by Doug Kelly
“Its thick skull was hard as rock!” exclaimed Hauk with a tone of exasperated delight.
“But its flesh will be as tender as clover after it’s cooked. Let’s gut it and be on our way.”
Hauk already had his sword ready. He split the abdomen with one skillful slice of his blade, and they disemboweled it.
“This will feed us for days.”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?”
“We should get more, and dry more meat. We still don’t know exactly where we are or how long it will take us to get to a city, or at least a village. This won’t be enough meat.”
“We don’t belong here, Aton. It’s just a matter of time before whoever killed that man we found on the beach, finds us. Maybe we’ll meet the same fate. We need to leave. We can hunt on our journey away from here.”
“Hunting takes time and patience,” said Aton. “I don’t want to sneak around and hide in the bushes while we try get out of this jungle. I want to walk as fast as I can. We’re too close to the swamps. This is cannibal territory.”
“They’re savages, every last one of them,” said Hauk. “That’s exactly why we need to leave, now.”
“I have an idea,” offered Aton. “Would you like to hear it?”
“Yes, and be quick about it. If there’s a cougar nearby, I’m sure it’ll be interested in our kill and maybe us, too.”
“I say we hurry up and go to the mountain, get to the top or as high as we can, and look around. If we see a town, we head that way.”
“So we hunt for more meat and leave as soon as we have enough. Correct?”
“We can hunt from here, while we climb to the peak,” said Aton as he grinned.
“Why are you speaking in riddles?”
“And let me tell you something else. We can cook this hog during our expedition to the top of that mountain.”
“Have you gone crazy? What do you mean?”
“Let me show you something.” Aton led him to the far side of the clearing. He showed Hauk that other hogs had cut through the grass and made a trail here, riddled with cloven hoof prints. “We’ll dig a pit and put sharp sticks, pointing upward, on the bottom of it, and then cover it with branches and leaves. Anything heavy enough that walks across it will fall and impale itself.”
“Have you done this before?” asked Hauk.
“Yes, it’ll work.”
“And how do we cook it while we’re gone?”
“We’ll dig another pit, cover the bottom and sides with stones, then fill it with wood so we can set a fire inside. After the stones are hot, we wrap the meat with green leaves, put it into the cooking pit, and cover it with dirt. That’ll take a day to cook.”
“Is this something you are familiar with? Will it work for sure?”
“Yes, you have to trust me.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Hauk tested the dirt with the tip of his sword. “Soft, but it will take some time. We really need a shovel.”
To make a pickaxe, Aton found two branches that the recent storm had broken, and he joined them at an acute angle by binding them together with vines. He added a stone at the bound joint for extra momentum so that when he swung it at the ground, it would plunge deeper into the soil. With the pick, Hauk attacked the dirt, still soft from the rain. The soil broke into clumps, and Aton scooped the loosened dirt from the deepening pit with a large, wide section of fallen tree bark. After they finished the hole, Hauk pushed sharpened sticks into the pit’s bottom so that if a hog were to fall into it, there would be no doubt of impalement. He also made a grid of branches to cover the opening. Aton gathered leaves to cover it, and the job was complete. After finding a pole stout enough to support the dead hog’s weight, they bound its hooves around the pole and carried it back to their shelter, supporting the bending shaft on their shoulders.
To dig the fire pit near their cave, they used the same crude pickaxe, but Aton had found an old sun-bleached turtle shell to scoop away the loose dirt. They gathered stones and lined the pit with them to even out and retain the heat from the fire that they were now ready to create. Hauk dropped armloads of logs into the deep, wide hole in the ground and set them on fire. While the fire blazed, and they waited for the wood to turn into glowing red embers, they covered the butchered sections of the hog with bundles of green leaves, and then they wrapped vines around the bundles to hold it all tightly together.
Using their raging fire, Aton cooked turtle eggs that Hauk had acquired from the shoreline of the lake. Turtles had frequented the margin between the water and the land. Little mounds of sand covered the beach, concealing spherical, white, soft turtles' eggs, waiting for the warmth of the sun to hatch them while they hid, buried in the beach.
The meal ended, they threw fresh armfuls of wood on the fire, and weariness soon buried the two inhabitants of the cave with an avalanche of exhaustion. They needed rest. It was late; they were tired, so while the fire blazed, they slept through the night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
No incident disturbed that peaceful night, and the next day they woke refreshed, ready to undertake the excursion that would determine the direction of their fate. After the cooking pit had transitioned from flame to hot coals during the night, they put the bundles of meat into the broiling pit and covered it with dirt. They were as ready as they would ever be for the expedition through the dense forest to surmount what they thought was a mountain, but was actually a volcanic cone.
