by Ron Rayborne
Tom studied the scene as they walked, trying to think of the best path to take. Much as he wanted to see the snow, he knew that would be a foolhardy plan, costly in time and effort. There were no roads, and it would probably be hard going, with many ravines, boulders, thick vegetation, and a lot of ups and downs. Generally difficult land. No, not now at least. Someday, maybe someday. With Julie.
On the other hand, it looked like he could stay on this rise for a long way, relatively speaking, before he’d have to descend again back into the valley on the seaside. Assuming that the rivers would be slowest closest to that sea, he wondered if it would be better to try to cross them there. Of course, they’d also be widest there too. Or, maybe when they reached it, they should try to skirt that mountain range so as to cross the rivers at the narrowest point possible. Still, it looked steep and rugged, and he’d already learned that things that look easy at a distance were often not when one was upon them. Well, he had time to decide. In the meantime, he’d stick to the rise with its superlative view.
A cool morning breeze caressed his skin. The sun shone gaily, a million points of light on the sea, twinkling, shimmering, coalescing into one. He’d enjoy it while he could. By the look of things, a shower was headed their way.
Chapter 19
Julie ran for a week. Ran until she was exhausted. She’d used the PinPointer to keep track of Jaqzen, always turning it on just for the moment it took to locate him, then switching off again. She hoped that he didn’t notice the beeping sound on his own PinPointer that indicated she was signaling.
He must have, though, for it was obvious he was definitely pursuing, each day making more or less progress. She wondered why he hadn’t found her yet, seeing as he was such an experienced tracker, though she was certainly not trying to make it easy for him - sticking to areas of moisture, places like grasslands and marshlands whose foliage bounced back soon after it was stepped upon. She walked the coast at night, the waves advancing and retreating, erasing her footsteps for all time. And she hid among herds of grazers, nervously walking through them, while they parted for her, then closed again after she passed, their heavy footmarks soon obliterating her own.
Somehow, though, Jaqzen was able to keep up, albeit miles back. She had hoped he would tire of the chase and would quit. That, unfortunately, did not happen. More likely, she knew, he was instead enjoying the challenge. Perhaps he already knew where she was and was just toying with her, toying the way a cat plays with its prey before finishing it.
All this while, Julie was simultaneously exploring her new world. She confirmed that the magnetic poles were indeed shifted, as positive now pointed South on her compass. She also spent time looking for and gathering wild edible plants. Avocados made up a large part of her diet, but with it, she supplemented the sweet fruit of various prunus species. She also loved prickly pear cactus, burning the needles off after impaling them with a stick. Claytonia, or “Miner’s Lettuce,” which she found on moist forest hillsides, reminded her of the store-bought lettuce she used to eat as a child, only tangier.
In her “salads”, she variously included, when available, Wild Onion, Chaparral Current, Gooseberries, Calandrinia ciliata, aka Red Maids, Golden Chinquapin, Madrone berries, Black Walnuts (though their shells were enormously difficult to open) and pine nuts, particularly Pinon pine nuts with their much easier to crack shells. She seasoned and spiced these with Yerba Buena and California Bay leaves. Another find was a species of Sapotaceae, which had edible fruits.
Near fresh water, she used the roots of Cattail, while, near the sea, she used kelps. Also available were delicious and sweet Blackberry, Serviceberries, Lemonadeberries, Thimbleberries and tiny Strawberries. She used California Goldenrod, Squawbush, Mint and Manzanita berries for tea.
Julie also stored a supply of bright red rose hips for their vitamin C content from the pretty ancestral wild roses she found near bodies of water. No sense getting scurvy. The small, pink and white, five-petaled blossoms betrayed their genetic potential. A potential that would be exploited by humans to beautiful, but also sometimes extreme and garish extents far in the future.
