Cretaceous Sea

by Will Hubbell

  "You got 'em, Con," said Joe, "I know you did."

  "But I used up the gun," said Con in despair.

  "You did the most sensible thing," said Rick. "Joe or I would have done the same."

  "Yeah," said Joe, "if we were smart enough."

  "With those bastards gone, we won't need the gun," added Joe.

  Con was cheered until light returned and revealed the story of the night's events. Outside the tent were three large ellipses where the gun's blasts had scoured the ground of snow. Beyond the ellipses, the snow was tinted by pulverized debris. The snow behind the central ellipse was pink. That bloody stain was the only remains of the nightstalker vaporized by the gun's discharge. The tripod was gone also, as was the food and even the pot. Con began to weep uncontrollably.

  Rick held Con in an effort to comfort her. "Everything Joe and I said was true," he said. "We would have done the same thing."

  "I've ruined everything," sobbed Con.

  Joe also wrapped his arms around Con. "Con... Con . . . Con .. ." he murmured. "We'll be all right. Don't blame yourself."

  "Why not?" she said bitterly.

  "We still have each other," said Joe softly. "You're what really matters." Con looked into the eyes of the two men, and saw Joe was telling to truth. She mattered more to them than the food. Con realized her grief distressed them, so she bot-tled it up. Through an effort of will, she stopped crying and forced a wan smile upon her face. "I'll be okay," she said. Rick left Con and Joe to investigate the scene more closely. Blood drops on the snow soon caught his eye. They lay on the outer margin of the left ellipse. Rick scrutinized the blood drops and the tracks associated with them. He wandered away from the campsite twice before he read their entire story and returned to tell it Joe and Con.

  "One of them was wounded," said Rick. "But it got away." 32

  AS RICK PREPARED TO RESUME THE MARCH TO THE SEA,

  he knew all their hopes rode on the slim chance that people had returned to the island. Yet, even that desperate gamble required them to reach the shore with enough strength to make a signal. His mind focused on strategies for achieving that goal.

  The arithmetic of calories had been dismally simplified. There was no food. Their only nourishment was the previous evening's meal. Thank goodness we ate well, he thought. That was the only plus in his calculations. His thoughts dwelled on reducing the minuses. We must conserve our en-ergy! With that objective in mind, he forbade Joe to track the wounded nightstalker. It was a decision Joe challenged, but he conceded in the end. "You're the guide," was all he said. Rick also drastically reduced the loads they were to carry. Everything that wasn't absolutely essential was aban-doned—the flashlights, the cooking and eating utensils, the conifer bough bedding, and their summer clothes. The cook-ing pot was already gone. The hardest thing to leave was the bulk of the firewood, but the loss of the travoises made it necessary. That they burned with the bedding to warm them-selves before they started out. As they stood before the blaze, Joe picked up the gun and threw it in. Rick attempted to pull it out.

  "When sunlight returns, the gun will recharge," he said.

  "So?" replied Joe. "By then, our fates will have been sealed, one way or another." Joe's right. Rick thought, the gun's only deadweight now.

  Rick stepped back and watched the gun burn. The three stared into the flames, lost in their private thoughts. When the fire died down, Rick went over to the remaining travois, grabbed its poles, and started off. Without a word, Con and Joe followed.

  FOR A TIME, the nightstalker was governed only by fright and pain. She hid in a gully and licked the stump that had been her left hand until the blood flow was stanched. Then, in the stoicism of wild things, she turned her at-tention away from her injury and back to the needs of survival. She must eat to live. That fundamental imper-ative overwhelmed her fright and her pain. The animal left the gully and warily returned to the place of the big things.

  When she arrived, the big things were gone. A wide expanse of cold whiteness was stained pink and held the aroma of food. Frantic with hunger, she licked the pink-ness that promised nourishment, yet yielded none. Her tongue went numb with cold before she stopped. Even-tually, she left the pinkness and approached the spot where the big things had slept. She sniffed it. There was the scent of food there also. It was not the burnt flesh smell, but, rather, an old familiar one—the blood smell of mammals. The nightstalker had sensed it for the first time yesterday. About the sleeping place, the aroma was strong and tantalizing. It also hung about the trail the big things made when they had departed. Logic was alien to the nightstalker's brain. It made no reasoned arguments. The big things looked strange and smelled strange, but they had the blood smell of food. Hence, they were prey. The creature knew instinctively that it must follow the trail. The empty expanse of cold whiteness held no other opportunities. The prey was large, and it carried the ter-rible black stick, but the nightstalker was desperate. At the end of the trail were warm meat and a chance to live.

