Pushed Back

by S A Ison

  “Later, we can come back and put our names on it.” He said.

  “Thanks, I’d like that.”

  We walked several miles upstream, going far out from the bluff to see higher up. The bluff was now about forty feet high. There were huge trees, and they looked like a cluster of massive oaks. One colossal oak was leaning slightly over the edge of the bluff and I could see the network of enormous roots holding it firmly to ground above. It was nearly blocked by a stand of huge hemlocks, at least I thought they were hemlocks, at the base of the bluff. The trunks looked to be ten feet in diameter.

  Harper had stopped and stood in front of the hemlocks. Then he walked toward the river, there were more clusters of trees and saplings here and there along the flat land. It was like a grassland here, and I saw that there were plenty of dandelions and plantains, a weeded paradise. I squatted and looked at a clump of long grass. I fingered it, thinking about its use.

  Around the river were the welcomed squat palmetto trees. I was sure that the animals feasted off the dates from their parent trees and dropped the seeds along the river. Self-planting via poop. I walked over to them and sure enough, there were the small green dates. I sure hoped I was right. I hoped that we could come back to harvest some of the dates.

  I had taken my small swiss army knife out and I was cutting the fronds. Harper stood beside me, but he was looking at the bluff.

  “Ivy, turn around and tell me what you see.”

  I turned around and looked. “I see the bluff.”

  “What else?”

  “I see the bluff, those big trees. That big oak hanging off the top of the bluff.”

  “Look up from the hemlocks, and between them, about twenty feet from the ground.”

  I looked, my eyes scanning back and forth. At first, I didn’t see it, but then, I stepped closer to Harper and saw it. It was an opening in the earth. It didn’t look big, but it looked big enough to walk into. I looked at him and grinned.

  “A cave?”

  “I think so. Let’s get one of the hemlock branches on the ground and use it as a torch.”

  “How the heck are we going to get up there?”

  “I can use my knife and cut us out handholds. With some of the larger rocks that are jutting out, we can use those like a stepping stone.”

  “Do you think there is anything up in there?” I asked nervously.

  “No, it is too high and with the large hemlocks in front of it, it is almost blocking the entrance. There isn’t a whole lot of room between the trees and the cave. That is what will keep big predators out.” He grinned and waggled his eye brows.

  My heart sped up, if this cave were big enough, then we could survive here. Most important, I could sleep without being eaten, without that constant fear. We went to the face of the bluff. I looked up and it seemed the opening was a lot higher from the ground.

  Harper took a good size stick and sharpened the end of it. He used that like a chisel, scraping into the hardened surface. He spaced the hand hold in a comfortable range. There were quite a few large rocks jutting out and he place the handholds near them. He dug deep into the earth, so we had a good place for foot or hand. It took nearly two hours, but when he was done, we were able to climb the bluff with little effort.

  He was ahead of me and looked into the mouth of the cave. The entrance was roughly five feet wide and almost six feet high. Harper crawled up and lit the hemlock branch. He scooted over and I joined him. I looked into the cave.

  I could stand easily at the mouth of the cave, I’m five foot six, but Harper had to stoop just a little.

  “If this turns out to be a good cave, I can rig some kind of ladder. That way, we can pull the ladder up at night.”

  “Good idea. It wasn’t hard climbing, but if it’s raining, I’m sure those stones will get slick as snot.” I nodded in agreement.

  “Hello.” He yelled into the cave, loudly.

  We listened, and heard nothing. I saw him sniff the air and I sniffed too. I smelled dirt and that was about it.

  “I don’t smell any animals.”

  “Me either. That’s good. Let’s go farther in.” he said.

  He led the way, and I was by him, but a little back. Slowly, about ten feet in, the cave opened up. The ceiling wasn’t very high, maybe eight feet, but now Harper could stand erect. It turned out that the cave went back almost thirty feet into the bluff. It was long and narrow, and twisted and turned. Some areas were only about three feet wide, while near the front of the cave was almost ten feet across.

