Jase & the Deadliest Hunt (4 page)

WHEN YOU WAKE UP,
you can feel the throbbing of your cheek. You can also tell it’s bandaged up. You look around and realize you’re back at the lodge in your own bed. You’re really groggy.

“Ah, back to life.”

Winchester is standing in the doorway.

“What happened?”

“Well, the good news is that you’re still in the hunt. The bad news is your brother managed to take off a chunk of your beard
 
—and your cheek too
 
—when he shot the gopher.”

Somehow you’re not surprised. But you can deal with Willie later. Right now you have some questions, and you’ve got Winchester all to yourself.

“Tell me something, Winchester.”

“Yes, sir?”

“This island,” you begin. “Are there any normal animals?
Ones that aren’t outrageously big or strangely colored or laughing at you
 
—literally?”

“It is a strange island indeed.”

“A gopher? I almost died because of a gopher.”

“It would have been a pity,” he says.

Would have been a pity?
You shake your head.

“Well, Willie’s gonna pay for this.”

“He does feel bad,” Winchester assures you.

“He
should
feel bad. He shot me!”

“If it’s any comfort, you won’t have any guns to choose from tomorrow. Only the crossbow and the sword.”

You don’t say anything, but you’re pretty sure Willie could inflict a lot of damage with those too.

Willie is extremely and unusually apologetic when he comes into your room. You realize he not only feels guilty but was scared by what happened. So you play it off like it was nothing big. Yes, a bullet grazed your cheek. But hey, things happen. Gophers laugh. Bullets graze. Life is a grand mystery.

“So I guess tomorrow we’ll be going to Mount Fear,” Willie says when he visits again before bed.

“Can’t be much worse than the beach,” you joke.

Willie doesn’t reply.

“Well, it
could
be worse, but it won’t be,” you add, trying to lighten the mood. “We still have the crossbow and the sword to choose from.”

“I’ll keep both away from you,” he promises.

As you eat in the dining room that evening, you feel like the animal heads are watching you. You feel like the people in the paintings are staring down at you.

You feel sorta creeped out.

“I’m beginning to really miss home,” you tell the guys.

John Luke and Cole agree.

The night is dark outside the windows, and the wilderness around you seems to be alive with noise.

“I’d hate to have to go out there now,” you say. “I bet there are lots of creatures we have yet to see.”

“I’m going to get that gopher stuffed so you can put it up at home.” Willie actually seems to think this is a good idea.

“Thanks, but that’s too much.”

“I insist.”

“I insist that you don’t. I don’t want a rodent in my house. Real or stuffed.”

You wonder if you’ll see the count tonight. But he doesn’t appear, and nothing unusual happens. Maybe he’s leaving you alone because of what happened.

Later on, as you’re about to go to sleep in your bedroom, Willie comes in again and asks how you’re feeling.

“Oh, I don’t know,” you say. “I sorta feel like I got shot by my brother.”

“Man, I’m sorry!”

“You’ve already said that twenty times. I know. I’m kidding. I’m glad it’s nothing worse.”

“I don’t like this island,” Willie says.

“Yeah, me neither.”

Willie looks around the room, then whispers, “No, I
really
don’t like it. I want to get off it. ASAP.”

You nod but don’t say anything because you’ve begun to wonder if the room could be bugged.

“Two more days, right?” you finally say.

This doesn’t seem to comfort Willie. “I got a bad feeling.”

“That’s not good. ’Cause I’m usually the one who gets those.”

“Yeah.”

You try to change the subject. “So which weapon are we choosing tomorrow?”

Willie shakes his head. “Whatever’s gonna get us out of here.”

Which one will it be?

If you pick the crossbow,
go here
.

If you pick the sword,
go here
.

YOU STAND IN THE CENTER
of a rope bridge hanging four or five stories above the river. This is where the river begins to form, just below the falls between Mount Fear and the jungle. You’re holding your sword and begging those ducks to join you.

“Come on out,” you shout. “Come on.”

And one by one, they get on the bridge and start waddling toward you. From both directions.

I have you now.

