Quite a Story to Tell

The cave had an unwelcoming aroma, to put it mildly: if either of the two young men possessed strong vocabularies, words like "pungent", "acrid", or "putrid" might've occurred to one or the other. As it was, the best Drubel Schnubel (yes, really) could manage was "peeeee-yew!"

"I think that's bat poop," said Fudmul Schruck.

"I think I might barf." Drub looked around for somewhere that seemed a clean, dry place to sit.

"We're stuck, I guess," said Fud. "We can't go back out in this, and it'll be dark soon."

The storm had caught them by surprise. Neither considered themselves outdoorsy types, but it seemed strange to Fud just how quickly the sky had gone from high clouds scooting across a mostly blue sky, to dark, then black, then drenching.

As luck would have it, they had overpacked (another word neither knew) for their afternoon hike through the woods looking for a hillcat. Fud had a knapsack with a canteen of water, a drinking cup, and a small meat pie. By some stroke of wildly good luck--something he was completely unused to--he also had a small box of matches.

Drub also carried a knapsack. His was mostly filled with food, some of it extravagantly inappropriate for a short hike, including a small jar of pickles and another of chicken gravy.

"I'll be right back," Fud announced suddenly, and jogged back into the tempest before Drub could object. He returned shortly, bearing some damp pine needles, a couple of pine cones, and a few fallen branches. "These might be dry enough to build a fire if we need to."

"Ooooh, maybe I can heat my gravy."

Fud started to ask if Drub had brought anything to heat it in, but thought better of it. "A fire will be smokey in here. I think we should hold off if we can." He looked around; even now the cave was dim, and he realized it would be very dark, very soon. A bolt of lightning lit the cave for a brief instant; Fud was able to tell the cave narrowed quickly as it went back into the side of the hill.

A few seconds later the crash of thunder made Drub jump. "My dad says if you count seconds between the lightning and the thunder, and divide by five, that gives the miles away." Drub's grammar wasn't strong, but Fud thought he understood.

Drub gave up trying to find somewhere nice to sit and plopped onto the floor of the cave. He began to unpack his knapsack. Out came the pickles, the gravy, three parcels of something wrapped in paper (Fud guessed sandwiches or maybe meat pies), a canteen, a napkin, and, much to Drub's delight, a pair of candles.

"You brought candles!"

"I think they were left in from when we went to try to find a bear," said Drub, as if that explained it.

Another flash of lightning, and Drub began to count: "one pretty pony, two pretty pony..."

Fud mustered every bit of willpower he possessed to refrain from laughing at his friend. Drub was socially inept, painfully so. Fud had learned long ago to give his friend room for his quirks and social missteps. When Drub got to seven, they heard the thunderclap. "About a mile and a half," he said an instant after the sound.

Fud briefly forgot about pretty ponies. "You did that in your head? That quick?"

Drub looked skeptically at Fud; he seemed to suspect some sort of trick. "Well, yeah."

"You're full of surprises, buddy," said Fud. "I can't do that so quickly."

Drub shrugged. “Well, I can't speak in front of people or make them laugh like you can. I'd much rather have that."

Fud sagged a bit. It was true; he was comfortable in all kinds of situations that made Drub uncomfortable, sometimes nearly to the point of panic. He wished he knew how to get Drub to believe he was fine, that everything would turn out well; sometimes, though, it was hard even to convince himself of that. It also sometimes seemed that when he tried to help, it just made things worse. He decided not to tell Drub that maybe counting "macaronis" instead of "pretty ponies" might be a good idea if he was around others.

Drub made a couple of small mounds of earth and set the candles in them. Fud tossed him the matches, and he lit one of the candles. "You're good at everything, Fud. I'm not good at anything." He opened one of the paper parcels, revealing a sandwich. "You make people laugh. You're good with your hands--you already have an apprenticeship at the saddlery. Everybody likes you." He paused for a moment. "I'm clumsy and tubby and nervous. I'm a mess."

Fud had been through this before with Drub. Sometimes it was easy to be supportive, but sometimes--like now--he just wished Drub would get over it already. He bit his tongue.

"I really wanted to see the hillcat," Drub continued. "I really, really wanted to. I wanted to go back to town and tell An..." he stopped himself suddenly. He took a deep breath, and sighed. "I wanted to tell people I saw it," he finished quietly. He sat silently for a moment then turned to look at his friend. "You know Goomie Alden likes you, right?" He shook his head. "So probably I'll lose my best and only friend to a girl."

