by S A Ison
“Thanks, me too. I’m just about finished, and then I’ll begin to make us a blanket. With our growing pile of pelts, it will be nice to have something to pull up over us. I just wish I’d stop puking when I have to use the brains.” I laughed.
“You will, you’ll get used to it. You’re doing a great job, you really are. These furs are soft and very pliable.”
“Well, you said they had to be worked or they’d be stiff. I want soft blankets and eventually soft clothing.”
Later that night, we had our pillows beneath our heads. It was nice having them. As I laid there, I listened to Harper softly snore. I smiled in the dark. He made a big deal about getting his head comfortable on the pillow and within minutes, he was sound asleep. Our living situation was a little unorthodox. I’d gotten used to sleeping beside him and it was nice to share his warmth.
No, we haven’t done anything, so get your mind out of the gutter. We were becoming closer though. How could we not? Our very lives depended on the other. I liked that Harper had a positive nature, having a ready smile. He was patient with me and my fumbling with things I’ve never done before. I scooted a little closer and closed my eyes. Tomorrow, like today, was going to be a busy day.
Sitting by the fire, the sun was beating down on my shoulders. I had palm fronds, along with cattail leaves scattered all around me. Harper was beside me, his long legs stretched out in front of him. We each wore our woven broad brim hats. The sun was so bright, we had no sunglasses, the hats helped.
“No more signs of Eve?” He asked, holding up another rock and turned it over and over in his hand. I had a pot of hot water and I was braiding cattail leaves into a rope. I found my hands were never still until I went to bed at night, where I found my pillow, a luxury, and so soft against my face.
“No, I was really hoping I might see her. They might be out there, maybe watching us, but I’ve not seen them.”
He set his rocks aside and reached over and took a handful of leaves. He set some of the fronds and leaves beside him. He began to braid as well. Over the light breeze, trumpeting came our way. We knew the mastodons were back. The wind shifted and their funk made its way to us. We could see them, they were five hundred feet from us. Their scent reminded me when I’d taken the girls to the zoo on a number of occasions when they were small. We’d gone to the elephant enclosure and we marveled at the size.
The scent of the mastodons was redolent of those future beasts and it brought a pang to my heart with the memories of my daughters. I blinked back tears.
“You okay Ivy?” Harper asked quietly.
“Yeah, I was just thinking about my girls. I used to take them to the zoo. When I smelled the mastodons, it brought that memory back to me.” I said, wiping a tear away. He leaned over and put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me.
“Thanks, it’s just that it caught me by surprise, that smell. And then it brought on the flood of sweet memories.”
He gave a final squeeze and then went back to braiding. I know he wasn’t sure how to handle my tears, I didn’t know how to handle them. I tried not to dwell though.
“I forgot to tell you, it was when you’d seen Eve, I found a huge cluster of wild grapes. Well, I guess they would be wild since no one is here to actually cultivate them. I thought we could go back in the fall, bring a lot of your baskets and a travois, to bring a bunch back. We can make raisins.” He grinned.
“Oh man, that is fandamtastic. The dates are getting ready to try, they are a beautiful orange color. The weather has been nice and hot, I’d say maybe another week.”
“I wish I could find something with a lot of fat. That would really help making the pemmican.” Harper said.
“I know, just about everything is lean.”
“If I can kill one of those tapirs, they may have enough fat. I think I’ll go hunting tomorrow, I know there are some downstream. Would you like to come with?”
“Heck yeah, I wouldn’t miss that.” I grinned.
“They have their own territories. We have plenty of lean meat, and as we go, I’m pretty sure we will be set this winter. But we really need that fat, especially for the cold weather.”
“I’m getting good with my spear thrower. I don’t know if I could kill one, but I can help bring it back.” I said.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be heavy and we’ll have to get it back somehow. Maybe bring plenty of your rope, that way, if we need to build a travois, we can.” He suggested.
