Chapter 2

(Spring through Summer of Year One)

Over the next several days my cave dwelling friends and I did a little dance around each other. It went a bit like this. Every morning nice and early, I'd spend some time dialing in the scope on a new rifle, and then head over to the meadow. A good long mile is distance enough that the game as a rule weren't too scared off by my banging away for sighting in. I'd settle in, in a good spot in a tree, munch on a little of an MRE or some of my own jerky, and pick out a good deer. I'd spend a shot or two being a bad shot, and then kill some poor Bambi. Following a long slow careful walk out to the site of my Bambi murder, I'd use the come-along to drag the carcass into my little wagon, and drag it off to my friends.

When I got kind of close, they'd make a big hooting deal out of my arrival, I'd light up the 'Stop And Pull Over Now Caveman' light, and they'd go quiet, and I'd drop off the meat. They would then proceed to offer me, at a distance, shiny rocks, pelts of dead critter hide, and assorted other treasures of their culture. We'd trade, and then make long speeches of friendship and comradeship while backing away from each other.

It went that way for a few days, and we seemed well on the way to becoming fast friends and bosom companions. Hell, they'd get within ten feet of me now, close enough that I could smell how awful they stank. It was all roses and sunshine.

On about the fifth day of repeating this, I spent more time wandering around than I had before, being careful to mark more trees with my trusty Krylon Day-Glo. Off to the East of my little piece of heaven the hills came down real low and when you crested them, they opened up on a vast plain. Now see, I really do mean vast. What I saw was a good open plain that stretched at least ten miles East West and more than that North South. I'm guessing, because I don't actually know anything at all about weather or geography, but I'm guessing that the prevailing winds dumped more moisture back to my Northwest as the hills rolled into mountains, and that caused the dense woods to grow. But, it could have been Miracle-grow for all I know.

Anyway, I wander down onto the plains, and holy crap, guess what? There are cows out there. Now I'm now cowboy, but I know cows, right? Big, about six foot at the neck, and maybe six to ten foot spread on the horns, right? So, I get all kinds of excited about sirloin steaks cooked on a wood fire and real leather goods. This in turn causes me to run back to the campsite and make plans for the next day. I get the skinning knives, the come along, all the goods. Then I settle in for the night and sleep pretty well.

Next morning I'm off to see my dear friends the smelly bastard family. I light up the 'Pay Attention to Me I'm The Thunder God' light, and start trying to get them to come with me. This takes a long assed time to get across. Seems like American standard hand gestures like 'Hiya', 'Commere', and similar are basically not current. So, we play this game where Red-Face and I hoot at each other and posture, I back up, he doesn't follow, then I step forward again, more hooting and posturing, and no results.

This goes on for a while until some smelly dude in the back says something like "Gobble Poo", and Red-Face looks at him, looks at me, and takes a couple of steps in my direction. I hoot like a maniac, and smile, and nod and do other stupid shit he doesn't understand, and I back up a couple of steps and point at the distance. Sigh. Okay, repeat this a few times, and I yell. "Gobble Poo" a lot, and sure as anything, Red-Face and DirtyAsHell start to follow me. I cackle and lead them on across the meadow and towards the woods.

After a while, Red-Face and DirtyAsHell actually figure out that I am trying to lead them some place, and they both turn and run towards the cave and return a few minutes later with their spears and stone axes. As they were running back towards me, I had this moment of panic, thinking that they got tired of my insane hooting and were gonna do the WearTheSkinOfStranger dance. But no, they came back and off we went.

We walk across the meadow and through the woods. That's a damned lie. They walked like ninja assassins, completely silent, and I did my best. They looked at me and my feet and made faces that quite clearly told me my name among them, if it weren't for the magic, would be something like MakesMoreNoiseThanDyingRhino. But they're nice guys, and I'm the ThunderRedLightSpecial dude, so they act nice. Mind you, we don't get all that close to each other. I lead them out on to the big plains and point to the pretty cows. They talk to each other a bit, and look at me. I hold up the bang stick and set down the wagon traces. They kinda back away a little, looking like they were concerned about the next few moments. I turned and pointed to the pretty cows a few hundred feet away and made a speech in my best hooting, and made eating gestures. They looked at each other. So, I shouldered the Browning. I knew enough even then not to try to eat a bull, so I picked out a nice medium sized cow, one that looked fairly young through my scope. I shot the cow, and it was a good shot, right in the head. She took one step and dropped.

