Tuscany

by Matthew Thayer

  30,000 B.C.

  CHRONICLES

  TUSCANY

  A Novel

  By MATTHEW THAYER

  30,000 B.C. CHRONICLES

  TUSCANY

  By Matthew Thayer

  U.S. Copyright: Matthew Thayer, Feb. 26, 2012

  Published as ebook, Sept. 30, 2012

  ISBN–978-0-9883879-1-1

  Cover art and chapter sketches by Darko Tomic

  30000bc.com

  matthew@30000bc.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Matthew Thayer

  Table of Contents

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Editors Notes

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  This second installment of the 30,000 B.C. Chronicles is a compilation of journal entries and voice transmissions created by five survivors of a scientific expedition sent back 32,371 years in time. The data was dredged from a flat, white computing device found buried in the floor of an Italian cave on June 6, 2234.

  Tuscany picks up the explorers’ stories roughly six months after their stealth trimaran splashed down in the Pleistocene. As planned, Mission Control landed the timeship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during a warm, moist pause in a glacial age. That was one of the last bits the controllers got right. Plagued by equipment failure, infiltrators and natural disaster, the highly trained crew of 97 was decimated to six within two weeks and whittled to five within six months.

  Shipwrecked in a prehistoric world without support or modern tools and weapons, the survivors quickly ingratiated themselves within the local population of Early Modern Humans, Cro-Magnon.

  Each member of The Team tells their tale in their own voice and style. The quotes are unaltered and true.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “Paul, wake up. You must see this.”

  Kaikane: “What is it, babe? You OK?”

  Duarte: “Do you hear that?”

  Kaikane: “Tiger?”

  Duarte: “No, closer.”

  Kaikane: “Toad?”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  We shared camp with a clan of frog talkers last night.

  The shaggy group of three women and four men fell in step with us along the trail twelve minutes after noon on our second day headed east out of the Rhone River valley. Undaunted by the killing pace set by Gray Beard, they climbed into the foothills of the Alps with us through the day and into the chill evening. Grazing on the move as the old man taught us, we scavenged trailside berries and nuts and pushed over dead trees to expose fat, white, protein-rich grubs which we shared with our fellow travelers. When he led us off the trail to a simple campsite situated near the source of a freshwater spring, the small clan approached him very solemnly and used hand sign to request permission to join us for the night.

  Squat and bulbous-eyed, the women were so similar in appearance, I judged them to be sisters, or very, very close cousins. Venus statuettes hung from leather cords tied around their stout necks. V-shaped grooves worn between their front teeth marked them as practitioners of the “third hand,” no doubt craftswomen of some sort.

  Their male escorts were a Cro-Magnon hodgepodge of various heights and hair colors. One of the men, a burly, fair-skinned fellow dressed in leather mantle and a wolf pelt cape draped over his shoulder, recognized Gray Beard as the great storyteller of the Green Turtle Clan. After a long day waiting for the appropriate moment, he squatted in front of the old man in the light of the fading sun and used hand signs to ask for a story. Gray Beard politely declined and settled into a pile of pine needles with his dog and three spears to fall fast asleep.

  Jones volunteered for first watch. There was no need to build a fire. We had nothing to cook, and the mosquitoes have settled in for the winter. Paul and I pushed together our own mound of pine needles and were resting our aching bones, listening to the many night sounds, when I thought I heard a frog croak nearby.

  Gray Beard claims snow frogs are good eating. I have not yet documented the creatures, so I strained my ears to listen. A series of croaks within 20 feet willed me to rise from bed and dig the helmet from my pack. Donning my hat, flipping down its visor, I switched to thermal view, expecting to find anything from a cold-blooded amphibian to a croaking porcupine. In this environment you never know what you will encounter next.

  The guttural bursts emanated from our seven guests. Squatting on their haunches in a clearing, three men and three women formed the outside of a circle, while a swarthy, barrel-chested man in a fox fur robe and rough leather trousers hopped counterclockwise inside.

  After one full circuit, the man leaned back his head to summon a basso “ribbitt” from somewhere deep in his throat. His mates replied in kind, one at a time around the circle. I waved to Jones’ heat signature up on the high ground where he sat leaning against the base of a hazel nut tree. His helmet glimmered to life in my visor as it powered up.

  “Was just gonna wake ya,” he said over the com line. “Figured you’d be interested.”

  “What is your assessment, Jones? Is it a dance? A religious ceremony?”

  “Started when Gray Beard went to sleep. They wanted something and he didn’t give it to ’em. Had a powwow and then hopped in a line over to the open ground.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope.”

  I woke Paul to share the experience–and to save myself from being teased that I made the whole thing up. They continued for more than an hour with each member taking a turn in the middle of the circle. The odd little tribe alternated the pitch and volume of their many croaks in a way that was melodious.

  At once, a bullfrog announced his presence behind me. I turned to see the old storyteller scratching his balls and picking his way through the dappled moonlight to the clearing.

  He told them a tale like none I have heard. Stringing together the sounds of water animals of all sorts, loon and otter and hippo, he built to a crescendo of frog calls–harsh croaks deep in the bottom of his thorax to peeps high enough in register to force me to turn down the volume of my helmet.

