Hello Bill,
I must say that it’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a story as much as I’ve enjoyed this one.
It is simple with the right amount of tension going through it and every added detail regarding the mystery is in the right place.
There are a few minor errors, some punctuation, some repetitions, and some pure old grammar.
I’m posting the story again. You’ll find my remarks in the body of it, in a different font color.
Well done. Unicorns were always my favourites!
Hanna
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
Borrowed Time
“It wasn’t my fault!” yelled Jim, in a sudden outburst. He stood up and paced around the fire like a crazy man. “God, if only I could’ve changed what happened!” He stared at us like a man who had just been sentenced to death. “Oh, I know what you guys think. You think I was the one who caused all this!” He ran up to me grabbing the open flaps of my jacket, pulling me up. “I killed you, man, I really killed you! You’re supposed to be dead! Why aren’t you dead?” He quickly released me looking embarrassed. He walked back to his camp-chair and sat back down shaking his head and rubbing his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry! So damn sorry.”
“Take it easy, Jim. No one’s blaming you.”
I looked across the smoking campfire at my three friends. Our annual bow-hunting trip had brought us all together again. Every year we came back to the same spot, Hunnington Lake, in the High Sierras. I guess we were hoping we could make sense of the whole thing; catch another glimpse of the magic we had all experienced.
It wasn’t something we talked about much; at least not until we got up here in the mountains. In my mind it felt like a dream you try to remember, but can’t seem to get the sequence of events in the right order. Of course I knew it was real, no matter what we said. Hell, I still had the mark that was left from the encounter, a forelock of brilliant white hair. But what had happened that day tied us all closer together; an unbreakable bond that brought us back here year after year. We kept our secret. Who would believe us anyway? We hardly believed it ourselves....
Doug was the youngest of the group, Doug Winston, a postal worker about thirty-three years old. He was the quiet one of the bunch.(repetition. Try:among us) We called him the Indian. He kept to himself mostly, a bachelor, very private about his life. Doug prided himself on his outdoors-menship (manship){//c}. He was the best hunter and tracker that I have ever seen; it was in his blood. It had been his idea for all of us to go bow-hunting. He felt that killing a deer with a gun was for hunters that didn’t know how to hunt. He painstakingly taught us all how to track and kill game the natural way, “the way God intended,” he had said. We all became excellent marksmen under his tutelage. We called ourselves the Merry Men.
Then there was Jim Johnson, my insurance salesman for the past twenty years. He was about forty, white-blond hair, and full of dirty jokes he couldn’t wait to share. He was a three-time divorcee that couldn’t seem to hang onto his money or his women. Jim was smart though; he could brilliantly manage anybody’s portfolio, except his own. He always appeared to be hyperactive, high-strung.
Finally, there was Big Bob McCallister, in his fifties, heavy-set, weighed over 300 hundred pounds and stood six-foot-four; he had a personality like a Kodiak Bear when he was drunk, but made up for it with a genuine heart of gold. He owned and operated a thriving auto-shop business in Madera. Bob and I grew up together and we looked after one another like brothers.
The whiskey bottle was passed around again and we talked of old times and earlier hunts. Every now and then I would catch one of them glancing at my tuft of white hair; it was the only evidence that remained.
“Man, I love it up here,” said Bob. “This is the life! Good friends, good whiskey, and plenty of good food.” He drank heavily and gave me the bottle.
“You’d like it anywhere as long as the food was good,” said Jim, still sulking.
“Well, if we run out, you’ll be the first to go, tow-head!” It wasn’t a good idea to make fun of Bob, especially about his size. He could be quite ornery when riled.
Doug smiled. “I brought plenty of steaks; more than even Bob can eat.”
There was a sound in the surrounding darkness and everyone stared in that direction.
“Probably just a raccoon,” I said, taking a big slug from the bottle and passing it to Doug.
It was close to midnight and ten yards out from the campfire you couldn’t see a thing; we sat huddled in the orange and yellow cocoon of warmth that came from the glow of the flames. Jim reached into his backpack, pulling out a flashlight. He turned it on and swept the perimeter with the beam of light; there was nothing there, just the outline of pine trees.
“Maybe it was a deer,” ventured Jim, “coming out to greet us; just so we don’t have to climb those steep mountains in the morning.”
“Well, that’d be awful darn considerate of him,” teased Bob. “What are you gonna shoot it with, Jim? You don’t even have your fancy, super-duper bow strung yet. You gonna throw an arrow at it?”
“Hell, I heard once that Indians used to throw rocks at the deer; if they’d hit them in the head, it’d drop the sucker dead right there on the spot. I bet I could do that.”
“Yeah, right! We all know what a great shot you are, Jim,” chuckled Bob.