Hauk had created canvas shoulder bags from a segment of the boat’s sail, which he had harvested for that very purpose. He cut sections of the material with a sharp blade and used a sliver of pointed, polished bone as an awl to punch holes into the hemlines of the pieces of scavenged sail. Through these eyelets, he inserted twisted strands of plant fiber and pulled tightly as he sewed the material together, creating the satchels. They put some pecans and dried turkey in the shoulder bags, hoping the remains of the dried meat and nuts would be enough to sustain them for at least two days, although they expected to find more food on the way. The blackberry bushes they had already found in the woods were especially delicious, and they expected to find more. Finding more berries on their trek to the mountain would be a tasty and welcome treat.
It was just after sunrise when the explorers, armed with a bow, a quiver of arrows, and Hauk’s sword, and carrying their two crude clubs in their hands and canvas satchels slung on their backs, headed to the east, toward the jagged mountain. Following Aton’s advice, it appeared best to take the path they had already traversed through the forest, by way of the stream, and return to their cave by another route, to scout for any nearby threats on their way home. The stream route was the most direct way to reach the highland, so they left, following the river’s bank. They easily found the path they had already trodden under the arching trees, and at late morning, they reached the border of the forest.
The ground was boggy at first, dry and sandy afterward, and it had a gentle slope, which ascended toward the interior of the country, in the direction of their travel. They saw a few very timid animals: an opossum, scampering squirrels, and a few raccoons. With Aton’s keen eyes and the tip of an arrow, they could have had more game, but that was not the plan. They needed to keep moving because they still had food in their satchels. Aton was not the kind of man who would allow anything to divert him from an idea. Hauk imitated his friend’s tenacious resolve. They went forward, with little conversation.
As they left the forest, the mountain appeared. It was composed of a singular peak, not rising to a narrowing point, but from their perceptive, the summit appeared like a collapsed plateau. Below the top, but near it, was a flat rim. Rock buttresses appeared to be supporting it all, branching out like the talons of an immense claw latched to the ground. Between these were narrow valleys, bristling with thickets of trees that rose to the top of the flat rim. As the elevation increased up the mountain, there was less vegetation. They decided their first goal would be to attain the flat rim. Pr
oceeding up the dormant volcano’s slope while traveling in a switchback pattern seemed to be the best way to attain it.
They continued to the conical protuberance. Their path became increasingly rough as the elevation increased, but they reached its base. From here, they began to ascend a wide buttress using a winding path that joined the first plateau.
Although they thought it was a mountain, it was actually a dormant volcano. It had erupted after the asteroid impact sent shockwaves through the earth many generations ago, which was something neither of them understood. The rocky cone was far smaller than a real mountain, but compared to the highest hills of the local region, it seemed like a mountain, and from its top it would be tall enough to extend the view of the horizon far enough for them to fix a direction to their journey out of here.
As they climbed, this rough terrain appeared completely foreign to them. An ancient subterranean force had evidently convulsed the ground, distorting it into a convoluted landscape, changing the earth into a kind of topography that they had never seen before this day. Scattered about the landscape were fractured boulders, large volcanic rocks that had erupted from inside the cone or broken free from an old lava flow. Trees rose in isolated groups. At the bottom of the narrow gorges, massive tree canopies had formed, which were almost impenetrable to the sun's rays. They ascended slowly and with cautious attention to their footing.
The length of their journey to the top increased because of detours and obstacles. Sometimes the ground suddenly fell, and they found themselves on the edge of deep chasms that they had to go around. Therefore, in retracing their steps to find some feasible path, they expended considerable time and energy for nothing. At noon, they stopped to eat at the foot of a large group of trees. There, they found themselves still halfway from the plateau, which they would most probably not reach until nightfall. They were not quite high enough to get an extended view of the horizon. A protruding rock buttress, which appeared to form a powerful support of the cone, blocked their view. They drank some water from a hollow gourd and continued.
They entered into thick bushes, and under the shade of the trees, several varieties of birds fluttered. Some flew to the ground and faked having injured wings, dragging themselves through the undergrowth, acting like easy prey in an attempt to lure Aton and Hauk away from their nests. After leaving the region of bushes, they climbed up a steep slope and reached a level place with very few trees. It was necessary to ascend by meandering to make the incline easier to climb, because it was very steep and the footing was precarious, to say the least, but they continued the ascent.
As they approached the flat rim, the difficulties of the climb increased, but by late afternoon, they passed the arboreal zone. There only remained a few twisted, stunted trees, which must have had a hard life trying to thrive in such a rocky terrain. The weather was fine, perfect for their journey, very tranquil.
They felt the purity of the sky through the transparent air. A perfect calm reigned around them. They could see the setting sun, which they were sure was making the cone cast an immense shadow on the east side of the volcano, as the radiant disc of sunlight sank toward the level of the water of the distant lake. They were not far from the flat ridge, which they wished to reach tonight, but the terrain was increasingly more difficult, and the ground slid under their feet. Frequently as they climbed, the slope was so steep that they slipped when the stones that littered the ground rolled under their feet, often making them feel as though they slid back two steps for each step forward.