For proteins and healthy fats, she used avocados and acorns, which had plenty. Red oaks, the evergreens, tended to accumulate tannins that had to be leached from the nuts before one could eat them. The tannin was bad for kidneys. Native Americans usually leached them by setting them in a stream of water until the acids were slowly carried away. It was a process, though, that might take days, or even weeks. White oaks, on the other hand, did not accumulate the same amount of tannin and could, within reason, be eaten raw. One could tell the difference between them because red oak acorns were smaller than whites, had fine hairs on the inside of the shells and the nutmeat was darker, while white oaks with their larger fruits had no hairs, and the meat was lighter and less bitter. Thus, she avoided the reds and ate the whites. It was said that battles were fought by Native Americans over good oak land.
Julie was a vegetarian, not a vegan, so when she happened upon a partially uncovered nest of turtle eggs one day, she quickly heated water and ate a delicious hard-boiled breakfast, dousing the round, white orbs with some sea salt she found in a large, crusty block just up from the shore and had ground a bit of.
Most of all, though, Julie exulted in the stunning abundance and variety of wildlife, counting, for example, over a dozen species of horse and camels respectively, and nearly twice that many of dog so far.
When she knew that she could not go on without a rest, Julie looked for a place where she could hide. She found it in the form of a cave high up the side of a sedimentary cliff. It was fortuity that she even saw it, as it was hidden by the long, drooping branches of a huge overhanging oak, which leaned well over the edge. Another decade or two of weathering, one final lizard scurry across its crumbling face, dislodging yet another bit of gravel, and that oak would be at the bottom a hundred feet below, having fallen in a clatter of rock and debris, the haze of dust rising up afterward its only eulogy.
The cliff face was composed of ancient stratified layers laid one upon the other, and she wondered about its age. Even while hunted, the scientist in her was never far away, and every moment was still a glorious one. She kept a small paper notebook in her breast pocket and was often taking it out to note some new or confirmed finding.
When she found the cave, she had just come around the corner of a lower sedimentary mound deep in a forest, following a small stream choked with growth on its banks, though here and there showing itself and permitting a drink to forest fauna. She stood, noting something unusual about a particular flower, while wiping the sweat off her brow, creating a long stain on her right sleeve. Was it the same genus that she knew? She observed and recorded the features of its leaves. Ovate, pinnate. Thinking deeply, trying to remember, she glanced up and saw a dark spot high on the side. Looking closer, she squinted, as the sun was in her eyes. Shielding them, she lifted her binocs. A cave. Sizable, it looked. And hidden.
A ray of hope. Julie gazed around the prominence; it seemed to descend on the other side. The stream cut to the right, but a dry streambed on the left said that, in times of heavy rain, the water wound both ways. In it were long, colorless, uprooted Cattail reed stems plastered in masses against the broken trunk of a fallen sycamore, telling of a big storm last winter, or the winter before that. Winter during the Miocene was, of course, nothing like it was during the Anthropocene. The temperatures here were nearly uniform year round, almost tropical, with a slight dip when the sun was lowest.
Julie walked the path to the right, through the water. She thought of pushing through the brush, which was past the stream banks, but besides looking too overgrown generally, it was also overrun with poison oak. She could have taken the easier way to the left, but the soft ground might leave prints, giving her away. Besides, at this point, Julie wasn’t thinking prim and proper. She was thinking survival.
It was longer going around than she thought at first, but after perhaps two hu
ndred feet, the cliff met the bank. It looked to be about a forty-degree incline to the top and was covered in oak saplings struggling to grow in the dense shade and thick blanket of leaves created by their parents. There was plenty of poison oak — she’d have to use caution on the ascent. Filling her water containers, she fixed her sights uphill and set out.
As she trudged on, one step in front of the other, oak leaves crunching underfoot, Julie realized that the forest scent she’d been subconsciously noting was tannin. Leaves and acorns accumulating and breaking down in water — the regular rains of this tropical/temperate era. Good ol’ oaks. Stubborn, resilient, strong. Pretty much the same now as they would be far in the future. Living fossils. No wonder they were a symbol of strength and endurance.
