A Dawn of Mammals Collection

by Lou Cadle

  “No, they’re not heavy,” she said. “I’ll have it done soon.” She handed each of the boys another pine bough and then went back to the wall to study it. Every even-numbered course, the outside brick had to be rotated ninety degrees, leaving a few inches sticking out from the wall on each side. She could have tried to break them in half, or baked up a load of half-bricks, but she thought it might be useful, to provide a place to hang things or tie things on those. In fact, she realized, she could mortar in some sturdy sticks for pegs, pointing outside, and create a row of pegs. It’d be a good place to let boots dry overnight if it wasn’t raining.

  Speaking of which, the sky seemed to be getting darker. She hoped they weren’t in for another afternoon of rain, but if they were, at least the roof would be done soon. Ted and Rex were making quick work of it, with Hannah handing them up boughs as they needed them. She was kept pretty busy, going from one side of the cabin to the other, but she managed to make headway on the wall, as well.

  Hannah stopped after she set the second new course of bricks and went hunting for some sticks to use as pegs. She wanted them about twice the length of the bricks. A quarter of their length would be in the mortar, and three-fourths would stick out as a peg. She wouldn’t want to hang anything as heavy as the tool belts on them, but clothing, or boots, or coils of cord could be hung there.

  She heard Bob call to Rex that he had another good length of cord ready.

  Ahead of her, something snapped a twig. She looked up, expecting to see—afraid she’d see—a hell pig or another predator. But it was just a little horse. She froze, and the horse seemed not to notice her. It reminded her sharply of Garreth and his pet. It nuzzled the ground, found something to its liking and munched at it. It raised its head and looked right at her.

  Hannah held her breath. For a long moment, nothing happened. She gazed into its brown eyes and felt an eerie sense that the moment was fraught with meaning. Knowing it to be nonsense, she felt a connection to the horses of twenty million years ago, to Garreth’s Traveller...and to Garreth himself. For the first time in a week, beneath the feelings of guilt and horror at his death, she could feel something simpler and purer: her affection for the boy, untainted by any darker emotion.

  The horse turned and moseyed away, not terribly afraid of her, but still wanting to leave her vicinity. She watched it go until she lost sight of it behind a tree, and found her heart strangely lightened by the moment.

  Maybe not today. Maybe not in a month. But eventually, her feelings for Garreth would be lighter too. She knew it now. And she felt grateful.

  Nari came back an hour later and said brunch was on.

  “Where are Jodi and Zach?” Bob asked, from inside the cabin. “They should have been back by now.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” Nari said.

  Ted jumped down lightly from the roof, laughing as he did. “I’m sure,” he said.

  So it wasn’t a secret from anyone. “You guys mind bringing back a bowl of food for me and Mr. O’Brien?” she asked. “No hurry. After you’re done eating.”

  “I will,” said Nari. She and the boys went walking through the woods and Hannah joined Bob inside the cabin.

  Hannah told him about the budding romance.

  “And you sent them out alone? And told them to take their time?” Bob’s voice was raised to a loudness she hadn’t heard from him more than once in the whole ten weeks they’d been lost in time.

  “I had a talk with the girls. And with Jodi in particular. She says they understand. She says all they are doing is kissing. And I believe her.”

  “So they’re out there just—what? Making out in the grass?”

  “And we talked about taking a look around for predators every couple minutes.”

  “Keee-ripes,” he said.

  “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “You trusting soul, you.”

  She laughed. “Maybe. But I don’t know. Of all the kids, only Laina and maybe Claire’s promises about this would reassure me more.”

  “But Claire’s a lesbian, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but still. I’m just saying, I think we should trust Jodi and Zach. Because I think that really, we have no choice in the matter anyway.”

  He sighed. “That’s about the best argument you’ve made.”

  She said, “I’m surprised you’re upset.”

  “I’m just frustrated in general, not being able to do anything but sit here.”

  “You’re making cordage, and ropes, and contributing,” she said. “And healing up, which is really important.”