I grinned and waggled my brows, sad mood evaporated with the thought of getting a tapir. With an animal that size, it would mean a lot of meat, hide and hopefully fat. As the sun began to disappear in the west, the mastodons drifted closer, they were maybe a hundred yards away and had crossed over to the other side of the river. They disappeared into the vast forest. I wondered if Eve and her people would hunt the mastodons. We couldn’t, there was no way the two of us could manage it. At their disappearance, we began to collect our things. It was time to head up into the cave.
The next morning, we set out early, heading down river. We passed the rock with the names of our counterparts, shoved here from the future. In all our wanderings, we’d not found any signs of the other people. We figured they’d more than likely perished at some point during the last seven years.
We’d been walking for about four hours, keeping very quiet. We could only go another two hours before we had to turn back. Neither of us wanted to spend a night outside the cave. Our senses were on high alert, discerning different scents and sounds.
We took a break, drinking from the bottle. The water in the bottle was directly from the river. We no longer boiled it to drink it. Our bodies had acclimated to the water with no ill effects. We wouldn’t drink from still water, only from the fast-moving water from the river or waterfall. We sat on a downed log, resting. The day was hot. I was in my gym shorts, but wearing only my bra. Harper was getting used to me going shirtless, though, taking pity on him, I did wear a bra around him. Unfortunately, with the weight lost, my breasts had gotten quite a bit smaller as well, so the bra wasn’t a great fit.
Both of us were thin now, not unhealthy, but pretty darn thin. We ate plenty, but with little fat in our diet, our bodies had become lean. It wouldn’t be long before I would get rid of the bra, it wasn’t much for covering the girls up now. On the upswing of losing so much fat, my monthly had stopped. My body didn’t have enough fat to support it. Who knew?
To make sure we got some fat, we did eat the skin of the rabbits, and other animals. At least the skin from the arms and legs. The rest went to making hides. We ate the fish skins as well. In modern times, everyone said fatty foods were bad for you. Well, they were to an extent, but no fat in your diet was deadly. The body needed some fat, your brain needs fat to function properly.
We got back to our hunt after the break. There were mosquitoes in this area. I’m sure there was a nice bit of standing water someplace. I knew I was going to be covered with bites before we got home. Birds were calling from deep within the forest. It was a good sign.
We hit an area with a lot of low bushes and we heard something ahead. We got our weapons ready and loaded the spears onto the throwing rods. We crept with practiced stealth. We’d agreed ahead of time, that if we saw them, we’d aim for the nearest one, whether it was a baby or a big one, it didn’t matter.
Because Harper is taller, he could see over the bushes. I could see over only a bit, I couldn’t see what was on the ground on the other side. He turned and whispered, “There are six of them. There is a medium size one nearest us. I’m going to aim for it.”
I nodded and followed behind him. I watched him and where I placed my foot. I didn’t need to step on a twig or stick and snap it. We gradually came around the cluster of bushes. I saw him pull his arm back, I held spears in the ready for him, this way I could feed him a spear if he needed it. He held an extra spear in his other hand and he reached his arm back to launch the first spear.
It happened fast, he hurled the spea
r and within a second, the other spear was in the launcher and he threw that. I slapped a spear into his hand and he launched that. I could hear the tapirs panicking and splashing and running. I caught the ruckus of one squealing and then it was quiet. Harper stood and walked around the bushes, stepping into the river. I saw the tapir laying half in and half out of the water and I was thrilled.
He turned and grinned at me and we hugged each other hard.
“Wow, that was fantastic Harper. You did it, you really did it.”
“I didn’t think these little spears could penetrate the hide, but they did. Man, I feel so relieved. This animal should have plenty of fat.” He grinned, his teeth bright behind his stubbly beard.
It was our first big kill, giving us a hell of a lot of meat. Approaching the tapir cautiously, we didn’t want to get kicked with those feet. But the animal was dead, he had gotten two spears into the animal, one in the neck and one in the body itself. It lay in the rushing water and Harper pulled out his knife and we began to butcher the animal.
