by Ison, S. A.
We didn’t have a whole lot of clothing to take off. I will leave it that we spent a wonderful afternoon in our new and modified bed. I’ll have to say, it worked very well.
Δ
We continued to pick up the windfall of the acorns, though they were becoming fewer. We saw more activity from the deer and elk up the river and down. We also saw flocks of ducks and geese flying overhead. The normal things that happened in the future, was happening in our time now. Sometimes it struck a cord in me, a hint of sorrow for the loss of my daughters and the time I would have spent with them. I’d never see my grandchildren. I’d never see them grow old. It was bitter sweet.
One morning Harper announced we were going to dig up the off shoots of the fig trees and the grape vines.
“We don’t have a lot to do now. We have plenty of wood, lots of food and as many skins as we can manage for now.”
“I’m game.” I laughed and we got dressed. Our jeans were way too big for us now, and so I had modified them. I had cut along each outer seam. Then I pulled the heavy fabric in. Harper had stood before me while I pulled the material tighter around his legs and hips.
“When it feels how you want it, I’ll mark them with charcoal.” I’d said. Then I had used a sharp stone needle, punching holes into the fabric, I used strips of leather to secure the seams. It wasn’t perfect, but the jeans fit us better and were warmer than going out with just grass skirts or loin cloths. I didn’t modify our shirts though they hung very loosely over our bodies.
We headed out, I had my backpack and a basket and Harper also had his basket, long spear and his smaller spear and launching stick. He had made several more launching sticks. We walked along, enjoying the crisp air around us. The leaves were brilliant and breathtaking, but on their way out.
“Chua made his own version of the launching stick. He carved small animals on it. I was really impressed. He made a couple of other small modifications, and it looked really good.”
“I saw you guys all huddled together.” I laughed.
“It was awesome, he showed me how to knap the stones for a better edge. He also showed me what to listen for.”
“Listen for what?”
“There is a certain sound, he showed me on my rocks, and then the ones he gave me. It really sounded different. He indicated that my rocks were okay, but the ones he gave me were better and would keep their sharp edge longer.”
“Isn’t it amazing that we can communicate without even a word? And who knew rocks could talk?”
“Yeah, pretty damn cool.” He said, stepping around a large pile of mastodon dung. I thought about collecting it, but perhaps on the way back. I could put it around the saplings we would plant.
We also wore our shoes now, and it felt weird and confining. But the weather was definitely growing colder. We walked for about an hour and made it to the grapes first. We sat and ate quite a few, spitting the tough and sour skins out. There weren’t that many remaining, most of the grapes eaten, I was sure their seeds scattered.
“I want to dig up five of the offshoots if we can. Maybe put some of that mastodon poop in the soil when we transplant. It might take a couple years before we get fruit, but I think it will be worth it.”
“Sounds good, when they get bigger, I can build you an arbor.”
“When Isi comes back for a visit, she is going to laugh at us. We are making so many changes. I’m pretty sure she and her group are migratory and don’t stay in one place.”
“Yeah, we must seem odd to them, but they treat us nice all the same.” Harper grinned.
We ended up digging up six small offshoots and good root balls. I packed them into my basket. They were each about three feet high. We then picked more hen in the wood mushrooms. We didn’t see the big puff ball ones. We found the fig trees, they were squatty and not huge, there were no more fruit left and many small branches missing. The deer and elk had been at them, or the bears or sloths. There was just no telling.
We dug up four saplings, luckily, they were each about four feet, so perhaps in a few years, they too would produce fruit. I’m not crazy about the fruit, but it did taste wonderful mixed with the dates in flatbread. I experimented quite a bit with our food. I believe that eating well keeps our morale up.
I was surprised, I’d not expected the figs to be so sweet. The ones in modern times were blander. The four tall sapling figs were packed into the basket. We left the forest and headed home. Stopping by the dung, I gathered up the driest parts of the droppings. I put the dropping in each of the baskets. Clouds were beginning to gather and we heard distant thunder.
