Six Days Had Passed

 
 
            The sun rose and set upon the Great Forest, and its cloud cover, six times. There were drizzly days and a couple of sunny ones.
            On the seventh morning while sitting by the fire, watching Ramona moving around getting breakfast on the road, Ralph heard the unmistakable sound of high-powered rifle fire. He frowned. Ramona whipped around and looked at him open mouthed. Neither said a word.
            Ralph and Ramona were still staring at each other in astonishment or perhaps dismay when they began to hear the sound of a large four footed animal approaching.
            “What?” said Ralph.
            “Is it Hugo?” said Ramona.
            They both watched the main trail that leads past Ralph’s favorite log and out into the meadow up to the north. It wasn’t long before Hector riding a limping Hugo appeared.
            “Hector, what in the world has happened?” called Ralph when he saw his cousin.
            “I’m afraid Hugo has injured a hoof. Climbing a steep path his left side rear hoof found a very sharp rock. We hadn’t gotten very far away, only a day’s travel. We camped and rested and then walked back this direction. Hugo needs to rest and heal.
            “But that’s not the end of it! Hugo was shot by a man with a gun. It must have been from a very great distance. He carries the bullet in the same leg, and it hurts him when he walks,” said Hector.
            Hugo did indeed look unhappy and tired and maybe a little skinny. Hector didn’t look very happy either.
            “You must stay with us while Hugo heals,” said Ralph. “Come and sit by the fire and let’s plan what to do next. Hugo must go to the meadow and eat and grow strong again. But he might be in danger from the same hunters. Something needs to be done.”
            “I think I know who can find the bullet in Hugo’s leg and pull it out,” said Ramona. “Would you call Maeve, Ralph. That beak is a very sharp long tool. I think she can make quick work of it.”
            Ralph did call Maeve, and like always she seemed to hear him wherever she was. She drifted down out of the sky.
            “What’s up, Boss?” inquired she.
            “Hugo is back, but carries a bullet in a wound in his leg. Do you think that you might be able to grip it with your long sharp beak and pull it out?” asked Ralph.
            “I can try,” said Maeve, glancing over at Hugo. “Please let him know that I’m trying to help him!”
            So Hector put his arms around Hugo’s neck and while he was explaining to him what the big black bird was trying to do, Maeve hopped over and inspected the wound. It was in the lower part of his leg where there wasn’t a great depth of flesh.
            “I think I can,” she said. Then, using her beak like a surgical tool, she entered the wound, found the bullet and with some effort pulled it out.
            “Ah, thank you, Birdy,” said Ralph. “Ramona thought you were the one who could get it out.”
            Hector thanked her and Hugo looked relieved.
            Ramona got Maeve a cup of water from her bucket, so Maeve could rinse her beak.
            “Now. We can’t have people coming into the Great Forest and shooting rifles,” said Ralph. “Something must be done. It just can’t be allowed to stand. Are you with me Hector?”
            “Of course,” said Hector, glancing at Hugo. “They might kill him next time!”
            “OK, then. We must find these hunters and make them regret coming out here. We must fix them, so they don’t ever want to see this place again!” said Ralph.
            “We’ll hunt the hunters,” said Hector in agreement.
            “It sounded, to me, like they must be over in the direction of the river,” said Ramona.
            “Let’s go talk to Bob. He can watch over Hugo while we find and deal with the hunters,” said Ralph.
            It only took a few minutes to find Uncle Bob at the Stump House sitting outside with Aunt Suzie. Ralph explained to him what had happened and what they were going to do and asked him to just watch over Hugo. Suzie and Bob both agreed to kind of keep an eye on Hugo while he ate and rested and got some meat on his ribs.
            Ralph reckoned that Ramona’s sense of direction was about right, or at least a good place to start, so he and Hector began their search for the hunters at the river. It was the right direction, but it seemed as if the sound had come from further out. They were going to have to cross the river.
            Forest people are strong swimmers. This little river was no challenge realistically. Ralph and Hector did their invisible thing just in case the hunters were near. They didn’t want to be seen. Though being seen does have its own utility. But for this mission they felt not being visible was better. Who knows? These goobers might take a shot at a Ralph or a Hector, if fully visible.
            They plunged into the forest, going further than Ralph usually went. They walked straight out from the river for a while, until they heard something. It was voices. Men’s voices.
            “I think I hit that moose,” said one. “I don’t know what the hell was riding it, Gary.”
            “A hallucination is probably what was riding it,” said Gary. “You believe too many things you see on YouTube Jimbo! Get real!”
            Gary and Jim were sitting on a log, taking a break, it looked like. There were four Rainier cans lying around their feet and they were working on the last two cans when Ralph and Hector found them. Ralph was almost sorry for them, but not too much. After all one of them had wounded Hugo and they were shooting in the Great Forest. Ralph didn’t approve.
