A Dawn of Mammals Collection Read online

  Hannah kept her voice very quiet, barely above a whisper. “I was counting on you to clean it, Claire. You clean your fish?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t let the feces taint the meat. Bleed it. Gut it. Keep the heart and liver and lungs. Rinse it in the stream.” She handed the dead animal to Claire, along with her pocket knife, and shooed her from the woods. She backed up to another good hiding place, and waited while Ted continued to hunt.

  It took only two more shots for him to down another squirrel. This one, he killed outright. She mimed a high-five without making contact, and took the dead animal from the copse.

  As she reached Claire, she said, “Are you keeping your eyes out for predators?”

  “Oh my God, I forgot,” the girl said, glancing around wildly.

  “So did I, earlier. But we have to remember. Especially when we’re carrying around a fresh kill.”

  She checked Claire’s work on the squirrel. “Not bad at all.”

  “Mr. O’Brien always gave me ‘A’s on my dissections. But dissections in school are never warm when you start.”

  She handed over the other squirrel to the girl. “Have at it. I’ll be your lookout.”

  She could see the dung gatherers in the distance, coming back this way, stopping every so often to pick up something else. Just before she lost them behind the copse of trees, Ted came out holding a bird. It wasn’t huge, but it was pretty chubby for its length, pigeon-shaped, but with an odd two-pointed crest and a nut-cracking beak. Or maybe bone-cracking. It had white marks over its eyes, and wrinkled claws that seemed closer to chicken feet than pigeons’.

  “Maybe M.J. will know what it is,” said Ted.

  They waited for the dung crew to come up, and those three took a short break and admired the meat while she and Claire collected some fallen branches and twigs for the fire. All of them caught up to the onion collectors, and on the walk back to the stockade, everyone talked excitedly about dinner.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” said Nari to her, quietly.

  “Not any more you aren’t,” Hannah said. “If you want to live, you have to eat meat for now. In the fall, when there are nuts and berries, you can live off those if you’d like.”

  “I don’t want to be here in the fall,” said Garreth, overhearing.

  “Another good reason to live in the cave,” she said. “If the timegate opens back up, we’ll see it happen.”

  “Is that what we’re calling it?” Bob said.

  “M.J. called it that. Seemed as good as any other name to me.”

  They got back to the stockade with plenty of daylight left. The net makers had some cord. She picked up a piece and tested it by pulling on both ends. It came apart easily.

  Rex handed her the piece he had been working on. “Try this instead.”

  She gave it a tug, and it held. “Whatever he was doing, everybody else do from now on. And you can show everybody tomorrow, Rex. We need to get some nets and snares built.” And then start working on ways to bring down bigger game.

  Dixie claimed fire-starting privileges, since she had the lighter, and Hannah went over to M.J. “Do you want to identify the animals before we eat them?”

  He shook his head.

  “What is wrong with you?” she said.

  “Don’t feel great.”

  She reached out to feel his forehead to check for a fever, and he batted her hand away. Then he scrubbed at his head with both hands. “I think I have fleas.”

  Chapter 23

  “Could be,” she said. “Maybe one bit you and you caught something. Do you have a fever?”

  “No,” he said, but he did have a light coating of sweat on his face.

  “Stick your head under the stream for a minute,” she said. “Maybe wet your shirt and put it back on.” She had no idea why he wouldn’t let her feel his face, but he was an adult. He could decide what to do.

  While the fire got going, she split the bird and scooped out its innards. She spitted it with a branch from the woodpile and handed it to Zach. “Burn the feathers off. Easier than plucking.”

  Zach took the stick and nodded. As the first feathers began to sizzle, everyone backed away from the smell.

  “I hope it doesn’t taste that bad,” said Jodi.

  “I don’t care what it tastes like,” Ted said. “I’m eating it.”

  Claire said, “Do we have to taste-test it, like the plants?”

