One Winter in Icabon - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Encounter

The winds had stopped blowing—its whispers kept to themselves, withdrawn as if a vacuum, omnipresent in all consideration, had come and just now taken its leave of the woods. The tall poles of birch stood frozen, white, impenetrably solid. A few showed scuffmarks, grayish with dark strips and speckles, and gaping like wounds. In these things, apart from one being’s dying horror, there was never a sound to presage what Reese could now see—as real as anything she’d known in twenty-eight years. And they were the same at this moment, as silent and true to the unwritten code of all things wild.

The animal looked to the new figure, seeming to pause in consideration of this abnormal circumstance. Its forelimb wavered over the felled bird, still rocking it back and forth on the earth. The body began to feel the hardening of scarlet it found itself rolling upon. Feathers got caught, and with a little extra tug on the beast’s part were let loose. Some stuck out like pikes, and all were sticky and shiny with their ribbed texture. Reese bit her lip, enough for a dot of blood to escape. She tasted it. Her stomach rebelled against efforts to keep from retching.

Whatever-it-was’s eyes gleamed briefly off a stray beam of light. This gold told nothing of the air akin to intelligence the animal’s body language demonstrated. Like a person, she recalled vaguely; not much different when seeing that it’d found its way to talk without want of actual words passing between them. Something about its posture didn’t indicate a sense of handicap just because it couldn’t speak. Or, the most uncertain, acknowledge a language barrier. Weird, the day when I start looking at this like a scientist, she mused. This is plain weird, anyway. It’s no good when you start making a thing like that think too much.

In fact, if it was thinking what she inwardly dreaded, why the wait? Something within stirred, and she realized what was bothering her. She despised the situation…and her position in it.

The silhouette of the beast’s head nodded, seeming to concede with its condition of having the advantage. Its eyes glinted towards the crow’s body, where its paw remained fixed on top. Reese sensed a concern like possessiveness, and even with a greater promise standing right before the animal, it regarded the circumstances with obstinate caution. Slowly, the left side of its torso arched forward into the soft light beyond the trees.

The first thing she distinguished was the head, and she now had an idea of what she was up against—Narrow-faced, both eyes set to see straight in front, its fur tailored to crispness, pricked up ears, a long maw ending with a heart-shaped, wet nose. The dog’s tongue refrained from lolling, though its mouth hung agape to her impression; a very capable set of jaws, apt to opening to a width unknown to most creatures, and equipped with a most imposing array of teeth, yellowing slightly at the base. She only dared to wonder for an instant why the word “dog” first came to her rather than “wolf.” From a brochure she’d read when first coming up here, she remembered a reference to coyotes in New Hampshire. There were no wolves here, as far as she knew. A coyote, then? Well, they didn’t tend to be stocky like some wolves—an illustration showed them as usually lean and compact in the body. But as this guy shifted a bit more towards her, he looked more and more to be a mixture of the two than either extreme. Underneath his fur was implied tremendous muscle power, as they moved and rippled in a manner liable to mesmerize. His chest was broad, the ribs heaving delicately as he breathed. All limbs, legs seemed too long, unusually lithe and rigid. The tail was more like a thick, sleek rope than the bushiness Reese was accustomed to. His coat was a grayish tan, not unlike the dirt of the trail, and several dark stripes ran like scars across his lower back. They terminated at the base of his limp tail.

If he could stand, he’d come pretty close to topping me, Reese thought. Thankfully, she wasn’t that tall to start with.

A wind wove between the two, tentatively. Their figures stood stationary as it impelled clothing and fur, in light but dramatic tendrils, into movement. These surfaces seemed to undulate with a flow which occurred to neither of them at first. When it did, the wind had already passed. Reese’s lips pursed. She didn’t know what to think of it.

The “dog’s” nostrils flared, his downy throat shuddering in neat pinches along his neck. He turned his head first, back to the dead crow, and then proceeded in languid fashion into the shade of the birches. By now all the blood had dried, its vivid color thus dulled—the body itself was painfully stiff. He positioned himself behind it, the lower half of his torso visible to her in segments of leg and swaying tail. His maw dipped into the bird’s unseen side; its tip poked and nosed around enough to shift the carcass about an inch forward. Reese heard a faint chomp caught and obstructed by meat. She saw his whole mouth tense back, his eyes squint. The jaws still chewed on a piece that intimated its presence with a gaunt, pink string dangling between white teeth when he came up again. Fresh red beaded his muzzle.

