by Jack L Knapp
I camped on the ground most of the time, using a fire to keep predators away, but I slept in the trees on two occasions. I heard noises that made me think large animals might be nearby.
I ate a root from a cattail and considered whether to eat the fuzzy ‘tail’ part. I finally tried it, but ended up spitting the seeds out; maybe they could be cooked and eaten, but I got no benefit from them. I choked down the root and it temporarily suppressed my hunger.
Snails, a pair of insects that looked like grasshoppers, things that hopped, crawled, or swam, I ate them all. I was surviving, but barely so. I punched new holes in my belt as I lost weight. I had begun the trip with little fat on my body, and I had virtually none now.
It was a mixed blessing, I suppose. I had less weight to carry on the weakened leg, but I was weaker from malnutrition now as well as the injury.
That was my situation when I caught a raccoon in one of the riverside snares. He was still alive, so I speared him, then skinned the carcass and roasted the flesh. The half-cooked meat was delicious and I ate too much.
I vomited up that first meal and regretted the loss.
I cooked more raccoon and ate again, slower this time, tasting and thoroughly chewing the meat. This time it stayed down. I stopped before I reached satiation.
No steak ever tasted as good as that raccoon!
After scraping the skin, I rolled it up to carry in my pack. I was doing that when I heard a tiny rustle. I whipped around, reaching for my knife and axe, and saw Lee and Lilia watching me from the forest.
“Easy, Matt. We didn’t want to surprise you. We were backtracking my trail when we spotted your cooking fire.”
“I didn’t expect you. How are the others?”
“Stocked up with food and water and forted up inside the cabin. We’ve been worried, so I’m glad we found you.”
For the first time in more than a week, I relaxed.
I would no longer be alone during the trip home.
Chapter 15
Lilia wasn’t happy with my sloppy bandage. Nothing would do but that she remove it and examine the wound. She sniffed around the open cut, then held the back of her hand against my forehead. Another sniff, but this one was a sniff of dissatisfaction. I thought the fever was gone, but she had other ideas.
“Leave it open to the air. I’ll be right back.” With that, she headed off into the forest.
She returned with an armful of vegetation. I recognized bay leaves and there was a root of some kind, but I had no clue what the rest of the things were. I gave them the scientific name of Weedus curiosa. I wasn’t going to tell her that and earn another sniff, though.
She started a small fire and half-filled a small clay pot with water from the stream. When the water boiled, she fed the green material in.
It turned the water a dark brown color. The steam smelled good to me, although maybe not to whatever germs were living inside the hole in my leg.
She let the water cool, then gently poured the warm tea over the wound. It stung a little, but that soon faded. She packed the boiled residue over the wound and, finally satisfied, rewrapped it in a clean bandage.
I was pleased; I had been afraid she would want me to drink that stuff or eat the mush that remained!
“We will rest here until tomorrow. I will build up the fires and Lee will set traps and hunt. You need meat, and rest. The trip back will be slow, but that cannot be helped. Lee will conceal our tracks. With luck, we shall be home in no more than four days and enemies won’t be able to track us.”
Her plan sounded good. Finally I could turn some of the responsibility over to someone else!
#
If there had been fever, it was gone now. Other than minor pain and stiffness, I felt good when I woke in the mornings, and if I was tired in the afternoon that was only to be expected. I had lost a considerable amount of blood and the weakness had only increased while I was unconscious, kept from falling by the rope. I had barely been able to eat and drink during the brief periods I was awake. It had not been enough to regain or even keep my strength.
The cut scabbed over and two days later Lilia decided I could remove the bandage.
We barely spoke while on the trail, remaining alert instead.
Beasts lived in the wilderness. Some of them had four legs.
Lilia led, I limped along behind. We left little sign of our passage and Lee brushed out what there was. I kept moving at the best speed I could manage. When I tired, Lilia found a sheltered spot to camp and Lee set out snares. We paused while she gathered things along the way that would be included in our evening meal.
I ate a lot of meat; Lee was a skilled trapper and hunter. I regained some of my strength, and our little group moved faster. Even so, it took a full five days to cover a distance that, healthy, I could have traveled in just a little more than a day. At least Lilia had been wrong about something!
Late in the afternoon of the fourth day after they’d found me, we came to a stream. We agreed this was likely the stream that flowed near the cabin, that we were probably a few miles too far south. We would make our way up the stream until we found a place we recognized.
We were more than usually careful to leave no sign of our passing from that time on. If those other warriors managed to follow us this far, it wouldn’t take much to lead them the rest of the way. The smell of cooking bread, the slight noise I made while chipping points for arrows, spotting evidence where we’d trapped animals or gathered plants, the sight of a set snare; any of these might be the clue that led enemies to us.
We woke early the next morning and, after a hasty breakfast, were soon following the stream north.
I spotted the salt lick just after noon, then we passed the bee tree that Lee and I had robbed. Lee went on ahead at that point, leaving Lilia with me. He was able to move faster, which gave him time to circle the cabin and look for danger before we approached. He rejoined us as we entered the clearing and we reached the door together.
