Mists of Dawn

by Chad Oliver

  Or was there?

  With sudden inspiration, Mark dug out his billfold from his pocket, all the while fighting to keep some sort of flickering flame alive. The billfold was damp, but not wet. He fumbled it open. It was dry on the inside. Hastily, he slipped out five dollar bills. He tore one to shreds and sprinkled them gently on the tiny spark. They hesitated and then caught with little puffs of flame. Mark built the other four bills around them like a tent, and slipped slivers of shaved wood in on top of them. He held his breath. The flame wavered—and then caught with a crackle.

  Mark watched the little fire heat the wood and move on, spreading to the larger kindling and then to the branches themselves. He watched the fire as though he had never seen a fire before, as though it was the most beautiful sight in the world. He watched it in utter fascination, until the heat drove him back.

  Mark slipped the matches into his billfold and returned the billfold to his pocket. Gratefully, he speared a reindeer steak with his twin-forked stick and held it just above the blue point of the crackling flames. The red meat contracted and juices fell hissing into the fire. The smell of roasting venison filled the air, and Mark sniffed it with complete pleasure. He had never been so hungry in his life, and nothing had ever smelled so good to him.

  After the venison had been thoroughly cooked, Mark took the steak from the forked stick and placed it on a flat rock. He used the knife and a small stick to cut the meat up into thick sections, and then he ate. The venison had the zestful tang of game meat cooked over an open fire, and Mark would have declared without a moment’s hesitation that it was by all odds the most delicious meal he had ever eaten. When he finished, he swallowed more cool water from the pool and put another steak on the coals to cook.

  Comfortable at last, Mark lay back in the afternoon sun and just enjoyed feeling human again. Now that he had the chance, he determined to skin the reindeer before evening. He was not going to get caught out another night without protection of some sort. He knew nothing about curing hides, but he figured that if he scraped all the meat off and then dried it in the sun it would serve his purpose and keep him warm.

  Then there was the meat. It had taken two shots to down the reindeer, and he had used one on the Neanderthal, which left him with three shots in his .45. He could not afford to waste the meat, but on the other hand, he certainly could not eat it all before it spoiled. Mark decided to cut up the choice sections, wrap them in leaves, and bury them deep in the snow. That was as good a deepfreeze as he could ask for, and the meat cache should keep him alive for weeks if necessary.

  Mark got up and speared the other steak, which he cut up as he had the first. He ate this one more slowly, savoring the fine flavor, and he actually found himself feeling uncomfortably full. Then he lay back again in the grass and permitted himself the luxury of relaxation. It was good just to be alive, and danger seemed a remote and unreal thing under the blue sky, with the white clouds drifting by, the smell of flowers and green grass in the air, and the warm afternoon sun beating gently down upon him. Good just to be alive! Mark realized sleepily that he had never truly appreciated that before. When you tottered on the brink of the Valley of the Shadow, and then came out once more into the sunshine, you looked at things with new and deep-seeing eyes.

  Mark nodded, half-asleep. He rolled over on his stomach, yawning. He looked into the still waters of the pool—and suddenly stiffened. He knew instantly that he had been guilty of the greatest mistake of all-he had won through, only to let his guard down when victory was in his grasp. A dark shadow was reflected in the pool, silent, unmoving.

  Someone, or something, stood behind him!

  Chapter 9 Across the Ages

  FOR a long moment, Mark could not move. To come so far, to dare so much and then to be struck down through blind carelessness—it was hard to take. Fool, his mind whispered to him. Fool! Steeling himself to calmness, unwilling to surrender to fate no matter how tough things got, Mark snaked his hand toward his .45, moving very slowly in order not to excite any suspicion. It was a fortunate circumstance, he knew, that the .45 was not known as a weapon in this era. If your enemy thinks that you are helpless, he is apt to be careless. And when your helplessness actually consists of a loaded .45—

  Mark drew the .45. There was still no sound behind him. Very cautiously, almost inch by inch, Mark began to roll over on his back where he could snap a shot with some hope of success. Still not a sound from the figure he had seen in the pool. Mark tensed himself and whipped over on his back, his finger already contracting on the trigger of the .45 even as its stubby muzzle swung down on its target.

