Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure

by Allan Richard Shickman

  Zan decided to go no further. He leaned against the slightly sloping trunk of a sycamore and began to doze. He was profoundly tired and he would be safe here, hidden from stranger eyes. But was he mistaken or did he hear something rustling in the bed of fallen leaves? And now a whimpering sound! What was it? Startled and affrighted, Zan reached for his spear—and felt something warm. It was a human foot! Zan almost fainted when, as he grabbed the ankle, he heard a wild scream of fear. It was a child, judging by the voice and the smallness of the limb. Whatever or whoever it was, it continued to scream in sheer terror, as if a wild animal had seized it in its jaws and would certainly devour it alive.

  It was absolutely dark now, and Zan, unable to see, and afraid to let the small being go for fear that it would bring others, grabbed the child in his arms and tried to comfort it. He gently hushed it, stroking the forehead soothingly and assuring the child that all would be well. The terrified child was trying to bite Zan, and it was a long time before Zan could calm the youngster and convince this intruder that there was no danger. Eventually the child slept, exhausted by the powerful emotions it had experienced, and Zan slept too.

  Zan was awakened the next morning by the sound of the waif searching his sack for food. He looked at him for a moment, seeing that it was a boy about two years younger than himself. When the child became aware of Zan’s glance he was alarmed and darted off, but Zan caught him and again calmed him down, offering a piece of roasted meat left from the day before. The child, ugly, ragged and dirty, was hungry to the point of starvation. Zan tried to talk to him as he ate but the boy spoke a different language. Yet his speech was not so different from Zan’s that he was impossible to understand at all. Indeed, Zan had at first thought the boy simply had difficulty speaking clearly. In time Zan was able to convey his own name and learn the other’s, which sounded like “Rydl”. At first the lad had been reluctant to tell his name, as if it might give Zan power over him, but in time he came to trust Zan a little. It took a good deal of effort for either to make out anything the other said. Zan tried to tell him that he was in search of his twin brother, and to inquire whether he had seen him, but Rydl seemed unable to comprehend “twin,” and that was that.

  This Zan did learn: that Rydl was of the wasp people, and lost for many days. At first he was a runaway, but when he had decided to return he had lost his sense of direction and traveled farther and farther from home. The poor fellow had stayed alive by eating insects—beetles, ants, and grasshoppers. Zan immediately determined to take the youngster with him. When he came to the land of the wasp men they might be more willing to receive and help him if he brought back a missing child. That would be better than a gift. Zan asked Rydl to point where he thought he had come from. With some uncertainty, Rydl pointed toward Zan’s dwelling. No wonder he was lost!

  As the traveler prepared to depart, his new companion lost his fear of him and trailed after his footsteps like a puppy. Zan would have no trouble bringing the boy along. Zan had only a rough idea of his way, but that was more than Rydl could contribute, so Rydl followed Zan, a few paces behind. The young fellow did nothing but chatter, as if his long isolation and pent-up anxieties were terribly in need of release now that he felt out of danger. Zan could understand little of what he said, and even when the boy lagged well behind, and could not be heard anyway, still he talked and talked. Zan understood his need if not his speech, and was actually very glad to have company. He decided to attempt conversation, so he slowed down and allowed the lad to catch up with him. In a couple of days of travel across the grassland together, Zan could catch most of what was said because their languages were related—similar if not the same. Rydl was even quicker to pick up Zan’s words, and as each tried to use the other’s speech, they arrived at a workable mixture of their two languages.

