"Going on a Bear Hunt" Ch. 5 [novella, team, K+]

Chapter 5: Dr Daniel Jackson

We're going on a bear hunt.
We're going to catch a big one.
What a beautiful day!
We're not scared.

. . .

Daniel sat down and set about preparing lunch with Teal'c, digging out the necessary number of MRE packets from all their field packs—catching the one Sam tossed him from her pack—and was happy that there wasn't a grilled beefsteak meal amongst them. That meal choice was hated by all of them and he didn't get why it continued showing up in their field rations. The military should stick with pasta; those were at least half way decent and tasted like Chef Boyardee stuff.

He picked up the beef ravioli packet, tore open the seal, and pulled out the heater in its plastic bag and the cardboard box with the entree. Holding open the heater bag, he slipped in the entree, and from his canteen added the right amount of water to activate the heater. Tucking the heater bag with the entree pouch back into the cardboard box he propped it up against his boot. According to the instructions, the box was supposed to be held at a forty-five degree angle but it wasn't as if he could measure it, especially not when sitting on a forty degree hill.

Picking up a second packet, cheese tortellini, he repeated the steps he had just done for the first MRE and noted the time on his watch. As the two entrees heated up, Daniel glanced over at Jack and Sam.

He winced at the sight of Jack's left wrist resting on his leg wrapped in an instant cold pack. Thank God the wrist was the only injury and a moderate one at that. Just the thought of him being the reason Jack further, and seriously, injured his knees made Daniel feel ill.

Jack picked up his cap and after slapping it against his thigh a few times to brush off debris, set it on his head. "Lunch done yet?"

"The main course of the meals ready to eat need more time to cook O'Neill," Teal'c answered.

"MREs don't need to cook," Jack grumbled, "they're already cooked."

It was true that the food was precooked and designed to be eaten cold as well, but warming the food made it slightly more palatable. Daniel knew the remark was more about Jack being grumpy than an actual complaint—although complaining about MREs was a time honored tradition in itself. "Another minute at most. What do you want Jack?"

"What is there? No fake steak I hope."

Daniel named the two choices he had opened, and then Teal'c named the ones he had prepared. Considering it was his fault that Jack was injured, it was only fair that Jack got first choice at what to eat.

"Cheese tortellini," Jack chose.

Daniel nodded and checked his watch. Seeing the needed minimum two minutes had passed he picked up the cheese tortellini and pulled out the bag with the heater and entree. Carefully, he worked the hot entree out of the bag, put it aside, slipped the side dish in with the heater to heat up and stuck them all back in the cardboard box which he propped against his boot again.

Waiting a bit until the plastic pouch the entree was in wasn't so hot to the touch Daniel broke its contents up and worked them to the bottom so it would be easier to eat with the provided spoon. Tearing the entree open, he leaned over and passed it to Jack.

"Thanks," Jack accepted it with his right hand and half propped, half tucked it between his knees so that he could eat it one handed after being given the spoon; Sam on the other side ready to give a hand if needed.

"You're welcome," Daniel replied and picked up the beef ravioli and after setting up its side dish to heat, tucked into his own meal as Sam and Teal'c did the same.

The team ate lunch in relative silence, the most noise they made the crinkling of plastic, or tearing as they opened up something else to eat, and listen to the birds high in the canopy above and the occasional distant mad chatter of squirrels.

Daniel accepted the garbage Jack passed back to him and stuffed it all back in the big MRE bag that held everything to pack their refuse off the planet. Not only was it wise to not leave signs of their presence behind, it was not a good idea to litter off-world when you had no idea how that litter would react with the surrounding environment.

Taking a look at Jack again, Daniel tried apologising again, "Jack, I really am sor—"

"Enough already Daniel," Jack cut him off with an annoyed look from under the brim of his cap. "Just... just drop it already? Crap happens."

"Take these Sir," Sam interrupted as she thrust a hand at Jack with two pills.

