The Trek: Darwin's World, Book II (The Darwin's World Series 2) (5 page)

She found a number of tracks. Deer and other animals had passed this way not long before. Always quiet, she slipped forward with renewed alertness. She would need to find a target for her arrow soon or stop and set out a fishing line.

There hadn’t been enough food this morning to assuage her hunger. Soon, she wouldn’t have a choice. Hunger was no stranger. Still, it would get worse, and if she couldn’t find food soon she would begin to weaken. Like the rest of the tribe, she was thin from short rations and long days of work. There was little spare flesh left on her body.

She listened, slipped forward a few paces, listened again. From time to time she went down to the river, looking for any sign that Matt’s body had washed up on the bank. Her pace was slow, but if there was an animal ahead she might see it before it discovered her presence.

It was during one of her pauses, while she listened, that she heard a distinct tapping noise. Cocking her head to the side, she listened carefully, but the tapping had stopped.

Well, there were woodpeckers around, even if the rhythm didn’t sound like an animal. She resumed her slow pace forward.

#

The clouds began dripping rain just before dawn. The cold rain woke Pavel and he soon had his small group moving. Some grumbled, but in a short time they were on their way. They ate some of the remaining raccoon meat while heading south in single file.

Pavel looked back at the men and passed on instructions.

“We might come up on her at any time. Make sure you’re ready and that you don’t fumble with an arrow. If we see her before she sees us, we can try to work in closer, but if she tries to run, take the shot. Just don’t let her get away. If she sees us, she’ll know why we came back.

“That place we dumped him, it can’t be much farther. We’ll just stay close to the river, and when we find the place we can look for his weapons. If she hasn’t been there yet, we brush out the sign and dump the weapons in the river. Look for her tracks. If she hasn’t found the place, we can head back as soon as we clean up. She can look all she wants after we get rid of the evidence.”

“We should have done that before we left, Pavel.”

“Yeah, well, you were just as glad to leave that place as I was, Gregor. Anyway, we get rid of the sign, brush out our own tracks, and the rain will wash away what we don’t get.”

#

Half an hour later Pavel paused and looked around.

“Gregor, come up here. Doesn’t this look like the place where we dumped the body?”

“It could be, Pavel. We can look for sign and pick up the weapons; if it’s the right place, they’ll still be here.”

“OK, everyone spread out and look. Find those weapons. We left them lying on the ground and some of the arrows had spilled. We’ll need to find those too.”

Vlad came back to Pavel fifteen minutes later.

“Pavel, this is the place. I found a bloodstain on the ground. There are drag marks too, down by the river where we threw him in. But I haven’t found those arrows. I know where they should be, but they aren’t there now.”

“Crap. Are there any tracks around that we didn’t leave?”

“Maybe. Look over here.” Vlad pointed to a spot among the fallen leaves.

Pavel scrutinized the ground.

“I think you’re right, Vlad. That’s smaller than any track we could have left. She’s been here. I’ll bet she picked up the arrows and his weapons too. She’ll take them back to the tribe, and if she gets there with those weapons, we won’t have any choice. Robert will know Matt wouldn’t have taken off his weapons, they’d have gone in the river with him. I don’t want to leave the tribe, but if they find out we killed Matt we’ll have to. The others will kill us. especially that kid Lee, he’s already too damned quick with that spear of his. Matt’s women too.”

“Yeah. So do we track her?”

“No. She’ll head for the tribe and we know where they’ll be. We cut cross-country and outrun her. We’ll get there before she catches up and ambush her before she knows we’re anywhere around.

“I’ll leave you three to watch our trail when we get back; I can sneak up close enough to make sure she didn’t get there before us. If she’s caught up to the tribe, she’ll be with them.

“If she’s not there, I’ll come back and join you. We spread out and watch for her. One of us will be on the north side of the trail just to be sure, but she’ll probably be coming from the south.

“We’re already a couple of miles south of the trail. We know she was here too, long enough to pick up his weapons at least. So she’ll head north and follow the tracks until she meets up with the tribe. There’s no reason why she’d cross the trail, and we’ll be waiting when she gets there.

