Tau Ceti

by Laurence Dahners

  Loathe to stay there without good shelter, especially after the experience he’d just been through, he started walking again. Then he began worrying that he might not find any shelter in Cold Spring Ravine either. Remembering its rough, rocky walls, he decided that his chances were much better there.

  Pell continued on his way in a hyper alert state and this time, as he looked around, the sight of the wolf relieved him. On impulse he got out his pig haunch, carved off a chunk and tossed it to the young wolf. She bolted the meat down in a few ravenous gulps, then resumed her scouting position.

  It was mid afternoon when they reached the ravine. Waters running down out of the mountain had cut the ragged cleft. High mountain streams disappeared into the plateau that lay above the ravine, to reappear as several springs at the beginning of the cleft. Snow runoff from the mountain made up most of the water in the stream and was the reason it ran so icy cold year around. Pell began to explore for a natural shelter. After spending an hour searching, a large limestone overhang remained the best site he’d found. The stream had under cut this area thousands of years ago and then diverted away as it cut deeper. The overhang would block wind and rain and it would protect his back, but it left three sides exposed. In addition he could tell that, when it rained, the water ran back under the overhang to drip into his proposed campsite. There was a very small shelf in the back, with an overlying depression in the roof of the overhang that was higher than the rest. The water wouldn’t wet that area, but it was barely big enough for him and his pack, any protective fire would be located right where he expected that the water would be dripping.

  He placed his pack up on the little high shelf, quickly collected a little firewood, made shavings and got out his firepot. To his immense relief he found that the coals were still glowing. He started a fire easily enough. With the fire to protect his pack he took his leather and began making trips down to the stream to collect mud mixed with broken reeds. He brought the mud back and, as he had seen the women do at the mouth of the Aldans’ cave where they had had a similar problem, he began forming a “drip lip” on the roof of his overhang. He placed it far enough out to provide an area where he could store dry firewood and sleep down beside it. Smoke from his fire had risen into the area of the little shelf and he could tell that it would be nearly impossible to sleep up there. Just inside the area where water would fall from his “drip lip,” he made another ridge of mud on the floor to divert water running over the floor away from his new living area. When he finished, he still had time to collect a substantial pile of firewood before it became dark.

  As he prepared his dinner he saw the wolf slinking closer and closer. She was obviously spooked by the fire but nonetheless crept nearer until she was well under the overhang with him. With some surprise, he found himself relieved rather than disturbed at the prospect of having a wolf in his shelter with him. He shrugged, she had saved him from the lion. After a bit he threw the wolf another chunk of meat. He considered this a bit. It seemed a dull-witted thing to have done when he was certainly going to run out of food soon. On the other hand, it seemed a worthy offering to the Spirit Wolf. A Spirit Wolf to whom, after all, he had found himself praying earlier that day. As he settled down for the night he considered a plan for the next day. He must hunt, he decided. The tribe only hunted when it needed meat, because, with no way to store it, getting too much in reserve simply meant a lot of spoiled meat. They only hunted daily during the winter when hunting was poor and meat froze and therefore kept longer. However, the way he threw, Pell knew that he would have to hunt all day, every day, to have any hope of surviving even in the summer. Spirits alone knew how he might survive the winter.

  True to his plan, he banked his fire to keep animals out of the cave and set out to hunt the next day. He put his haunch of pig meat and the meager contents of his pack up on the smoky shelf in the back of the cave, thinking that the smoke should keep scavengers away.

  True to expectation, his hunt was a failure. The wolf followed him faithfully throughout the day. Pell’s initial reaction was that the animal would spoil his hunt, but he soon realized that she was far quieter than he was. In addition, she recognized game long before he did. He found himself watching for cues from Gimpy, as he was calling the animal in his own mind. In the early afternoon, they came upon a deer. Pell quietly and slowly moved closer with his spear. The wolf slunk along a few paces to Pell’s side. They were moving upwind and the deer seemed unsuspecting, but then Pell stepped on a pebble that crunched. The deer’s head came up with a start and it looked right at Pell. He cast his spear but it whistled harmlessly over the deer’s head. The wolf took off after the deer like a bolt of lightning but the deer bounded away unharmed. Pell was sitting on a fallen tree trying to restore a decent point to his spear when Gimpy came back, tongue lolling, limping more than before. He considered the possibility of killing and eating the wolf if the hunting went as badly as he feared. He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to do it, but it seemed likely that he could if he got hungry enough. He realized that the animal served as a kind of walking larder.