He gutted it first, pulling the internal organs out. We kept the liver and heart and we kept the stomach and intestines. I washed them quite a few times in the rushing water. I knew that Native Americans used the intestines for storage and I wanted to as well.
The animal looked to be a couple hundred pounds. It was going to be heavy to take back and we had about a five hour walk back. With the internals out, a lot of weight was washed down river. While Harper cleaned him up, I went looking for sturdy saplings. I’d brought the stone hatchet he’d made. Finding two likely trees, I cut them down. I was impressed, the stone made short work of the wood. I’m glad I came with him, because it was going to be a heavy thing to take back.
After he’d cut it open, I saw that it was laced with ribbons of fat within. I was pleased. It wasn’t a lot of fat, but it was enough for us. I dragged the two saplings over, dropping them by the animal. Harper was washing the carcass. I hacked at the smaller branches on the saplings, cleaning the long poles.
“Do you think it is cool enough?” I asked.
“Should be, we can stop periodically and put water on and in it. I don’t think the meat will spoil.”
“Good, cause I’m wanting that fat in there.” I laughed.
He fitted the saplings together with my rope, adding smaller bracing limbs. I helped as much as I could, and our finished travois looked pretty darn good. We rolled the body onto the travois and secured it to the travois. It was laced tight, we may have overdone it with the rope, but that sucker wasn’t going anywhere.
We walked along the riverbank on our way back to the cave. We stopped from time to time by low areas and dragged the travois through the water, to cool the carcass down. It was a hot day, we’d not had rain for nearly a week, but the water was cold and fast. We also drank and filled our water bottles. I had my backpack on the travois, because I now sported a long quiver. It had my spears tucked into it and strapped across my back.
I’d made one for Harper, though his was longer, since his spears were longer than mine. I carried my launcher in my hand, but had a rope attached, that slipped over my wrist, I’m proud to say that I am a pretty damn good shot. Harper is better, mostly because he has the strength behind the launch. I’d not killed anything yet, but if I saw a rabbit, you’ll know that I’m going to do my best.
“I feel so good. Man, that was awesome.” Harper said grinning at me.
“I’ll say, I’m so excited. I wonder what tapir tastes like.”
“Chicken.” He laughed.
“Smartass.” I laughed back. We were interrupted by a long low howl, and it wasn’t in the distance.
“Holy shit. That sounded close.” I said nervously, my mouth becoming suddenly dry.
“Keep your eyes open, if you see any of them, we’re going to have to use our spears.”
“I don’t know if I can penetrate their hide.” I worried.
“Try your best. I’m going to set this branch on fire.” He said, picking up deadfall. He pulled out his lighter and lit several spots along its dried leaves and sticks. The branch smoldered, but didn’t burst into flames as I would have hoped. Smoke was good though.
Cracking and snapping in the woods twenty feet away got our attention. We stopped, scanning and then four massive wolves came out. They were bigger than our modern wolves, but thankfully not by much. Two of them were nearly black while the other two were gray and white. The black wolves had gray eyes and the gray wolves had brownish gold eyes. Beautiful creatures, but deadly. My eyes flicked down to their paws, which were large and had two-inch nails.
I felt a shiver. To say I almost shit myself, would have been an understatement. I drew out my spears, I only had ten. Harper had twelve, but one was broken from hitting the tapir. My eyes were locked on.
Advancing toward us, we waited. They weren’t big and fuzzy, they were sleek. Their eyes watchful, and they sniffed the air, smelling our smoke and tapir.
“I’m going to howl, maybe they’ll understand that.” Harper said. I didn’t say anything, I just nodded, my launcher loaded with a spear.
I heard him suck in a deep breath and he belted out a long howl that made the hair stand up on my arms. We’d practiced howling at the cave when ever we heard the wolves in our area. I didn’t know if these were the same wolves.
The animals stopped advancing and I would have thought it was funny, if I wasn’t about to become wolf poop, their heads cocked sideways, turning this way and that. The bigger one began to advance.
“Well that didn’t work very well.” He said.
