The Trek: Darwin's World, Book II (The Darwin's World Series 2)

by Jack L Knapp

  Vlad came back to Pavel fifteen minutes later.

  “Pavel, this is the place. I found a bloodstain on the ground. There are drag marks too, down by the river where we threw him in. But I haven’t found those arrows. I know where they should be, but they aren’t there now.”

  “Crap. Are there any tracks around that we didn’t leave?”

  “Maybe. Look over here.” Vlad pointed to a spot among the fallen leaves.

  Pavel scrutinized the ground.

  “I think you’re right, Vlad. That’s smaller than any track we could have left. She’s been here. I’ll bet she picked up the arrows and his weapons too. She’ll take them back to the tribe, and if she gets there with those weapons, we won’t have any choice. Robert will know Matt wouldn’t have taken off his weapons, they’d have gone in the river with him. I don’t want to leave the tribe, but if they find out we killed Matt we’ll have to. The others will kill us. especially that kid Lee, he’s already too damned quick with that spear of his. Matt’s women too.”

  “Yeah. So do we track her?”

  “No. She’ll head for the tribe and we know where they’ll be. We cut cross-country and outrun her. We’ll get there before she catches up and ambush her before she knows we’re anywhere around.

  “I’ll leave you three to watch our trail when we get back; I can sneak up close enough to make sure she didn’t get there before us. If she’s caught up to the tribe, she’ll be with them.

  “If she’s not there, I’ll come back and join you. We spread out and watch for her. One of us will be on the north side of the trail just to be sure, but she’ll probably be coming from the south.

  “We’re already a couple of miles south of the trail. We know she was here too, long enough to pick up his weapons at least. So she’ll head north and follow the tracks until she meets up with the tribe. There’s no reason why she’d cross the trail, and we’ll be waiting when she gets there.

  “Nikolai, you’ll be watching the north side. I don’t expect her to come in from that direction but keep alert anyway. If we need help, you join us. I’ll be watching near the trail, Gregor and Vlad will be south of me.

  “She’ll be following the drag marks and we’ll be waiting, a half-mile or so behind the tribe. That’s far enough that the tribe won’t hear anything if she screams, but not so far that she can slip around us without us seeing her. We’ll just drag the body off into the brush and rejoin the tribe; if anyone mentions us being gone, we just tell them we went hunting.”

  With that, Pavel took one final regretful look around the clearing before turning his back on the river. Jogging again, he led his small band northwest. They would intercept the drag marks left by the travois somewhere ahead and follow them until they got close to the tribe.

  #

  Matt woke to the slow drip of cold water on his neck. The lean-to kept some of the rain off but it wasn’t watertight. Still, it had sheltered the fire, so it was the work of a minute to stir up the coals and add fresh wood.

  He still had fish from the night before, so he warmed that over the coals and ate. Finishing, he took the bones down to the river and threw them in before washing his hands and face.

  Moving upstream, he checked the line he’d set out the night before. There was no tug on the line, so he pulled it in and looked for where he’d gutted the catfish. The offal was gone; something had come up during the night, found the guts, and eaten them. There were tracks, but the rain had washed enough away that Matt couldn’t identify the scavenger.

  Sighing, he went to find a log he could raid for grubs. He hadn’t really wanted to handle guts that had been left out overnight, even if catfish probably would have loved them.

  But it proved unnecessary to look for grubs; the rain had brought out nightcrawlers. Matt gathered several of the large earthworms by simply picking them off the ground.

  He needed several, because he’d also thought of a way to improve his fishing line. It was the work of half an hour to carve two more gorge-hooks. Using two short lengths of cord, he attached them to the fishing line above where the first hook was attached in similar fashion. This left him with three gorge hooks attached at intervals above the weight. The earthworms had tried to crawl away, but they were easily recaptured. Threading the worms onto the hooks, he let the ends of the worms dangle free to wiggle enticingly. This arrangement he tossed gently into the water.

