Scott Nicholson - The Gorge

He giggled. Hawks, falcons, and other birds of prey were popular manifestations of the warrior spirit. But since authentic vision quests had been the domain of aspiring warriors, that wasn’t surprising. What Cherokee brave wanted to slink back into camp and report seeing the bluebird of happiness?

That brought another giggle, and his voice sounded much too loud in the stifling space. Echoes were like footsteps on the gritty cavern floor. Like footsteps…

He thumbed the piton and slid it from his belt.

The footsteps were in tune with his breathing, with the beating of his pulse in his ears. His skin itched. He cut the light and listened to the oceanic roar of his lungs. Listened.

In the dark, the Great Spirit came to him. Not as a predator, not as a bat, not as an animal long extinct in the Southern Appalachians, like an elk or red wolf.

No, this was a rabbit. It came up from the cold, clammy darkness with its own luminescence, eyes casting a green, milky light. The thing was blind, because it kept bumping into stones. It paused near Raintree’s feet, sniffing the air with its ears laid back against its neck. Then it parted its lips-showing two sharpened incisors. The bunny faded to gray, then to black, its eyes dousing themselves. The teeth were the last to disappear.

Then Raintree realized he’d been staring at the LED readout on the watch.

The numbers were upside down, disembodied characters floating in the ether. He took a Valium, chewing it so it would race through his stomach lining unencumbered. He checked the watch again. Nearly one o’clock. His shift would be over in less than an hour. He’d let Farrengalli sleep, and then he and Dove could What if Farrengalli had fallen asleep already?

What if the creatures had come into the cave and taken Dove?

He stood, swiveling his head, looking for the lesser darkness that would indicate the mouth of the cave.

That way. Fifty-fifty chance.

He cut the light, but kept it in his left hand, a piton in the right. Ready for anything. Bending, tiptoeing, ears alert for any rustle of wings. A Bugs Bunny cartoon came to mind, the classic episode where Elmer Fudd stopped in his sneaking and told the viewing audience, “Shhh. We-ah hunting wabbits.” Raintree didn’t laugh.

“Follow the light,” preached the New Age sages, those who sold remote-control crystal power for a limited time only, $19.95 plus shipping and handling.

Raintree followed the light, the bluish thread that seemed so small against the oppressive onyx. He expected the beam to be snuffed out at any moment. Behind him, hopping, hopping, hopping. Whiskers whispering. Wabbits walking.

Must be going the wrong way.

He checked the watch again. He’d only been walking for two minutes.

The beam reflected a silver flash on the floor of the cave. Raintree retrieved the wrapper of a granola bar, a ProVentures Plenty, containing whole wheat, oats, and “pure dehydrated cane juice.” The fancy, feel-good name for sugar. Farrengalli was holding out on them. He must have taken all the rations they’d left by the river for the wounded FBI agent.

Raintree played the light behind him, saw no fierce lepine fangs, no menacing, erect ears. He rushed on, sweat breaking out under his arms, soaking his bare chest and shoulders. Even his sense of smell was distorted. The stink of his body resembled rotted roses.

Harsh breathing, whimpers of pain, suppressed grunts. He heard them before he reached the wider opening of the cave’s mouth.

They had been attacked.

While Raintree was on his goofy trip, searching for a Great Spirit who had packed his travois and headed West long ago. He broke into a run, stumbled, fell to his knees, touched the medicine bag as if it were a Catholic’s rosary beads.

Rising, he plunged forward, tossing the light aside, gripping the piton so hard his fingers ached.

He braced himself. If he had wanted a vision, a hell of an opportunity awaited: He imagined the red, ripped flesh, the creatures perched on the bodies of his traveling companions while their heat faded and their blood filled unnatural cavities. He would kill them all, make them pay, use revenge as the Higher Power that had never been strong enough to pull him from the well of addiction. Rage would be his new drug.

Not that he gave a damn about Farrengalli, but Dove didn’t deserve As he entered the gray spill of leaking moonlight, it took his acid-drenched cerebrum a long second, a big stretch of Now, to make sense of what he was seeing.

No creatures.

Farrengalli, naked, sweating, and grunting, toiling over the struggling, whimpering and equally naked Dove.

Raintree gave a war whoop and went for the kill.

Red.

The river running red, cliffs on fire, sky filled with flickering orange.

Trumpets and screams, lava gouging a rut deep into the Earth, hot electricity sparking in the air.

Ace’s belly boiled, his head clanged with the din of Armageddon. This was Revelation’s promise made good, the seventh seal broken, the whore of Babylon rising.

The intensity of the vision sliced at him like knives at an altar, torturing a sacrificial lamb in anger over its innocence.

God was delivering. He that sat on high was dishing it out big-time.

And Ace, His servant, His vessel, His holy antenna on the mortal plane, could only accept and endure, and let the message pass through him. Coarse sand clung to his lips as he spewed forth words in a thousand lost languages. He didn’t know what they meant, and he didn’t care. He couldn’t crawl away from the thundering liquid blaze behind him. All he could do was wait for the storm to pass, or to engulf and swallow him, as God saw fit. And, oh, the red raw glory of Rapture. Praise be to Jesus, our Father who art in heaven, who laid me down by still waters, in sickness and in health “Get up.”

Ace’s tongue pressed against his jagged teeth. Blood. He’d bitten his lip.

Ace lifted his head. Red had gone to dark, though tiny streaks of lightning cracked the edges of the black shell above. The river was no longer in flames. It churned and whispered and hissed, a snake without end, sliding over the world in search of the hole that led to Hell.

“Get up.”

This wasn’t God’s voice. God had a deep, cruel, demanding voice-almost like that of his real father, the mortal man who had shot angry jism into a throwaway slut three decades before. God wasn’t talking to Ace. Not at the moment, but he’d told Ace plenty enough already.

Ace blinked. I’ve gone blind. The lion tore out my eyes.

He rose to his knees, running a gritty hand over his cheeks. Blood. Goddamned blood. He wiped, blinked again, hung between panic and surrender.

Then he saw that it was night, and he remembered the gorge, the raft, and the angels. Clara. And his baby in her belly.

And Bowie, who held Ace’s pistol. “Get up,” Bowie said a third time.

“They took her,” Ace said.

“They took other people, too. Some of them because of you.”

“You don’t know.” Ace stood, his knees weak and wobbly. “You don’t know what they’re going to do. But I saw it.”

“I saw it, too. She’s dead by now.”

“No, she’s not dead. I tell you, I saw it.” For just a moment, Bowie’s silhouette rippled and transformed, became tall and brick red, scaly, eyes smoldering with the moon’s dead and buried light.

“Doesn’t matter anymore. You didn’t kill me, and I don’t really feel like killing you.”

“They took her to the cave. Lots of bones there. Put her on the rock.”

“The rock?”

“The Changing Rock.”

“You can tell the forensic psychologist all about it when you stand trial.”

Ace laughed, from so deep in his gut that it hurt. “You think you can arrest me? Like God cares about this cops-and-robbers horseshit? There’s only one law and one order and it don’t matter shit for you and what you want.”