  In the nick of time, Mark held his fire.

  A man stood watching him. Not a half-man, not a Neanderthal, but a man. He carried a bow at the ready, with a feathered arrow taut against the bowstring. He was tall, perhaps a shade under six feet, and he was a magnificent physical specimen. He was bronzed from the sun, but recognizably white. He was dressed neatly in furs, with his powerful arms and legs bare. His hair was long and black, but neatly arranged and tied with a rawhide thong. His face was broad and strong, and he reminded Mark of a tall Indian, though he lacked Mongoloid characteristics.

  Mark looked at the man, and the man looked at Mark. Both seemed equally surprised, and uncertain of how to proceed. Neither dared to lower his guard, yet neither seemed ready to kill without cause. Mark realized that the man could have killed him at any time, and that he even now considered Mark unarmed. The man was evidently not a killer unless he was prompted, but one glance into his cold black eyes convinced Mark that death would be swift and sudden if he made a wrong move.

  The scene held, a moment frozen in time. Mark did not want to shoot, but on the other hand he could not know when the stranger would take a notion to release that arrow. He waited. The man waited. The sun seemed to stop in the blue afternoon sky, watching. Mark noted that he was sweating, and not with heat.

  “Orn?” said the man suddenly, his voice deep and steady. It sounded like a question.

  Mark felt keenly the language barrier that stood between them. The man had asked him something, and waited for an answer. But what could he say?

  “Friend,” Mark said, feeling that it was best to say something, even if it could not be understood. He spoke slowly and as calmly as he could. “I am your friend.”

  The man looked at him, unmoving. His black eyes were unreadable. The arrow did not waver. Mark wondered at the strength that held that taut bow as steadily as a rock.

  “Orn?” the man asked again.

  Mark hesitated and then very slowly he got to his feet. The man stepped back instantly, and the bow tensed still more. Mark managed a smile. Should he shoot?

  “I am your friend,” he said again. Cautiously, so as not to alarm the man, he raised his left hand, palm outward, in a sign of peace. With his right, he held the .45 at the ready. The man watched with intelligent eyes, but it was at once obvious that the sign meant nothing to him. Mark lowered his hand and smiled again. The man did not move, nor did the bow relax in any way.

  “Orn?” the man asked once more, his voice hard. This time it sounded like an ultimatum.

  Mark’s finger tensed on the trigger, but he could not forget that this man had spared his life when he might have killed him in cold blood. The man was an unknown factor. What was he like? Mark had to know before he could come to any understanding with him. If only he could make him understand that he was not an enemy!

  With sudden inspiration, Mark moved very slowly over to the ashes of the fire. The man’s eyes followed him, but he made no move. Mark reached over and picked up one of the reindeer steaks that he had cut but not cooked. He held it out to the man with his left hand, still holding the .45 in his right, ready for instant action. The man looked at the meat, and his grip on the bow relaxed just a trifle. Mark started toward him, holding out the meat. At once, the man backed away again and the bow tensed in his hands.

  This was a crucial moment, and Mark knew it. The fr
iendship or the hostility of this fur-clad man might very well mean the difference between life and death to him in this strange world. Mark hesitated and then placed the steak on a rock at his feet. He pointed to it, and he pointed to the man. Then he backed slowly away, leaving the meat unprotected.

  The man watched him, his face still expressionless. A long minute passed. Neither moved. Finally, with sudden decision, the man relaxed his bow. He took the arrow and replaced it in a hide quiver on his shoulder. He stepped forward, still not taking his eyes off Mark, and picked up the meat. He smiled, showing fine white teeth.

