The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth (26 page)

Seeing our torch Pete ran over to greet us. “Nick, I’m sorry I got lost. I thought I could go down and catch the other stream, but I got turned around.” He threw up his hands. “Never mind that. We’ve got other problems.”

Chapter 39

The Chase

I instinctively surveyed the area around the fire and did a head count. One was missing. “Grit!”

“Yep, he was the scum that we thought he was,” Pete said.

“What did he do?” I asked, preparing myself for the worse. We didn’t need this shit.

“He attacked Maria when she was breast feeding Emanuel. The baby’s fine, so’s Maria…” before he could continue the rest of his briefing, Jorge busted past both Pete and me, knocking Pete to the ground.

“Maria! Maria!” Weeping as he ran, the rest of his words were inaudible.

“Where is the scrawny bastard?” I wondered how to hell we’d deal with this. We had no laws, no rules. This was the first reason we had to need them.

Pete gave what I thought was a little laugh. “You want to hear the best part?”

I waited for him to go on without answering the rhetorical question, but he didn’t. “What?” I said impatiently.

“Marcos caught him when he first started assaulting Maria, took out his little spear, and stuck it right in him. Hit him first time. The weirdo ran off upstream and hasn’t come back.” Pete was still kind of laughing.

“Did he rape her or what? Is she okay?” I was getting pissed at his lack of sensitivity.

“Oh, she’s fine. She said he still had all his clothes on.” Again it was obvious that Pete didn’t see the severity of the situation.

“Where’s Marcos?”

“He’s over by the girls watching the other two kids. He wanted to go track that asshole, but Sarah wouldn’t let him. She can be a hard ass sometimes, ya’ know?” He laughed again.

“So now our biggest problem isn’t that we don’t have a shelter prepared for the night. It’s not that we have no food. It’s that we have a wounded dirt bag upstream, along the path that we planned to take.”

Once Maria calmed down, we discussed our options as a group. We all felt that he was a danger, but we had to stay on our course, the river would lead us to food.

We decided to keep to our plan and follow the water. If we did confront him again, Pete, Jorge and I would deal with him. As much as Marcos wanted to, he was still just a boy.

We had no shelter and no food, and there was danger ahead, but we trudged through the dark. We came upon the same bedrock in the river that we had found while looking for Pete. Walking on the flat stone beneath our feet was a welcome respite from the constant danger of twisting an ankle on the slippery rocks.

The flat rock seemed to go on forever. We walked in the ankle deep water, as tepid as a summer’s rain coming down the rain gutters during a hot afternoon’s cloudburst. It was quiet except for the constant sound of insects, to which we became desensitized. All the children were sleeping in the knapsacks that Maria had crafted. Marcos followed behind Pete, Jorge, and me. He was looking for Grit’s tracks. He carried his own torch, with his nose down to the ground, like a bloodhound on a hot trail.

We traveled in this formation for hours, silent, stopping when one of our group needed a rest. Everyone called a rest stop at one time or the other, except for Marcos.

At one of our more frequent rest stops Marcos cried out, “What’s this? Nick, come here. There’s something on this root.” The excitement in his voice made me think it was more than a muskrat track.

Pete, Jorge, and I ran over to the riverbank to where Marcos was kneeling. “What did you find?”

“It’s got blood on it.” Marcos said as he poked at something with his other spear.

“Don’t touch it!” Beth yelled out, running behind.

Pete and Jorge got to the bank sooner than I did. They took the tracking pose and knelt down to investigate Marcos’ find.

“He hit him harder than we thought. That little thing packs a wallop.” Again Pete had a tone to his voice that pointed more to jocularity than to the seriousness the situation deserved.

I had to look twice because of the poor light. I took Marcos’ spear and reached out to poke at the find myself. Once I moved the object, it became clear that it was a piece of intestine. It had to have come from Grit. Marcos’ spear had hit him hard enough to eviscerate him to the point that the bowels were catching on roots as he crawled along the riverbank. My past hunting experiences told me we would find him dead within a day.

Marcos continued his tracking duties. We found very little blood after we found the guts, a couple of more drops but then it ran out. We weren’t sure if he had crawled onto the land and died, or maybe we walked right by his body. We gave up looking for him or fearing that he might show up. I was sure he was dead somewhere.

Pete couldn’t let it go. “Well, I guess Nick will have to let you vote along with the rest of us now that you’re a man, hey Marcos?”

“Is that true, Nick? Am I a man now, Nick?” His apparent need for my approval would have been uncomfortable to me in days gone past. Now it was something I cherished and I felt that I could finally teach a youngster something he would use and listen to. All the advice I had given every teenager before, when they had all the advantages of civilized life, had been wasted. Not one of them listened, or those that did, refused to heed it. I did have an unfair advantage on this one. If he didn’t listen, he wouldn’t live very long, though he was doing quite well so far.

Circumnavigating slow-moving water we came upon one of Grit’s jackets. It was ripped and covered with blood.

“Marcos’ atlatl couldn’t do this,” Beth said holding up the bloody garment.

Chapter 40

Predators

After several days our worries about coming across Grit diminished. We felt safe sending a scout ahead to find shelter, as long as he marked his trail so we didn’t lose anyone again.