“Aerosol,” she said involuntarily.

He glanced at her without much fanfare, not even a stir of his head. He continued to chew.

“Spray paint,” Reese went on. It appeared to her the safest thing to do. “I was in California. I just humored myself and looked in at this store called Cinema Secrets…then, voilá! That bottle with the red cap called to me. It covered almost half my apartment wall, and I pasted a fake flesh wound on my neck. What a riot…Sammy thought I was murdered.”

The “dog” looked at her again. But it was odd. His gaze shown with a depth that made her stop in her blathering uneasiness.

No. It isn’t safe.

Reese stared harder, trying to catch up with the depth. His eyes were following the path of an object. Certainly not her own.

She then realized he was looking past her.

It isn’t safe here, woman.

Brush on the other side of the trail, behind her, rustled softly. She heard a birch whine against added strain, so faint as to be almost undetectable. It creaked with a steady undulation. Like breathing.

There’s time. You must leave now.

The male stepped away from the carcass, his head low. The dark dots of brows twitched with the movement his lucid, amber eyes followed. Keen and sensitive, as Reese could very well understand by now, he perked up his ears. It was subtle enough that they continued to halfway flop. The noise behind acknowledged its superior in a motion she could not see, but imagined to be not much different.

I wouldn’t count on me, if I were you.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she whispered.

The first “dog” paid no heed to her remark. He seemed somewhat preoccupied by a mystery she herself couldn’t find a foothold for reasoning. Then she noticed a familiar change in his bowel region.

The one in hiding was his mate.

Don’t lose yourself. You’ve got to run. Please.

Pleading? Nothing made sense. Reese felt rather than saw the muscles tensing behind, lions girded. She knew the female had a lock on her.

Please…RUN!

Too late.

Reese held her face to the ground with the angry, fluttering outburst of dry leaves surging within a tight space. Dirt was the first thing she thought—the first thing she saw—and her body was pulled towards it by an encompassing force she had no control over. She couldn’t rely on her own timing; the earth embraced her as much as she embraced it. Her limbs were sprawled outward, and she breathed in bits of dirt through her nostrils. Reese turned her head to the right, her breath shivering in faint plumes, where the alpha female poised askew at the legs. Temporarily stunned, she pawed in straightening her stance, growled deep in her chest. The gaze she offered Reese was vicious. It well underscored her subtle, wheezing snarls.

Having escaped the first pounce, Reese only managed to draw a blank on what to do. It was rather hopeless, as she still laid on her belly in the middle of the trail. I’ve gone brain dead, she reckoned, and her thinking suddenly turned desperate. She patted the sides of her coat, pants, for anything of use. The alpha male was now stepping onto the trail, meeting his mate. Their flanks brushed past each other as they slowly tread opposite courses around an imaginary circle surrounding Reese. He didn’t hesitate with his own bit of snarling, and never once took his eyes away from his intended prey. She saw now that both their intentions were murderous.

She didn’t have time to wonder. Her groping fingers became less frantic with coaxing, and they searched around the narrow perimeter with prudence. They encountered and recognized a familiar, rigid shape. Cautiously, she pulled the object to her chin while the two eyed her. Its surface felt icy against her skin, the latter white and stark. If she could manage this, time would be bought to permit flight; she imagined—albeit with gulping qualms—her long stride as a good enough promise of keeping the advantage. Only a promise—and a fragile one, at that.

Reese braced against the ground with extended arms. She cradled the object to her chest, her other arm down and its fingers spread, quivering. There had been a change in the beasts’ pattern, where they now walked bound in the same direction. The alpha male passed her heels, around to her head, all the while holding a posture of inauspicious challenge. Her hand drew closer to her mouth, slightly agape, the hole almost round in shape, and teeth showing through trembling breaths. The strap rasped between her pale fingers. Her enemies took little interest.

