When you act like a fool, when you are rude and have no manners, people do not want to share with you. They would prefer to feed you to the sharks. You people are no longer of the Green Turtle Clan. You do not respect its elders or their way of doing things. That is all right. Minds change. Circumstances change. Clans change. This is all part of life.
We will be leaving this valley in two days–without you. You are no longer welcome to travel with me or my people. If you wish to settle down in this comfortable valley, do it! If not, leave! You are no better than Flat Heads, always causing trouble and only thinking of yourselves!
Wait, wait, let me finish!
When Babeck is able to speak, ask him if he knows where the clan’s treasure is. The ivory relics and pretty things, the bag of necklaces? Did you think we would leave them where you could find them? Har-de-har! The treasure is buried high in the hills, in a hidden spot. Tomorrow, when the sun is directly overhead, if you behave yourselves, we will take you to this place. Even you may come, Babeck. We will split the treasure evenly and leave the next day. Good night!
With that, Gray Beard threw another handful of pine cones in the fire, pulled his spear from the dying hunter’s side, and strode to his personal cave.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TRANSMISSION:
Kaikane: “There he goes again. Man. You think he does that for fun?”
Duarte: “I’m pretty sure sharks don’t understand the concept of fun. You’re transferring human emotions onto an eating, swimming machine.”
Kaikane: “Animals can too have fun, we see it all the time. That seal seemed to be enjoying himself until–”
Duarte: “Until he was flying through the air in two bloody halves. Sure, mammals play, and maybe also some birds, crows seem to enjoy a good prank, but I don’t think sharks are capable of that level of thought.”
Kaikane: “Why does he launch those seals so high in the air then? Son of a bitch almost gets his whole body out of the water, like a whale breaching. He doesn’t need to do it, none of the other sharks rocket up like that. Why him?”
Duarte: “It must be a learned behavior, a hunting technique this shark picked up along the way. Obviously, it serves him well. He is the biggest shark around.”
Kaikane: “That monster gives me the creeps. What if he blasted up through this deck?”
Duarte: “He hasn’t bothered us yet. The kayaks’ anti-predator systems seem to be working fine.”
Kaikane: “Heads up to your left. Here comes another one of those damn eagles.”
Duarte: “My goodness, this is a large one. Its wings must be 15 feet across.”
Kaikane: “At least. What’s he after?”
Duarte: “There’s your answer, a green sea turtle.”
Kaikane: “He’ll never lift that turtle, it must weigh 300 pounds. No fucking way!”
Duarte: “What incredible strength.”
Kaikane: “Strong enough to carry either you or me away.”
Duarte: “You are just full of jolly thoughts today.”
Kaikane: “Noticed that, did ya? I can’t shake this feeling that something is going to happen. Something bad.”
Duarte: “Do you think these feelings have anything to do with the memories of your first wife? You said it yourself last night, you and Doreen spent a lot of time visiting her doctors in New Gibraltar. I’m sure seeing the famed ‘Rock’ conjured up some anxiety.”
Kaikane: “I don’t think it’s that. Maybe it’s these waters. I’ve never seen so much sea life on the move. All the whales and schools of tuna, birds and squid. The smells, the sounds, they all make me feel, I don’t know, small.”
Duarte: “This bounty overwhelms you? It’s not that much different than Nice. Why now?”
Kaikane: “I’ve been thinking back to how it used to be. I tried to fish here. The waters were dead. We’d dive all the way around Gibraltar Island, explore the old city ruins and military installations and not see one fish. No sponges, no anemone, nothing. I think about Hawaii, the waters where I grew up had a few fish, not many. Some new kinds of warm-water coral were doing pretty good. This is how it must have been back in the day, back before we over-fished the reefs and oceans to death. It just makes me sad, that’s all.”
