Jasper's Mountain - Part 11

Jasper stays alert as he watches these people efficiently set up their elaborate camp and build a fire in which they cook a large amount of food for their crew. The women are untied in small groups and taken to different tents set up around the camp. Once inside these tents, the women are not brought out again. The men drink and drink and are growing louder as the night goes on and more alcohol is consumed.

When the men have enough to drink they charge into a tent that contains the women. Jasper watches in disgust.

How are we going to get out of here?

The night gets later and Jasper does not dare to close his eyes. He must be ready for when the time presents itself for their attempt at escape. There are still a large number of men who have yet to make their exit from around the fire but appear to be growing more intoxicated. They continue to take long pulls at their bottles of dark liquid and their laughter grows obnoxiously loud.

Jasper notices the overall ease of the men. Almost no one is standing guard, apart from the older leader who looks out and around the area from time to time and then observes his men in their drunken stupor.

At last the older leader retires to a tent.

“Does everyone’s accommodations please them, fellows?” Asks the smug, young leader to the piss drunk men. His pompous demeanor knocks up a notch once the older leader leaves the group.

The men hoot and holler in response.

“Oh yeah!” Shouts an indistinguishable man in the group.

“What more could you all want men?” Continues the power tripping leader, “We give you good wine, food and fresh meat to take care of your needs!”

The men whistle and yell more in response.

“Now listen here men,” he leans closer to the group as if he were going to let them in on a secret, but still speaking in a loud tone, “If any of those women give you any trouble at all,” he says turning to point at the tents, “You let me know and I will set them right,” with this last part, he pulls up his pants as he spits the words out.

“Thank you, sir!” One calls out. The rest nod their heads in agreement.

He walks over to two of the guys sitting around the fire and smacks them on the back as he says, “Enjoy yourselves, lads!” Before making his exit to his tent.

Jasper is so taken aback by this exchange that he almost falls out of his tree post when he gets hit with a pine cone thrown from down below.

Claudia!

He looks down and can just barely make out the ponytail on her head.

How did she get down and over here without my noticing?

Jasper is slow to move from his spot. His legs are cramped and he wants to feel sure of himself as he climbs down the tree so as not to make any unnecessary noise that would bring attention to him and Claudia.

Claudia moves to the backside of the tree, facing away from the large group as she waits for Jasper to make his sloth-like moves down from the tree. She is doing an ancy hop from one leg to another behind the tree.

Jasper lacks the stealth that Claudia so clearly holds and with each noise he makes descending from the tree, Claudia cringes, and curls her toes in her boots. Once he reaches his last bit of climbing down, he begins sliding down the tree on accident, which creates a long scratchy sound.

Jasper can’t help but develop labored, loud breathing as he barely holds on while he slides to the bottom of the tree. Claudia grabs one of his hands to free it from the tree and Jasper can see her round eyes open big in disbelief.

Both of them turn to look in the direction of the men, to see how they will react. Their hearts are thumping hard and Jasper’s mouth is dry as a cotton. They are surprised to see that the men are still carrying on laughing and drinking and seem to not have noticed the small commotion.

Claudia tugs at Jasper’s hand and lifts her pointer finger to her lips to indicate for him to be quieter than he has been thus far.

She leads the way, still holding on tight to Jasper’s hand as she maneuvers them farther away from the camp. Jasper makes sure to follow her every step, so he does not mess up again and actually cause the group to take notice of them.

You are one lucky bastard that that group was too drunk and relaxed to catch onto your mistake. We are still in danger, though. They will see our tracks in the morning, unless they are more stupid than I give them credit or if the sky decides to release its parachuters.  

One step after another leads them far enough away to where they cannot even hear or see the men anymore. Both stay silent and alert, as they know they are still not clear from the danger yet. It is miles before either of them utter a word.

She finally lets go of his hand as she says, “Those are the kinds of people Mama and Papa didn’t want me to find. They are the ones they warned me of.” She continues leading the way through the thick snow.

What Jasper did not notice until now was that Claudia was leading them in a crisscrossing way, so as to make their tracks difficult to follow.

