Paradox: On the Sharp Edge of the Blade

by E. S. Martell

  As he was working his way through a thicket under oak trees, he found some scuppernong grapes on a vine that extended high into a tree. They were ripe and he eagerly ate as many as he could reach.

  Finishing the last of the grapes he'd picked, he paused and held one up to the light between his thumb and forefinger. It was definitely ripe. That was about right for August. Still, he looked at the grape suspiciously and then at the sun. Wherever he was or whenever he was, the time of year was about the same as when he'd last been at his dad's house, but that didn't really tell him anything. Where was he anyway?

  His mind skittered away from the question, interrupted by a crackle of brush nearby. Something large was moving through the undergrowth. Another noise sounded from farther off. It sounded like something rumbling. He tried to place the sound. The creature in the thicket made a rumbling noise in return, echoing the first animal. It was improbably loud. Suddenly his mind clicked. It sounded like elephants.

  A giant shape broke out of the bushes, moving towards the space between two oak trees. Logan caught a glimpse of the beast's side. It looked like a huge boulder covered with long, shaggy hair. On the verge of panic, he slowly lowered himself to the ground, then slithered as best he could across a few yards into some tall, coarse grass.

  He could hear the beast ripping branches off the trees, intermixed with a crunching sound as it chewed on the twigs. Heart beating a tattoo and feeling short of breath, Logan tried to calm himself. He took several deep breaths gradually slowing his pulse rate.

  His mind began to work again. That thing was a mammoth! It could be nothing else. He didn't know much about prehistoric fauna, having spent most of his time studying later middle-eastern civilizations, but he definitely knew what a mammoth was supposed to look like. And this was definitely a mammoth.

  As he lay in the grass, he could hear sounds of other herd members all around him. This wasn't an optimal situation. They might not care about him, but he was pretty sure that they wouldn't view his intrusion into the middle of their herd favorably. If they discovered him, he feared they would become aggressive.

  He began to slide along, trying to stay in concealment. After a bit, he neared a more open place. There was a thicket to his right and some large palms to his left. There didn't seem to be any of the huge beasts nearby and he believed he could slip into the thicket. He was on the verge of moving over to it when he caught sight of the girl.

  She was standing far back among the palm trunks, looking directly at him. When she saw that she had his attention, she motioned for him to come towards her. He pointed at the thicket and she shook her head violently back and forth. Her flying hair seemed to make the negative even more forceful. Logan, glancing back over his shoulder, rose and trotted, stooped over, into the palms.

  When he stood up, he could just see her back, receding rapidly into the trees. Forgetting about the mammoths for the moment, he gave chase. She was far more experienced at moving quietly, and his progress created considerable noise. There was an alarmed trumpet behind him, followed immediately by trumpets and rumbles from the rest of the herd.

  The sound stimulated him to even greater effort and he sprinted through the heavy stand of cabbage palms, zig-zagging between the trees in a way that would have done credit to an NFL running back. There was a crashing noise from behind him. One of the beasts was following.

  The mammoth quit pursuing after fifty paces or so, evidently deciding that it had successfully seen him off. It was fortunate, because Logan's breath gave out shortly after it broke off its charge.

  He stopped to pant, his hands on his knees. When he recovered enough to look around, there was no sign of the girl. He'd lost her or perhaps more to the point, she'd lost him. He didn't dare call out, so he continued on in as straight a direction as he could manage through the trees.

  The palms seemed to go on forever, but he noticed that the ground was getting more and more mucky as he progressed. He was brought up short by a stand of tall grass that proved to have saw-like edges. Even brushing it lightly left scratches on his skin that bleed as if he'd been trying to give a cat a bath. He wiped the blood from his arm, and muttered, “Can't go that way. Sawgrass. Maybe to the left.”

  He turned and followed along the edge of the grass. After weaving back and forth for what must have been a mile or so, he saw a bare footprint in a muddy area. It was smaller than his, and he felt that it might be the girl. Moreover, she was walking in the same direction as he. Congratulating himself for his good tracking skills, he continued.

  Before he knew quite what was happening, pools of water covered with lily pads surrounded him. There were some cattails in the water, scattered among the lilies, so he took a moment to dig out some of the tubers. That helped with the hunger, which had not relented even in the excitement.

  After eating the crunchy white interior of several of the tubers, Logan felt like he had a little more energy. It was time to renew his pursuit. The pools weren't connected and he hoped that he could thread his way through.

  Some time later, the sun was slanting downward towards a distant stand of trees. Logan was thoroughly exhausted and depressed, not to mention completely lost. He knew the directions. The sun set in the west, but he was surrounded by water and clumps of saw grass without any perceptible pathway to follow. There was the grunting noise of an alligator coming from the near distance. When it stopped, another answered from farther away. Frogs croaked from the pools, adding a low note to the harmony of red wing blackbirds calling from the reeds.

  He decided that he'd better find some place to lay up for the night just as the local mosquitoes found him. It quickly became apparent that he'd need more than just a place to lie down. The blasted bloodsuckers would most likely drink him dry, if given half a chance.

