Pushed Back

by S A Ison

  Harper surprised the men, when he gave them his launching stick and five of the thin spears. They tried to refuse and Harper indicated he had another in the cave. Finally, they accepted and it was a sweet gesture, they patted the taller man on his shoulders. I had also wrapped up a large chunk of baked fish and I’d wrapped it in a large leaf, handing it to Takhi who grinned. I patted her face and stood.

  Each of the women walked over to me and put their hand on my shoulder, and I returned the gesture. We waved as they walked upriver. Isi turned and smiled and waved back. Harper and I stood for a long while, until they were out of sight.

  “All I can say is, that was friggen amazing!” he said, his face animated, his gray eyes glittering.

  I grinned like an idiot.

  “We actually met the first humans to inhabit this land. And not the very, very first, but you know.” He said, laughing.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s like knowing these people will be the beginning of the Native Americans that will people this land for thousands of years. Also, my ancestors.”

  “Yeah, mine as well. I’m an eighth Chickasaw, though my ancestors are farther west. They will have this country for a long while, at least until the white man comes along.”

  I laughed at him, “Yeah, we’re already here.”

  He looked at me and then laughed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “That was sooo damned cool. I’m so happy. I hope they come back.”

  “They might, they now know where we live.”

  “This is true. That was very nice of you to give them your spears and launching stick.” I smiled up at him.

  “I can make another and I still have yours if I need it between now and when I make another. It will probably be a good idea to make a few of them. So, if we get more company, I have some to give.” He grinned.

  I laughed, and together, we cleaned up the campsite. We threw the leftover bones into the dying fire.

  “Those date things were really good. Man, it has been so long since I’ve had something fried like that.” Harper said dreamily.

  “Me too. It was all I could do not to stuff them into my mouth.”

  “I guess I will need to make sure I get another animal with plenty of fat. I could grow used to that.”

  “I’ll have to get more cattails, and build up our flour reserves. We still have some, but I gave Isi some of it and a little of the fat. Now they can make their own.”

  As it grew darker, we went up to the cave opening and sat, looking out over our own vista. It was peaceful and we saw the small herd of horses. They were making their way to the palms.

  “Look, I think we were lucky to get the dates when we did.” Harper said, pointing at the herd.

  “Yeah, I think the palms put out a sweet smell. We have plenty though. I’ll go and check tomorrow and pick them if there are more. I’d like to have some fresh ones on hand.” In the distance we heard owls, hooting back and forth. Then below, we saw lightening bugs.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d not think we were in the past.” Harper said in a hushed voice.

  I felt the warmth of his hand as it reached mine and he held it gently. I squeezed his hand.

  “I know, it is so weird sometimes. I wake up and forget where I am.”

  “Me too, then I hear you snoring and I’m okay.” He sniggered.

  I elbowed him, “I don’t snore. You snore.”

  “Oh, you snore little miss Sunshine. Like a freakin freight train.” He laughed harder, trying to dodge my poking.

  He drew me in for a hug and kissed me gently on the lips. I smiled up into the kiss.

  “Goober.” I whispered and his body shook with laughter.

  Δ

  The rest of the summer we worked hard, Harper dug a hole and we worked on making a kiln. It was the best we could do.

  “The hole is deep enough for you to put your pot in it. First, we’ll get a fire going inside the hole with hardwood. I’ll also have another fire beside it. We let the fire burn down to hot coals. Then we put your pot inside and then rake hot coals on top of it from the other fire and around the sides. Then we cover it over with sand and dirt and leave it.” Harper said.

  “You think it will work?” I had taken some of the cattail fluff, chopped up cattail reeds and wood ash and mixed into a nice glob of mud. The fluff and chopped up reeds helped to give the mud strength, like making bricks. I had gone along the bluff to several of the different layers of dirt. I’d found one that was three feet off the ground. It had been the one best for making the mud. It held up well. I had formed a crude two-quart pot. It wasn’t fancy, but I hoped it would work.