  “This is really good. I don’t see any wet places or any signs that something has ever lived in here. Look, most of the walls are rock. It looks like the river used to be this high and cut deep into this bluff. Looks like it’s been here for maybe hundreds or thousands of years.” He said, placing his hand on the hard walls. I felt around, it was cool in the cave.

  It didn’t smell damp nor was there any indication of mold or mildew. I’m not sure if caves smell that way, but this one did not, nor was there the ammonia odor from bats. The floor of it was a little uneven, rocks jutting up here and there. There were also some roots coming from the wall, but not much.

  I squatted on the floor of the cave and picked up a hand full of dirt. It was soft and powdery. I looked up at Harper and he was smiling. The light from the mouth of the cave filtered in quite far. It looked like we were south facing and that would keep us in good light for most of the day. The massive trees blocked some of the cave opening, but I’d take that added protection over a wide-open space.

  “I think we have found our home sweet home.” I said and could feel my body relaxing, and the sting of tears. I took off my backpack and walked back to the entrance of the cave. I looked out on the vista before me, I was ecstatic that I could see several miles upstream and downstream. It was like being in a high-rise.

  “Holy shit Harper, come here!” I cried, gawking up the river. He came hurrying to where I stood. I was holding onto the side of the cave entrance. I pointed, out there, about a mile away, was a small herd of mastodons. Not wooly mammoths, but their smaller cousins, and there were six of them. It looked like two large ones, two babies and two medium sized beasts. Like our elephants, I figured they were all females.

  I couldn’t tell if they were hairy or not. They moved slowly, their shorter trunks pulling up what I thought was tuffs of grass. I had no words, and it almost felt like I was in the Jurassic Park movie, seeing something so fantastical.

  “Holy Moses. I don’t believe it.” Harper said in awe. I sat down before I fell out of the cave. He sat beside me and we just watched the small herd at the bank of the river. We felt the warmth of the sun was shining on us, but the huge hemlocks blocked some of the sun out. The breeze moved the huge branches and sun played over us. It was quiet, but for the wind and the sound of birds. Nearly twenty feet below us was the earth.

  I felt safe, I mean really really safe for the very first time since waking up in that dark forest. Even if a bear came, it couldn’t get us unless it climbed the tree. If we had a fire at the mouth of the cave, we could easily keep it out. It was the same with a big cat. I would have to weave or crochet some of the fronds to make ropes, so we could tie bundles of firewood and haul them up. But one thing at a time.

  “We have a damn fine view Ivy. I think we can make a good home here. We have the river in front of us. Date palms below, massive oaks above, which mean this fall we’ll have acorns. There’s also a stand of oak saplings down river, so acorns there as well. I can hunt and fish. We can gather stones for boiling water. I think if we start gathering now, by the time winter comes, we’ll be ready.”

  “I think you’re right. Let me dump my backpack and I’m going to go and start with gathering stones and firewood.” I grinned.

  For the rest of the day, we made trip after trip up and down the bluff. Harper went back about a half mile and found large limbs and dragged them back. The river was roughly fifty feet away, nice and close, but if there was a f
lood, we were well enough away and high up. I watched as he dropped the large limbs by the trees in front of the cave.

  “The start of a ladder.” He said.

  “Why don’t I try to make rope, then we can make a rope ladder with the wood. Maybe make the ladder as tall as you can, and I make the rope ladder to meet it.” I said, brainstorming.

  “Sure, I’ll try that. If I can find a couple of twenty-foot logs, we might not have to worry about trying to piece it all together.”

  I thought for a few minutes, looking at him and the large branches he’d dragged back.

  “How about you find a couple of twenty-foot saplings? Or maybe four of them and we can strap them together and make a nice sturdy ladder?”

  “Oh crap, why didn’t I think of that?” he laughed, shaking his head.

  I grinned and shrugged. He stood there looking out and then turned to me. “I scare myself, why don’t we use these two hemlocks right in front of the cave mouth?”

