Dawn of Mammals (Book 5): Mammoth Read online

  Hannah thought so as well. “We’ll turn right around if it starts falling.”

  “Try to turn around before,” Laina said. “We don’t want to get caught out in a storm overnight.”

  “Maybe we should take some nuts, just in case we get caught out,” Hannah said. “Not to eat, really. A hedge against disaster.”

  “Do that,” Bob said.

  Claire nodded. “Okay, let’s trade out the cold-weather gear and get going.” There were better and worse hide capes, and the three of them took the best. When Hannah slipped on fur mittens, still warm from Laina’s hands, she sighed in pleasure.

  They walked off in a new direction. The land was rockier over this way, with craggy hills in the distance. Not mountains—rocky hills, bare in spots, snowy in the shadowed depressions. They hiked for the hills, spread out twenty yards from one another, scanning the ground for tracks. They found nothing for a long time.

  Then a set of big tracks appeared, curving off to the right behind them. Massive tracks.

  Chapter 6

  “What are they, do you think?” Rex said. “I hope not predators. I can stand in the track with room to spare.”

  Hannah wasn’t sure what animal had made them. Slightly longer than wide, the tracks showed no sign of toes or claws. “Claire?” she said.

  “I’m thinking that maybe,” she said reluctantly, “that since we’re in the ice age and all....” She shrugged, obviously not willing to commit.

  “What?” Rex said.

  “Mammoths. Mastodons. Something like that.”

  “Whoa, yeah,” Rex said. “Could be.”

  Hannah said, “Food for us for quite a while in one mammoth.”

  Rex said, “Or they’d stamp us to death for trying.” He stood in a track and held his hand flat over his head, squatting slowly as if being squashed by his hand. “Arghhhh! Rex pancake.”

  Claire said, “Yeah, they could. But on the other hand, Hannah is right. One mammoth would feed us for the whole time we’re going to be here.”

  “One dead mammoth, recently deceased from natural causes, would be ideal,” Hannah said. She walked perpendicular to the line of the animal’s travel and soon found other tracks. “There are several, in a group. The tracks are on top of one another here.”

  “What are the odds of finding a conveniently dead one?” Rex said.

  “I know. Wishful thinking more than likely. So, Claire, do we follow the tracks?”

  “I don’t like the sky. I think we need to turn around to beat the storm. And I’m not sure which direction the tracks are headed. That way, I think, but without toe prints, it’s impossible to tell. Let’s talk about it as we walk to camp.”

  They had made it about halfway back, following their own tracks exactly at Claire’s insistence, when the first snow flakes blew across Hannah’s line of vision.

  “Let’s move,” Claire said, picking up the pace.

  Soon they were moving too quickly to have any extra breath for talking. Hannah could still see their tracks, but they were over an hour from home and the tracks might be covered before too long. “Maybe we should run,” she said.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Claire said. “Rex, get ahead of us if you’d like.”

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “Stay within sight. If we lose our way, we can make our way to you.”

  The wind picked up, gusting, and as Hannah watched, one of her old footprints was nearly obliterated by it. “Oh boy.”

  “Go, Rex,” Claire said.

  Rex took off at a run. With his fresh tracks to follow, Claire and Hannah were certain to stay on the right path. But as the minutes ticked off, their old tracks grew more and more obscure, until only one in five was clear. The snowstorm made visibility decrease too, so that Rex had to slow his pace to stay within sight.

  Another ten minutes passed while they jogged along, but finally Rex stopped. They caught up to him. “I’m not sure I can stay on track any more,” he said.

  A wind gust blew snow up from the ground, sandblasting her face. Hannah picked up an end of the cape and covered her face with it until the gust died.

  “If we can’t get back, we’re going to die out here,” Rex said.

  “We are not going to die out here,” Claire said. “Let’s use our brains. How do we find our tracks? Or figure out what direction we came from?”

  Hannah was racking her brain, but nothing was coming to her. The wind let up for a moment, and with the cessation of blowing snow she thought she saw a slight depression in the snow’s surface a dozen yards away. “Is that one of our tracks?” she said, pointing.