You grab a part of the bridge in one hand and hold the sword steady in the other.

This might hurt.

Rewind six hours, and you’re standing in the middle of the river, your katana at the ready but no animals in sight.

“Hey, Jase, you caught any fish yet?” Willie yells.

He and the boys are up the bank at the edge of the jungle. You’re wading in the water.

No, make that
waiting
in the water.

A couple hours have already gone by, and you’ve seen nothing.

Yesterday you searched and searched and then a boar nearly bowled you over. Today you’ve got nothing.

Not much of a hunting expedition.

“You guys see any tracks or any trace of anything?”

“I smelled some bacon,” Willie jokes.

“I’m a bit tired of the bacon humor,” you say.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, it’s getting old. Hey
 
—want some pork and beans for lunch?”

Sometimes your younger brother can be funny and sometimes he can be annoying. Actually, he’s annoying most of the time. Occasionally he can be funny
while
being annoying. No, he’s not really that funny, but he’s always annoying.

You came into the water just to cool yourself off. Your face and hair and beard and neck are still damp from where you doused them in the river. You look to the sky and hear a commotion from the hill above you.

John Luke is chasing after something. All of a sudden, a bright shape darts into the sky.

It’s a duck. A golden duck.

Oh, I wish I had a shotgun right about now.

You rush to the edge of the bank and join the guys, who are all out of breath.

“Did you see it?” Willie asks.

“The flying duck that looks like a bar of gold?” you ask. “Nah, didn’t see it.”

“I
almost
had it,” John Luke says.

Willie gives you a look that you don’t have to ask about. You both realize it’s going to be almost impossible to get a kill today. You have swords.
Swords.
Which is a problem for several reasons:

1. None of you are ninjas, even though Willie occasionally tries to act like one.
   
2. Ducks might not be the fastest animals in the world, but they can do something this duck just happened to do:
   fly
   .
   
3. You can’t exactly use the sword for anything once the duck is flying. And it’s always,
   always
   going to fly away.
   

So you’re almost ready to call it a day.

“Who picked the sword again?” Willie asks, then turns to his son. “Oh yeah. Good call, John Luke.”

“You said to be creative.”

“Yeah. There’s creative, and then there’s duck hunting with a sword.”

You’re all standing there trying to figure out what to do when you see the same duck (or maybe an identical golden bird) land at the edge of the river where you left your bag.

“Hey, look at that thing,” you tell the gang.

“It’s peeking in your bag,” Cole says.

“Think it wants your lunch.”

The duck takes hold of your lunch container and begins picking at your peanut butter sandwich.

“Stop eating my lunch!”

It not only ignores you but seems to go into some kind of frenzy while eating the sandwich. Its head bobs up and down in a wild, jerky manner.

“It likes your sandwich,” Willie says with a laugh.

The golden duck starts nipping and ripping at your lunch container once it’s finished with the sandwich. You all run down there, assuming it’ll fly off. But it doesn’t. For a while it remains in this manic state, trying to find something else to eat.

“It might want more peanut butter,” John Luke says.

“That’s crazy,” you say. “That thing’s probably gonna get really ill eating that. Ducks aren’t supposed to have high fat content. They’re waterbirds.”

“Dr. Jase, the duck nutritionist,” Willie says.

“Whatever.”

You unsheath your sword and get closer to the golden duck, but it finally flies off into the river. After examining the damage, you confirm that you won’t be having lunch today.

“Thing ate my entire sandwich.”

“I brought a whole jar of peanut butter,” Cole says.

“You did?”

“Yeah. The big jar. I figured we might be hungry.”

A crazy idea hits you a few minutes later, when the rest of the guys are eating their lunches in front of you. John Luke and Cole give you some parts of theirs. Willie, of course, decides to take some of their offerings for himself.

“If you were a kindhearted brother, you’d offer me your sandwich,” you tell him.

“If I were a dumb brother, I would have left my bag next to the river for an animal to get into.”

You open the jar of peanut butter Cole brought and scoop some out with your pocketknife. Then you smear it on a leaf and set it on a flat stone edging the river.