  The river appeared to have risen slightly. Possibly there had been more rain upstream?

  Washing his hands again...the worms were messy...he left the setline and walked back to the lean-to. He warmed himself for a time, then picked up the rocks he’d been working on the night before.

  He needed a second knife; the one from his belt kit was short, a necessary compromise between usability and fitting the knife in the pouch. He also needed a spearhead. The flakes would make arrowheads, so he collected them as he worked and piled them beside the fire.

  When the rain let up, he would find more rootlets and weave them into a basket; he was already accumulating things to carry when he eventually moved away from the river.

  Matt had been near starvation when he crawled from the river, but now he tired of eating fish. As soon as he had weapons, he would hunt. He began tapping, using the smaller rock to knock long blanks from the core.

  The name for the rocks was there in his memory, although he didn’t remember where he’d learned it. The river rocks were chert, a fine-grained rock suitable as raw material for tools. He held up the core and examined it, then went back to his steady tap-tap-tapping. Beyond the lean-to, the slow rain continued to fall as he worked.

  Finally it stopped and Matt stirred the coals of his fire, adding another dry branch for fuel. He left the chert by the lean-to and carrying his spear, walked to the river to see what he’d caught.

  #

  Lilia continued her slow journey south. Slip a few paces forward; pause, listen, move forward again. The light breeze blew from the west. Heading south, she was traveling cross-wind. Animals ahead of her wouldn’t catch her scent.

  She froze in mid step; she’d heard something. Her eyes scanned around and she saw motion.

  The doe had been feeding on browse just beyond a forked tree. The motion Lilia had seen was the doe raising her head to look around. Cautiously, arrow nocked on her bowstring, she crept forward, seeking a better vantage point. Finally she had clear space for shooting.

  There was a slight movement by the browsing deer. Behind the deer she saw a tiny form, a newborn fawn. The doe, turned and licked the fawn. Lilia watched regretfully.

  There really was only one thing to do. She lifted the bow.

  The doe ran away as soon as soon as she shot. The fawn dropped, kicked once, and died. She ran forward, but the only thing left to do was field-dress and butcher the tiny animal. The doe could survive without the fawn, but the fawn would have starved without the doe.

  Darwin’s World was as merciless to animals as it was to humans.

  She had almost finished skinning the fawn when she heard the tapping again.

  Chapter 4

  Robert toured the family areas to see how others were faring. It took less time than usual; Pavel’s group was down to three, a man and two women.

  “Where’s Pavel, Monika?”

  “I don’t know, Robert. Vlad mentioned hunting, but no one said for sure. They were gone when we woke up.”

  “Are you going to be able to keep up when we move out? I don’t have a lot of help to offer. Everyone else has work to do and things to carry. Some are caring for kids as well as hauling tools and kitchen supplies. You may have to abandon Pavel’s equipment if you can’t carry it.”

  “I know, Robert. We’re already hauling a shovel and an axe for the tribe, plus some of the food. Staying behind to wait for them is out of the question. Pavel’s furs and sleeping pad will just have to be left, the bedding and other things that belong to the men with him, too. They were carrying some of the kitchen pots so we’ll colle
ct those and add them to what we carry, but that’s all we can do. He should have made arrangements; we’ve got our own things to carry.”

  “Right, then, just leave their gear behind. If you need help deciding what to keep, let me know. Somebody will be walking behind to provide rear security. I’ll talk with them, and if they can help you folks they will. We can slow down a little, now that we’ve got more meat. That might help you keep up, but we’re losing people. First Matt, then Lilia, now Pavel and three others.”

  Monika nodded her understanding and Robert went on his way. He found Lee, now back with the tribe after posting a new security shift.

  “Lee, we’ve got problems. Matt’s dead, Lilia’s gone, now Pavel and three of his people have gone hunting. At least, I think that’s what they’ve done. Maybe they just decided to leave and go their own way. But they didn’t take much with them if they did.

