Down The Path Read online

  He remembered a woman he had met that had tended one of the other gardens. She had similar straw colored hair, and was also pointy faced. Her name was Lupe. “How about Lupe? Do you like Lupe?”

  He heard the faint swish swish swish in the dark. “Well, that’s all the answer I need, your name is Lupe” he said. She swished her big tail a few more tails and curled up into a ball near the fire and closed her eyes.

  ---

  Cooper had more to think about that night. He felt he had enough energy to travel along the river, but at a slower pace than he would like. He would need to organize his pack in the morning. He would like to build a raft out of logs, but knew he did not possess the energy to try to cut or gather many logs and drag them around. He would walk slowly instead, taking a rest whenever it seemed even slightly needed.

  Earlier in the day, when he had gone for water, he walked along the river for a short time with Lupe bounding next to him. It appeared, at least right here, that walking along the river would be much easier even than walking in the ditches. This section of river had a well worn path right down the side and very little underbrush to burden his travels. He would move slower until he felt more like himself, but it would be nice to walk in the shade of these many large trees alongside the river. He was also relieved that firewood was in abundance and much of it was standing, but dead. He needed to merely snap off pieces and burn them. They burned much longer than the honeysuckle did and the coals stayed hot even longer than that.

  With Lupe curled up outside his tent, Cooper crawled inside and arranged his pack underneath his head. Tomorrow, after a nearly fatal delay, his expedition would continue down his path again.

  ---

  As the sun came up, Cooper heard the familiar explosion of sound from the birds outside. This time it was slightly different. He was hearing songs he had not heard before. These must be birds that liked the river more than the honeysuckle, or perhaps it was the forest nearest the river that drew them in. Either way, he was astonished to hear a sound which he had thought could not possibly get any more beautiful, do just that.

  Lupe was not waiting outside the tent when he woke, but sometimes she wasn’t there in the mornings, preferring to hunt instead. He needed to get started this morning though and he assumed she would find him. With his body still not operating at its full potential, he knew he would not be going fast and it should be easy for her to catch up to him.

  As he slung his pack onto his back and trudged off his rock, he turned around. How much about this camp had kept him alive in his sickness? He thought about the thick bed of grass giving him comfort. Lupe coming to his aid. Obviously, the ice cold river water. The easy availability of wood had been a huge help. Could he have survived if anyone of those things had not been present? He doubted it, and that made him shiver; thinking how close he had come.

  If he had not made it this far, he was fairly certain he would have died of that illness like so many before him. He still needed to think about what might have caused the illness. He had ruled out the water and everything else he could think of. The only thing left were the bloodsucking spiders. They must carry it in them and pass it along when they bite.

  He had seen less of these annoying things since he had been next to the river, but until he had a better explanation, he had to assume that they were transmitting the sickness and do every thing he could to keep them off him. Thinking on this, he realized he hadn’t seen a single one on Lupe. Could the beast pick them off? That seemed unlikely with how small they were. Something else must be going on. Perhaps she had something in her blood that made her a less desirable host.

  He walked down the gentle incline to the side of the river. Peering into the murky waters, he didn’t see any fish. They must be in there though; the water was just too brown to see very deep. Since he knew he would be along the river for a good deal of time, he had packed a string and some hooks in his pack. Having just started out for the morning, he decided that he would try fishing later in the day when he was taking a break.

  Lupe came bounding up to him after he had only been walking a short time. Apparently, she had no problems finding him as he walked along the river. Either her hunting trip had been unsuccessful or she had eaten her prize by herself. Either way, Cooper didn’t mind, he wasn’t very hungry yet and the pooch had more than provided her fair share of food during their short time together.

  As he shambled along the river he saw the rodents that Lupe had been catching. Some were on the ground, and inevitably she would pounce after them. It was always the same, she would stalk up within a few feet of her prey, hold very still, then pounce high into the air and slam her paws down. She missed at every attempt he watched, but he had been eating the proof that it worked…sometimes.

  The most interesting thing about the rodents was that most were high up in the trees. They could balance on the smallest of branches, twigs really, and leap from one to the other. Sometimes they would jump and land onto another twig, which would then bend from the sudden weight and the critter would quickly scuttle farther up the branch where it was more stout. It was all very impressive and several times, while walking with his eyes staring up at the arboreal acrobats, he nearly walked straight into trees. Each time he would glance down just in time and jog from one side to the other. This always excited Lupe, she seemed eager to move at a much quicker pace, but that wasn’t in the cards for Cooper.

  The first time he stopped to rest his legs he leaned onto a broken tree stump, the remainder of the tree had apparently fallen in the water and been swept in the direction he was heading. He had thought to try fishing on his break, but as he stared out at the rushing water, he fell into a trance.

  He was not used to seeing water move like this. The lake near his box in the city had waves that varied in size depending on the day, but they usually followed a very predictable pattern. The waves would rise and crash against the shore; day after day this happened. This river was different entirely. He watched the water make swirls and riffles that would be there for a short time, and then disappear. Sometimes a bit of foam or leaves in the water would reveal what the water was doing in even greater detail. The leaves would spin around for a time, then get sucked under and pop back up downriver, where they would swirl even more. He noticed very quickly that most leaves went underwater in the same spots and popped back up in the same spots.

