Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles (21 page)

I got to the spot where I had last seen the
deer and searched around for clues. I was lucky and found some
blood in the low light. Then I got a bit luckier as the night went
on. It had been over an hour since I had stuck the buck and the
moon finally started to shine. The clouds had blown away to hinder
someone else, thank goodness. I was able to follow the blood trail
much better with the moonlight. I made much better time but it had
been so long that the deer could have made it to either coast by
now. I still had hope though. I kept finding the blood trail so I
continued to follow it. Soon I saw the buck lying on the ground
breathing hard. He wasn’t all the way down yet. I walked around him
and saw the spear had been broken off but the part with my shoelace
and knife were still embedded in his neck. Man, I had gotten
so
lucky.

I tried to approach the deer and he tried to
get up. I backed up because Mr. Black had told me they could kill a
person if they kicked them in the right spot. I waited a bit longer
and he finally put his head down. Poor thing, I thought. I killed
Bambi’s dad. I felt a lump in my throat and had to remind myself I
was still kind of hungry and I wanted to get back to the cabin.
Besides I hadn’t even cried for the
man
I had killed! I will
admit though, the deer hadn’t posed a threat to me and was much
more attractive. Callous thoughts, but that’s what was bouncing
around in my skull at the time.

The deer kept his head down at my second
approach and when I got to him he was still breathing so I finished
the job. There was no recovery for him even if I did want to change
my mind. I had found out the hard way just how sharp my knife was
and the repeated throwing it at trees and into the ground must not
have dulled its edge at all. I proceeded to gut the deer. Man, it
stunk! I stuck it out though. I gagged when I had to stick my hands
inside and found the deer felt hot. It had never occurred to me I
would experience all these different sensations while cleaning out
my buck.

When I finished emptying the unnecessary
parts out on the ground I tried to pick him up on my shoulders to
haul him back to camp. I got him up there, but figured it would be
easier to drag him. I made good time back to camp. When I got there
I sat and rested for a while and admired my kill. I was proud, I
wanted to show it off. I decided I would try to haul it into Mr.
Black’s camp and surprise the hell out of him.

I started to drag the deer again, but soon I
was too close to his signal. I didn’t want to alert him to my
presence before I was on top of him. I let go of the buck’s antlers
and closed in on Mr. Black’s signal in a circling motion. Finally,
I saw the embers of a fire and a shape inside a bedroll. I
carefully and quietly went back for my buck. This time I hoisted it
on my shoulders and trudged as quietly as I could toward Mr.
Black.

I walked right into his camp and he didn’t
hear me. I got right next to him and his hand shot out of his
bedroll and knocked me to my feet. The buck fell down on top of me
and I was pinned.

“
What the hell!” Mr. Black hollered in
the moonlight. I don’t think he could see me under the
buck.

I laughed and he said, “Shit. What the hell
is this?” His voice had changed from surprised and pissed to
disbelief and awe.

“
This is my ticket back to the cabin,”
I replied.

“
Damn right,” he said. “I thought you
were just hiking around. I had no idea you were going to try for a
deer or I would have kept watching you tonight.”

“
Sorry you missed it,” I
said.

“
Well, we might as well get started
back down. It’ll be light in about an hour and a half anyway,” he
said as he started to pack his stuff up. “You can leave him here
and pack yourself up. I’ll meet you at your camp and then you will
have to carry him back down to the cabin.”

I hurried back to my camp and packed up my
stuff and was about to nod off when Mr. Black came toward me and
dropped the buck at my side. I had the pack on and it was hard to
get the deer up over it. Finally, Mr. Black lifted the deer onto my
shoulders and we commenced the trek back down the hill. It took
most of the rest of the day to get back to the cabin but we started
early enough that we had enough light to butcher the deer outside
before Mr. Black took it inside and down the trap door. Turns out
there was a large room down there that held a little bit of
everything, including, a walk-in freezer. It also turns out the
freezer was fully stocked!