The restive female was making her pass. Reese knew she had come gradually closer since the stalking began, as was the aim, and this unnecessary show was coming to its end. It would be a hard shot on her knees, but it was best not to invite suspicion.

The two made eye contact. The alpha female almost stopped dead in her tracks, pitiless.

A geometric shape flew out, accompanied by a groan and extending its substance in black strips, held in check by human hands. She hardly believed the object to be solid—as unnatural as its make was—until it struck her with hard reality on the muzzle. The dog’s head shook, unable to see the CB radio towed across cold ground back to its owner. Her mate stumbled in pace, dumbstruck. Reese’s lips formed a determined line, and the dented metal box swung in threatening arcs between an elbow and forearm.

Wincing, the female peered askance at her. She continued her walk with a strange growl escaping through barred teeth.

Reese blinked, unsure momentarily. The beasts’ lines of thought, though, were not allowing time to consider, and so when the opportunity to go after the male came, she took it. Her aim was true, without doubt. The radio sailed towards its target—and hit it on different terms. His jaws held firm onto its bottom side, eyes gleaming. On impulse, Reese pulled back on her only line to it until the point she needed support from erect, bracing legs. The male’s snarls and growls increased with his agitation and obvious wrath. They grew desperately exasperated of this tug-of-war, while all the same neither was willing to give in.

The taut strips severed. Reese’s body gave into its backward momentum, and her shock was only compounded by the realization of what had happened. Another dog had broken the strap. And it wasn’t his mate.

Before she could distinguish its status, more dogs joined in the light with its interesting aftermath. The instant was still green enough that they snapped after the fluttering, dark segment of nylon which had been released from Reese’s side. Others strode in, cooler and more sentient than their predecessors. They preferred to hang farther back from the site of action, while their bodies geared towards ideal opportunities at their prey. They seemed to have a perfect understanding of numbers.

At first, Reese utilized the best defense almost anyone could afford: Her legs came up resolved, knocking aside several dogs in unwittingly brutal blows. When they reared up—either after the strap or in a pounce—she struck. The force granted was at least enough to leave them felled for a moment, the wind knocked out of them. She was a bit surprised by her own success; but through shuffling along the dirt trail it became apparent that she was the one to be deceived. As she had moved around in her defense, they parted to allow the room needed for execution. The pack hadn’t taken blows without reason—they were much smarter than that. When she’d tried working one way out of the cluster—fists and well as feet involved—one would leap from somewhere farther back, its jaws snapping, and then her course must change lest she be assaulted.

She now stopped, looking all around. They were mocking her, gratuitously enjoying this game of toying with her sense of position, her very mindset. If they were to win this battle, these beasts would have it so with their cunning implicated. And Reese recognized the plan, even as her back thumped against a lonely birch to the right of the path.

Sometime back, she just realized as her fingers pressed along her left temple, the sunglasses had fallen off.

The clouds above were still. She looked up to them, and they reflected dewy grayness in her eyes. Nothing moved except the harsh whisperers of howls, bathed in dim light. If she had known better, or had one less thing to think of, she might’ve guessed something else had gone wrong. The radio lay in twisted shards, she saw; the odds were set against her. As far as the prey was concerned, in the unwritten code of all things wild, nothing mattered now.

…Or, perhaps, only one thing…

The bag. She never had a care for it, but its company stayed no less than necessary. In the beginning…well, there was no time to think about that. It just was, there in the ironic sense of the miraculous. I’m near the Great Beyond—that’s why I’m overacting, she thought. And that fact, despite what her hands had come across within the shoulder bag, would probably transpire no different. The thing’s compact mold offered one last shot….She hoped to God the batteries weren’t fried.

