Dec 10, 2019 5 min read

The story so far: Mac has won his bet with Wesu and now can choose whatever he wants to do, but will his choice be to give up the fight and go home?

n Chapter THIRTEEN To Battle

“What is it that you really want most?” Wesu said. He sounded smug as he asked the question.

Mac sighed inwardly. “To save the forest and keep the world from being covered with smoke and concrete.”

“Wah-hey!” Wesu shouted, doing a back flip and then bouncing back to stand in front of Mac. “Eagle Boy! I knew you’d come through. But then again, after all the work I did to set you up over the last four years . . .”

“What work?” Mac said.

“Uhhh . . .” Wesu said. “Just small things like dreams.”

“You mean you’re the one who caused my bad dreams?”

Wesu gave Mac a “Who, me?” look and gestured toward the giant hawk whose head bent down toward them. “No time, we have to run, I mean fly. Hurry up! The battle’s already started.”

The next thing Mac knew, the two of them were settled onto the broad back of Keeyii, the goshawk. Its wings spread in flight as they sped over the treetops toward the northern edge of the thousand-acre woods.

Mac held on to the strap looped about the goshawk’s chest with one hand. His feet were looped into the second strap tied farther back around Keeyii’s body, but they were flying much faster than they had before. Mac was afraid he might slip and fall. Wesu’s hand gripped his belt from behind.

“Sit in front,” Wesu had told him. “Be ready to shoot.”

Mac grasped the bow and three arrows firmly in his left hand. The fourth arrow was held between his teeth, the arrowhead toward the left so that it could be fitted to the bowstring quickly.

Wesu tugged on Mac’s belt. “Get ready,” he said. “We’re going in!”

Suddenly, the woods fell away beneath them to the place where the river came close to the woods’ edge. There, just up from the riverbank, was a clearing where a dozen trees had been cut. There were men in hardhats with chainsaws, and there were bulldozers with smoke chugging out of their exhausts. But the bulldozers were not moving. The men were not cutting trees. Instead, they were holding their arms up, sheltering their heads from a rain of stones that was falling on them, stones that came hurtling out of the forest. Mac looked hard for the ones throwing those stones. There, there was one of them-a little man who looked and dressed much like Wesu, his face marked with green paint so that he blended into the forest.

The men were falling back, dropping their saws.

“They’re winning!” Mac shouted. “You don’t need my help.”

“No!” Wesu shouted. “Look there!”

Mac looked. A huge black squirrel had appeared as if from nowhere on the limb of a tree above the little Stone Thrower. Claws outstretched, mouth open, it was about to leap.

Mac stared. I should do something, he thought. But even as he thought it, he heard the twang of the bowstring and realized that he had already fitted an arrow to the string, drawn it back, and let it go.

The obsidian-tipped arrow sped at the chest of the black squirrel. As soon as it struck, the Black One was gone, leaving nothing but a whirling cloud of dust that blew away with the wind.

“There!” Wesu shouted.

Mac’s hands had already fitted another arrow to the string. The second arrow whistled into an even larger black squirrel that had knocked down another of the small Stone Throwers. It too turned into smoke and was gone. Keeyii circled and dove. Mac fired a third arrow and a fourth, turned two more of the Black Ones into dust clouds. But more were appearing now and he’d used all four arrows. They were supposed to come back to me, Mac thought in sudden panic.

Wesu nudged him and Mac turned to look. The little man held all four of the arrows that had been fired. “Just shoot,” Wesu said. “I’ll catch.”

All of the workmen had run away now, leaving saws, surveying instruments, and bulldozers behind. Below, the little Stone Throwers fought the Black Ones in a grim battle that would have been totally uneven had it not been for Mac. Small spears and stones had no effect on the black squirrels. But Mac’s arrows turned them to dust. One by one, the Black Ones were struck down.

Keeyii landed on top of one of the bulldozers. Wesu hopped off and turned off the ignition switch. Other Little People were doing the same to the other machines. It became quiet in the clearing.

Mac stood on the seat of the bulldozer, looking around. “We’ve won, haven’t we?” he asked.

Wesu shook his head. “Not yet. The worst one hasn’t shown himself yet.”

Then the earth began to shake as heavy feet approached.

NEXT WEEK: The worst one