  The remainder of the day passed without the two hunters drawing any closer to success than they had with the deer. As they followed an animal trail back toward their campsite, Pell found himself thinking wistfully about the brush-choked ravine with its little tunnel. Perhaps he should have stayed there. He could have rebuilt his trap in the tunnel and perhaps more pigs would have become stuck within. He despaired of his ability to stalk close enough to make a kill with his charred spear points. Why hadn’t he asked his mother to steal him some flint spearheads? He thought back to his exploration of the ravine the previous afternoon. There was a narrow point in Cold Springs Ravine. Could he choke it with brush? He shook his head at the sheer volume of material it would require. He didn’t even have a decent hand ax!

  As they neared the campsite, Pell nearly stepped on a rabbit that had been frozen right there in plain sight. It rocketed away and into the brush. He and Wolf gave short pursuit, but to no avail as the rabbit had disappeared into dense brambles where they couldn’t follow. Pell peered into the brambles. He mused that the little tunnel where the rabbit had disappeared into the brambles resembled, on a smaller scale, the tunnel where he and Wolf had captured their boar.

  As they completed their journey back to their camp, Pell’s thoughts drifted repeatedly back to the little tunnel in the brambles. His mind envisioned blocking the tunnel in the brambles at arms depth and then rigging a one way passage into the tunnel with sharpened twigs—a miniature version of his boar trap. Then he thought of the rabbit he had caught with the noose. He became more and more excited over the prospect of getting more meat it this fashion. He resolved to try making both kinds of traps the next morning.

  Back at the camp he steeled himself to eat spoiling meat. He built up the banked fire first, then got the boar haunch down from its shelf in the back. He came out coughing and hacking from all the smoke up in the shelf area. To his dismay the meat was dark with exposure to all the smoke! He wouldn’t even have spoiled meat to eat; the smoke had ruined it completely!

  Chagrined, he stared at the blackened haunch. His stomach rumbled with the anticipation of the first of many days of hunger. Perhaps only the outer layers had been ruined? He cut into it. The outer layers had a hard crusty, almost cooked consistency. The depths were spoiling but might still be edible. He cut off a strip and sat down to eat. As he expected the deep meat tasted badly, to his immense surprise the more superficial meat tasted much better, despite the taste of the smoke! In fact as he chewed he realized with some surprise that he liked the flavor the smoke had given the meat. Perhaps it wasn’t actually good meat, but the taste of the smoke at least covered the taste of it where it was rotting.

  In any case if the meat on the surface tasted better where the smoke had gotten to it, he realized he could make more surface. He cut the rest of the haunch up into strips and took it up to the smoky little shelf in the back of the overhang.
He laid the strips of meat out over some sticks so that the smoke could get to all sides of it.

  The next morning he ate more smoky meat and set out to build the traps he had been excitedly thinking about until late in the evening. As he walked, he kept an eye out for edible vegetables, as he craved something besides meat. He found some young onions sprouting and pulled them up. The bulbs were quite small as yet but he ate much of the green part as well. Soon his mouth tasted foul, but the onions were a welcome change from the all meat diet he’d been eating. Besides, it was commonly known that people who only ate meat became sick. He picked more onion sprouts to take home for his evening meal. Bushes of many types were beginning to flower. He thought that some of the flowering bushes would have berries eventually, but that didn’t help much at present. He pulled up a variety of other plants as he walked along, looking for ones with edible roots. He did find one that had a bulbous portion. He wiped it clean and took a bite. It was very tough but chewing it did release some sweet fluids. This made him think it might be edible. He found a few more of the same type and chewed on them as well. He wasn’t sure whether they were different tubers than the women gathered or whether it was simply too early in the season for them to have developed much storage in their roots. Perhaps if they were boiled? He collected some of the tubers to take back to his shelter as well.

