A Dawn of Mammals Collection

by Lou Cadle

  The vine-holders backed up, away from the group, trying to keep the top of the net stretched taut. They were struggling with the job.

  Trying to haul the net back in was a comedy of errors. They couldn’t find the bottom with their forked sticks for a long time. Twice, the vine-holders let the top of the net sink to the water’s surface, and a quick fish might have made it out over the top.

  Of course, the fish could just swim around the edges. As long as it was taking to pull in the net, she suspected every one would manage to escape.

  Finally, Ted had one corner of the bottom of the net snagged, and he dragged it back toward the bank.

  “Good, good,” said Rex. “Dixie, see if you can find the middle now.”

  “I’m trying!” she said, stabbing the water with the pole.

  Jodi had the far end of the net, and her reach wasn’t as long as the others’.

  Rex looked around. Garreth wasn’t doing anything. “Garreth, see if you can help Jodi or Dixie and do any better, would you?”

  “I’ll get it!” said Dixie. “Leave me alone.”

  Garreth went to Jodi and held his hand out. “Be my guest,” she said, handing over the stick and backing off.

  Rex said, “Good job, Ted.”

  Ted had dragged the corner of the net up onto the thin lip of dirt under the bank.

  “Toss a rock on it or something to weight it,” Rex said. “Then take over for Garreth.”

  “No,” said Garreth. “I have it, I think.” He pulled at the long branch.

  “Don’t pull it up,” Ted said. “Drag it along the bottom.”

  “Right,” said Garreth.

  Ted had his end weighted down. “I’ll help Dixie.”

  “I know I can get it,” she said.

  “Keep trying. I’ll just stand by you and maybe one of us can hook it,” Ted said diplomatically.

  Finally, they had trapped the bottom of the net in four places along the shore. The two holding the vines kept walking back toward the trees, then Rex had them walk toward each other, until the sides lifted out of the water, and there was a pouch of net. Rex said, “We need to get down there, I think. On that little strip of beach. I don’t see how else to finish the job.”

  “Be very careful,” Hannah said. She wondered if all the commotion had driven off predators or attracted them.

  Ted and Rex jumped down and hauled the net’s weighted corners further up. Hannah gave Ted a hand up as he pulled up the net to the bank. She felt better when he was up and away from the water. Rex managed to get himself safe too. Then, by trial and error, they pulled the net back, until what they had caught in it was spilled through a sag in the middle of the net and onto the thin lip of dirt under the bank.

  It wasn’t much.

  There was an eel—or lamprey or something like that—and two turtles.

  “Can we eat that eel thing?” Rex asked.

  Hannah glanced up and saw he was looking at her. “I think.” She wasn’t sure. “The turtles, definitely.”

  “We can’t eat the turtles,” Nari said. When several heads swiveled to look at her, she stared at her feet. “I guess we can,” she said miserably. Anything she saw as a potential pet, she obviously had a harder time eating. Not that her vegetarianism left her happy about eating any meat at all.

  Dixie said, “Aren’t you hungry? I’m starving. I’m so hungry I’d eat the turtle’s shell.”

  Hannah said, “I’ll go down and get them.”

  She took off her pack and scrambled down to the lip of the dirt. Not much space there at all. The water lapped at her boots and her toes curled back, as if that’d help protect them from being bitten off by some lake monster.

  Rex said, “Try not to damage the net. Took us long enough to make it.”

  “I’ll try.” She flipped the weighted portion up so she wasn’t walking on it and sidled along. She had a very girlie moment of not wanting to touch the eel thing, but she managed to grab it and, with a shudder, she tossed it back onto the bank. She picked up the smaller turtle first, by its carapace. She knew not to pick them up by their tails—but then she realized that was ridiculous, because that rule was about not damaging their spines. They’d be killing this critter at any moment. Still, why torture it first? She’d drive her knife into its brain and kill it humanely in a minute, but let its spine stay healthy until that moment.