  “I feel perfectly fine.”

  “I’m sure you do,” she said. “But on the off-chance that was a mild heart attack—”

  “It could have just been angina, like you said.”

  “Fine, whichever. Heart attack, pre-heart attack, doesn’t matter. On the off-chance it was something worse than a pulled muscle, I need you to stay healthy.”

  “I’ve never had a problem before. I got a clean bill of health at last year’s check-up.”

  She nodded. “But it has probably been a while since you lived this kind of lifestyle. I bet you hire most of your heavy-duty gardening done back home. Pay for a roofer, if you need one.”

  He looked sheepish at that. “We’re both busy, my wife and me.”

  “Sure,” she said, trying to appease him. “It’s a high-stress situation here too. I’d been pushing you hard, and the situation stresses us all. So it’s perfectly fine to take a week and rest up.” He obviously wasn’t ready to hear she had three weeks’ rest planned for him, so she’d reveal it to him only a week at a time.

  He grumbled a bit, but she could tell the fight had gone out of him. “Just keep me apprised,” he said, “of the Jodi-Zach thing.”

  “My bad for not keeping you up-to-date,” she said. “From now on, what I know, you’ll know.”

  After a moment, he said, “Pitch.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The pine sap. I have an idea. Can you get me a little bit on a flat rock? Just smear it on there, in the center. Like one of the bigger rocks from the fire ring.”

  “Sure. Just a second.”

  As she stepped out, he said, “And a stick that’s still smoldering, if you can find one.”

  The fire at the chimney site still had some coals in it, and she took up a rock and flicked a coal onto it. Then she went to the pine sap sticks and got a little bit onto a twig. She smeared it next to the bit of glowing coal.

  And it ignited.

  She jerked her head back, not wanting her hair to catch fire. Shielding the flame with a cupped hand, she carried the rock into the cabin. The cabin brightened with the little light.

  “Son of a gun,” he said. “I was right. A candle. I can’t work in here without one for much longer. Once those last few boughs are on the roof, it’ll be downright dark in here.”

  “We’ll need more than one,” she said. “But we can bring four in here. Or forty. If the flame is contained in the middle of a rock, it isn’t even going to set anything afire.”

  “Forty might be overkill, but four sounds about right.”

  “Sweet idea!” she said. “What made you think of it?”

  “I’m not sure. It popped into my head earlier. Maybe I’d heard of it before. Maybe it was just logic, knowing the sap burned well.”

  “Interesting to see how long it will last,” she said.

  “What time is it?”

  She handed him her watch. “Hang on to it for the day.”

  Jodi’s voice came through the trees. Then she laughed.

  Hannah felt the easing of tension she hadn’t known she’d been feeling. “Here they are. No need to worry.”

  Bob said, “She sounds happy. Just make sure they’re not too happy.”

  Hannah grinned. “Will do.”

  Jodi and Zach were glowing, and looking at each other with that look she knew so well. She cleared her throat.

  Jodi took
a last longing gaze before shifting her attention to Hannah. “We were good.”

  “I had no doubt,” Hannah said. “Food is ready, so go get some.”

  “We found two new plants. They’re on top of the bundles of grass.” They had taken cordage with them and wrapped the grass into sheaves. A pair of greener bits sat on top of them.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Go on and eat. We’ll finish the cabin after.” She tested the mortar supply with a finger and then, using a curved piece of bark, scooped more up on top of her last row of bricks. She was halfway down setting the next course when Claire returned, carrying two bowls.

  “It’s just herring,” she said apologetically. “There were a couple other kinds of fish, but everyone else snatched those up.”

  “Just so I eat. I’m not picky about what.” Hannah accepted a bowl from the girl. “You see a water bottle anywhere?”

  “Ummmm. Here,” Claire said, fetching a half-full one for her.

  “Thanks.” Hannah washed her left hand with water and began to shovel the fish into her mouth with her fingers. She was finishing as the rest of the kids began trickling back from the lakeside.

