Mammoth!

by Dakota Chase

  Grant laughed. “I’m guessing it’s the resident of your shell.”

  “It looks like a giant slug!”

  “I think it’s more of a snail. It’s really tasty, though. I’ve had fried conch lots of times when my family went down to the islands for the holidays.”

  I sniffed at him. Down to the islands for the holidays. And here I was reminiscing about spending a week at the beach with my family and thinking it was a big deal. Must be nice to have money. Then again, having money hadn’t brought Grant much happiness. He’d acted out against his family circumstances, same as I had. Money didn’t make everything better.

  It just didn’t make things worse. I still believed having it was tons better than not having it, and anyone who said differently was definitely not a member in good standing of the We Don’t Have Any Money Club. On the other hand, if an empty bank account was the criteria for membership, then I could be CEO and the entire board of directors all by my little lonesome.

  My attention turned back to the conch. “Well, since you have so much experience, figure out how to evict it from my shell!”

  To my surprise, Grant did just that. He took out the flint knife he had slipped into his belt and turned the conch over. He looked over the beach until he found a rock with a sharp edge, then pounded a small hole in the shell. After sticking his knifepoint into the hole, he gave it a couple of twists. Then he turned the shell over again, grabbed the slimy muscular snail, and yanked it free.

  Ew. It was like there was a wiggling mass of snot on the beach. “I’m not eating that.”

  “Nobody asked you to. I don’t know how to cook them anyway. I’m pretty sure the seabirds won’t let it go to waste. Here’s your shell.” He walked over to the water and rinsed his hands and knife in the waves. Standing up, he looked up at the sky. “It’s getting late. The sun will be down soon. We should head back and make a fire, just in case birds aren’t the only things hunting the beach at night.”

  Good point. I nodded and hefted my hard-won conch shell. Skirting the still squirming snot rope on the sand, I followed Grant back toward our camp.

  “Hey! Get out of there! Shoo! Scat!” Grant ran toward our tent, waving his arms. I saw the hind end of something furry at the tent’s low opening. It looked like a cross between a wolf and a bear cub, with scruffy gray fur. I stooped and picked up a few smooth, round pebbles and flung them at the creature. I scored few hits, too, and was grateful for the years I spent in Little League.

  The animal backed out of the tent and snarled at us, then trundled away over the sand. I guess it figured two screaming bipedal creatures slinging rocks at it were more trouble than getting whatever little food we had in the tent was worth.

  “Shit! I hope it didn’t get our supplies!” Grant hurried to the tent and reached inside. He pulled out our backpacks. They were a little gnawed on, but we’d been lucky. We must’ve come back just in time—the animal hadn’t managed to chew through the leather yet.

  “We’ll need to keep a fire going, even when we’re not sitting here, and not only at night. We need one in broad daylight.” I sighed. “Guess we’re going to need more wood.”

  “I think we’ll be able to find enough to trade tomorrow morning. Your conch is the prize, but we can do with a few smaller shells too. Even so, we should be on our way back to the Bison Clan by noon. But you’re right—we should keep a fire going all the time.”

  We built a big one, an actual bonfire that was probably a lot larger than we needed, but neither of us wanted another visit by the furry scavenger or by anything even bigger and hungrier. The crackling flames helped keep us toasty warm too—when night fell it got a lot colder. We huddled as close to the fire as we could without singeing off body hair and ate more traveling cakes and jerky. We didn’t even bother to go into the pup tent to sleep. The weather was cold but clear, and we wanted to stay as close to the fire as we could.

  I woke up a few times to poke at the fire and add another driftwood log to it to keep it going, and I know Grant must’ve done so as well, but even so, I slept well. Better than I would’ve thought being out in the open with all sorts of wild creatures prowling out in the utter pitch blackness.

  We were up at first light and piled more logs on the fire to keep it burning while we went shell hunting again. As we strolled up the beach, we found that the tide had risen during the night, and when it receded, it left behind a treasure trove of shells.