We walked back to the cave, stopping from time to time to listen and sniff the air. Sometimes you could smell the animals if the wind was right. We were mostly sniffing for predators, though we did get a good whiff of mastodon. It seemed peculiar to take our time and not rush franticly about, trying to find enough food. With each successful find we made, our fear and anxiety level went down. We had decided that Harper should hunt for rabbits until snow. The less we tapped into our stores, the better.
With the fat now back in our diet, I noticed that we had begun to put weight back on. Not a lot, but we didn’t look so thin. My period had also started back up. When my body fat had been so low, my body stopped my period. I guess because my body wouldn’t be able to support a pregnancy, it made sure I couldn’t have one. It made me wonder if that was why the populations now were so few and so spread out. If the land couldn’t support the humans, they couldn’t reproduce.
I was glad I had plenty of cattail fluff. I was also toying with the idea of combing out the rabbit furs and the wolf fur. I wanted to take that fur and mix it with the cattail fluff and then try to make a yarn. I wanted to see if I could knit scarves for the winter. It was something to do with time, now that we had plenty of it on our hands.
“Oh look.” Harper cried excitedly. He stooped down and picked up several rocks.
“Are those the kind you need?”
“Yes, they are. How awesome. I’m going to save them for this winter. It will give me something to practice with.”
I looked at the rocks and was surprised, they looked like rocks. I shook my head. I gave him my basket of trees and he put his rocks into the basket and carried it.
“Did you listen to them? Did they tell you they were the right ones?” I sniggered.
He shot me a dirty look and I laughed. The sky was getting darker with angry clouds, the rumbling becoming louder and more frequent. We got back to the cave, before the rain came, we planted the grapes and the fig saplings. I watered them only a little because of the coming rain. I also sprinkled the dried dung over the ground around each plant.
I would water them every other day over the next few weeks, before the snow came, to hopefully get their roots acclimated. I also piled leaves up around them to protect them. I didn’t know how much snow we would get, nor how low the temperature would drop.
We sat in the late afternoon and watched the rain come down. We were snuggled in the wolf pelt, a small fire before us. We sat back from the cave opening a bit, the wind was blowing the rain in. Our backs were against the divider, it was too dark inside the cave. The wind lifted my hair and I pulled it back down. I watched the rain water the saplings we’d planted earlier. We saw a moose with an enormous rack, he was magnificent. We could hear his call, though the wind and rain muffled it.
“Is there any way to make candles? You know, it is going to be damned dark in there with the dividers.”
“Well, we can use some of the lard we made. Do you have enough cups?” Harper asked.
“No, but I was thinking about making poop pots for the winter. I can make some candle cups.”
Harper laughed hard, tears edging his eyes, “What are poop pots?”
I tried not to blush, “Well, if we can’t leave the cave to go potty in the dead of winter. I thought that I would make each of us our own poop pot. We’ll have enough wood ash to cover our poo each time. If we leave it in th
e entry way, it will freeze out there and we can dump it over the mouth of the cave. Come spring, we can take it elsewhere.” I ended hesitantly.
“I’ll have to say it again, you are one of the smartest people I know. How about I make each of us a stool, no pun intended and we each have a place to sit, instead of squat.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful. I’m so tired of squatting.” I laughed.
Δ
The next day we each set about our projects. I had incorporated a bit more of the cattail fluff and chopped up reeds into my mud and ash mixture, I wanted these pots to be strong. I also wanted to give us each a basket for the ash. Within a week, we each had our own poop pot and Harper had made very nice stools or benches that the pots sat under. We placed them out in the entry of the cave, along with two baskets filled with wood ash and a wooden scoop. I had a large basket of cattail fluff out there as well. That was as near to indoor plumbing as we would get.
