The main fear Logan had was of running headlong into some predator. he thought, as he barely avoided a looming black trunk. He slowed in order to avoid trees and move silently. Or a tree,
The two men chasing him had set out at an angle to his course, so he turned more to the left in order to diverge from their path. He kept going until his knee gave out, then he limped along as quickly as he could, trying to keep from groaning with the pain at each step.
His hands had regained their circulation, and when he stumbled over a suitable broken branch, he carried it along. It was better than no weapon at all.
He hoped that Serensaa still had the tanto. She'd probably need it. He tried not to think of his own condition. He didn't know what he would do with no weapon and no fire. It was too much to consider at the moment. He was exhausted, but he forced himself to keep moving.
Morning found Logan far away from the events of the night. He'd reached a large lake and had circled around it, moving to his left, reasoning that he was headed westward as he did. He stumbled along blindly until nearly dawn.
The clouds had opened up in the middle of the night and washed everything with a heavy rain. It had been chilly, and he was still shivering, but he was glad for the rain. He hoped that would be enough to cover his trail. He'd been crashing along, probably leaving signs that a blind man could read. The rain might have been enough to wash away any footprints he'd left.
The clouds were gone and there was some light in the east when he climbed an oak tree. He moved upwards into a thick patch of leaves, then wedged himself in a fork. He had to get some rest, and the tree was convenient.
He woke hours later. An osprey had landed in the upper branches and was bitterly complaining about his presence. The large hawk peered down at him, unwilling to come closer. He moved and it took off in alarm, flapping heavily as it rose.
It had carried a fish into the branches, and had been preparing to eat when it noticed Logan. Now the fish, forgotten in the bird's urge to fly, dropped through the branches. It slid past Logan's perch and fell to the ground.
He was down the tree in an instant, his sore muscles protesting all the way, but overruled by the growls of his stomach. Raw fish never tasted so good.
The fish was gone, all but the head, and even that looked good. Still the edge was off of his appetite.
Now Logan was again worried about Serensaa. He knew roughly where he was, but he had no idea where she might have fled. They hadn't had time to make plans, even if they could communicate.
He knew that she'd been insistent on her westward course. The idea had come to him some time before that she was headed for the Crystal River site.
Without him, she'd probably continue in that direction. He couldn't imagine that she would spend too much time wandering around trying to find him in the pines. She had to know that he would head westward also. After some thought, he glanced at the sun, oriented himself, and set out westward.
He looked for a better weapon as he walked. There were some shoots that were nearly the same thickness as a spear. He worked at one until he broke it off. A little later, he found a piece of coquina stone. It sufficed to allow him to grind the thick end of the shoot into a crude point. Then he found another limb on an oak that he might be able to use as a makeshift spear-thrower. He got it off and sized to the right length. When he tried the rig, it worked. Not as well as the one they'd had, but enough so that he felt more confident. He might be able to injure one of the men, should they find him.
He kept moving, looking for something, anything to eat.
Chapter 17: WESTWARD ALONE
The second day alone, Logan found the partially rotten carcass of a turtle. It wasn't much, but there was a little meat on the stinking thing that hadn't yet turned. At least it wasn't so bad that he couldn't swallow it. He worked it loose with his fingers, then closed his eyes and swallowed. It hit like a leaden chunk, cold and nasty in his stomach.
About an hour later, he knew that eating it had been a mistake. He was struck with a horrible case of diarrhea and vomiting. The meat hadn't been as fresh as he'd assumed.
He decided that it was something that he'd get rid of quickly, but by mid-afternoon he knew that wouldn't happen. He was running a fever and feeling very dehydrated. He staggered on until he came to a swampy area.
There were pools of water here and he stopped to drink. The water was clear, but dark with decaying vegetation. It was full of little mosquito fish and their friendly presence let him know the water was safe to drink.
He drank, then immediately vomited. He drank again. This time, the water sat in his stomach and seemed to soak into his parched tissues. After a short time, he drank some more. Then he had another run of diarrhea. By now his intestines were almost totally cleaned out, so it was mostly water.
After that, he was exhausted. He was still feverish, too.
There was a thick stand of reeds that were growing in a sandy bank. The water was down a little, and the reeds were exposed and dry. He crawled in, leaving a winding trail, and then lay down in the center of the reeds. After a time, he fell asleep.
When he woke, it was nearly dusk. He felt a little better, but thirsty. He didn't want to leave a clear trail into his hiding place, so he crawled along a different path towards the pool, threading through the thick stand of reeds. He reached the water's edge and drank again.
During the night, he crawled to the pool for another drink. By the time the local red-winged blackbirds were singing from their perches in the reeds, he was feeling almost well enough to continue his journey. He lay for a while, watching the puffy clouds travel by overhead, and thinking that it was a good thing that he'd gotten those preliminary inoculations for the dig.