  THE WORLD WAS eerily quiet. As Rick, Con, and Joe si-lently trudged through the falling snow, the only sound was their muffled footsteps.

  As Rick walked, he considered the many unknowns in his calculations—the weather, the distance to the sea, the wounded nightstalker, and, foremost, the human spirit. He had read tales of hardship where seemingly healthy persons surrendered and died while others, suffering more grievously, endured. That intangible, the will to live, had made the difference. Their wills would soon be put to the test. There was no way to tell how each would fare in the hard times ahead. Rick wondered, When I'm starving and freezing, will I give up? He looked at Con and hoped, for her sake, he would not. Rick turned toward Joe and was reassured by what he saw. Joe was the picture of fortitude and purpose. Wear-ing the Tyrannosaur hide poncho over his jacket and carrying his spear, he looked fierce and savage. His ex-pression matched his dress. Vengeance smoldered in his eyes.

  "It's out there," he said grimly. "I know it's coming."

  "Better that it wear itself out tracking us than the other way around," said Rick, repeating his earlier argument.

  Joe did not reply. Instead, he paused and stared back into the distance, looking for his enemy. The falling snow drew a gray curtain over the landscape. He saw nothing. Joe turned and caught up with Rick and Con.

  Throughout the day, Joe and Rick took turns pulling the travois. It was laden with kindling and firewood, all covered by the tent. Con carried the remaining supplies in a bag rigged as a pack. It was a light load, and she realized it. They gave it to me because I'm the weakest one. That idea chagrined her, yet she knew it was true. All her life, she had been strong and energetic, an athlete proud of her toughness. Yet her spendthrift metabolism had turned upon her, wasting her strength. Though her body was diminished, her spirit remained strong. She knew their journey through fire, flood, darkness, and cold was drawing to a climax. She was resolved to see it through to the end.

  Growing hunger and exhaustion silenced the three. Talking required too much effort. Their dreary, monot-onous march was no longer interrupted by meals, but Rick insisted they rest frequently. He was concerned that they might push themselves beyond the point of recovery. Accordingly, he called a halt for the day as soon as the slate gray sky began to grow darker.

  They set about the routine of making camp. Con set up the tent and swept the snow from its interior with her sock-covered hands. There was no bedding to lay upon the frozen ground, so she maneuvered the travois plat-form inside the tent and covered it with the few items of clothing they were not wearing. With that task accom-plished, she grabbed her spear and her soiled rags and headed for the river. Joe and Rick had already left camp to search the riverbank for driftwood.

  THE NIGHTSTALKER HAD smelled the nearness of the big things long before a pause in the snowfall made them visible. She was about to retreat when she noticed the herd had broken up. Instinct told her this was an oppor-tunity. The smallest of the big things, the one fragrant with blood, wa
s alone by the river. The terrible black stick was nowhere to be seen. She looked for the other big things and saw they were far away. The desperate need of hunger overcame her remaining wariness. Ingrained skill, inherited from thousands of genera-tions of successful hunters, guided the animal. Surely and stealthily, she approached the prey. The closer she came, the more its aroma excited her. Soon .. . soon . .. soon she would eat.

  CON SAW A flicker of movement from the corner of her eye. She grabbed her spear and whirled in that direction. Her forgotten rags drifted away. The nightstalker froze. It was only twelve feet from her. Con stared into its large yellow-brown eyes and tried to read its intentions. They were inscrutable, but the sickle-shaped toe claws rose.

  The spear seemed to puzzle the carnivore. Con feigned lunges, hoping to scare it off. The nightstalker held its ground while its head tracked the spearpoint with rapid, precise movements, the way a bird might. It's quick, thought Con. It's looking for an opening. With a few quick steps, the creature advanced to just beyond the spear's reach. Con pulled her spear back and assumed a defensive posture.