*****

That night Mr. Black cooked dinner for me. We
had a roast we had cut from my deer. I thoroughly enjoyed it too.
He even did the dishes while I showered. Even though I had missed
the niceties of the hot shower and a bed with a mattress, I was
glad Mr. Black had forced me to be on my own out there. I know I
really wasn’t alone and I knew that then too, but I think if I had
to be alone in a situation like that, I could do it now. It would
still be daunting, but I could do it.

I had no trouble falling asleep that night.
It could have had something to do with the fact I had a full
stomach and hadn’t slept since yesterday, but I think it had more
to do with the feeling of satisfaction I had.

Mr. Black let me sleep in the next morning. I
didn’t sleep in too late though. I was still up not long after the
sun was. The morning still had that new feeling to it. He was
sitting at the table sipping a cup of hot coffee. Can you believe
it, I hadn’t thought of coffee once while away. I poured myself a
cup and said, “Why did you let me sleep so late?”

“
You deserve it,” was his
response.

I agreed with him but it wasn’t like him. I
did say though, “I am pretty proud of that buck.”

“
I think you got lucky, but you did
carry it all the way back here without a complaint,” he
said.

“
Of course I didn’t complain. I didn’t
even notice it was all that heavy until we started hauling it down
to the freezer,” I said. “I understand I
needed
to learn
what I did up there but it still is frustrating to know all this
time there was meat in the freezer,” I said with a smile. If I had
been told I probably wouldn’t have been as motivated to get meat of
my own.

“
Getting you back to show you the
freezer was the highlight of my week,” he said, smiling that
wonderful smile of his. There was something about this man I liked.
I think it was his no-nonsense attitude and the surprise of getting
a smile out of him. Just getting him to smile was an accomplishment
in itself and I had accomplished that too, more than a dozen times
now that we had been up here again.

“
What are we going to do today?” I
asked.

“
I think we both deserve a jump today,
if you’re up to it,” he said.

“
I was hoping you’d suggest that,” I
said. I sat for little bit longer and then started to get my chute
ready. Mr. Black sat a while longer after I was ready, then we
headed up to the cliff. We had brought our climbing gear too and
climbed the cliff instead of hiking to the top. Our jump went great
and we both were exhilarated when we reached the foot of the cliff.
We went to the lake after that and practiced our hand-to-hand
skills. I was quicker than he was, but I had always been quick. If
he managed to get his hands on me though I was hurting before I
could get away. He could still take me once in a while but I could
take him now too and did more often. We spent the rest of the day
beating on each other. That evening it had reverted back to me
being the cook so I made fresh bread and we had roast sandwiches.
It was a great change to have one more ingredient to cook
with.

The next morning Mr. Black let me sleep in
again. It was strange not having him in my face before the break of
dawn. I walked out of my room to find him sitting at the table
again with his morning coffee.

“
Why did you let me sleep longer
again?” I asked with a little apprehension.

“
You get up early enough on your own.
If I had any other new recruit up here, they wouldn’t get up until
I yelled at them. You’re receiving the respect you’ve earned,” he
said. “Just don’t take advantage of it or I’ll have to start
working again,” he smiled at me.

I had seen him in this good mood before but
never for more than half a day and now he’d been like this for two
days straight. I wasn’t sure about this. Don’t get me wrong, I
enjoyed it, but it was different.

“
What’s on the agenda for today then?”
I asked.

“
Now, we can have some fun. I figure if
they want us back they can come get us. We’re on vacation now.” He
put his hands behind his head and said, “I thought we might take in
some scuba diving today. There’s this great place I want to show
you.”

“
Sounds good to me,” I said as I was
pouring myself a cup of coffee. I cooked some powdered eggs for
breakfast and made some toast to go with them. They still weren’t
like fresh eggs, but if you ate them fast enough it was hard to
tell the difference.