I stayed quiet for a second, to see of one of the bulls is going to object and try to kill me, but they just stood around for a long minute or two and then kind of quickly headed off in a different direction. I was so happy I could have kissed someone, just not these smelly bastards. When I looked over at Red-Face and DirtyAsHell, they had this look in their eyes that said something like. "Hoo goddamn! Free Cow! Yes, you are indeed the man now, dog!"

Just about then, all hell broke loose. Remember when I mentioned Smilodon, earlier? The giant prehistoric predatory cat from hell? Yeah. Well so just at that moment, the herd of lovely cows turned all of a goddamned sudden and headed our way. And then they sped up. There are a couple of bulls with the cows, and they fell back from the herd and turn, getting lost to my sight. Meanwhile, Red-Face and DirtyAsHell started trying to get my attention, in a silent ninja caveman manner. They pointed at the trees and made gestures that indicated something. The cows kept coming. They tried to tell me something more urgently, then gave up and basically run up the trunks of a couple of nearby trees. I found this odd for a long moment until my brain unfroze and was kind enough to inform me that I was about to experience a stampede. I very quickly joined Red-Face in his leafy retreat. He had to help my fat ass up into the lower branches.

A few moments later, the woods were full of really pissed off cattle. As they ran by, I began to notice a few things. For one, these were awful damned big cows. For another, they sure looked a lot more fierce that the dairy cows I had seen, and for a final thing, those sure as hell looked like big and dangerous horns. They sported big Horns ... real big.

When the herd turned again, I could see that out on the edge of the plain, four bulls had turned and faced a pair of places in the grass that were moving. There was at least two. Red-Face whispered something to me and then he held two fingers to his face pointing down from the jaw. He was indicating 'Sabre-Tooth'. He looked a bit nervous. As we watched, the herd turned and ran back toward the nearly empty spots in the grass that just happened to be moving. As they ran past us, the trees shook. Making it out to the plains, as the dust settled, I could see a flash of dun yellow colored death leap up on a passing cow and drag it down. Then, of course, to make it worse, three more of the giant evil cats leapt up out of the grass on the cow and dragged it down as well.

The herd ran off, with the bulls toward the back. And there, not a hundred yards from me, were at least six giant carnivorous sabre-toothed, cow eating, stranger devouring monsters. They were eating my cow and the one they dragged down. Red-Face and DirtyAsHell whispered a few words to each other, and I had to guess that they were saying something to each other like. "Holy crap what were we thinking, following this bastard? We're cat food for sure now." Mind you, they really didn't show it much, and sort of looked at me like. "Okay genius, now what?"

When I took down the rifle and shot the first one, my hands were shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. I didn't care where I hit the first one, as long as I hit him. It took him mid chest, and he rolled off his kill looking pissed. Then I shot the second one, after missing twice. Yes, I was that nervous. I shot the rest of them, one at a time, and I wasted a lot of ammo doing it. Hell, I stopped and reloaded twice. I shot three males, and ended up shooting four females. Red-Face spent the entire time covering his ears and looking scared, and DirtyAsHell damned near wet himself.

I had another great hero moment here. I didn't get out of the tree, even after Red-Face and DirtyAsHell climbed down and went for a look. Once they came back uneaten, I went to see for myself, pistol in hand and walking very gingerly. God, I was scared. Red-Face and DirtyAsHell exchanged a few words, and gestured to the trees. "Gobble Poo." Red-Face said, and I followed them. He led me back to my camp, and we bowed and hooted at each other for a long bit, then they ran away. They had a damned odd look on their faces. I sat on my supply box and tried to eat a little from my rations. After a bit I calmed down some and remembered that I'd left my wagon behind. I told myself I'd go get it tomorrow ... or the day after.

...

The next morning, I woke up to a beautiful day. The sun is rising, birds are singing, and I feel sore but great. I sat up and looked around, stretched and climbed down to wash up and eat. I went down to the stream, got some water to boil and walked back. As I was finishing my morning wash, sitting there with my shirt and pants off, cleaning up with a wash rag, I heard some noises. I grabbed my pistol and retreated to the ladder, pulling my pants on as I went. A couple of moments later, the entire cave family came walking up. Five of the men were carrying my wagon on their shoulders. The women were loaded down with grass wrapped parcels, and the kids were dragging cow horns behind them.

They stopped at my fire and began singing. Well actually, I'd have to call it chanting, but it was pretty close to singing. Red-Face said something to the men, and they set down my wagon. Inside the wagon was a bunch of familiar looking yellow fur. The men back away, and Red-Face calls up DirtyAsHell. He hooted at the men for a while, looking at Dirty, then at the men, then he made some banging noises, and the men all looked at me and Red-Face and went all moon-eyed. Then Red-Face and Dirty argued for a minute. Red-Face appeared to win the argument, and then he rooted around in the pile of bloody fur. He came up with a freshly skinned Smilodon skull. The men all hooted, and then he walked toward me. I shoved the pistol in my ass crack and climbed down. He presented me with the skull, and all the men hooted and yelled for a bit.