  "Rick! Joe!" she cried. "Help! The nightstalker! It's here!" Con heard the sound of distant running feet, but she dared not take her eyes from her foe. Only a slight tens-ing in its haunches foretold its spring. With dazzling speed, the nightstalker launched itself into the air. Con swung her spear to meet it and felt the spear's point rack along her attacker's rib cage. The point lodged momen-tarily between ribs as the nightstalker's weight and the momentum of its leap pushed the spear downward. A foot slashed out so fast that Con did not see it, and a claw tore her jacket sleeve, spilling down into the wintry air.

  The nightstalker hit the ground with the spear still in its ribs. Con tried to push the spear home, but the creature leapt back. As it did so, Con felt the tip of the spearhead snap.

  "I've got a sting!" she yelled at her enemy.

  The nightstalker stared back, ignoring its latest wound. It seemed to study the spear. Then it began to move like a prizefighter, dancing and feinting. Con jerked the spear one way then another, trying to keep pace with the night-stalker's movements. It advanced and retreated, waiting for her to make a mistake. Joe appeared running along the top of the riverbank. Intent on Con's spear, the nightstalker turned too late. Joe's spear entered its feathered abdomen, then pushed the nightstalker down into the mud. Joe bellowed in tri-umph over his writhing enemy. Putting all his weight on the spear shaft, Joe drove the point through the night-stalker's body and deep into the mud.

  Like an undead monster, the impaled nightstalker pushed its body up the spear's shaft. Before Joe could jump back, it struck like a snake and buried its teeth into his forearm. Joe cried out in surprise and pain. Con stabbed at the creature with her broken spearhead, ruin-ing a yellow-brown eye. Still, the creature held on as it thrashed about in its death throes.

  Rick came running. He dropped his spear and pulled out his knife to saw at the creature's throat. Blood sprayed them all before the nightstalker went limp. Rick pried open the dead animal's jaws and released Joe's arm from their vise-like grip.

  For a moment, Joe stood shaken and dazed; then, a grin crept over his face. The grin broadened and a gleam en-tered his eyes. "Damn!" he said. "That was one tough bastard. But I got it. I sure as hell got it!" Con looked at Joe's bloody jacket, unable to tell what blood was his and what was the nightstalker's.

  "We'd better look at that bite," she said.

  "It's only a scratch," replied Joe.

  "We should still clean it," said Rick.

  "With what?" asked Joe. "River water?"

  "It's the best we have," said Con.

  Joe dragged the nightstalker back to camp while Rick retrieved the driftwood he had dropped, and Con found the wood Joe had left behind. Only when Rick got the fire going did Joe remove his jacket. On both sides of his upper right forearm were a series of punctures sur-rounded by a darkening bruise. Some of the punctures were deep, and the serrations on the rear of the night-stalker's teeth had made the wounds' edges ragged. The deeper ones still bled. Using a wetted rag torn from the cleanest shirt she could find, Con washed the blood away. She felt the loss of the pot most keenly now, for there was nothing to boil the water in. After the wound was cleaned, she bandaged it with the remains of the shirt. Con tended Joe with concerned tenderness and occasion-ally her face quivered with repressed sobs. Joe put on his jacket, regarding its bloodstains as mil-itary decorations. He did not permit his wound to cloud his jubilation. His mood was infectious. Soon Rick and Con felt encouraged and relieved. The pile of driftwood made a respectable blaze and its light and warmth cheered them further. Soon they would be cooking dinner on it. The promise of warm food danced in the flames.

  "Con," said Joe, "you did great! You killed that bastard as much as I did." Con grinned, feeling that she had partly redeemed her-self from last night's disaster. Rick began to butcher the nightstalker. They would use every part they could. He plucked the down and saved the skin. He had read that it was possible to boil water in a skin bag and thought they could try to do so in order to clean Joe's wound better. He threw away most of the viscera, even the liver since, in some carnivores it could be poisonous. He kept only the heart. That he would cook specially for Joe. He sliced all the meat into strips and laid it on the snow to freeze. Since there were no large stones from which to construct a cache, he planned to put the food in the tent. If necessary, they would defend it with their lives.

  While Rick finished the butchering, Con set about boil-ing water. She dragged some glowing embers from the fire and circled them with rocks. Then she took a section of nightstalker hide to the river and, gripping it to form a pouch, brought water in it. When she placed the hide over the embers, the water transferred the heat from the skin, preventing it from burning. Eventually, the water boiled. Though Joe protested it was unnecessary, Con cleaned his wound again with the boiled water. Pinkish brown and flecked with wood ash, it did not look as clean as the river water. Joe patiently let her minister to him once again and thanked her when she was done.