  It also uncovered something I hadn’t expected to find—lightning glass. I remembered my dad telling me about it when I was a kid. It’s formed when lightning strikes the sand. The intense heat of the lightning melts the sand and rocks and shells into hollow tubes of glass, and when it cools, it leaves behind these really cool shapes.

  Grant found a really nice piece of it, and we carefully dug it out of the sand and washed it off in the waves. “Whoa, dude, this stuff is really rare.”

  “What is it? Do you know?”

  “Yeah. My dad called it lightning glass. I think the real name is fulgurite, or something. It’s going to be worth a lot more in trade than my stupid slimy conch shell.”

  “You think?”

  “Heck yeah. Between your shells, my conch, and this, I think we’ve got enough to go back now.”

  Grant nodded. He took off his fur wrap, then removed his inner leather shirt before putting his wrap back on. Taking great care, he wrapped the soft leather around the glass sculpture. It was a smart idea—the lightning glass was very fragile.

  It didn’t take us long to douse the fire with sand, knock down our pup tent, and pack it all up. We each drank as much as we wanted from the water bag since we would be heading back toward the stream now, and then headed out. Because it was still early, we kept the sun to our backs so we’d be sure we kept heading west.

  We didn’t stop walking until we reached the stream and stopped to refill our water bag. Grant gently set the lightning glass on the ground, then slipped off his backpack and dug out the water bag. He bent to the stream, letting the cold, clear water fill the bag.

  Off to our left was a forest. It wasn’t nearly as thick and dark as the one we’d come through when we were carrying Rabbit on the stretcher, but it was thick enough to make visibility difficult. We couldn’t see much more than a few feet in, but we could hear just fine, and what we heard was the sound of branches snapping.

  Grant stood up and snagged my arm, and then put a finger to his lips in the universal sign for silence. He lifted his spear to a throwing position. I let my backpack slide from my shoulder and did the same. I squinted, trying to see into the dark shadows of the forest. What made the noise? Was it a bear? A saber-toothed cat? Whatever it was, the most important question was could it be killed by a couple of kids with spears they could barely hurl with any accuracy?

  It was then we heard another sound, one that absolutely curdled my blood. It was a long, undulating scream—and it was human. There was fury in the sound, hate, and I got the distinct feeling that whoever uttered the unholy sound didn’t need help. What they wanted was blood, our blood in particular.

  “Run.” My voice wasn’t much more than a whisper, although it sounded deafening in my ears. I stooped to pick up my backpack. “Run!”

  Grant grabbed the leather-bound lightning glass and his backpack, and we took off running at high speed. Behind us we could hear feet crashing through the brush in the forest. Whoever it was, they were in hot pursuit.

  “We’ve got to stay out of atlatl range. They don’t have guns or even bows and arrows, so if we can keep ahead of them, we’ll be okay.” Grant’s voice was breathy as he pushed himself hard.

  I knew how he felt—I was running just as hard. We needed to get to the Bison Clan cave and the safety their numbers would provide. It was going to be a long, long run back, a half day’s worth, and I didn’t think I could make it running at full throttle. I was not a long-distance runner—I was built for sprints.

  Just as my lungs began to burn and I developed a
painful stitch in my side, I risked a look back. There was no one after us. All I could see was the wide stretch of grass and the hills we’d left behind. I couldn’t detect any movement in the forest to our left either. Reaching out, I snagged Grant’s arm and pulled him to a stop. I bent at the waist, gasping for air. “I think we lost them.”

  His breathing was harsh and ragged, and he braced his hands on his knees as he fought to get his air back. “How? We couldn’t have outrun them. They’re used to running all the time. What made them stop chasing us?”

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to answer his question. The low growl coming from behind us that slowly built into a bone-rattling roar did it for us.

  Chapter Twelve

  “HEY, ASH. Have you ever heard the expression ‘my bowels turned to ice’? I think mine just did.” I meant it literally. The saying means scared shitless. I always thought the saying was hyperbole, an exaggeration for effect, but at that moment I found out my thinking was completely wrong. It was real. When I heard that teeth-jarring roar and turned around, what I saw standing behind us sent a spear of ice ricocheting through my intestines. I think I might actually have pissed myself.

