Fiction: The Old Man of the Mountain, pt 4

Looks like this isn't quite the final piece of the story. I'll finish it tomorrow night.

The Old Man of the Mountain, pt. 4

Tyler’s scream was broken briefly by a hacking cough as the water John poured over his face went down his throat. After that though his world was nothing more than screaming and pain. John cast about looking for something, _anything_ that could help his friend, but nothing came immediately to mind.

Tears welled up in his eyes. He had done everything he could to keep his friend from being doomed. Now instead of being turned to stone as John had dreamed Tyler would instead be poisoned by whatever it was that he had just ingested.

There were a series of thudding noises behind him, followed by the crack of stone on stone. John turned to see the grey form of the Old Man descending from the summit of the mountain. The Old Man’s normally expressionless face bore a grimace that made John’s run blood cold.

His first impulse was to run. It didn’t matter what direction he went in, his body was screaming at him to simply get away. He was so frightened however that he was frozen in place for a moment, and in that space his mind clung at a desperate straw of hope for both him and his friend.

He ran towards the Old Man. “Please!” he begged, “You have to help me!”

The Old Man continued down the hill towards him at a breakneck pace. He said something, but John couldn’t quite make it out in the cacophony of Tyler’s screaming. The Old Man, realizing that John could not hear him slapped his palm down on a boulder in frustration as he passed. There was that loud crack of stone on stone again followed by thudding as he ran closer.

Finally the Old Man was close enough to make himself heard.

“What did he do?” he asked, pointing to Tyler.

His voice was low and raspy. It was also incredibly quiet. John wondered for a moment at the incongruity of the strongest man he knew having such a quiet voice that he could apparently not shout. A fresh round of screams from Tyler shook him out of it.

“He drank something,” John said, pointing to the put where Tyler had filled his bottle.

“What?” the Old Man asked, incredulous. “What on earth made him do that?”

“It was the bushes down the hill, said John.  “He got some of the sap on him. We saw the men who had been turned to stone, and he thought this was how you kept from freezing solid like they did.”

Halfway through John’s explanation the Old Man was already moving. He scooped up a half-burned log from the fire and pulverized the blackened end between his hands. John boggled for a moment at the casual show of strength. He boggled again when the Old Man held out the resulting black powder to him.

“Make him swallow it,” said the Old Man.

“What?” John asked.

“Do it!” the Old Man ordered, in a wheezing voice that was apparently the closest thing he could manage to a shout. Dutifully, John took the powder from the Old Man and knelt next to his friend, trying to coax him into eating it. It made no sense, but John was no longer in a state to argue.

“Eat this,” he ordered Tyler. Tyler opened his mouth, and drew in a deep breath to scream. Tyler punched him right in the middle of the chest and knocked the wind out of him.

“Come on!” he shouted. “Eat it. The Old Man says eat it and he’s trying to help us.”

The Old Man for his part had run off into the log hut. He emerged a moment later, carrying the iron-bound box. As John fed the powdered charcoal into Tyler’s mouth the Old Man fished into a pouch hung around his neck and came up with a small key.

Taking slow, deliberate movements that John would have found infuriating if he were any less panicked he inserted the key into the lock on the front of the box and turned it. Nothing happened.

The Old man turned the key back and forth, trying to get the box to open. The lock stuck fast. Finally the key snapped off in his hand. With a grunt of anger the Old Man simply brought his hand down on one of the wooden panels of the box, smashing a hole through it.

He looked up just as John finished shoveling the last of the charcoal into his friend’s mouth.

“Stick your finger down his throat,” the Old Man ordered.

John wondered for an instant if the Old Man were just toying with him.

“Do it!” the Old Man wheezed again. “Make him throw up.”

John did as he was told. He forced Tyler’s now clenching jaw open with his left hand, and stuffed the index finger of his right hand down his friend’s throat. Tyler’s whines an moans were interrupted as he started to retch. He bit down reflexively, and John yelped as Tyler’s teeth bit deep into his left hand. He didn’t let go.

He rolled Tyler to one side as he began to vomit. The resulting mess stank of turpentine, and was black with the charcoal that he had fed his friend. John began to gag at the smell.

The Old Man had now torn the iron-bound box completely asunder, and was sorting through a series of buckskin pouches while apparently reading something. Whatever that something was it was still in the box, and John couldn’t see it.