  He stopped at several thickets. Searching around their bases, he found holes where tracks showed that small animals traveled in and out. When he found a hole in the brambles that seemed to have impenetrably thick walls, he blocked it off with a stone that he placed as far into the little tunnel as he could reach. Then he sat down with his knife and sharpened sticks. These he worked into the opening so that the points aimed inward, allowing passage into the tunnel, but blocking passage back out. He became quite excited about his design when his own hand got stuck while reaching in to adjust the sticks.

  When he found openings that didn’t resemble tight tunnels—and most of them didn’t— he made a noose from one of his thongs and tied the other end firmly to a stout branch. Then he carefully suspended the loop within the opening from small twigs. The top of the noose went at the top of the opening and the bottom of the loop he suspended across the opening about half way up. This he envisioned would catch below the animal’s neck. He worried that the animals would stop upon seeing the thong hanging across the opening. If they stopped to smell it and smelled Pell’s scent they might not enter. If only he could be chasing them so that they would run into their tunnels so fast they couldn’t investigate them! But he wouldn’t be able to chase a rabbit into its tunnel very often. While working on placing one thong, he got it tangled in the brush. When he pulled it out it had leaves twisted about it. Aha! He twisted grass leaves about the most visible part of the thong where it hung across the entrance. As he got up to leave he saw some rabbit droppings and had another idea. Hunters often smeared themselves with herbivore dung before hunting to hide their scent. He’d seen wolves doing the same thing by rolling in droppings. He took some fresh rabbit pellets back to the trap, smeared them on the thong and then rewrapped it with grass. As he walked he smeared the rest of his thongs with rabbit dung.

  He placed about ten traps that morning and then went back to work on improving his shelter. As he neared his campsite Ginja began a rumbling growl. Oh no! Pell thought, another lion? To his consternation, when he carefully arrived in view of the little outcropping underneath which he had set up, he saw people squatting in front of his fire! They had even built his fire up. His stomach sank as he wondered if they had stolen his remaining meager possessions. He didn’t even contemplate the possibility of fighting anyone for what was his. After losing many fights to Denit, he would never consider the possibility that he might win such a physical contest. Especially against more than one opponent and he saw at least two near his fire. He stole closer, hoping to observe without being seen. Suddenly and with great dismay he recognized that the brawny, hairy individual nearest the fire was Tando. Tando’s arm, still deformed, hung out over his knee in front of him, as if to taunt Pell, “Look at what you have done!”

  Had they come to take revenge?

  Then he recognized that the person further back under the overhang was his mother Donte. She seemed to have heard something and moved out into the light, peering about. She saw Pell and called out to him. “Pell, come on down. Tando wants to see if you can fix his arm.”

  Pell slowly walked down to the campsite. Distantly he noted the wolf slinking away into the forest. He was trembling with reaction. Might he be able to right his wrong? Conversely, the likelihood his being able to fix Tando’s arm seemed remote. It was after all, much larger than a finger or a rabbit bone.

  The pall of his situation subdued Pell’s reunion with Donte. Pell had the feeling that she saw his impending doom clearly. Though she saw no realistic chance of avoiding it she was grasping at straws and so had brought Tando here. She told him that the tribe was on its way to its summer campsite. Producing one bright point in a litany of bad omens, Tando told Pell that Gontra had admitted to him that Pell had been the one who fixed his finger. Tando had come to Donte asking if she knew where Pell had gone. When he realized that it was close to their route, he had asked if she would go with him to find Pell. Though she didn’t come out and say it, Pell could tell that even Donte was dubious at best regarding Pell’s claim to have reduced Gontra’s finger. This even after Gontra’s admission. Pell realized then just how preposterous his claim must seem. He found it surprising himself that Tando had decided to seek him out. Tando must be desperate as well. Donte and Tando had brought a little meat for Pell but, for fear of infuriating Pont, had not told the rest of the tribe where they were going.