Evening finally came, and it was getting dark when they arrived at the flat ridge. The cone’s dark shadow pointed east, and at this time of evening, it was so long that to travel its length, a journey in that direction would take them weeks to walk through all the trees and across the rugged prairie to the extreme distance of the shadow’s terminus. They decided to sleep here for the night; on the flat and open ground, which was still warm from the sun’s rays that had soaked into the black rocks. First, they would eat, and then they would rest. The dried turkey and pecans were all they had. The ground was very barren, and there was nothing to burn for a campfire. A few scarce plants dotted the stony ground. Retrieving firewood from the zone of trees below would have been impractical. The second stage of the mountain, above the flat rim, rose on a base of volcanic rock.
Aton suggested exploring the circumference of the cone, along the flat ridge. He wanted to know if it was possible to get around the base of the cone just in case its sides were too steep, making its summit inaccessible. If they could not reach the summit of the mountain, and if they could not get around the base of the cone, it would be impossible to survey the entire horizon, and all of their effort would have been in vain. Therefore, they began to follow the plateau around it.
The night was beautiful and still, the darkness not yet deep. In some places, the plateau opened before them, and they passed without hindrance. In others, obstructed by rocks, there was only a narrow path, only wide enough for one man to go through at a time. After a while, they had to stop. The flat ridge had narrowed as they walked, but at that point, it merged into the rocky slope, and their path disappeared. Not ready to quit, they took it as an opportunity to ascend. Long ago, lava had escaped down the side of the cone, and the molten rock had formed a natural staircase leading to a wide crack that was open to the cone’s interior. They entered the dim chasm of the volcanic crater, which had a dark body of still water at the bottom. Inside, they continued the ascent. Slowly, they climbed the interior of the cone in the dim light, feeling for handholds as much as looking for them. As they climbed, they saw the opening of the crater widen above their heads. The diameter of this circular portion of the sky, framed by the edge of the cone, increased. At each step, new stars entered the field of their vision. Finally, they set foot on the highest ridge of the mountain at the summit of the cone, but it was too dark to survey their surroundings for signs of inhabitation. Not quite dark enough to see a distant fire, but their surroundings were too dusky to see the effect of humans on the adjacent area.
“Let’s find our way back down,” said Aton. “We’ll return in the morning.”
Glad that they were able to reach the top, they went back to the black rocks of the flat, partially circumferential rim where they had decided to spend the night. The joy of success had put a spring in their steps. The walk back to their camp was quick. Aton confirmed with his friend that he was not able to see any landmarks that could assist determining their exact location because it was too dark. The next day they would return to the top for another look at their surroundings, in complete daylight. Then each settled himself as well as he could to sleep on the warm, dark rocks of the ridge. It was a peaceful night, and they enjoyed a profound rest.
The next day, after a scanty breakfast, which consisted solely of dried turkey and half of what remained of the pecans, they were ready to climb to the summit of the volcano again to more attentively survey the strange land imprisoning them.
It was early in the morning when they left their encampment. Neither of them appeared to be anxious about their situation. They had confidence in themselves, but the basis of their convictions was not the same with Aton as with Hauk. Aton had confidence because he felt capable of extracting from this land everything necessary to survive. Even though it was a harsh existence strewn with some persistent difficulties, they seemed to manage the obstacles set before them, utilizing Aton’s experience as a hunter and woodsman. Hauk feared almost nothing because of his friend’s presence, but especially since Aton had made fire with the polished aluminum can and reflected sunlight, and because of Aton’s confidence and resourcefulness in the forest, which was like a dense jungle at some locations. Aton was an experienced hunter in the woods while Hauk had experience on the battlefield.
They followed the same path as the previous evening. They went around the cone by way of the ridge, which was like a shoulder on this giant rock, to the mouth of the chasm. The weather was magnificent. The su
n rose in a pure sky, and its rays flooded all the eastern side of the mountain. They reached the crater. It was just what they had made it out to be in the dark; a vast funnel that extended, widening, to a height much greater than the plateau on which they had camped. Below the chasm, large thick streaks of lava had poured over the sides of the mountain, cooled, and permanently marked the course of its flow down the stone buttresses after it had solidified. The interior of the crater presented no difficulties or obstacles to the ascent. They noticed traces of very ancient lava, which probably had overflowed the summit of the cone before this lateral chasm had opened a new way to it. With the aid of increased daylight, their climb was swift, and they attained the summit of the crater. They were mute and motionless as they surveyed the area for a while, examining it to its most extreme limits. From the perspective of this great height, land and water appeared to divide their world in two: the expansive water of Lake Pontchartrain, which was to the west, and to the east, land as far as they could see.
Looking to the west, the lake formed an immense sheet of water all the way to the horizon. Aton had hoped to discover some inhabited coast, some island shore, which he had not been able to perceive in the dark the previous evening, but nothing appeared on the farthest verge of the skyline. No land was in sight, not a trace, not even a lone sail among the waves. Over all this immense space to the west, only the lake was visible. He had hoped for a port, some commercial region with ships, which would take them away for a fare. He saw nothing.