Rome

by Matthew Thayer

  The poor suckers made two heavily laden round trips, clearing the hilltop of building materials, before we dropped the bad news that our minds had changed once again. Realizing they had not only been duped but also wasted more than an hour of valuable time, the Killers were miffed beyond words. They actually could not speak, just shook their heads and muttered, cast us the evil eye as they gathered up their packs and weapons and headed north. If not for their absolute panic to depart, I believe the situation would have deteriorated into bloodshed.

  Even in the face of incineration, the mood atop the hill lightened immediately following their exodus. I had not realized how much negative energy had been weighing us down.

  Filling our gourds and gullets with water from the tub, we surrendered the spring to the animals and spent the remainder of the day at the wide mouth of Lupercal reinforcing the network of limbs, logs and thorny berry switches that comprise its wall.

  Crazy as it sounds, we are going to greatly strengthen what is already there, seal it with leather tarps and cover the whole thing with earth, mud and stones to render it fireproof. Who knows how much time we will have, but if it is a week, we should be able to have a covering at least a half a meter thick at the base.

  Having already endured one major wildfire in the Paleolithic, I know how fast they move, jumping from hilltop to hilltop in seconds. I also know it takes weeks for a fire to pass over the horizon, and up to a month to completely disappear from view. We may have more time to prepare than we think.

  Winds are still from the north, perhaps even fresher than earlier today. For the present, my estimate is a week to 10 days before the fire arrives. And it should pass relatively quickly. We will know more tonight after sunset when we see how brightly yon distant fire glows.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “Mio dio, there is another one.”

  Jones: “Son-of-a-bitch. Look out, Flower!”

  Bolzano: “Both of you stand back.”

  Jones: “One of these days you’re gonna miss, wish that club was back in your hand.”

  Bolzano: “I did not miss this time.”

  Jones: “Fucking lynx, hate those things.

  From the log of Capt. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Never thought I’d say it, but Dirt Bag was right. We can’t keep animals out of the cave.

  Rats and mice poured in all day. Working on wall today, packing dirt and stones, weaving branches, the suckers were crawling right up our legs. So far tonight, we’ve had two lynx, a badger and three porcupine wriggle inside.

  Thought our problems would come from bigger critters, but those have mostly taken off. Kinda weird and, as Sal puts it, “unnerving” to see all the big game split. Like them and the Mammoth Killers know something down in their DNA that we don’t.

  Fire’s closer, but still probably a few days off. We made a big fire to clear the tub area and all got to take baths before dark. Two at a time.

  Red wolf stopped by for a visit. Took a long drink from the stream, had himself a good roll in the mud, before taking off. Headed due north.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “The flames appear much closer this evening.”

  Jones: “Appear? Ya think so? Fuck, Sal, wind keeps turning, this hill could go up tonight.”

  Bolzano: “We will never finish in time.”

  Jones: “Maybe we should head for coast.”

  Bolzano: “The women will think we are crazy.”

  Jones: “How ya say ‘I told ya so’ in Mammoth Killer?”

  Bolzano: “I have an inkling we will soon find out.”

  From the log of Salvatore Bolzano

  Chief Anthropologist & Master Vintner

  First to arrive were the wild dogs. I was standing under tonight’s three-quarter moon relieving my bladder when the first pack arrived. Traveling far too hard to pay attention to me, they drank their fill and carried on northward as if their lives depended upon it.

  Another pack arrived and then another and another. None stopped any longer than it took to drink. Curiosity, and I suppose common sense, inspired me to climb up into my favorite pine for spying. Taking my customary seat on a broad limb worn smooth from many previous visits, I watched the front echelon of the southern hordes arrive in waves. Drawn by the smell of water, jostling for spots at the tub, the beasts lined both sides of the stream trickling down the side of the Palatine.

  There will be a saying someday, tomorrow in fact, if we live through this, “You could sleep through a stampede.” The entire time in the tree, I assumed all the bellowing and barking had woken my companions. “They must be watching this through a crack in the door,” I thought.

  Here I am back in the cave and though the bedlam grows ever louder, they continue to sleep. Jones, as a former soldier, has a knack for dozing on the eve of battle. It surprised me Summer Wind and Flower were also able to drift off so quickly. Within a half hour of the decision to wait out the night and make a break for the sea at dawn, they were both snoring.

  Whenever I closed my eyes, man-eating sharks swam to the fore of my thoughts. Now, following my battle to return home through the onslaught of hides and horns, I am more keyed up than ever. How can these people sleep? Though I know it would be foolish to wake my associates only to say we are trapped and cannot leave, I have an overwhelming urge to do it anyway. Misery does love company.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “What is it like out there?”

  Jones: “Can’t see shit through this crack. Herd’s packed up tight to the door.”

  Bolzano: “What are we going to do?”

  Jones: “Fuck if I know.”

  Bolzano: “I am thirsty.”

  Jones: “We’re all thirsty.”

  From the log of Capt. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Wall’s fucked.

