“That is the cliff we were looking at earlier,” I said to Emerald. “It really does rise a lot higher than the land on this side of the water, but it looks like it’s dense with jungle. I wonder what it looks like on the other side?”
Emerald smiled at me and then pointed to the far side of the cliffs to our south. Then she made a flat motion with her hand and gave me the thumbs up.
“It does look pretty level, Seems that most of the angle of the slope is more north, like where we are standing.”
As I looked south, I saw Nicole turn around the distant corner of the beach in the distance. I half expected there to be some sort of marshland where the river and ocean met, but it seemed to be just pristine beach all the way on our side, and then the cliff on the other.
Emerald and I continued to study the terrain across the river until Nicole and Grumpy arrived. When they got to us, I slid off Bevis, gave him a pat, and then did the same for Grumpy before I jumped back on Nicole.
“She said there was a better place to cross up north,” I said, and then we all began to move alongside the river toward that direction.
I’d lost track of the time during our travels, but the hot feeling on my shoulders finally caused me to look up and see that the sun was past its midway point. I kind of wanted to break for lunch, but I was still worried about the assholes in the camp less than a mile from us, so I wanted to at least get the river between us before we took a break. I didn’t really have to wait much longer though, since another ten minutes of walking brought us to the rocky choke-point that I thought the woman with the legs had told us about. The beach gave way on both sides to a bit of a canyon, and the width changed from about a hundred yards across to forty. The water moved a bit faster here, but it was still clear, and I didn’t see anything scary beneath the surface.
Just prehistoric, fifty pound fish that I hoped didn’t have razor like teeth.
“I guess we should swim across here,” I said as I glanced at Emerald. “What do you think? Can Nicole swim?”
Emerald pointed at her mouth and then gestured to me.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “You were about to ask me the same thing.”
Gumpy was already in the water, along with the troodons, and they swam together as a group across the water without any problem.
The pachy’s went next, and while they seemed a little awkward at first, I was able to give them orders to control their limbs, and they quickly learned how to use their powerful legs to push themselves forward through the crystal clear water.
Then it was our turn.
“Okay, sweetie,” I said as I patted Nicole’s crest. “Just kick those legs like you are walking through vines. Okay.”
Nicole let out an annoyed grunt, tossed her head from side to side as if she was pumping herself up to deadlift her personal best, and then waddled into the water. I didn’t think that Emerald and I would need to jump off and swim ourselves, but I was ready to do it if it seemed like our extra weight was too much for the female trike.
Nicole started kicking her front legs as soon as her chest was in the water, but she was still walking forward on her rear legs. I kept patting her crest and whispering soothing words to her, but I probably didn’t need to. I could sense when the water got too deep for her rear legs to kick against the ground, and then she was full on swimming.
We leaned to the left side a bit with the current, and for half a moment I thought we were going to capsize, but then I turned her body into the twist, and she started to swim more to the southwest. We were a bit off course now, and moving into the wider part of the river, but her legs were still kicking and pushing us forward.
Nicole seemed to get the hang of doggie-paddling about half-way across the water, and she was swimming like a champ by the time we reached the shore on the other side. I felt some relief wash over me as soon as we made it, and I heard Emerald let out a long breath before she leaned forward and patted Nicole on the head.
“Finally,” I laughed. “Something that went easier than I expected.”
Emerald shot me a wide smile, and then she rubbed her hands together and pointed at the cliffs.
“Yeah, I’m excited too,” I admitted. “It looks like there is a break in the jungle up ahead of us. Shall we punch through there and try to make a left turn somewhere so we can see how big this place actually is?”
Emerald nodded and then I led the group into the jungle trees that stood like a wall past the massive palms.
What we were on wasn’t much of a trail, and Nicole had to use her horns a few times to push some smaller trees down so she could stomp over them, but the atmosphere didn’t seem quite as oppressive as when we snuck past the enemy camp.
Still, the going was slow, and the air grew muggy as the sun started to drift toward the horizon. I realized that we had skipped lunch, but I actually wasn’t feeling that hungry, and Emerald hadn’t indicated that she wanted to stop since we started pushing into the jungle, so I figured we could get higher up onto the slope and then see what the lay of the land was.
“If we decide to stay here, we are going to need to clear a lot of the jungle,” I said after Nicole had pushed aside a tenth tree so we could move forward.
Emerald nodded, and then she gestured up ahead. It actually looked like there was a break in the thick jungle, so I pushed Nicole the last twenty or so yards up the slope, and we broke into a fifty-foot almost rectangular clearing. The area was steeper here, but not quite as bad as the rocky ledges where we had walked around the enemy camp, and a nice cool ocean breeze was hitting us from the south.
Bruce let out a honk from above us, and then he flew over toward where I thought the direction of the enemy camp was. The trees in that direction looked really dense, and I didn’t want Nicole to waste a lot of energy knocking them over, so I had everyone but the troodons take a break, and then Emerald and I walked in the direction where Bruce had flown.
