Mo Yaling

The Jump

Two shimmering eyes in deep darkness and that's all. I was trembling like a bamboo leaf. Suddenly I remembered my Winchester. I grabbed the gun with one hand, pointed it with all my ability towards those eyes and pulled the trigger. The gun bounced back with a jar. It missed it! The eyes disappeared in a jiffy and the sound of the gun echoed within the groove for the next few moments. All of a sudden thoughts of Nayna and others came into my mind. My voice was chocked in fright. It took some time to gain it back. I cleared my voice and called her name. She didn’t reply. I called her name repeatedly as I took my phone and put the torch on. Nayna was lying in her sleeping bag senseless. Others were awake flabbergasted. The curtain has been pulled down.

‘Prema – lit the fire.’ I instructed as I get up to take Nayna’s care. ‘Nayna! Nayna!’ I took hold of her and started shaking her. She opened her eyes and looked like a dummy. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked her.

‘What happened?’ she asks in a faint dried up voice.

‘Just a sec.’ I got her up from her sleeping bag, seized my bag and took out a small flask of brandy. ‘open your mouth.’ I poured some from that flask as she opened her mouth. ‘It was a tiger. But it has gone now.’ Nayna was still very shaky. I hugged her tightly as I sat beside her.

Prema had lit the fire by then. Quentin looked pale. I passed him the flask. ‘Everybody have some – you will fill better.’

Prema and Kali, the helper were trying to hang the tarpaulin again. Quentin passed the flask to Kali followed by Prema. Shankar was lying in a half sitting position with a distorted face. When Prema held out the flask towards him, he nodded to reject.

‘I would like to have some – if anybody doesn't.’ Nayna said.

‘Kali bhaiya,’ Shankar called him as he took hold of his bag. ‘Please come with me. I need help.’ Shankar got up from his sleeping bag and began to move ridiculously with his legs apart.

‘What happened?’ I asked in surprise.

‘We all survived as I was wearing my lucky blue underwear, and I have POOPED in it!’

We all laughed out loudly the way he spoke. The laughter blew away the fear from our minds.

We couldn't sleep the rest of the night. Though we knew that the tiger is not going to come back, we increased the fire a little more and we spent the time gossiping. We got ready before the daybreak and decided to start as soon as the sun rises.

‘How could you miss the tiger Neel? You are an Olympic gold medallist!’ Nayna asked as she sipped her tea.

‘Hold on darling! When we set our target in those games we are favoured with so many prospects. Last night I was just scared and I had to shoot single handed!’ I explained. ‘Now – please you go back to the base camp.’ I requested her.

‘Not after knowing the threat of that tiger.’ She replied. ‘We all are coming with you.’

‘What! No!’ I said.

‘We will all be safe if we stay together Sir.’ Prema said. ‘We will carry torches. The smell of fire will keep the tiger away from us.’

‘See!’ She shrugged.

So we started our convoy leaded by Quentin, followed by Shankar carrying a torch, then Nayna, Prema, Kali – also carrying a second torch and lastly me, with my Winchester loaded and ready to fire.

Reaching the point, from where the professor went missing Nayna said,‘Neel. You don’t get down. You are the only gunman we have. Let Shankar bhaiya, Prema bhaiya and Kali go.’

Three of them climbed down, the way we found professor’s cap yesterday. Then after almost four hours they climbed up again.

‘What did you find?’ I asked as soon as they came up.

‘The slope has ended suddenly after four hundred meters. Then there is a steep valley. Probably the professor has fallen down to that valley.’ Shankar reported.

‘That’s impossible!’ Nayna said. ‘He cannot be safe and intact for sending message after falling that down!’

‘Well – speaking about the message – it just reminded me that – I sent my message to the professor – as you asked me to do – it has reached – but not seen. May be his battery has dried up.’ I said.

‘We have to search out a way down to that valley.’ Quentin said thoughtfully.

And we came back to our camp after that. The next day we send back Prema and Kali to the base camp for some more supply and we planned to search out a way down to the valley.

We explored various paths for the next three days, to get down to the valley. But, we failed to find out one.

The next day morning Shankar was busy with some papers and a geometry box. Quentin, me and Nayna were having a little chit chat among ourselves. We were so stupefied about our progress. How couldn't we find out any way, in spite of exploring almost all the means possible to search to reach that valley.