Huffing, Julie at last reached the top, again wiping her brow. She was hungry, but had gathered an assortment of edibles from the flora she’d been passing through. Still, she was tired and knew that she needed protein. She looked at the big oak which was disguising her new home. A white oak, a Valley Oak. There were acorns on it, and some newly fallen; they looked ripe. Julie thought about that. In her time the acorns didn’t ripen until autumn, and yet here things were different. With no discernible winter to speak of, she’d suspected that fruiting was a more than once a year occurrence. There were now likely two, or even three fruitings, though she thought that two was probable; the energy required for three would be extraordinary. If that were so, then this might not be fall. She’d become convinced, too, that it wasn’t by the simultaneous occurrence of normal spring traits, such as the persistence of an annual rye-like grass. Additionally, the sun was not where it would be in her time during an acorn drop.
Yesterday when she pondered this dual fruitingness, she remembered something that had been written once by a famous French explorer to the Americas, Pierre Esprit Radisson, circa 1652. It was a beloved quote that she’d committed to memory. When describing his journey through what would later become the United States, before his fellow white men began to arrive in earnest, he said:
"The further we sojourned the delightfuller the land was to us. I can say that in my lifetime I never saw a more incomparable country....The country was so pleasant, so beautiful and fruitful that it grieved me to see the world could not discover such enticing countries to live in. This I say because the europeans fight for a rock in the sea against each other, or for a sterile and horrid country. Contrariwise, these kingdoms are so delicious and under so temperate a climate, plentiful of all things, the earth bringing forth its fruit twice a year, the people live long and lusty and wise in their way."
Twice a year. Hmm. Julie set to gathering a load of the oak nuts, placing them in a bag. There was something else peculiar that she’d noticed, at first unconsciously, then with startling awareness, since she’d arrived in the Miocene. The vegetation — trees, shrubs, everything — were larger than they should have been, at least than they were during the Anthropocene. In fact, the majority of the trees here were truly gigantic in size, towering high and wide, lofty branches spreading a hundred feet or more on either side of the massive trunks. Under them she felt tiny and humbled. Julie thought about it for a while, then finally decided that it was the much higher quantities of carbon from volcanic sources, coupled with extra nitrogen fixation from the atmosphere due to the frequent lightning strikes, that was the likely cause. The vegetation was making evolutionary use of the extra carbon, as it ought to, since higher CO2 had been a fact of life for millions of years. That, plus the longer growing season, contributed to the increased growth.
Julie walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The cavern was maybe five feet from the top. Too far for her to just swing into. There was a thick bough though, the branch, whose branchlets and leaves blocked the entrance from easy view. If she could just climb down far enough, maybe she could jump into it. If she didn’t make it, though, the fall would do her in. The old oak itself barely clung to the top. Conceivably her added weight might bring it — and her — down. Like that sycamore at the bottom. And that would be that. The end of all her hopes and dreams. Of humanity’s, for surely she represented the last hope of the race.
As she thought about things, now that there was the time to think, she began to worry that perhaps this whole episode was about more than just random discovery. Maybe they had thought that she could be the mother of the next human race with their fittest male, Jaqzen, the father. The thought made her reel with revulsion. Jaqzen as the father that is.
But, if true, it meant that they knew that the spaceship idea was hopeless, doomed to failure. A technocratic pipe dream sold to the public. Were they, or some of them, instead staking all of their hopes on her, on she and Jaqzen? If so, then it was a wasted dream, for she’d never join with him, the ape-man. He represented all that she despised in her species. And she was in love with another.
Julie grabbed a branch that hung low, the one she’d be using to climb into the cave, and tugged at it, testing the tree’s stability. No movement. She now positioned herself away from the rim, just in case, and pulled harder, it didn’t budge. Okay, she thought, that’s good, it looks like you still have some hold. She removed her backpack and lay down on the edge of the cliff looking inside of the cavern. There was rubble on the floor and old, dried and broken roots from the oak coming through the ceiling. Probably what was holding the tree up.