  Ted said, “It looks like it’ll rain again soon.”

  “Yeah?” Hannah said. She upended the bowl over her mouth to get the last of the fish. When she had swallowed, she said, “We’d better finish, then.”

  Everyone pitched in to finish the roof. Rex’s idea about hauling the boughs up from the other side was okay, but the ropes got stuck in the roof and had to be fished out with a stick.

  Bob yelled, at one point, “Whoever is leaning on the roof, you’re making stuff come through onto me.”

  “Sorry,” said Rex. “Just trying to tie this off.”

  Zach said, “Maybe we should have done all this before we put the roof on.”

  “Too heavy,” Rex called down. “I don’t think we’ll be able to raise it even a few inches to build more on the wall. We’re stuck with it at this height.”

  Dixie said, “My head hits everywhere but the center.”

  “Yeah, you and Ted and Rex are tall,” Laina said. “I like being shorter for once in my life.”

  “Isn’t your dad really tall?” Claire said.

  “He is. Six-three. And he said he was still growing at university, so I hope I get a few more inches before I’m done.”

  “Got it!” Ted said. “I’m finished on my side.”

  Rex still had to finish tying off one bough and put up another. But in fifteen more minutes, they had a completed roof. Rex said, “Let’s see if we can see any holes from the inside.”

  All of the kids crowded in, except Nari, who was helping Hannah finish the secondary wall. Hannah listened to them pointing out spots they could see light.

  Ted said, “Pretty good for a first try, though.”

  Rex said, “Let’s toss some leaves and twigs up there before it starts to rain again.”

  Zach and Jodi offered to go gather some and took one of the backpacks and a Mylar blanket to carry them. The blanket that had been used to form bricks was coated with many layers of cracking mud, but Hannah hoped she’d be able to clean it off with a long soak in the lake. If the Mylar peeled off, it’d just be a hunk of plastic, still useful to carry things, but not so much as an emergency blanket.

  The two kids came back just as the first drops of rain were audible overhead. Zach upended the blanket, and Rex and Ted flung the material up onto the roof in handfuls. Some skittered down, but some stuck in the pine needles.

  Rex said, “Might be better to wait until the leaves are really wet again. It might stay up better.”

  “A good wind would blow it away, wouldn’t it?” Claire asked.

  He frowned. “Maybe.”

  “Let’s think on that,” Hannah said. “But when Nari and I are done with the wall, I’d like to have the memorial service.” She looked up at the gloomy canopy overhead. “Inside, if it’s raining.”

  That sobered everyone, and the conversations for the next several minutes were quiet, and only about necessary matters. In pairs, they went to relieve themselves. Jodi and Zach left to refill all the water bottles at the lake. Hannah focused on the wall. It was straight and true. The outer side was studded with thirty stick pegs, most of them slightly curved upward. It was a lot, but she figured some would break over time. Nine people with boots required eighteen pegs just for that. Dixie didn’t have boots. Overnight, the boots could dry completely if it didn’t rain.

  If it did rain, they’d get piled up in the center of the cabin. She wanted to lay bricks there too. No mortar, just a short rectangular platform of bricks to keep everything off the ground in case the rainy season got even wetter.

  She and Nari went to the lake to wash the mortar off their hands. Hannah became lost in thought about the service, about what to say, and when to say it.

  The rain started, hitting the lake in drops that splashed back. She watched it for a moment, and noticed a thicker patch halfway across the lake. “It’s going to come down harder in a second,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  Hannah pointed. “It’s coming closer. Let’s go back.”

  They gathered in the cabin. There were candles burning, four of them now, in the center section. They sat around the light, the flickering light illuminating sad and sober faces. She thought about how long humans had been doing this, gathering around a fire. Gathering to mourn a fallen tribe member.

  She wondered how many more times this tribe might have to do it before they found their way home.

  She hadn’t organized anything, and when no one spoke for a while, she said, “Bob, would you start?”