Jack scowled. "I'm not taking any painkillers Carter."

"It's just a standard anti-inflammatory Sir to help keep the swelling down," Sam stated and patiently waited for the pills to be taken.

Jack made a face but took the two pills and dry swallowed them as Sam reached for his wrapped up wrist.

"I'll take the cold pack off now Sir."

Daniel reluctantly accepted that his apologies were not wanted and watched as Sam removed the cold pack, checked the wrist over again, and placing two flexible wire ladder splints around the injured area to support and restrain it, bandaged the lot. A few low words were exchanged that he could not hear even an arm's length away but could guess from Jack's grumpy tone that it was care instructions as Sam began packing up the med kit.

"Hey, Daniel," Jack jerked the thumb of his uninjured right hand at his unclipped field pack, "help me get this back on while Carter packs hers up?"

"Sure Jack," Daniel agreed readily and finished stuffing the garbage into his own pack. Shuffling across the pine litter to get closer, it was an easy task because of the hill and the fact that the unclipped pack was essentially still against Jack's back. Once the pack was securely in place Jack gave a curt nod of thanks and Daniel turned to getting his own back on.

Moments later the whole team was back on their feet again, armed, and took up the recon positions they had been in. With Jack's injured left wrist, it was the best positions they could take for it placed the injury in the covered zone. They set off back up the hill through the forest, detouring around the den they had discovered and investigated earlier, and Daniel returned to searching the pine trunks for any sign of tree graffiti or the Cave of Artio.

. . .

Uh-uh! A snowstorm!
A swirling whirling snowstorm.
We can't go over it.
We can't go under it.
Oh no!
We've got to go through it!

. . .

Following lunch as the team marched through the tall pines, two more signature arborglyphs were spotted carved high into the thin bark.

Photographing the latest find, Daniel did his best to record a location with the datum point being the stargate as it was for all off-world discoveries. What he wouldn't give to be able to record precise coordinates, like with GPS, instead of writing general terms in his field journals about direction and distance from the datum. It was a chronic complaint of his department about cataloging off-world discoveries.

Then there was the issue of dating them. A dendrochronology drill to analyse the growth pattern of the tree-rings could be used to date the tree, but was useless at dating the graffiti because the age of the tree and the age of the graffiti were not related. Leode genealogy was probably his best bet at estimating an age and he wondered if he could wrangle a visit back to the village out of Jack on their way home.

Looking ahead again Daniel squinted a bit, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him or it really was getting brighter under the dim green canopy of the towering trees. Climbing more up the mountainside he was convinced after a time that there was more sunlight reaching them. The increased light puzzled Daniel because he knew that they had not travelled so far as to reach the mountain's tree line.

Maybe there had been some sort of forest fire that had burned a section of the forest and trees were still growing back in? Nothing looked charred or fire damaged to him however and still it continued to get lighter under the canopy as the team climbed. He couldn't recall seeing anything on the slope before they'd started climbing either and he'd looked, wary of debris flows that could have buried what they were looking for. That would be horrible, to come here and discover the cave was under a rockslide.

Then the tall trunks seemed to disappear ahead and sunlight poured down and encouraged the growth of plants and shrubs that the shady canopy had discouraged. Pushing through the unexpected undergrowth they halted on the ridge overlooking a weird channel-shaped scoop in the mountainside that went from left to right and not up and down like a valley. That explained at least why nothing about this wasn't visible from the bottom, being scooped out to give the illusion that the slope was continuous.

There were pine trees in the channel but it was not the stately towering trees that they had spent the last klick or so walking amongst but an area of mostly bare mountainside with short pine trees with branches growing towards the east.

And only towards the east.

"Carter, what does your doohickey have to say about this?" Jack prompted.

Sam got out her device and after a moment of studying the screen responded, "Nothing from the UTD Sir."