I slept in the cabin that night; I hadn’t fully recovered and the leg was still painful. Lilia and Lee camped in the forest.
The following night, Lilia remained in the cabin while Sandra stayed in the forest with Lee.
The women made the decision in each case. Was this no more than rotating space on the more-comfortable bed in the cabin, or was something else going on? Lee, after all, was an adult, even if society downtime might not consider him so. He was a proven warrior, he’d killed enemies, and the occasional scruffy whiskers I saw before he shaved them off indicated he was past puberty. I had no claim on Sandra, but still, I felt a bit of jealousy. Still, if anything happened between them it would be her decision.
In a sense, this too was survival at work. There were three women in our little tribe but only two men. Relationships would have to adjust if we weren’t to be forced apart by jealousy. Lilia and Lee would probably not have a physical relationship, but any other shuffling of our personal cards was possible. Even for the two of them, old taboos based on genetics and reinforcing of recessive traits might not control their relationship.
The new arrangements might also not be permanent. Each of us might live a long time on this world if we could avoid accidents, dangerous animals, or dangerous people. Assuming, of course, that what I’d been told downtime was true and the women had undergone the kind of physical and genetic restructuring that I had.
Would pairings be permanent? As people age, they change; those who are compatible might find themselves much less so ten, twenty, even a hundred years later. Could this be the reason so few marriages lasted during my original lifetime, because people changed as they grew older?
What would be the effect of living well past the century mark be, assuming that the Futurist had told me the truth? How long could we live here on Darwin’s World? He’d mentioned that his culture had conquered death from ‘natural causes’, that he’d reworked my own DNA to the same standards.
Not that living forever on this world was guaranteed;
fire, flood, famine, dangerous beasts, and dangerous people would prevent that from happening. Even lethal diseases might evolve at some point; the Futurist had mentioned that too.
Meantime, there weren’t enough of us to survive a war, just one more life-ending threat among the rest. Finding a better place to live was critical. I brought up the subject that night.
“Lee and I went southwest first, about thirty miles or so. We found no human sign. We turned northwest after that.
“I came up from the southeast, and the only thing I saw was a long-abandoned hut. There were still things there that the owners wouldn’t have left, so probably they died or were picked up by the Futurists. They might have left the grinding stones, but they’d have at least taken the spear and darts if they’d moved on willingly. So figure that whole quadrant from the southeast to southwest is probably safe.
“We had turned northwest when we ran into that patrol, and shortly after that we found an operating mine to the west. We were probably somewhere between twenty-five and thirty miles west of the cabin. We might have been somewhere near your home by that time, Lilia, though maybe we were still a little south of there.
“There were different kinds of people working at the mine, warriors like the ones we killed, some that were probably miners. We don’t know who any of them are, where they came from, or what they’re doing. We only know they’re there and they’re probably involved in some way with the Futurists. Those swords were made using advanced technology, so I think the warriors probably got them from the people operating the mine.”
I was drawing on the floor to illustrate my thoughts. Even though my fingers left no marks, the movements were short and obvious enough that the others understood.
“We know we want to avoid those people. Two got here to the cabin. I doubt anyone sent them; if they had, someone would have come looking after the first two turned up missing. They’d have been here by now if they knew where the other two had gone.”
I paused for a moment to give the others a chance to ask questions, but they nodded understanding so I went on.
“We’re too close to that mine. It’s maybe thirty miles away, a long day’s travel due west. We found it, sooner or later more of them will find us. Next time it might be the people in charge, not just two renegades.
“The game will soon be hunted out around here or the animals will move on. The snares aren’t working as well and Lee told me he's had to go farther to find game.
“I don’t expect an easy trip, but I think we have to go, as soon as we can get ready. If we head west or southwest, we’ll likely encounter more of the mine people, and they may be the same ones who destroyed Lilia’s home. Those raiders could have come from the people working the mine, but that’s unlikely. Mining and raiding are different; if you need people to work a mine, you can’t afford to have them off raiding. Since some of the ones we saw were armed but others weren't, I think there are probably two groups there. In any case, we need to stay as far away from them as we can.
“As for going southeast, the direction I came from, I can tell you there’s not much down that way but deep woods, big rivers, and swamps. It’s the same to the northeast, except with fewer swamps.
“Those rivers are major obstacles by their nature, but the biggest danger comes from not knowing what might be hiding on the far side. It’s too easy to be ambushed.
“That leaves northwest. I think that’s our best chance to avoid running into the raiders who hit Lilia’s home. We can travel for a week, then head due west until we find a better place to live.
“The country to the north looks to be hilly from what I've seen. I got a pretty good look from the top of a hill. It’s probably mountainous if we go far enough. We’ll have better visibility, fewer grassy plains, and maybe fewer dangerous animals. I know there are huge animals out in the grasslands, I saw them. They were a long way off, but I don’t think we should hunt there.