  Mark smiled back and holstered his gun. He realized that the man was not placing himself in Mark’s power, at least not to his way of thinking. He still thought of Mark as unarmed, and his putting aside of his bow just meant that he had abandoned the idea of killing Mark, at least for the present. No doubt he figured that he could handle Mark with his bare hands if it came to that, and looking at the man’s bronzed muscles Mark did not question his ability to do so.

  The man evidently did not eat his meat raw. He walked over to the ashes of the fire and stirred them up. He threw some shrubs on, and kindled a new blaze from the still-hot coals of the old. Using the same stick Mark had used, and looking with interest at the sharpness of the points on the double fork, he roasted his steak. Permitting it to cool only slightly, he picked up the meat in his hands and gnawed at it with great satisfaction. Then he washed off his hands in the pool and sat down a short distance from Mark, looking at him curiously.

  The strange man did not try to speak, clearly having proved to his own satisfaction that he could not make himself understood. It was probably no novelty to him, Mark thought, to run across a man like himself who did not speak his language. Doubtless his people were not organized into anything larger than extended family groups or bands, and each group might very well have a tongue of its own. It was possible, however, that there were a few words generally understood by several local groups, of which the term “orn” was no doubt one example. What did it mean?

  Mark had received thorough linguistic training from his uncle, but his training was of little help to him in the present situation. A word might mean anything, of course. A word was not a thing. A word was a symbol that stood for whatever a group of people had agreed to have it stand for. A word like “orn” might stand for literally anything, and the only clue that Mark had to go on was its context, the situation in which it was used. At a rough guess, he figured that the word probably meant “friend” or something like that. Used as a question, it could carry the notion of asking whether Mark was hostile or peaceful, friend or enemy. Following that line of reasoning, Mark could see that if his guesses were correct, all he had to do was answer him with the same word, inflected as a statement, telling the man that he was, indeed, a friend. He toyed with the idea of doing just that, but decided against it. He could be mistaken, and that very easily. For example, “orn” might well mean “enemy” and if Mark replied in kind, he might get an arrow in his chest for his efforts.

  Mark decided to let well enough alone for the present, but he was eager to establish some sort of understanding with the man. Savage though he doubtless was, he could be a valuable ally. After some reflection, Mark realized that he could not very well bury his meat and then simply stay in the area. He was still too close to the Neanderthals for comfort, and he did not see how he could ever make his way back to the space-time machine without being seen. He was trapped in the past, and the sooner he accepted the fact and planned accordingly, the better off he would be.

  A sudden, cold gust of wind bent back the grasses of the plains, and Mark became abruptly aware of a sort of brooding oppressiveness in the air. He looked up, and saw that dark clouds had drifted overhead, unseen in the excitement of the stranger’s appearance. The sun was low on the horizon, and Mark moved closer to the dying fire.

  The wind sighed eerily across the plains that only a few moments ago had been warm and sunlit. It was a wind that chilled Mark to the marrow—not the gentle breeze that felt so fine on the first balmy days of spring, but the icy, bitter wind that whipped through the cold chasms of winter. And it was going to rain, if it did not indeed turn to snow before it fell. In an instant, the grassy plains that had seemed so pleasant were stripped down to their essential nakedness. They were raw and hard, and life upon them was no laughing matter.

  But, astoundingly, the stranger laughed. He laughed softly and pointed overhead to the dark and ominous clouds. His meaning was clear enough—they were in for a storm. The man got up and took a burning torch from the fire. Then he beckoned toward Mark with a gesture that was unmistakable and started off across the field to the mountain foothills near by. Mark did not hesitate. Leaving the reindeer and the pool, he followed the stranger’s invitation and did his best to keep up with him.

  The man set a rapid pace under the threatening skies, but Mark stayed by his side. He was getting stronger now, and he knew that this hard dawn-world would either make a man or break him. There wasn’t any in-between.