  Waving his arms to try and keep them off his face didn't work. Finally, in desperation, he grabbed up a double handful of muck and smeared the mud all over his head. Blinking his eyes to clear them, he followed suit with his arms and neck. That helped immensely. The mosquitoes seemed baffled by the mud layer.

  Not so with his clothes, though. They were able to stick their pointy mouth parts through the fabric of both his pants and tee shirt. More mud helped there also. There was a moment where he cringed about applying the muck, but he rationalized that he could always go for a swim tomorrow and wash it off, provided he could find a pool that wasn't filled with gators. As the night drew close, more and more of them seemed to be grunting all around him.

  Judging by the taller trees, there looked like there might be a bit of slightly higher ground ahead. He recognized the low island as what was called a hammock. It was covered with trees. They were mostly cypress with some long leaf pines interspersed. He headed that way with as much speed as he could muster.

  The higher ground of the hammock was perhaps five hundred yards away, when he stopped short. Someone had just started a fire far back in the trees.

  Logan didn't know what to do. It might be the girl, but he felt that she probably wouldn't advertise her presence in that way after having successfully eluded the men who'd killed her companion. It was more likely to be those men than her.

  It struck Logan that people who lit a fire were probably in a group large enough to deal with unexpected threats. He wanted to go close and try to see who it was, but caution overcame that urge.

  Disappointed, he turned towards a smaller hammock that was farther towards the west. About an hour later, in the dim gloaming, he found a lone oak tree that was big enough to provide a perch for the night. After a mad scramble to avoid falling, he fetched up in a moderately comfortable crotch.

  It had been a long day filled with both fear and frustration. He'd been in denial about the long-toothed cat-creature's identification, but recognizing the mammoths had forced him to mentally accept the fact that somehow, in some miraculous manner, he'd been transported into the distant past. With that idea in mind, he suddenly understood the weapons he'd seen the pursuing men using. T
hey'd been using atl-atls – spear-throwers. That was why the spears seemed to separate in their hands.

  He was back in prehistory at a point before the bow and arrow had been discovered. The concept was depressing in the extreme. How would he return to his own time?

  His mind skittered over the events that led to his ending up here. It was too – too, maybe “spooky” was the right word. Now that he'd discovered more or less where, no, when he was, he wanted to get back to his own time more than anything else. He just didn't know how to accomplish that goal.

  He tried to relax, and the thought came to him that his first priority was simply to survive. If the dangers he'd encountered so far were typical, that might not be easy. If he could survive, maybe he'd be able to eventually get back to the present.

  A mosquito bit his forehead through a crack in the mud coating, and Logan slapped ineffectually at it. He had to quit thinking of when he came from as the present. He was in the present now, only it was the wrong present, maybe twelve-thousand years before he was due to be born.

  Another image drifted into his mind. The intriguing girl. He hadn't seen her closely, but his impression was that she was more than moderately attractive. No, on second thought, he was sure that she was beautiful. He drifted off to sleep with her image in his mind.

  Chapter 10: A MEETING AND A KILLING

  Logan woke in the middle of the night. The moon was filtering through the branches above him, but that wasn't what had disturbed him. Something was moving around the tree on the ground below his perch.

  From the sound of it, it was dangerous. There was a low snarl, followed by a sudden scrabble as it began to climb the tree. Totally awake now, he grasped at an overhanging limb and worked his way higher into the upper branches. Whatever it was, it wasn't having an easy time of getting up the thick trunk.

  In a few moments, Logan was high in the tree. The branches were thinner here, and they flexed alarmingly with his weight. Fearfully, he stared back down into the darker foliage below. There was something there. It disappeared, and appeared a few seconds later on a closer limb. He suddenly saw a faintly glowing pair of eyes that were fixed on him. They moved closer. All at once, he could make out that it was a panther.

  As if signaled by his recognition, the big cat screamed, and lunged upwards, clawing at the branches for purchase. Logan moved farther out on the thin web of branches. They sagged under his weight, lowering him down to almost eye level with the climbing predator. It paused, evaluating the situation, then began to climb higher.

  When it reached the limbs holding him, it tentatively moved outward on them. One made a cracking sound, and Logan dropped farther. He was now posed a short distance above a larger limb, one that was sufficiently thick to support his weight.

  The cat moved closer, snarling as it worked its way through the intervening branches and twigs. In a rush of fear, Logan scrambled around so that both legs were clear, then dropped to the lower limb, snatched at it, slipped, then secured himself. The lightened limbs he'd left flipped up, almost dislodging the panther. It recovered, and stared down at him.

  The cat shifted its weight. It looked like it was considering leaping down on him. Reflexively, Logan pulled his knife, raising it towards the animal just as it sprang. By some miracle, he managed to ram the razor-sharp blade directly under the panther's gaping jaws.

  The shock forced the animal's head back, as it instinctively tried to strike whatever had wounded its throat. The paws slashed, but missed a grip on Logan's arm. He yanked back, pulling the knife out, as the animal dropped past the limb.