  They both looked. “Maybe,” Rex said, walking over to it. “Yeah, it is. There’s another right there.”

  Claire studied it. “Yeah.”

  Another wind gust blew snow around and visibility grew worse. Hannah could barely see the others a few feet away.

  “I have rope,” Rex said.

  “For what?” Claire said. “Tying us to one another?”

  “In a way, yeah. We were walking pretty straight. If someone goes to the last print, and someone stays here, I’ll pull the rope out in a straight line and hunt for tracks along the most likely trajectory.”

  Claire had to yell over the wind. “Can’t think of anything better, but if we don’t find a track for sure, we should stop. There’s no reason to wander off and get lost.”

  “Or fall into the lake,” Hannah said.

  “I didn’t even think about that,” Claire said. “Okay, rope us up, Rex.”

  Using Rex’s system, they found two more faint tracks. But then the wind picked up even more, erasing the tracks, and Claire made them stop. “We need to build a shelter right here. Snow fort style. Just make balls like for a snowman and pile them up.” He untied the rope from the others.

  Hannah walked a couple steps away and began rolling her first snowball. Just like being a kid again—except for the growing panic. As she worked, bent over, a wind gust lifted the heavy hide cape and it flapped over her head. She grabbed it and held on.

  “What was that?” Claire said.

  “What?” Hannah said.

  “Shh, listen.”

  They all did, but Rex shook his head the whole time. Hannah didn’t hear anything either, until the wind died down temporarily, and then she heard a human voice. Or she hoped it was a human voice, not a predator and not the wind whistling past a rock.

  “We’re close,” Claire said. “I think I heard your name, Hannah.”

  “Direction?” Rex said.

  Claire pointed. “But I’m not sure.”

  Rex said, “I’ll stay here. I can’t hear anyway. Rope to me again and go in that direction, listen again.”

  Claire tied the rope to her belt loop and went out so far, to the end of the rope, that Hannah lost sight of her in the blowing snow.

  “This way,” Claire called.

  They followed her tracks, out to the end of them, where she’d made a sharp left-hand turn. “Shh.”

  Hannah held her breath. This time, she heard it clearly. “Rex!” someone shouted. A woman’s voice, high, ghostly amid the whistling of the wind.

  “That way,” Claire said, and Hannah agreed with the direction. Rex still couldn’t hear it.

  With someone calling them home, they made it. In another five minutes, they stumbled into the campsite. Jodi and Nari and Bob all mugged them, hugging them and laughing in relief.

  Except Nari was crying at the same time. “We thought we’d lost you!” she said.

  “We’d have made it back,” Rex said. “Where we were going to build our shelter, it wasn’t that far away. We’d have seen you tomorrow when the snow stopped.”

  “I’d rather have you back here,” said Bob. “Okay, everybody, relieve yourselves now. It looks like we’re only a few minutes away from whiteout conditions.”

  “Do it on rope,” Claire added. “I don’t want someone getting lost.”

  When every
one was gathered inside again, there was still plenty of excited chatter. And that was before Claire made her announcement to them.

  “We think we found mammoth tracks.”

  When the outburst had died back, Ted made himself heard first. “Did you see one?”

  “No,” Claire said. “And I’m not entirely sure it was a mammoth. But there were several large tracks.”

  “How long since they’d been there?”

  “Hard to say,” Claire said, “but I don’t think too long ago. The tracks were still fresh-looking, crisp at the edges. I think wind and sun would have eroded them if it had been more than a day or two ago that the animals passed.”

  Bob said, “Could you tell what they were headed for? Or what they were coming from?”

  “I’m not even a hundred percent sure which direction was forward and back for them. If my guess is right, they were headed for the rocky hills. North.”

  “At least they aren’t migrating south for the winter,” Bob said.

  “Yeah, it means we get a chance to go after one,” Ted said.

  “If we could find one, we’d have more than enough to eat,” Hannah said, “but I’m worried about the danger. Mammoths are big animals and, if they’re like elephants, they travel in a group. Nari just was hurt in a hunt. Jodi had been hurt badly too. We’ve lost two people. If there’s easier game, I say we leave the mammoths alone.”