  “I’m not sure, but this is how we cook our fish. And that mud casing around the fish was hard. I think if we are careful and don’t get too rough with the pots or bowls, I think they should be okay. The big test will be putting water in them.”

  “Maybe if it bakes long enough and with the ash in the mud that I made the pot with, maybe it will be waterproof. I think the fluff and reeds will at least give it strength. Prior to putting that in, the pot kept collapsing in on itself. It would be nice to cook in it.”

  “If it turns out good, then maybe you can show Isi.” Harper suggested.

  “Yeah, that would be nice. The next piece I will do I will try to decorate. I might make a few small tumblers, so we have glasses to drink from.”

  “That would be really nice.” He smiled. I watched as he pushed the hot coals into the pit and then we both raked the sand and soil into the pit. We didn’t press down hard, I was afraid the weight of the soil would crack the pot. We sat back and grinned at each other.

  The next day, we were nervous, I can’t lie. We carefully dug into the ground. We were surprised that the ground was warm beneath. We came to the pot and it was still very warm.

  “Maybe we should leave it sitting there to cool a bit more.” Harper suggested.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right. Let’s give it a couple hours.” I was surprised that the ground had kept the heat. The reeds and fluff that I used with the mud, really helped to keep the pot’s shape.

  I kept going back to the pit, squatting down and putting my hand in. I was amazed that the ground had held the warmth for so long. We carefully pulled the pot out and inspected it. It was black and discolored, but whole. We let it cool down completely, it was just a little warm yet. We then took it to the river.

  “You do the honors.” Harper grinned, waggling his dark brows.

  We held our breath as we put water in it and set it on the river bank. We sat there watching it, as though it would explode.

  “I think we should just leave it for a while. Maybe come back to check it from time to time.” I said nervously.

  “Yeah, a watched pot and all that.” He teased.

  “Asshole.” I laughed.

  We got up after a time and went about our chores. We came back from time to time to check the water level and the hardness of the pot. So far so good. After six hours or better, we decided it was a success, at least for holding water.

  The next test came when we made dinner. I made a stew of the dried tapir meat, broadleaf plantain and chopped up puffball mushroom and some daylily bulbs. We were like vultures standing over the pot, watching and willing it not to explode into shards.

  “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, fire burn and your pot bubbles.” Harper cackled like a witch, rubbing his hands.

  “You need to stop.” I laughed, shaking my head. We had made a circle of rocks and had raked hot coals into that and placed the pot on top of the rocks. We shoved in hot coals between the rocks from time to time and added twigs.

  I gave a shout when the liquid in the pot began to boil. “Holy shit, you did it Ivy, you actually made a pot that we can cook in.” he laughed and gave me a hug. He held on a little longer and I looked up into his face. He leaned down and kissed me. His hand reached to smooth my hair away from my face. I smiled up into his shining eyes.

  “We did it, Harper, w
e did it.” I smiled up at him.

  “Yeah, we did.” And he kissed me again, his mouth moving over mine. I held on for dear life.

  “Ivy, you’re so smart, kind and funny. I know it sucks being here, but I’m glad you’re with me here.”

  “Yeah, I think we make a good team and I am very glad you’re here. I don’t think I would have made it. And that isn’t just for the hunting and shelter. You’ve been strong for me, when I couldn’t be. And I really appreciate that, more than you know.”

  He hugged me hard and we drew apart. I took my stick and stirred the contents of the pot, which was really boiling now. I let it cook for a while longer, but I did not add any more coals. It wouldn’t take long to cook. When it was done, we ate out of the pot.

  “I guess I will have to make bowls next.” I laughed.

  “Yeah, and I guess I should make better spoons.”

  Δ

  After that, I was a mudslinging fool. I made small bowls, large bowls, small cups and big cup, plates and more pots. I had found a sprig of pine with several small pinecones. On each of the dishes, I pressed the sprig into the wet clay. It was simple, but it gave our dishes a nice touch. We kept them up in the cave. I had a set that we used down at the fire, so we didn’t have to bring them up and down. Those were my first tries.