  Nobla was again left far behind. The grassland gradually gave way to a different kind of growth, a rough shrub which dotted the land with dark green patches against a dusty soil. Then the soil itself changed to a different, redder hue. For two more days Zan and his companion trod this jagged and dusty terrain. There were no more trees, only the scruffy bushes and rocks. On the afternoon of the second day, when the weary repetition of footsteps hypnotized Zan into carelessness, he was violently brought back to himself by the sudden presence of an incredibly deep gorge, a split in the earth so profound that he could scarcely see the bottom of it. Its abrupt appearance was completely unexpected, and he almost stepped in. That would have been the end of Zan-Gah! Zan lay down and peered over the edge. The gulch seemed bottomless. Cliff-dwelling birds could be seen flying within and crying around their nests, while a pair of enormous vultures with ebony wings outspread glided in ample circles over something dead below. The rock walls could not be climbed, and there seemed to be no passage across. At that moment Rydl, who had lagged behind, joined Zan. For the first time Rydl seemed to know where he was. “It is the cleft of the goddess,” he said with a tone of fear and respect. “This place is sacred. Bad people are thrown here, and traitors. They fall so far that none hear them land.” His eyes looked wild, and the wind blew in his hair.

  Sacred or not, it had to be traversed, but that seemed to present no problem to Rydl. There was a place, he said, where the chasm narrowed and where passage was possible. Zan could see the narrowing section once it was pointed out to him. Rydl said that he had been there once with his father, but was never allowed across himself—until he ran away and crossed it without permission. Invading wasp men used this passage, Zan surmised, when their warriors pressed into his land and fell upon his kinsmen.

  Zan was surprised to find in this leafless region a dead tree trunk stretched over the narrowest part of the gulf. It must have been dragged from some distance. Long since stripped of its bark, its silvered wood was gnarled and sinuous as dried meat, its fibers visible and distinct. The branches of this giant were mostly broken off, but bare stumps of them remained as handles to steady the traveler against the wind and the disabling terror of the height. Rydl went first, almost dancing across with the careless ease of childhood. Zan reflected that the boy was too stupid to be afraid. He tossed his spear to the other side and ventured with extreme caution, testing the steadiness of the log with a shift of his weight. Then holding on for dear life and never releasing one branch until another was in his hand, he ventured out. A quick, giddy glance below reminded him what was at stake. Then he looked no more. The last few steps had no branch to hold onto, and he had to trust to his sense of balance and a nimble final leap. Once across, Zan picked up his spear and looked back at the arid region he had traveled. Then he turned toward his destination. Rydl, who now could have led, followed behind as before.

  Zan did not notice the changes in the terrain until his feet began to hurt. The land was becoming rocky, and soon he could see the projection of round, red boulders breaking the surface of the soil. After an hour’s walk, rough trees began to reappear, but they were little more than scruffy bushes with dying, gnarled trunks. The rocks became larger and closer together, so that the two boys could almost walk from one rock to another; until with time they rose in sheer verticals over their heads and took on fantastic shapes and forms. This was the land of red rocks that Aniah had spoken of. As the travelers wandered into the region, which was fenced on two sides by high red cliffs, Zan thought he had never seen anything so wonderful and strange. Huge boulders, shattered from the sides of the rocky walls by the shaking earth, were scattered like giant toys and lay in crimson heaps. Some were smooth, some craggy and sharp. Some were round and others were squarish slabs cleaved from the face of the red cliff when once the ground had trembled. Ten strong men could not hope to lift the smallest of them.

  Horizontal crevices marked the side of the cliff like deep wrinkles on an ancient face; while opposite, the might of nature had tipped the entire mountain on its side to reveal its inner workings. The titanic force had split the earth and sent its layers exploding upward or splaying downward according to its mood.
There were time-eaten pillars absurdly balancing large boulders that ever threatened to fall if once disturbed by so much as a gust of wind. Zan wondered aloud what invisible hand had shaped these deadly marvels, but Rydl, jumping sportively from rock to rock and testing with playful shouts the echo that he had discovered, did not hear him.