Clever.

She reaches up and grabs a branch that she breaks off.

“You should grab one too. It’s not the best way to cover up tracks, but it’s helpful. We won’t do it forever, but it should at least make our path more complicated. That’s what Mama told me,” she says.

Jasper reaches high up into a tree and pulls at a branch till it breaks free. They take turns walking in the back, backwards, covering up the footprints as best as they can.

Jasper's Mountain - Part 10

Jasper stiffens and makes a slow turn around to find what has put so much fear in the hush Claudia just gave him. The hair on the back of his neck is prickling and standing up underneath his long locks. He takes a look on the other side of the tree and sees no movement, so he remains as still as possible. Both of his hands hold steady onto his shotgun that is aimed out from his chest.

The silence is deafening. Jasper’s eyes are alert and his body feels strong. The white glistening snow and the deep blue sky are all that give off any light. The silhouettes of trees all around begin to morph into human bodies, animal bodies to Jasper as he scans back and forth around him.

Focus.

Jasper begins to rely more on his hearing ability as his eyes grow weak in the dark. He turns his head from right to left in a slow rotation so as not to miss one sigh or step in the snow. In mid-rotation of his head to the left, a sound wave travels across the snow and enters his right ear. Jasper’s mind translates this sound into a footstep in the snow. Movement, and it’s nearby. Another step is detected after another, after another. What was interpreted as one person upon hearing the first step, is now understood to be multiple pairs of feet crossing the snow together. Jasper knows he cannot fight off a large group of people by himself, so he begins to walk backwards, away from the tree he heard Claudia’s voice tell him to be quiet. He has no time to cover up his own tracks and so he knows he must lead those tracks to another tree, so as not to lead the approaching group to Claudia. He chooses a tree that is about 100 feet from the tree that Claudia is hidden within.

The steps grow louder. They are getting closer and Jasper has little to no time left. He slings his gun over his shoulder and jumps up onto the tree. There are not many low branches so he must shimmy himself up the large trunk about 20 feet before he can use branches to help get him up higher. He climbs another 20 feet till he gets to a place where he has good visibility of Claudia's tree and to where he is unlikely to be spotted.

Leaning his back up against the trunk and sitting in its L-shaped curve, he again places his shotgun out in front of his chest, ready to fire.

The group is getting even closer and their path leads them closer to Claudia’s tree than his own. Jasper feels a sense of panic as he realizes she will be easier to find first before himself. He cannot move at this point as they draw closer, so he must wait to see what unfolds. He curses himself for not having time to cover up his tracks that now litter the bottom of Claudia's tree. Showing evidence of a human's presence.

The group can now be seen as a large black mass moving through the snow. They are approaching the far side of Claudia’s tree, so Jasper cannot see all of their movements, but he is thankful they don’t travel near to where he left his tracks on the opposite side, closer to him. He can hear their loud, husky breathing. It is hard to make out each person individually, but with how large the group appears as one blob, Jasper calculates that there are at least 20 of them. They travel with horses and a group of shorter, smaller looking humans, which Jasper assumes are women. The group of what appears to be women walk close together in a huddle.

Two bodies can be spotted at the front of the pack. These two look big and seem to be in charge, as they dictate where the group walks.

“This area will be good to set up our camp for the rest of the night,” one of the leaders says to the other in a deep and booming voice.

“Let me know when, and I’ll get them to work,” is the other’s reply.

The second of the two men sounds younger and his tone has an edge of slimy to it that rubs Jasper the wrong way.  

They continue walking, and as the group passes the tree Claudia is in, Jasper lets his hands relax on the gun ever so slightly. He can feel his chest fall a little as his nervous anticipation calms down.

The older man nods at the younger one, which signals the slimy man to whistle a command at the people. It cuts through the air and the group halts in submission.

“We will set up here and over there,” the whistler barks out using two fingers on each hand to point to the areas that he is talking about. The people break into smaller groups and get to work setting up the camp.

Jasper hears some whimpering in the commotion of it all. He suspects it to be coming from the group of women, who he believes may be here against their will. As he is watching the women’s group more closely, he can tell by the way they are moving as one that they may be tied together.

