Gibraltar

by Matthew Thayer

  Kaikane: “OK, so what do you want to do?”

  Duarte: “Let’s start by cruising the coast, see how the seal hunters are faring this morning.”

  Kaikane: “Roger that.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  Inundated by the windblown tide, the rocky flats were left to the birds and otters on our final morning studying the Neanderthal of Gibraltar. “Bet they’re off to the east, on the beach,” Paul said. His hypothesis was proven right when we rounded the sand bar tip of Europa Point to find the morning’s hunt had indeed moved to the long strip of sand overlooked by Gorham’s Cave.

  The white sand beach is at least 100 yards wide and stretches as far as the optics in my visor can see, probably all the way to the Costa de Sol. Every few miles, smoke of beach fires marked where communities of Neanderthal had set up to gather, fish and hunt. I think back to my associates on The Team, especially the anthropologists and the paleontologists, and remember how hard they worked to extrapolate from so few raw materials–mandible fragments, pieced-together skulls, stone tools that may have been working edges or discarded flakes. If these words make it back, I have a suggestion for those who are still alive–rent submarines. The Neanderthal of Gibraltar are coastal dwellers who exploit the abundant food, shelter and firewood the shoreline provides.

  I had never experienced Gibraltar before this visit, but Paul spent some time here before the jump. Drawing on his memories as well as two photos in my computer, I believe the level of the sea in the year 2230 will be about 224 feet higher than it is now. Judging by the relative ages of inland trees, the sea is currently in a state of pullback as this warming interstadial epoch winds down. When the ice age reaches another peak in 1,000 or 2,000 years, the shoreline will roughly be 180 feet lower than these Neanderthal are currently accustomed to.

  Paul says Gorham Cave, now sitting high and dry far from shore, will be a dive site in the future. On a scuba trip around Gibraltar Island in the late 2220s, he and a friend will swim down to the cave to see the concrete mannequins installed by a submarine tour company. In Gorham’s Cave, a clan of “Neanderthal” will huddle around a make-believe fire, while other caves will feature additional “historical” tableau, including British Cold War radio operators, Spanish sailors and Roman legionaries. Sounds like a pretty stupid reason to risk suffering the bends, if you ask me.

  Invisible in our jumpsuits, we let the wind carry us parallel to shore, about 100 yards out, for more than a mile, then turned against the breeze to paddle slowly, just hard enough to maintain our position.

  Laboring across the sand in lines like ants, women transported driftwood back to their caves and camps. Some worked alone to carry armloads and others teamed to drag water-logged trees. Elder women and children looked for shells and things to nibble amid the debris line strewn at the tide’s high-water mark.

  No matter how many times I see it, my stomach always does a loop when the hunters sneak up with their wooden clubs to bash the brains of unsuspecting, defenseless seals snoozing in the sunshine. Thankfully, a school of mackerel had everybody’s attention this day. Unfazed by chill conditions that would have left me shivering, 54 men stood waist deep in the windblown chop, jabbing with spears as a great run of mackerel followed the coastline headed east. Welcome to the Mediterranean Sea!

  Though the Neanderthal spears had no barbs, the two-foot-long fish were so thick it hardly mattered. Men plugged away at the mass of silver until they hit an unlucky mackerel with sufficient force to skewer its flapping body. Holding their spears aloft as they splashed to shore, they rushed to get the muscular fish up on dry land before it could thrash itself free. Vertical stripes, forked tails, these mackerel have succumbed to Paul’s ivory hooks many times. They are quite tasty, especially in a stew.

  If the lucky fisherman had a family member to hand his catch off to, he dashed it to the sand at their feet and rushed back into the water to continue his hunt. Those who did not have help were forced to make a decision–protect their fish or risk losing it to the birds or pilfering neighbors. We witnessed many squabbles over stolen fish.

  The Fire Starter Clan’s leaders were right in the thick of things along with most of their people. Their group had a big pile of fish which was guarded by two cranky old ladies who used pine switches to shoo away troublesome children and gulls. Up the beach about 50 yards to the west, Hercules and his family maintained a respectful buffer as they too hauled wood and stood in the water spearing fish.