The Old Man removed herb after herb from various pouches. Some of them John recognized, while some of them had appearances so strange John wondered if they were herbs at all. One even appeared to be a leaf-shaped sheet of crystalline stone. The Old Man ground the herbs together, cupping one hand and using the fingers of the other as a pestle to grind them.

The Old man looked up at John.

“Water?” he asked.

John haded over the bottle he had tried to make Tyler drink from. The Old Man took an experimental sniff at it,  then dropped the ground concoction of herbs into the bottle, shaking the bottle to mix them.

“You’ve seen my bushes?” the Old Man asked.

John, to nervous to speak, simply nodded.

“I need one of the thorn clusters. You know what those look like?”

John nodded again, and the Old Man handed a knife that hung from his belt on a rawhide loop.

“Go!” he ordered. “Don’t let the thorns break skin, and make sure it’s got sap still in it.”

John sprinted down the hill, skidding to a stop just before the closest bush. He grabbed for the nearest thorn cluster but stopped. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, and he was forced to take a moment to try to steady them before continuing.

With delicate, exaggerated care he grasped one of the bush’s branches. Slowly he separated one of the thorn-ridden twigs from the rest of the plant, and cut at it with the knife. It pulled away from the rest of the planet almost instantly and dropped to the ground. John grabbed at it reflexively but stopped himself before grabbing on to the twig. His breath caught briefly in his throat as he realized he had nearly clasped his hands around the cluster of thorns and doomed himself out of reflex.

He carefully picked the twig up off the ground and examined it to make sure that all of its “berries” hadn’t deflated. There were two left intact on the cluster, and he started back up the mountain. It was much slower going, and he took measured, careful steps to avoid losing the twig.

“Hurry up!” called the Old Man.

John didn’t quicken his pace. He didn’t trust himself to go any faster without losing the twig, and therefor needing to start over again. Finally he found himself again next to the fire pit. He gingerly held out the twig for the Old man.

The Old Man deftly grasped the twig behind the cluster of thorns and held it up to the mouth of the bottle. He carefully bent the tip of one of the thorns over it, letting the drop of sap from the tip drop into the mixture within. He handed the bottle over the John.

“Shake it,” he ordered. “Don’t spill a drop.”

John did as he was told, clamping the palm of his hand over the mouth of the bottle to seal it tight. After a few vigorous shakes the Old Man held out his hand for it.

“That’s enough.” he said/

He knelt next to Tyler, who by this time had gone from screams and moans to quietly whimpering on the ground.

“Drink this.” the Old Man ordered.

Tyler didn’r respond, except to look up a at the Old Man, panic, and try to roll away.

“We don’t have time for this!” wheezed the Old Man. “Drink it!”

He grabbed at Tyler’s arm to roll him back over. There was a wet crunch, a Tyler howled in pain. The Old Man startled, and jumped back. He looked genuinely ashamed.

“Sorry,” he said, handing the bottle over to John. “Make him drink it.”

Tyler rolled on the ground, clutching at his arm. He alternated between crying out in pain and coughing, and by this time he was coughing up blood. John knelt next to him, throwing himself across his friend’s body to try to hold him still.

“Come on!” he said, “You need to drink it!”

Tyler continued to howl and thrash. In desperation John punched him again just below the clavicle, driving the wind from him lungs again. Tyler gaped like a fish, and John held the bottle to his lips.

“Drink it!’ John said, taking on the commanding tone the Old Man had used with him.

“It’ll make you feel better,” he promised. John wasn’t sure that was true, but if it made Tyler drink the concoction John would tell any lie.

Finally Tyler inhaled deeply, coughed out a wad of phlegm and blood, and grabbed the bottle, raising it to his own lips. He took a shallow sip, gagged again, and the drank deep from the bottle. After a few gulps he collapsed back to the earth, continuing to cough weakly.

“That will make him sleep,” said the Old Man. A few moments later Tyler had indeed been rendered unconscious. The Old Man stood, and lifted John to his feet with one hand. The Old Man was silhouetted against the afternoon sun, and his imposing form cast a shadow over John that made his blood run cold.

“Now,” said the Old Man, “we’ll treat the broken arm a gave your friend here. Go get me a long, straight branch at least as thick as two of your fingers. When you get back you can explain to me why you two want to die.”