The reeds were full of dragonflies. These jewel-colored insects would sit on the top of a reed, resting, and then shoot off to grab a passing mosquito or mayfly. The dragonflies were so thick that their wings made a low humming sound that he found relaxing. They were undoubtedly responsible for the lack of mosquitoes in what was prime mosquito territory. He was grateful for their presence.
Hunger drove him out of the reeds in the early afternoon. He'd lost the entire contents of his stomach and was now feeling weak and terribly hungry. He didn't have much hope of food, but as soon as he reached the edge of the reeds, an opossum ambled by.
That was lunch. Logan didn't much care for the raw meat, but he couldn't seem to match Serensaa's knack of starting a fire easily, so raw had to do. The calories were welcome, and by evening he was starting to feel more optimistic. Maybe he'd survive after all.
He resorted to climbing a tree to spend the dark hours. There were wolves somewhere around. He heard them howling on and off through the entire night. Nothing came by to bother him, and he slept fitfully in his perch, moving occasionally for relief from the uncomfortable position it imposed.
What had developed into an enjoyable journey now had become a depressing slog. Logan missed Serensaa. He missed her daring humor, her smiles, and, most of all, he missed her loving embraces. Just the sight of her shapely posterior walking ahead of him had seemed to make the time and miles go faster. Now, on his own, he found that he was incredibly lonely. The only solace he found was in imagining that she was somewhere just ahead of him, and could possibly show up at any moment.
To compound matters, he wasn't absolutely sure where he was going, save that he was generally headed west-northwest. He hoped that would put him near the Crystal River area by the time he hit the coast. He was pessimistic, though. He had some difficulty assuming he would live that long on his own.
That assumption had become a constant worry in Logan's mind. He felt lost without Serensaa's knowledge and guidance. She knew so much about surviving that he didn't know. A lifetime's worth, in fact. He tried to be more cautious. Now, on his own, he felt even more acutely just how much he'd relied on her sharp senses and ability.
The higher elevation of the Mid-Florida ridge gradually gave way, and with the lower altitude
, the land became swampier. Logan had believed the Green Swamp was far to the south, but the sound of frogs, and the flocks of wading birds said otherwise. In response, he veered northward.
A day of walking put him back in more sandy territory. The pines grew more sparsely here, making the visibility slightly better. There were small hills, and when he found one that was not overgrown with trees, he could see for miles.
Late in the afternoon, he heard a low rumbling noise. The sound instantly sent shivers down his back. It sounded like mammoths. The memory of his last experience with the huge beasts sharpened his senses as he tried to localize the sound.
The direction of the rumbling was difficult to pin down, but Logan finally decided it was coming from a thick stand of trees that were in a small depression that likely held a pond or sinkhole. He turned and walked away from the spot, hoping to avoid any sign of the creatures.
A crash behind him made him look back. An elephant-like animal had broken through the trees, knocking two askew. It definitely wasn't a mammoth.
He ducked behind a screen of brush, and peeked under the foliage. The animal had turned and was stripping branches off a deciduous tree as it browsed. Its head was shaped differently than a mammoth, as was its body. It wasn't quite as tall as the larger beasts, although it was easily as large as most modern elephants.
It came to Logan that this must be a mastodon. He knew their teeth were commonly found in some areas in Florida. If that was what it was, it could go on with its feeding. He didn't want anything to do with either mammoth or mastodon.
He slipped farther back, then turned and jogged away, gradually turning in a large circle to regain his direction of travel. The mastodon trumpeted behind him, a sound like someone blowing through a spit-filled trombone. The trumpet was answered by a second from farther away. If there were two of the beasts, there might be more.
Logan sped up, leaving the area quickly.
He was hungry that night. He'd found a sizable tree to climb and wasn't too worried about predators. It even had a comfortable fork with limbs so broad that he wasn't concerned about falling. The main problem was his stomach. It was prowling around in his gut, looking for something to eat. He resolved to find food in the morning, even if he had to delay his trek.
A chuck-will started calling in the small hours of the morning. The dratted bird must have found a nearby location that it favored, because it kept at it. Logan found it impossible to sleep with the loud calls repeated every second or so. He tried counting them, but lost count, started again, and lost count again.
He woke to a cardinal singing cheerfully a few trees over. Its liquid notes were far more pleasant than the chuck-will's boring love song. The sun had cleared the horizon by that point.
Logan looked down, checking the ground below for potential threats. He could see nothing, so he descended.
He'd seen a pond the night before while locating the tree. It was only a few hundred yards away, so he headed there for a drink.
After water, food was next on his list. He was quite pleased to see that there were duck potatoes growing in the shallow edge of the pond. There didn't seem to be any gators nearby, so he waded into the clear water and scuffed the tuberous roots out with his feet. They floated to the surface and he washed each one, pulled the thin roots and main plant stem off, and ate the tubers.
