“You’re being much too tolerant. You probably know all this, anyway-being a guide, I mean.”
“A-guide?”
“Why, yes. That is-well, yes, you are the guide for the expedition, aren’t you?”
“My brother…” Chuck cut himself short. There was no sense explaining it. No sense telling him how Noah had led the expedition until he’d met his death that day with the brontosaurs. Noah meant nothing to anyone but Chuck now. Noah…
A puzzled look crossed Chuck’s face. He struck a pensive posture, his face screwed up, his eyes clearly confused. Noah?
“Is anything wrong?” Dr. Perry asked.
Chuck shook his head rapidly. “No, nothing. Nothing at all.”
And yet… Noah. There was something about that name. Why, of course. The name wasn’t Noah! It was… was…
Sudden panic fluttered inside Chuck’s chest.
What was his brother’s name?
Not Noah, surely. Something similar, yes, but not Noah. Something like Aaron… or Orrin… No, no, that wasn’t it. But what? He felt an aching pain lash through his body, a pain that swept over his mind as he struggled with the memory, trying to dislodge it from its dark corner.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Dr. Perry asked again. “That time you spent in the water…”
“I’m all right,” Chuck said harshly. He bit down on his tongue then and said, “I’m sorry, Dr. Perry. I just… I…”
“You probably feel weak, owing to the time…”
“
Dr. Perry stared at him curiously. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“Never mind, Dr. Perry,” Chuck answered. “But thanks a lot. Something you said reminded me of something I’d… something I’d almost…” He swallowed. The word was difficult to say. “… forgotten.”
But he hadn’t forgotten. He still remembered. Owen wasn’t even a memory to the others who had known him, but Chuck would never forget.
He set his lips firmly, his eyes on the white rocks in the distance.
The terrain got rougher as they moved along.
The twin rocks dangled before their eyes like a promised present. They didn’t seem to get any closer. The rocks stood on the horizon like two disdainful monarchs surveying their domain, a king and a queen with proud, cold bearing.
The plants were an army fighting for their monarchs. They threw themselves in the path of the invaders, erecting a wall of living, writhing greenness that held the line with remarkable tenacity. And the monarchs had strewn the path with booby traps; deep mud pits, sharp rocks, wide clefts in the earth, rock faults and slips, sliding talus.
The party waged a war against the country. Arthur was the forward guard, wielding the ax with a powerful arm that felled the foe. Pete was behind him with a meat cleaver, hacking at the tenacious plants. The rest of the party followed behind them, exhausted and ready to call it a day.
And over it all, constantly nagging, was Masterson. He whined interminably, telling them they’d taken the wrong path, that they’d struck out in the wrong direction after they met the lost scientists. Chuck tried to close his ears against the verbal barrage, trusting his memory of the rocks over the guesswork of Masterson.
He was not at all sure they would reach the rendezvous site in time. Nor was he sure that the party would get there safely. Arthur had been forced to shoot and kill two flesh eaters that had boldly attacked the group in a small clearing. It had been simple to kill them. They were small and their hides couldn’t very well stop a steel-jacketed bullet.
But Chuck kept thinking of
The sky behind the twin rocks turned a bright red as the sun dipped below the horizon. The red shifted color, shot with purples and oranges, deepening rapidly. And then the dusk hurried quietly across the sky. Night came, enfolding the land in an inky black cloak. The white rocks showed dimly in the darkness, with the stars wheeling sharply overhead like bitter white beaks pecking at the blackness.
Chuck called a halt for the night, aware that tomorrow was the sixth day and that time was running out swiftly. He debated the prospect of going on all night, but one look at Denise’s exhausted condition told him they ought to stop for much-needed sleep.
Pete put together a fast, delicious supper, and the party turned in. No one needed coaxing. They crawled wearily into their blankets and were asleep almost before they were fully stretched out.
Chuck took the first watch, telling Arthur he’d wake him in two hours.