  She put it back behind her, up on the bank. The larger turtle had entangled itself in the net, and was struggling to get back to the water. She reached for it, and its head came around, mouth open. Hannah snatched her fingers back. No telling what strength of bite it had. She shook the net, then pulled it one way and another, trying to disentangle the animal’s claws from the net. Finally, she gave up and grabbed the weighted end and pulled that up. “Pull back on the top of the net,” she called up. Someone did, and she lifted her end at the same side, so that the turtle was caught as if in a hammock. She lifted the package of netted turtle over her head and back onto the bank and then gratefully sidled back along until she could haul herself up and away from the dark water.

  Rex was trying to direct everyone to untangle the net around the turtle.

  Claire said, from the lower bank, “Darn. Got my bait again. I need a more sensitive line if I’m going to feel a fish strike.”

  Hannah walked over to her. “You think you’re getting fish, though?”

  “Something,” Claire said. “You guys have an eel or whatever, so it could be that. Or anything, really. Big frog, maybe?”

  “You using the grass cordage or a vine?”

  “Vine,” Claire said, “because—”

  Nari’s scream was almost as loud as the terror crane’s.

  Chapter 13

  Hannah spun and was running for the sound before it had died out. She sprinted up the rise and onto the high bank. Nari was standing, whimpering now, her left hand clasped around her right wrist. From her right hand dangled the larger of the turtles, its jaws closed around her first finger.

  Reaching the girl’s side, Hannah dug in her pocket for her knife and thumbed out the blade. “Ted, Rex, one of you, grab the carapace—the shell of the turtle—and steady it.”

  “Will it bite me?” asked Rex.

  “It only has one mouth,” she said, as Ted grabbed the animal. “No, don’t lift it.” The turtle’s green neck was stretched and lengthened by the suspended weight of it. Hannah closed her fist around the knife and punched it, hard, into the neck, trying for a killing strike.

  The turtle let go, but it wasn’t dead. Its head twisted around. Nari snatched her hand back.

  “Drop it,” she said to Ted.

  He did, and she put a boot on its shell, pinning it. “Rex, you do this. Hold it down with your boot, just like I am.” Once the turtle was held in place, she fumbled a paintbrush out of her tool belt and waved it in front of the turtle’s nose. It opened its beak and chomped down. She pulled gently on the brush, stretching the neck, and then stabbed again, yanking the knife back this time to slit the neck. Blood welled out.

  It was either dead, or dying, or stunned, but she made sure, sawing through the neck until the head drooped off, connected by only a flap of skin.

  She turned around and there was Nari, on the ground, her left hand pinching the base of her injured right forefinger. Dixie was leaning over her, trying to comfort her. Hannah said, “Let me see it.”

  Nari said, “It hurts.”

  “Yeah, I know it must.” Hannah was almost afraid to look, thinking the turtle may have bitten the thing through so far that Nari would lose her finger. She encircled the right wrist and lifted both hands so she could see them better.

  “Want me to let go?” Nari said.

  “No. You’re doing fine. Keep hold of it.” There was still blood oozing out, but if the girl let go, judging by the amount of blood covering both of Nari’s hands, the wound would bleed profusely. “I need—” Hannah said.

  Her first aid kit was thrust under her nose. She gl
anced up and saw it was Garreth holding it open for her. “Thanks. Good job,” she told him. Digging into it one-handed, she found the roll of gauze, pitifully thin now. “Knife,” she said, looking around for it. She must have dropped it after stabbing the turtle.

  Ted pressed it into her hand. She wiped the turtle blood on her jeans, tore open an alcohol wipe—down to two, now—and wiped the knife. Then she cut a short length of gauze and used it to dab away most of the blood. She used the alcohol wipe to clean the finger, and she could see the wound. It was a single line, stretching nearly from fingertip to knuckle joint. It looked deep. She wouldn’t be surprised if it went straight to the bone. More blood welled out, and she lost her view of it. But at least she knew what she was dealing with.

  “Gross,” said Dixie.

  “Not that bad,” said Hannah, smiling at Nari. “It’s fixable, really.”

  “Do you need to sew it?”

  “I don’t know yet. Let go, a little bit at a time, and let me see how it’s bleeding now.”

