Bordeaux

by Matthew Thayer

  TRANSMISSION:

  Kaikane: “You spent 12 years in Catholic school, but don’t believe in Jesus Christ?”

  Duarte: “I believe in him, believe he lived and died. He was probably a great man who helped many people, but I’m not buying all the hocus-pocus–rising from the dead and all that.”

  Kaikane: “What about the Bible? All those Christians believing they were going to heaven through the years? Everybody was wrong?”

  Duarte: “Basically, yes. The main tenants of Christianity mirror too many earlier pagan beliefs and rituals. The concept of the trinity, virgin mother, the timing of Christ’s birth, the star above Bethlehem. Those were not new reasons to party, or base a religion upon. Jesus was most likely a revolutionary. I’ve read he was a man who was married and had children. Although the Bible doesn’t mention his brother, he had one.

  “Saul, who came to be called Paul, was hired by the Romans to formulate a religion to control the ever-rowdier lower classes. He sanitized some versions of events and glorified others. Although he came well after Jesus, he wrote himself a starring role.”

  Kaikane: “Saint Paul?”

  Duarte: “Yep. Your namesake.”

  Kaikane: “So what do you believe in?”

  Duarte: “I believe life after death is obtained by a person’s deeds, or by their offspring.”

  Kaikane: “There’ll be no kids for us.”

  Duarte: “Sterile as hybrids. We can be thankful Martinelli and his boys aren’t sowing their seeds all over the place.”

  Kaikane: “Maybe we can adopt.”

  Duarte: “I don’t think so.”

  Kaikane: “Christ was a revolutionary?”

  Duarte: “I believe he was. I mean, if you look at the Bible objectively, he’s presented as a superhero who dispenses life and health and food, all in a time of suffering and great need. Good stuff, and the messages, Old and New Testament, are basically good ones. Love your neighbor, turn the other cheek, don’t steal, or kill. What I find sad is time after time, human foibles cause people with power to bend the Bible’s meanings to further their aims and wants. Religion as an agent of control, as a way to power. Suddenly it is OK to steal and kill in the name of God.”

  Kaikane: “I never went to church, but always tried to live my life as a good Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, whatever. I’d be headed out the door and my father would yell ‘Be a good Hindu’ or ‘Be a good Jew today!’ He always switched up the religion, but his meaning was plain. ‘Be honest, be kind and be generous.’ He was a strange guy.”

  Duarte: “He died when you were pretty young, right?”

  Kaikane: “Ten.”

  Duarte: “That’s rough.”

  Kaikane: “I did all right. He taught me to be true to myself, to clean up my own messes, that just saying “I’m sorry” did not make a mistake go away. The thing that always bugged me about the Christian Fundamentalists I knew was this notion of theirs that no matter how bad of a thing you do, all you have to do is ask forgiveness to have your sins instantly wiped away. On the pro tour, there were a bunch of surfers who went to church together, held prayer circles out in the water before events. Many were bad people. They cheated on their wives, stole money, cut you off on waves. I always thought they felt their religion gave them permission to screw people over. All they had to do was pray and be forgiven.”

  Duarte: “Yeah, in that respect, I prefer old-style fire and brimstone. If you sin seriously enough you’ll burn in Hell. No excuses. The sisters in my elementary school made it very clear. They warned us to live our lives right the first time.”

  Kaikane: “Catholic school again. What happened to turn you off?”

  Duarte: “I became a scientist. That is the simple answer. The data just did not add up. No way. No how. Even when I was in high school, with my parents insisting their happiness was based on my belief in their Church, I began pulling away. I passed on communion one Sunday and the next week I refused to attend Mass. Eighteen years old and ready to change the world. My parents retaliated swiftly and decisively. They withdrew their financial support for school. I received a partial scholarship to Stanford, took out a zillion Norte Americanos’ worth of student loans, and never looked back.”

  Kaikane: “What do you believe in?”

  Duarte: “I believe in evolution and the basic goodness of mankind. Most of us spend the bulk of our lives trying to figure out our place in the whole scheme of things. Here, now, on so many levels, we see it play out every day right before us. It breaks my heart to see those Neanderthal and know they may be the last to ever hunt this valley. There’s nothing we can, or should, do about it. Among the Cro-Magnon, just like in the modern world we left behind, you see givers and takers, the trustworthy, and the snakes barely fit for stomping. I think even now, most people have an overall desire to help each other as best they can.”

  Kaikane: “How about the guy with no lower jaw?”

  Duarte: “What a face. He’s a perfect example. Without the support of his clan, the man never would have survived that kind of injury. Not only did they feed and nurture him back to health, they continue to assist so he can travel and function as a member of the group.”

  Kaikane: “Will he go to Hell?”