Nobody laughed. Everyone knew it had been Jim’s poor aim that had set-off the sequence of events all those years ago. Actually, it had been more my fault for jumping into his line of fire. But I couldn’t let him kill the beast. If given the choice, I’d do exactly the same thing again.
“It wasn’t his fault!” I said, defending Jim. “If you remember, I walked into his line of fire.”
“Yeah, well any fool could’ve seen that it wasn’t a deer!” Bob said, accusingly. “Hell, the thing was white!”
“Oh, I get it,” Jim said, looking hurt. “After all this time, the truth finally comes out. You guys really do blame me for what happened!”
“I’ve never blamed you, Jim,” I said. “Never.”
“Well, well, the celebrity speaks,” said Bob, bitterly. “You know what, Bill? What happened to you wasn’t one of your fantasy stories you’ve made so much money on. It was the real deal! I’ve never been able to forget it, and if it had been one of us lying on the ground with an arrow in the head you’d feel the same way too.”
“Come on you guys!” Doug implored. “We’ve gone through all this before. We’re here to have a good time. Now, let’s just drop it. What’s done is done.”
I couldn’t let it go. I knew we needed to hash this out. I could feel the pent-up frustration in everybody.
“You upset over my success, Bob? It bothers you that people like to read my books?”
“You never wrote a story in your life, rich guy, until after what happened to you! When that creature touched you, it gave you something -- something special.”
“It gave me back my life, Bob. You know that. What the hell’s gotten into you, anyway? You jealous of me?”
Bob tipped the bottle again, drinking deeply, then spit a mouthful into the fire. The strong whiskey shot blue flames up into the sky.
“I ain’t jealous of nothing. I’m just saying that all our lives have changed since then. Hell, there’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about it. It’s like some damn dream I can’t wake up from or something; I keep reliving it over and over again (over and over is enough. Delete). Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat yelling your name, screaming, ‘Look out! Look out!’ But you don’t hear me and then your (you’re) struck by Jim’s arrow. You have this look on your face, a startled kind of look, blood’s( delete S) gushing out of your head and then you crumble to the ground.
“Then, where you stood in the dream, the creature now stands, staring right into me, straight through to my soul. Its eyes fix(ed - add) on me, growing larger and larger until they fill up my mind with its thoughts. Then it shows me things, evil, terrible things; I see all the faults and weaknesses of mankind.” Bob sighed heavily, then wiped his face with his shirt sleeve.
“This thing’s not over. I sense it wants something from us,” he said, suddenly calm. He stared into the fire. “Something we took from it and now the damn thing wants it back!”
“Jesus, Bob,” I said, softly, “I had no idea you were struggling so much with this.”
“You all right,(alright) big guy?” asked Doug, walking up to him and slapping him on the back.
“Yeah -- yeah, I’m fine. I just want an end to all this. No more dreams . . . no more damn dreams.”
“I remember seeing it run off and disappearing through the trees,” Doug said, remembering.( he says he remembers, then this is not needed) “It was so majestic and beautiful as it ran.”
“Then I heard Bob yelling for help, and I saw Bill lying on the ground, his head cradled in Bob’s lap. There was blood everywhere and Bob was applying pressure to the wound with his hunting cap. Jim was about twenty yards back, down on his knees, crying like a baby.”
Doug looked sadly at me. “We picked you up and carried you back to the campsite as best we could. But we were two miles into the wilderness, and by the time we reached camp there wasn’t anything that we could do for you. You had lost so much damn blood.” He grew quiet for a moment. “But I agree with Bob. The creature definitely wants something from us. I can feel it.”
“The creature!” yelled Jim jumping up. “You can’t even call it by its name! That bastard has cursed me!”
“Calm down, Jim,” I said.
“Oh, sure, I’m calm. You all wanna know why I can’t keep a wife?” he continued. “I’ll tell you why! It’s because ever since that day -- I can’t get it up to save my life -- or my marriage. I’m impotent! There! You happy! (question needs a question mark) Now I’ve said it!” Jim sat back down. There was a trail of spittle running down his chin. He tightly folded his arms and kicked at one of the stones surrounding the campfire. “It’s like I’ve been cursed, man! Cursed! Everything I do turns to crap.”
“Take it easy, Jim,” I said. “I don’t blame you. It was just one of those things.”
“Do you know how many times I’ve sat at home alone, (add comma) loading and unloading my gun?” Jim was raving and there was no stopping him. “But I don’t have the guts to do it! You wanna know something funny? The only time I feel like my old self is when I’m here with you guys. The rest of the time, my life just sucks. I’ve even been to see a damn psychologist(s), but their opinion is that I have had a trauma of some kind and I have to work it out. Hell, a trauma! If only I could tell them the truth; tell them what really happened! They’d throw me in the loony-bin for sure! Maybe if you had stayed dead it would’ve made it so much easier for me to take my own life. I wish I had never laid eyes on that four-legged monster. The son-of-a-bitch haunts me! He’s destroyed my life! Just like I tried to destroy his.”