  “But there’s not easier game,” Ted said. “There’s no game at all!”

  Jodi said, “Those birds.”

  Laina said, “If we find small animals tracks of any sort, I’ll set up traps and we should catch something.”

  Claire said, “I’ve only tried fishing once. Maybe we should leave baited lines in the lake all the time, see if we come up with anything.”

  Ted was clearly growing frustrated with the caution the others were expressing. “I say we go for the mammoths.”

  “I’m not sure we can find them,” Claire said. “The tracks will all be covered up by now.”

  As if in response to her words, the wind outside picked up, rising to a howl. Something hit the igloo with a sharp sound, making them all jump.

  “What was that?” Nari said.

  Laina said, “Could be anything. Including gear we left outside unsecured.”

  Bob said, “I thought we got everything inside the storage igloo before the snow began.”

  They kept talking about the mammoths, and if they should hunt them. Bob and Nari were out of the hunt, and probably Zach too. His wrist was much stronger, but his cough kept up through the discussion, and he was quiet. She wasn’t worried about him until Claire said it was time to eat, and Zach showed no interest in food.

  “Zach, you have to eat,” she said.

  “Yeah, Monkey, you want to get better, don’t you?” Jodi said.

  “I’m tired of dried meat,” he said.

  “There are nuts too,” Jodi said, flicking a glance at Hannah.

  Jodi was saying what Hannah would have, and she didn’t have anything to add. “Does he feel warm, Jodi?”

  Jodi felt his forehead and frowned. “A little maybe. Come over here and see what you think.”

  “Don’t fuss over me,” Zach said. “I’m not a baby.”

  That he sounded so petulant made Hannah’s worry over his condition ratchet up another notch. She scooted around the crowded igloo until she was on the other size of Zach from Jodi.

  “Guys, this is embarrassing,” Zach said, as Hannah raised her hand to his forehead.

  Bob said, “Be happy you have two attractive females fussing over you.”

  Hannah tried the back of her hand, and then she felt Zach’s neck. He did seem to be running a little fever. “I need my first aid kit.”

  Laina said, “I stuck it in the storage igloo. It’s easy to get to, right in the front.”

  “I’ll go,” Ted said.

  Claire said, “Wait! Let me look out there.” She crawled out the entrance and back in, shaking snow from her hair. “It’s getting dark, and it’s a blizzard. I want you roped up.”

  Ted said, “It’s only a few yards off.”

  “No matter. Rope to someone waiting at the entrance, or someone else goes.”

  Ted refused to put on a cape, but he did let himself get roped around the waist. In another ten minutes, Hannah’s first aid kit was being passed to her. She took out the willow bark and pulled a piece into thin strips. Then she pressed those into a bottle. “We can’t boil this, but keep it between your thighs, Zach, and maybe it’ll warm up enough to release the medicinal compound in the bark.” She glanced at Jodi. “I’m hoping it’ll bring his fever down.”

  Jodi said, “And he has to eat, right?”

  “He does. You do too. We’re all hungry, aren’t we?” Around the circle, most everyone nodded. “So you must be, too, Zach, and you need energy to fight off whatever bug is trying to take hold.”

  “Is it pneumonia?” Jodi said.

  “I don’t know if the virus for that exists in this epoch. But as we get closer to home, it makes sense that more familiar viruses might appear. Or it could be another disease, something we don’t know. It might have been there in the lake water.”

  “If we had a microscope, we could look at his spit and find out,” Rex said. “Better microscopes than we had at school, I mean. No offense, Mr. O’Brien.”

  “None taken. Believe me, I didn’t decide on the funding of the lab.”

  Jodi said, “But we don’t. So how do we know what’s wrong with him?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me! Quit talking about me as if I’m not here,” Zach said, and then he began to cough again.

  “There’s also the ash,” Bob said. “We all inhaled some. Might be making our lungs less efficient.”

  “Still?” Dixie said. “A week later?”

  “Might be. We’re all in unfamiliar territory here. I’m adding another guess to the mix, but it’s hypothesis only.”