He then repeated this for the next skull. As he was going for the third one, I managed to get out in front and when he handed it to me, I made a little speech.

"Thanks a lot for this stinking dripping messy cat skull, I'll treasure it always, but really it's too much. This one is for you, Red." And I handed it back to him.

He handed it back to me. I made another speech and handed it back. On the third time I gave it back to him, his eyes went wide and he asked me a question. Looked to me like it was "No shit? For me?" so I said "Yep" and clapped him on the back. He held it over his head and paraded around like a king.

I took one more skull, this time from DirtyAsHell, and I handed the last one back to him. That went over real well also, and I could tell that I had a couple of big fans amongst the local unwashed stinking cave dwellers. Once the ceremony was over, the women got to work cleaning out the hides, and Red-Face opened up the grass parcels and gave me a lot of really dirty but freshly killed cow meat. I spent a long moment looking at all that perfectly good cow, and thought of steaks. My mouth watered. Meanwhile, my brain was busy informing me about all the bacteria, filth, parasites, and plagues that my admirers had probably infected my lovely cow with. When push came down to shove, I was hungry for real meat, and I knew I would have to eat something local before too long.

So, I grabbed a big stew pot and a big hunk of dead cow and headed down to the stream. Red-Face followed me, clearly wondering what the hell I was doing. While I was doing this, the rest of the crew kept working. Once I got to the stream, I filled the pot with water, dunked the beef in it, and tried to wash it clean as well as I could. When I was done, I rinsed it again, then re-filled the pot and carried it back to the fire. I set up my cooking grate over the fire and set the pot to boil. I grabbed a good kitchen knife from the cook-set and chopped the beef up into small cubes. Using some salt and spices from my horde I rolled the beef in to the pot and cut some dried veggies into it.

With another hunk of the beef I made tri-tip style fried cuts in a good cast iron pan. When I cut some hunks off of that and handed it to Red-Face ... well, it went over real well. The rest of the day was consumed in a long celebration of The Mighty Smilodon Killer who Cowers in Trees.

Now, let me take a moment and remind you of something you already kind of know, but may not have right in the front of your thinking. Cave dwelling Cro-Magnons are not like you and me. They look like us, but holy crap ... First off, they stink. I don't mean sweating in the garden, "how dare you try to kiss me while sweaty Gerald, go get a shower" kind of stinky. No. I mean stinky like dead rank rotting flesh covered in sweat and crap and rolled in piss kind of stinky. I mean stinky like making your eyes water stinky. Those people were not clean. Second, they are not sanitary. When a Cro-Magnon goes and takes a shit, he does it down wind to be polite. Then, he wipes his shitty ass off with a bunch of grass and then he wipes his fingers on the grass. Then that filthy bastard comes right back to the fire and settles in to eat. He pats his mate on the face with that hand. Get the picture? Next, they do not possess polite social graces. The bigger Cro-Magnon takes what he wants from the smaller ones, and they lump it. That's called family. When strangers come over, they stick each other with spears until someone stops moving. Then they might just eat that poor bastard's heart just to get his courage. Oh, and another thing. They are superstitious and afraid of everything. I mean everything. You can talk till you're blue in the face, but unless you're a bigger MojoMagicBastard than whatever they're afraid of ... you can forget getting anything done at all. I hope you're with me on all this ... cause these people are the best deal working.

Why that digression? Cause I partied with these people. Know what the drink was? Here's the drink, bucko. The women brought out these roots, which they pounded out into flat ribbons with grinding stones. Then they started chewing the roots up and spitting the juices and flecks of root into a stone bowl. More grinding and spitting, then they added some berries, by chewing them and spitting them in. Then they add some powder that looks like dirt, and probably was. Then they warm the bowls on the fire and let it sit for hours, just so the filth and bacteria have a chance to take hold.

Meanwhile the men take hollow reeds and blow crushed beetles up each other's noses. The recipient of this lovely gift of dead beetle then rolls around on the ground moaning in pain and twitching. A little later, when he gets back on his feet, he does the same to his buddy. His buddy then rolls around moaning for a while.

