by E. R. Mason
They did not notice at first. They seemed to think it was all some useless offering to the gods. Maybe I was going to pray for fire.
But when the smoke became apparent, things changed very quickly. Grunts of exclamation came from various points around the camp. A few onlookers rose to their feet. And as the first flame licked above the logs, all hell broke loose. Someone let out a scream so bloodcurdling it made me straighten up and look. A stampede broke out around the camp, a wave of Neanderthals heading at full gate toward me. I thought they would tackle me and beat me for violating some tribal taboo. Instead those first to arrive fell to their knees and began wailing, “I-ah, i-ah.” Others leapt and screamed, rolled on the ground, danced, and embraced each other. I stood in the midst of it, wondering what I had done.
Suddenly there was a disruption in the celebration. Scarface charged through the crowd, knocking worshippers out of his way as he went. He pummeled through the front line, came to the just-growing fire and began to stomp it out furiously. When sufficiently pounded down, he stopped and waved angrily at his companions and pointed off to the distance yelling, “Scabas, Scabas!” The crowd immediately became silent. He turned and looked at each of them with a scolding stare, then waved instructions to several closest to us. They quickly obeyed and gathered up all the wood from the fire and ran furiously toward the cave. Another used his bare hands to scoop up the glowing embers that remained. He cried out in joyous pain as he hustled off for the cave. The masses ran to follow.
Within the cave, an old fire circle was frantically dug out and the wood and kindling carefully stacked within it. The hero with the embers in his burned hands quickly bedded them and began blowing and moving in hopes of resurrecting the fire. Echoes within the cavern fell silent.
They were too late. The embers collapse into white ash. Moans and cries broke out, amplified by the hard cavern walls. Everyone stood in silence, almost in a funeral-pyre moment. A path opened up and Chief Gray-hair came to the fire pit’s edge. He looked up at me, stepped forward and held me gently by the arm. He pointed at the fire pit and grunted, “I-ah. i-ah.”
Something new startled me. The chief had clearly said “I-ah,” but in my head I had heard “fire.” My translator was beginning to work. The magnesium was still in my hand. I kneeled and, concealing it as best I could, began the necessary strikes until embers reappeared. The one with the burned hands took over from there. He slinked in and began the blowing process until smoke and flame broke out again. I backed away to escape the renewed screaming and dancing, and as I did, saw the trail of smoke from the fire being drawn deeper into the cavern. Scarface had not wanted the smoke trail to be seen …by someone.
Within a matter of minutes, other fire circles within the cave were brought to life. People hurried to find sticks to cook their bird meat. A rotisserie was set up at one fire. The place gradually settled down to cooking, eating, and the frequent grunting of pleasure. I managed to find myself a stick and with my hunk of bird meat was allowed a VIP position at one of the central fire circles.
As the feast subsided and the camp quieted, the Chief approached me with Scarface and several others in tow. I rose to meet him. He looked around, grunted a few declarations to those around him, and held something out in front of me. It was a tooth from big bird, braided into a leather cord. He placed it over my head and around my neck, made a few more boisterous declarations, nodded to me, slapping me on my upper arms, then walked away making more Neanderthal exclamations as he went. The others stared for a moment and returned to their celebration.
My life as a Neanderthal had changed again. My unkempt beard made me blend in even more. I was no longer the malformed hostage-slave. I had passed the big bird initiation and even trumped that as the stranger who could summon fire. They now looked at me with more than respect. They were now even a little stand-offish.
The mood in the camp was very different. Conversations were more frequent. Laughter erupted more than usual. The people seemed hopeful. There was an unmistakable feeling of joy, the joy from fires burning. That evening, my nurses were waiting at my fur bed with more green goop. I slept as heavily as any successful Neanderthal could.
