Chasing a Blond Moon(160)

He was about to take his first peek when he heard voices, men shouting happily, boisterously. He froze against the rock, waited. Heard some crashing not far in front of him, wanted to look, needed to. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, started to push up again.

A flash lit the tunnel, sent him down hard, banging his elbow, causing the arm to go numb. Jesus! In front of him there was crackling, popping, and smoke began to roll in across the blocking rock. Fuck, a fire.

He lay with his feet away from the grotto, moving his arm, trying to unfreeze it, get feeling back into his hand. The smoke was rolling in, but sliding over his head in a visible line, like a layer of gauze. It reminded him of mosquito netting in a barely detectable breeze.

When something touched his leg, he kicked instinctively, but his leg was caught and he looked back.

“I remembered it comes through,” Santinaw said. The old man patted his leg affectionately before releasing it. The old man tapped him again and Service looked back. He handed a cloth to Service and took one for himself and poured water on it and tied it over his nose and mouth. Service understood. Makeshift filtering for their lungs.

Service followed suit, told himself he had to look, had to do something.

Santinaw crawled up beside him.

There were voices in on the other side of the rock, two, three; no, he couldn’t differentiate. Not speaking English, heard movement, things being dropped. Wood crashing on a fire—logs being added. The clanging of metal, something heavy being wrestled around. A voice was singing some sort of high-pitched thing, no tune, just sounds that grated at him.

Santinaw said, “Death song.”

“That’s not Ojibwa,” Service said.

“Death song,” Santinaw repeated.

“Where’s Jake?”

“It was boring with him. I like to look around.”

Jesus Christ. Metal grated metal, made a screech. Above. Then another sound, a new one, high to low, anguish, fear. Also above.

He looked up at the flow of smoke, knew he couldn’t break the stream or it would cascade down and choke them. Right now the smoke was moving smoothly through the tunnel and up the back shaft like a chimney. They needed to keep it that way.

Santinaw tugged on his jacket. “Makwa,” he said.

Mak-wa, Ojibwa for bear.

“Pa-gid-ji,” the old man added, pointing upward.

Bear above. Bear above?

“The picture,” Santinaw whispered.

The picture, bear in a hanging cage. No fire in the picture. Fire here, bear above.

Shit, he thought.

“Its man-i-to is afraid,” Santinaw whispered.

So is mine, Service thought. He studied the smoke, had to get up there to take a look.

“Be-ka,” the old man said.

Slowly, don’t disrupt the smoke.

More chain sounds, sharp, pained squeals.

He got up, turned his head sideways, looked under the smoke, saw several men dressed in saffron robes, like bonzes, the Buddhist monks who burned themselves in Vietnam to protest the war.

Chain sounds again, overhead but closer. He looked again, slightly downward, saw a huge stainless steel vat. What the hell?

Then it hit him: Christ! What had Tara Ferma written in her e-mail, that bears would be lowered into boiling oil? Shit shit shit.

Now the animal screamed a long, angry cry and banged the cage. As the chains rattled, Service understood that he had run out of time.

He looked again. Now he could see the animal, blond, almost pale pink in the glow of the flames. It was shaking the cage, its eyes wide, as it began to scream and bash its head against the steel bars.

Eight feet off the ground and descending. Protect the animal, he told himself. He took out his 800, hissed, “Go now!” and slithered over the rock, falling four or five feet to a stone floor, got up, saw the huge fire under the vat, huge boulders around the whole thing to render it a cauldron, heard McCants screaming, “DNR! Police!” Saw the cage descending, ran forward, sprang off a boulder to wrap the cage with his arms, driving it sideways, momentarily weightless, almost flying, then crashed on something hard, his feet in the fire. He jerked them out, stomping his feet to dump embers and something struck him hard on the left shoulder and he felt warmth on his arm. He rolled to his belly and got up, a cacophony of voices surrounding him, English, another language, none of it making sense, men with their hands up and shouting, the beams of flashlights knifing around, the sound of cuffs being fastened. Gary Ebony was holding a guy by the collar, yelling “Stop kicking me, asshole!”

Santinaw pushing him aside, grinning. “It’s a beautiful animal. Your pants are on fire.”

Service slapped at his trousers, watched Santinaw kneel beside the cage, begin speaking to the bear in a quiet voice.