“Why don’t you let him speak for himself?” I wanted to feel this guy out.
“Hey…, they call me Grit. I come from Louisiana. It’s all gone.”
I shook his hand, wiped his sweat on my pant leg, and asked, “Are you all alone?”
“I’ve always been alone.”
“Well come eat and we can talk.” Our last two additions had contributed to our group, and I could see no reason why another mouth to feed would hamper our progress. It would lessen the workload on the rest of us.
We offered him the broth and a couple pieces of jerky; we could spare no more.
He ate without speaking. He tilted the bowl and drank without using the spoon. The soup was very hot. His first mouthful spilled out from his lips. He continued to chug, spilling half. The noises he made resembled a dog eating.
When he finished, I asked again, “So how have you been living all alone?”
“House to house. There’s always some cans if you look hard enough.” His beard held another five percent of his supper. “I found a turtle once; fucker bit me so I smashed it on the road till I killed it.” With nothing more to eat, our guest began surveying the surroundings. He looked around in jerky movements. Staring at each of us individually, making everyone equally nervous.
Grit began glaring at the women. “Who’s this?” he asked, putting me back on full alert. Although leery of his inquisitiveness, I began to introduce everyone, pointing to each. “This is my wife Beth, and Tara. This is Sarah and Eve. This is Maria and Emanuel. This is Marcos,” I said as I rubbed the young boy’s head. “You’ve already met Jorge and Pete.” I changed the subject to distract him from the women. “Have you seen any area that hasn’t been burned, or maybe burned less?”
“No,” he said. “No…” He started to choke and gasp for air. This went on for a minute or so before he could answer clearly. “No, it’s all the same everywhere. What wasn’t flooded in Louisiana burned.” Grit was looking at one of the torches we’d made, as he continued to cough and hack, spitting repeatedly. “This is the first light I’ve seen except for the few times that the sun came out, or lightning.”
“You mean you haven’t even been keeping fires? How did you stay warm when it was cold?” Sarah asked.
“I’ve been cold a lot!” he said. “I stayed in a big boat about five miles from the ocean. Again he coughed and spit up a disgusting bunch of bile. “I stayed there for about six months. I still feel like I’m walking sideways.”
“Is there any organization at all anywhere?” Beth asked.
“Every time I went into a city, they tried to kill me. People from small towns moved to the cities. The food ran out early. Every city I’ve been to has animals there now, and I don‘t mean the ones with four legs. You can’t deal with ’em. All they want to do is boss you around, threaten you. Don’t care what you think ’bout your life. You mean food to them. Lotta killin’, lotta just plain dying. These houses in the country haven’t been picked over.” He picked his nose. “Where can I get some sleep?”
Surprised at his abruptness I answered, “Yea…um… you can sleep over there next to the wall, near that old tank, if you want to.
He shuffled over to the tank, cleaned a clear spot on the blackened cement and, without something to soften his bed, or for under his head, he lay down, not to speak again.
Chapter 38
Wrong Turns
While he was sleeping we discussed whether we should accept another into our group. We all felt that we must. Though strange, Grit was a human too, and he could contribute his share of work.
In the morning we woke to a sky brighter than any so far, though still darker than twilight. Grit was slow to get moving, but eventually followed us. Jorge took the lead to the new shelter he’d found. Soon it was obvious that he was lost. In the excitement of finding Grit, he failed to mark his back trail. Grit was no help at all. His suggestions only made Jorge more confused.
Now we were scouting as we went. Jorge’s two days of preparation might as well not have happened. The five traps he set in the new location were lost.
We all walked along a riverbank, taking breaks when feeder streams would appear. The group would sit and wait for one of the men to explore the narrow waterway. That was where the swamps would be found. The whole exploratory process usually took an hour or so. If there was nothing promising found, then we’d move up river a little farther.
This waiting time was usually spent building a fire, and supper would be ready for the return of the scout. Only this time we didn’t have anything to eat.
It was Pete’s turn to take the long walk upstream.
Marcos and I were looking for crayfish under rocks in the river to no avail. We finally conceded and started looking for turtles on the banks, with the same results.
The wait for Pete’s return this time was longer than usual. We started to worry about him. Pete was no wimp; he could take care of himself. Something must have happened. Did he fall and break a leg, have a heart attack, or become the victim of some unimaginable fate? We decided to wait a little longer, and if there was still no sign, then Jorge and I would venture off to find him. It would be easy to track him along the water’s edge amidst the muddy banks.
I was very apprehensive about leaving Grit alone with the rest. I hadn’t had much chance to get to know him. He was very quiet, and hadn’t given much in the way of anything, including his share of the work. He was content to sit by the fire and watch everyone else give more than their share.
I needed Jorge. We knew how the other worked. We could search two directions at the same time, and if we lost the trail we could find each other again. Marcos wouldn’t have been much help if we had to carry Pete back. He was still just a kid.
I kissed Beth. “Wait here until we come back. We’ll be back with him. I guarantee it,” I assured Sarah.
Beth’s grasp on my arm tightened. “I should be going with you, Nick. What if he needs medical attention?”
She was right. And one more to carry him would be better.
