The two humans looked at each other mutely. Serensaa grinned and said something that sounded as if she were amused. Logan wished that he could understand her. She might be a primitive from his past, but she also fitted nicely into all of his criteria for 'desirable'.
The two started out again, Logan lugging the haunch of meat in his arms. It was cumbersome and he finally settled for carrying it over his shoulder. That worked better, but the blood leaking out attracted flies, so he swished his free hand back and forth to shoo them away from his face.
As he walked, Logan wondered if killing the creature, he thought it might have been a tapir, had been a mistake. Would their pursuers stumble on their trail and realize that humans had killed something there.
He decided that the alligator might have provided cover for them. It was a messy feeder and its attack could have spilled the blood that was scattered around the area. Serensaa didn't seem too worried about it, even though she was setting a fast pace.
The sun was slanting down through the cypress trees to the west when Serensaa slowed. For the first time, she seemed to be unsure as to her direction. Logan shifted the tapir haunch to his other shoulder, watching her expectantly. She'd been acting as if she knew exactly where they should go, but now she looked back and forth indecisively.
He cleared his throat, hoping to get her attention. She frowned at him for a moment, and then abruptly seemed to make up her mind. They made a sharp right turn and headed for what looked like a distant hammock.
It was nearly dark by the time they approached the tall trees. Logan had noticed that the cypress trees were backed by sand pines and hoped that indicated they'd reach some higher ground. They waded through a deep area filled with water lilies, then through some torpedo grass, his feet tripping on the tough stems. They finally exited the stand of cypress by climbing onto a muddy bank covered partially with coarse grass.
The cypress trees gave way to sand pines and swamp magnolias. The sandy ground was littered with pine needles. They passed between large clumps of palmettos. As they walked farther into the dark woods, oak trees began to appear.
Serensaa finally stopped by an ancient oak, if size were any indication of age, and plopped down on the leaf-covered ground. He sat next to her, shifting the haunch of meat to an area covered with dry leaves.
He could see her white teeth in the fading light as she smiled at him. She made some noises as she dug in her pouch, coming out with the flint spear-point. It must have been quite sharp. She made a couple of passes with it, and pulled off a strip of meat from the haunch. Noticing Logan watching her, she hesitated, and then held it out to him. When he took it, she immediately cut off another piece, and crammed it into her mouth.
Logan hesitated, but his hunger overruled his squeamishness. The meat tasted warm and raw, then something in him reached out, bypassing his rapidly thinning veneer of civilization. It was food. He found himself eating rapidly.
He used his knife to cut off another strip. The girl watched closely as he did, then held out her hand. He placed the strip in her fingers. She shook her head, then held out her other hand. Logan realized that she wanted to inspect his knife. He hesitated. She'd been interested when he'd first used it, but had apparently forgotten about it.
Now she was all but insisting that he let her examine it. She said something in a demanding tone. Logan was sure that if he could understand her, she had just told him: “Give that to me!”
He looked at her face. She was frowning slightly, perhaps with impatience.
He held it out to her, waited until she reached, then jerked it back. She snorted, making a frustrated sound, then looked at him. He grinned at her, and her face slowly changed from incipient anger to amusement. Her smile was breathtaking.
Logan drew in a deep breath, and placed the knife, hilt first into her hand. Serensaa didn't look down at it. She kept her eyes on his face, and smiling, said something. He thought it sounded more like a thank you than anything else.
He smiled back. Figuring that she couldn't understand him anyway, said, “You're beautiful. I shouldn't let you have that, but I can't resist your smile.”
His tone of voice or mannerism must have communicated more than he intended. She lowered her eyes, blushing.
As if she were seeking to cover her confusion, she carefully examined the weapon, feeling the rubberized grip, the smooth blade, and cautiously testing the edge with her finger. He straightened as she gasped. A tiny drop of blood welled out where she'd pressed a bit too hard.
She carefully handed the blade back, haft first, exactly the way he'd given it to her. He took the knife with one hand and simultaneously caught her hand with his other. Laying the weapon aside, he lifted her hand to check the cut. It wasn't deep. The tanto was so sharp that he had worried she'd opened a serious cut.
Holding her hand, he looked up at her face. Her eyes were wide and her lips were parted. Something took him at that moment and he bent over her hand and kissed her palm. He could hear her gasp deeply as his lips contacted the slightly calloused skin.
Before he'd finished kissing her palm, her other hand brushed slowly over his cheek. He raised his eyes to hers. She was still flushing, but her gaze held his for a moment, then she lowered her eyes again.
Logan found that his heart was pounding. He felt as if his skin had suddenly become ever so much more sensitive. The night breeze seemed colder than it had been and he shivered a little.