  Which reminded her. “Garreth, you still okay? Yeah? Then eat a bite of one of the onions.”

  “Raw?”

  “Sure. You’ve had onion on hamburger, right?”

  She’d roast the tuber in the coals tonight and try it tomorrow night. She’d just as soon not give herself another bout of the runs until she had digested most of the meal tonight.

  “We don’t have a pot or anything,” Laina said. “How are we going to cook them?”

  “I was thinking shish kabobs,” Hannah said. “Onion and chunks of meat threaded onto a sharpened stick. Everybody can cook their own, like marshmallows”

  “Then we need to sharpen sticks,” said Garreth.

  “Anybody but me have a pocket knife?”

  They all shook their heads. Bob said, “Weapons are forbidden in school.”

  “Let’s see if anything on our tool belts can do it,” said Jodi. “Where’s mine?”

  Everyone had come through with the geologist’s tool belt. Only four backpacks, including Hannah’s. Eight water bottles, including Hannah’s two half-gallon ones. If they filled them all before heading for the cave every evening, they’d last the night, until they went back to the stream.

  Lots of calories were being burned with walking, she realized. And yet there was no other choice. If they built a lean-to in a stand of trees, calories would be burned by that, and predators could tear right through it. A dug-out house, maybe that would work, near the spring. But again, a ton of calories expended digging it—and with what tools? Flat rocks, on hands and knees? The cave, despite its distance from water, was really their best shelter.

  The kids were working at sharpening cooking skewers. Her knife would make quick work of hers. Bob was on the log, being lookout. M.J. was at the stream, dipping his head underwater.

  Once the fire died down, she handed her knife to Ted and said, “Cut the meat into twenty-four pieces, if you can. Everybody gets two. We’ll roast the bird and the organ meats in the coals.”

  Once he had the meat parceled out, the kids tried putting it onto their sticks. More than one broke, and they started all over with bigger sticks. Garreth was feeling no ill effects of the onion, so she let them thread the stick with onion plants too, suggesting they wrap the tops around the bulbs to keep them from burning. Laina made the neatest bundles of them.

  “Looks like a fancy restaurant dish,” said Bob.

  She told them to get the meat done all the way through—who knew what kinds of parasites were in there—and eat it.

  More than one piece of meat fell into the fire, but the dental picks on their tool belts proved good tools for picking them back out. Soon everyone was eating the hot food, most of them so hungry they suffered burned lips willingly.

  Moans of pleasure were about evenly tied by comments like, “Tastes weird.” But they all ate every bite, as did she. M.J. wandered over and cooked his after everyone else was done.

  “What about the bird?” he said.

  “Bury it near the coals and let it roast, I guess,” she said. “Along with the organ meats, that will be our second course. We can cleanse our palate with grass.”

  “I need a toothpick,” said Zach.

  “I miss my toothbrush,” said Dixie.

  “Thought you might have one in there,” Claire said. “You have lipstick and mascara.”

  Nari said, “You could clean off the mascara wand and use it as a toothbrush.”

  “And let my mascara go dry?” Dixie sounded horrified at the thought.

  Hannah had to bite her lip to keep from
laughing at the screwed up priorities. But it was harmless, really. The girl was hurting no one but herself with her strange vanities.

  She had put the squirrel pelts back into the water, held in place with rocks, to keep them cool. After they had finished their meager supper, she took them out and held them up, dripping. “Which of you guys has the willingness to help cure these?”

  “Cure them?”

  “Turn them into material we can use.”

  “For what?”

  “Moccasins, mittens if it gets cold, slings for slingshots, strapping material for food collection bags.”

  “You know how to do that?” asked Dixie.

  “I only know one thing,” Hannah admitted.

  “What?”

  “Urine. You can start to tan hides by peeing on them.”

  “Eww. Gross. And then I’m supposed to wear it on my hands?”

  “Not immediately,” Hannah said.

  Bob said, “I know a little more than that.”