  They weren’t as elegant, but they were useful. Harper had gotten very good at whittling and had made us some good cutlery. He even made us wooden knives. So, we could cut our food if we needed to. We were starting to bring civilization into our camp.

  And of course, I had to make more storage baskets for the cutlery, plates, bowls and glasses. Harper had built me a shelf and I placed my baskets on that. It was kind of weird, but our cave was becoming our home, a real home. He had made a long table for the entry of the cave. There he put his tools, ax and other odds and ends. You know how you have that table or cabinet by the front door and you put your keys there or your purse or wallet? That was ours. I know, weird, but it worked and again, made it feel like home.

  TEN

  We both noticed that the days were beginning to grow shorter. The nights were also starting to become cooler. With all the rabbits Harper had killed, I’d made us a blanket, which was now becoming useful. I’m glad the rabbits he got were big, unlike the small ones in modern times, these rabbits, if I forgot to mention were about the size of a cocker spaniel. We also noticed that they were beginning to have more fat on them. This was very good.

  “I think we should go on another hunt.” Harper announced one morning. “See if we can’t get something bigger, like the tapir. I was thinking we should go farther upriver and also explore more.”

  “That sounds good. We can take the travois and haul it back. We also have good leather straps to hold the fittings of the travois.”

  “I’m going to get the poles from our last travois. I think we should pack a little extra and spend the night out.”

  “You think that will be okay?” I asked nervously. To my reckoning, it was getting near September. We kept tick marks on a paper, but we didn’t actually keep track of the date, just the number of days. We’d been here five months. This would be our first time sleeping away from the cave. It scared me.

  “Tell you what, we’ll go, and if we find and get something, we just head back home. We can always explore next year, when the days are longer. But if we don’t find anything, I’d like to maybe say just a little longer and then turn home. That means, when evening rolls around, we might not be close to home. We’ll find a good shelter and build up a fire.”

  “Okay, I guess that is alright. Sorry, I’m such a scaredy cat.” He walked over and hugged me hard and kissed me on the top of my head. I hugged him back.

  “I will keep you safe. If either of us starts feeling weird, we’ll turn and come home.” He said, and I looked up at him and smiled and nodded. He bent his head and kissed me.

  Later that day, he pulled two ten-foot poles behind him. He had notched and fitted brackets on the travois. Up near the top, he set my mats between the poles and attached them with leather ties. We would carry our food and gear on the travois and hopefully carry our prize back. I also put several baskets there, hoping to gather food and seeds.

  “If we run across the grapes, we can gather some. And maybe some of the figs, though I don’t know if either are ripe yet.” He said.

  Come next year, I planned to plant seeds and grow some of our own things here. Between the cave and the river was about fifty feet, so there was plenty of cleared grassland. There were abundant stands of trees, but those were scattered. The sun would hit a good size patch of ground that I planned to use as my garden. The mastodon dung was also scattered around, I was hoping that would enrich the soil for next year.

  It seemed my mind is always thinking now. In the other time, my mind thought in blocks of time. Now, it ranged from hourly to far in the future. Harper and I had changed quite a bit. I know my daughters will be happy that I’m busy and not sad. My life is filled with surviving, but it is beginning to come easier. I’m not as terrified of the future as I’d once been. I am ensuring our survival by planting what we need.

  The dandelions, broadleaf plantains, and daylilies were thriving and spreading. The cattails were getting taller, but they might not produce the fuzzy brown flower until next year, so I kept collecting them when I found them along the river. Trust me, you can’t go wrong with cattails.

  We left out early the next morning, just as color was tinting the eastern sky. It was cool, but we were naked except our pelt loin cloths. We also wore our boots, because of the unknown terrain ahead. I wasn’t going to use the precious skins for a lot of hot weather clothing. The loin cloths I made, I used one rabbit skin for the both of us. Harper also wore his belt. He carried his ax and knife in it.

