by Jack L Knapp
They’d waited about half an hour when another man trotted up to the leader and took a moment to catch his breath. When he was ready, he reported.
“No sign of alarm, Boss. They’re working in the fields except for two men building walls. I can’t tell how long this has been going on, but the walls aren’t very high. They won’t do more than slow us down.”
“How are the men armed?”
“Spears, not tipped with anything far as I could tell. I’d guess the spears are to keep animals away. No sign that they expect a raid.”
“Too bad. Not that they’ll get a chance to learn, the ones we don’t kill. How far ahead is the village?”
“Two hours if we push it, three hours if we take our time.”
“We’ll camp here, then. You’ll stay with us tonight and guide me tomorrow morning.”
The leader called softly to get the attention of another man, who stirred himself and ambled over to join the other two.
“Rennie says about three hours, so we might as well camp here. You know the drill, set up a framework and thatch it with blackberry vines. That will discourage critters from slipping into camp. Double the guard tonight. The moon’s down, so it’s too dangerous to travel at night. We’ll have breakfast, move out an hour after that and plan to hit the village at noon. With luck, they’ll all have come in from the fields for lunch, but we’ll play it by ear. If necessary, we’ll take the village first, then sweep the fields for anyone we missed.”
“Think this bunch will fight back, Boss?”
“Does it matter? They’re farmers, we’re warriors.”
“I guess so. Maybe they’ll have women. Did Rennie say anything about women?”
“Don’t worry about it. There are women back at our camp.”
“Yeah, but we could use some new ones. Those are pretty used up, you know.”
“We’ll get new ones. If not this time, next time. Who’s going to stop us?”
Chapter 5
My course led northwest toward the smoke, but I was ever watchful for what the wind was doing. If it shifted, I looked for a path across the wind rather than going downwind. Prey that goes downwind is dinner.
The smoke vanished after an hour, but now I knew which direction to go.
I was wary of encountering big predators, but perhaps they hunted by night and avoided my fire. They can’t afford to wander aimlessly; the hunter's behavior is based on what prey does.
In any case, there was only one of me and I wasn’t following a pattern. Still, I always knew where the nearest tree was. I didn’t want to run into a stupid saber-tooth, one who didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to hunt at random!
The streams became smaller, more infrequent. I usually drank from springs now. I quit building weirs in the tiny streams I crossed and traps also stopped working. Snares were more efficient and easier to set, so I put out more of them each afternoon.
I judged that I was averaging at least ten miles a day, more when the wind and animal trails led where I wanted to go. I managed this even though I usually stopped in mid-afternoon to set out snares, build a fire, and set up a shelter.
A snare is among the simplest of killing devices. Tie a loop into the end of a cord, run the other end through the loop making a larger loop and a slip-knot, then hang the loop in an animal trail. Improve the location by laying brush to guide the animal into the snare. Animals are suspicious, but they’re also lazy; they follow established trails and might step around a snare if they notice it, but they’re unlikely to back up or detour around an obstacle. This is particularly true if they find themselves between two small trees whose branches have been hacked off, leaving points that guide them funnel-like into the snare.
I set out at least two dozen snares every afternoon and improved the sites when I could. Large snares were for deer trails, smaller ones in places better suited for rabbits. An animal would catch the loop around its neck, struggle, and choke to death. I hoped.
The simple design could be improved by attaching the snare to a springy tree, which was held under tension by a rope. The rope led to a trigger across a forked twig planted solidly in the trail. This cross-twig held the tree under tension until an animal pulled on the snare’s loop, releasing the trigger. The tree then snapped upright, yanked the animal off the ground, and killed it.
Two rabbits and a porcupine waited in my snares when I ran my trap-line. I made sure porky was dead; the loop was buried in the quills around his neck, so I cut the loop. I skinned the porcupine and moved on to check my other snares.
The spring-snare had almost worked.
The animal’s front legs had been lifted off the ground by my spring-pole. The trigger had released satisfactorily, the bent tree had snapped upright, but the unhappy creature was not dead. No indeed. The spring-pole had not been strong enough.
The beast had a pig-like head, short tusks, and jaws that snapped angrily as I approached. Wheezing, it tried to keep me in view by swinging its body around.
My crude spear would work better from the side, so I took three fast strides around the pig--maybe a peccary?--and slammed the spear in behind its shoulder. The animal squealed and sagged, still supported by the loop; a sudden smell of dung told me it had died.
I was still shaking from adrenaline when I saw a tan shape crouching across the cleared area. Cougar? No; the nostrils were too large, the legs too long. Whatever the cat was, it had a long tail with a dark tuft at the end. A twitch of that tail had caused me to notice it.
The pig had seen the cat and faced it, attempting to defend itself. By moving around to where I could spear the pig, I had put the pig between me and the cat.
My spear was still stuck in the snared pig; I yanked the axe out with my right hand, and with my knife in my left, I slowly backed toward the nearest tree.
But the cat made no move to attack. It remained crouched, watching me warily. Had it seen humans before? Or did the sudden death of the pig cause it to hesitate?
The cat finally backed away, spun, and disappeared into the undergrowth.