  “That’s Grammy’s granddaughter, right?” Paul asked, pointing. “Where’s she going?”

  Bundled in a pair of oversized skins, the young girl skirted beached seals and sea turtles as she drifted down the beach toward Blondie and his crew. Spreading the skins on the sand, she sat demurely to watch the spear-fishermen. Her presence inspired the men to turn the sea into foam as they competed to spear the biggest fish. Meanwhile, up on the beach, every wood-carrying Fire Starter woman except the wizened female leader shot the girl dirty looks, muttering disparaging remarks as they passed by.

  Once he speared a worthy mackerel, a leviathan nearly three feet long, Blondie ambled up the beach to throw it next to the girl who, shrieked when it flopped in the air and landed on her leg. Kicking the fish higher up the beach, Blondie dropped down onto the skins to lie with his head propped by a bent arm–such a normal, human thing for a love-struck boy to do. They shared little to no verbal conversation as far as I could tell, just settled in to rest side by side on their backs, watching the giant eagles trace loops around their nest atop the Rock of Gibraltar.

  At one point, Hercules trotted close to call to his cousin. “Come back here, come back with your family!” Something like that. The girl waved him off, and when that didn’t make him leave, she loudly berated him. What a shamed look the poor boy carried back to his clan, while she laughed and laid back on the skin to point up toward the sky where the eagles circled.

  “This is getting too sad for me,” I said. “Let’s go see what Grammy’s doing.”

  We took our time paddling around the point, drank in the sights and smells as we stashed the kayaks in a tangle of mangrove that left us just a short wade to shore. Cresting the bank, I caught a glimpse of something moving through the trees. After pointing it out to Paul, we waited less than a minute to spot movement once again. Blondie and the girl had gathered up the skins and were traversing a trail up the side of the steep hill.

  “Let’s follow,” Paul said. “I always wanted to see what’s it’s like up there.”

  “Look who’s being nosy now.”

  “I‘ve seen enough of these hairy boys and girls fucking and jacking off to last a lifetime. This is different. Let’s see what they’re up to.”

  The lovebirds had a healthy head start on the serpentine trail leading to the spine of Europa Point, but with jumpsuits to thwart our fatigue, as well as protect us from thorns, twisted ankles and the like, we were able to scale the hillside and cut across several long switchbacks. Paul and I were quartering through the brush, following a goat trail about 200 yards below the couple when the first eagle made a pass. Cresting the spine, soaring out over the bay, the humungous raptor altered its 20-foot wingspan to catch the wind and quickly pick up speed. Streaking now, carving a sharp, silent turn, it dove.

  The girl did an incredible thing. Holding the fur over her head so it trailed in the wind like a flapping cape, she made a yipping noise and skipped forward twice, then fell to the ground and covered herself. Mouth hanging wide open, Blondie watched in the lee of a lichen-covered boulder as the eagle committed to the girl and then pulled up short as she suddenly disappeared. The confused eagle banked out to sea to contemplate the matter, perhaps study things through its powerful eyes. Soon he was joined by his mate, who soared from their nest with her wings tucked back like a jet fighter. Once the female found a thermal rising up off the beach, she rode it in lazy, screeching spirals until she joined her partner as he circled about 100 f
eet above the Neanderthal intruders.

  This was our first time to closely study the eagles. Their piercing yellow eyes were framed in circles of black feathers that reminded me of bandits’ masks. Light beige feathers covered their muscular, four-foot-long torsos, while tail and wing feathers were a dark brown striped by yellow and red to match the crowns of their heads. I estimate their hooked, gray beaks to be at least six inches long, and their talons about five, all incredibly sharp. Our jumpsuits made us invisible and without scent, but my heart still pounded three times its usual rate when they swooped near.