  To test this theory he threw some small sticks in. sure enough, they were sucked down in the same area, but they popped up sooner than the leaves had. He tossed in some larger sticks and they were still swept underwater. Watching these larger sticks get pulled down, Cooper realized that the river may be much more dangerous than he thought, and he made a mental note to only bath in one of the several more calm sections he had seen.

  Just then he heard a great splash as Lupe was swallowed up by the river. Cooper became frantic that she had fallen in and he was unsure how to get her out. As he calmed himself down, he realized she was able to swim out there. She wasn’t paddling up river, but was maintaining control amongst the current and was now being swept downstream further as she paddled for shore.

  He saw her pull herself out of the river a ways down from where he had been resting, but she cleared the distance between them in a flash. Lupe stopped just in front of him, her hair dripping unbelievable amounts of water, and she spat out the larger stick he had thrown in to check the current! She hadn’t fallen in at all; she had jumped in to get his test stick. Cooper laughed at loud with delight while Lupe proudly swished her tail and stared up at him.

  The friendship between the two oddballs was growing stronger everyday.

  14

  Cooper had been walking along the river for several days. His campsites had all been beneath the large trees and within hearing distance of the water. He never ventured back out into the honeysuckle and other various bushes that still seemed to own the area outside the forest. He still had ample crawdads and Lupe was still bringing in rodents to share.


  He had noticed that several times she didn’t care to eat any rodent, but was very excited when he was through skinning it. While Cooper rested, she would toss the skin into the air and jump after it, making snarling sounds, but never really tearing it up. Sometimes Cooper would throw the skin for her and she would eagerly go and get it. When he would begin moving again the skin would normally stay behind, but sometimes she would carry it hanging out of her mouth. At this point, he decided it was no longer a play toy, but an accessory to her rugged demeanor.

  The young lad had still never tried to catch fish from the river. He had always meant to, but usually he had plenty of food and something else would strike his fancy. He had been moving continuously for several days, albeit at a slow pace, and decided a day of rest would do him good. Since fishing took patience he would use this relaxation time to spend most of the day trying to catch whatever might be swimming beneath the murky depths.

  After pulling out his thin rope and tying the hook onto it, he realized he had no bait. For the carp they usually just put leftover carp on the hoop if they chose to catch them with lines instead of nets. He wasn’t looking for carp though. The sun was beginning to go down so he knew he would not have much time today to fish, even if he had bait. He set the hook atop his tent so Lupe wouldn’t step on it or get tangled in the line. He had several spare hooks as well as more line, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t conserve everything he had.

  Looking at his campsite for the night, it might have been his favorite yet. He was up a little higher than usual, on a forested mound of dirt. The dirt was very soft and seemed to have lots of the sand in it that he had seen around his lake back home. The sand would provide a nice sleeping platform along with the grasses that grew under the trees. The most remarkable thing about this campsite were the two towering trees on either side of his tent.

  These trees had to be different than most of the other ones. The bark looked very different, almost flaky, but in large sections and it was gray with splashed areas of a darker color. Unlike most of the other trees that looked like the ulms he was used to, these two trees had large branches all up and down the trunk. Some of them starting at the height of his own head. Under full sun tomorrow, he would try to climb up one of them for an even better view.

  He knew he had to be coming up to the bend in the river sometime soon, perhaps he could see that. Mostly though, he just wanted to climb the great trees. To be completely absorbed by them and see the world as they do. These behemoths were almost magical to him. The trees they had inside the city were mainly skinny. They had good height and some even provided nuts in the fall, but nothing had the personality of either of these trees.

  They were so big around it would take three of him to touch hands all around it. He wasn’t sure how many rodents lived in them, but there were many. They climbed all over it, pinching off the ends of twigs and then scurrying down to the ground where they would stuff the clusters of leaves into their mouths and go back up to build a nest. Just watching all the activity on the trees was similar to watching the river, there was just so much going on.

  Finally, the sun had set. Cooper’s fire was going out and he saw no need to put more wood on. The wood here left warm coals for breakfast easily so he knew that was guaranteed, barring rain. Lupe had taken up her spot, tucked into a tight ball right next to the tent but facing away from it.

  Over the course of the last few days he could feel himself getting stronger, getting back to the way he was. He would enjoy this day of rest as he had certainly earned it and hopefully it paid dividends towards his health. With that, he was asleep nearly before he even shut his eyes; he no longer had the nightmares…

  ---

  The morning was overcast, but plenty warm. He hoped whatever swam in the river was as easy to catch as the carp from his lake. The carp actually flopped on shore sometimes, which made ‘catching’ them as easy as picking them up.

  He still was unsure what to use as bait. He thought about using a piece of salt carp, but he didn’t want to waste that as he had gone through half his reserves; mostly he just liked sharing nibbles with Lupe. Instead of carp, he decided to cut off a piece of a rodent’s skin, a piece with a good bit of meat on it, and toss that into the river.