Her fingers had slipped it halfway out when a weight bore her onto the ground, heavy and exceedingly hard, that beaten with a solid stroke against her torso and continued in wild clips at her heels. The latter fluttered in varying intensities, and she felt certain of thin, deep cuts that bled. Her eyes were closed, frozen and unwilling like her affected mouth to let go of the imminent horror surely coming to her. When it all sort of stopped—the noises still resounded with shrill terror—when she grasped the attack as nothing to be accounted for by dogs, Reese took in resolve to see what had happened. Her tresses matched the hooves positioned beside her head, less than a yard away. They supported a finely muscled, toned horse, and in her brief glimpse they danced side-to-side beneath its massive bulk, maneuvering with a care and purpose that made her wonder. It was only brief for, high up from her position, the rider’s hood and cloak bristled with his tense figure and it happened to open in her direction. He shouted, “Lie low!” and she acquiesced without question, dropping her head back into her folded arms. Even the odd, strangled tenor of his voice failed to perturb her.

After a couple seconds, she brought up her eyes to peek. The ring around her had nearly disintegrated; one approached her and, pausing long enough for its earnest trepidation to impress upon her, the dog scampered away in frantic, uneven strides with its tail between its legs. Some others—scattered and whimpering—looked no better off. A good few remained in the condition and spirit to ravage the newcomer with their wrath, and Reese realized how looming the danger still was with their proximity to her. The rider’s horse circumnavigated about the smaller, running bodies that sometimes tried at nipping into its legs, underside, and chest. He himself singled out the ones posing the greatest threats—from large behemoths of their breed to lean, quick ones deadly for their guile. His thin sword swung broadside against chest, bottom, and to terrible effect on the head, and the ones still breathing were brought to a standstill in dismayed alarm for their lives. The less fortunate (only two) laid at the trail’s edge, slain. One now leapt for the horse’s throat, her growl cut to a choking halt by an angled blow along her larynx. Already limping from an earlier injury, she inhaled in wheezes and gasps as she retreated from the scene. It was the alpha female.

Lacking their muscles, the weaker members of the pack began to shy away. Their backward steps were short and, for a few of them, mincing. The rider’s outsized sleeves billowed faintly with another breeze, as were his hood and the hem of his cloak. His expression stayed a mystery, though in the dark of the cloth something fierce and ready burned. Reese propped herself up for that very reason. His face, in fact, she had never seen, even when so close minutes ago.

Without further word or sound, the last dogs turned their inward-curved tails on the rider. They vanished in the woods, leaving their dead to whatever would come to them.

Gone.

“Gone.” Reese snapped her mouth shut, eyebrows raised slightly. Her head swiveled to the rider at the same instant, judged by the movement of hood cloth, as his to look at her. The rider’s shoulders were sagging; his hands still held onto the reins, arms aloft, and his cavernous hood was cocked to one side. Neither felt offended—Reese recognized some anxiety—but her expression and his posture suggested a sort of morbid curiosity. At the same time, though, this curiosity was parallel to the childlike, a bit of awing. The peculiar circumstances were present for both types to flourish: Standing squarely on a trail in the middle of rural wilderness, during an overcast day in October, was her rescuer—enshrouded and on horseback—who had fought off feral dogs.

Only more could be added to the peculiarity. His hands were concealed beneath sleeve cloth, the sleeve’s opening closed up in tight pleats between his fingers. And, after all that swinging, the sword turned out to be a round, metal rod, quivering to and fro with the unconscious rolling of his right wrist while the same hand clung to the reins. The horse, speckled with blue-gray spots, wagged its head with a soft snort. White plumes flowed in slivers from its nostrils.

She slowly pulled herself from the ground, using the birch’s trunk behind her as a support. The chill around there was starting to bite into her exposed skin; she dearly wished for the crispness to come back, alone. Still, it seemed appropriate to address her rescuer, thank him for her life, etc. To Reese, it was more a politic act than anything else, even considering the circumstances. She wanted to keep things as platonic and aloof as possible.

It wasn’t until she stood practically next to them, on the horse’s left flank, that the rider’s true size hit her. He was diminutive on the saddle, in standing perhaps not much taller than herself. It had been a long time, also, since she’d seen someone ride saddle-side as opposed to astride. She could barely tell this, for his legs, too, were covered.

Then her eyes rested upon a rip in fabric along his right thigh. The serration of the wound made her inhale sharply, and the blood was vivid against dark cloth. Her hand began to reach for it when his obscured the longish line first, snapping in front of it with an intimation of fraught, hot edginess. The sleeve hole came undone, and she thought for a moment that tips of digits black, sharp, and slightly striated peeked through. The hand with long fingers withdrew inside. I should’ve known better, she thought. It had been a sucky enough day to start imagining things like that.