My candles weren’t bad, I used a hardwood sliver of wood as my wick. I whittled it to a length, an inch above the jar and filled each jar with the melted fat. It didn’t take long for it to solidify and that night we tried them out. It wasn’t bad at all. We had four candles in all. It wasn’t bright by any means, but it was better than only firelight.
I had also taken the bones of some of the animals. I made a square mat and we had us a regulation checkerboard. I knew it was important for us to have activities during the winter. I’d also made bone dominoes from the ribs. It wasn’t perfect, but we could play. Much of the time, I thought we would be confined to the cave and I didn’t want to go stir-crazy.
We now spent our afternoons sitting in the sunshine on the lip of the cave. We had our lean back chairs. Our legs stretched out in front of us. We had our ever-present wolf pelt to keep us toasty. We didn’t make a fire out here, wanting to save that for the interior of our small enclosed cave.
“It looks like it’s going to snow soon, look at those clouds upriver.” Harper pointed.
“Yeah, I can also feel the drop in temperature. Did you need your mittens?”
“No, I’m fine, this wolf pelt is warm.”
Along with the wolf pelt draped across us, we had all our shirts on and our jackets and shoes. It was just too cold now to go without. It felt constricting, but I wasn’t as cold. We had a constant fire going in the main cave area. We had the main cave closed off enough, that a fire kept it comfortable. It wasn’t what I would say as being overly warm, but it wasn’t frigid either.
At night it did warm up, because we had all dividers shut. The hole in the main room divider helped pull the smoke out. We spent most of our days out in the cave’s opening. We knew our days outside in the sun were numbered and we’d not be able to stand the cold.
“You want to go get water before it gets too dark?” He asked, looking over at me.
“Sure, I’ll get the pots.” I got up and took the wolf pelt in and put it on the bed. It was also our blanket, along with my rabbit patchwork blanket.
I had five good size pots and we kept them filled for drinking water, bathing and for cooking, roughly seven gallons of water. We went down daily, before the river began to freeze in areas. Harper chopped the ice free. Man, that water was cold. Our bathing now consisted of hot water and a basket of fine river rock, like a heavy sand. We figured it would last us, if we were careful.
The next morning, we came out to a hushed landscape. It was magnificent, snow covered the land, flocked the trees, I heard a distant woodpecker and I turned to Harper who put his arms around me.
“This is so beautiful.” I said in a hushed voice.
“What a difference a night makes. At least we don’t have to go to the river for water, there is plenty of snow on this ledge.”
I looked around, there was at least two feet of the white stuff, some blown up against the sides of the cave and divider.
“Should we at least clean the steps all the way down, so there isn’t an ice buildup?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea, it would really suck to slip and fall and break a leg.” He laughed.
The days slipped by slowly, sometimes in tedium, some times in sensual love making. Those were nice lazy days. I had begun my knitting project. I combined the furs and the fluff to make a respectable yarn. It took many hours to twist the fibers to make the yarn, which I rolled into balls. Harper had whittled me knitting needles and they worked great. I made my first scarf and it was declared a success.
The poop pots worked like a charm by the way, and though I didn’t look forward to the spring cleanup. Such was life in the Paleolithic era. Our days were spent with our projects, games of Yahtzee, checkers, dominoes and cards. We made a deck of tiny cards out of the binder covers. The stiff cardboard did pretty good. We enjoyed the occasional session of strip poker. There was also plenty of cheating and the time passed. We sang to each other and told stories of our youth. There was a lot of laughing.
During that time, we actually gained weight and I had to let our pants out a bit. We had to wear our clothing, but I’d say our cave was very snug and warm. The barriers helped keep the cold out. Sometimes when the wind was blowing hard, we’d feel the chill through the barriers. There was no help for it, so we snuggled beneath the skins.
About the time I thought I was going to lose my mind from boredom, the weather began to change. It was now February, and we took note of the snowmelt. We got out more and began to move our poo piles away.