  “I will,” he said. “I’ve known Garreth since he was a freshman. He was a good student, though I know science wasn’t really his main interest. He liked history, and because he did, we all had protection that first full night, when he thought of western forts, and stockade walls, and helped organize us to build ourselves protection.”

  Bob continued to talk for five more minutes. Then they began to go around the circle. Everyone had memories—either from the modern world, or from recently. Nari talked about Traveller and how it had known Garreth wouldn’t hurt it, how he was just that kind of person you could trust.

  Hannah listened, and she felt tears fill her eyes more than once. When it came to her turn she said, “I feel responsible for Garreth’s death. I feel like I should have moved more quickly. Or ordered him down the cliff face. Or even had I not been there to change things, I still would have felt responsible, because I took on a leadership role, and I’ve failed everyone twice. M.J. died, and Garreth died, and it’s my responsibility. I know it, and I accept it, and I wish I could promise to each of you that nothing bad will happen to you, that I’ll keep you safe.

  “I wish I could say that, but it’s a promise I can’t make. We live in a dangerous world now. A terribly dangerous world. And any one of us might not be alive by sundown tomorrow. We need to help each other, and to watch out for each other, and to make sure the risks we take are minimized.”

  She cleared her throat and looked right at Dixie, who hadn’t spoken yet. “And I want to take this chance to apologize again to Dixie. I told her in private, but I wanted to say it in front of all of you. I have never hit another person, ever, before that day. I went crazy for a second, and I hit you, Dixie. It was wrong, and I’m sorry. I haven’t done it since, and I won’t do it again. I might yank one of you back from a cliff edge to keep you safe. I may have to hurt you when I sew up a gash. But I’ll never punch any of you. I feel horrible about it, and that feeling of shame is enough to keep it from ever happening again.” She looked around and met all the eyes that were looking her way.

  “And I told Dixie before, and I want everyone to know, I don’t blame her, not anymore. She was afraid of heights. Is afraid of them, still. I think she’d rather not be, and if she had a choice, she wouldn’t be. So Garreth made his choice, the choice to protect her, and he died for i
t. It was his choice. It was the terror crane being itself, living by the law of the jungle. And it was also my final responsibility. I’m sorry, Garreth.” The tears began to flow, and it was hard to get her last words out. “I miss you.” She wiped at the tears with the back of her hand and nodded to Zach, who was next in the circle.

  She had done the best she could to counteract Dixie’s lies. And she had told the truth about being wrong to hit someone. She felt a little bad that she had been, in speaking, as aware of keeping the group together and functioning as on honoring Garreth. But keeping them together was important. And Garreth was gone. Wish to as she might, she couldn’t bring him back.

  If you’re listening somehow, she thought at him, I really do miss you. You were the best of us.

  When it got to Dixie, she didn’t say much. “He was always trying to give me his windbreaker and stuff,” she said. Then she covered her face with her hands. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” She bent her head and cried, though Hannah wasn’t entirely convinced they were real tears.

  Or maybe they were real enough, but she wondered if they were being cried for Garreth.

  Chapter 22

  The rain continued off and on all afternoon. They stayed crowded into the cabin, saying little, everyone probably still lost in thoughts about Garreth. After a couple hours the roof started to leak, and that forced them out of their inaction. A couple of volunteers went out to gather up more fallen leaves, and Ted let Nari sit on his shoulders and she patched the holes from the inside. It worked pretty well. Give them another few days at patching leaks, and they might have a roof that worked to keep them dry.

  The walls were solid, both the brickwork and the mud-patched area above that. Hannah felt pretty good about the effort. After the roof was patched, she got everyone talking again, about what needed to be done next and what was most important to do tomorrow.

  Her vote was for building a wood shed. Even a simple lean-to would suffice, as long as they had a dry source for wood. “If this is the start of a rainy season, and not just a two-day storm, we’ll need it. And the sooner the better,” she told them.