Serensaa moved towards him a little and he moved so that they were close to each other. Her arms came up around his neck and he suddenly found himself kissing her deeply. It was as if he'd never kissed any woman before. He could barely breathe, and all of his senses were focused on the taste of her lips, the slightly smokey smell of her hair, and the warm feel of her skin against his.
They broke apart and his tongue passed over his lips, tasting a little blood from the raw meat that she'd been eating. She was panting in turn.
She said something in a soft tone. Logan didn't understand the words, but the tone and her expression said more than the words could have. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close for another kiss.
He had believed that she was shapely, in a slender fashion, but holding her that closely, with her breasts pressed against his chest, made him realize that her deerskin shirt had concealed more than he'd thought. His breath came fast. She responded by opening her lips against his. The tip of her tongue slid between his lips and he responded in kind.
Both of them were shaking with passion. Logan wasn't sure what would come next, but he was certain that it would be amazing. He pulled back to look into her eyes. He didn't need to speak her language; what they were saying to each other was universal. There was no need for words. They'd ignited a mutual fire. She had definitely found his kiss as exciting as he'd found hers. He started to pull her close again.
A distant sound echoed through the trees. Serensaa leaped up, now all business. Logan stood up, still shaking with passion. She whispered something, then placed her fingers on his lips when he started to answer.
He looked towards the direction that the noise had come from. More sound filtered through the nearly dark woods. Somewhere over there, a fair distance away, men were talking. He looked at Serensaa in alarm.
She was sniffing the air carefully. She pointed towards the sounds and, following her finger, he could see the faint flickering of a fire reflected on the undersides of the tree branches. Their pursuers were close, and were setting up camp for the night.
He caught up the tapir haunch, settled it over his shoulder, before Serensaa grabbed his free hand to lead him away into the dark woods. They walked quietly, carefully avoiding underbrush, and feeling out each step.
They moved silently for a while, but then she stopped so abruptly that he collided with her shapely posterior. Something was moving up ahead. He could hear a crackling noise in a thicket.
They were standing directly under a large live oak that spread a thick canopy. Serensaa
moved to the trunk and seemed to climb it as easily as a squirrel, her fingers and toes finding small holds in the rough bark. Logan put the tapir haunch down, and followed as best he could. A few days ago, he wouldn't have dreamed of attempting such a climb in the dark, but that was before he had seen some of the predators that frequented this ancient world.
They reached the first fork and continued upwards. In a couple of minutes, they were resting in the top branches of the big tree. Their ascent was barely in time. As they arranged themselves, Logan heard a snarl from below, followed by the sound of a heavy body rearing up and clawing on the tree.
The girl said something that sounded vaguely like, “Piskata.” Logan didn't understand, but his imagination formed a picture of the big-toothed cat that had made a try for him when he first arrived in the past. The creature circled the tree, snarling softly as it did. When it came to the haunch, it stopped. There was the sound of chewing. In a short time, the first animal was joined by another, then yet another. There was a brief spat of low snarling as the animals struck at each other over the tapir meat.
The two humans sat quietly high in the canopy, listening. Logan was worried about the beasts down below, but also quite pleased. Serensaa was sitting between his legs, leaning her back against his chest, her hair brushing his face. It would have been extremely pleasant had it not been for the danger.
The tapir meat hadn't lasted very long. The creatures continued to prowl around below, occasionally letting out a rumbling snarl. The waning moon hadn't yet risen, and it was quite dark up in the branches. Logan was wedged into a fork in such a way that he was moderately comfortable and not in danger of falling. He kept his arms wrapped around Serensaa's waist.
After a time, she shifted a little. Alarmed, he clutched at her, ending with his hand on her breast.
In Logan's experience, a girl of his time might have been offended, but Serensaa didn't respond other than to shift a little more and lean into him harder. He rather reluctantly slid his hand back down to her ribs, at which, she turned her head and kissed his cheek.
The two sat silently after that. Logan found himself trying to sleep. They would need to move quickly in the morning. Pursuit was near. If the piskata, whatever they were, hadn't treed them, the two would have continued moving to get a better start on their trackers.
Logan awoke when Serensaa moved slightly. There was a bird calling softly in a nearby tree. It wasn't quite light yet, but the left hand of dawn was definitely showing in the east.
He wondered if the predators were still below, and also if their pursuers would get an early start or possibly wait until the rising sun made it easier to trail.
Serensaa pressed her two fingers on his lips to indicate silence, then began to descend, working her way carefully downward through the branches. Logan followed, trying not to miss a step in the dim light. In starts and stops they climbed down to the first main fork.
She paused, standing on a branch, holding onto a vertical limb with one hand. He could see that she was searching the ground below. He looked but couldn't see anything.
Serensaa froze, pointing. Logan followed her finger. There was something in the bushes where she pointed. He studied the pattern of shadowed and lighter areas, then gradually made out the stripy face of one of the big-toothed cats in the dim light. It was looking directly at them, obviously hoping they'd come on down.