“What are you doing?”

“Let’s watch.”

You make sure everyone is a safe distance away from the peanut butter.

Sure enough, the duck floating on the water somehow ends up realizing the peanut butter is there.

“Wait
 
—can ducks smell?” Willie asks.

You shake your head. “What kind of Duck Commander would ask that question?”

“I don’t know if they smell or not. I just shoot them.”

“They have a good sense of smell.”

But this is a special duck you’re talking about. A golden one
 
—a kind you may never see again.

It circles above all of you for a while, then lands on the peanut butter. But interestingly enough, a couple other golden friends join it. Ducks who look exactly the same.

This time it’s Willie who decides to attack. He runs after the ducks, and it’s almost as if they’re in slight disbelief at the sight of this big, bandanna-wearing dude running at them with a sword. They’re like,
Really?

Then they fly away.

“Wow, you showed them,” you tell Willie.

“I wanted to see if they’d finish the peanut butter.”

You all examine the leaf.

“Oh, they finished it, all right.”

This gives you another idea. (Sometimes you wish you could get paid for the ideas in your head. You’d be the richest man in the world.)

Your idea ends up working too. Every now and then they turn out well. Who knew ducks liked this kind of food?

Slowly the afternoon sinks by as you keep luring more and more ducks with peanut butter. It’s working, but the peanut butter in the jar is getting lower. And the minutes in the day are ticking away. Soon there won’t be enough of either for you to work with.

“Okay, we have one last chance,” you tell the boys.

And yes, you’re including Willie in that description.

You’re standing at the edge of a cliff on the mountain you’ve spent the last half hour climbing. The others are right behind you. They didn’t want to miss out on any adventures. There’s a rope bridge hanging between the cliff and the other side of the divide, a wobbly sort of bridge that could have been used in an Indiana Jones movie.

Hence idea number 454,201.

“What are you gonna do now?” Willie asks.

“Give me that jar of peanut butter,” you tell Cole.

You open it and notice there’s still enough left. You put one hand in the jar and begin smearing peanut butter over your face, your pants, and your T-shirt.

“Have you lost your mind?” Willie says.

“Maybe. But we’re gonna catch one of those ducks.”

Once you’ve used up the peanut butter, you stand in the middle of the rope bridge. They won’t be able to resist this.

Sure enough, it works. One by one, the golden ducks start walking toward you, slowly but steadily. Willie, John Luke, and Cole all watch from the mountainside.

You lift your sword and think about Indiana Jones again.

The ducks get closer. Closer.

Almost here. Almost.

One of them is within reach. That’s when you begin to attack.

And that’s when things go terribly wrong.

You’re lashing and swiping and swinging and slashing, and then . . .

You’re falling.

You’re swimming.

You’re drowning.

You’re out.

When you awake, you’re in your bed at the lodge. You’re wearing a bathrobe and have the world’s worst headache. Willie’s sitting in a chair next to you.

“What happened?”

He shakes his head. You can see a big ole grin underneath his big ole beard.

“You know what makes a rope bridge cool?” Willie asks.

“Oh no. Here we go.”

“That it’s rope. And you know what’s cool about rope? You can cut into it. So you know
 
—on a rope
bridge
, why in the world would you attack ducks with the sharpest sword in the known universe? Wouldn’t you think
 
—?”

“Yeah.”

Willie laughs. “I mean, I would think that
 
—”

“Uh-huh.”

“Any logical man would know
 
—”

“Absolutely,” you say. “So are we done?”

“Oh yeah, we’re done,” Willie says. “‘Hi, Korie. This is Willie. Yeah, we got ourselves a big, fat boar that we’re bringing home. But no. We couldn’t find anything else. Jase almost killed himself cutting down a rope bridge.’”

“Tell her I said hello.”

“Oh, I will,” Willie says as he leaves the room. “I will.”

You lie still for a minute before you smell something familiar.

Peanut butter.

You realize you’ll probably never eat peanut butter again for the rest of your life.

THE END

Start over.

Read “Let the Good Times Roll: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”