  One look at Tando’s face told Pell that Tando was torn between viewing Pell as evil incarnate for having destroyed his life and considering him as a possible savior. Pell had been staring at Tando’s arm from across the campfire and finally Tando held it out and exclaimed, “Spirits! What are you waiting for? Come on now, give it a try!”

  Pell swallowed, “Let me look at it first.” He moved around the fire to examine it. The break was about two fingerbreadths proximal to the wrist and had produced an angulation in the direction of the back of his hand. There was considerable swelling about the break but Pell had a sense that the bones were shifted or displaced toward the back of the hand and that they were overlapped to make the arm shorter.

  He gently probed it with his fingertips and Tando immediately reacted, pulling away, “Just fix it, you ginja fool, I don’t need you to poke it!”

  Pell realized with some surprise that Tando was more frightened than he was. “Tando,” he said as calmly as he could, “I must feel it to try to understand how it’s broken and therefore how I might possibly try to put it back in place. I’ve fixed two fingers with my trick but I don’t know whether it’ll even work for a wrist. I’ll try if you wish, but just fixing fingers caused a lot of pain, it’s bound to hurt even more trying to fix your arm.”

  Tando seemed surprised. However, he appeared to be reassured, by Pell’s calm demeanor. “Yeah, well Pont’s jerking on it almost killed me, so I suppose that I’m already aware that it’s going to hurt. OK, do what you can.” He held out his arm and turned his eyes away, gritting his teeth

  “Wait. Do you have any hemp to chew for the pain?”

  “No.”

  Donte stood up. “I saw some hemp growing on the sunny side of the ravine. It’s down a ways. I’ll get some and be right back.” She started off down the canyon, seemingly relieved to have something constructive to do.

  Pell sat down and surreptitiously began palpating his own arm in the area of the wrist where Tando’s was deformed. As opposed to the two dislocated fingers that Pell had reduced so far, he soon recognized that Tando’s arm was deformed in an area where there must not be a joint. At least when he felt his own arm in that area, just proximal to the wrist, it felt solid without even a hint of the flexibility provided by
a joint. This must be bone in this area, he thought, not a joint. Tando must have broken the bone, whereas I “broke” or dislocated the joint in my finger. Pell wondered a moment whether the same trick of bending it back would work for a broken bone like it did for a dislocated joint— then he remembered that it worked in the rabbit’s broken leg. But were rabbits different than people? He’d just as well try, he decided.

  Donte arrived back with some hemp while Pell was still contemplating the problem. His mind seemed to alternate from considering the complexity of Tando’s condition, to shrinking back from the impossibility of the entire situation. Tando began chewing and after a while he began to look glassy eyed. Pell got him to walk over to the stream. He had him lie down and put his arm in the icy water. Tando immediately pulled the limb back out of the water, protesting bitterly about the cold. Thinking of the effect that his calm tone of voice had had before, Pell spoke in a soothing tone and reminded Tando of how cold makes it hard to feel your fingers. He told Tando that he was sure the cold temperature had helped with the pain when he reduced his own and Gontra’s fingers. Pell continued calmly reassuring him and Tando eventually put the arm back in the stream, lying on his back with his other arm over his eyes.

  Pell waited until Tando had resumed his drunken expression then lifted the arm out of the water to look at it. It was pale and cool. Pell put it back in the water and then, taking a deep breath, stepped into the icy water himself, positioning himself over Tando’s arm and trying to picture how best to grasp the wrist. He lifted it out of the water and bent it back as he had bent the fingers and the rabbit leg back. It was too big and the water made it too slippery! He couldn’t pull it out to length! Tando immediately started to struggle and the arm slipped out of Pell’s grasp. In a slurred tone Tando began berating him—for breaking his arm in the first place, for putting it in the cold water, for jerking painfully on it, for not getting it straight, for ruining his life, for killing him slowly, for being a worthless ginja, outcast, lowlife. Pell cringed, heart pounding, wanting nothing more than to jump up and run away.