I didn’t quite know how far away we were from the edge of the cliffs and the river, but we walked for about three minutes around the trees before we came to the edge of the cliff. Almost as soon as we reached the edge of the jungle, I saw what Bruce wanted us to see, and both Emerald and I dropped down to our bellies and crawled the rest of the way to the edge.
We were probably about fifty feet above sea level, and almost directly across the river from where the enemy camp was to our north. Their base was maybe eight-hundred yards or so from our position, was pretty much right on the edge of the beach, and was about four times the size of our first camp. There were two campfires in the middle of the area, and six huts that looked like they had been built by a drunk toddler playing with twigs. I wouldn’t be surprised if a strong wind could blow one of them down, but as I looked closer, I realized that the wood was really old, and the leaf roofs were in need of patching.
“I don’t think they built this,” I whispered to Emerald, even though I doubted that anyone could hear us over the ocean from this distance. “It looks pretty weathered, and if they had built it, they would have repaired it. Also, notice how they don’t have any walls?”
Emerald nodded and then bit her upper lip.
“What do you think?” I asked.
She turned to me, curled her arm, tapped on her bicep, and then grimaced.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “That’s what I figured. Somebody, or maybe multiple somebodies, there are powerful, and they don’t think they need a wall to protect them from the dinosaurs.”
Emerald nodded sadly.
“But you know what else?” I asked. “I don’t think they are very smart. Why be down there on the beach when you can be up here? We haven’t explored the rest of the area yet, but there is access to fresh water, salt water, and elevation. This already seems like an optimal place.”
Emerald shrugged and then pointed in the opposite direction of the men.
“True, we haven’t explored all of it. I really want to watch these guys around their camp and get a feel for who is in charge and who
has the real power, but I guess we can come back after we investigate the area up here.”
Emerald waved her finger in the air, gestured to herself, and then held up two fingers.
“Oh, great idea,” I said, and then I wrapped my fingers around hers. The brief flash of warmth and the slight spin of dizziness accompanied her cloning, and then I was staring at two identical Emeralds. I guessed that the original was the one whose fingers I was still holding, but then again, she had been the copy of the Emerald who had just died yesterday, so I supposed the new Emerald was a copy of a copy.
Clone Emerald gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and then she laid down next to us, pointed at her eyes, and then gestured to the men below us. Original Emerald and I nodded, and then the troodons escorted us back through the jungle and to the small clearing where we had left my other dinosaurs.
Grumpy was sunbathing with his eyes closed, Nicole was munching on some grass, and Bevis and Butt-Head were chewing on some jungle leaves. They all turned when we arrived in the clearing, and I looked up to see Bruce circling up above.
“Let’s head south to the top part of this cliff and see what we find,” I said to Emerald, and we jumped back on Nicole and began to push our way through the dense jungle.
I really didn’t know how much farther we had to go, but I expected to spend another two or three hours pushing through the thick and muggy foliage. I was pleasantly surprised when we only had to plow through another fifty yards or so of jungle before we made it to another clearing.
And this one was much larger.
“Holy shit,” I gasped as I took in the wide sloped field of long wavy grass. The area looked a lot like the grass plains we had to walk through to get down the slope to the beach, and I guessed we had about fifty, maybe even seventy-five acres of slightly sloped grassland. It was much larger than the area inside our fort, and the open expanse and shape of the slope let me see over the tips of the trees on both the east and west sides.
To the east, toward the enemy camp and the way we had come, I saw an endless strip of azure ocean water and cream colored beach. I could make out some of the high palm trees swaying in the afternoon breeze, and the rich blue sky seemed to cover the entire world in a surreal blanket of peace and tranquility. I wasn’t able to see the men’s camp from where I stood because of their proximity, the ridge of trees, and the fall of the cliff that I knew was over there, but I guessed that if I were to head straight west, I’d actually be a quarter mile south of them on the ocean.
I turned to the west and saw more endless ocean and pristine beach. It looked like the beach eventually curved into more rough cliffs and mountains, but the distance was really hard to judge, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were six or seven miles away.
“Oh man, I am really liking this place. What do you think?”
Emerald nodded enthusiastically, but then she pointed farther south , where the land continued to slope upward into more jungle trees, and then she pointed west.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Let’s go to the end of the cliff and then circle around west and see how it looks. Then we’ll go back and see if your clone has any info.”
We continued to walk up the gradual slope, and the ground became less dirt and more granite slabs and steps. A lot of the pieces looked really clean, and I wondered if Youleena would be able to carve them into bricks we could use to build with.
I thought that the massive field we had found would have been close to the end of the rise, but we still had to push through the jungle for another fifteen minutes. Finally, the trees fell away a bit, and we reached the end of the cliffs.
But the ocean didn’t end.
It stretched out as far as I could see south, west, and east. The water almost looked too perfect a shade of blue, but I knew that they were a thousand times more dangerous than the oceans on Earth.
The top of the slope was flat for about five acres, but the edges of the cliffs all had sturdy looking juniper trees clinging to the rocks like old men holding onto their walkers. Their bark and leaves were a slight silver color from the salty air, and various chunks of rock interrupted the flat level top of the area like ancient Roman ruins.