  It crouched about thirty feet away, a beige, sinewy mound of tightly coiled muscle and attitude. It was vaguely catlike, resembling a squat lion, but it had two immense fangs curving down from either side of its muzzle. They had to be six inches long each, if they were an inch, and they looked wickedly sharp. Not that the rest of the cat’s teeth were anything to sneeze at—I got an eyeful of them when it opened its mouth and roared again. They were all big and sharp, and I had no ambition to feel any of them biting my face off, as Ash would say.

  In my peripheral vision I saw Ash lift his spear into a throwing position. I suddenly remembered I also had a spear in my hand and hefted it up, getting ready. If the cat attacked, my plan was to throw my spear at it, then run like hell.

  “This is bad.” Ash’s voice had no trace of panic or fear in it—it was as if he was describing a movie he disliked. He must’ve been in shock. I know I felt sort of shocky myself—or would as soon as the ice melted from my colon.

  “Try to hit something vital.” I had no idea what I was talking about, but it sounded like good advice. At least, I thought it did.

  “What’s vital on that thing?”

  “The eye, maybe? How would I know? Do I look like a big game hunter?”

  “I can barely hit the stuffed target on the practice field, let alone something as small as that thing’s eye!”

  “Me either. Our only hope is to wound it, so we can outrun it.”

  “Well, frig. In reality, all I have to do is outrun you.”

  I made a mental note to pound on Ash’s face with the nearest rock if we made it out of the encounter alive. “Nice. God, even facing certain death, you’re an ass.”

  The Smilodon chose that moment to snarl, and I could see the muscles under its golden skin bunching. It was going to attack!

  Suddenly, a dozen men and women broke through the trees to our right and ran screaming into the clearing. They all had spears fit into atlatls and wasted no time in letting them fly. Gray Wolf’s spear was the first to sink into the Smilodon’s hide, but it was followed by eleven others in short order. None of the Bison Clan hunters missed their shot. The Smilodon roared again and rose up on its short, stocky back legs, then fell over, the spears quivering in its flesh like a porcupine’s quills. It lay still, not even twitching, but Gray Wolf approached it cautiously anyway and jabbed it with another spear to make sure it was dead.

  “Holy cow! Gray Wolf, where did you come from? We’re so lucky you came when you did! How did you know where to find us?” Ash was grinning from ear to ear, his relief evident in his bubbly babbling.

  As for me, I couldn’t even form words. The ice in my bowels let loose, and as a result, my legs gave out. I abruptly sat down, legs splayed in front of me.

  Gray Wolf pulled his spear out of the cat’s hide. Blood dripped from the triangular point. “You are indeed lucky. We were not looking for you. We came to hunt one of the giant sloths that live in the forest near the sea. Our ancestors have taught us not to count our mammoths before they are hunted. If the hunt is unsuccessful, we won’t have enough meat put away to last the tribe all winter. We must hunt as many big animals as we can before we leave to find the Great Ones just in case the spirits don’t favor us this year.”

  Ah, mystery solved. It was luck, pure and simple, but that didn’t make me any less grateful. “Thank you, Gray Wolf. You and your hunters saved our lives.”

  Gray Wolf wiped his spear point clean on a tuft of grass. “How did you come to a face-off with the dagger-toothed cat?”

  Ash answered before I could. Truthfully, I was just beginning to really pull myself together and gather the strength to stand up again. “We were running from the people in the forest.”

  Every one of the hunters’ heads shot up, and every pair of eyes stared at Ash. Gray Wolf tilted his chin up and looked toward the tree line. “What people?”

  “W-we don’t know.” He stammered a bit under their intense scrutiny. “We didn’t see them. We just heard them. They were screaming pretty loud, and they didn’t sound the least bit friendly, so we ran.”

  Bear Paw stepped up to Gray Wolf. “The Deer Clan?”

  Gray Wolf grunted and lifted his lip in a snarl. “They wouldn’t dare enter the Bison Clan hunting grounds.”