I jumped for my spear. Pulling it out, I replaced the knife and axe in their sheaths and immediately felt better. The spear allowed me to keep my distance from teeth and claws if the cat came back and I needed both hands to use it effectively.
My face was sweaty, my shirt was soaked through. I hadn’t felt afraid, but apparently the body reacts to stress whether you’re consciously aware of it or not. I backed to the tree behind me and just relaxed against the bark, shaking a little from fear and letdown.
I’d left a fire burning back at my camp. I field-dressed the pig and dragged it to the fire, then built a drying rack for the pork. I added fuel, and while the fire burned down to coals I prepared the porcupine for dinner. I decided not to keep the quills. They have tiny barbs, so if one stuck into my finger I’d have to cut it out.
My supper was porcupine and one of the rabbits. While the carcasses broiled, I sliced up the pig. The strips of pork went on the rack to dry and I ate my supper. The other rabbit I cooked for breakfast.
I went looking for a stream after eating. I could hear the water a few yards away, or so I thought. It turned out to be more like three hundred yards, but animal trails eventually led me there.
#
The stream was in a small ravine, shoulder-deep, twenty-five yards wide. The walls sloped gently to a small beach of sand and another beach lined the far bank. I saw numerous tracks, some on my side but even more across the stream. The tracks led to a seam of salt.
The salt turned out to be mixed with something when I tasted it. I had no idea what the gritty substance was, but animals had been using the salt lick so I could too. After drinking and filling my water gourd, I headed back to camp with some of the salt.
I made a second trip and gathered more salt, using a turtle shell as scoop and container. I added water from my gourd and ended up with salty water and a white substance that wouldn’t dissolve.
I dredged some of the pork throu
gh the salt water and wondered what to do with the gritty stuff. It was fine in texture, almost flour-like; diatomaceous earth, perhaps? DE had a number of uses, so I poured the material onto a leaf and laid it aside to dry. I salted the rest of the pork strips and put them back on the rack to finish curing.
Waking up periodically during the night, I added fuel and raked fresh coals under the drying rack.
#
After breakfast, I added more fuel to the fire and returned to the stream for more salt. While I was there, I took a closer look at the rocks on the stream’s bottom. A rounded rock looked like a flint nodule, a white crystalline rock was probably quartz, and a dark rock might be obsidian, all washed down from who-knows-where by flooding.
I got more salt and brought the rocks back to camp so I could work on them while my meat dried.
The flint nodule, cracked open, yielded two cores; the obsidian lump cracked into two fist-sized pieces with moderately sharp edges at the top and bottom.
That gave me an idea. I collected the white gritty stuff and tried placing it between the pieces of obsidian. Rubbing the two halves against each other, I rotated them periodically to even out the effect. When I examined the two pieces there was evidence of scratching, but I realized that the very-fine grit would take forever to make much headway. It was more polish than grinding material. Still, it might be useful someday for polishing spear or arrow points, so I tied the powdery stuff into a packet using leaves.
The fire smoldered, the pork cured, I chipped at a rock core. Striking carefully, using the quartz for a hammer-stone, I got half-circle fractures and a number of thin, sharp, chips; the quartz allowed more precise strikes than I could get using the heavy club. The stone chips could be used as scrapers for converting skins to rawhide or leather.
Wrapping the cured pork slices in leaves, I added them to my pack next morning. I picked up my weapons, shouldered the pack, then followed the creek upstream. The pack was heavy but the extra weight was welcome.
#
Mid-afternoon found me at the edge of the forest. There were still scattered copses of trees, but now shrubs, briars, and ferns grew under the trees. I picked a few tender shoots and ate them along the way.
A grassy plain spread away to the west. I could see more forest but it was at least a mile away. Scattered groups of trees interrupted the grass, a dozen or more trees in each clump. This area was a savanna rather than true plain, not forest or grassland but a mix of both. The grass extended across the direction I wanted to go, so I left the trees and walked out into the grass.
Mistake; fighting the thick, chest-high bunchgrass was exhausting. The grass clumps grew so close together that I couldn’t walk around them.
There was a small grove of trees to my right and I decided to go there. Stepping on the grass, I attempted to form a surface for my feet to push ahead, but the resulting surface was unstable. If I encountered a problem, I couldn’t run away; lacking trees, I couldn’t even climb to safety. I might also end up with a sprained ankle from the shifting grass stems.
But I reached the copse of trees without incident and stopped to rest and catch my breath. I was in excellent physical condition, better than I’d ever have dared hope to be, but fitness wasn’t enough to fight my way through the grass.
I explored the trees and found a few more of the grasses, but now they were widely scattered and easy to avoid. The long stems would be useful for rope and the grass would make a resilient bed, but I resolved to avoid the grasslands in future. They were just too dangerous.
I would also not build a fire tonight; there was too much loose, dry vegetation on the ground. I couldn’t even set out snares, but at least I had jerky for my supper.
I’d seen no large animals and hoped the lack of grazers also meant no predators, but to be safe, I slept in a tree anyway.
I ate a slice of pork the next morning, still sitting in my tree, and looked for a path back to the forest. I’d had enough of fighting the dense grasses.