  When Nari had released her grip, blood poured out. The girl, already pale, glanced up and blanched even more.

  “Pinch it off again.” Hannah looked around. “Ted, you hold Nari’s hands over her head, holding her by the wrists or forearms. Take the weight off so she doesn’t have to do the work herself.”

  Garreth said, “Can I do anything?”

  “You still have your windbreaker?” He was wearing his backpack.

  “Yeah.”

  “Get it out and drape it over Nari.”

  Dixie said, “It’s sweltering. She doesn’t need a windbreaker.”

  Bob came up and said, “Dixie, why don’t you come stand over here? I know you’re worried about Nari, but let Hannah fix her hand, okay?”

  When Bob had led Dixie a few yards away, Garreth draped the windbreaker over Nari’s shoulders.

  “Anything else?” Garreth said.

  “Hang close. There might be,” Hannah said. “Except for Ted and Garreth, the rest of you back off. Claire, you might think about how to get the meat out of the dead turtle. Or any of you. Figure that out. ”

  Hannah stood next to Ted and looked closely at Nari’s injury, gently pulling the sides of the wound apart, trying to see how deep it went. They resisted. “It’s starting to swell,” she said. “That’s good, Nari. It’ll slow the bleeding.”

  “I’m not going to die?” Nari said, her voice shaking.

  “Gosh, no. Not today.” Not if I can help it. “Okay now. Let go, Nari, and let your left hand fall to your side. Ted, keep her right hand up.” Hannah wanted the wound to bleed freely another minute or so, in case the animal had salmonella—or the Paleocene equivalent. Give it a chance to get any contagion out of there.

  Nari let go, and blood flowed from the wound, but no longer as quickly. Still, it trickled down her wrist and arm, making its way toward her short-sleeved cotton blouse. Ted switched hands and unbuttoned his shirt.

  “Good idea, but someone else. Ted, you keep her arm elevated.” Hannah said, “Garreth, you willing to loan us your shirt for a minute?”

  “Sure,” he said, and unbuttoned it, pulling it off to reveal a pale, narrow chest. He came around and wiped up the blood. Some of it had started to dry at the edges already. The blood flow was slowing, either from the swelling, or from keeping the arm elevated, or both.

  “Thanks, Garreth. Don’t forget to rinse that out as soon as you can.”

  “Yeah,” he said, backing off a step, his bloodied shirt wadded in his hand.

  Hannah squatted and cut off another length of gauze. She dug out the triple antibiotic cream too, and the elastic bandage. She was lucky her first aid kit had a reusable one, and not one of the sticky-backed one-use ones. She’d already used it far too many times. This was the fourth or fifth serious injury, and one of these days it’d lose its elasticity. Her own injured thigh throbbed still, as she let herself think about it.

  She took up the used alcohol wipe, not liking reusing it but unwilling to sacrifice the last two to this one injury. She used a clean corner to dab gently at the wound, then said to Ted, “Pinch it off again at the base of her finger, like she was doing.”

  When he had, she spread the ointment on it and wrapped it in the clean gauze. Then she wound the elastic bandage around it to keep pressure on the wound. Three winds around the finger, and then she wound it around three fingers together, and then the whole hand, more to use up the length of the bandage than for any medical reason. It had Velcro closures, which she secured at Nari’s wrist and thumb.

  Hannah said to Ted, “You can let go of her finger, but keep holding the arm up for a minute.” She sat back to repack the first aid kit with its dwindling supplies—including a handful of bandages and a solitary packet of aspirin—and looked around for her pack.

  Garreth said, “I’ll put it away for you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, finishing putting the supplies away and handing over the first aid kit.

  Nari said, “Thank you, Garreth. And Ted. And Hannah.”

  Hannah looked at the girl’s face. Pale, a little damp with sweat, but no more sweaty than her own. “How you feeling?”

  “Okay. Scared?” She tried for a smile that didn’t quite materialize. “There’s no reason to be scared now, though, is there?”