  They roasted strips of nightstalker on the coals and boiled broth in the skin. Drinking the broth without spoons or a pot to pass proved awkward. After some ex-perimentation, they settled on crouching like a dog drink-ing from its dish. As Rick sipped the broth, he keenly regretted leaving the utensils behind. He feared that the others felt the same way, but neither Joe nor Con said anything. It was an evening for looking to the future, not regretting the past. The sea could not be that far away. Most likely, only a few days of travel remained.

  Joe held aloft the stick that skewered his foe's roasted heart. "To the last of the nightstalkers!" he said. He bit into the warm meat with relish.

  "To friends," said Rick, sipping from the water bottle.

  "And future friends," added Con, "may we meet them soon." They lingered around the fire until it dwindled to ruby embers gleaming against the velvet night. Now that they had food again, some of the urgency they had felt throughout the day's march had lifted. Before they retired to the tent, Rick gathered the meat to bring inside with them. It was already frozen. RICK AWOKE AFTER a poor night's sleep. Without the conifer bough bedding to insulate the ground, it was too cold to sleep in a prone position. They had slept back-to-back in a tight circle upon the travois platform, with their knees drawn close to their chests, sharing the two meager blankets. It was an uncomfortable way to sleep, and, despite his fatigue, Rick had kept waking throughout the night. Joe looked like he had not slept at all.

  "How's your arm?" asked Con, who also looked more tired than usual.

  "It's fine," he said. "Just a little stiff."

  "We should look at it," said Rick.

  "Don't bother," replied Joe. "I said it was fine." Rick was too tired to argue. Instead, he brushed the snow off the cold campfire, piled the last few pieces of driftwood on the charcoal, and made a fire. He roasted some meat for breakfast and-some more for lunch while Con boiled up some broth. As they ate, Rick noti
ced Joe used only his left hand and held his right arm stiff and straight.

  "I'll pull the travois today," said Rick. "You should give that arm a rest."

  "I'm fine," snapped Joe. "I can pull my weight."

  "Then bend your arm," said Rick.

  Joe started to bend his arm, then winced. "All right," he said with resignation. "You take the travois today, and I'll take it tomorrow."

  "I should tend your arm again," said Con.

  "Why bother?" replied Joe. "You've washed it and bandaged it. There's nothing more you can do, and it's tender right now. I'd rather you didn't touch it."

  Con gave Joe a dubious look. "Are you sure?"

  "I'm certain."

  Con and Rick made Joe stay by the dying fire while they packed up camp. When everything was ready, they headed out. With food in their bellies and little or nothing to carry, they set a good pace initially, despite their fa-tigue. The sea beckoned them with the hope of rescue. They left the upland plain and entered the burnt remains of the forest. Ruined tree trunks spread to the horizon, standing like black obelisks in the snow. Trees littered the ground also. Fortunately, the fire had pruned them to crumbling, charred cylinders. Rick was able to drag the travois, which was loaded with little more than kindling, a few sticks of firewood, the frozen meat, and the tent, over the fallen trees without assistance. Still, the obstacles slowed them down. The sleepless night also began to take its toll. Their pace slackened to a slow trudge. The line of march stretched out, with Rick at the lead, Con in the middle, and Joe at the rear. They walked mechanically as their minds hazed over with fa-tigue. The landscape they passed through continued to change. They encountered mounds of flood debris, caked with frozen mud. The clearest path was close to the river, which flowed broader here, but sluggishly. The flood was long over, and the world was drying out and freezing. The snowfall was sporadic and light. The few streams they encountered were shallow and had mostly frozen over. Toward late morning, they came to a river bend and saw what they thought was a huge stack of driftwood. When they approached more closely, they realized the pile consisted of corpses weathered to bare bones. Thousands of animals had been washed up on the river-bank. Under other circumstances, Rick would have spent happy hours examining the skeletons. Instead, he looked at them with tired indifference. The only thing that caught his attention was a lone, thin nightstalker. It hopped feebly about the bones, scavenging for the last scraps of frozen flesh. The scrawny creature looked like a pale brown wraith and, like a ghost, it was indifferent to the living. Rick, Con, and Joe marched by without the scavenger's notice. They had become invisible again.