From the log of Paul Kaikane
Recreation Specialist
The boss has been bugging me to write in this journal I doubt anyone will ever read. In my mood, I can’t help but wonder, what’s the point? Maria types and dictates enough for both of us. With so many new plants and animals in this kooky environment, she has been pushing herself hard. No detail is too small as she tries to wrap things up before we sail north. These Neanderthal, one family in particular, have really crawled under her skin. I think maybe the botanist in her feels guilty about shirking her time with the plants. I don’t blame her one bit. The Neanderthal are a helluva lot more entertaining than skinny, 100-foot-tall paperbark trees and purple algae.
On this moonlit winter night, the love of my life sits cross-legged on a bed of pine needles, hunched over her computer as she bangs out another report. Her long hair is pulled back into a bushy ponytail tied with a string of shells and ivory discs we made together. Two bright yellow feathers are tucked into the ponytail and they look pretty. My flat white rival, the computer, rests on a square stone, an altar, which has served as Maria’s desk for the past week.
We have pitched camp on the back side of one of the uninhabited islands off the coast of Gibraltar, less than a mile from Europa Point, or what we called it back in the day, the “Island of Gibraltar.” This is the first place we have traveled in the Pleistocene where I have actual memories of how things will be in the 2200s. It’s unsettling.
The long skinny island I remember is now part of the mainland, a rocky hill rising up out of the forest a good quarter mile inland. Instead of sheer sea cliffs, there are broad white sand beaches, flat marshes and rocky areas covered with seal, penguin and sea lion. Maria checked out topographical maps and depth charts in her computer and figures sea levels are more than 200 feet lower now than they were when we made the jump. Back in those days, I visited New Gibraltar a few times. It’s where Doreen and I spent two weeks finding out what we already knew, the Spanish doctors could do nothing for her cancer. Afterwards, I competed in a few air-surfing events, flying around the island.
Now I see why Maria and Sal are disappointed when places turn out to be so dang different than they were before the jump. I guess we’re all looking for a touchstone to our past, the future. It’s impossible, but that doesn’t keep us from trying. Every time we hike inland in Gibraltar, I can’t stop studying the terrain to figure out where the hospital will be. I’ve found the ridgeline of our hotel. I recognize the view. This place has dredged up some pretty fucked-up memories.
The “Rock” looks pretty much how it will be, with its sheer gray cliffs and rounded top. But everything else is missing–the cargo ships and ferries, the drowned buildings topped by wind turbines and solar arrays. There are no stacked lines of air cars and trucks flying the Africa F-Path, or buildings covering every inland hill as far as the eye can see. No first wife. They’re all gone. Or, have yet to be. It makes my head spin.
Keeping busy helps, so I spend most of my free time squaring away our sails, making more rigging, trying new ways to make our little catamaran more seaworthy. I’m not sure what to expect, but know the 1,200 miles of Atlantic we’re going to sail will not be as gentle or friendly as the Mediterranean has been these last couple months.
We had an easy downwind run to Gibraltar. Steady winds out of the northeast carried our cat down the coast, through a massive incoming tide of migrating whales, dolphin and a thousand other kinds of animals headed into the Med for winter. Maria spotted the Rock in mid-afternoon and we watched it grow bigger as I milked as much sail speed as I could to get there before dark. The setting sun lit the tree-covered hill in yellow light as we cruised past about a mile offshore. Looking for a safe place to anchor, I circled
a few islands and they all scanned OK, no men or dangerous beasts. We settled on a pear-shaped clump of trees and sand about a half mile long. Its white sand beaches and freshwater spring sold us on the place.
The spring feeds a three-foot-wide creek that tumbles down the rocks to a crushed-shell beach inside a cove that faces away from the mainland. We beached the sailboat in time to torch-fish a couple fat lobsters and cook them over a driftwood fire.
The next morning, we took the whole boat apart. Some of the lines securing the deck to the kayaks had become so tight we had to cut them, but most of our cordage was salvaged. My goal is to make 200 more feet of rope before we leave. This island has three groves of palms not too different from coconuts. I have had no trouble finding nuts to make my sennit. The problem is finding the time and energy.