Jorge led us to a horse trailer only twenty feet from a slow moving river. The roof was intact and the windows could be covered with pelts to keep the wind out. The nights spent in the trailer would be cramped with all of us in there at the same time, but we’d grown accustomed to sleeping huddled together. A small beach along the river would make a nice place for the children to play. Cattail stubs lined the small bay on each side.

While gathering the roots, Beth found a small stream feeding the river. “There’s a creek just over the hill. The water is moving pretty fast over gravel. I tasted it and I think it should be okay as it is.”

Normally we’d boil the water before we filled the containers, but Beth’s judgment was seldom questioned. We filled the empty canteens with unpurified water, and settled in for the night.

I was jarred out of sleep by the sound of Beth throwing up outside the trailer. The water wasn’t as good as she’d predicted. I got up, careful not to wake the rest. “Guess who’s got beaver fever now!”

She heaved again, even louder than the previous round.

“Do you have the diarrhea yet?” I asked—a bit of revenge disguised as an attempt to prove I cared. My attempt at humor was poorly timed.

Just before her next episode she managed to force out, “Shut up!” The poor girl started to puke again. The guttural sounds were loud enough to wake the others.

She looked up with drool running down her chin. “It’s not beaver fever, dumb ass.” Now she started with dry heaves. Nothing came out.

I waited till the worst was over to speak. “Sure it is. You’ve got the same symptoms I had. I don’t need to be a nurse to figure that out. Wait till the diarrhea kicks in.” A hand touched my shoulder. I turned to see Sarah.

“Nick, it’s not beaver fever. She’s pregnant.”

I looked at Beth who was looking up at me with spittle dripping.

“You can’t be,” I said. “You have that implant. You’ll be fine in a couple of days. Dump out the canteens. Boil the hell out of that water and the canteens too. Make sure you drink a lot of good water today.”

“It’s not the water, Nick.” Maria said, as she touched my other shoulder, confirming Sarah’s statement.

“I thought you were too old for this anymore.”

Another hand caressed the back of my head. It was Pete. “We’ve been able to find enough to eat so far. She can breast feed like Maria. Things will work out.”

I did a double take to make sure who I was looking at. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t change what was, but still couldn’t believe it. Everyone knew about Beth’s pregnancy before I did. I guess she wanted to practice or get advice about how to tell me. I had been left out of the loop.

All the women in the group were ecstatic about the news. Beth and Sarah were more sociable towards each other. The women already started coming up with names for the baby. Maria’s suggestions all had some Christian connotations, like George, after St. George, slayer of the dragon. Sarah’s suggestions all had some philosophical meaning to them, like Phoenix, for a boy, or Anastasia, for a girl.

I sat on the bank, watching the children playing on the beach, as I tried to digest the news.

Jorge came over and sat down next to me. “They really are a lot of fun, Nick. You never had kids of your own, did you?”

I rested my forearms on my knees. “No. Beth’s kids were the only ones I’ve ever been around.”

“You seem to be doing a good job with him.” Jorge pointed to Marcos wading along the river’s edge.

“I haven’t done anything special. He’s the one who hangs around me.”

We watched him digging.

Marcos made sure we never ran out of roots. He waded in the rivers and swamps so much, his feet were permanently wrinkled. Even though we didn’t always have meat, he always provided some sort of root, once I showed him how to recognize them. He yelled to me. “Hey, Nick, come look at these tracks!”

I stood up and walked along the bank.

“You’ll be a good dad,” Jorge said.

Looking back all I could see was his smile. Tara and Eve climbed on his back. I watched awhile. Jorge sure made being around kids look easy.

“Nick, really. These tracks are different than the others,” Marcos yelled.

“Okay, I’m coming.” I followed the bank up to the boy.

Holding up the torch so I could see, he pointed down. “See? These are big. Looks like it’s dragging a tail like muskrats do, but way bigger.”

I bent down to get a closer look when I heard a splash. Thinking one of the little ones had fallen in, I looked back at Jorge. A dark shadow lunged for one of the children.

Jorge pushed the toddler away and put his hands out to protect it. A five-foot alligator snapped onto both his arms. It started to twist and roll. For every two spins the beast made, Jorge only made one.

Everyone screamed. Pete ran down the bank and grabbed the monster by the head, trying to pry its mouth open. I ran and jumped on its back to stop the death roll. I felt claws tear into my side. Jorge’s arms could be heard breaking above his screams. Sand filled my eyes. Pete and I were able to stop the alligator from spinning, but it wouldn’t release its grip.

Marcos began stabbing at it with his atlatl, but the small wooden shaft was no match for the tough natural armor.

“Its eyes!” I yelled.

He jabbed at the eyes several times missing every attempt. Finally one poke hit its mark as did the next three, and the reptile let go. It turned, throwing both Pete and me on the sand. As it entered the water Pete landed one punch, then it was gone.

Jorge lay unconscious.

Maria was on him before anyone. “Get me something for bandages. Quick!”

I could see his arms were disjointed but didn’t seem to be bleeding as bad as I thought they would be. I sat down to rest. My heart pounded hard enough to cause pain. Wrestling an alligator required far more physical effort than one could imagine. Catching my breath seemed nearly impossible. The longer I sat, the more the pain increased. I didn’t tell Beth because she was busy with Jorge. Trying to stand, I stumbled. Weakness overcame me. I lay down and fell asleep.

“Wake up. Get away from this river,” Beth said. As she helped me up she asked, “Are you okay?”