From my peripheral I saw him lift his arm up and back. I did the same and he launched his spear, and I did as well. He caught the advancing wolf in the flank and it sunk in, causing the animal to cry out and run. My spear hit the one behind him, though it barely penetrated his hide. It did however cause pain, because it jerked and cried and turned to run. All the wolves left us, running back into the forest. My spear had fallen from the animal, but I wasn’t going to go retrieve the branch.
“My legs feel like noodles.” I said and promptly sat down on the ground. The overwhelming need to urinate hit me. Lifting my hands, I saw that they were shaking badly, I was surprised that I hit the animal at all. A warm hand squeezed my shoulder and Harper kissed the top of my head.
“You did damn fine woman.” He laughed unsteadily and sat down beside me. His large warm hand took mine, and he brought it to his mouth and kissed it. I looked at him, he was as pale as I felt.
“I don’t think they will come back. I don’t know if there are others. But we’ll keep the smoldering branch with us. I’ve never seen a wolf in real life. They were beautiful, I really hated to hurt them.”
“Me too, though I don’t think I hurt mine too much. Do you think the wound from your shot will kill him?” I asked.
“I don’t know. If he can get it out, I think he will heal. He’ll have a limp though. I would imagine their healing abilities are pretty good, it’s a hard life in the wild.”
“I really have to go pee. Can you turn your back? I don’t think I want to go two feet away from you. And plug your ears and sing loud.”
He laughed and pulled me up, then turned his back. Sticking his fingers in his ears, he belted out Baby Got Back, which made me giggle, because he was shaking his butt. He didn’t have much of one left since we’d lost so much weight. I finished up and kicked dirt over my spot.
“Thanks, I feel better.”
“Now your turn.”
So, I turned my back and plugged my ears and sang more of the song, shaking my butt, a huge smile on my face.
I’m here to tell you, it was a long trip back. My legs were nearly jelly when we got back and I fell to the ground. I wasn’t sure if part of that was from the meeting with the wolves or just the strain from the long walk. We let the carcass rest in the river while we sat and caught our breath. It took us six hours to come home. Thankfully, we didn’t have any more run-ins with bears, wolves or anythin
g else.
We still had a long time ahead of us processing the meat and fat. I got up and set a fire and got the rocks ready. I wanted to make a fresh soup with the meat. We would also fry some of the meat as well. We both stripped down to our underwear, and I went braless. Harper’s brow went up and a slow smile slid across his face, and we began the bloody business of cutting the meat into strips. Because it was later in the day, we built another fire in the cave.
Harper took the racks up into the cave and laid the thin strips of meat on the racks over the low fire. This way, we could keep smoking and drying the meat into the night and not worry about predators. We were efficient and got the animal processed in good time. We had several small steaks sizzling, and it smelled wonderful. We’d have our soup as well, I had Harper crack several of the smaller bones, for the marrow. I cut up the daylily tubers and put into the soup. This thickened it up nicely and I added the hen of the wood mushrooms, chives, watercress and meat.
Harper liked the organ meat, not me, so he had a liver steak. I just had a flank steak. He cut the heart in thin strips as well. I had the other bark bowl filled with hot water and had the stomach and intestines soaking. I was going to boil and clean them and use them for storing the pemmican when we made it. I was beyond thrilled with the animal.
It is still a hard concept, knowledge of starvation, kept only at bay by our hands. I’d never once thought of the concept before coming here. My cabinets and cupboards had been filled. If I were short an ingredient, it was an annoyance and inconvenience. If we were short now, it was death. Our bodies had been transformed, we were very slender now and our clothes hung on us. It is still difficult to wrap my mind around it.
As it turned out, we rendered nearly four pounds of fat from the tapir. I don’t know if that is a lot or a little, but for us, it was just right. Over the course of the next few days, we worked hard getting all the meat smoked and dried. Each night we fell into bed, exhausted. By bed, I mean the dirt floor. We didn’t care, it was comfortable, and we had our pillows.
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