I didn’t know if there was a brig at the Bear Knuckle Inn, but I didn’t want to wait around to find out.
Then I saw him. Early stood at the counter as the young barmaid cleaned mugs and whiskey glasses. She kept her head lowered, her eyes on the hot, sudsy water as she washed one glass after another.
I moved to the bar. “Come on, Early. We need to get out of here before everyone wakes up.”
But Early paid me no mind. He just looked at the girl as if he knew her from somewhere.
“Is your name Pauline?”
Pauline? I recognized the name. She was the Haggard and Homely Wench, from the pirate vessel.
The girl shook her head, a limp strand of hair hanging in her face.
“Are you sure? Maybe it was and you don’t remember.”
“I think I know my own name,” she mumbled.
“Come on, Early. Let’s go.”
Then Early did something I’ll never forget. He reached across the bar and gently took that strand of stringy hair and tucked it behind the girl’s ear.
She looked up, startled.
“You have a very pretty smile.”
“What?”
“You have a very pretty smile. You just don’t remember.”
She touc
hed a soapy hand to her face. She still wasn’t smiling, not with her mouth, anyway, but something had changed in her green eyes. The dullness was gone, and something light and alive had taken its place. With that and the bubbles of soap clinging to her hair, there was something … well … pretty about her.
But before she could say anything else, there was a terrible explosion outside that shook the whole place, rattled the windows, and nearly made the bear’s head come off the wall.
It was enough to wake everyone in the Bear Knuckle Inn, and we all streamed out to see what had happened.
MacScott, his men, Early and I, we all looked to the top of the mountain that Olson had driven up earlier. The explosion had shot a great blaze of fire into the air. And creeping down the mountain was a trail of fire shooting its way left, then right, in a winding blaze of yellow and orange and heat.
“Get up there and put out that fire before it hits the trees!” yelled MacScott. “Bring a truck round, and we’ll go up the back side.”
Men were scurrying every which way. And I couldn’t take my eyes off the blazing spectacle.
“Early,” I said.
“Yeah, Jackie.”
“What was in those barrels?” Those barrels that were right side up and upside down on the rickety truck with gaps in the bed.
“Nothing but dried-up rum. It was all turned to black powder.”
Black powder. Explosive powder.
It must have been pouring out of the kegs all the winding way up the mountain. I didn’t know if it was the gas lantern or maybe a stray cigarette that had set off the explosion, but it didn’t matter. Early needed no explanation as he looked up the mountain in awe.
“I’ve never seen a volcano before.”
18
This was our chance to retrieve the Maine and make a clean break from MacScott and his band of not-so-merry men. Early and I made our way down the hill from the Bear Knuckle Inn to the river, where the Maine was still tethered to the pirate ship, or rather, the logger’s boat. But as we slipped and slid down the wooded slope, dodging branches and twigs, we came to a sudden halt—partly because we reached the bottom with a thump, but mostly because of what we saw. Even with all the fire and noise and hubbub, Long John Silver staggered his way ahead of us, down to the dock, and clambered aboard the logging boat.
What he was doing, I couldn’t say, but it involved a lot of banging, clanging, pitching, hurling, and cussing. And even if we had dared to sneak down to the dock to untie the boat, it was too late, as the barge suddenly came to life with a cough and a sputter and slowly puttered away from the dock. There was nothing for it but to watch as the boat chugged off with the Maine in tow.
It was a pathetic sight—the legendary rowing boat of Morton Hill Academy’s fallen hero being led upstream into the wilderness like some great king being held captive and taken away in bondage.
It was painful to watch, but we did, Early and I. We watched like some kind of honor guard, waiting until the Maine rounded a bend and drifted out of sight.
“Now what do we do?” I said, not really expecting Early to have an answer.
“Let’s go, Jackie. We have to walk now.”
Part of me wanted to argue. To say We can’t just head off into the dark. But I could already hear how that conversation would play out. Yes, we can. No, we can’t. Yes, we can. And as always, Early would have the last word. Still, I opened my mouth to argue.
The words never came out. Instead, up the hill at the Bear Knuckle Inn, we heard the unmistakable sound of a lever-action rifle being readied for firing.
“Let’s go,” I said, and we headed into the darkness.
We’d lost some of the supplies that we’d left on the Maine, but Early and I each had our packs on our backs, which meant that we still had the essentials—the map, matches, our blankets, a flashlight, tobacco, extra socks, and lots of jelly beans. So in the orange glow of the burning mountain, we walked. It wasn’t so bad, traveling at night. The air was still, there was a three-quarter moon, and so far, we had encountered no bugs, sharks, pirates, or volcanoes. What more could a couple of travelers ask for?
Then I heard a twig snap. I stopped and held my breath, straining to hear what manner of creature might go bump, or snap, or hiss or growl, for that matter, in the night. But the lions and tigers and bears remained silent. Oh, my. That could be worse. They could be lying in wait. My mind was playing all kinds of tricks on me when Early broke the loud silence.
