middle of the night in this
place that reeked of treachery and death and destruction.
He remained quiet
and watched the scene unfold. The elderly Abnaki sat cross-legged on the cold,
hard ground, arranging his materials in a tight semicircle. It appeared to
Stephen that the man was chanting under his breath—his lips were moving but
Stephen could hear nothing.
Stephen knew
enough about the customs of the Abnaki and about Natives in general to know the
elderly man was performing some sacred ritual. He was a tribal medicine man, an
individual possessed of incredible power and mysticism. His voice was now
intelligible to Stephen, strengthening in volume as he continued to chant. He
mixed ingredients into a great bowl placed on the ground in front of him. The
man added water to the mixture and stirred slowly for a long time, staring into
the distance and chanting. Tendrils of steam rose lazily from the bowl, clearly
apparent in the bright moonlight, despite the fact there was no fire beneath
it.
Eventually the
elderly Native stood, moving ever so slowly, and walked among the bodies
littering the forest floor. He stopped at each of the Abnaki dead, smearing
some of the mixture on the foreheads of the men and ignoring the missionary
dead.
Stephen’s vision
began to waver and he knew he would soon be joining his fellow missionaries in
whatever afterlife awaited them in the wake of this disaster. He hoped God
understood he had not planned this slaughter and prayed he would still be
permitted entrance into heaven. He prayed also that his daughter, the baby he
had met just once, was alive; although he knew that was unlikely in the
extreme.
As the ancient
Abnaki medicine man padded silently among the Native bodies, performing his
mysterious ritual, Stephen Ames slipped into unconsciousness for the last time.
The freezing cold vanished and the world went black, and Stephen was grateful
there was no pain.
1
Present
Day
George Hooper was lost. He was also
hungry and wet, thus completing what he had come to think of as his own
personal trifecta of misery. A steady drizzle fell silently from the slate-grey
skies, making George shiver and long for the warmth and comfort of his living
room. He tried to take his mind off the chill by picturing himself sitting in
front of a roaring fire, three fingers of bourbon warming his insides as he sat
in a rocking chair doing nothing in particular, maybe watching the Yankees on
TV or reading a good book.
George didn’t own
a rocking chair, nor did he have a fireplace in the living room of his small
house in Teaneck, New Jersey, didn’t even like to read all that much. But he
figured, what the hell, it’s my daydream, I might as well enjoy it. He
knew he should not have come hunting alone in the dank, desolate woods of
Northern Maine in late November, but none of his buddies could make it this
weekend, and George was damned if he was going to let his five-day break from
the job at the paper mill pass by without getting out and enjoying some fresh
air and solitude.
Going off by
himself in the woods was a piss-poor idea, George knew that—common sense
dictated that you always take at least one person with you as well as let
someone else know exactly where you will be when you’re traveling into
thousands of square miles of mostly uninhabited forest—but he had hiked and
hunted his entire life in some of the most remote and rugged areas this country
had to offer, so it wasn’t like he had no outdoor experience. Besides, with his
trusty hand-held GPS, how bad could things get?
Pretty bad indeed,
George now decided. The goddamned GPS had crapped out on him two days ago for
no particular reason that George could determine. It simply made the decision,
somewhere inside its freakin’ soulless solid-state electronic guts, to take a
break from operating, maybe a permanent break; George didn’t know. What he did
know, though, was that without a working GPS and after his map book had
place that reeked of treachery and death and destruction.
He remained quiet
and watched the scene unfold. The elderly Abnaki sat cross-legged on the cold,
hard ground, arranging his materials in a tight semicircle. It appeared to
Stephen that the man was chanting under his breath—his lips were moving but
Stephen could hear nothing.
Stephen knew
enough about the customs of the Abnaki and about Natives in general to know the
elderly man was performing some sacred ritual. He was a tribal medicine man, an
individual possessed of incredible power and mysticism. His voice was now
intelligible to Stephen, strengthening in volume as he continued to chant. He
mixed ingredients into a great bowl placed on the ground in front of him. The
man added water to the mixture and stirred slowly for a long time, staring into
the distance and chanting. Tendrils of steam rose lazily from the bowl, clearly
apparent in the bright moonlight, despite the fact there was no fire beneath
it.
Eventually the
elderly Native stood, moving ever so slowly, and walked among the bodies
littering the forest floor. He stopped at each of the Abnaki dead, smearing
some of the mixture on the foreheads of the men and ignoring the missionary
dead.
Stephen’s vision
began to waver and he knew he would soon be joining his fellow missionaries in
whatever afterlife awaited them in the wake of this disaster. He hoped God
understood he had not planned this slaughter and prayed he would still be
permitted entrance into heaven. He prayed also that his daughter, the baby he
had met just once, was alive; although he knew that was unlikely in the
extreme.
As the ancient
Abnaki medicine man padded silently among the Native bodies, performing his
mysterious ritual, Stephen Ames slipped into unconsciousness for the last time.
The freezing cold vanished and the world went black, and Stephen was grateful
there was no pain.
1
Present
Day
George Hooper was lost. He was also
hungry and wet, thus completing what he had come to think of as his own
personal trifecta of misery. A steady drizzle fell silently from the slate-grey
skies, making George shiver and long for the warmth and comfort of his living
room. He tried to take his mind off the chill by picturing himself sitting in
front of a roaring fire, three fingers of bourbon warming his insides as he sat
in a rocking chair doing nothing in particular, maybe watching the Yankees on
TV or reading a good book.
George didn’t own
a rocking chair, nor did he have a fireplace in the living room of his small
house in Teaneck, New Jersey, didn’t even like to read all that much. But he
figured, what the hell, it’s my daydream, I might as well enjoy it. He
knew he should not have come hunting alone in the dank, desolate woods of
Northern Maine in late November, but none of his buddies could make it this
weekend, and George was damned if he was going to let his five-day break from
the job at the paper mill pass by without getting out and enjoying some fresh
air and solitude.
Going off by
himself in the woods was a piss-poor idea, George knew that—common sense
dictated that you always take at least one person with you as well as let
someone else know exactly where you will be when you’re traveling into
thousands of square miles of mostly uninhabited forest—but he had hiked and
hunted his entire life in some of the most remote and rugged areas this country
had to offer, so it wasn’t like he had no outdoor experience. Besides, with his
trusty hand-held GPS, how bad could things get?
Pretty bad indeed,
George now decided. The goddamned GPS had crapped out on him two days ago for
no particular reason that George could determine. It simply made the decision,
somewhere inside its freakin’ soulless solid-state electronic guts, to take a
break from operating, maybe a permanent break; George didn’t know. What he did
know, though, was that without a working GPS and after his map book had
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