  With a dismissive wave of his arms, rather like an umpire calling a runner safe, he let the clearing grow quiet. Scratching himself as he walked away, the old man returned to his bed and was soon, once again, fast asleep. The performance placated our guests, who quickly retired into a tangled cluster of snores and farts. They headed back toward the Rhone during Paul’s watch in the dark hours before sunrise. He said the strangers rose together as one and marched from camp in single file line without a backward glance or goodbye.

  This morning I asked Gray Beard what story he told the people. He pursed his lips, shook his head at my gullibility.

  “Your story made them happy,” I said in Green Turtle dialect.

  “It made them shut up,” he retorted with a glint in his eye. “I mimicked the sounds of animals I know, nothing more. I do not speak that clan’s language. It is old and difficult to learn. My dead wife spoke their words. Some of them. The boy in the wolf pelt cape, he is my wife’s sister’s son.”

  “Did your nephew share news from the trail?”

  “Much news. All bad.”

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “I guess it truly is the oldest profession.”

  Kaikane: “Trading?”

  Duarte: “You could say that, goods for services, but I mean more specifically. This est
ablishment is obviously a brothel.”

  Kaikane: “A what?”

  Jones: “She means a whorehouse.”

  Duarte: “Thank you, Jones.”

  Jones: “Probably right. This tent is the hub of activity. I figure it’s the only reason camp exists.”

  Kaikane: “That’s as good a reason as any for a man to settle down. Hey, ouch.”

  Duarte: “Watch yourself, buster.”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  Goose pie, oh man, that was the best meal I’ve eaten in a long time, and I’m not saying it because for the past seven days we’ve lived mostly on grubs, berries and starchy little tubers that look like carrots and taste like shit.

  It was nearly sundown when we broke from the pine forest. Leaving behind the chattering of a million birds settling to roost, Gray Beard led us up a wide trail through knee-high meadow to a camp sited between the base of the mountains and the north shore of a pretty little lake. “Kolettelena’s lake,” he said.

  Water birds were flapping in from all direction to splash down for the night. The landings ruffled the lake’s mirror surface in a way that made the reflections of the snow-capped Alps dance orange in the sunset. A couple good-sized deer herds grazed the top of the field along the tree line, and two black sows rooted in a creek bed not more than 100 yards away. Way off to the south, the Mediterranean Sea shimmered silver in the setting sun.

  “Welcome to Provence,” Maria said with a contented sigh.

  On our way around the lake, we passed a pack of dirty but well-fed kids chasing geese in and out of the pillars of an abandoned campsite made from mammoth tusks. The tusks were sunk butt first in an oval near a spray of flat, tabletop boulders. The tusks stood about 10 feet tall, tapering and curving inward like the supports for the huts in the Green Turtle Clan’s Thumb Camp back in Bordeaux. This place was a lot bigger though, probably 60 tusks arranged in something like a 50-foot-long by 20-foot-wide loop. I’m sure Maria will count and measure everything once she gets a chance.

  The geese must have had their wings clipped. They hissed and waddled and honked as the laughing kids did their best to cut them off from the water. Two mangy dogs were in on the action, barking and jumping around, but keeping a respectful distance from the big birds. The dogs took a run at the old man’s bitch and she backed them off with a growl and show of her teeth. It didn’t hurt that Gray Beard was right there to back her up.

  Several hundred paces down the trail, Jones stepped from a clump of willows to signal us into a shallow gulch. Shucking off our packs for the first time in hours, we stretched out the kinks then knelt in the dew for a briefing. As usual, Jones was in no mood for small talk. Maria asked for his report and the bushy-headed soldier said based on five hours of surveillance, he was fairly certain the Italians did not have a squad of hidden troops ready to skewer us. He said the camp was recently burned out. A few traveling clans, “most likely noncombatants,” arrived today from the west.

  We locked our packs around the base of a willow and watched them blend into the background as we rolled our necks and squared away our weapons. Gray Beard led us into camp armed and ready for anything.

  The trail led us past a dozen lean-tos arranged in no particular order uphill from one large, oval tent. Each camp had a cook fire burning in a circle of stones. The campers had all steered clear of a flat area that looked to be the prime habitation site. That part of the field was covered with burned out lean-tos, human bones and the litter of battle. Jones said it looked like the work of our Italian crewmates. I had no reason to doubt him.

  Wary native eyes watched us pass in silence. No challenges and no shouts of welcome. Gray Beard’s purposeful stride said he knew what he was looking for. He led us to the central tent, a sort of long flat-topped dome draped with a patchwork of skins and thatch. Several wall sections were pulled open like curtains. We followed him through an opening to stand inside a common area lit by cattail torches and a pair of cook fires. Holding everything up was a perimeter of tusks like the one we passed along the lake. Log crossbeams, gray and cracked with age, were lashed between the tusks to support the high ceiling. At least 50 bundles, big and small, dangled from the rafters as protection against rats and mice and thieving hands.