“Jackie, did you know the Appalachian Trail—”
“Yes,” I answered, hoping to avoid the list of facts that was sure to be coming my way. “I do happen to know that the Appalachian Trail is the nation’s longest man-made trail, stretching through fourteen states, from Maine to Georgia,” I said, quoting a nature journal I’d read in the school library. “It’s roughly two thousand one hundred and seventy-eight miles long, and very few people have hiked the trail all the way through.”
I paused, pleased with my knowledge, and waited for Early’s reaction. Unfortunately, it was a little too dark to see his face, but I imagined him looking a little deflated that I had stolen his thunder. “See,” I said, “even a kid from Kansas knows a thing or two about the Appalachian Trail.”
“So you already know about the hiker who got stuck in a bog and had to be pulled out by a couple of horses. And that the horses got spooked and nearly tore him in two.”
Now I was the one who was deflated. His trail knowledge was much more colorful than my own.
“And,” he continued, “did you know that a logger went missing on the trail a few years ago?”
“Uh, no, I didn’t know that.” I racked my brain for some equally interesting and disturbing tidbit about the trail, or Maine, or Kansas, or anything, but only stumbled on a tree root. “What happened to him? The logger, I mean.”
“They don’t know, but if he wasn’t killed by some wild animal, or crushed by a falling tree, or drowned in the river—well, then he’s probably lost his mind in the woods. People do that, you know. Go crazy when they’re lost. They call it going mad, only it doesn’t mean mad like you’re angry but mad like cuckoo.” Early drew circles around one ear to emphasize his meaning. “You can also say nuts or cracked or bonkers or bananas. Batty is my favorite. That’s British for crazy. Which would you rather be, Jackie? Angry mad or crazy mad? I think I’d rather be crazy mad, because you can be crazy and still happy. Mozart may have been a little crazy, but his music …”
Great, I thought as I stopped listening to Early. Not only did we have to worry about bugs, sharks, pirates, and volcanoes, not to mention a ferocious bear that slashed people’s eyeballs out, but apparently there was also the possibility of a crazed logger on the loose. Or the possibility of us stumbling over a slashed, mauled, half-eaten logger’s body. Either way, this trip was filled with the strange and dangerous. We walked in silence, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. Somehow I suspected that we had not seen the last of MacScott.
After some time, when we could no longer see the fire and smelled only a hint of smoke, we figured we were far enough from the Bear Knuckle Inn and the volcanic mountain that we could take a rest. We stretched out under our blankets, using our backpacks as pillows, and I could soon tell from his heavy breathing and slight snoring that Early had fallen fast asleep. I was tired too. Exhausted, in fact. But for me, sleep did not come so fast.
I lay awake, pondering how I’d gotten there. How did a normal kid from Kansas end up in the middle of the woods with a strange kid like Early? I looked up at the stars and found myself asking the same question Pi asked when heading out on his journey.
Why?
Why did everything get turned upside down? Why did my mom have to die? Why am I following Early, with his endless stories of Pi, on a crazy bear hunt?
With these questions swirling in my head, I wished Early was awake to tell me one of his stories. But Early still breathed the breath of deep sleep.
Maybe I could
try remembering something pleasant on my own. My mom was a great one for working up a raucous tale on a cool October evening just like this one. I closed my eyes tight and imagined myself when I was younger, snuggled up next to her on the porch swing while she sipped hot tea from her white teacup with the little red flowers. Or, more recently, just sitting beside her, holding a skein of yarn while she rolled it into a ball.
I tried to hear her voice, but she remained silent. My eyelids grew heavy. Just as the questions started to swirl around in my head in a dreamy way, Early—not as asleep as I’d thought—said, “The numbers are running out.”
19
We didn’t say much to each other the next morning as we packed up our things. It was Tuesday morning. We’d been gone two days, and Early showed no signs of turning back. I kicked some dirt over the campfire, and we started out.
Just a little ways from our camp, I noticed a pile of cracked walnut shells on the ground. Looking up, I studied a tall oak tree that might have been home to a hungry squirrel who’d been spying on us during the night. That was probably it. Still, I couldn’t help feeling that someone else had been watching us.
The sky was cloudy and gray, and a soft mist surrounded us. We knew we’d have to venture farther north into the woods to actually be on the Appalachian Trail, and from what I’d heard, it wasn’t that easy to find. I’d read that trees on the trail were marked with an occasional white swatch of paint, and that there were supposed to be warming huts and campsites for hikers. So far, we hadn’t seen anything like that. Just lots of wilderness, with an emphasis on wilder. In fact, we’d wildered around so much, I’d have sworn we were lost. Since Olson had pilfered Early’s compass, we were relying on our wits, and mine were getting dimmer by the minute.
But Early seemed to still have his bearings. He had a map but never checked it. I didn’t know how he even knew which way was north, since the clouds were thick and dark. A storm was brewing.