“Shut them up!” The young leader adds.

He and the older leader walk farther past the group, which means farther away from Jasper and Claudia, which eases Jasper’s fears a smidge.

We seem safe for now, but the first rise of the sun, we won’t be safe here anymore. They will spot us.

Jasper's Mountain - Part 9

The sun begins to drop farther down the sky as night approaches. Claudia’s naivety of the distance she hoped they could cover that day becomes exposed as she realizes it is time to find a spot to stop for the night. The ground she hoped to cover was at least triple the amount of what they actually walked today.

Claudia swivels to face Jasper and says, “Wait here. I’m going to look around for a place for us to sleep tonight.” She bounds off before Jasper has a chance to answer her.

“Hm,” Jasper says to himself. He takes note of how her mouth pursed at the end of her sentence and her brows scrunched together before she took off through the trees.

As he tries to decipher the meaning of these facial expressions he grows tiresome. The act of observing, understanding and then responding to another human being’s story of communication expressed through body language, tonality and cryptic words feels overwhelming to Jasper. The last time he cohabitated with another human was years ago and he feels as if he is learning a forgotten language.

Jasper sighs heavily, and slowly lowers his butt down to a rock while holding steady onto his walking sticks. He lands with a less than graceful drop to the rock, which elicits him to cry out from the pain that shoots up into his tailbone. He doubles over and focuses on breathing.

Jasper sits and watches as the sun drops from the sky and then all the way below the horizon, leaving a pink and purple sky in its place. As he waits, he lets his mind rest and his thoughts blow around aimlessly like a leaf in the wind; being taken this way and that, wherever the wind chooses, and without putting up a fight.  

Jasper breathes. Time continues to pass, and with it goes the remaining light. It is only when Jasper becomes aware of how bitterly cold and stiff he is that he begins to grow weary.  

Where could she be? Too much time has passed.

More time passes and Jasper gets up to walk around. He cannot sit idle any longer. The already shaky gait becomes worsened by his new tailbone wound. He worries that something happened to the girl.

Is she hurt? Or more likely, did she desert me? She must have decided that I am too much of a liability or burden to help any longer.

“Humph,” he exhales.

Now what?

The light is almost nonexistent and Jasper is exhausted from the amount of walking they did that day. Although he wants to just set up a shelter right there, his conscience tugs at him and he walks in the direction the girl bounded off in, to make sure she isn’t in any trouble.

He pauses for a moment to drop his walking sticks and open his shotgun to see that it is in fact loaded. He locks it back, walks forward with the gun held out in front of him, leaving the walking sticks behind him in the snow. Each step takes effort without the aid of his sticks, but his focus on what may lie ahead makes him feel stronger and surer with each step he takes that brings him closer to where the girl went off to.  

Jasper follows her tracks as they lead him deeper into a thick foliage part of the mountain, making it more difficult to see far ahead. Her tracks lead him straight in one direction for a while, before peeling off to the right. The length and type of print look the same apart from the direction thus far, which keeps Jasper calm.

As he follows her path, he pauses every so often to cock his ear up and listen. He hears nothing and keeps moving. Her tracks take a hard left and then begin zig zagging through the trees.

Something’s not right.

Her tracks lead him to a bush and then back away from the bush. Here is where her tracks get confusing and go in circles until they come to an abrupt end.

What?

Jasper turns around in a circle searching for the impressions in the snow her feet make.

Nothing? This cannot be right.

He looks off to the right and can see the snow does not look the same as it does everywhere else. As he walks towards it, he makes the connection that her tracks were being covered up, perhaps with the use of a branch.

The question is, who covered them up?  

Calculated and silent, Jasper follows the close to non existing path.

With alert eyes and ears his awareness is heightened. So as not to make much noise, he controls his breaths to remain steady and quiet. He follows the tampered snow for another 100 yards before it disappears completely. Instinct tells him to look up. Above him are silhouetted tree branches.

“Claudia,” he whispers.

“Shhh!” Is the reply he hears.