  “You’re using three for security, plus there’s one or two more on rear guard. I know your security people have packs, as heavy as they can carry considering that they have to range out ahead and to the flanks while the rest of us are just going straight ahead, but the rest of the tribe has to carry what the security people can’t. The travois are heavy and people are getting weaker.

  “We’re going to need to abandon some things soon, the sleeping furs and such. We’ll just replace what we leave behind when we get where we’re going. We won’t leave food or cooking pots, but the heavy things have to go. It’s too bad, there’s a lot of work that went into making those, but…”

  “Robert, we’re finding tracks now. A few animals are back and I think we could start hunting. How would you feel about camping here, or maybe where we stop for the night? I’ll take a hunting party out and I think the Wise Woman and a few others would like to gather plants. There are things greened-up that we can add to our diet. Fresh stewed greens, a salad, roots and stems that are fresh-sprouted…people need those. As for animals, I don’t think it will be a problem. This country looks to be rich in game, or it will be when the herds finish migrating back north. Anyway, there are animals around now.”

  “We could do that, Lee. If you can handle the hunting and security, I’ve got a few ideas of my own I’d like to explore. Maybe we won’t have to abandon things after all. Some of my people know a lot about trades, not just building houses but about making wheels. We can try building carts, even if it takes time. The lack of tools held us back before, but we’ve got enough now to do the job. We can make up the time later on by covering more ground in a day. If we convert travois-loads to cartloads, we can carry at least twice as much without adding to the workload, as well as move a lot faster.

  ”But this place isn’t a good campsite. What say we look for a stream or at least a large spring, and if the land is suitable, camp there? Plan to stay at least a week, hunt and cure meat to bring our reserve back to where it was. We can gather plants too and let the workers try making wheels and axles. People need to rest and gain a little weight if we can add to our food supply. Everybody’s lost weight.”

  Lee nodded and went off to see about his own workers.

  #

  The tribe moved out, straggling more now. Fewer people now shared the heavy travois-loads, communal items plus their own possessions.

  Behind them, a mound of furs and personal belongings marked where the three remaining from Pavel’s original group had left what they couldn’t carry.

  If Pavel returned, he’d find their things beside the drag marks. The two travois that had been used by Nikolai and Vlad had also been left beside the mound of rolled-and-tied sleeping furs.

  The tribe stopped briefly when the sun was directly overhead. They were still engaged in eating a meager lunch when the lead scout returned.

  “Lee, there’s a stream up ahead. I’d say it’s a mile and a half, maybe two miles from here. Ground’s pretty good; no bogs, and the stream bottom is sandy in most places. No quicksand. There are a few rocks in the stream, but they won’t be a problem when we’re ready to ford it.

  “There are trees along the banks and a large grove of bigger trees where the stream bends to the west. We can set up under the trees and easily build shelters. There are plenty of willows there, some of them large. Cattails too, maybe five hundred yards downstream, and I saw swirls in the water so there are fish in the river. We can set up fish-traps. There are also several springs that feed into the stream and I saw a lot of animal tracks too.”

  “What about firewood, Michel?”

  “Plenty. There are dead limbs and a couple of trees that blew down during the winter. We can cut those up if they’re dry enough, but we won’t run out of firewood for at least a week or two and there are more fallen branches, just not as close. We might have to carry them five or six hundred yards at most.”

  “OK, Michel. I’ll talk to Robert. Why don’t you collect the two flankers and head for that bend? Collect some of that firewood and lay out a campsite. Pick sites for temporary shelters and look for a central place where we can put the kitchen. If the ground’s not too hard, scoop out a fire-pit for the cooks. Find a place to set up a sanitation area too, someplace back from the water. Maybe set up a willow screen for privacy. If we’re going to be camped there for a week or two, we don’t want people just crapping where the urge strikes them.”

  Michel nodded. “We’ll take a shovel and an axe along. I know what to do.”