  Gray Beard studied the upturned faces then bellowed “Kolettelena!” It took a while for a stooped, middle-aged woman dressed in furs and about ten pounds of jewelry to poke her head from one of the tent’s curtained-off back rooms. The scowl on her face melted away once she saw it was the old man. Dropping a turtle shell comb to the sandy floor, she raced up to throw her arms around Gray Beard and plant a big, wet kiss on his lips. I noticed the old bugger wasn’t shy about returning the smooch, or cupping her ass to pull her close. Swatting playfully at his hand, she led us back outside to one of the low, flat rock tables near her outdoor kitchen.

  She was about 45 years old, and may have once been a beauty, but now sported the usual scars, burns, carbuncles and gaps in her smile we see on most mature women in these times. Life is hard in the stone age. Her salt and pepper hair was pulled back into a long ponytail knotted every few inches with strings of pearl and colorful shells. Studying us with green eyes, spreading her palms wide, she posed a question to the storyteller with an age-old gesture. “Who’s this?”

  Gray Beard turned solemn as he made his introductions. Pouring on the bullshit, he presented us one at a time to be hugged by the woman named Kolettelena. While he rambled, a handful of young women drifted out of the tent to eavesdrop from the edge of the shadows. Wrapped in tan leather capes against the evening chill, they leaned against trees and sat up in the rocks as they drank in the sight of the great storyteller. And us too, I suppose. After a while, Kolettelena clapped her hands to order a few of the girls to get off their butts and fetch gourds of honeyed water, plates of salted fish, nuts and dried fruit.

  Passing the food around the flat slab of granite, trying hard not to be overly piggy, we sat in the pea gravel and listened to her gab with Gray Beard. Maria may have followed some of their conversation. Jones and I were lost from the start. I gathered they relived a few old times and caught up on current news.

  Jonsey and I tried to not be too obvious eyeing the girls. Plenty of tits and ass on display. Kolettelena ordered a pair of helpers to take over her cooking duties, then jumped up five minutes later to push the girls out of the way. Her talk story session with Gray Beard never lagged as she stirred pinches of herbs into a big leather cooking bag and supervised her girls as they used forked sticks to rotate hot rocks from the fire into and out of the bag to bring it to a boil.

  We were all surprised when she began working a mound of rough dough into a pair of flat pizza-like circles. It was the first time we had seen Cro-Magnon use all the grain growing around here for anything other than gruel or stuffing game. When everything was ready, she fitted one circle of dough into the bottom of a large clay bowl. The bowl was another first. We have seen plenty of turtle shell cook bowls, some woven from reeds and pine needles, and a few small pots made of clay, but never one so big. I noticed that while everybody’s attention was on the process, Maria casually slipped her visor down for a closer look.

  Once fresh greens, mushrooms and vegetables were arranged on top of the dough, the bag’s steaming stew of meat and sauce was poured in to flood the bowl to its rim. Kolettelena creased her brow in concentration as she fitted the second circle of dough over the bowl. Three slashes with a flint knife cutting three lines in the dough reminded me of the mango pie crusts my auntie made when I was a kid. This bad-ass pie was going to weigh about 15 pounds.

  “She says this is a new recipe,” the old man translated. “One taught to her by a special customer.”

  “Wise Father, please ask Kolettelena where she acquired this beautiful cook pot,” Maria asked through a forced smile. We all smelled Italian influences in this cuisine.

  They jibber-jabbered for a bit and then the old man turned back
to Maria.

  “She says the bowl is not for trade. She has owned it for many hands of years and it is useful.”

  “Who made it?”

  “Her mother, long ago.”

  Those were good answers, maybe the only ones that would have kept my hot-tempered girlfriend from picking up a spear and smashing that bowl to bits. The closer we get to Lorenzo and his boys, the more on edge she becomes. I guess as one of the mission planners, Maria feels responsible for their screw-ups. Jones and I tell her it’s just assholes being assholes but she doesn’t buy it.

  Five perfectly-shaped, flat rocks formed the square oven where the pie was placed. Helpers used green sticks to bank glowing coals around the outside of the bowl. When all was set, they muscled a sixth stone over the opening to seal the oven closed.

  Through Gray Beard, Kolettelena explained the stew pie would need to cook for a while, plenty enough time for us to take a swim in the lake. A polite but not very subtle hint. We stunk.

  A half moon hung over the Alps as the four of us slipped into the inky water. Leaving the dog whining on the beach, we waded out to where the lake crested our shoulders. Smooth, round stones covered the bottom and felt good on our tired feet. The top layer of water was still warm from the sun. We all ended up floating on our backs looking at the stars as Gray Beard and Maria hashed over what Kolettelena had to say.

  Kolettelena told him she met Bolzano more than a month ago. He’s now clan leader of the Green Turtle survivors. That includes the man’s nephew, but not his sons. That news set off a bunch of yammering I didn’t understand.

  Kolettelena said Bolzano was a good-paying customer. He was the one who warned her the Tattoos were on their way. His alert gave her time to bury her gear and take her girls and geese to a safe spot in the mountains. She said hiding is something she needs to do every once in a while. She is good at it.