“Nikolai, you’ll be watching the north side. I don’t expect her to come in from that direction but keep alert anyway. If we need help, you join us. I’ll be watching near the trail, Gregor and Vlad will be south of me.

“She’ll be following the drag marks and we’ll be waiting, a half-mile or so behind the tribe. That’s far enough that the tribe won’t hear anything if she screams, but not so far that she can slip around us without us seeing her. We’ll just drag the body off into the brush and rejoin the tribe; if anyone mentions us being gone, we just tell them we went hunting.”

With that, Pavel took one final regretful look around the clearing before turning his back on the river. Jogging again, he led his small band northwest. They would intercept the drag marks left by the travois somewhere ahead and follow them until they got close to the tribe.

#

Matt woke to the slow drip of cold water on his neck. The lean-to kept some of the rain off but it wasn’t watertight. Still, it had sheltered the fire, so it was the work of a minute to stir up the coals and add fresh wood.

He still had fish from the night before, so he warmed that over the coals and ate. Finishing, he took the bones down to the river and threw them in before washing his hands and face.

Moving upstream, he checked the line he’d set out the night before. There was no tug on the line, so he pulled it in and looked for where he’d gutted the catfish. The offal was gone; something had come up during the night, found the guts, and eaten them. There were tracks, but the rain had washed enough away that Matt couldn’t identify the scavenger.

Sighing, he went to find a log he could raid for grubs. He hadn’t really wanted to handle guts that had been left out overnight, even if catfish probably would have loved them.

But it proved unnecessary to look for grubs; the rain had brought out nightcrawlers. Matt gathered several of the large earthworms by simply picking them off the ground.

He needed several, because he’d also thought of a way to improve his fishing line. It was the work of half an hour to carve two more gorge-hooks. Using two short lengths of cord, he attached them to the fishing line above where the first hook was attached in similar fashion. This left him with three gorge hooks attached at intervals above the weight. The earthworms had tried to crawl away, but they were easily recaptured. Threading the worms onto the hooks, he let the ends of the worms dangle free to wiggle enticingly. This arrangement he tossed gently into the water.

The river appeared to have risen slightly. Possibly there had been more rain upstream?

Washing his hands again...the worms were messy...he left the setline and walked back to the lean-to. He warmed himself for a time, then picked up the rocks he’d been working on the night before.

He needed a second knife; the one from his belt kit was short, a necessary compromise between usability and fitting the knife in the pouch. He also needed a spearhead. The flakes would make arrowheads, so he collected them as he worked and piled them beside the fire.

When the rain let up, he would find more rootlets and weave them into a basket; he was already accumulating things to carry when he eventually moved away from the river.

Matt had been near starvation when he crawled from the river, but now he tired of eating fish. As soon as he had weapons, he would hunt. He began tapping, using the smaller rock to knock long blanks from the core.

The name for the rocks was there in his memory, although he didn’t remember where he’d learned it. The river rocks were chert, a fine-grained rock suitable as raw material for tools. He held up the core and examined it, then went back to his steady tap-tap-tapping. Beyond the lean-to, the slow rain continued to fall as he worked.

Finally it stopped and Matt stirred the coals of his fire, adding another dry branch for fuel. He left the chert by the lean-to and carrying his spear, walked to the river to see what he’d caught.

#

Lilia continued her slow journey south. Slip a few paces forward; pause, listen, move forward again. The light breeze blew from the west. Heading south, she was traveling cross-wind. Animals ahead of her wouldn’t catch her scent.

She froze in mid step; she’d heard something. Her eyes scanned around and she saw motion.

The doe had been feeding on browse just beyond a forked tree. The motion Lilia had seen was the doe raising her head to look around. Cautiously, arrow nocked on her bowstring, she crept forward, seeking a better vantage point. Finally she had clear space for shooting.

There was a slight movement by the browsing deer. Behind the deer she saw a tiny form, a newborn fawn. The doe, turned and licked the fawn. Lilia watched regretfully.