Anxiously clutching the branch, Julie took hold of her pack and hefted it over the side. The weight almost made it rip from her grasp, bits of rock crumbling down, sending a jolt of fear through her. But she and the tree held fast. Pausing a moment to collect herself, she began to swing her arm, backwards and forwards, in toward the cave, then out, and again, until she had the swing as right as she could make it, then let go. Thud, it fell on the floor about a foot from the brink.
It was with an odd feeling of irony, and disgust, that at the very moment that the pack hit the floor, Julie remembered that she had a rope in it. It was quite long enough to have tied to another oak or to a crop of rock nearby. She shook her head. She was tired. There was nothing for it now, though, but to climb down holding onto the branch of this precariously positioned tree. While it was only five feet to the cave, that was to its ceiling. The floor looked another six feet below that. Eleven feet, that’s how far down she’d have to climb.
She studied the branch now, looking for strong branchlets that could hold her weight. A couple of minutes later, Julie grabbed onto two of them and, swallowing, carefully turned around and began to descend. Almost immediately, gravel broke loose and fell in a clattering rain below. Halfway down she felt the tree itself shake, move just a bit. Her nerves jumped and she paused until all was still, then she continued, heart beating hard in her chest. Finally, she was at a level where she could climb around and step onto the floor of the cave. She did so without further ado and was in.
Her shirt was soaked with sweat from the climb up, and down, but she was too tired even to remove it. She sat heavily, breathing hard, then rose again to sweep some painful rubble out from under her.
After a minute of rest, Julie opened her pack, withdrew the water container, and took a long drink. Then, seeing an area of soft, dry sand, and demurring a deeper investigation of the cavern, she grabbed the thermal blanket and lay down on her side, closed her eyes, and slept.
Julie awoke abruptly, hours later, at twilight. There was a high-pitched sound of whistling and a muffled rush of wings. At first she jumped, then, realizing what they were, lay back down and let them out. Bats. She’d be sharing her home with bats. The thought sent an involuntary shudder up her spine. Then she remembered that this was their home and she a guest. It would be a thrill actually: though she’d seen them flying about her in the Barstovian evenings, from the little mosquito eaters that saved her from pests which had designs on her blood, to the big Antrozous pallidus, or pallid bats, that fed on larger insects, now she could observe them at close hand. In her time, bats were long gone, having succumbed to whit
e nose syndrome and other maladies related to man’s encroachment and mismanagement. Yet, even though as a scientist and ecologist she loved bats, she couldn’t quite get past the creep out factor of naked, nervous, flying mammals winging above her head.
Unlike the pallid bats, these were a small, mosquito eating species, she recognized, as they flew almost soundlessly over her, silhouetted by the orange, red and indigo of the gathering night. A common species in California, now and to the end. Long may they live, she thought sadly.
Looking out now through a gap in the leaves, Julie could see other groups of bats from other areas merging with her troop. Somehow they knew the exact time to leave their caves and trees to meet up like this. Before long, they were a huge party, diving through the air in epic waves and spirals like swimming sardines, before finally dispersing into the darkness on their insect hunting mission. What a pity that people would learn to fear and destroy them because of silly superstitions and old movies, leaving themselves vulnerable to diseases they might otherwise not have encountered.
It was a hot night and Julie removed her dirty clothing, leaving it in a pile on one side. Tomorrow she’d wash them in the river with sand, sans detergent. She drank, then poured some water into her collapsible bowl. Finding the Ceanothus blooms she’d gathered, she stuck them into the water, then out, and rubbed them together in her hands. In a few seconds, a suds-like foam appeared, and with the water, she spread it on her body, rinsing as she went. It wasn’t perfect, she could have used more water, but when she was done she felt much better. Smelled better, too. Then she put on a pair of shorts, got some food and sat by the entrance of the cave.