  “Fantastic. I’m all ears,” Hannah said.

  “First, you have to make sure all the meat is off. Scrape it. Then you salt it, usually, but in the old times, use urine for several days. Dry it. Then you get to tan it. Alum is what people use for home-tanning these days, but once upon a time they used animal brains.”

  “So we need to kill a big animal.”

  “Yep, for its brains.”

  “For food, for tanning material, for replacement clothing and shoes.”

  “Everyone’s boots should last. Dixie’s will likely be the first to need replacing,” Bob said.

  “Why not go barefoot?” Garreth asked. “It’s warm enough.”

  “It is for now,” Bob said.

  “So you just need me to piss on it?” said Zach. “Sorry, urinate.”

  Hannah glanced at Bob, who shrugged. “I guess so. We may fail the first several times, but we have to start learning somehow.”

  Zach said, “I’ll do it. But once it’s—you know—wet, how am I going to carry it? I don’t want to just stick it in my pocket.”

  “Good point,” Hannah said, over more grossed-out comments. “We’ll wait until we’re settled in at the cave. We’ll dig a latrine, and I guess we’ll just keep it right there. On a rock or something.”

  In the distance, there was the sound of an animal fight. Or mating? Was it the saber tooth? Something just as bad? She looked up to Rex, who had taken the lookout position on the log. “See anything?”

  “No. It’s getting kind of hard to see.”

  Twilight had begun. “We’d better settle in for the night, then, behind the stockade.”

  “It’s so crowded,” said Nari. “Everybody smells bad. We need to shower.”

  “Tomorrow or the next day,” Hannah said. “And I’ll try to remember to find a plant that might work as soap. But the days of deodorants are behind you, Nari. So get used to it.”

  That seemed to sober the group more than talking about more serious matters had. B.O. couldn’t kill you, Hannah knew. A lot of other things could. She checked Jodi’s stitches again before the light faded away. They looked okay so far. But the girl still hurt pretty badly. “I think you used your arms too much today,” Hannah told her. “Tomorrow, take it easy.”

  “I can’t just sit while everyone else works.”

  “You can be lookout more than your share, then. That’s really important too.”

  Everyone settled down to sleep, tired from the day’s work. Hannah closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the night. An animal in the distance barked. One farther away answered it. She heard the flutter of wings just before she went to sleep.

  Screaming woke her.

  Chapter 24

  She popped up to a sitting position. “Who is it? What’s wrong?”

  Everyone else was coming awake too.

  The scream came again. Then words. “Go away!” It was M.J.

  “Someone wake him up. Shake him.”

  Laina’s voice came through the night. “He is awake.”

  “Shut up, shut up!” said M.J.

  Laina said, “He’s just freaking out.”

  Damn. She started crawling over people, apologizing. “I need some light.”

  She neared M.J.’s moaning voice. Dixie had found her lighter, and a thin light from that helped her avoid kneeling on anyone else. Rex and Laina were nearest to M.J., who was at the outside of the group, nearest their campfire.

  “Laina, you and Rex pull up a stockade stick and go build up the fire. Then get right back in here, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “One of you keep watch!” She could see M.J.’s face, and his eyes were open. “Wake up!”

  “I can’t! I can’t! Shut up!”

  She hesitated only a second before she hauled back an arm and slapped him. “Wake up!”

  “I’m awake! I’m awake! Just make them shut up!” He started sobbing.

  Her hand, where she had slapped him, was wet. She felt his face. Covered with sweat. “Geez, M.J., what did you eat?” He had to be poisoned, or hallucinating. “Mushrooms?”

  He kept sobbing, pitifully.

  Zach, to her right, said, “Is he going to make them come here?”

  “Who?” Did she have some sort of mass hallucination on her hands?

  “The saber tooth. Or something else. He’s awfully loud.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe they’ll stay clear of the commotion.”