  I looked at the two hemlocks, they were right in front of the mouth of the cave, maybe three feet away. There were two other hemlocks to the left of the trees, but the two in front of us were of the same tree trunk that had split down at the bottom.

  I started laughing. “Yeah, we could put ladder rungs between the trunks all the way up. Maybe you could build some kind of platform between the trees and the mouth of the cave.” I said.

  Down at the bottom of the tree, the hemlocks were abutted nearly six feet up, but then the trees separated and by the time they reached up the twenty feet to the cave entrance, they had a three-foot space between the large trunks. There weren’t many limbs for another twenty feet above us.

  “I think if I can find solid branches, I can cut them to size, or I might have to burn them to size. I don’t have an ax, but tonight, I will bring some rocks up into the cave and I will try to make stone tools.” He said, shrugging and grinning.

  “Do you know which rocks will work to make like a stone hatchet?” I asked, impressed.

  He laughed and shook his head. “No, but I guess I’ll figure out what works best. How are we doing on water?”

  “We’re almost out, we’ll have to boil some.”

  “I’ll go ahead and build a fire down beside the trees. I don’t think we can get water up to the cave without spilling it and drowning ourselves. Maybe if I can find something to use as a bucket to hold more water, we can bring it up and boil when we need to.” He said.

  I looked into the sky, it was getting on to late afternoon. I wanted to take a bath, but I would have to do it in the frigid water of the river.

  “While you do the fire, I’m going down to the river to bathe. I’ll be watching out for things, but if you see a bear or anything, let me know.” I said. He grinned and nodded. We both carefully made our way down the side of the bluff. He began to build a fire at the foot of the bluff, and I walked down to the river with the bark bowl and my hand towel. I went down stream about twenty feet, putting several squat palms between me and Harper’s line of sight.

  I stripped down, I noticed that I had already started losing weight. I am a comfortable size 12, but though we’ve been eating, we’ve been eating lean meat and leaves. Three days, it had only been three days in. In three days, we killed a huge timber rattlesnake, jabbed an enormous bear, found familiar food, found a home and found traces of others like ourselves. And in three days, we’d seen creatures that were extinct in our own time. Three days. I also started this journal.

  I gritted my teeth and stepped into the river. It was fast, rushing past me, but not so fast as to sweep me off my feet. I waded in up to my knees and squatted down in the water. I sucked in my breath, it was cold, but I dunked my head in the water, getting it wet. Then I grabbed up sand from the bottom and began to rub it into my scalp. I had heard and read how you can wash your body or dishes with sand. It is abrasive as hell, but it helps to take the oils out. My hair isn’t super oily, but after almost a week, it needed to be washed. I’d not washed it two days before I had left to go pick up my girls. Also, add the oily residue of constant fear.

  I then scrubbed as fast as I could under my armpits and my netheryeyas, and rinsed and rinsed, especially my hair. I didn’t want my scalp to feel gritty. You know when you’ve been to the beach? You come home and rinse off and you still have that gritty feeling. The sand here wasn’t as fine as the sand on the beach, so I was able to clean it out. Now I’m going to gross you out, but I took a dump in the water. Yes, but it was washed immediately away, downstream, and I was able to clean myself, really clean myself good.

  The cold hard facts in this new life is that there is no toilet paper, no wet-wipes, nothing to make you feel fresh and clean after doing your business. Here in the river water, where other animals take a crap, it all washes downstream. So, in the privacy of my own little area, I did as well. Sorry to gross you out, but I know people would wonder about that.

  I got out of the river and I was cold, but took my small towel and dried myself off and got dressed, my teeth chattering away. I took the towel and put it in the river and used the sand on it. Washing it out and scrubbing it as best I could. I would dry it at the fire. I walked back up along the river bank and dipped the bowl into the water. The mastodons had left the river some time ago, so I was hoping there was no mastodon poop in the water. I took it over to the fire and set it down.

