Jaak’s Cabin – The Valleys

The music, feasting, and dancing at the forest music festival had lasted until long after midnight. With the longer daylight hours and shorter nights, it was almost dawn again by the time the last of the valley’s inhabitants finally retreated home. All who had attended were in firm agreement on two things: firstly, that Asha had once again surpassed herself with the fish; and secondly, that Gazza’s banjo playing was vastly superior to his singing.

Jaak and Altai were home very late — or very early, depending on how you looked at it. It was fully daylight by the time either of them stirred, the sun shining determinedly through the gap in the curtains.

Altai was the first up, so he poked the fire back into life and put the coffee on to brew. He had been making a determined effort to work fewer Saturdays and be around more on the weekends. He busied himself with a large stack of toast — sure the combined aroma of coffee and fresh bread would soon drift into Jaak’s room. It did. Jaak’s door creaked open and he padded into the living area, tousle-haired and clearly still half asleep.

Jaak made an unintelligible noise in the back of his throat that barely counted as speech, as he passed Altai and continued out the back door to the outhouse.

Altai couldn’t help but notice a prodigious tent at the front of Jaak’s boxers as he passed. The back door banged. The outhouse door creaked, then snapped shut on its spring. Jaak leaned his head against the back wall, shoving his boxers down. He waited — eyes closed — tail twitching in irritation — breathing in and out. After a moment his adolescent biology subsided enough to let him relieve himself in a steaming stream. He inhaled deeply, yawned, blinked, and felt the gears of consciousness finally grind into motion.

Dieter. He was coming today.

Now with his level of consciousness at least to periscope depth, he returned to the living area and sat at the table with Altai. He spied the stack of P&J toast piled high on a plate. Instinctively he reached for a piece and started eating.

Altai gave Jaak a parental look.

Jaak stopped shoving more toast in his mouth and swallowed.

Altai glanced behind Jaak at the clock on the mantel above the fireplace.

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Valley Air Landing Lake — Hot Creek River

The Valley Air landing lake was not a lake as such, but rather a wider stretch of the Hot Creek River flowing down from the Hot Rocks camping area at the highest point of the valleys.

Altai and Jaak pulled up a few minutes before noon. Soon they heard the buzzing drone of a plane’s engine approaching from further down the valley. It flew just overhead, continued a little farther up the valley, then made a full U-turn — returning to touch down smoothly on the water from the direction it had come. The plane’s floats produced an impressive trail of spray before it reached the end of the landing zone and turned to taxi back toward the pontoon.

Altai and Jaak were waiting just inside the small terminal that connected the two hangars. Jaak was eager to catch a first glimpse of his friend. As it turned out, he did not even have to wait for the passengers to disembark — he could clearly see a very distinctive wet nose pressed firmly against the plane’s window as it floated to a stop and the pilot cut the engine.

The handful of passengers climbed out one by one. Finally, an uber-excited mop of orange hair bounded out of the plane — almost knocking one of the shore crew-cats unloading luggage into the water. The startled crew-cat promptly let out an indignant — Mreyow!

The orange mop then caught sight of Jaak and proceeded to prance and dance around him in circles, tail wagging ninety to the dozen. It put its front paws up on Jaak’s shoulders, giving him several huge slobbery licks with its long, lolling pink tongue.

Watching all of these goings-on from a little distance was Altai. He knew perfectly well that there were a few Hundels on Cyanos, mostly in Aoraki — he had even met and worked with one or two. On this particular day, however, he had not expected to see one getting off the float plane right here in the valleys, and he certainly had no idea that Jaak’s friend, who was coming to stay in his cabin for a few weeks, was a hunde.

To say that Altai was speciesist would be a little unfair; however, like most people, he did hold certain prejudices regarding other species. When it came to the Hundel, there were just certain things about them in general — and their culture — that were so different from his own. The licking — the sniffing — the barking. He braced himself internally. He just needed to get through the next few minutes without losing his composure.

Jaak and Dieter padded over to Altai, where he was standing a little awkwardly, his eyes slightly narrowed, his tail ramrod straight behind him with just a slight curl at the end.

Excited as he was, Dieter managed to sense that jumping all over Altai might not be the right move. He approached more pensively — head slightly lowered, ears back, eyes up. He promptly sat back on his haunches, arms out in front, and tilted his head slightly to one side.

He thumped his tail a couple of times on the floor for good measure.

A moment or two passed, and whether consciously or not, Altai visibly relaxed, crouched down, and gave Dieter a small rub on his chest.

With that, Dieter leapt up and began enthusiastically sniffing Altai all over — finally giving him one long, lolling lick up the side of his face.

Managing to hold his composure, rather than let out the indignant hiss his feline instincts were screaming for, Altai simply stood, nodded, and gave his face a surreptitious wipe.

The three of them headed over to the pickup, and Dieter’s duffel bag was put into the tray. Just as they were about to climb in, Dieter suddenly ran to the nearest tree, unzipped his pants, and gave it a good watering. Altai and Jaak exchanged glances — both thinking the same thing, but for very different reasons.

This — is going to be an interesting few weeks.

On returning, Dieter promptly licked the pickup’s front tyre.

Altai, Jaak, and Dieter set off in the pickup toward the cabin — Dieter with his head out the window, taking in all the glorious new sights and smells and occasionally barking a happy greeting to startled pedestrians along the way.

Previous – Episode 14: Summer Flowers
Next – Episode 16: Cats and Dogs