Daniel pensively rubbed his chin, finding what Sam was saying hard to believe. Something must have caused all these trees to grow like this, branches to the east like some field of natural tree flags amongst the bare rocks and patches of tough grasses growing between the rock crevasses. There was a crisp, fresh scent in the air that teased his nose, blown by the cool west wind that was present now that they were out in the open again.

"Sure about that?" Jack sounded doubtful. "No funky radiation to mutate trees?"

"All readings are normal Sir," Sam answered as she held the UTD up with the digital screen facing her commander.

Jack did not even bother squinting at it from beneath his cap, merely cast Sam a look that asked her if she was crazy enough to think he could understand it as he persisted, "No creepy chemicals?"

Daniel stopped trying to identify what the smell was now and cleared his throat. "The Leode are from Bronze Age Europe, they don't have advanced enough biological knowledge to engineer such chemicals."

"I wasn't thinking they did, but I know Camel-ass probably does," Jack retorted.

Daniel rubbed his forehead instead of smacking himself upside the head. Of course, just because Camulus had not been on the planet for about one thousand four hundred years didn't mean that the goa'uld hadn't left anything nasty behind that was still affecting the planet. They ran into problems like that all the time off-world... and even on Earth Daniel thought with a grimace, recalling the colossal fiasco that had ended with Osiris escaping from Earth in Sarah Gardner.

Daniel shook his head to rid himself of the depressing thoughts and focused on Camulus again. While the system lord styled himself as a god of war he was also associated with agricultural aspects in mythology so this distorted channel of pine trees could be his work or maybe even something from the battle with Arthur. That thought piqued his interest and Daniel started to look more intently at the flag-like trees and rocks before them.

"No weird energy field?" Jack persisted.

"No Sir," Sam responded, "all readings are normal."

"So, no radiation, chemicals, or energy fields," Jack ticked the points off on his fingers and frowned at the expanse of short flag-like pines in front of them. "I feel like I'm forgetting something. Teal'c, you know what I am forgetting?"

"I do not O'Neill."

"Darn," Jack muttered as the furrows of his frown deepened. "I'm thinking I should know something. Anyway, around or through Carter?"

"UTD says it's safe enough to proceed through Sir and," Sam waved a hand at the vast channel of flag-like pines that spread to the left and right out of their line of sight, "I can't hazard a guess at how much longer we would take finding our way around."

"Daniel? Teal'c? Around or through?" Jack asked.

"I am fine with either decision O'Neill," Teal'c answered.

"Through is fine with me," Daniel answered. "I wouldn't mind getting a closer look at the trees. There may be something that tells us amongst them about why they are growing like this."

"Point," Jack conceded. "Through it is. Carter, the moment that thing," he pointed at the UTD, "squawks about anything you let me know."

"Yes Sir," Sam gave a nod of understanding and took the lead over the ridge, boots clomping on the exposed rocks of the mountainside channel. The noise was a distinct change from the muffled tromping of boots over needle litter.

Daniel took up his position and studied the spread out pine trees they were climbing amongst. Where they a different type of pine than the tall forest ones which was why they had branches from base to crown? And why did those branches only grow on the east side? Besides being short and east growing branches they looked like normal pines to him.

Also puzzling was the exposure of the mountainside channel, no needle litter and only some shrubby grass vegetation growing amongst the cracks of the rocks. Walking amongst them nothing appeared odd, besides the trees and area itself in the midst of an otherwise healthy old growth forest, and he scrutinized the rocks for signs of petroglyphs or pictographs. Or runes—those would be the best and easy to translate verse interpreting rock engravings. Those were what Daniel hoped to find but he looked for anything really. Not just drawings or writing, but something that said humans had been here and done something, like signs that a spaceship had set down. All he saw was bare and lichen covered rock.

There was nothing but the trees and the west wind that whistled with increasing noise and strength through the branches that grew only to the east as they moved deeper amongst the short pines.

. . .

Hoooo woooo!
Hoooo woooo!
Hoooo woooo!