Fud was gobsmacked. He'd had no idea Goomie liked him, and the thought of it made something inside him feel...strange. He couldn't describe it. It was like when he jumped off Dare Ya Ledge into Mirror Lake, like the feeling in his stomach as he started the twenty-foot drop into the lake. That feeling battled with the despair he heard in his friend's voice.

"Look." He wasn't sure what to say, where to start. "First, you're probably wrong about Goomie. And B, nobody's going to keep me from being your friend." He paused. "Probably you'll find a girl before I do." He was thinking hard about what to say next. Lightning flashed again, and with it, a thought flashed into his head. "Hey. Hey, buddy. You wanted to see the hillcat so you could tell a girl, right? Huh? Mister Drub, the hillcat tracker." He smiled in what he hoped was an encouraging way.

The silence, though short, was a bit deafening. Drub sighed again. "No. No, Fud, I didn't want to tell a girl." Another lightning flash. "Fud, I have to tell you something. Something scary. I've wanted to say something, but the time is never right, and I don't know if the time will ever be right," the words were coming in a rush, "so I'm going to tell you now. I'm not even sure I like...not even sure..." He was stammering.

There was a blinding flash of light, followed within a second or two by a tremendous thunderclap.

When the glare of the flash cleared from their eyes, there was someone in the cave with them.

What surprised Fud almost as much as the sudden appearance of the stranger was the realization that he wasn't frightened. He had the oddest feeling, though he'd never seen the person before, that he knew him, that he was familiar.

"Hi," said Fud and Drub together. They turned to each other and shared a look of...what was it...confusion, but not confusion; surprise, but not surprise.

"Hello," said the stranger. "Bad night out there. Glad to see you're safe and dry in here." He smiled faintly. "Can I join you for a bit?"

"Okay," they said, again in unison, and again shared a look neither could understand.

"Thank you," said the stranger.

Fud studied him, trying to place him. He failed. He was about to ask for a name when another lightning bolt, followed by ear splitting thunder, interrupted his thought.

"Ah," said the stranger. "I see you've got some wood and kindling. Shall we have a fire?"

"What about the smoke?" Fud clearly thought it was a bad idea.

"Oh, you probably didn't notice, but there's a little opening up there," he pointed to the rock ceiling above their heads, "and it leads outside. Sort of a natural chimney."

When they talked about it later, neither Fud nor Drub could remember much about the rest of the evening. As best they could remember, they talked with the stranger about a variety of things: their families, their friends, the crabby old man in the general store. They talked, and he listened, occasionally prompting; but they had no memory of the specifics.

The things for which the memories were clear happened sometime later.

Fud woke up and saw that the fire was out, and one candle had burned away; the other was more than half burned. The stranger was standing at the side of the cave. As Fud turned to him, he put a finger to his lips: be quiet, he was saying. He crooked a finger at Fud: come over here.

Fud stood and approached the stranger. When he was very close, the stranger whispered, "Be very quiet, absolutely silent, and keep your eyes on me."

Fud couldn't possibly have said, later, why he did as he was told, without a second thought, without any worry or fear at all. They stood silently facing each other for several minutes. Fud heard Drub stirring, then heard him gasp. "Fud!" Drub was calling in a stage whisper. "Look!"

Fud spun in time to see the now-frightened hillcat fly from the cave into the night. The storm had passed; it was quiet outside other than a whisper of wind through the trees. Drub's eyes were the size of saucers. "The hillcat! Fud, it was the hillcat!" He began laughing almost maniacally. "I saw it! Did you see it? I saw it! I woke up and I saw it!" He was still half lying down, but it seemed almost as if he was hopping.

Fud laughed along with him, and the stranger laughed also.

"Well, you two have been great company for me tonight," the stranger said. "Now I'd better be on my way." He turned to leave.

"Wait," they both started. The stranger turned. "Oh, I'll be quite alright," he said. "I've walked these woods at night any number of times. You both get some more sleep; you'll have quite a story to tell tomorrow."

As he disappeared into the darkness, Fud had an odd feeling. It was if he was waking from a dream. "Wait!" he called. "Wait, what's your name?" There was no answer.

The two friends looked at each other a long while without speaking. "It'll be a good story, that's for sure," Drub said finally. He curled back up and put his head on his knapsack. "I really saw it."