Mists of Dawn (48 page)

Mark
could
not
help
thinking,
there
in
the
sun
with Tlaxcan
at
his
side,
of
the
relativity
of
it
all.
Here
he was,
in
50,000
B
.c.,
and
the
beautiful
plain
was,
as
he knew
all
too
well,
deceptively
deadly.
Wild
animals roamed
through
its
grasses
in
dense
herds,
and
the hideous
Neanderthals
prowled
its
surface
in
wicked packs.
It
was
no
place
to
be
alone;
it
was
hard
and tough
and
demanding.
But
would
almost
fifty-two thousand
years
of
civilization
make
it
any
safer?
He doubted
it.
No
matter
what
frightful
danger
waited
for him
beyond
the
smoke-blue
horizons,
he
knew
that there
were
at
least
no
atom
bombs
to
vaporize
his
body into
nothingness.

Mark
walked
along
beside
Tlaxcan
and
reflected upon
what
a
vast
difference
a
companion
made.
When he
had
been
alone,
this
savage
world
had
been
an
impossible
one.
He
had
been
lonely
and
afraid.
But
now he
had
a
friend,
for
that
was
how
he
thought
of
Tlaxcan now.
Tlaxcan
was
no
longer
a
mysterious
being
from the
dawn
of
time,
nor
was
he
an
illiterate
savage.
He was
Tlaxcan.
A
man
who
laughed
a
lot
in
a
world
that was
no
laughing
matter,
a
man
whom
Mark
was
proud to
have
at
his
side.
He
had
a
friend,
Tlaxcan,
and
he could
depend
on
him.
That
made
all
the
difference,
he knew,
the
difference
between
living
and
dying.
That was
the
secret
behind
the
survival
of
the
fittest.
The fittest
did
indeed
survive,
but
he
was
fittest
because he
had
the
one
secret
that
made
him
a
man—the
secret of
friendship.
It
was
co-operation,
one
man
helping another
man,
that
had
enabled
man
to
survive
in
a harsh
world.
Alone,
man
was
little
more
than
an
animal.
But
together,
united,
he
was
king.
They
seemed to
know
that
much
in
50,000
B.C.
Had
they
forgotten, Mark
wondered,
in
1953?

On
the
fifth
day,
just
as
the
blood-red
sun
was
gently sinking
to
the
far
horizon,
Mark
and
Tlaxcan
left
the whispering
plains
and
walked
up
through
the
foothills and
into
a
secluded
mountain
valley.
The
valley
narrowed
as
they
continued
along
it,
until
it
was
barely wide
enough
to
hold
the
foaming
mountain
stream
that rushed
through
it,
and
in
the
distance
they
could
hear a
roaring
thunder
as
of
a
mighty
storm.

After
a
short
time,
the
valley
turned
sharply
and
they rounded
the
corner
on
a
well-worn
path
that
ran
to
one side
and
slightly
above
the
swiftly
flowing
water.
They rounded
the
corner—and
there
it
was.
Mark
stopped
in his
tracks.
He
had
never
seen
this
place
before,
but
he knew
instantly,
without
question,
that
they
had
come to
the
end
of
their
journey.

Mark
Nye
had
known
beauty
before.
He
was
no calf-eyed
weakling
who
was
forever
gasping
about
the beauty
of
it
all,
nor
did
he
often
speak
of
beauty
in any
form.
But
beauty
he
had
known
nonetheless—the beauty
of
sunrise
in
the
New
Mexico
mountains,
the beauty
of
old
Rome
at
night
when
the
ghost
legions marched,
the
lonely
beauty
of
frosted
city
lights
in
the early
morning
when
the
city
slept.
He
was
no
stranger to
beauty,
but
he
had
never
seen
the
equal
of
the
sight which
now
confronted
him.