  Bear Paw didn’t look convinced. “They have become more daring since the spirits took their old chief.”

  Badger snorted. “Daring or desperate?”

  “Does it matter?” Bear Paw pressed his point. “Either way, if the Deer Clan are here, our tribe in is danger.”

  Gray Wolf’s gaze swept the tree line again, but then he nodded. “Badger, take Red Fox and two others with you and go back to the cave with Grass and Ash. Between all of you and those who remain at home, you’ll be able defend the cave. We will continue on to hunt and will look for any sign the Deer Clan have come to the land of the Bison Clan.”

  Badger didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “And the cat?”

  “Take it with you. The fur and teeth are valuable. My spear entered first—I claim the fangs. The rest will be divided up among all the hunters.”

  Badger motioned to three of the hunters, including Red Fox, and beckoned Ash and me forward. We watched as he and Red Fox quickly gutted and skinned the cat. They removed the rest of the cat’s teeth and claws, then rolled them up in the tawny skin. Badger lifted the gory bundle to his shoulder, then started off the way they’d come with the rest of us trailing him.

  The hunters we were with seemed hypervigilant, their gaze constantly searching the tree line, looking forward and backward, side to side, their spears held at the ready. I realized they were looking for the Deer Clan—or whatever tribe had made the blood-chilling screams we’d described. They didn’t relax at all until we arrived back at the cave and found everyone there healthy and unaware of the drama in the woods.

  Of course, as soon as the rest of the Bison Clan realized only a few of the hunters had returned and saw the trophy skin of the big cat Badger carried, they knew something had happened and gathered around, clamoring for details.

  “The Deer Clan?” There was horror and fear in Summer Wind’s voice. “They have not dared attack us in many seasons. What would bring them here now?”

  “Who knows?” Badger gave the rolled-up Smilodon skin to a couple of the older boys, who carried it inside the cave. Younger children raced after them, yelling and laughing, daring each other to dart up and touch the bloodied fur.

  Badger picked up a bone cup from the pile of utensils next to the fire. “Perhaps game has left their hunting grounds and they come to steal ours. Or maybe their gods have ordered them to come here for reasons even the Deer Clan don’t understand. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. The only thing I need to worry about is that they’ve come.”

  Summer Wind clucked her tong
ue. “War is never good, not for those who come in search of it or those who defend against it.”

  “Sometimes it can’t be avoided.” Badger helped himself to a cup of tea and sipped at it. “When the Bison Clan are attacked, we fight.”

  “It is still never a good thing when blood is shed.”

  “Bah.” Badger waved a hand at her and left the fire to enter the cave.

  Summer Wind shook her head as she watched him go. Weariness seemed to deepen the lines across her forehead and around her mouth. “Hunters. They are all the same. They always look for the kill. Someday there will be nothing left to hunt, and then what will happen to the people of the Bison Clan?”

  I knew the answer to that question. They disappeared. In the future, the Bison Clan had gone the way of the dinosaur, leaving very little trace of themselves behind aside from a few spearheads and a hunting talisman. Wisely—for once—I kept my thoughts to myself.

  Summer Wind tossed me a curious look, as if she could read my mind but my thoughts were in an unfamiliar language. Who knows? Maybe she did and they were. I have no idea if Merlin’s language magic worked on my thoughts. Maybe they remained in English even if my spoken words were in the language of the Bison Clan.

  While I understood and agreed with Summer Wind, it was clear Ash was totally in Badger’s camp. Big surprise we should have opposite points of view. Not.

  “I think Badger has a point. If the Deer Clan are here, they could attack the cave. We need to find them first!”

  Summer Wind didn’t look impressed by Ash’s opinion. She sniffed. “Young people. Always so anxious to cast a spear at an enemy, but do they ever think about the spears the enemy will be casting at them?”

  She rose gracefully to her feet and walked away, but she didn’t need to answer her own question. I knew Ash understood what she was saying, although he turned away and rolled his eyes. Stubborn to the core, he murmured under his breath. “So, what do you want us to do? Sit here and wait for the Deer Clan to kill everyone?”