  Before the fire, Harper had stacked different round and oblong rocks. I know nothing about rocks so I can’t even tell you what kind they were. He was now dragging more large branches over. I climbed back up into the cave and dug through my backpack and got the comb out. Climbing back down, and I could see this would become a pain in the ass right off. We would need to get the ladder rungs made soon. On the positive note, my legs were becoming incredibly firm with all the walking and climbing we were doing. For now, I’d settle for noodle legs, if it meant being back in my own time.

  The towel was almost dry, steam rising off of it. I sat down near the fire and began to comb out my hair. With no conditioner, my hair was hard to comb and took time. But I eventually did it and braded it into a French braid at the back of my head to keep it out of the way. I felt human again, clean, and the thought of no longer hunting for a place eased the rock-hard knot in my stomach. I could now smell my clothes, my nose wrinkled in slight repugnance. Tomorrow was soon enough to wash them. That is something I was going to have to get used to. Being smelly, but as long as my body was clean, and I kept the clothing as clean as I could, that was about all that could be done.

  “I’m going to go see if I can gig us a fish for dinner. I’m also going to take me a bath in the river.” He announced. I reached over to the towel and pulled it off the branch. It was warm and a little damp.

  “Try using the sand to wash your hair and important bits and parts. It will get rid of the oils and you’ll feel pretty clean.”

  “Sounds good, how is the water?”

  “It is freaking cold as hell. I think I will take hot bird baths and bathe maybe once a week in the river. At least until it gets hot around here, but I don’t think that water will ever warm up.” I laughed.

  He laughed and climbed into the cave to get his gig, and when he came down, he was laughing.

  “What?”

  “I can see that going up and down all day long is going to be a gargantuan pain in the ass.”

  I started laughing, as his words echoed identically to my own thoughts. My eyes followed him, as he walked off with his spear and gig in hand. His back straight, a determined gait. Turning my head this way and that, the hair pulled at the back of my head, so I took my hair back out of the braid. I recombed my hair, leaning toward the fire. It began to dry, wispy blonde strands lifted from the heat of the fire. I sat back, worried it might catch fire. It was not a lovely picture. Braiding it with careful practice, the strands fell into place. I turned my head and there was no pulling this time.

  While up in the cave, I’d also grabbed my journal and one of the three
ring binders. I set to writing this journal for my daughters. The wind brought silence around me as the shadows stretched out, growing long. The once riotous chorus of our resident blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees and the odd finches, began to ease. I imagined that they were all finding their roosting places for the coming night. In their place, the soft cry of a whippoorwill and mourning doves drifted from the bluff above. It was reminiscent of my time. and a distant note of sorrow plucked in my soul.

  It was peaceful out there, though I wasn’t fooled. The absolute knowledge of what lay in the dark had been driven home the night before. With the predators afoot now, night brought on more activity. This cave meant more than you can know. It’s one thing to accept that you’re in danger. But it is quite another to understand that you’re most assuredly in peril as the hot rotten breath of an eleven-foot bear hits you in the face. I know I am and I will live with that for the rest of my life here. If I don’t keep that uppermost in my mind, I’m dead.

  I can’t say I’m happy at this point in time, because the knowledge that I will never see my girls again leaves a large jagged hole in my heart. I am in fact, heartbroken. But I know they will grow up to be fine women. My biggest regret is that they will always wonder what has happened to me. I know they will worry and grieve. For that, I grieve. I have their picture and memories of them. No, at this point I can’t say I’m happy. But for now, I am content. I now have a safe home. I have time to gather what will be needed for the inexorable winter.

  I’m not an overly religious woman, but I do believe God is watching over me and my girls. Knowing I will not see them now or for years to come, I do believe I will see them when I get to heaven, and I hope they will be happy old women when I meet them again. I hope they will remember me and know me when I see them again.

  SIX

  I was beginning to get worried about Harper, until musical notes reached me, he was whistling from the banks. I turned and saw him walking, his long hair wet around his shoulders, a large fish in one hand and his gig and spear in the other. He grinned and lifted the fish.