The rest of that week, universal harmony continued in the camp. The translators seemed to have found a foothold in the primitive grunting. More and more translated words were coming through. Scarface’s real name was Oo-da. Chief Gray-hair was Dawn-a. The tribe called themselves the Tasuni. I was Tonn. That was as close as they could come. R’s and L’s were not yet a part of their phonetics. I was beginning to have rudimentary conversations with them, and beginning to learn they were a much more complex society than my prejudice had allowed me to see.
Ooda had a mate named Bee-o. Beeo seemed to be secretly in love with another high-ranking soldier named Ah-boo. Both she and Ahboo seemed intent on disallowing the relationship to develop. There was a code of honor these people respected. I could not tell if Ooda was aware of the situation. Either he was not, or had chosen to ignore it.
Chief Dawna’s mate had been killed quite some time ago. I did not know how or why. He could have easily taken a new mate, but for some reason chose not to.
There were small communities of friends that formed the smaller camps within the encampment. There was trading and interaction between them. Some were families. Others seemed to simply be friends or allies. I had also noticed that one particular female would sneak off alone at a specific time during the day, and return an hour or two later. My first impulse was to try to spot a male doing a similar disappearing act, but I could not. It was a mystery to be solved.
My formal title remained "Tonn the Fire Starter," though they no longer needed me for that purpose. Several fires within the cave were kept alive day and night, as though they feared I could not do it again. It made me wonder how they had lost their fire, and made me decide to teach them how to make it themselves without the need of a magnesium strip. Long ago, Wilson, Stan Lee, and I had attended the agency’s survival training together. One hard-fast requirement was that each candidate could produce fire with nothing but what a forest had to offer. It was there I quickly learned that the legend of rubbing two sticks together was a myth. The usefulness of a bow drill, on the other hand, was quite extraordinary.
I chose exactly the wrong morning to make my way down to the best streambed that had the greatest number of small waterfalls to gather parts needed for a bow drill. Granite outcroppings along some parts of those streambeds offered exactly the right sized round stone with a million-year-old, water-dripped-perfect indentation for a handhold piece. Flexible wood for the bow was easy, along with shards of broken pieces fit for a platform. The forest also offered a certain vine that felt just like cloth but was as strong as carbon fiber. I proudly headed back with my kit, looking forward to the shock and awe my first fire instruction class would bring. I had no idea of the disaster that had taken place in my absence.
The attack could not have lasted very long. It was exactly what Scarface-Ooda had feared. I do not think it was signs of fire that brought them. It was just bad luck.
They were just finishing up when I reached the edge of the camp and became alerted by the unusual cries. From cover, it was easy to spot the few enemies that remained. They were golden-gray apes, walking upright except when they ran. Fine gray hair covered their bodies. They had light-skinned ape faces, ape hands, and almost human feet. They were no taller than the Tasuni, but their body mass was considerably more powerful. The Tasuni had scattered, except for the three or four that lay dead around the camp in heaps of fur, blood, and body parts. In the distance, I caught sight of one Tasuni female being dragged off by two ape-men. It was the most disheartening scene I had ever witnessed. For the first time, I realized my allegiance to the Tasuni. Anger quickly followed. After the last of them had gone, a few Tasuni began to filter back into the desolation.
The encampment had been systematically looted. Work stations were thrown about, platforms overturned, resources scattered o
r stolen. Inside the cavern, all fires were out and buried. Most furs were gone. The only things left of value were those not understood by the ape men. I turned to find Chief Dawna walking among the dead, waving a special stick and chanting a Tasuni prayer over each. Ooda came alongside me, surveying the disaster.
I went to the Chief. “Why?”
He looked back with sorrowful, wise eyes you would not expect from an early man. “No why,” he replied and he continued shaking his ceremonial stick.
“How many?” I asked.
Ooda answered. He held up four fingers, “No more.” He closed his fist and held up five fingers, “Taken.”
“Taken why?”
Ooda answered, “Food or mate.”
I did not know how to say, “What now?” in Tasuni, so in a questioning voice I waved a hand over the camp and asked, “Tasuni?”
Chief Dawna replied, “Tasuni move far.”