  The sticks being added to the fire were helping throw some light in here. M.J. was still sobbing, punctuated every few seconds by a sort of yelp. She made a quick decision. “I’m getting him by the fire. Everyone else, stay behind the stockade. Just in case he does bring predators.”

  Bob called from the other end of the shelter. “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine. Just everybody else, stay safe.”

  Bob said, “I’m coming out with you.”

  “No! We need one adult—” to survive “—in here,” she finished.

  Rex helped her pull M.J. outside, and then she shooed Rex and Laina back behind the barrier and replaced the branch to complete the stockade wall.

  M.J. was curled up into a little ball now, crying and shaking.

  Hannah called, “Someone, pass out a water bottle.”

  She sat by M.J. and tried to get him to straighten out, to sit up, to engage. But he stayed tightly curled up.

  One of Hannah’s big water bottles got handed out. She filled it from the stream and poured it over M.J.’s head. He spluttered and sat up. “Why won’t they stop it!”

  “Who?” she said. “Stop what?”

  “They keep saying things.”

  “M.J. You’re okay. Just fevered or something. There’s no one here but me. And the kids. And they’re all being quiet.” She could see the faces of four of them peering through the stockade wall. She thought about telling them to go to sleep, but that’d be useless. “You need to try to remember what you ate. Something is making you sick.”

  “Just the squirrel. I didn’t have any bird.”

  Hannah called to the kids, “Are any of you feeling bad? Having nightmares?”

  A murmur of denials.

  “M.J. We’re all fine. It’s just you. Try to calm down.”

  “I want to die,” he wailed, and fell into sobs again.

  She filled her water bottle again, and brought it to him. “Drink it,” she said. “All of it.” Maybe she could wash whatever it was through his system faster. “And try to think. Did you scratch yourself with something? Get bit by a spider?”

  He was lost in his wailing and sobbing.

  She was torn between sympathy, concern, and anger. She got next to his ear and said, “Shhh. You can’t risk drawing predators to us. Control yourself. Please.”

  For the next hour, he cycled in and out of agitation, and sobbing, and lucidity. After an hour had passed, he fell back, exhausted, and his breathing started returning to normal.

  Everyone was sti
ll awake. “It’s okay,” she told him. “Whatever it was, it seems to have passed. You can all get some sleep now. You need to be ready to work hard tomorrow. Move back so there’s space for us two right here at the end.”

  Slowly, the kids seemed to settle down. M.J. did not fall asleep, but he stayed quiet. She debated dragging him back into the shelter. She wanted to be there in case a predator came, but he might cycle back up to the same hysterical state, so she stayed by the fire.

  Another hour passed. She was getting too tired to stay awake, and was just about to drag him back inside, when he spoke.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I assume you ran into something toxic. Insect bite, food. You’re sure you didn’t taste anything off our regular menu?”

  “I know what it is,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t yell.”

  “I’m not yelling.”

  “I think you slapped me before.”

  “I did. Sorry. I thought you might not be fully awake.”

  “Don’t hit me now.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Promise,” he said, like a little kid.

  “Cross my heart,” she said.

  “It’s withdrawals.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “From alcohol. And Xanax. And Ambien, I guess.”

  “Ohhhh, shit,” she said. “The D.T.s?”

  “Those come later. If they come. And they’re much worse than this.”

  “M.J.,” she said, and plucked out one of the hundred questions running through her head. “Why?”

  “You want me to explain detoxing to you? The science of it?”

  “No, why? Why do you drink? You have a great job, doing what you love. You’ve been married to the same woman for fifteen years. You get paid well....” She trailed off.

  “Because I’m a drunk.”

  “Haven’t you ever tried to get help?”

  “I’ve been through rehab four times. Which is how I know about detox symptoms.”

  “And they’ll get worse?”

  “The docs say every time I detox, they’ll be worse. So I know how it was last time. They said, the next time, it’d be worse. I’ve never had D.T.s, but they said I might this time. And if I do....”