Adventures of Jacko the Conjurer by Jamie Ott (love books to read txt) 📕

Like wading through water, they took giant steps off the path, sinking feet deep each time they stepped toward the mountain rise. Sounds of branches breaking echoed through the trees. Every so often, a throng of snow would shake loose from a branch and blanket Jacko’s entire head.

An indescribably soft sound of relief sung out from him. In the rise, there was a five foot clear black hole.

“Do you think it’s safe?” Jacko asked his uncle.

“Give me a minute,” he replied.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out a flashlight, then disappeared into the black clearing.

“Are you okay?” he shouted into the cave.

“Yeah, come on in!”

Carefully, they walked into the darkness. Several feet in, Uncle Bally stood in the middle of an empty cave, looking quite pleased. Jacko grinned at the ceiling that rose well above their heads. They were walled in with ten feet of space, around.

“It’s perfect,” said Julius, looking just as happy as Jacko felt. He set his bag down. “I can already feel that it’s warmer in here than it is out there.”

“I’m gonna go get firewood,” said Jacko.

He set down his pack and left.

When he came back, it was to find his uncle had already gotten a fire started. Warmth of the blazes bounced off the cave walls and smothered their skin. Julius looked happy; his cheeks, rosy.

That night, Jacko relished sleeping without having to bury his head in his sack to keep in the warmth. It was a luxury to spend the entire night in slumber without constantly shivering. The next morning, when he woke, all the aches in his body had gone.

Happily, they rested the next two days in the cave. They hoped the snow would let up so they could keep hiking. The hours were spent mostly sleeping. On the third day, when they saw the snow wouldn’t let up, Julius became sullen.

“Don’t be so down,” said Uncle Bally. “You know we’ll make it.”

“I know. I’m just sick of this weather, and I keep thinking about what will happen if we run out of food while waiting, here. I know we’ll make it but I don’t want to suffer until then.”

“If we need to, we’ll send Jacko out to hunt. He’s skilled. Can you travel?” Uncle Bally asked, winking his eye.

If he meant fly off the mountain or conjure food, he was sure the answer was no. His powers still didn’t work on the mountain.

How long could a person could survive without food? He was pretty sure he’d heard two weeks, depending on a few factors including body fat ratio. Looking at Julius and his own skinny frame, he doubted they’d last that long.

When Julius left the cave for a moment, Uncle Bally asked, “Are you sure we’re still going in the right direction?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I can feel the summit like a heart. The higher up we get, the stronger the beat. We’re still a good ways off, though. My gut tells me that it’s at least a few days away, but with the snow mounting, making it safely will be a challenge. The only thing that keeps me from despair is that Julius’ dream-mother seems to know our fate.”

He pulled out his whiskey and took a sip.

“Maybe you should fly ahead, and then come back for us.”

He screwed the cap back on.

“No, I can’t. Remember, Oganat said the summit can only be found on foot. And besides, my powers seem to be limited, here. If I leave, I might have to trek all the way back.”

~~~

A few mornings later, sifting sounds echoed off the walls of the cave, calling Jacko from the mists of his mind. He tried to disappear back into the world where the sun shone again, and the Earth hadn’t had rain in weeks, but the sounds made earthquakes in his ear drums. And after each quake came the splattering. The splattering increased in frequency, followed by a huffing noise.

He rolled over and rubbed his eyes. Then like peeling an orange, he forced back his dry lids.

Repeatedly, Julius pushed and pulled at something white that blinded him for a few seconds, and then he threw the stuff into the corner of the cave.

Jacko sat up in his sleeping bag.

“Uncle Bally,” he said.

“Hm?” he groaned.

“We’re snowed in.”

For at least an hour, they pulled snow in with their hands because they only had one tiny shovel.

The cold traveled from the tips of his fingers all the way down to the middle of Jacko’s body. He could tell Julius and Uncle Bally were just as affected.

To conserve heat and wood, they reduce the size of their fire. Instead, they settled for huddling when they took breaks from digging snow.

Then Uncle Bally told them to stop.

“We need to stop just pulling all the snow away, and dig a smaller hole.”

“Why do we have to dig at all? Don’t you know any good survivalist tricks?” Jacko whined.

“What? You mean the one where we just walk through solid snow, like we’re ghosts or something? That trick?”

“This is no joke, Bally,” said Julius. “We might freeze.”

“We won’t freeze,” he said, rolling his eyes and rubbing his damp hands over the fire. “Snow provides great insulation. Haven’t you ever heard of an igloo? Right now, this cave is blockaded by so much snow that we need to focus on burrowing out a small hole. To do that, it’ll be easier if we take turns at it. The hole will be just big enough for one of us to pass through, at a time.”

“Why?” asked Jacko.

“Because if we haven’t reached the top yet, it means that there’s so much snow blocking us in that we could kill ourselves trying to get out, if we’re not careful. If we focus on digging out a smaller area, we’ll dig out a longer trail more quickly. The only problem is there’s still a chance that the weight of the snow, if it keeps dropping, could make the tunnel cave. If it should collapse on one of us, and we can’t get out in time, we might suffocate.”

He paused a moment and then continued. “On the other hand, I can’t help but think that even if we get out of here, we can’t continue in this weather and survive. There are all sorts of dangers, like avalanches, running out of food, injuring ourselves, frost bite. We might not find shelter as good as this. So we may not entirely be at a loss, though we lose time. Maybe we should think about simply waiting it out, rather than go through the trouble of digging.”

“No, Uncle Bally. You, both, can stay behind, but I can’t. I have to get to the summit. We have to try,” said Jacko. “Please, let’s keep digging.”

Digging a smaller hole didn’t speed things along, as they’d hoped. After a couple hours passed, with only a few feet of trail, they realized they needed to burrow even smaller.

By the end of the day, they’d managed approximately 7 feet of trail with a slight incline. The diameter was merely 4 feet wide, and a tight fit especially for Uncle Bally. But they’d doubled their displacement time which made them happy, except Julius.

“I just can’t believe how many hours we spent at this,” he shouted. “We’re still stuck in here. I feel like a corpse in a coffin.”

“Don’t get riled up,” said Uncle Bally with a mouthful of smoke. “The most important thing is to stay calm. Besides, we got plenty of food, for now. We just gotta take it easy.”

“Remember your dream? We’re gonna be okay.”

“Jacko, are you crazy? If it keeps dropping feet of snow, we’ll never get out of here. As it is, we’re digging outward and not upward enough.”

“That’s the way it has to start,” said Uncle Bally, sipping his tea. “The rise of the mountain will collect the most snow because of how it’s positioned. Because of that, we need to make sure the entrance of the tunnel is going to hold. The topmost part of the snow will continue to harden, and will hopefully hold additional snow fall. Now, if we burrow too far up, disturbing the snow we hope will harden and hold, then we risk it caving, sending that much more snow in here. We’re gonna continue burrowing out, moving upward gradually. The further from the rise, the thinner the snow, and the higher up we’ll dig.”