‘May be we should try some other way out.’ Quentin said.

‘What to you mean by other way?’ I asked.

‘There are NO way to that valley I think.’ Shankar said before Quentin can say anything, as he comes and sits near us with a bunch of papers.

We all looked at him. He too looked over our faces. ‘What are those papers?’ Nayna asked.

‘I was trying to draw an approximate map of our exploration till now.’ He forwarded the papers towards us.

I took the papers and saw some zigzag lines crossing each others throughout the papers. ‘Explain.’ I said.

‘Here – this dot – this is our camp. These square marks – they are the possible ways to go down to the valley – as we have seen them from a distance. But, If you can see minutely – that – as we have tried to approach those ways we couldn’t reach them. We ended somewhere else. You will see that we have explored more than eleven kilometres in last three days – but reaching the valley is a long way off – we couldn't even got closed to those ways. Someway or the other we are distracted to somewhere else. And these are our movements.’ Shankar indicates those arrowed zigzag lines.

‘What the big F!’ I exclaimed.

‘So – your theory of some magnetic field is not working here Neel.’ Quentin told me. ‘We didn’t use any compass this time! There must be some reasons of this mystery!’ Quentin said.

‘It is almost impossible. Everyone will allege us mad if we try to explain these things to them!’ Nayna blurted.

‘Can we use a drone as help?’ I said after a pause.

‘No way.’ Quentin said. ‘The trees are too dense. You won’t get any proper view through them.’

‘Then! What should we do now?’ My own words sounded depressing in my own ears.

We all sank deep down to our thoughts.

‘I know a place.’ Prema suddenly spoke.

‘Yes! We are listening Prema. Speak up.’ I said

‘There is a small river – a branch of Siyang – that has entered that valley from near Bomdo. Far north from here. May be we can enter the valley if we follow the course.’

‘That’s an brilliant idea! We will go. How long it will take to reach there?’ Nayna asked.

‘More or less two day’s walking from here.’ Prema answered.

Immediately we made our plans. We just had some noodles and started our journey. We took only the important things with us. It was decided that as we have to go through the base camp. We will inform there and they will come and collect the rest of the supplies from here and later on they will shift the base camp to Bomdo.

It is true that if you go to any mountain for trek or expedition – and ask the local peoples about any route and how long will it take to reach there – the actual time will be at least double if not more from the said time. Not two days. It took us three and a half day to reach the mouth of that river. We camped there for the night and started our journey the next daybreak.

The river was not wide than a thready duct. The water level was merely up to ankle. May be it would spread wide and deep as we would approach towards it’s end. We decided to follow the stream as we may got misguided in the woods. We didn’t had anything to walk on the water. So we covered out legs with plastic packets up to our knees. It could be a little risky as we might lose grips but it would – at least couldn't mislead us.

After a strenuous journey of eight hours we reached near a waterfall. We searched and found a narrow way to get down. Narrow and steep to get at the bottom.

‘Oh GOD!’ Quentin’s face became deplorable with fear.

‘Don’t loose your courage brother. Nothing will happen.’ I tried to encourage him.

‘We will camp here tonight.’ Prema said.

When we were looking here and there and searching for a suitable place to camp suddenly the chirping of the birds increased in a moment and a yellowish lightning from the forest at our back splashed into the water. We were all thunderstruck and scattered within an instant. Everybody took refuge wherever they could, except me. I grabbed my gun and aimed towards the tiger. It was so huge that I couldn't estimate that at all these bullets of my Winchester would be able to pierce it’s skin! The tiger coiled it’s body and wags it’s tail to jump over me. I pulled the trigger. The tiger jumped with a ferocious growl and avoided the bullet. The very next moment the tiger approached towards me. I took a step back for self-defence in reflex but my foot stuck to some rock and I almost fell down. With the corner of my eyes I could see that the tiger is taking it’s leap. I managed to save myself from falling and jumped on a branch of a tree that was hanging over the waterfall. As soon as I caught the branch the tiger fall on the tree. The tree was almost uprooted by the weight of the tiger. That created a jolt and I fell from that branch followed by the tiger. There was one more tree on my way. It worked like a spring board and threw me a little further away. I headed on a large tree far below the bottom of the waterfall and lose my consciousness.