  Each time they attacked, the girl danced her dance and they flew off empty-handed. By the third pass, Blondie understood the game enough to perform the disappearing act as well. Something about the dance discombobulated the eagles. Each time, they called off their stoop to retreat and give the couple about 10 un-harassed minutes to skip from rock to rock and pick their way through trees and brush on their way to Gibraltar’s highest point.

  “They’re pretending to be moa, you know, the crazy birds,” Paul said. As strange as it sounds, I knew he was right. We had seen a moa snatched by an eagle, and also witnessed the horse-legged birds make high-speed, zig-zagging escapes. Perhaps the eagles thought the girl had quickly run away and hid.

  Reaching the pinnacle of Gibraltar’s famed “Rock,” she settled into the crook of Blondie’s arm as they stood in the middle of a split-in-half boulder and surveyed the stupendous view. Below and to the west were the waters of the aqua blue bay and marshy flats which provide unending sustenance and raw materials for their families. To the north, the green hills of Andalusia marched to the horizon. Every valley was delineated by networks of dark, muddy streams and rivers. Herds of all sorts, especially spotted horse and long-necked camel, kicked up dust as they grazed the prairies and grasslands. Looking eastward over the dizzying cliffs, a long line of white sand served as a dividing line between green forest on the left and shimmering, slate gray sea on the right. The only animals visible in the windblown waters were breaching whales, their black bodies seeming to hang in time before crashing down in fountains of white foam.

  Suddenly, like a fawn, the girl sprung up to scamper perhaps 20 feet to stand on top of a flat rock that left her as equally exposed to the wind as she was to a nearby eagle. Waving Blondie to her side, she unfurled her skin and made ready to do the moa dance. She and her Adonis waited dangerously long to start. It was as if they were locked in a dare to see who could hold out the longest. The female eagle was in full stoop with her mate not far behind when the girl led her suitor in the yip, yip, skip maneuver and dove under her skin.

  Blondie copied perfectly and was set to sweep his skin over his fallen body when a pair of strong, bony hands reached out of the ground to tightly grasp the leather. Unable to cover himself, crouched on the flat rock, the hunter could hardly have been more exposed as the female raked his back with a bloody impact that rolled him onto his side. Turning toward the male, Blondie barely had time to raise his arms and begin his war cry before the giant eagle grabbed him by the head and left arm and lifted him into the air. The Neanderthal’s thrashes quickly melted into twitches as mighty talons pierced his neck and skull.

  The eagle let the weight of the hunter carry him down the cliffs. Soaring with wings spread wide, he made a low pass over the beach with the limp form hanging in his grip the way a common hawk carries a mole. Flaring his wings, the eagle showed how much strength he really had as he whump, whump, whumped his way to a wide shelf halfway up the sea cliffs where his mate waited to share the prize.

  Atop Europa Point, broken-toothed Grammy emerged with a happy cackle from under a tarp covered with ferns and grass. Not bothering to dust herself off, she scampered to the cliff’s edge to stand beside the girl and watch the death flight. When the eagles were out of view, the old woman patted the girl on the head and made a contented noise by smacking her lips together. Spreading her arms, facing into the wind, she began a long chant. The girl joined her grandmother in the melancholy, tuneless song. Whether she was disappointed or happy, an accomplice to murder, or an ill-fated lover, it was hard to tell. The girl with the yellow-green eyes kept her emotions to herself.

  I could not help but think back to all the times Gray Beard insisted “Flat Heads cannot be trusted.” This turn of events certainly corroborated the notion that Neanderthal place their own self-interest and the priorities of their clan above all else. I wonder what Darwin would say. In this case, the strongest and best did not survive. Hercules will live to sow his seed, and Blondie will not.

  When it was time to leave, the girl wadded up the three skins and carried them locked in her arms as her grandmother led the way, jumping from rock to rock, nimble as a goat.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “Do you think our would-be rescuers to the north are still alive?”

  Jones: “No idea.”

  Bolzano: “What do you think?”

  Jones: “Think I’d like you to shut up. You’re gonna spook dinner.”

  Bolzano: “I am tired of deer and goat. Let us hunt something new.”