~~~

A few days later, though they worked at the snow for many hours, they were still stuck. Their food supplies diminished, and they’d run out of ground dandelion and pine needles. But like Uncle Bally said, the snow atop hardened and held. Though they didn’t see it, they knew the snow fell speedily by the incline of their tunnel, which now tracked out for over twenty feet, and rose up by five and a half. That day, they decided to dig only upward, afraid that to burrow too far out might be to fall off the side of the mountain. And they did so successfully, only to have a minor cave in; an indication that, as Bally said, they were disturbing snow that was higher up and less compacted. As they continued to use the snow from the farthest part of the tunnel for water, it wasn’t too big of a deal.

Jacko hated the digging. On a couple days, he was sure his fingers would fall off; that he’d gotten frost bite.

“Quit your whinin’” yelled Uncle Bally, taking a drag off his cigarette.

Even worse than dealing with the tunnel was the boredom. Julius was going stir crazy. On a few occasions, Jacko caught him staring at him with a strange blankness in his eyes.

Fortunately, Jacko had a couple books in his bag; all of which they read through quickly.

One evening, as Jacko zoned out while staring at the ceiling, imagining that he was at his favorite fifties restaurant having a burger so juicy that he used his tongue to catch the liquid running down his wrists, Julius asked, “Do you think we could run out of oxygen?”

Uncle Bally rolled his eyes as usual. “I swear, you boys ask the stupidest questions.”

On the tenth day, Julius was brave enough to mention that their food was running dangerously low, and they only had a few sticks of wood to burn. Jacko noticed it before but couldn’t bring himself to speak of it. As it was, they were still trying to dig their way up and out, but there just didn’t seem ever to be an end to the snow.

“How can we keep digging if we can’t warm our hands?” asked Jacko.

“Here,” said Uncle Bally, handing over his bottle of whiskey. “Normally, this isn’t good in a survivalist situation, but since we’ve got plenty of water, it might be okay.”

Jacko smelled the bottle. He didn’t know what to think of the deep sugary, oak scent that came from it. All he knew was he was bored and anxious, so without thinking, he took a huge drink.

“Ahack!” he choked and sputtered, spittle rolling over his lips.

The brown confection steamed its way down the back of his throat and bled down his lungs. Warmth spread from his gut to his toes. Suddenly, his muscles relaxed as did his brain.

He sighed and settled back, feeling better than he had in days.

He passed the bottle to Julius who didn’t seem bothered by the liquid heat as much.

“This is not good whiskey,” he said.

“Well, excuse you, you ingrate!”

A few days later, when their stomachs were rumbling and their morale at an all-time low, they looked at their last pack of meat.

Just as he wondered who would starve to death first, there came a sifting sound, echoing from the tunnel.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

All three of them scrambled to the snow tunnel entrance.

“Maybe someone’s found us?” said Julius. He didn’t hesitate as he climbed into the