  Started crumbling after a bunch of bison roughed it up with their horns. Don’t know why, just kept ramming it. Top section of dirt and stones came down and then a pride of lions climbed up and tried squeezing in. Hell of a fight. Wanted in bad. Poked the hell out of them between cracks in logs.

  We want out just as bad but can’t find opening. As fire gets closer, pressure builds on water hole. Life’s cheap out there. Both times I stuck my head out door almost got it bit off. We wouldn’t last a minute.

  Scrap with lions has me wondering how long we’ll last in here. So many smaller wildcats and rodents have breached our sorry, piece-of-shit wall their bodies are stacked like firewood against the base.

  Started yesterday with pair of lynx. Sal got one throwing his club and the other disappeared into his bedroom. Spent a couple hours wondering when cat was gonna jump out and bite somebody before Sal put on his helmet and crawled all the way to back with a spear. Cat was gone. Took him seven years living here to finally confirm chamber connects with a vertical shaft.

  Tonight, same damn lynx snuck through wall when we weren’t looking, grabbed a hunk of venison and bolted into Sal’s bedroom. We gotta get out of here.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “This is bad! This is bad!”

  Jones: “No shit.”

  Bolzano: “We are going to die!”

  Jones: “Get the women to the back of the cave.”

  From the log of Salvatore Bolzano

  Chief Anthropologist & Master Vintner

  Summer Wind and I stood peering through a rent in the wall as the cave bear carved a frightened wake through the crush of thirsty, frothing creatures. Standing taller at the shoulder than an aurochs and weighing every bit as much as an adult rhino, the giant bruin muscled to the tub and plunged its ponderous head into the water.

  A bison with the audacity to jostle the leviathan was sent hurtling into its fellows with a swat from a sombrero-sized paw. The powerful demonstration caused the rest of the animals to shy. No matter how desperate their need for water, the bear was alpha.

  Summer groaned a Cro-Magnon epitaph as it emerged
from the tumult and began carving its next wake straight for the cave.

  “Jones!” I called. “Grab your atlatl and loosen your shoulder!”

  The four of us took battle stations in the near dark, standing with our spears and clubs along the base of the wall. With the lions, it had been a matter of jabbing them in the eyes and throats when they wedged their heads through gaps in the lattice. Any notions we could employ similar tactics against the bear were crushed as the giant stood up on its hind legs, grabbed the top crossbeam of our wooden armature and pulled it crashing to the ground. In a matter of seconds, the top third of the wall was gone.

  Hazy sunlight and smoke flooded the cave as former benches and tabletops tumbled inside. A coffee-colored head wider than Summer Wind is tall thrust through the opening. Half-moons of waxy butter beneath each roaming brown eye, the bear surveyed the cave as if measuring it for new carpeting. Scenting us with its wet, trash can-sized nose, the bear’s eyes grew wide as they found us cowering in the shadows.

  I may have been frozen by fear, but Jones is made of sterner stuff. And yet, none of us cast a spear or bolt. I believe we were frozen by acceptance–acceptance that there was nothing our puny weapons could accomplish against an animal so large and powerful. All we would do is enrage it further.

  Hopeful delusions skittered through my mind . . . maybe we could share the cave, or gracefully turn over our lease and take our chances outside. Smoke had only just begun to drift upon the wind. A run to the coast was still a viable option.

  Fantasies the bear would let bygones be bygones were dashed by a front paw shooting through the gap to nearly take Flower. I felt the swish of half-meter-long talons as they passed by. If not for Jones and Summer pulling her to safety, Flower would have been snagged the way a normal bear plucks salmon from a stream.

  Leaving behind a crash of flying timbers, soil and rocks, scampering rats and mice, we retreated through the low doorway of my bedroom. Events began moving too quickly to recall clearly.

  I tugged Summer to the back of my dark chamber as the bear charged. “This is how it ends,” I thought as the growling beast squeezed its high sloping head through the doorway. No matter which way it tried to gain access, however, or how frustrated and insane it grew, the bear’s shoulders were too huge to clear the passage.

  Once this became clear, Jones strode forward and gave the bear a whack on the snout with his atlatl. Diffused sunlight filled the chamber as the bellowing cork pulled away. Sore shoulder and bad back forgotten, Jones took charge.

  “Corporal Bolzano, stoke that fire with whatever will burn! Do it now,” he said as he stuffed his helmet over his mushroom of kinky hair. “Gonna check out this cave.”

  The sturdy soldier crawled headfirst into the dark and was gone long enough to miss a pack of dogs bursting into the chamber and scaring the hell out of everyone before our curses and fire convinced the mutts to return from whence they came.

  Backing out of the narrow space, Jones flipped up the visor of his helmet. “How much rope ya got back here Sal?”

  TRANSMISSION:

  Jones: “Come on, corporal, look alive.”

  Bolzano: “We will never make it!”

  Jones: “Not if we don’t try.”

  Bolzano: “But–”

  Jones: “Soldier, this is a fuckin’ order! Get on your fuckin’ belly and start crawlin’!” Now! Not that way. Backwards. Go in backwards.”