  There was every reason to be scared, all day, every day. “Not of the turtle,” Hannah said. “And not about yourself. It’ll heal up in a week or two. And we found clean water, back at the plateau, cleaner than what’s in here, so all we have to do is keep it clean. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to work harder at finding a soap plant too,” said Hannah. “In this heat, I’m sure we all feel we could use a bath every day, right? Soap would be nice. And it’d keep our injuries cleaner.”

  “How will you do that?”

  “Trial and error,” said Hannah.

  “But there must be a million plants here. I thought the vines were all the same at first, but when we were working on gathering them for the net, it was obvious they weren’t. And the ferns are different too, but you have to teach yourself to notice.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m going to be okay?”

  Hannah smiled at her. “You’re going to be fine. But I bet it’ll hurt for a few days.”

  “It hurts now.”

  “But it’s bearable, right?”

  Nari bit her lip and nodded.

  Hannah turned around and looked. Half of the people were watching her, and half were engaged in other tasks. “It’s fine, everyone. Garreth, why don’t you use some of the unfiltered water to rinse your shirt, up here on the bank. Everybody else, get the rest of the water filtered, and get those animals killed and cleaned.”

  Bob said, “We need your knife for that.”

  “Right, sorry.” She handed it to Garreth. “Give that to Mr. O’Brien, please.”

  Rex was folding up the net, inspecting it as he did.

  She said, “Rex, is it damaged at all?”

  “Nothing we can’t repair. But I have a better idea for next time. Do you want us to cast it again? Today, I mean?”

  One eel and two turtles didn’t sound like a lot of food for eleven people. “I think you had better.”

  Chapter 14

  The second cast of the net went a bit more smoothly, and Hannah once again was the one to jump down to the edge of the water and throw their catch up onto the bank. They had two fish this time. One looked like—well, like a fish, with fins and a mouth and gills, something like a bass. Another looked, for lack of a better word, more primitive. But it was bigger, with more meat.

  “Don’t throw away the stomach when you clean them,” Claire said. “I want to see what they are eating, so I know what to use for bait.”

  Bob said, “Smart.”

  “I’ll get the fishing line figured out too,” Claire said. “Eventually.”

  “Great,” said Zach. “I prefer fish to turtle and eel, I thin
k.”

  Hannah said, “You haven’t tried them yet. Maybe they’re delicious. Turtle soup is supposed to be a delicacy.”

  “We going to steam these?” Jodi asked.

  “I think we should have two meals, starting with a fish fry tonight. What do you all say?”

  Sounds of enthused agreement greeted that. It’d make for two smaller meals, but they’d all appreciate cutting the edge of their hunger tonight.

  Rex said, “I think I can make adjustments with the net to increase our catch.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” she said. “Good job so far.”

  He looked pleased, until he glanced over at Nari. “Someone got hurt, though.”

  Hannah said, “It was an accident.”

  “No,” said Nari, struggling to her feet. Ted loaned her his arm. “It wasn’t an accident. It was me being stupid. I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. Especially not you, Rex.”

  Bob said, “It’s a good lesson for us all. It’s not a pet store. These are wild, dangerous animals. They’ll attack to eat us. They’ll attack to defend themselves. Is it fair to say that every injury we’ve had has been from tooth or claws?”

  Ted rubbed his belly. “And hoof.”

  Bob nodded. “Think of that as an adaptation like a claw, a hard ending to toes to make them more durable, and dangerous.”

  Zach said, “Why do we only have fingernails, then?”

  Dixie said, “That break so easily. Mine are a mess. I wish I’d brought a fingernail file.”

  Hannah was surprised she hadn’t. Though if she had, it’d be confiscated already to work on sharpening spears and filing wood for fire-starting tinder. She looked at the group, sweaty, tired, and obviously stressed. They were all standing, looking to her, obviously waiting for her orders.

  Except for Laina, who was seated cross-legged on the bare dirt, drawing in the ground with a stick.

  Hannah said, “Let’s get ready to move back, then. Rex, you need help coiling up the net?” As she walked through the crowd, she gave a couple of words of advice and a couple of words of praise. Claire was winding her vine line around her fishing pole, and Hannah patted her on the shoulder. “Better luck tomorrow.”