  “The rest of us will get moving as soon as the tribe’s finished lunch,” replied Lee. “We’ve been moving slow, maybe too slow. People are tired. We haven’t had enough food. Everyone’s hungry, and lately it’s been mostly meat. They need different things. But we’ll get to the grove as soon as we can, and whatever your guys can do before we arrive will help a lot.”

  #

  The first early trekkers arrived by mid-afternoon. The tired people put their loads down and slowly began setting up camp. Robert had remained behind to help bring in the laggards.

  Michel and his small party continued working, directing people to campsites, collecting willows to weave into shelters, digging and banking around the firepit.

  Colin left the family campsite chores to his wife. He looked appreciatively at the stack of wood Michel had gathered and began building a cooking fire. Pots and food soon appeared, brought by those who’d carried them as part of their travois load.

  Assisted by Sal, Colin shortly had a snack of jerky and bread ready for the travelers.

  The main meal would consist of stew. The major ingredient was meat from the stag-moose; dried vegetables made up the rest.

  Callie, Colin’s daughter, began gathering needles from a pine tree she found in the grove.

  Colin heated water in the smaller pot. As Callie brought in the pine needles, he added them to the bubbling water. The needles would be dumped after the liquid was poured off into gourds. A judicious spoonful of honey made the tea, useful in preventing scurvy, palatable.

  He watched his wife as she worked around their personal camp. The trip had been very hard on Margrette. Colin had often been busy with the kitchen, so setting up camp had fallen to her. Callie had helped as much as possible, but as the trip progressed Margrette had lost weight, more even than the rest of the tribe. They were thin, she was gaunt. And as she lost weight, her mental state declined; she often spent long minutes just gazing off into the distance. Colin suspected it was a left-over effect from the rapes she’d endured, but he knew of nothing he could do to make things better.

  Colin prepared a gourd of tea with an extra spoonful of honey before taking it to her. He would have added more, but the tribe’s supply of honey was limited too.

  Everything was limited. Colin had been rationing salt, but even so, what little remained would be gone within two weeks.

  “Why don’t you drink this and lie down for a while? I’ll bring your food when it’s ready. You need the rest.”

  “Colin, all of us need rest. I’ll be all right. I would like to rest for a little while, though, if yo
u don’t need me in the kitchen.”

  “I’ve got plenty of help. You drink your tea and relax. I’ll send Callie over with food when it’s ready.”

  “Thank you, Colin. I’ll try to eat more this time.”

  Colin resolved to speak to the Wise Woman. There might be something she could do. Robert, too; he would need to know about Margrette.

  But Robert already knew. He’d considered Margrette’s condition as well as the condition of the other tribe members when he’d accepted Lee’s suggestion. He’d become increasingly worried as food stocks dwindled and people became thinner. They were often withdrawn now, not even taking the time to converse with others in the evening. The trek was consuming their inner reserves.

  “Colin, we’re going to stay here for a week. If the hunters bring in game and the foragers gather enough vegetables, we’ll stay longer. We want to get to the western lands, but I won’t leave our people dead along the way. Pavel and his followers aren’t helping. Even if they do find game, they’ve left it up to the rest of us to do what they should have been doing. We can’t depend on them as long as they listen to Pavel.

  “Something strange about that, too. Pavel never told me he was leaving. I’d think he had just abandoned the rest of us and left the tribe, but he didn’t take his camp gear. None of them did. They just slipped off and never bothered to explain what they were up to.

  “I’m going to talk to Lee. If he agrees, I’m considering banishing Pavel. I hate to lose people, but he’s more problem than help. If his little group goes with him, so be it. I’ll take people I can depend on rather than people who will likely fail us when we need them most.”

  “I agree, Robert. Just don’t do it alone. Lee will back you and so will I. Marc, Michel, and Philippe are reliable too. They’ve been scouting and hunting, plus they’re well armed. If Pavel doesn’t take the hint and leave on his own…well, we’ll just leave him. After salvaging the arrows, of course.