Maria insists we spend most of our days exploring, collecting data, sneaking around spying on the natives. They live in hundreds of caves in the hillsides and dunes, in campsites on the beaches and sheltered under the canopy of trees. We paddle our kayaks to shore before dawn and usually don’t head back to the island until after sunset. We do our best to leave no tracks, but there are so many Neanderthal here there is no way we could hide without the jumpsuits. We spend all our time on the mainland invisible, and while wearing a suit is not my favorite thing to do, I’m kinda getting used to it. Kinda.
The Neanderthal do most of their hunting and gathering right along the coast where there is a never-ending supply of food, and more driftwood than they’ll ever burn. It was our second or third day studying the local population when we happened to spot a strong young dude dragging two seals through the dunes. “Let’s follow him,” Maria said.
Thick with fur and blubber, the seals must have weighed 300 pounds each, but the guy never stopped to rest as he skirted the edge of a salt marsh and then turned inland to follow a well-worn path to the mouth of a sandstone cave tucked into the dunes. A pair of women, one a lot older than the other, was nearby, picking berries from bushes growing along a creek. When the dude arrived, they looked up briefly, gave him grunts of welcome, then turned back to gathering.
I would say the guy is about 18 or 20 years old. It’s hard to tell with Neanderthal. Although he was bigger than average size, there was something youthful, almost childlike in the way he carried himself. “I’m going to call him Hercules,” Maria said over the com line. She does that, hangs nicknames on people and things she studies. Says it helps her keep them straight in her notes. Usually, I have no idea where she comes up with these names, but this one was easy. The guy bulged with muscles. He had an honest face, like somebody who could be the son of a god.
Hercules left the seals by the mouth of the cave, next to what I thought was a pile of furs, and then wandered over to the edge of the brook to lie on his hairy belly and take a long drink of water. The pile of furs turned out to be a Neanderthal man who had been curled up taking an afternoon nap. He stood and stretched his long, powerful arms over his head, waited for Hercules to return from his drink, and then the two men worked together to use stone flakes to split a seal down its gut from head to tail. Hercules did all the pulling and lifting, while the other guy, who looked like he might be old enough to be his father, scratched with a flint to make the cuts.
Though their smoky fire burned nearby, the family didn’t bother to cook any part of the seal as they spent the rest of the day reducing the animal to skin and cracked bones. We sat up in the berries and watched them nap and eat, do a few chores, nap, eat and occasionally pick fleas from each other’s wiry hairs.
“So what have you named the others?” I asked.
“We’ll call the old lady ‘Grammy,’” she said. “I think she is Hercules’ grandmother.”
“And the other two?”
“Bette and Beno.”
“Hercules and Grammy I get. Where’d you come up with those other names?”
“We had neighbors when I was growing up. Bette and Beno. They were kind to me.”
I suppose I should end this journal entry with a conclusion or by wrapping things up, but I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. I’ll try to do better next time.
TRANSMISSION:
Duarte: “What shall we have for dinner tonight?”
Kaikane: “Thought I’d troll for a couple on the way back.”
Duarte: “I’m weary of baked fish. How about duck?”
Kaikane: “We won’t have time to cook a duck tonight, will we? It’s gonna be two hours after dark by the time we paddle back to camp.”
Duarte: “Suppose so. It was difficult to leave Grammy and her family today. I wish we had the fixings for proper bouillabaisse.”
Kaikane: “Me too, but we don’t have time for that either. You know what I’ve been craving?”
Duarte: “What?”
Kaikane: “Frog legs.”
Duarte: “Hmmm, oh well, why not? We can spear a few on the outer marsh on our way back.”
Kaikane: “That’s what I was thinking. Besides, days are getting colder, won’t be seeing frogs much longer.”
Duarte: “Do you remember the first time we ate frog legs together?”
Kaikane: “How could I forget? It was after the tsunamis sunk the ship and crew. We finally talked Jones into letting us build a fire.”