I cooked dinner, and kept the women away from my pots and the food. When it was ready, I served a decent stew in a large bowl for them and a small bowl for me. They ate with curled leaves and fingers, and I ate with a wooden spoon a few feet away. They loved my stew. Then they served me some of that horrific brew, which I pretended to drink, and pass around. Later, Red-Face wanted to blow dead beetle up my nose. So, I did it. Surprised? Well, I basically had to, if I was ever going to fit in. Let me tell you, that beetle shit burns your nose like the fires of hell. Then about half an hour later, you're tripping your balls off. I am talking about full blown visual hallucinations, happy feelings, distorted sounds, the whole shooting match. Of course the really swell part comes in an hour when you puke for ten minutes.

The rest of the night passed in a weird blur. I mostly sat apart from them, held aloof by their primal fear of me, and my own desire not to have to shoot a lot of them and run for the supply dump. They, on the other hand, partied like crazy. It turned out that Red-Face was the shaman, and he told the story of the amazing magic cat hunt to the family group while we all tripped balls. Near the end, he was holding a cat skull over his head and shrieking like a tiger. He then proceeded to tell them all how he and Dirty held them off while I called down the thunder to kill them. I was quite impressed at how much of a hero he was. Mind you, I didn't understand a word, but its storytelling, and I knew the plot already. We drank a lot of the spit beer, and later on people wandered off to screw. Red-Face tried to introduce me to a shy little girl of about twelve, but there was just no way. Girls that young should be playing, not getting into late night trouble. When most of them were passed out I climbed up the rack and went to sleep.

Early the next morning my camp looked like hell, and my whole face felt numb. My head was three sizes too small for my brain, and I had a hard time standing straight. I drank down a massive dose of ibuprofen and went back to sleep. When I woke up, all was right with the world and I felt like Josh the Tiger Killer. (Smilodon is not actually a tiger, but whatever.) I climbed down from my perch to find my adopted family lying around the camp site moaning, in the case of the adults, or laughing at them, in the case of the kids.

Another thing I should mention about the Cro-Magnons I adopted. If you're over about twelve, you're an adult. You're 'made a man' sometime around twelve or thirteen, and you're probably married by the time you're fifteen or sixteen. Then you go out and live a hell assed wild life of sneaking around scared all the time, being filthy and cold, then about the age of thirty to forty, you die of an infection or wound ... unless you're a woman, in which case you die in childbirth at about twenty five or so. Nice, right?

I wandered around the camp a bit, straightening up. After a while I was pretty sure that the adults were going to be useless for most of the whole day, so I decided to help out. I boiled some water and made an aspirin broth. After a lot of coaxing, I got most of them to drink it. About an hour later, the world apparently became a nicer place for the folks. That helped improve their opinion of me even more.

Now, while they sat around, tanning hides and pretending not to sneak peeks at me and whisper to each other about me, I had some thinking to do. If I was going to be able to make a life here and survive, there was a lot of work to be done. Cro-Magnon tribe folks don't work. Nope, they just do what they know how to do, they live. Getting done what I needed to get done was going to take a lot of long term, back breaking work, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I would get them to do any of that work. They were more likely to wander off bored and frightened, or decide that the RedLightThunderGod was a prick and just run off. Why? Well, it's because it took well over a hundred years of the industrial revolution to train hard working farmers to become factory hands. And, it took ten thousand years of civilization to train well organized tribal nomads to become settled, hard working agrarians. And, it took several thousand years of tribal warfare to transform stone-age men like these into well organized tribal nomads. I was up against a lot of history. But then again, I had a lot going for me as well. I figured that what it was going to come down to for me was the women. I was going to need some women who were very damned beholding to me, and I was going to have to get rid of the men, or at least cut back on their numbers.

Having resolved myself on how to deal with it, I took a good long look around. There were a total of seven adult men in the family. They were Red-Face the leader and shaman, and DirtyAsHell the senior hunter and probably brother of Red-Face. Then, below them on the pecking order were StinkyLimper who was older than most of them, probably well over the hill at maybe 40, and UglyMumbler and his sidekick FartsALot. Then the young hunters were DumbAsRocks and QuietlySneaky. Me, I liked QuietlySneaky and FartsALot best out of the bunch, they seemed the smartest. My best guess was that StinkyLimper was the father of Quietly and Dumb.

There were ten women in the tribe, from as young as twelve or thirteen, that's CowEyed, to as old as probably fifty, who I called WrinkledEvil. In between were the mates of the men, BigHips was mated to Red, and Mustache was mated to Dirty. There were a couple of women I didn't interact with, mated to Stinky and Ugly and Farts. Dumb and Quietly didn't seem to be mated yet. So, that left three women that didn't seem to be mated, and I thought of them as Titties, AlmostBlonde, and VeryShy. All of them were reasonably attractive, in a filthy, disgusting, hairy, smelly, superstitious, ferally vicious kind of way.