Harper had made a shovel, it wasn’t long, but it had a wide enough base to make poo removal fairly painless. We used one of the beat-up mats and loaded it up and dragged it away from the camp, a few hundred yards. We began doing our business outside again.
“I think over-all, your poop pots worked great!” Harper said and we dragged the last load of poop blocks away. The wood ash really helped to mitigate the smell.
“Yeah, it sure beat trying to get out in the worst of the weather.”
“How would you rate the weather and temp over all?” He asked, we walked back holding hands.
“Well, I won’t deny it was damn cold, especially in January. But I want to say over-all, that it wasn’t bad. Our cave really held the heat in the smaller room.”
“It did, I almost want to say that the entry way acted as a thermal barrier. Keeping that wind out really helped and with the fire’s smoke being sucked out, it was pleasant and snug.”
“And you can certainly sing, I’ll give you that. I know you don’t care to, but it was so nice when you did.” I said.
“You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Liar.” I laughed, I’m so bad, it isn’t even funny and much of the time we ended in hilarity with my lovely attempts.
FOURTEEN
I walked over to the fig saplings and they were beginning to show signs of life.
“Look, I think the figs have made it.” I said excitedly.
“So cool, let’s check the grapes.” We walked over and saw that the grapes had made it as well, it would still be a bit before they started leafing out, but it wouldn’t be long. Already my weeds were beginning to green out and the cattails were also beginning to shoot up. I checked the daylilies and I could see green pushing up from the leaf litter. We’d covered most of our planting with the dead leaves.
“I say we start clearing some ground for your wheat.” Harper said.
“Yes, I can’t wait. I wish I knew when to plant it.”
“Let’s give it a week, and maybe plant a handful of grain. Then if it starts to grow, then we can plant the rest.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We sectioned off a fairly large area with piles of rocks. Then we took turns with the shovel and began to dig and turn the soil. Within the week, I took a small handful of grain and planted it. I watered the ground from time to time. I knew that this stuff grew wild, so I figured that I shouldn’t have to do too much. As we waited to see if it would grow.
Each day the sun stayed longer and the air became warmer. The nigh
ts were still cold, but even that was relenting. The bright and brilliant greens were popping out all over and my tubers were growing where I’d planted them. I was thrilled. We had our own little garden. I wish I knew how to plant those fat puffball mushrooms and hens in the wood, but I didn’t and we’d just keep collecting those.
“I don’t think I will touch the tubers this year. I want to give them a chance to multiply.”
“Good idea. I’m sure we could easily go through them fast. What are we looking like in storage for meat?”
“We’re great. And now, we can eat fresh fish and begin drying them once more.” We’d brought the drying racks down and they set by the giant hemlocks. We were slowly getting our routine on for spring and summer living. During the winter, I’d made us another set of loin cloth from the rabbit pelts. The snake ribs proved to be great needles and punched through the hides. I used the rabbit hides that I’d combed all the fur from, for the yarn.
Harper had also sunken pegs into the dirt walls in the main living area, so we could hang many of our clothing items. Much of our furs were stored in baskets and put at the back of our living space. We no longer needed the candles during the day, opting to take down the two front divides. We also put our poop pots and stools away.
We went daily to check the progress of our plants and the wheat. Sure enough, we began to see growth. We spent an afternoon planting the wild wheat. I hoped that we’d have plenty for the fall. We still had a bit of flour left, but it was almost gone. We had plenty of lard, we had used it sparingly. Sometimes I took one of the pemmican patties and made a nice soup from it. That gave us a nice high calorie dinner. I made smaller flat breads, so to stretched out the flour. I would gather the cattails and remove the starch from that and combine it with the flour to extend it.
We were coming up on our first year here, and though it was hard, we had made it. The thought of my daughters sent pain through my heart. I’d been gone from them for about a year. I knew they grieved still, as did I. It is never far away from me. All I can do is hope that they move on and find some kind of happiness in their own lives as they grow into women.