But what’s he hiding? Has Caleb found pieces of that old fighter jet after all?
As I watch him flatten himself against the wall and pull his black hat low over his eyes, I know what it is I’m going to do.
The fire has died down to just a few embers by the time I move, crawling on my hands and knees right past him, to the back of the cave, where I feel coarse burlap under my hands.
I’d like to blame it on the fever. I know I can’t. I know full well that what I’m doing is stupid, that I’m taking an awful chance messing with someone crazy as Caleb Madliner. But I know more than that too. I know it’s wrong to be snooping on people—even people like him. I do it just the same.
The sack’s heavy and I find I need both hands to draw it forth from its hiding place. Quiet as I can, I work that drawstring loose, the threads rustling softly as they come free, and it’s a tiny little sound but one so loud in that stony dark that I suck in my breath and wait for Caleb to spring up.
He don’t move a muscle.
Caleb’s sack lies open before me on the cave floor, but there’s just one last problem: it’s too dark to see.
Getting down to my last good idea, I tiptoe back to the fire and, with a few hushed breaths, heat up those coals. I find a twig with a few dry leaves clinging to it, light them, and creep once again to the back of the cave. Sweat pours down my face now. My heart is slamming against the inside of my ribs.
A wild and terrible idea rises in my mind as I reach for that sack a second time, the thought that I could steal one of those pieces. My heart skips a beat. Oh, it’s a sin to steal, but if it saved Pete’s life, wouldn’t it be worth it? A way to save the whole expedition. A way to save my brother.
The whole weight of that mountain bears down on me as with trembling hands I lift that flap and—
Two round, black eyes stare into my soul.
All the breath leaves my body in a rush of fear.
Staring back at me is a great-granddaddy of a snapping turtle, the biggest I have ever seen, with folds of pale skin and an enormous triangle head and a beak mouth that’s opening wider and wider, showing a vast satiny-white cavern within.
The creature rises on knock-kneed dinosaur legs and hisses, and then a cold voice from behind me says:
“Does he look hungry to you, Jack?”
Dad told me stories of a man he knew as a boy, Dutch Billy, who used to hunt snappers in the slow-moving parts of Apple Creek. He only had seven fingers.
He’d catch the snappers alive and bring them back and turn them loose in his cellar. And whenever he wanted one, he’d just go down and grab it by the short, fat tail and take it out back, where he’d waggle a piece of rebar in front of it until the turtle chomped down. Since snappers never let go once they bite, Dutch Billy would just pull its head out from under the shell and hack it off with an ax. Even then he’d have to toss the rebar, with the bloody stump of a head clamped down on it. Never could get those jaws open once it was dead.
I remember all of that as I stare into reptile eyes that gleam right back at me in fiery light.
The hand that closes over my mouth buries my scream before it even begins. Caleb is there, his arm pinning me against him, and with his other hand he grabs my wrist and squeezes until I drop that burning brand.
“Should have left it alone, Jack,” he whispers.
In the wavering light, that ancient snapper takes one lumbering step forward, its head gliding out toward me. And slowly, ever so slowly, Caleb stretches my hand toward it, moving my fingers toward that pale, gaping mouth.
“Like I said, he’s hungry, and you’ve got fingers enough.”
It must be a nightmare. A feverish nightmare. I’m dreaming. I shut my eyes hard as I can but when I open them again, that snapper is there just like before and my fingers are sliding closer and closer to that awful mouth. I’m awake. Caleb Madliner is feeding my fingers to a snapping turtle while my brothers and my dog sleep not ten feet from us.
The snapper lifts its enormous head and hisses once more, and I know it’s preparing to bite when I get a last, desperate idea.
I bite first. Hard as I can on the hand over my mouth. Caleb gives a startled cry and his grip goes loose for just a moment, but it’s all I need. With every ounce of strength in my little body, I burst away from him. Then I scream.
A lot happens then.
Everybody comes awake.
Caleb seizes the sack and yanks the string shut, closing the loop over the hideous head.
Butch barks.
In my blind rush to get away from the snapper, I crash into someone—Will, who falls into Pete. All three of us Elliot boys go down in a heap on the cave floor.