Reaching the edge of the woods, I resumed my course to the northwest and soon spotted a dark object to the northeast. It was a little aside from where I wanted to go, but I changed course to investigate. Finding the source of the smoke could wait.
The dark object was something totally unexpected, a long-abandoned dwelling. Grass grew in front of the doorway and around the sides of the dwelling; no one had walked here for years.
Could the people have become transplants, taken from Darwin’s World to the world of the future? The Futurist hadn’t told me of a timetable, only that eventually some of the survivors would be brought into that future time. Had that happened here?
I prowled around and examined the dwelling’s construction. A dirt mound rose to a low roof which was itself covered with dirt. Log ends stuck out like the spokes of a giant wheel.
The black thing I’d seen was the door opening, so I poked the end of my spear through the doorway before stepping inside.
The walls were crafted of logs, palisade-like, ends buried in the ground and supporting the roof. The highest part was in the center, the roof supports sloping away toward the walls. The floor had been dug out inside to a depth of two feet below ground level. A dirt ledge extended around the inside of the walls, probably for sitting or sleeping.
There had once been a skin covering for the door but most of it was now gone. Animals might have gnawed it away or it might simply have rotted; I couldn't tell.
Fires had been built in a pit beneath a smoke hole in the roof’s center; charred wood and ash still lined the fire-pit. I found small points fashioned of chert on a ledge near the back of the dwelling, looking as if the worker had simply laid them aside. There were several dart-like objects tipped with similar points, but no evidence of flight-control feathers.
The matter was soon resolved; another object lay near the darts, likely an atlatl, and there was a spear shaft of better workmanship that mine. The shaft had no point, but one end had a deep conical socket designed to accept a dart. The other end had a shallow cup, and the atlatl had a knob designed to fit the hollow at the end of the spear shaft. Pleistocene North Americans had used such a system, replaceable darts and an atlatl to throw their spears.
A hollowed grinding stone lay near the fire pit, two hand-sized stones nearby that had been used for grinding grain. I couldn’t carry the heavy stones, they would have to remain behind in the ancient dwelling, but the other objects I would take with me.
This hut had been home to a family and there might be more dwellings about, but I wouldn’t take the time to search for them. I had all I could carry comfortably, so more discoveries wouldn’t do me much good.
The spear-shaft and the darts were dry, but usable; the atlatl was rotted. Perhaps it had picked up oil from the user’s hands. I fixed the shape in mind and left it behind. I took the flaked points; for now I could use them to make replacement darts and I would copy them later. A dart went into the spear’s socket, the others went into my pack, points up and ready for use.
The dart was a bit loose. It might have been a snug fit when new, but it had dried out and shrunk over the years. Even so, the combination was better than what I had. I kept the point of my new spear up so that the dart wouldn’t drop out. It was more lethal than the wooden one I’d abandoned in the old dwelling.
Tomorrow I might find the source of that smoke.
Chapter 6
After setting up camp, I soaked the ends of the darts and put more water into the spear’s socket. The darts resumed their snug fit by next morning.
It was a simple, yet effective, weapon; friction held the darts in place until they were embedded in an animal, then the shaft dropped away. It could be picked up, a new dart inserted, and immediately used again.
Leaving the stream, I followed the edge of the forest toward where I’d seen the smoke.
During a short pause, I chopped a piece of wood suitable for carving into an atlatl, a lever to add force to spear casts. I added a cord loop that allowed m
e to store more energy by pre-tensioning the cord before launching the spear. Eventually there would be a leather loop; the cord was strong, but rough, and it might blister my hand.
I would make a new spear too, one with a longer, heavier shaft. The salvaged one could be used for practice. Perhaps the makers of the spear I found were smaller. Considering what I might use the new spear on, bigger was better.
I could make out dark objects in motion far across the grass. Whatever they were, they wouldn’t be friendly; even with an atlatl and a reloadable, socketed shaft, the creatures were too large to attack.
The atlatl got more attention during my midday break; I might need it at any time. The wood I’d cut was a two-foot-long branch with a fork extending from near the end. Carving the smaller forked limb improved the fit where the fork fitted into the spear’s hollow base, and trimming the larger part to size finished the task. I adjusted the hand-loop until it felt right, then tucked the device into my belt. Smooth stones or river sand would do for final smoothing, but the atlatl-spear-dart system was usable.
I topped a small rise later that afternoon and saw more smoke.
Slipping closer, taking advantage of small bits of cover, I finally had a clear view. The smoke was rising from an earth-colored, beehive-shaped object standing next to a large, shingle-roofed log cabin.
I watched for a moment, trying to make sense of the scene.
The cabin’s logs had been squared and notched to fit tightly with the cross-logs. It looked well built, solid; I couldn't improve on it if I had a workshop and helpers.
At one end of the cabin was a chimney; a thin wisp of pale gray-brown smoke rose from it, different from the darker smoke I’d seen before.
A door opened while I watched and a dark-haired young woman came out.
She added dried branches to a hole in the beehive-shaped object, then carefully selected and added a green branch as well. In a moment, there was a renewed plume of dark smoke. Satisfied, she turned around and went back in the cabin.