The flush of anger returned. I punched a fist into an open hand and exclaimed, “No, Tasuni fight!”
The Chief lowered his head, “No, Tasuni move far.”
But Ooda looked interested. He did not contradict his chief, but he stared at me waiting for more.
I punched my fist into my open hand once more and said, “Tonn and Tasuni fight!” I slapped my chest.
The Chief looked up at me through his sorrow, wondering if I really had something to offer.
Other Tasuni were slowly returning and gathering in the cave, most looking over their shoulders in fear that the ape-men would return. I needed time to make the Chief understand. I pointed upward and held up one finger. “One sun. Just give me one sun.”
The Chief nodded dejectedly, as though he doubted anything could come of it. They probably needed that much time to regroup and pack anyway. Ooda looked on. I could feel restrained hope within him. He gave me his "ready" look. I did not waste time.
The women were my best bet. The males were a bit too brutal for the arts and crafts I had in mind. I gathered a crowd from the beaten-down masses as the Chief and Ooda looked on. Step by step, I showed them each piece of the bow drill fire starter and then assembled it into a bow and its other components. I was inept at first, not having done the process in years, but as the smoke began to rise from the spinning wood spindle, understanding quickly came over those who watched. And, as fire appeared within the bundle of tinder and dry grass, they began to forget about the day’s massacre. Enough of them tried the process that we soon had all four fires in the cave burning again, with no embers needing to be borrowed.
Next, it was time to begin the war machine. They were already breaking flint and other hard rock to use the sharp edges for butchering and cutting. I gathered the best edge makers, and with Ooda’s help translating, drew an arrowhead in the dirt. I had seen flint knapping done many times but had never attempted it myself. I sat in front of them and began trying glancing cuts at various rock pieces until the best type was found. From there, I swiped and swiped, trying to get a Clovis point. As I chipped, I would pause occasionally and point to the image drawn in the dirt. Something finally clicked in one of the women. She picked up a piece of stone and began hammering with me. Though she did not understand the purpose, she knew what the goal was. She began a verbal exchange with the others, and soon they were all attempting to fashion arrowheads out of stone. When it began to look promising, I motioned Ooda to follow and headed for the woods.
The surrounding forest had everything needed. The Tusani men were strong as oxen. A bow would need to be just as strong. I found the perfect piece of green limb and broke and cut it with sharp rock. Ooda looked on without a clue. The vines so like cloth were available everywhere in varying gauge. I cut what I needed. Last but not least, there was no shortage of very straight wood sections that could be cut carefully to length and shaved clean. On the way back to the campsite, I found pasty sap flowing from a broken limb, and scooped some up to bring along.
The arrowhead manufacturing was already going well. The women even seemed enthralled with it. Ooda continued to watch with hope, as I sat and notched the ends of my would-be bow and carefully split the end of the first arrow, notching the back of it. The first moment of truth came as I stood and strung the bow. Chief Dawna joined in the watch. The bow took the tension nicely. The bowstring gave a gentle tone when snapped. Leather works had been done nearby. I found a strip and wound it around the center of the bow for a grip. A small crowd was beginning to form.
The best arrowhead so far was slightly lopsided but acceptable. I inserted it into the split end of the arrow, and wrapped it tightly with leftover bow string. There began to be some muttering from the crowd as they recognized a new type of small spear. Last of all, I asked one of the women for a feather from her hair and quickly had offers from two. I cut it against a rock into small feather pieces, took some of the sap I had brought along, and affixed it to my arrow.
This first test had to be impressive. There was a worn-out leather sack for carrying firewood nearby. I stuffed it tightly with leaves and hung it from the nearest tree. The viewing audience had now grown quite large.
Twenty feet away was the most I dared. I set up and held up the bow for all to see, then held up the arrow, and with great exaggeration showed them how the arrow joined the bow. Their stone-faced silence worried me.
I drew and relaxed the bow several times to show how it functioned. Still silence. With a quick, silent prayer, I took a stance, drew the arrow full, made my best aim, and let it fly.
