RoustWriter: Blog

This week with Times 7:

...The spear slid from its position on his back. He slipped it off his shoulder and dropped it on the ground, its extra weight too much of an encumbrance now. If I live through this, I’ll make another one. I suppose it’s five miles or so back to the cave. An easy stroll any other time, but it’s going to be a little tougher this time. No matter – I’ll make it.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. You went out on the plains before dealing with the cat, but what’s done is done. Suck it up and get on with it.

He tried to ignore the pain as he kept firm pressure on the wound in an effort to slow the blood flow that continued to ooze from between his fingers.

It has slowed down considerably, he told himself. Just keep the grip on my shoulder firm and put one foot in front of the other.

He badly wanted water, but he kept telling himself that he wasn’t that thirsty. He knew the insistent thirst was his body’s natural response to the blood loss, but logic didn’t help stop the craving.

I’m just going to have to be thirsty. No way am I going back toward that river...

Have a goodun;

Roust

This week with Times 7:

...He looked at the fine bow in his hands. Two-thirds of the arrow length was probably half the power that the bow would put out at full draw. In a few more weeks, with exercise, he could possibly draw it, but not now.

I’ve screwed up and become overconfident, and I’m going to pay for it with my life.

He fought to steady his breathing. This isn’t the time to panic, you idiot. Long, deep breaths. Concentrate on where I want the arrow to go.

He had fashioned his best arrowhead yet – prepared especially for the cat, but he had expected to use it from the safety of the cave, not out here in the open. Barely noticed, the colors swirled inside his brain, intensifying, but there was no time to relax himself and look for the thread.

The cat was almost upon him as he turned his back to the river, braced his feet, and with his best arrow already nocked, waited...

Have a goodun;

Roust

This week with Times 7:

...As he started to put more wood on the fire, he smelled the cat. It had to be close, but it hadn’t made a sound – not even the cough. Last night, it had coughed before it attacked. The cough was probably instinctive and might be used to frighten its prey into showing itself. This was the second time it had approached in a weird manner. Why did it keep after him? He had burned its face and shot it with an arrow, yet it still came back. Thank God it didn’t hunt in the daytime.

As Mack’s heart seemed to do a flip-flop, the cat suddenly slammed into the bars across the entrance, squalling with anger and frustration as it struck the wood head-on. After slamming into the bars several more times, it lay on its side and extended an enormous paw under the bottom bar, slapping its clawed appendage around until it hit the fire. Even when the fire burned its foot, it struck again and again, as if trying to kill the source of its pain. The pain from the burn even seemed to intensify its anger, if possible, and it screamed and charged the bars repeatedly. When it failed to get in, it stood glaring at him through the bars before urinating on them, then, as if it were a mist in the night, it was gone.

An examination of the bars brought a sobering thought. He hated to admit it, but the cat had made headway. Two of the poles were seriously loosened. He hurriedly pounded more rocks into the holes to tighten the bars back up. One hole had a crack radiating away from it in the hard-packed dirt. If the cat ever realized there was a weak spot, it might be able to get through. He had never seen such determination in an animal. It had even changed its hunting technique. Normal animals didn’t learn that quickly. He examined the poles and found that one already had a crack near its center. Maybe he should have shot the cat again. He had planned to try to kill it with the spear if it attacked, but during the furious assault on the bars, he had, literally, just stood there awestruck.

Well, shit. You just stood there like an idiot and watched him trying to tear the bars down. You could have – at least – shoved a piece of burning firewood in his face or jabbed him in the chest with your spear. Disgusted with himself, he began checking the bars and their corresponding holes for more damage.


Boy, you’re bright. You had a perfect chance to, at least, hurt it, and what did you do? Nothing.

...

Have a goodun;

Roust

This week with Times 7:

...There was no doubt about where the dinosaurs had been; as he neared, the place looked as if a tank had run amuck. There were small uprooted and half-eaten trees scattered about, with gigantic footprints everywhere. In some of the softer soil near a stream, the prints were knee-deep. The “bison” had also fed here, and he picked some of their long hair out of a tangle of brush and briers. I don’t know what I’ll use it for, but I’m not going to pass this up.

Much later, as he wearily made his way back up the steep trail just before nightfall, his pockets stuffed with long coarse hair, he felt as if his scouting trip had been a success. His mood was abruptly dampened, however, when he entered the cave to find everything scattered about and all his meat gone. His glue pot was overturned, and two of his arrow blanks were broken. Apparently, he had been gone too long, and his fire had gone out, or else the animal that had been here just wasn’t that intimidated by fire.

Depressed, he hastily restarted his fire and stacked wood across the entrance. Apparently, the animal hadn’t liked his vegetables, and he still had a few left. As he bent over to pick them up, he could feel chills start down his spine. Now I know what has been in here. There was a clear print in the dust that left no doubt that the track belonged to one of the great cats. Did my scouting trip just save my life?...

Have a goodun;

Roust

This week with Times 7:

...After working his way through the larger branches, he hesitantly moved aside the leaves and looked again. The brontosaur was still chewing happily away. If it was a figment of his imagination, it was a hungry figment, for it was eating the vegetation with gusto. There was another of the giant reptiles about a half mile farther up the valley; a mile or so east, he could make out something big standing among some trees.

He sat in the tree and watched, captivated, as the nearest brontosaur moved from small tree to small tree, stripping the limbs from the larger and uprooting the smaller; its long neck allowing it to reach high into the larger trees as well. The brontosaur would occasionally pause to chew, with branches falling from either side of its mouth as the great teeth cut limbs into what Mack guessed were three inches or more in diameter. As the colossal beast moved clumsily about, Mack tried to estimate its size. He kept telling himself that he was overestimating, but, all told, nose to tail, the beast had to be seventy or eighty feet long, and the legs were at least three feet in diameter just above the knee. As the colossus floundered about in the marshy soil, Mack wondered how flesh and bone could support all that weight. Years had passed since anthropology class, and he couldn’t remember just when brontosaurs had lived, but he knew he had to be many millions of years into prehistoric time.

Surely, the life of a puny human – me – is impossible in this place. Looking around once more in case a carnivore was approaching, he thought, My kaleidoscope has gotten me into this. Can I reverse direction on the threads in order to return to my own time? It seems logical...

Have a goodun;

Roust