  Duarte: “No such place.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  There’s a sweeping bend in the Rhone where natives cross the river. They drag a log or big tree limb to a jumping-off spot about 300 yards above the elbow, push it in, and hang on tight as the current takes hold. Once clear of the bend, the log is jettisoned across the expanse of rushing water to be snagged by an eddy about a half mile downstream.

  Gray Beard was attempting to explain the process when a rough pack of hunters arrived with a 14-foot pine. With little preparation or fanfare, just a few gasps and ahhhs when their scrotums touched icy water, they waded the tree into the current and floated away. Grim-faced, some holding their gear aloft in attempts to keep it dry, the five men disappeared around the corner. Six minutes and 17 seconds later, they reappeared far downstream, scrambling up the muddy banks of the opposite shore.

  The old man gave a shrug which said, “Works every time.”

  It was thin pickings for logs close to the launching spot. We were forced to range far and wide before locating a blown-down birch tree not too rotted, or too heavy, to drag a mile back to the river. The boys twisted most of the limbs away, but left the roots to use as handles for dragging.

  Frigid water stole our breath and elicited a few “woo-woos” from the boys as the river bottom dropped quickly away to leave us clinging to the birch with no more grace than the Cro-Magnons. Our arms burned as we tried to keep our packs balanced, high and dry on top of the tree. Gray Beard’s dog had sprinted up and down the bank yapping until he slipped a loop of Jones’ rope around her neck and pulled her into the water. He said she would have eventually followed us in, but too late to make it across safely. I take it there are some bad rapids below this crossing.

  The elbow did indeed slingshot our tree in a diagonal line across the Rhone, its currents carrying us at a speed exceeding 16 miles per hour and delivering us to a natural landing spot. Just as the old man said they would. We three greenhorns began to kick as the eastern shore drew close, but Gray Beard ordered us to stop with a hissing sound. A wave and flutter of his fingers followed to say, “Be patient.”

  The hunters cheered from a vantage point atop a granite knoll as we coasted into a small cove. The tree stopped in a near-shore eddy where we joined flotsam of all sorts, including a bloated pig which filled the air with a putrid scent. Hustling our gear up the muddy bank to escape the smell, we joined the hunters in a clearing along the edge of the forest. Following their example, we spread our sodden gear over rocks and clumps of grass to dry in the sun.

  While Gray Beard made small talk with the hunters, Paul and I wandered upwind to find a comfortable rock in the sun. We hadn’t traveled far when Paul pointed to the trunk
of an immense beech tree and whispered, “Maria, is that your name?”

  Indeed. “DUARTE,” was carved into the bark in four-inch block letters. Underneath in smaller text was the message. “GO TO KOLETTELENA’S. S.B.”

  “Most likely a trap,” said Jones as he read the message over our shoulders.

  The End

  Author’s Note:

  As a member of the unit which has spent two years editing the text and deciphering the audio transmissions of these time travelers, it has been impossible not to become entwined in their lives. There were times when we spent 48 hours straight, huddled in a dark sound room, straining our ears over distorted audio. We just had to know what happened next.

  While it is necessary to pause the 30,000 B.C. Chronicles at this point, the story is not finished. I apologize for the interruption, and promise to do my damnedest to see that the next installment, “30,000 BC: Tuscany”, is released soon.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thirty thousand thank yous to editor Kelsey Sadler, artist Darko Tomic and web guru Joe Ferguson for their considerable efforts in moving my vision forward. My wife Kelly says it has taken a village to produce the 30,000 B.C. Chronicles and it is true. Big mahalos to Kelly Thayer, Frank Hackett, Kathy DePalma, R.D. Dye, Makena Gadient, Steve Moore, Carrie Quintanar, Ron Youngblood, Rick Chatenever, Hans Zink, Dr. William Bloedon, Lindsay Alexander, Andrea Thayer, David Hoff and “The Focus Group” (you know who you are).

  Mahalo nui loa,

  Matthew Thayer

  Available now: Book Two,

  30,000 B.C. CHRONICLES: TUSCANY

  Leaving a trail of carnage as he preaches his personal brand of religion to a growing Cro-Magnon army, empire builder Lorenzo Martinelli takes his campaign into the boot of pre-historic Italy. The madman’s modern shipmates face many challenges as they attempt to stop his reign before he disrupts the future of mankind.

  Tuscany is the second book in the 30,000 B.C. Chronicles, an action series of love and exploration in a world dominated by mammoth and wolf pack. Time travelers from the dried-out, over-populated year of 2233 are shipwrecked on a European continent that is a sea of green, a sensory overload of natural beauty.

  The story picks up in the hills of Provence and reaches a rousing climax with a pitched battle along the banks of the Arno, in the heart of where the beautiful Italian city of Florence will one day be built.

  The book’s action is set against a backdrop of brilliantly imaginative views into a pristine world of continent-sized forests, 20-foot-tall mammoth, wolf pack and bison herds without end.