They tasted like a combination of potatoes and chestnuts. Not the best breakfast, but at least he was able to give his stomach something to work on besides its own lining.
He gathered more and stored them in the remains of his shirt. It was just about at the end of its usefulness as a garment. Torn and rent from climbing trees, claw slashes, spear holes, and all, it barely had enough strength to hold another meal's worth of duck potatoes.
As a precaution against biting flies and mosquitoes, he smeared mud across as much of his torso as he could reach, then set out, heading west-northwest.
The walk was much like that of the day before: a seemingly endless trek through pines, mixed with scrub oaks. There were no animals in evidence, save for numerous, small gray squirrels that were mostly up in the trees.
They'd slide around the trunk as he approached, carefully keeping the bulk between themselves and the two-legged intruder. A few chucked at him and that was company of a sort. None were careless enough to give him a chance to throw the stick he was carrying.
He kept watching for a chance. Even a small squirrel would be welcome meat.
He'd passed through a great stand of smaller pines and scrub. It was littered with downed trees that showed signs of an old fire. He didn't know if it was caused by lightning or human action, but the dead trees made travel difficult.
On the other side, the taller pines thinned out into grassland. This bothered him. He could see farther, but, in turn, he was far more visible to any lurking pair of eyes. He circled the area, trying to stay just inside of the bordering trees. After a time he had reached a place where the grassland trended away to the south.
He came around a thicket, and stopped. There was a man tied between two saplings. He ducked back into the thicket's edge and looked again, more carefully. The man was unmoving and covered with blood. Any others who might have been there once had apparently moved on.
Logan came out and cautiously walked up to the man. It was a grim sight. The stranger had been tortured. There were cuts and gashes all over his torso. His face was mutilated, and his fingers were gone.
Logan felt the man's arm. It was cool. He was quite dead. Logan wasn't sure if he should untie the body in order to salvage the strips of hide that held the wrists. That was the only thing that was salvageable. The corpse was otherwise naked.
He inspected the back of the body. There was a wound with a bit of stick protruding. He bent down to look. Someone had stabbed the man with a spear, striking his kidney area. The fore-shaft had carelessly been left in the wound.
Logan grasped at the stick. It was slippery with blood and didn't come out freely. After working at it for a few minutes, it pulled free. The spear-point was intact.
This was a real find! The lack of any weapon save the stick he had been carrying had weighed on his mind, making him nervous and timid. Now, with the simple, hand-made stone knife, he felt more of a man. Maybe not quite ready to tackle anything, but still a lot more confident.
The dead man wasn't one of those that had attacked Serensaa and him. The man was of a different physical type. His hair was long and black, and he had a distinct Roman nose along with a darker skin color.
That meant there were two different groups of humans living in the area. The tortured man seemed to mutely imply that the two were at war. Or, at least, hostile towards one another.
The possibility of being caught between two groups of warring tribesmen added an additional sense of danger to the situation. It wasn't that Logan felt particularly friendly towards the men who had pursued them, but the possibility of a new tribe to watch out for made him even more nervous.
His studies had given him a little understanding of how cruelly the Native Americans often treated members of other tribes. The horrendous torture that had killed the man was probably representative of what he could expect. He wished Serensaa were present. He could certainly use her guidance.
He worked the bindings loose, letting the corpse slump to the ground. He might need the thongs. Certainly the spear-point was too good a weapon to pass up. He was happy to have discovered it.
After that, he kept on the lookout for another sapling that could be converted into a spear shaft. The one that he had wasn't really straight enough to suit him. He wasn't quite sure how he would create the socket for the fore-shaft, but maybe he could tie the two together with one of the thongs, should he find a suitable sapling.
That night he camped in a hollow log. There were no climbable trees about, so when he found an uprooted hollow tree in a depression, he cautiously worked his way inside. He wriggled around until he found a comfortable position. Then he grad
ually dropped off to sleep. He'd eaten the remains of the duck potatoes, having found nothing else all day. They had made a moderately filling, if uninspired, dinner. Now his stomach was full enough to let him rest. He hoped he'd be able to sleep through the entire night.
Logan awoke. There was a noise from outside the log. Something, some beast, was sniffing around. It made a low, rumbling, growling noise. It sounded more like a bear than anything else. He felt for the spear-point and prepared to defend himself.
The dim outline of the opening was suddenly blocked. There was a growl in the darkness, and he heard the creature scrabble at the opening. Looking closely, he could barely make out gleaming, reddish eyes, and a mouth full of teeth.
Logan shifted to a crawling position, holding the knife in front of him. If the thing crawled in with him, it would restrict its fore paws. It could bite him, but maybe he could jab its eyes and make it retreat.
Paradox: On the Sharp Edge of the Blade Page 19