“Why did you try to kill it, Jim?” I asked him, softly.
“I . . . I don’t know! I thought that if I could’ve killed it, we would’ve had the body for proof. Otherwise, who was gonna believed us? At the time, it was too fantastic for even me to believe. So I . . . I took the shot! And everything in my life changed. Nothing will be the same again!”
We sat there in stunned silence. The fire was burning down so I grabbed a couple of logs and chucked them in. The red hot embers shot into the sky, and for a moment, I could have sworn they formed an outline of the magical beast.
“I remember when I first saw it,” I said, dreamily, staring into the smoke and fire. “We had just crested a large hill and I saw movement in the dense undergrowth off to my left. I took the lead and circled my way around signaling to the three of you that something was up ahead. I quietly moved through the thicket, then I saw it, a beautiful white stallion. I thought that it might be a runaway or something, belonging to some rancher. God, it was magnificent! Pure white, with a mane so long it almost covered its entire neck. Its head was down, grazing upon some new grass. I wanted to capture it. If I could just get close enough, I could get my belt around its neck. Suddenly, it raised its beautiful head and looked directly at me, and that’s when I saw the horn.
"I couldn’t believe what I was looking at! I thought at first it was a fake. There are no such things as unicorns, except in fairy-tales. I remember thinking, the horn, it must be glued on; it’s gotta be somebody’s idea of a prank. I’d never seen a more magnificent animal in all my life. It stared at me, nostrils flaring, sniffing the air for danger. I dropped my bow and held my arms open to show I meant it no harm. Its eyes looked right through me. I don’t(know – missed the word. Add) why, but I got the feeling that it had been waiting there for me. I slowly fell to one knee before it, extending my hand so that it could smell me. It took a step forward, shaking its head up and down, snorting, as if it would rear-up at any moment. I didn’t move, just the offered hand I held out in front of me. Then it took another cautious step toward me and I could feel its hot breath on my hand, smelling me. He was now in the open and that’s when I heard Jim approaching from the right. The unicorn heard him too, and turned, ready to bolt. I saw Jim pull back on his bow about to shoot, and that’s when I jumped in front of his line of fire. I remember it felt like I got hit in the head with a hammer, and that’s all I remember.”
“It was nightfall when we finally got you back here,” Doug said. “Jim built a fire while Bob changed the bandage he had made from torn strips of your shirt. The arrow had only grazed you, but it was a hunting arrow, and the head was razor sharp. It hit you square in the forehead at your hairline, then bounced off to the side, slicing your head open like a melon. Like I said, there wasn’t much we could do. Bob wanted to load you up in the jeep and race a hundred miles down the mountain to the nearest doctor. I checked your pulse, but I couldn’t find one. You . . . you were dead.”
“But the unicorn!” I said. “What about the unicorn?”
“The damn thing followed us all the way back here,” explained Bob. “We heard it approaching. It walked right into camp, bold as you please.”
“It reared,” added Jim, “pawing its front legs at us until we backed away from your body.”
“Then it came right up to you,” Doug said, “put its head down and smelled your hair. It looked at us for a moment as if it was studying us, then touched you with its long horn -- right where the arrow had struck. At first nothing happened, then a bright light shot right out of its spike! It looked like blue lightening or something; it covered your entire body from head to toe. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. It was magic.”
“We heard you moan and start to move,” finished Jim. “Damn -- if you weren’t alive!”
“The Unicorn backed away,” Bob said, “then turned and slowly walked back into the forest. It looked tired or drained somehow; its head was hanging low. I knelt down beside you and looked at the wound. It was completely healed. No scar or anything; just that white spot of hair where the horn touched you. It was damn amazing.”
“At the time,” said Doug, “we didn’t think too much about it. Hell, we were so excited that you were alive that’s about all we could think about. It was like you were given a second chance. It wasn’t ‘til later that my dreams made me remember what had really taken place, and by then it was just too unbelievable to even consider as being real. So I kept it pent-up inside. I think that we were all afraid that if we talked about it, (add comma) the magic would go away and you’d be dead again.”
“I remember waking up with you guys kneeling all around me,” I said, smiling. “I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.” They laughed at my joke. “I swear, just before I woke up, I actually felt like Dorothy did when she opened that door and you know, everything turned to color. It was like my entire life had been in black and white up until then. From that moment on, I could sense the life in everything around me. I didn’t know how I got back to camp though or what had happened, but my hands and feet tingled like when you get shocked. I didn’t notice the white lock of hair until I got home the next day.”