“I fucking love it,” I said.
Emerald nodded, and I felt her fingers thread through mine.
“Let’s walk the perimeter from east to west,” I said, and I pulled gently on her hand so she would follow me.
We walked to where the jungle gave away to open space on the east side and carefully inched toward the edge of the cliff. It was a good three hundred or more feet down to the ocean, and as I turned my head to the left, I saw the beach where the assholes’ camp was about a half-a-mile north of us.
We walked south around the edge of the cliff, and as soon as we made it to the west side, I realized that we were actually on a peninsula that extended about half a mile out on the east side, where the assholes’ camp was, and about a quarter of a mile on the west side. It was easier to see the exact slope on the west side because we didn’t have to worry about getting spotted, so I held onto one of the stout juniper trees with my right hand and leaned out over the ocean drop a bit so that I could study the rise of the land.
“So, it looks like the slope actually starts about a mile back from us,” I said to Emerald as I clung to the tree and gestured. “From the beach, that is, uhhh, it looks like there is a slope to get up to the foot of this peninsula, then there is a steady rise south to here.” I pointed to the ground where we stood. “Maybe a five or six percent grade, so I think we are about three or four hundred feet above sea level here.”
Emerald nodded as I spoke, and then she leaned out a little off the side of the cliff and held onto the tree where I grabbed.
“See that indent on the beach over there?” I pointed over her shoulder to where the sand started to form dunes. “If you draw a line north, you can see where the rise starts.”
Emerald nodded, and then she pointed a little left to where I was looking, and I saw what looked like another river pouring out into the ocean.
“That looks smaller than the one we just crossed,” I said, “but it’s nice that we are in between two. Going to this river is way closer than going through the redwoods back home, although I don’t think we are going to be able to dig a well in this rocky ledge. It will have to be at the bottom of this incline.”
We pulled ourselves back onto the ledge and then I felt a grin spread across my face. I’d just dangled my body some four-hundred feet above a deadly ocean while hanging onto the limb of a tree just so that I could get a better lay of the land for building my fort.
And it had seemed totally natural.
The old Victor would have been terrified of approaching the edge of the cliff, but I hadn’t even registered the danger until I was done with the task, and even now it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.
I did the shit I had to do in order for my tribe to survive.
“Let’s head down the west side and see if we notice anything,” I said as I directed the dinosaurs to move over to us. Once they were here, we jumped on Nicole again and pushed north through the trees toward the second clearing.
“You know,” I began as we moved, “the trees are really thick the whole way here, and I really didn’t see any trails. We might find some as we check the west side, but it’s possible that herbivores haven’t discovered that field because they didn’t want to bother pushing through the trees. If that is the case, then predators probably haven’t bothered with this either.”
Emerald tapped her temple and smiled at me.
“You were thinking the same thing, huh?” I laughed.
The green-haired woman winked at me, and then she tapped her temple again, pointed in the direction we were headed, and then raised her hands so that they looked like a wall. Then she spread her arms wide and frowned.
“Good point,” I sighed. “The wall is going to be a pain in the ass to build. Then again, there are plenty of trees around, so we could just
cut them--”
Emerald shook her head and then raised her arms high over her head. For half a second, I didn’t know what she meant, but then she pointed to one of the twisted jungle banyan trees that we were skirting, and it made sense.
“That’s also true,” I agreed. “The redwoods were tall, straight, and strong. These trees are twisted, and their bark is really soft. Fuck, I don’t want to haul all our redwood lumber this far though. Maybe there is another type of tree we can use?”
Emerald shrugged, but then she pointed at the stones at Nicole’s feet.
“Yeah, but we’d have to get really good at cutting stone, and we’d have to do it really quickly. I guess I took the redwoods for granted. There has to be other trees we can use nearby.”
Emerald pointed to the jungle line to our west, and I steered Nicole over there. The trees were really dense, so we had to jump off again so that we could walk through them. Then we were both on the edge of the cliff again, but now we were further up the peninsula and facing directly west.
Emerald pointed to the jungle to our north and then raised her hand over her eyes like the brim of a hat. I turned to face the same direction, and then she tapped me on the shoulder and pointed a bit more west than I had first looked. I followed her finger and saw that the jungle seemed to give way to evergreens in a small clump in the forest.
“How far away from us do you think that is?” I asked.
Emerald raised one finger and then coiled a second.
“Mile and a half, huh?” I said. “It will be a pain in the ass to move them all the way over here, but now that we have Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock, we can move lots of material at once.”
Emerald nodded, and we moved back to Nicole so that we could continue our journey.
The jungle really was practically its own wall, and I was relieved when we made it to the large field and could take a bit of a break. I figured that this field was at about the eighty percent mark south on the peninsula, and the smaller clearing where we had dropped off Clone Emerald to watch the enemy camp was at about the twenty percent mark. We still hadn’t investigated the western side of the area though, so we continued our journey after a few minutes.
Tamer- King of Dinosaurs Book 6 Page 20