After we ate I cleaned up the plates and the
rest of the kitchen. Mr. Black had retreated to the place under the
trap door that he called the cellar. It was not quite what I would
call a cellar though. I had never heard of a cellar containing
climbing equipment, scuba gear or a walk in freezer.

He came back up with the diving equipment. I
wondered about the air tanks. Had they been refilled since we used
them last? I asked Mr. Black about this and he said as soon as we
were told we were to come back up here, everything was
replenished.

“
We usually have someone come check
things out at least once a month,” he explained. “This place
doesn’t sit dormant long.”

We suited up before we went to the lake. Out
of the blue during the small hike Mr. Black said, “Since we are on
vacation now, you can call me Adam if I can call you Alex or Lexi.”
He raised his eyebrows into a question.

“
Sure,” I said. “This is going to take
some getting used to. Adam Quinn,” I tested it out. Not bad but he
was still Mr. Black to me.

When we reached the lake Mr. Black asked me
if I was claustrophobic. I said, “No.”

He replied, “Good. We’re going cave
diving.”

Whoa, this guy did it all. What a life I was
leading and I think I was getting paid for this too.

I followed him to the bottom of the lake and
he led me straight to the opening of a cave. The current was strong
and the water temperature coming from the cave was ice cold. I
assumed this was a huge natural spring of some kind. We swam inside
and it was amazing. I had done a little research on caves and had
been spelunking, or cave crawling, twice. It had been hard work but
the rewards were spectacular views and formations.

This cave was different than the other cave I
had been in. It was larger for one thing. There were tight spots we
had to navigate through but they were large enough that we could
pull ourselves along and not touch the ceiling with our backs. Some
of the spots had been small enough that we had to take off our
tanks and pass them ahead of us, but none of them required us
squishing ourselves flat to get through.

We swam along and Mr. Black pointed things
out to me with his light here and there. It seemed to go on
forever. We stayed close to the ceiling of the cave because there
was a rope to follow. Every once in a while we would come to a
split in the rope with one leading into the darkness ahead, still
strung out on the ceiling, but there would be another rope snaking
off a different direction or down to the darkness below. At one of
these spots I shined my light down the rope and the light ran out
before the rope did. I wondered what was down there.

We had been swimming for I don’t know how
long but finally Mr. Black and I surfaced into a huge room. When my
head broke the surface of the water all I could hear were the
echoes of us swimming around in the cave. I couldn’t see the other
side of the water. We were in an underground lake. This just got
better and better.

“
This is huge,” I whispered.

“
Just wait,” Mr. Black said looking
back at me.

We swam on ahead and I moved my light back
and forth to catch a glimpse of an end to the lake. Before long I
was able to see rocks jutting out of the water. Some of them seemed
to go on forever above me and below while some of them barely broke
the surface. Then I saw the wall of the room. It was covered with a
beautiful ribbon-like formation. They were larger than any I had
ever seen but they still looked just as fragile.

We finally reached what could be called the
shore of the lake. It was more like a lip of rock covering the
surface of the lake that continued on underneath it. We climbed out
and moved in a bit to find a place to sit so we could take off our
fins.

Mr. Black said, “So, what do you think?”

I was literally dumbfounded by the sound of
his voice reverberating off the walls back at me. Finally it
subsided and I replied, “Remarkable, mind-blowing.” Then I sat back
and listened to my own voice talk to me from the darkness.

“
We didn’t bring the necessary
equipment this time but we’ll get back up in here and I’ll show you
where it comes out,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow,” he
added.

“
This is spectacular,” was all that I
could say as I shined the light in every direction trying to take
it all in.

We walked around for a little while. The lip
that covered the lake was smooth and continued on for quite a
distance. Here and there I would see what looked like a gigantic
stalagmite coming up from the ground. Then when we reached the edge
of the lip the ground got much more uneven. Now I understood what
he’d been talking about when he said we hadn’t brought along the
right equipment. We couldn’t navigate the cave without proper
footwear and ropes and not risk serious injury.