. . .

Daniel wandered more to the left the further they penetrated amongst the flag-like trees, searching for signs of anything and shortly there was a fair amount of distance between them all. The wind blew colder and stronger, no longer just rustling grasses and shaking needles, but rustling entire branches and then the short trees began to lean eastward under the wind.

"Sir!" Carter raised her voice to be heard as she turned around. "There's a low-pressure—"

She was cut off as the wind roared with a deafening hoooo woooo and slammed through the mountainside channel with enough force to almost drive Daniel to his knees. Overhead with a speed that astounded, the clear blue sky grew leaden as dark grey clouds blotted out the sun heralding that worse was to come.

Daniel held onto his glasses and raised his face to the sky. He flinched when he felt stinging drops of coldness that the wind drove into his face and as the stinging bites thickened, realised that it was snow. Within seconds it seemed the exposed rocks were all covered in a thick white blanket.

Daniel looked away from the sky and searching through the swirling curtain of snow, could just make out the distant forms of his teammates. Berating himself for straying so far from them, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Jack! Jack? Oh god... Sam! Teal'c!"

The wind whipped his words away and made it impossible to tell if they had heard him or were yelling back. Heart pumping fearfully, his chilled fingers fumbled with the button down flap holding his radio and pulling out the radio pressed it to his ear. Hissing and garbled words was all he was able to hear as the roaring of the snowstorm overwhelmed all other sound.

Shaking from cold and fear he stowed the radio back in its vest pocket and squinted hard through the snow that clung to his glasses and obscured his vision. Blinded by the white snow driving to the ground with his pounding heart in his throat, Daniel used his feet to feel his way over the rocks towards where he thought his team was.

Cupping his hands around his mouth again, he tried yelling again hoping against all logical reason that he would miraculously get their attention. "Jack! Sam! I'm over here! Teal'c!"

He had not made it more than a few shuffling steps through the pounding snow before he practically tripped over something. Groping with cold hands he figured out it was pine tree and knew as his heart clenched he would not be able to find anyone in this blinding whiteout.

Forcing himself to breathe through the panic he forced himself to focus: what was he supposed to do if caught in a snowstorm. Shelter, shelter was first. What else? Right, don't move fast. Taking another steadying breath he made himself remember exactly why Jack had told him 'slow and steady' won the race in winter survival.

'You move too fast,' the Jack in his head said, 'and you sweat. That forms a layer of ice between your skin and your clothes and even if you find shelter, you can still freeze to death.'

Hunkering down Daniel blindly groped his way around the stunted pine until he was on its branch full side, the east. Squirming underneath the meager branches near the ground and pushing snow up and around him, he curled up into a ball the best he could with his field pack taking the brunt of the high wind. Shivering, he tucked his cold hands into his armpits and did his best to conserve, and restore, his body heat as the snowstorm whirled around him.

Lying against the hard cold stone and listening to the hoooo woooo that overwhelmed everything except his frightened thoughts Daniel did the only thing he could: pray.

Nehes, nehes, nehes, nehes em hotep nehes em neferu. Awake, awake, awake, awake in peace lady of peace. Nebet hotepet, weben em hotep. Rise thou in peace, rise thou in beauty.

The first lines of the Abydosian benediction resonated in his mind and took him back to his sun baked home and the warm memories of his late wife and family. Focusing on his memories as he chanted the litany he had learned five years ago, Daniel ignored as best he could the high wind pounding the mountainside and snow burying him in his meager shelter in ever increasing inches.

In time he no longer shivered, the snow itself sheltering and warming him but as worry sat low in his gut he made sure to keep himself awake. He had to stay awake. That was another rule. Un-tucking one of his hands, he reached for his radio and toggled the switch. "Jack? Are you there? Sam? Where are you? Teal'c?"

Electronic hissing was his answer. Taking a breath, he kept himself awake by alternating prayers with conjugating declinations starting with the more ancient languages he knew, which was Ancient, and working his way forward into the more modern ones, like Middle English.