  From the log of Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  Once again, I find myself impaled upon the thorny horns of an ethical dilemma. Ha! If Salvatore Bolzano had a Euro for every time he said that, he would be as rich as his father.

  It comes down to a simple question, one easy to ask, but not so easy to answer. How much give and take of ideas can there be with our Cro-Magnon hosts? Are we to only absorb knowledge and never reciprocate?

  I am certain if we were to press exalted Team leaders for an answer–after they tore at their hair and stammered that we have no business spending any time with Cro-Magnon–they would insist we take and never give. They would have us be the loathsome friend at the cocktail lounge who has uncanny knack of disappearing whenever it is his or her turn to buy a round of drinks. I hate people like that. Everybody does, even Cro-Magnon.

  I believe some improvements in the lives of our nomadic, cave-dwelling associates can be shared without altering the course of history. My savory bison demi-glace is but one shining example. If my current dilemma does checker the world’s future…well…I suppose there are worse ways to have left my mark.

  The first time Lanio and I made love, the Cro-Magnon girl knew exactly one sexual position, what the Kama Sutra labels “Congress of the Cow.” In Milano we referred to it as doggie style.

  From a clinical view, I would say the technique is far and away the most popular among Cro-Magnons of this prehistoric world. Rarely a day goes by that I do not stroll past a human couple rutting like dogs beside the trail or off in the tall grass.

  Additional positions I have observed include No. 2 favorite, missionary, and a few that involve climbing trees. When the young widow said she had yet to sample those delights, I took it as a personal challenge. What can I say? I am a born teacher. To my outright surprise, quiet Lanio has become an energetic and willing pupil. In fact, I fear she may have wrenched my back during last night’s tryst. She is becoming quite a tiger atop the furs.

  It all started the misty morning I flipped Lanio onto her back and introduced her to what we Northern Italians call “The Angel.” I suppose clinicians still call it “missionary.” The old standby is one of the best for intimacy, for transforming two bodies into one.

  The switch in style proved quite a revelation for Lanio. No longer on her hands and knees facing away from her lover as he pounds away, she found herself in a perfect position to study my handsome face and kiss my passionate lips. She was also perfectly poised for many other things, like when I needed to lick beads of sweat off her pert breasts, or to control the tempo of our lovemaking to bring her to one shuddering climax after another.

  We enjoyed a rollicking few hours while the rest of the clan was occupied on the face of a far-off granite cliff, waging a smoky battle with bees to harvest honeycomb. As w
e lay spent in each others’ arms, dreading the obligation to rise and don our clothes before our sticky, bee-stung companions returned, Lanio thanked me for teaching her something new. She explained how her husband, before he was killed by the Tattoo Clan and eaten by hyenas, had insisted there was only one proper way for a man and woman to fornicate. He did not call it Congress of the Cow, but close. He used the trade slang, “havavbmm,” which basically means, “animal rutting.”

  “Now I know two ways,” she said with a very satisfied smile.

  Gently tweaking her firm left nipple, I chuckled there were far more ways to do it than that. “How many?” she demanded. “Many hands,” I replied.

  “You must teach me every one.”

  Deep in my computer’s files there is a set of quite sensual paintings based on the Kama Sutra, Hindu’s “Rules of Love.” A Team censor nearly deleted the erotic pictures prior to launch, but I was able to convince her they were a treasured portion of my art portfolio, ones I just could not do without. I have not shown the pictures to Lanio, of course, but I do study them on my own to prepare for our encounters.

  As we travel down the list in alphabetical order, I find the girl is better at mathematics than I gave her credit for. Today she was walking through camp after feeding scraps of elk meat and bone to the dogs. Turning so only I could see her face, she chanced a lewd gesture with her tongue while flashing her bloody right hand three times and holding up two red-stained fingers on her left–17–which just happens to the next number to cross off our list.

  What have I created?

  TRANSMISSION:

  Jones: “So, you tapping that?”

  Bolzano: “I beg your pardon?”