“Grit, we’re going to find Pete,” I said. “You stay here with everyone else and don’t do anything!”
Beth mumbled under breath, “That’s what he’s good at.”
“Don’t bother looking for food or anything, just keep the group together right here. Especially Marcos, he’ll want to wander off and look for tracks. We’ll be back before you know it.”
The features in Grit’s face became clearer and more pockmarked than I had imagined. The sun had come out.
All talking ceased and we just stared at the sun, shielding our eyes from its beautiful brilliance. It stayed out for about a minute. Its brief but powerful performances were always announced by a standing ovation accompanied with generous amounts of cheering and clapping. Then it would go in again. Only to be followed by immediate silence and depression.
Once the show was over, it was as if it never happened. “Well let’s go get him,” I said.
Walking upstream, Marcos met me to say good-bye. I whispered, “Watch that Grit guy. Keep everyone safe. And don’t wander off. Keep in sight, okay? We’ll be back soon.”
“Okay, Nick. Can I get a torch and look for tracks?” he asked with hope in his voice.
“No, I told you to keep close to the others and watch the new guy.”
“Okay, Nick.” I could tell he was bored already, but I felt that I could count on him more than Grit.
Beth, Jorge and I left our group with a great deal of apprehension.
Following Pete’s tracks could have been accomplished by Marcos with one eye shut. He left a deep track.
Walking became effortless when the river bottom turned to flat rock. Unfortunately this ease of walking was the reason that Pete took the same route. We had lost his track.
Jorge and I searched each side of the river. Beth walked down the middle with the torch. Neither I, nor Jorge could see well enough to be sure we hadn’t missed a footprint.
“How much fart
her are we going to go? We could have walked by him.” Beth was worried about him being injured.
“We’re going to keep going upstream as long as this rock continues. When we get to the end of it we should find his tracks where he climbed out of the water.” I wasn’t so sure that we would find his track again. He could have turned off anywhere, and we could have missed it.
We continued upstream until we came upon another stream feeding the one we were in. We searched around the sandy bank for his prints but came up empty. We moved on upstream to another brook, not five hundred yards past the first.
“There!” We all said simultaneously. The indentations made by his enormous heel were unmistakable.
We followed his tracks for what seemed miles. His strides were two of mine and three of Beth’s. We persevered, when suddenly it appeared that Pete headed off into the woods, or what was left of it.
His tracks were again simple to follow. The ground had nothing but a crusty layer of burnt dead moss.
I couldn’t understand why Pete would leave the water. It was the only way back to our party since we didn’t have a compass, and there were no road signs to point the way.
Our torch was getting low and we hadn’t brought material to make another.
Finally we came back to the river where the water passed over the flat rock.
“He’s headed back home, he’s okay.” We were overjoyed at the discovery. We hastened our pace, still being as cautious as possible. We didn’t need to have Pete carry one of us out on a rescue mission.
We finally reached the main river and immediately headed over to the fire.
Seeing our torch Pete ran over to greet us. “Nick, I’m sorry I got lost. I thought I could go down and catch the other stream, but I got turned around.” He threw up his hands. “Never mind that. We’ve got other problems.”
Chapter 39
The Chase
I instinctively surveyed the area around the fire and did a head count. One was missing. “Grit!”
“Yep, he was the scum that we thought he was,” Pete said.
“What did he do?” I asked, preparing myself for the worse. We didn’t need this shit.
“He attacked Maria when she was breast feeding Emanuel. The baby’s fine, so’s Maria…” before he could continue the rest of his briefing, Jorge busted past both Pete and me, knocking Pete to the ground.
“Maria! Maria!” Weeping as he ran, the rest of his words were inaudible.
“Where is the scrawny bastard?” I wondered how to hell we’d deal with this. We had no laws, no rules. This was the first reason we had to need them.
Pete gave what I thought was a little laugh. “You want to hear the best part?”
I waited for him to go on without answering the rhetorical question, but he didn’t. “What?” I said impatiently.
“Marcos caught him when he first started assaulting Maria, took out his little spear, and stuck it right in him. Hit him first time. The weirdo ran off upstream and hasn’t come back.” Pete was still kind of laughing.
“Did he rape her or what? Is she okay?” I was getting pissed at his lack of sensitivity.
“Oh, she’s fine. She said he still had all his clothes on.” Again it was obvious that Pete didn’t see the severity of the situation.
“Where’s Marcos?”
“He’s over by the girls watching the other two kids. He wanted to go track that asshole, but Sarah wouldn’t let him. She can be a hard ass sometimes, ya’ know?” He laughed again.
“So now our biggest problem isn’t that we don’t have a shelter prepared for the night. It’s not that we have no food. It’s that we have a wounded dirt bag upstream, along the path that we planned to take.”
Once Maria calmed down, we discussed our options as a group. We all felt that he was a danger, but we had to stay on our course, the river would lead us to food.
We decided to keep to our plan and follow the water. If we did confront him again, Pete, Jorge and I would deal with him. As much as Marcos wanted to, he was still just a boy.