“They might have been sloths or mammoths. Even if they’re smaller, maybe wisent or some other kind of wild cow, that’s still probably the kind of critter that killed Amanda. They're sort of like the downtime Cape buffalo, the kind hunters consider more dangerous than lions. The animals here have been surviving worse things, bigger lions, saber-toothed cats, huge bears, and dire wolves, so they won’t be easy prey. We might hunt them eventually but not until we're better armed.
“The plains animals might be the Pleistocene version of bison, bigger than the ones downtime but probably herd animals just like their descendants. The people who hunted them in that other timeline didn’t just get close and spear them, they trapped them first in a bog or pit, and sometimes they drove them over a cliff. They used the same technique to kill mammoths.
“They used fire to drive the animals, but fires can turn on you if the wind shifts and anyway, too much meat would be wasted. We don’t want to waste anything; we saw downtime what happens if you do that.
“But in the hills to the north, there will probably be only a cougar, maybe a few timber wolves. There are deer and elk there too, probably moose, goats, and mountain sheep too.
“It’ll be easier to avoid wolves and an occasional cougar in the hills than lions or saber-toothed cats down on the plains. I think they’ll stay close to the big herds.”
I paused to take a swallow of water.
“Something else about those men. Lee, would you hand me that short sword?”
Lee picked up one of the weapons and handed it to me. The edge on this one showed damage, so I concluded it was the ‘froe’ I’d used to make staves for my weapons.
“Look at this. It’s clearly advanced, but the men using them were wearing leather, not fabric. No weaving, in other words. And the shields are flimsy things, probably made locally because they're not equal in quality to the knives.
“If you look at this one and turn it so the light shines along the blade, you’ll see faint dimples in the steel. I think those are forging marks. You can forge steel by heating it with coal or charcoal, so I can’t tell which fuel was used. The forge marks though, those are evidence of advanced craftsmanship. At the same time the people using them are wearing primitive garments and carrying small, locally made shields. The only thing I can think of is that the swords were made by a sophisticated culture but the rest were produced by someone that's not nearly so advanced.”
Lee nodded. “I think you’re right. They would carry the swords, because they were better than what they could build themselves, but they might not have wanted to carry a heavy shield. They especially wouldn’t want to carry it unless they expected to fight someone, perhaps someone using flint knives.”
“Right. So did they make the blades, or steal them? We know they’re aggressive, even though they’re not great warriors according to what we've seen. They might have raided to get the swords, they might also have taken the mine from someone more advanced. We don’t know. But anyway, we’re too few to do anything but avoid them.”
I let them think it over.
Lilia had filled a pottery jug with berry-leaf tea. I poured some of the drink into my gourd and added honey, stirring the concoction with a twig.
The berry tartness meshed well with the honey’s sweetness. One day we might use berries to make wine, or ferment the honey into mead.
Someday.
“We could go due north for a few days longer, then decide whether to keep going north or turn west,” Lilia suggested.
“Right. I favor the idea of going west, but we’d avoid the mine. If we traveled slow and didn’t build big fires, we shouldn’t attract attention from anyone. We’d need to be careful, but we already do that.
"When we find a place with game, we might stop for a while. But if we see people, we’ll watch for a while before we approach them. If they look peaceful, then we make contact with one of them. We’ll get him away from the others, just to be safe. If they aren’t friendly, then we move on.
“What do you think?”
Sandra answered, “I
think it’ll work, at least for now. We need more game and vegetables, no question about that. We’re not finding much of either around here now, so I agree, we’ll have to move. Lilia knows a lot about living off the land, you and Lee are good hunters and trappers, we should be all right.”
“Sandra, I don’t know all of the plants. I know of the ones near where we lived and I know some of what grows here,” said Lilia.
“You’re still better at it than we are, Lilia. You can teach, and we can learn,” Millie said.
Our conference was suddenly interrupted.
There was a scratching sound at the side of the cabin, then something hit the closed window a heavy thump. Fortunately the shutters held. I heard a snuffle; moments later, claws scratched at the door.
I was the first to have a weapon in hand, but just barely.
Millie had the crossbow, Sandra held two short swords, Lee was rapidly stringing his bow and Lilia was reaching for hers.
The axe went into the carrier on my left side, the knife went on my right. My club hung from a peg by the door, but I doubted I would need it. My spear leaned against the peg; I grabbed it and hung the quiver around my body, letting it hang near my hip.
My bow hung nearby, but I left it too. Lee and Lilia already had bows and one more wouldn’t make much difference. The danger was close by, the spear was a good close-in weapon, and my bow wasn’t in very good shape anyway.
Taking charge was instinctive. “Lee, back by the wall. You can shoot better from there if that thing gets through the door. Lilia, you’re with Lee. Sandra, back them up with the swords. Millie, you’ve got the crossbow so you’re up front with me. Shoot as soon as you see whatever that is out there, then get back by Sandra to reload.”
The animal snuffled again, then I heard it moving around back of the cabin. The animal might be drinking from the spring. Safer for us, there was a barred door back there but no windows.
It was nearly dusk. It would be foolish for us to venture out from behind the sturdy cabin walls, especially if we ended up facing whatever that was in the gloom of evening.