We all felt better after we had talked it out. I suggested we turn in for the night. Everyone agreed and we climbed into the large tent I had brought with me. When we finally shut the propane lantern off we laid there in the dark completely quiet. Then somewhere in the night, off in the distance, we heard a horse whinny.
The next day we broke camp and prepared to go hunting. All the good cheer we had felt the day before seemed to have left us. Everyone was somber as they got their gear ready. I felt as if we were soldiers preparing to go into the final battle, each knowing that some of us would never return.
“Everybody set?” I asked, my voice sounding flat and far away.
“You know he’s out there waiting, don’t you?” Bob asked me.
“Yeah, I know. I feel him too.”
We hit the trail and climbed our first mountain. I led the way; knowing before I ever left camp where I was going. I think we all did. It took us half a day to get there; right back where the whole thing started. The four of us stood on the hilltop, resting and waiting.
“Do you think he’ll come?” asked Doug, quietly.
“This is crazy! Crazy, I tell you,” whined Jim. “What are we doing here?”
“Just keep quiet, Jim,” said Big Bob. “He’ll never come if you keep blabbering.”
“I think he’s already here,” I said. “There!” I pointed to a little meadow about a hundred yards below us. The unicorn whinnied and reared-up upon its hind legs.
“He’s calling us,” I said.
As we entered the meadow, the Unicorn was prancing in small circles, flipping its head up and down, stopping only to rear and snort loudly at us.
“Drop your weapons,” I said. “He’s frightened.”
We dropped our gear upon the edge of the meadow, then walked forward into the middle of the clearing.
“My, God, look at him! He’s incredible!” Doug said.
“Yeah, but what the hell does he want?” asked Bob, cocking his eyebrow.
“I think I know,” I said. “Stay here.”
As I approached, the unicorn turned and flung its head toward the forest. He wanted me.
“I have to go,” I yelled back at my friends. “He wants me to go with him. To his world!”
“No way!” shouted Bob. “You ain’t going nowhere!” He ran toward me, and the others followed. The unicorn bolted away, then stopped at the edge of the forest.
“It’s the only way to end this thing,” I said. “Like this unicorn, I don’t belong here anymore. I’ve been living on borrowed time. I was supposed to die that day. He’s come to take me home.”
“Ah, jeez, Bill,” said Jim. “I don’t think I can stand to lose you again. You’re talking crazy. This whole thing is crazy!”
“I’m sure it’ll be all right, Jim,(add comma)” I said, calmly. “I belong there now. All the stories I’ve written have been about his world. It’s real, all of it! He can’t leave until I go with him. This is the way to end it. Can’t you feel that?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to lose you,” he said, sadly. “Not again, not ever.” Jim hung his head down, then quickly reached out and grabbed me in a tight squeeze. “Friends forever, huh Bill, you and me?”
“That’s right, Jim. Nothing can ever change that.”
“I understand what you’re doing,” said Doug. “It all makes sense somehow.” Then he gave me a big hug and slapped me on the back. “It’s been good to know you, my friend. Thank him for me. He gave us a few extra years of your friendship -- and for that, I am truly grateful. I’ll miss you, bud.”
“You’re the reason this all started, Doug. If you hadn’t gotten us interested in hunting in the first place, we would’ve never come up here. Everything’s for a reason. How ‘bout you, Bob? You got a hug for an old friend?”
“I don’t have to go along with this insanity,” Bob said, stubbornly. “ I can stop you. I can knock you out and carry your ass right back down that hill.”
“Is that what you really want to do, Bob?” I asked him.
“I’ve done it before! I can do it again!” He broke down; tears running down his face. “I will never understand you. I’ve read all your books by the way, every last one of them. The fantasy place you describe, what’s it called -- Terracon? Do you think that’s where your(you’re) going?”
“I know it is, Bob. Don’t ask me how, but I know that’s where I’m going. You talked about your dreams last night. Well, I didn’t tell you about (my dreams)(change to MINE). After the accident they became so real and vivid. It was as if I was living in both worlds simultaneously. Perhaps, my friend, when I sleep in Terracon, I will dream of this world. Maybe, I will dream of you.”
He picked me up in a bear hug so powerful that I couldn’t breathe. Then he released me and cradled my face in his big hands.
“I just want to remember your face,” he said, staring at me. “No matter what happens, I never want to forget your face or that white lock of hair.”
“I know I’ll never forget you, big guy.”
We said our good-byes then, and I turned and walked toward the waiting unicorn. I sensed an urgency in his movements. His eyes were telling me to hurry and mount him.
“I’ll be coming back!” I yelled. “Look for me! I’ll be coming back!” Grabbing a handful of long mane, I swung my leg up and over. I turned and looked back one last time, waved to my friends, then we bolted forward, disappearing into the low hanging mist beneath the forest branches.
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