We had no shelter and no food, and there was danger ahead, but we trudged through the dark. We came upon the same bedrock in the river that we had found while looking for Pete. Walking on the flat stone beneath our feet was a welcome respite from the constant danger of twisting an ankle on the slippery rocks.
The flat rock seemed to go on forever. We walked in the ankle deep water, as tepid as a summer’s rain coming down the rain gutters during a hot afternoon’s cloudburst. It was quiet except for the constant sound of insects, to which we became desensitized. All the children were sleeping in the knapsacks that Maria had crafted. Marcos followed behind Pete, Jorge, and me. He was looking for Grit’s tracks. He carried his own torch, with his nose down to the ground, like a bloodhound on a hot trail.
We traveled in this formation for hours, silent, stopping when one of our group needed a rest. Everyone called a rest stop at one time or the other, except for Marcos.
At one of our more frequent rest stops Marcos cried out, “What’s this? Nick, come here. There’s something on this root.” The excitement in his voice made me think it was more than a muskrat track.
Pete, Jorge, and I ran over to the riverbank to where Marcos was kneeling. “What did you find?”
“It’s got blood on it.” Marcos said as he poked at something with his other spear.
“Don’t touch it!” Beth yelled out, running behind.
Pete and Jorge got to the bank sooner than I did. They took the tracking pose and knelt down to investigate Marcos’ find.
“He hit him harder than we thought. That little thing packs a wallop.” Again Pete had a tone to his voice that pointed more to jocularity than to the seriousness the situation deserved.
I had to look twice because of the poor light. I took Marcos’ spear and reached out to poke at the find myself. Once I moved the object, it became clear that it was a piece of intestine. It had to have come from Grit. Marcos’ spear had hit him hard enough to eviscerate him to the point that the bowels were catching on roots as he crawled along the riverbank. My past hunting experiences told me we would find him dead within a day.
Marcos continued his tracking duties. We found very little blood after we found the guts, a couple of more drops but then it ran out. We weren’t sure if he had crawled onto the land and died, or maybe we walked right by his body. We gave up looking for him or fearing that he might show up. I was sure he was dead somewhere.
Pete couldn’t let it go. “Well, I guess Nick will have to let you vote along with the rest of us now that you’re a man, hey Marcos?”
“Is that true, Nick? Am I a man now, Nick?” His apparent need for my approval would have been uncomfortable to me in days gone past. Now it was something I cherished and I felt that I could finally teach a youngster something he would use and listen to. All the advice I had given every teenager before, when they had all the advantages of civilized life, had been wasted. Not one of them listened, or those that did, refused to heed it. I did have an unfair advantage on this one. If he didn’t listen, he wouldn’t live very long, though he was doing quite well so far.
Circumnavigating slow-moving water we came upon one of Grit’s jackets. It was ripped and covered with blood.
“Marcos’ atlatl couldn’t do this,” Beth said holding up the bloody garment.
Chapter 40
Predators
After several days our worries about coming across Grit diminished. We felt safe sending a scout ahead to find shelter, as long as he marked his trail so we didn’t lose anyone again.
Jorge led us to a horse trailer only twenty feet from a slow moving river. The roof was intact and the windows could be covered with pelts to keep the wind out. The nights spent in the trailer would be cramped with all of us in there at the same time, but we’d grown accustomed to sleeping huddled together. A small beach along the river would make a nice place for the children to play. Cattail stubs lined the small bay on each side.
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br /> While gathering the roots, Beth found a small stream feeding the river. “There’s a creek just over the hill. The water is moving pretty fast over gravel. I tasted it and I think it should be okay as it is.”
Normally we’d boil the water before we filled the containers, but Beth’s judgment was seldom questioned. We filled the empty canteens with unpurified water, and settled in for the night.
I was jarred out of sleep by the sound of Beth throwing up outside the trailer. The water wasn’t as good as she’d predicted. I got up, careful not to wake the rest. “Guess who’s got beaver fever now!”
She heaved again, even louder than the previous round.
“Do you have the diarrhea yet?” I asked—a bit of revenge disguised as an attempt to prove I cared. My attempt at humor was poorly timed.
Just before her next episode she managed to force out, “Shut up!” The poor girl started to puke again. The guttural sounds were loud enough to wake the others.
She looked up with drool running down her chin. “It’s not beaver fever, dumb ass.” Now she started with dry heaves. Nothing came out.
I waited till the worst was over to speak. “Sure it is. You’ve got the same symptoms I had. I don’t need to be a nurse to figure that out. Wait till the diarrhea kicks in.” A hand touched my shoulder. I turned to see Sarah.
“Nick, it’s not beaver fever. She’s pregnant.”
I looked at Beth who was looking up at me with spittle dripping.
“You can’t be,” I said. “You have that implant. You’ll be fine in a couple of days. Dump out the canteens. Boil the hell out of that water and the canteens too. Make sure you drink a lot of good water today.”
“It’s not the water, Nick.” Maria said, as she touched my other shoulder, confirming Sarah’s statement.
“I thought you were too old for this anymore.”
Another hand caressed the back of my head. It was Pete. “We’ve been able to find enough to eat so far. She can breast feed like Maria. Things will work out.”
The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth Page 18