  From the log of Capt. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Spliced together, our three lengths of rope totaled about 18 feet. It’d have to do. First drop in cave wasn’t too bad, narrow at the top but gradual enough to be rock climbing not rappelling. Thirty feet that landed us on a flat spot where we could regroup and tie off for the straight drop to the chamber I spotted on my recon. Was about halfway to bottom. Couldn’t see how deep or big it was, but it looked big enough. Bats and moths flying in from down below thought so.

  Smoke was really starting to thicken as I sent Cpl. Bolzano in first with orders to tie off the rope as a guide for the girls and to spot for them as they climbed down. The girls had to be prodded to go next. Kept busy feeding fire and holding off animals until it was my turn to squeeze in backwards. Every minute or two, damn bear’d stick his head in, roaring and crazy to get at us. This was some crazy shit.

  Exterior lamps in helmets quit years ago. Sal and I could see fine with visors, but girls were in the dark. All we could do was talk them through where to step and grab. Wasn’t easy, but we got them to the middle chamber without anybody falling or killing themselves. Just as well the girls couldn’t see how many bats and rats there were. Place was crawling with them, and more coming in by the second.

  Was going to wait out fire with the critters when something about the way smoke was being carried up the shaft took me straight back to tunnel warfare training. Chimney effect, backdraft, different terms went through my head, but what really clicked was a training vid they showed us of a friendly fire incident. Platoon trying to smoke Quebecers out of a tunnel not only fried Frenchies, they got their buddies on the other end too. Vid showed lots of close-up angles of burnt bodies. Kind of thing that stays with a young soldier.

  Sal and girls thought I flipped my lid when I ordered them out of there. Said there was no choice. Almost had to kick Sal over the edge to get him started, but he did OK once he got moving.

  Fire was a lot closer than expected when we cleared cave. Hills no more than a mile away going up all at once like flares.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “This is lunacy! We must return to the cave. It is our only hope!”

  Jones: “Corporal, you take one step toward that fucking cave, I’m gonna put a bolt through your arm.”

  Bolzano: “But–”

  Jones: “Ya gotta trust me, Sal. Cave’s a damn death trap.”

  From the log of Salvatore Bolzano

  Chief Anthropologist & Master Vintner

  Dante’s Inferno assailed us as we ducked from the dim cave and into a wind-swept swirl of smoke and flying embers. The south was a ragged, running wall of blazing forests, smoldering meadows and entire hillsides spouting towers of orange flames.

  A wooded knoll favored by Jones for trapping fox and mink went up in a matter of seconds, sending skyward a shower of sparks that rained down to ignite a neighboring mound perhaps a kilometer distant.

  Parched as it is, Italy could not be more primed for destruction. Gobbling tinder-dry fuel, discharging enough energy to generate its own windstorms and lightning, the conflagration darkened the sunny afternoon into dusk with a towering curtain of gray smoke and ash 10,000 meters high. The fire was within four kilometers of the Palatine and approaching fast.

  Spooked animals darted and staggered out of the smoke in flashes of haunch and horn. Some could barely put one hoof in front of the other. Had all of Southern Italy’s wildlife been cleared or consumed by the flames? As we jogged down the trail to the sea, a wild-eyed boar charged out the smoke with his ivory tusks aimed straight for my scrotum. He had neither the energy nor time to fillet me. Dodging left as if I were a tree, the boar bumped me with his hairy hindquarter on the way by. Judging by his pronounced limp and sweat-drenched flanks, his life was down to an hour, maybe less.

  I now have a theory why the dogs and horses arrived at the tub first. Of all ground-bound creatures in the southern horde, long distance runners had the advantage. Their ability to keep moving for extended periods of time allowed them to gain a lead not only on the fire, but the competition for water and sustenance as well.

  Not that I was compiling such bullet points at the time. My primary thoughts were on how afraid I was, and how I must overcome that fear. Poor Flower and Summer Wind, they were also quite beside themselves. Like me, the women wanted to scurry back to the cave and burrow like field mice. We said so, in many different ways. Jones would hear nothing of it!

  Shouting orders, changing tactics on the fly, the surly Captain ordered us to “st
ick together” and save our “fuckin’ energy” by maintaining a “steady march!” He was last out of the cave, exiting with a length of rope, which he quickly tied into a sling for his arm. I was not aware until later how great a toll the scale down Lupercal’s central shaft had taken on his right shoulder. He says he may never be able to fire his atlatl again.

  His initial plan followed Dirt Bag’s advice to make for the sea and take our chances with the sharks and currents. Afternoon sea breezes blew that scheme away by chasing a fast-running finger of fire up the coast. Quartering to the northwest with hopes the Tiber might stall the conflagration long enough for us to race ahead, Jones led us to the river only to be stopped by 500,000 animals of all types and size compressed along the ribbon of water, destined to make their last stands together in the shallows and wide, dusty banks. Too weary for flight, many could barely lift their heads. Others seemed anxious and able to carry on, just blocked. Like us, they had been too stupid, hardheaded or both to leave when the leaving was good.