  “Whatever is wrong with you, Zach, it won’t get better by starving yourself,” Hannah said. “Please try to eat something.”

  They had jerky and dried fish, along with small amounts of nuts, a few onions, and a couple of edible tubers from the last place. Zach agreed to munch on a raw tuber, but he obviously wasn’t enthusiastic.

  The rest of them tore into the night’s ration of food as if it was the last food they’d ever see. Hannah cursed her own mind for that turn of phrase as soon as she’d had the thought. She wished they had seen some other game. They needed food, but bringing down a mammoth was not going to be easy.

  Chapter 7

  Hannah kept half an eye on Zach until they all bedded down for the night. He was short-tempered and didn’t eat more than a half-dozen nuts and half a raw tuber. She was worried.

  And so was Jodi. The more she fussed over Zach, the more irritable Zach became. Hannah backed off from them both and tried to think about what she could do. Not much.

  Each time he coughed, she listened as closely as she could, trying to determine if the cough was getting worse, sounding dryer, wetter, or what. But it seemed to be the same cough he had from the moment he had emerged from the cold lake. She tried to dredge up everything she’d ever heard about delayed drowning, where the water in the lungs suffocated you after a drowning had seemingly been averted, but she was pretty sure if that was going to happen, it would have happened within twenty-four hours.

  So it must be an infection of some sort. Give him tea, and he needed to stay inside. If someone stayed with him to better heat the igloo, so much the better. Hannah crawled over bodies again, apologizing, until she was next to Laina. She spoke quietly to her, though in the small space, everyone would hear every word they both said. “How much can we burn inside here, for heat?”

  “There isn’t that much to burn in this landscape. When there was wood, a small fire would last a long time. But I didn’t plan the igloo for venting a fire.”

  “You said the plants—heather or whatever th
ey are out there—would burn.”

  “Yes. But they put out more smoke than pinewood.”

  “Can we improve the venting for the smoke to get out?”

  Laina looked up at the roof. “We can. The problem is, it will cost us heat. It’s a trade-off that comes out even. What’s the term for that?” She frowned in concentration.

  “A wash?” Hannah suggested.

  “No. Not a zero sum game, either.” She shook her head, obviously giving up for now on remembering the term she wanted. “But yes, a wash. We gain ten degrees from a fire but lose ten degrees to the venting. When a fire isn’t burning, we just lose.”

  “Okay,” Hannah said, stumped. “A fire in here won’t work. But I would like to keep him warmer for a couple days.”

  “Hides are most efficient.”

  “Will one person alone in here keep the igloo heated?”

  “Not much. I guess you need three or four to heat it to above freezing.”

  “So you always froze in the ice age?”

  “No. I built smaller for one person. And sometimes, there was fuel to keep a fire burning all the time.”

  “But you said it was a wash if you vented it right.”

  “You feel warmer with a fire. And you can eat warm food and water, and that helps.”

  “We can build a fire outside though, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then at least we can get him hot broth. Hot willow bark tea.” She raised her voice. “Zach, how does that sound?”

  “I’d rather have a Mr. Pibb,” he said. “No, wait. A Vernor’s.”

  “I want a bucket of KFC if someone’s going on a food run,” Ted said.

  “Don’t,” begged Dixie, with a small smile. “You’re making me even hungrier, if that’s possible.”

  Ted’s relaxed expression darkened at her words. It probably wasn’t the words, Hannah knew. It was the pregnancy. Those two were still on the outs, and whatever Bob had said to Ted back in the last place, it hadn’t improved his attitude toward Dixie.

  Hannah had not liked Dixie at first, not at all, and she always had liked Ted, but this side of him was not appealing. He wasn’t taking responsibility for the pregnancy, and he wasn’t supporting Dixie in any way. It was changing her opinion of him, and not for the better. She felt sympathy for Dixie, and had since the girl’s pregnancy had been revealed—by Hannah herself. Dixie hadn’t even held a grudge about that. She’d seemed to appreciate when Hannah had come to her defense. Maybe she was changing.