            Ralph’s first gambit was the dead skunk in the middle of the road scent. He laid it on heavy. It didn’t bother him or Hector. It did bother Gary.
            “What the hell, Jim,” he said. “We better move. The wind must have shifted, and something died a long time ago upwind! Eww! I think I’m gonna puke!”
            “Not my fault, let’s just move,” said Jim. They left all six cans on the forest floor.
            They tried to escape the stench, but since Ralph and Hector were gliding silently along with them it didn’t work. No matter how far they walked the stink came right along with them.
            Hector whispered to Ralph, “I think I’ll do some orb stuff for them!” Ralph grinned. Invisibly of course.
            Little orbs of multi-colored balls of light appeared like a swarm of bubbles. They flew up in the men’s faces. They swatted them away, still hanging on to their rifles.                  When Gary set a foot down myriad little light bubbles burst up from his feet. He was breathing heavily, and his face was sweaty. His eyes were getting kind of mad-looking.
            “I told you every damn thing isn’t in the newspaper, Gary! Explain this,” screamed Jim, trying to see Gary through the swarms of tiny lights. “You get real, Gary! What is this?”
            They kept moving but they couldn’t escape the exuberance of the swarms. Ralph added some tinkly sound effects.
            “We’re getting farther away from the truck, Gary, we better turn around and go the other way,” said Jim. “We need to get out of here; there’s no game anyhow!” he screamed.
            Both men, weighed down with camping equipment in big packs, and their rifles started jogging heavily in between the brush, which might have been sort of a rough trail.
            Ralph and Hector had no trouble keeping up with them. It was easy. In fact it was hilarious, but they were silent for the most part. Gary and Jim were much too flummoxed to notice a little whispering between them.
            Hector was enjoying the bubble lights so much he just kept it up. One of those guys had injured his buddy and he was ticked.
            About the time the men were running out of breath and had slowed down, still looking wildly around, Ralph decided that it was time for his boulders rolling down the mountain sound effect. If a person didn’t know it was just sound, not boulders, it was terrifying. It started like a distant rumble, but got louder and louder until they noticed it.
            “Dear God, what’s that!” screamed Gary, who started running again. He didn’t notice that he had dropped his rifle.             Jim picked it up, but then when the noise got to him, as he was running too, he put both hands over his ears and dropped both rifles. Ralph made a note to see if Ranger Rick wanted them. He thought, “I could just bury them, but maybe Rick would have some use for them.” He would pick them, and the beer cans up on the way back through the forest.                   Ralph doesn’t like litter in the Great Forest.
            He knew they were getting near the parking lot where hunters often parked and that they would lose them there when they got in their truck. He was sure it would be a truck. He kept up the rolling boulders show, and Hector kept blowing bubbles of light.
            Gary and Jim were stumbling now, but they kept going, just trying to make it to the truck. For some reason, they felt that this would all end there, and maybe it mostly would.
            It sounded like the mountain was coming down on them. The little orbs flew faithfully with them.
            “Where are the rifles?” howled Gary as he hit the driver’s side of the pickup and wrenched his door open.
            “Damned if I know!” screamed Jim as he jerked the passenger side door open and threw his pack in first. "I'm not going back there for nothing!" Gary fumbled his pack off and ran around to the back of the pickup and threw his in there.
            Before they managed to escape, Ralph said in a voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once, huge, bellowing, horrifying, “NEVER RETURN!” It sounded worse than the boulders. It echoed in their minds like the crack of doom.
            Gary started driving before they got the doors shut. He floored it getting out of the parking lot and out onto the dirt road that joins the highway that finally ends in Milltown.
            Hector made sure some bubbly orbs made it into the cab with them. It could be that Gary and Jim would never be entirely free of them. Maybe not. It could cause problems for them at home. And home was a good place for those two.
            “You know, Hector,” said Ralph, “I don’t believe those two want to hunt out here anymore!”
            “I think they’re completely over it,” agreed Hector.
            “I wonder what Ramona is cooking, I’m getting kind of hungry, now that I think about it,” said Ralph. “I bet you are too!”
            “I am! I also wonder what the wonderful Lady Ramona is cooking!” said Hector.
            Then they walked back the same way they had chased the hunters out, scooping up the fancy expensive rifles and the beer cans. The guys had left the plastic bag that the beer came in, so it was easy to carry the cans out of the woods.                     Looking back, Ralph was pleased to see that there was no sign the Gary and Jim had ever been there, not ever cigarette butts. Apparently neither of them were smokers.
            Ramona had roasted three wild turkeys caught by Twigg and the puma brothers earlier in the day while Ralph and Hector were chasing the poachers out of the forest. They could have used a fourth, but it was enough and very tasty!

🦃