And every now and then, he tried the radio again.

He had circled back to Phoenician when he realised that in the passing of hours the roaring storm had quieted down to a more a whistling hoooo woooo. Stiffly uncurling himself, Daniel dug through the snow bank that had formed around him with fingers that protested bending. Breaking through and out, he squinted behind his glasses at what he saw. The mutated channel of pines had become a picturesque winter wonderland under a bright blue sky with heaps of snow burying the short trees—and nothing else.

Squinting against the sunlight that harshly reflected off the field of white Daniel frantically searched for signs of his team. There was nothing but mounds and piles of pristine snow and his heart threatened to choke him with his fear. Fumbling for his radio, his heart gave a strong jolt when a mound of snow to his right suddenly rose up and became Teal'c.

"Thank God, Teal'c!" Daniel exclaimed in pained relief as his startled heart dropped back into a more normal rhythm and he floundered through the knee high snow towards Teal'c. "How are you? Where are Sam and Jack?"

"I am well DanielJackson," Teal'c replied calmly and brushed the clinging snow off. "I am unaware of what has become of MajorCarter and O'Neill."

"Oh no, you don't think—" Daniel choked out as he cast a frantic look around, hating to even think let alone suggest that their two teammates had not survived the hours as they had.

Ahead of them, snow shook itself free of a small copse of pines and Sam stood up from underneath them in the knee high snow and holding her weapon firm gave herself a full body shake, scattering snow. Taking off her cap, she brushed off the snow clinging to it before setting it on her head. "Daniel? Teal'c? You guys okay?"

"We're fine Sam. Well, Teal'c's fine and I'm a little cold, but fine," Daniel called out in relief. "Do you know where Jack is?"

Sam shook her head and slogged through the snow to them.

Daniel paled at the answer. This did not make any sense, of them Jack had the most winter survival training and the most hands-on experience coming from living in northern Minnesota. Reaching for his radio, he toggled the switch and begged, "Jack where are you? Jack please respond."

The radio crackled in response and to his surprise—worked!

Jack's muffled and almost—echoing?—voice came over the line, "I remember about the trees now."

"What? Jack, what do trees have to do with a snowstorm?" Daniel stared blankly down at the radio in his vest pocket, wondering what the heck Jack was thinking, and waited for an answer. When none came, he realised that he had not pressed the radio toggle and did so and started to repeat his question. "Wha—akh!"

Daniel jumped when snow heaved upwards two steps to the east and Jack popped his head out of the snow. Relief that everyone was safe and sound and had survived that blistering snowstorm made Daniel light headed. He stayed where he was, not trusting his knees to keep him upright in the deep snow, as Jack used his right hand to lever himself up and out of the rocky crevasse of the mountainside that he had used as a sheltering trench.

"The trees," Jack treated the edge of the trench snow bank like a makeshift chair and sat down, bandaged left wrist propped on his weapon as he used his right hand to take off his cap and shake the snow off. "Crappy time to remember about the trees."

"I am pleased you are well O'Neill. What do you remember of the trees?"

Putting the cap back onto his head, Jack stabbed a finger at the mounds of snow that covered the stunted misshapen pines like cotton pillows. "It's called flagging, the way they're growing. Branches on the windward side are killed by constant winds from one direction and makes the trees look like flags."

"You mean this entire area gets this all the time?" Daniel swept his hands out to encompass their snowy surroundings.

"Appears so," Jack hoisted himself to his feet and tramped the two steps through the knee high snow to join them.

Daniel looked away from his team and squinted across the brilliantly reflective channel of snow capped pines and suddenly knew what that faint tantalising smell he had smelled earlier when they had first encountered the flag-like pines: it had been the crisp clean scent of snowmelt. Woodsman Jack it seemed was right, this section of the mountain was regularly pounded by high winds and storming snow.