  The two walls of stone, immense and silent, between which the valley was situated, barred any escape. In the distance before them they could see a row of blue hills miles away. Rydl, who was wandering this way and that, luckily came upon a thin stream of water in the otherwise parched land. As the boys progressed, the cliff on their side curved inward, revealing a number of cave-like pockets dotting the red wall. Zan and Rydl climbed to several that were within reach before they found one that would make a good shelter. It was accessible and yet elevated some from the floor of the canyon, so that they could observe, unseen, any danger that might appear. In this empty vale, where every footstep seemed to produce an echo, they had not encountered a single soul, but that did not mean that no one was there. Zan was glad he had Rydl with him, for he had never seen a place so lonely, but he wished the child would be more cautious and not so noisy. Best to remain quiet and hidden as much as possible.

  The cavelike dugout in which they settled was only three or four strides deep, and hardly high enough to stand up in, but of the several they had explored it was the best. Rydl soon discovered a store of nuts and seeds kept in a deep man-made indentation in the stone floor. Zan noticed some secret signs scratched into the wall directly above it. These things meant that people came, or once had come to this spot, and that the two boys could not stay for long without risking an encounter. Yet who knew how long these signs of life had been there unvisited? Dryness had preserved the grain and protected the carved marks—perhaps for many years.

  They built a fire and made themselves comfortable. The sky was clear now and the sun beat down forcefully, but the dugout was shaded and cool. Food was at hand, and soon there might be more. Zan’s feet were beginning to bleed, which was no small matter to a traveler. He was many days walk from home, and was quite possibly threatened by enemies. He could not easily run from them, and was still an uncertain distance from the dwellings of the wasp people. He decided to make this shelter a temporary resting place, to heal the scratches and blisters received in his long trek, and to restore his strength before he was completely exhausted.

  Zan was glad to have time to think, to reflect on the high red cliffs and the fantastic stone giants towering over him. Wind-worn and strangely sculpted, they took on grotesque shapes which were sometimes almost human or animal. But just across, where the wall of the cliff turned to face him diagonally, was a shape that Zan thought ugly and unlucky. The collection of pits and dugouts confronting him took on the form of a skull. There was no mistaking it. It seemed to declare that Zan had wandered into a place of death, that he and his companion would perish there to be eaten by wolves or vultures, or be the prey of ants. Or perhaps he would find the remains of his twin nearby—Dael’s withered corpse in the reddish dust. Zan lived in a superstitious time. He knew what a human skull looked like and what it meant. He stared at it from his shelter and contemplated it like a hermit in the desert. And as he gazed, almost transfixed and lost in foreboding, something moved—he didn’t know what—within one of its hollow, dark eyes!

  Jarred out of his reverie, he froze and whispered to Rydl to do the same. The sun would soon be down and both of the boys watched minutely for any further motion. Best to know at once what enemies they would have to deal with. It was five silent minutes before they saw what it was. A bobcat was noiselessly emerging from its den. This was a night hunter readying himself as dusk approached. It was not very large as the great cats go, but it was a fierce and dangerous animal. It had a short tail and points of hair on the tips of its ears. Its beautiful fur was spotted and grew thick on the sides of its face. With an athletic bound and graceful, experienced steps it made its way to a large rock and perched on top of it. It had seen some partridges nearby and so it waited, waited for their return.

  From their higher position, Zan and Rydl could observe the entire drama—how the bobcat watched patiently until two partridges came into view below, how it stared at them with a fixed and intense glare while, as it prepared to spring, its tail twitched nervously. With similar fixity the boys watched the watcher as it crept ever closer, its hindquarters rising in anticipation. Then, in a moment, it had a crushed partridge under each paw.

  “Quick, Rydl, let us take the birds for ourselves!” Rydl hesitated, for the cat might well have killed him too. “Follow me with your stick, and scream and strike when I do.”

  It was not a matter calling for stealth. With a sudden rush and a loud scream Zan charged directly at the cat, striking it on its tender nose with his spear. The startled bobcat, which was at least as hungry as Zan, hissed and sprang away as if it had stepped on hot coals, releasing the partridges in spite of itself. Zan continued without cease to assault its nose and eyes, and when Rydl joined in the attack it saw itself outnumbered and withdrew, abandoning any inclination to fight for its prey. The boys seized the birds for themselves. “You see, Rydl, although the cat had speed and ferocity on its side, courage and surprise won out. Now, let us feast.” Zan did not see it, but Rydl gazed at him with admiration and affection.