There really was only one thing to do. She lifted the bow.

The doe ran away as soon as soon as she shot. The fawn dropped, kicked once, and died. She ran forward, but the only thing left to do was field-dress and butcher the tiny animal. The doe could survive without the fawn, but the fawn would have starved without the doe.

Darwin’s World was as merciless to animals as it was to humans.

She had almost finished skinning the fawn when she heard the tapping again.

Chapter 4

Robert toured the family areas to see how others were faring. It took less time than usual; Pavel’s group was down to three, a man and two women.

“Where’s Pavel, Monika?”

“I don’t know, Robert. Vlad mentioned hunting, but no one said for sure. They were gone when we woke up.”

“Are you going to be able to keep up when we move out? I don’t have a lot of help to offer. Everyone else has work to do and things to carry. Some are caring for kids as well as hauling tools and kitchen supplies. You may have to abandon Pavel’s equipment if you can’t carry it.”

“I know, Robert. We’re already hauling a shovel and an axe for the tribe, plus some of the food. Staying behind to wait for them is out of the question. Pavel’s furs and sleeping pad will just have to be left, the bedding and other things that belong to the men with him, too. They were carrying some of the kitchen pots so we’ll collect those and add them to what we carry, but that’s all we can do. He should have made arrangements; we’ve got our own things to carry.”

“Right, then, just leave their gear behind. If you need help deciding what to keep, let me know. Somebody will be walking behind to provide rear security. I’ll talk with them, and if they can help you folks they will. We can slow down a little, now that we’ve got more meat. That might help you keep up, but we’re losing people. First Matt, then Lilia, now Pavel and three others.”

Monika nodded her understanding and Robert went on his way. He found Lee, now back with the tribe after posting a new security shift.

“Lee, we’ve got problems. Matt’s dead, Lilia’s gone, now Pavel and three of his people have gone hunting. At least, I think that’s what they’ve done. Maybe they just decided to leave and go their own way. But they didn’t take much with them if they did.

“You’re using three for security, plus there’s one or two more on rear guard. I know your security people have packs, as heavy as they can carry considering that they have to range out ahead and to the flanks while the rest of us are just going straight ahead, but the rest of the tribe has to carry what the security people can’t. The travois are heavy and people are getting weaker.

“We’re going to need to abandon some things soon, the sleeping furs and such. We’ll just replace what we leave behind when we get where we’re going. We won’t leave food or cooking pots, but the heavy things have to go. It’s too bad, there’s a lot of work that went into making those, but…”

“Robert, we’re finding tracks now. A few animals are back and I think we could start hunting. How would you feel about camping here, or maybe where we stop for the night? I’ll take a hunting party out and I think the Wise Woman and a few others would like to gather plants. There are things greened-up that we can add to our diet. Fresh stewed greens, a salad, roots and stems that are fresh-sprouted…people need those. As for animals, I don’t think it will be a problem. This country looks to be rich in game, or it will be when the herds finish migrating back north. Anyway, there are animals around now.”

“We could do that, Lee. If you can handle the hunting and security, I’ve got a few ideas of my own I’d like to explore. Maybe we won’t have to abandon things after all. Some of my people know a lot about trades, not just building houses but about making wheels. We can try building carts, even if it takes time. The lack of tools held us back before, but we’ve got enough now to do the job. We can make up the time later on by covering more ground in a day. If we convert travois-loads to cartloads, we can carry at least twice as much without adding to the workload, as well as move a lot faster.

”But this place isn’t a good campsite. What say we look for a stream or at least a large spring, and if the land is suitable, camp there? Plan to stay at least a week, hunt and cure meat to bring our reserve back to where it was. We can gather plants too and let the workers try making wheels and axles. People need to rest and gain a little weight if we can add to our food supply. Everybody’s lost weight.”

Lee nodded and went off to see about his own workers.

#

The tribe moved out, straggling more now. Fewer people now shared the heavy travois-loads, communal items plus their own possessions.