  As he picked up the skin, Lupe got excited that he may throw it and he heard the familiar swish swish swish swish. Finding a piece that fit his liking, he sliced it off and then hurled the remaining mass of skin as far into the grass as he could. She ran off after it, bounding all the way.

  Attaching one end of his line to a stick, he then tossed his baited hook into the river. Immediately upon doing this, he noticed a problem; the river pushed the line right back up to shore. Since he could see there were no fish right next to shore, he decided to find a rock to weigh it down in the swift current.

  He looked at all the small rocks around, but most of those had sharp edges and would probably cut, or at least damage, his line. Instead he found a piece of metal on his pack that had a hole in it. He wasn’t sure what its purpose was originally for, but it didn’t seem to affect the function or comfort of the pack, so he sliced it off and tied it on the line a good ways up from his hook.

  This weight made his rig difficult to cast, but on his third attempt he was able to get his bait out into the river and not have it get wrapped around the weight. Then he sat and watched. In the lake, carp were caught very quickly. He knew to be patient, but as he watched the sun creep higher into the sky, he began to wonder if the river had fish in it. He had just assumed all water had fish living in it, especially one that covers as much distance as a river.

  He checked his line and sure enough, his bait was still attached. It was just that nothing had found it appetizing. Since it was approaching lunch time, he decided to have a bit of lunch and then take a nap. He secured his stick with the line against a tree, having all but given up on the prospect of a fish dinner.

  He ate a lunch of crawdads and some small, bright green plant that was very tasty he had found growing near the river. It was slightly bitter, but not in an unpleasant, possibly poisonous way. This plant had a satisfying juicy crunch to it as well.

  After eating he had tried to nap, but instead decided to climb one of the giant trees. It ended up being harder than he thought and as he climbed higher, he began to get acutely aware of just how high he was. Deciding he had gone high enough he tried to look out over the landscape, but the crown of the tree was simply too thick so he watched the rodents dance amongst the branches. Sometimes they would look up at him and make a series of clicking and whirring noises. Cooper did not know what those meant, and he couldn’t determine if they were warnings to other rodents or if the small creatures were legitimately trying to communicate with him.

  As he though about the possibly intricacies of rodent language, Lupe began barking. Cooper perked up immediately as she rarely made any noises other than a gentle whine. He could see her barking near the river, but couldn’t make out what she was barking at. He slowly descended the tree, which turned out to be much trickier than going up. As he neared the bottom, he could see Lupe was barking at his fishing line. The stick was wiggling back and forth and threatened to become unstuck and get pulled into the river! Excited to possibly have caught a fish, he hurried the rest of the way down and ran over to the pole.

  Lupe, having seen him running at the object of her interest, stopped barking. She sat right next to him as he wrenched the stick from its snug corner and began gently winding the line around the stick. Swish swish swish went her tail. Like a perfect metronome for his winding. This fish was fighting very differently than the carp do. It was pulling very hard and zig-zagging from side to side. He was trying to be as gentle as possible because he didn’t want to break the line. The only fish he had really seen up close was a carp. Sometimes in the lake you saw shadows of other fish, but it was very rare anyone ever caught them.

  As he got the fish to the surface of the water, he gave it a cautious heave and it landed right
up on the shore, flopping wildly. Lupe began dancing around it, nipping at it as the fish started to bark! It was the strangest thing, but he distinctly heard the fish making croaking noises, almost mimicking the dog.

  He had never seen a fish that looked like this in his life. It was a long as his forearm, with a good thickness, but incredibly sleek looking and it had no scales. It was as if someone had already removed the scales, revealing a gray skin with perhaps two dozen small black dots all over its body.

  He reached down to grab it and it flopped right onto his hand. One of the fins on the side of its head had punctured into his hand and the pain was intense. Instead of trying to pick up the fish, he plunged his knife deep into its head. This seemed to do the trick, even if the creature croaked a few more times.

  With the strange fish dead, he looked at his hand and saw a small hole in the meaty portion of his palm, just beneath his thumb. Looking at the fish, he could see it wasn’t the fin, but some sort of sharp bone or spine that ran along the edge of the fin. The wound burned and hurt more than he thought it should. Worrying about infection, he washed it off and dabbed some red water onto it but it was still bleeding and the red water washed away in the flowing blood. So, he grabbed a rag he hoped was clean, put red water onto that and then secured it tightly against the puncture wound.

  Christopher had warned him puncture wounds were dangerous, but being from a fish instead of a rock or stick, he wasn’t too worried.

  His hand was still throbbing, but his curiosity about the fish overwhelmed the pain. Looking at it closer now, he could see it had that spine on the other side of its head as well as smack dab in the middle of it back, just behind the head; all of them running along the edge of the fin. That wasn’t the strangest thing though. This fish appeared to have black tendrils coming out of its face. He feared touching them, assuming they were some kind of stinger also and didn’t want to tempt fate.