  As they turned toward their shelter, Zan noticed for the first time that the rocks and gaps around his cave also formed a skull. He and Rydl had been in death’s mouth this whole time! He thought about it and laughed to himself. “Two skulls. Not one. Two.” It meant nothing!

  They built a fire at the edge of the dugout and cleaned and roasted the birds. Tearing them apart with no nicety, they ate their fill while joking and laughing at the bobcat, which had been outfaced from its prize and was probably nearby smelling the aroma and wishing it could join in the feast. The good food and good humor made Zan feel less like an enclosed animal and more like a man—and a man very much alive! He wished that his father and uncle had been there when he had robbed the cat of its prey, for it was they who had taught him this trick. “Even large cats can be cowards at times,” Thal had said. (That was even before Zan had killed the lion.) “We do not run from animals,” he had said laughing. “We eat them!” Zan wondered what they were doing at that moment, so many miles away. Thal was probably working away on a tool or weapon, and Chul might be hunting mushrooms, or else snoring after supper.

  A change of weather brought Zan back to himself. It was quite suddenly cooler, and the force of the wind increased. Far off, in the direction of the blue hills the sky was turning black, although it was still clear overhead. Brilliant, jagged flashes of lightning were visible in the darkening distance, with a rumble of thunder following each flash. Still far off, the black cloud began to shed its store in a veil of water. Fascinated and glad, Zan watched the sheet of rain approach closer and closer, bringing ever brighter lightning and amazing explosions of thunder with the renewing wetness. Everything could be observed from the safe, dry dugout, but Rydl, overwhelmed by the violence of the storm, clung firmly to Zan, his eyes rolling in terror. Then the storm passed as it had come, the menacing winds brushing against their faces for a while after. “We are safe here, Rydl. Let us sleep.”

  When the two boys rose the next day, their entire surroundings had changed. The sky was clear and blue again, but the downpour had brought out the redness of the land. Everything—rocks, earth, even water—was tinged. Only the dark green shrubs, that seemed always to be in a struggle to survive, provided contrast, washed and refreshed by the rain. Crimson cascades poured from the tops of the cliffs, and the tiny stream they had discovered the day before had swelled into a driving crimson river, crashing and churning over obstructing rocks. But by afternoon the power had gone out of the water, and after three days the river was reduced to the same paltry stream that it had been when they first came. Then another downpour appeared, almost identical to the other—distinct from afar and
visibly arriving on the wind. Sheets of water sent Zan and Rydl to their hollow, where they looked aghast on the ribs of lightning, and then observed the transformation a sudden shower made on the sun-parched soil. A while afterwards, the setting sun gleamed on the freshly wet land, and its ardent glow made their red world redder.

  After a week of rest and healing, it was time to leave this place of shelter. Rydl, delighted to be on the move again, skipped after Zan like a small animal, familiar with every rock and foothold and playing among the stones. A chipmunk drank from a dent in a boulder where water had gathered, and Rydl tried to catch it. Failing, he returned to the natural basin and drank from the same pool, and so did Zan.

  On the second day they came to a place where the passage between the two cliffs was partially blocked off by a huge stone arch which bridged most of the canyon. A challenging climb would allow the boys to see beyond it, so they mounted boulder after boulder until they reached the opening. Wind blew through it, and they paused to recover their strength and to survey the new view. The strong but refreshing breeze cooled them from their laborious ascent—the reward for their efforts. A greater reward was the vista that opened before them. They still saw the red land and ragged brush, but in the far distance, quite visible now, lay the range of blue hills; and still farther were mountains that rose so high that they seemed to blend with the sky and become as immaterial as the air itself. “My motherland is there,” Rydl said, and he pointed to a pair of round and softly shaded hills that stood somewhat apart from the others. “Then we will go there,” Zan said.