It was tempting to assure for him—as more of a statement than a question—that, “It’s not as bad as it looks.” It might be a touchy subject for the rider, but Reese wouldn’t find out. He spoke up first.

“The car?”

She didn’t understand at first; the sound was more like a cough, or him clearing his throat, so that the query lost meaning.

“Pardon?” she asked.

The rider enunciated for her. “Your car. Where is your car?”

Reese hesitated. There was a tentative quality to his voice, but he seemed concerned in the tactful sense. That’s all she asked for.

She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t have one,” she answered simply.

His new posture suggested something of surprise. “Well…then, a motorcycle? Bicycle? Where is it?”

She took note of his tone. The closest parallel was to a prolonged, guttural hiss. It was especially conspicuous at the tail-end of his sentences, as he tied off the consonants.

The rider leaned forward, then checked himself by compelling the horse to back up a couple steps. “If it broke down,” he considered, “do you think you can remember how far back it was abandoned?”

For the first time in a while, Reese couldn’t help a smile.

“Through the woods? I’ve had neither means for months.” She shrugged again. “I just walked.”

In the dark of the hood, his hidden eyes shown with bewilderment. “Walked?” he managed at length. There was an undertone of wariness.

“I did ditch a truck driver seven miles south, if that’s what you were wondering.” She indicated with her head the direction she’d come from. “Just ask for Raphael Aguilar from the East Coast-based U-Haul. He can vouch for me.”

The horse stepped back several more feet, but not out of circumspection. “I just find it hard to believe…” the rider started.

“Don’t. It’s hardly impossible for someone who’s been wandering around forever. I wouldn’t take that literally,” she added, noticing his confused stance. “I can almost say, though, that I’ve always been on my feet. Now, what’s there to learn about you?”

The rider stiffened, removing the hand which had been covering his leg wound. Both now held the reins. “There is nothing to tell,” he said. His tone, then, had been strange. Reese knew when someone was telling her not to push it.

“All right.” To the far left she spotted her sunglasses, unfolded and leaning against a small rock in the path. It’d taken some rough scrapes along the top of its frame, but otherwise was good to go. “I’m trying to keep as low a profile as possible,” she said, adjusting the glasses on her nose and ears. “These folk from Icabon have nothing to worry from me, then. You can let them know that yourself.”

When he declined to respond, she continued.

“If it interests you, I’ve never had someone intentionally save my life. To me what you did was flattering.”

The rider shrugged. “Who wouldn’t do it?”

He bit his tongue too late, and it showed.

Sighing, Reese fit her shoulder bag around its customary position, and her eyes fell on what was left of the CB radio. “More added, none taken,” she said wistfully. The load would have to be added into her bag. “It’s amazing how things are when you have only one thing to look forward to.”

This time her rescuer didn’t try to be subtle about his desire to leave. “It was good meeting you,” he said, surprised at himself. “I hope to see you again, around and about.”

Funny, she thought. I had the feeling I’d be the one saying that.

The horse was starting to turn from her. Its braided, cropped tail swayed a little, and she thought this as odd. For a rogue.

“I never caught your name.” At this point, he was almost calling to her.

“Reese,” she replied. Her arms were crossed over her chest. “And by the way—your apology’s accepted!”

The two ambled along the left edge of the trail, heading towards the maple with its Icabon sign. She wasn’t sure if he’d heard the last bit, and then decided it was indifferent whether he had or not. His unexpected answer flowed with its propensity towards raspiness. “Just for now on, you really shouldn’t count on me being there to save your hide!”

Reese blinked, caught short. But before she could question further his path had shunted to the birch woods, and in a wink both rider and horse were gone. It was just as well, she figured. Night was coming on fast, and there was already enough to do to keep her busy for the remainder of daylight. She went back and, feeling much like a part of a living cliché, picked up the broken pieces and moved on.

Coming Up:

Chapter 3 – The Welcoming Party