  The cat tried to recover, twisting in mid-air, but missed its grip on the branches. It descended through the leaves, crashing down to the ground, where it struck with a thud and a grunt. Logan came close to following it down. After a moment he righted himself over the limb he was on. His arms were bleeding, as much from the rough bark as from the one minor scratch on his left arm the panther had made.

  Shakily, he reinserted the knife into its sheathe. He thought gratefully about Larry's generosity. The man had undoubtedly saved his life with the gift.

  He listened carefully. All was silent from below. It was as if the panther had never been.

  As he listened, there came a series of deep howls from the far distance. Logan sighed. Wolves! What next? Dinosaurs?

  After a time, he descended a little to a more secure location. Bracing his back against a thin, vertical branch, he tried to get some rest. He didn't want to go back to the original crotch where he'd planned on spending the night. It was too low. If the panther had been able to climb the thick trunk more quickly, it might have reached him before he could get to the thin branches.

  He was awake as the birds began to sing. It was still very dim, but dawn was in the sky, and a couple of mockingbirds were engaging in a loud, vocal duel nearby. Their virtuosity was amazing. They seemed to have a precise knowledge of many different songbird calls.

  Logan listened for a little while, then began to work his way lower in the tree. It was almost light enough to see the ground clearly. There was a dim lump down there, but he wasn't taking chances. It might be the panther, or it might not.

  It grew lighter until he could see clearly. The panther hadn't survived its fall. It wasn't moving. He believed that it was dead.

  Working his way down the craggy bark with his back to the beast was nerve-wracking. It might be shamming, just waiting for him to climb down.

  Once he got his feet on the ground, he could see that it hadn't moved. He approached and gingerly poked at its leg with his toe. Nothing. Not even a twitch.

  He grabbed the tail and gave a good jerk, then jumped back. The cat was dead. There was a pool of blood around the matted fur of its neck. The cat's impact hadn't killed it, the knife had done the job.

  Looking all around in a somewhat ashamed fashion, Logan considered. He was practically starved. This was meat. He'd never considered eating a panther and it seemed somehow barbarous. It was a beautiful animal and he felt guilty about killing it. His stomach, however, had other ideas. It was so empty that even the thought of cat meat was enough to make it release a huge gush of acid.

  Rubbing his belly, he bent, then grabbed one of the cat's legs and began to try to skin it with the knife, quelling his aversion to the sharp edge of the blade.

  To his surprise, the skin came off easily. Once he'd slit along one side and cut around the foot and upper thigh, it hung loosely and came free with a minimum amount of work.

  The leg muscle was covered with a shiny membrane. He cut into it and removed a hunk of meat. It smelled bloody. It would be one thing if he had some way to make a fire like whomever he'd seen last night on the other hammock. But, he considered, maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to give away his position with a column of smoke. Cooking odors would carry a long way on the light morning breeze. He really needed to know more about other humans in the area. Were they friendly or automatically hostile to strangers?

  Steeling himself, he cut of a bite-sized chunk, stuck it into his mouth and chewed experimentally. It was chewy, and tasted a bit like pork. He shut his eyes and gulped it down, expecting to feel queasy. Surprisingly, his stomach didn't seem to share his revulsion. Maybe he could get used to eating raw meat.

  Sometime later, Logan leaned back against the tree trunk rubbing his belly. It had been his first real meal in the past, or here and now – whatever. He mentally shrugged. He'd been hungry and the panther had solved that problem.

  Now, how could he preserve the meat for later? It wouldn't last. Already flies were buzzing around the carcass.

  He wondered if he could remove the skin and pack meat in it. Skinning the entire animal seemed like it might be outside of his range of abilities, though. Even if he could get the skin off and somehow construct a pack or a bag to carry the meat in, it wouldn't last more than a few hours in the humid heat.

  He compromised by carefully cutting the remaining hind leg free along with a long strip of skin. He tie
d the skin to the leg at both ends, forming a loop, and strung it over his shoulder, so that the leg bumped along at his waist. He could carry it for a while, and maybe, if he was lucky, have lunch or even supper before the meat turned.

  The next thing was to decide where to go. This swampy area seemed to hold more mosquitoes than the sandy land nearer the coast where he'd started. Maybe it would be better to go back there.

  Midday found him huddled under a palm in a downpour. The rain was cold, chilling him to the bone despite the heat that the day had started with. The shower gradually ceased as it blew off towards the swampier land to the west.

  The wind had picked up with the storm, adding to his misery. It was humid and the gusts didn't help to dry his shirt and pants. The only good thing he could find was that the mud was mostly washed off of his skin. His clothes were stained a dark brownish-black, but most of the caked soil was gone.

  He squished along for a while, then stopped and addressed himself to the panther leg. It hadn't become any more attractive by his ill treatment and by being soaked. The meat wasn't precisely high, but it definitely was less appealing. He pondered discarding it, but he needed the calories to keep moving and to stay warm.