The arrow whistled through the air and missed the bag by six inches. It went slightly high and hit the trunk of the tree with a loud thump and twang. The arrow and tip held. The arrowhead embedded halfway, the shaft humming like a tuning fork from the impact.
Numerous excited discussions broke out. I had missed the bag but hit the target. There was not a Tasuni there who did not understand what this meant, especially the Chief. Throwing rocks had suddenly become passé.
Ooda soon took over the war machine. These people had been sorely hurt by the attack. Suddenly they had a way to protect themselves. They had found hope. The manufacture of bows and arrows went on continuously. I drew three more types of spearheads in the sand and the flint knappers jumped on them. One tip was for a long spear, the second for a short spear, and the third for a knife. The best of the flint knappers stayed at their craft. Others went into the assembly process. At one point, one of the women left, went into the woods, and came back with a black tar that she carefully heated near the fire and applied to the spear and arrowhead bindings while it was still hot. It hardened like cement, making the tips twice as strong. At the same time, it was like a form of napalm. If you put fire directly to it, it burned like fuel.
In the following days, archery and combat practice began. Archery became such a popular sport it became difficult to pull some away from it for other things. Four or five of the men were particularly gifted archers, almost born to it. Oddly enough, they were not the best of warriors, so their esteem within the tribe was suddenly greatly increased. A daily routine of manufacturing and hunting fell into place. Soon, the hunting became bow and spear, negating the terror of using each other to bait the prey.
In the middle of it all, I awoke one particular morning to an unexpected and worrisome Neanderthal social dilemma. An uninvited female had joined me during the night and was sleeping alongside. It was one of those who had lost her mate during the attack of the Scabas. I eased myself away, hoped I had not somehow unknowingly taken part in a Tasuni wedding ceremony, and decided to ignore the incident completely. To my relief, no one seemed to act like any husbandly obligations were pending.
As the primitives settled into their new, artificial evolution, it became time for defensive strategy. No settlement walls could be built that ape-men couldn’t climb, so other methods needed to be devised. The jungle was so dense there were a limited number of trails leading into the camp. Those trails became defensive points. The area above the cave entrance also had a few useful overloo
ks. Three fire rings were created on those overhangs to give archer snipers high ground for fire arrows. Boulders above the far side of the cave entrance were set and aimed. Levers were installed to release them toward the trails. Blinds were constructed high in the trees for additional archer sniper points. Each Tasuni warrior carried three weapons, the long spear, a short spear over his right shoulder, and a flint knife in his waist tie. I was satisfied with their hand-to-hand training after only a week. They had lost enough ape-man battles that an instinct for the fight had already been developed.
As soon as a reasonable amount of confidence had been built, I went to Chief Tawna and Ooda with my plan. It was far too soon to test new Tusani warriors in real combat, but what I had in mind could not wait. I sat in the cave with them holding a handful of small rocks to make my point. Using a stick, I drew the Tasuni encampment in the dirt, and the neighboring hills and mountains around it. I pointed in the dirt to the encampment. “Tasuni,” I said, and I handed the Chief my pointing stick. “Scabas?” I asked.
The Chief understood. He handed Ooda the stick. Ooda drew two more sets of hills to the west and pointed in the dirt beyond them. “Scabas,” he replied.
“One sun?”
“Two suns,” he answered.
I laid out five small stones in the area he had designated for the Scabas. “Five taken,” I said. I picked up the stones and moved them to the Tasuni encampment. “Five taken back.”
They both understood.
The Chief looked at Ooda. Ooda nodded.
We left nothing to chance. Five of the best archers, five of the strongest warriors, led by Ooda. We rehearsed the plan with hand signals and signal calls off-camp in a small clearing. Everyone understood their role. Everyone understood the plan. There was to be no harm done to young ape-men or females unless it was in self-defense. That concept took quite a while to convey. We packed up and headed out at the next day’s first light.