  Thunder marched, rumbling heavily across the wind-swept plains, and lightning flickered like ghostly torches on the other side of the world. The stranger looked about him with keen eyes until finding what he sought—two large boulders that sat end to end, forming a solid V of shelter. He then found two poles of dead wood, each about four feet long, and cut notches in them with a stone knife. He placed the poles in the ground in front of the boulders, and laid another pole over the top of the V. Mark understood what he was doing now, and helped him find more dead branches, about ten feet long, which they placed lengthwise from the crosspole to the ground behind the boulders. Then they gathered grass and some leafy shrubs and piled them on top of the frame of wood, following this with more wood to act as weights against the wind.

  They had a very serviceable lean-to now, and they kindled the fire up just in the entrance. Mark could see the rain coming in a vast gray sheet across the plains, and he hurried to gather some wood to keep the fire going during the night. Then he dived into the shelter with the dawn man, and not a moment too soon. The rain hit with a hiss and a roar, while the thunder crashed over their heads as though determined to rip the shelter to bits by the power of sound alone.

  It was quite comfortable in the lean-to, and Mark looked at his companion and wondered how to go about making some progress toward understanding. He decided to try to learn the man’s name as a first step.

  In the firelight he pointed to himself. “Mark,” he said, shouting to make himself heard above the smashing of the storm.

  The man watched him intently, but made no sign. Mark’s spirits fell. Had he perhaps overestimated the man’s intelligence? What did he know about him really?

  “Mark,” he said, trying again. “Mark.”

  His companion nodded slowly. “Mark?” he asked, pointing. The word sounded very strange on his lips; it was recognizable, but seemed to have been somehow translated into another language.

  Mark was delighted. “Mark,” he said again, and then pointed at the man.

  This time his companion got it at once. He pointed to himself. “Tlaxcan,” he said slowly. “Tlaxcan.” He smiled.

  Mark smiled back. They could not go much farther with the storm raging around them, but they had made an important start. Mark listened to the rain and the thunder, and was thoroughly glad that he was under the lean-to. The slow hours whispered by, and Mark saw that the man had gone to sleep. Mark closed his eyes too, but sleep was slow in coming. The storm howled miserably in the night, and he could not forget that he was not two feet away from a savage who for all he knew might take a notion to knife him at any moment. Mark found it difficult to think of the man as a savage, but that, by definition, was what he was. Mark told himself that he trusted the silent figure who shared the shelter with him, but nevertheless he found that sleep was slow in coming.

  Who was this man? Clearly, he was no Neanderthal, and was not even related to that weird and hideous ra
ce. Who were his people, where had he come from? Mark thought he knew, and the germ of a plan was beginning to plant itself in his mind. A plan that might one day get him back to the lead sphere of the space-time machine, cut off from him now as surely as if it had been whisked away to another world.

  It was a long night. The storm whistled around the little lean-to, and the cold wind and the rain sighed up the mountain valleys. Twice, Mark crawled over and put fresh wood on the fire—and twice he saw TIaxcan’s eyes open and watch him. The man evidently slept like a cat, and no more intended to put himself at Mark’s mercy than Mark cared to put himself at TIaxcan’s.

  Mark thought of his uncle, there in the night and the howling storm. His uncle would be terribly, frantically worried, he knew. Mark was all he lived for, and if something happened to him, there was no telling what might happen to Doctor Nye. It was very difficult to shake off the notion that every minute, every hour, that passed was torture to his uncle, far away in time, but such was not the case. Hard as it was to understand, the fact was that time was not necessarily going by at the same rate of speed for both Mark and his uncle. That is, for every hour that passed here in the long-ago world of the Old Stone Age, another hour did not have to pass for Doctor Nye in 1953. Mark could see that a little ingenuity would save his uncle most of his suffering. For instance, if he could once get back to the space-time machine, he could set the controls for a time not more than fifteen minutes after his uncle had first dashed upstairs to answer the telephone. Thus, even if months or years passed here in the dawn of time, even if Mark lived his life and became an old man, only fifteen minutes would have passed in the life of Doctor Nye. It was hard to believe, but Mark knew that it was true.