He took a deep breath, preparing to say something, but she jerked, straightened a little, and then pointed down their back-trail. Someone was coming.
This was getting worse and worse. Logan wasn't sure what they'd do. They couldn't go down. The saber-tooth would get them for sure. If the enemies found them in a tree, he was sure that it would be an easy task for their pursuers to spear them and drag them down.
He glanced back at the saber-tooth. It had vanished, pulling back into the leaves. As he watched, three, spear-carrying men came through the brush.
The first man was bending over, obviously following their trail of the night before. He stopped at the edge of the clearing, where the smaller vegetation thinned out in the oak's shadow, and pointed across the more open area. The other two consulted with him quietly, then all three came ahead, directly towards the sheltering oak.
The men walked silently across the leaf mold, inspecting the ground, then they found the spot where Logan and Serensaa had climbed the tree. One of them jerked his head up and spotted the two.
He let out a blood-curdling scream, and prepared to throw his spear at them. It was at that instant that the hidden saber-tooth tigers launched their ambush.
The big cats were close, but so well camouflaged that Logan hadn't seen the other four. All he'd seen was the one in the bushes.
The men spun around, yelling in horror. One managed to throw his spear, striking one of the charging cats in the neck, but the other four tigers overwhelmed the three men before they could do more than scream a second time. There was a brief and bloody struggle below, then the deadly animals were crouched over the hunter's still bodies.
Logan was shocked. The hunters hadn't had a chance. The ambush had been too well carried out. The only damage they'd done was the spear sticking from one cat's neck. That animal was having difficulty breathing. The shaft had struck nearly in the center of its throat and had probably penetrated the windpipe. As Logan watched, it clawed at the spear, finally pulling it out.
A gush of blood came out with the flint tip, and the tiger coughed once, gagged, and coughed again weakly. It took several staggering steps towards the bushes, then collapsed, dead or dying.
After a brief disagreement, involving roaring and slapping at each other with their claws, three of the tigers caught hold of the corpses, and headed off through the trees. They were so strong that they were able to grasp a hunter by the small of the back and walk off. One started out dragging its prey, but shortly fell behind. It finally picked up the man's body and trotted off after its companions. The fourth tiger stood indecisively for a moment, looking at the others as they walked away. It glanced up at the two humans in the tree and snarled, but when they didn't move, it turned and followed the others.
The speared tiger moaned once, then was quiet.
Serensaa looked at him quietly. When their eyes met, she shrugged, as if to say: “Too bad for them, but we've got to get going.”
She faced the trunk and climbed downwards. Logan followed.
He missed his footing when he was near the ground, partially falling and making a scrabbling sound as he tried to catch himself.
He looked up from where he'd landed to see her gathering some of the deceased pursuers' spear shafts. She gathered up three of the slender shafts along with some of the fore-shafts that had tumbled out of their pouches. She also picked up two of the spear-throwers that lay on the blood-covered ground. She handed the spears to him. Then striding over to the deceased tiger. She quickly cut into its back, and removed part of one of its thick back-straps.
When he approached, she stood, handed him the meat, took three of the thin spears from his bundle, and headed out in a direction that was directly away from where the men had come from, and about ninety degrees away from the departing tigers' trail. Logan realized that she feared the men more than the tigers.
The birds were singing and the sun was bright as they walked across a wide grassy space. Near the edge of the trees where they'd come out, was an extensive area of loam that had been plowed up.
Serensaa took the time to point out a clear, slotted hoof print in the wet earth. Logan initially thought it might have been made by a deer, but after a little consideration, he understood that it was made by some kind of pig. The rooted over area was the defining clue. He didn't think it was the kind of wild hog that he knew about in his own time, but perhaps it was a peccary or something like that. A hog, most certainly.
This made him look around apprehensively. Such creatures could be very aggressive. The slim bundle of spears he was carrying didn't give him any great confidence.<
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He inspected them as well as he could, while carrying the meat. The shafts didn't even have points. He'd seen Serensaa fit a fore-shaft with a point to one of the spears. He looked and found that each shaft had a socket that was reinforced with tight rawhide wrapped around it. The fore-shaft that carried the stone tip would fit tightly into the socket.
He grinned appreciatively. It was a well-thought out weapon system; one that he'd neglected to study in the one class he'd had that briefly touched on the Clovis culture.
The spear points looked more or less like what he understood were called 'Clovis points' and based on that tentative identification, he thought that was the culture of Serensaa's people.
The spear thrower had been called an 'atl-atl' by his professor, but Logan doubted that Serensaa would have the same name for it. The throwing stick had a hooked part that fitted against the butt of the spear shafts while the other end was held in the throwing hand. The additional leverage provided by the two-foot long thrower allowed for a far more powerful throw.
Paradox: On the Sharp Edge of the Blade Page 13