  The knife had a clip that hung off the back, for easy access. The ax hung off the side, he’d cut a split in the belt so the handle of the ax slipped through. It was his utility belt now. It looked funny with the loin cloth, but I kept that thought to myself.

  We would have gone completely naked, you know like in that show, where they dumped people in the middle of nowhere. But I wasn’t at that point yet and didn’t feel comfortable going bottomless.

  We didn’t wear shoes anymore, our feet becoming hardened, though we did wear them today. We wanted to save the boots for winter. And it was now comfortable for us to go without. Our bodies were slowly adapting to our environment. We had become more comfortable mentally. Plus, if we got dirty or bloody, we just jumped in the river. We were beginning to live our lives in tune with nature.

  It was quiet out, just before the day birds wake and the night birds go to sleep. It was hushed and we felt like the only people on earth, and well, we pretty much were, except for our friends, Isi and her family. There was a warm glow in my heart, to know that we had made friends. Though we couldn’t speak, perhaps one day we would learn. We weren’t alone.

  We walked along the bank of the river and saw fish splashing around. We wouldn’t fish unless we wanted to eat it. The fish would spoil in the heat if we did catch one and possibly draw a bear. Not really what we wanted. We were near the dense forest and swung in to check the grapes and figs.

  “That would be nice to pick some for later to eat.” I said as we walked to where Harper had spotted the grapes before.

  “It would be. I just hope the deer haven’t eaten them.”

  As it turned out, the grapes weren’t ready. “Man, I’m bummed.” I said. We stood looking at the fruit, still plenty, but not quite ripe.

  “God, it makes my teeth itch, it’s so sour. I guess we wait another week or two. We can come back.”

  “Is that more grapes over there?” I pointed to a large growth of vines that covered several bushes that sat in a clearing. We walked over to it. “Holy crap, these are beans of some kind.” Harper laughed excitedly.

  “Really? Open the pod.”

  He did so and a small handful of white beans came out.
”

  “I wonder what kind they are?”

  “I don’t know, let me try one.” He said and bit into a small white bean.

  “You scare me some times, that might be poisonous.” I said, my teeth biting on my bottom lip.

  “Naw, look at the pods below, they’ve been chewed to hell. Something, I think rabbits or squirrels have been eating these. It tastes like a bean.”

  “I think we have added beans to our diet.” I smiled. We spent the next thirty minutes picking bean pods. Filling one of the baskets.

  “We can dry these for winter use. I can also plant them in the spring. Holy cow, this is great.”

  “I didn’t know beans were even on this continent, but I guess it makes sense. I do know that there are tons of different kinds of beans.”

  We left the woods and resumed our journey upriver. We came on a vast open grassland. It was stunning, and the grass was high.

  As we walked, both of us looked at the grass. It had huge heads on it, which looked almost like wheat or oats.

  “Do you think this is some kind of edible grain?” Harper asked, taking one in hand and popping the grain out. I looked in his hand, it looked like some kind of grain, but I had no clue what the heck oats or wheat looked like in its natural form.

  “I have no clue Harper, it looks like it. But I’ve only seen pictures, I’ve never actually seen real wheat or oats like that.”

  “Maybe we should collect as much as we can, plant it next year. We can maybe grind it on a stone and see if we get some kind of flour.”

  “Heck yeah, that would beat trying to get flour from the cattails. It is okay, but if I had real flour or something close to it, that would be great. I could make flat bread.”

  “Holy shit, bread.” Harper said in a lusting and drooling voice. I laughed but the idea of fried flat bread, maybe mixed with dates or dried strawberries. My stomach rumbled.

  “I guess that clinches it, the heads are kind of big, let’s see if we can pop the grain out into your basket.”

  We did, but it wasn’t easy, because the ends of the heads of grain were kind of sharp and stuck. We spent about ten minutes doing this until we got the bright idea to bend the stalks over and rub the grain out with a big stick. This loosened the grain and it fell out easily. I let Harper do that while I picked up and scooped up the grain, putting it in my basket. There was plenty of dirt mixed in, but I figured I’d sort that out later, at the cave.