Duarte: “Those days after the disaster seem like a hazy dream. One thing I do remember clearly, is being so incredibly hungry that frog legs never tasted so good. Amid all the swirling, overwhelming feelings of tragedy and loss, all the fear and uncertainty of those crazy days, that hot meal was like a ray of hope.”
Kaikane: “Ever wonder how things would’ve been if everybody survived?”
Duarte: “Not as much as I used to.”
Kaikane: “We’ve come a long way in a year and a half.”
Duarte: “Sure have.”
From the log of Maria Duarte
Chief Botanist
Having completed my 42nd report on the flora and fauna of Gibraltar, as well as a preliminary dissertation on the language and habits of Neanderthal family unit #04G2D, I feel as if an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Thus far, I have documented 196 unique types of plants, all very different than anything we have yet seen. As to be expected, there are also strange new insects and animals, both large and small, to catalog. There is so much to see, so much to record, and yet all must be weighed against our deadline to set sail northward. Neither one of us wants to draw the ire of Gray Beard by arriving a month late. Paul is particularly anxious to leave this place.
Earlier this week, he asked when I planned to pull my notes together. I replied that I would do it on the deck of the boat as we sailed north. He nearly had a fit. “I keep telling you, it will be too rough,” he shouted, turning a frustrated circle, then grabbing his fishing line and retreating to a rocky point to dip for orange cod.
Upon his return 37 minutes later, carrying a quartet of foot-long fish hanging from a pine limb stringer, Paul calmly suggested we take a few days off from gathering data, and I calmly agreed. My husband has been out of sorts here in Gibraltar. Though he is not one to complain, by the way he mopes it is easy to see something is bothering him. He had a premonition upon our arrival here, a feeling that misfortune will befall us, but I can’t help wondering (jealous me) if the bad thing is the cancer that strikes his beloved Doreen in 32,000 years. Somewhere up in those hills they will find her tumor and also discover she has no hope to beat it. He denies anything is wrong. I know better than to push the issue for fear I will say the wrong thing.
This working vacation on our little island has helped return a bit of the smile that usually graces Paul’s handsome face. He putters on projects for the boat–lately turning coconut husks into rope and pandanus leaves into another spare sail. I type reports or dictate notes into my helmet. When the afternoon sun warms our side of the island, Paul and I take a mandatory hour-long break lying amid the sand and shells of the beach. Down low, out of the chill wind, we soak in the
sunshine and watch the clouds and birds float overhead. Sometimes we nap and sometimes we talk about what is on our mind. I do about 80 percent of the talking, bouncing my ideas and theories off Paul, and to his credit, he listens about 75 percent of the time.
Once it is dark enough to hide the smoke of our fire from prying eyes on the mainland, we dig up the coals of the previous night’s blaze and huff and puff until we have another teepee of pine straw and twigs alight. We have been experimenting with our slow-cooking techniques the past few days. Last night’s bouillabaisse tasted better as this morning’s breakfast. Today’s hopes are pinned upon a pair of hoisin ducks which we buried last night in a pit of red-hot river rocks from the fire. Wrapped in sweet ferns that resemble broad banana leaves, the birds are coated with a goo of honey, sea salt, herbs and crushed pine nuts. One duck is stuffed with local marsh plants akin to watercress and rice, while the other is filled with a concoction of Paul’s that includes lobster roe, seaweed, winter berries and a few secret ingredients he won’t divulge–I’m guessing a rogue onion or clove of garlic he found in the hold of a kayak.
This environment offers a different array of foods than what we relied upon during our travels with Gray Beard through Bordeaux and Tuscany. The storyteller and his family taught us which tubers, grains and herbs were good to eat, and which ones were poisonous gut-wrenchers to be avoided.
That task now falls to Neanderthals, who have no idea they are teaching a graduate course in anthropology to a pair of spies sitting invisible in the sedge. Along with educating us on their language, social structure, hunting styles and toolmaking, they also show us what’s good to eat. Unfortunately, we have learned not everything they consume agrees with our modern stomachs.
Gibraltar Page 12
