Uncle Press maneuvered the sled around the quig and ran while he pushed, trying to get more speed.
“Get the spear!” he shouted.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the beast. It reared up on its hind legs and let out a horrifying bellow that I thought would wake the dead. Or at least wake the other quigs. And that’s exactly what happened. Behind us, the snow around the other yellow spikes started to boil. The rest of the quigs were waking up.
“Bobby move!”
Uncle Press jumped onto the sled and I snapped to my senses. I dove forward to grab one of the spears. We were moving faster now, bouncing over the snow. It was tough to keep my balance. I stayed low and leaned over the side to try and untie one of the two spears.
“Hurry please,” came from the back. He was calm, but insistent. I turned to look and saw that there were now a dozen quigs behind us, shaking off the snow.
I shouldn’t have looked. The trouble was I had almost finished untying the spear and just as I looked back, the sled hit a bump. Before I realized what was happening, the spear worked itself loose and fell off! I tried to grab it, but it was too late. It clattered to the snow, just out of my reach. Gone.
“The other one! Now!” shouted Uncle Press.
I dove across the sled to get the other spear. I grabbed it and held it tight with one hand while fumbling to untie it with the other. There was no way I was going to let this one get away. Finally I worked off the strap and the spear was loose.
“Got it!” I shouted. I fell back, holding it up for Uncle Press to grab. Once he had it I got to my knees and looked behind us. To my horror, I saw that the quigs were now charging. It was like a stampede of snarling, vicious bears that had us in their sights. I had no idea what one little spear could do against this deadly onslaught.
“Steer!” shouted Uncle Press. “Keep it steady.”
I scrambled to the front of the sled and grabbed hold of the antlers. The sled responded perfectly. Whoever built this thing knew what they were doing. Still, Uncle Press was right. We weren’t going fast enough to lose the quigs. They were getting closer.
The first quig was far ahead of the others, and it was getting dangerously close. I kept glancing back over my shoulder to see what was happening. Uncle Press was amazing. He stood on the sled, backward, with spear in hand. I was getting used to seeing Uncle Press pull off stunts like this. Nothing surprised me anymore. Like Captain Ahab hunting Moby Dick, Uncle Press waited for the quig.
“Come on. Come on. Little closer,” he growled, taunting it.
The quig obliged. It was nearly on us. It charged forward with a bloodlust, ready to snap its jaws shut on Uncle Press.
“The whistle!” Uncle Press shouted back. “Blow it! Now!”
The whistle? What was a whistle going to do? But I wasn’t about to argue. While keeping one hand on the steering antlers, I fumbled for the carved whistle around my neck. The beast was almost on Uncle Press. I finally managed to grab hold of the whistle, pulled the leather cord over my head, put it to my lips, and blew.
It didn’t sound like anything. The thing must have been designed like one of those silent dog whistles where the sound was so high pitched that only dogs could hear it. Well, only dogs and quigs, and quigs didn’t like it. The beast suddenly opened its hideous mouth and let out another bellow that made the hair on the back of my neck stand out. It was a roar of pain, as if the high-pitched sound from the whistle was piercing its head.
That’s when Uncle Press struck. He hurled the spear like an Olympic javelin thrower. The deadly missile flew straight at the quig and stabbed into its open mouth! The beast let out a choked howl as the spear plunged into the back of its throat. It stopped short, kicking up a spray of snow as it fell to its side. Blood spewed from its open mouth like a gruesome fountain.
It was disgusting. But not as disgusting as what happened next. The other quigs caught up with the first one, and rather than come after us, they all stopped and pounced on their fallen brother. It was a frenzy feed, like you see with sharks when there’s blood in the water. I can still hear the sound they made as they tore into it, ripping it apart. The sound of flesh being torn away from cracking bones is not one I care to hear again. It was still alive, too. Its pained screams were horrifying. Thankfully, they didn’t last long.
I took one last look back and wished I hadn’t. At that moment one of the quigs looked up at us, and I saw that its mouth and fangs were smeared with the blood of its living meal. Now I knew what Uncle Press meant by “getting” one of the quigs.
“Look out!” he shouted.
I quickly looked ahead and saw we were seconds away from slamming into a boulder the size of a car. I turned the antlers, hard. The sled turned, but the back fishtailed into a skid that slammed us into the boulder. We kept moving, though the shock was so strong it threw Uncle Press to the floor of the sled. It nearly knocked me off too, but I grabbed the antlers in a death grip. It would take a heck of a lot more than a little bumping around to pry me loose. The only problem was, when I grabbed the antlers, I dropped the quig whistle. If the quigs came after us again, we’d be in deep trouble. We had no spears and no whistle. Why hadn’t I left the strap around my neck?
Now we were going fast. The slope turned double-diamond steep. I could see that we were about to reach the tree line. Up to this point we only had to maneuver across snow and avoid some boulders. Now we were headed into a forest.
“I got it!” shouted Uncle Press. He had made his way to the front of the sled and I was only too happy to let him take charge.
“I don’t suppose we’ve got brakes?” I shouted.
“I wish,” came the shouted answer. Bad answer. This wasn’t a nicely groomed ski slope. Oh, no. We were headed full-tilt boogie into the trees. The only thing that was going to stop us now was something solid. I didn’t want to find anything solid. That would hurt.
“Right! Lean right!” shouted Uncle Press. I did and he skirted us around a tree. “Stay with me! Watch where we’re going! Left!” he shouted.
It was like riding on the back of his motorcycle. We both had to lean into the turns to help make them. But the motorcycle had brakes and we didn’t have to drive it through a minefield of trees. This was terrifying. We were rocketing down on a rickety bobsled through a slalom course of rock-solid pine trees.
We flew past trunks with inches to spare. Left, right, right again. We were going too fast for Uncle Press to tell me which way to lean. I had to look ahead and anticipate what turns he was going to make. Branches slashed at our faces. We were so close to some trees I could hear them as we sailed past. The further down we dropped the more dense the forest became.
“There’s a clearing ahead!” he shouted. “When we hit it, I’m going to turn sharp right. Hopefully we won’t flip.”
Yeah, hopefully. And hopefully we won’t launch ourselves into a rolling tumble that’ll land us into a tree! Not that I had a better idea.
“When I make the turn, lean hard right!” he yelled. “We’re almost there.”
I looked ahead and saw it. Through the trees there was a field of white. That must be the clearing. But we still had a lot of trees between here and there, and we were still moving fast. Left, left, right. A few more turns and we’d hit the clearing.
“We’re gonna make it!” I shouted.
We didn’t. Our left runner hit a snow-covered root that kicked us up on our right side, but we kept going. Now we were on one runner and out of control. There were only a few trees between us and the safety of the clearing when we crashed. The sled hit a tree and spun us around. The force of the collision was huge. I mean, it rocked me. But I stayed with the sled. Uncle Press wasn’t so lucky. He was ejected.