Chapter 4

Gabby started by squatting down across from where the boy was standing so she could speak to the boy without shouting, and to look him in the eye. She started with the old stand by in trying to communicate with the pointing to herself and saying her name and then pointing to the boy. It didn’t take long for the boy to catch on.

The boy pointed to himself and said, “Gort.”

From there Gabby moved on to Clara’s name and then mine. Once the boy had repeated those, Gabby got into the really complicated level of communication. She nodded her head and then said the word, ‘Yes’ and then she shook her head vigorously and said the word, ‘No’. The boy caught on to those two words really quick. Naturally, in exchange, Gabby picked up his words when he said them.

I could see that this was going to take time, which I had expected, but I wasn’t much for just sitting around doing nothing. I suggested that Gabby offer the boy and his pup some food. Like I had mentioned earlier we still had easily enough roasted venison to have another meal. Seeing that we’d eaten about three hours before, and that we’d been pulling the sleds for a while, I felt that a snack would go over well. Gabby did as well.

That was when we encountered a glitch in communications. Gabby gave the boy some of the roasted venison, but the kid wouldn’t eat it. It didn’t make sense because the kid’s eyes had lit up when I’d pulled the remains of the meal out from under the tarp on my sled. Even the pup wanted some of the meat, but the boy wasn’t willing to even share with the pup. It didn’t make sense to me, or at least it didn’t for a minute or two. Then a light bulb came on, and I got it.

“He’s not alone,” I told Gabby and Clara. “If he’d been alone, he’d have gone off and hid in the woods while we’d trekked on by. Even if we had taken over his cave I’m certain that he’d have found somewhere else to live. That means that there is someone in the cave, and that’s why he’s out here looking tough, trying to protect it from any claim jumpers. It also explains why he isn’t eating the food. He wants to give it to whoever is in the cave. See if you can get him to talk about that.”

Gabby tried. She introduced Gort to the word, ‘and’. She pointed to herself and said her name again and then she pointed to Clara and then me. As she did she said, “Gabby and Clara and Jake”. Then she point to Gort and said, “Gort and... ?” She let the question hang in the air for a minute or two and then she went through the process again. This time she pointed towards the cave opening when she asked, “Gort and...”

Gort caught on the second time around. His reaction was to drop the piece of meat that we’d given him to the ground. As he did he took a step backwards and he tried to bring his spear back around in a defensive move. The message was immediately clear. Gort was protecting someone, and he definitely didn’t want us getting into the cave.

“What do we do now?” Clara asked as she watched from beside where I was standing. “The boy looks frightened and it is clear that he needs our help, but it is also obvious that he doesn’t trust us. I wonder who’s in the cave, and why they won’t come out.”

I didn’t wonder because I had already figured that question out for myself. There was only one reason to defend a cave from a bunch of total strangers and that was if there was an injured person inside of it. I told Clara and Gabby this, also telling them that it was a female. They both looked at me quizzically when I said that.

“It makes sense to me,” I said firmly and with some confidence. “You have to stop thinking about life in our times, and start thinking ‘hunter/gatherer’ and all that we know about them from our own time. According to what I’ve read, and from the bloody lectures that Jenkins made us sit through back at Quantum, these societies are male dominated. More importantly, men are responsible for protecting the family ... not boys. If a man was in that cave, regardless of how old he was, or how injured he was, he’d be out here holding that spear and not this boy. I’d bet good money that there is a woman or a girl inside the cave, and she’s injured. Try him again like you did before, but this time give him the word, ‘woman’ and then ‘girl’ and then try asking the question again.”

Gabby tried it again. She pointed towards herself and then said, ‘woman’. Next, she pointed towards Clara and said the same thing. Then she pointed at me and said, ‘man’. Once she’d done that Gabby tried adding the concept of ‘girl’. She pointed at me, and said ‘man, ‘ then she pointed at Gort and said, ‘boy’. Next she pointed at Clara and said ‘woman’ again. Finally Gabby got up and walked over to Clara and then using her hand indicated a person half Clara’s height. This time she put it all together and she tried asking Gort if there was a woman in the cave or was it a girl. She tried that twice in English, and then once in Gort’s language. Gort got the idea after a couple of tries. Unfortunately, it only made him more nervous, as Gabby pressed the issue.

“We need to do something else,” Clara interjected when she saw Gabby getting frustrated with Gort. While communications had started, it was clear that so much wasn’t getting across to the boy. It was also clear that Clara was about to pull a Jenkins on the kid, and I already knew how that would work out. I knew she meant well, but if she just tried to brush the kid aside so she could get inside the cave, and to whoever was in there who might need her help, someone would get hurt. Fortunately, I was good at thinking on my feet. Also I’d been down this road before in another place and another time, and I had a good idea what would work in the end.

“Clara,” I said calling her attention to me, “it’s time to do some acting. Get a bowl and some water from the sled, and one of the spears we’ve been holding on to. We’re about to put on a show for Gort. Hopefully, it’ll work.”

Clara wanted to know what my plan was, so I told her. We were going to show the kid that Clara was a healer. If we were lucky, Gort would clue in to the fact that Clara was a healer. It would be enough information to make him relent and let her into the cave to help out. We’d find out soon enough. Clara’s face lit up once she got the gist of what I want to do. In seconds she’d gathered the props I’d asked for, and more. She had also grabbed the medicine bag that she’d worn the first day, when we had arrived here from our own time. It was a smart thing to do.

Our act was simple, but self-explanatory. I fell on the ground, putting the spear into the earth beside me to look like I’d been jabbed with it. Clara pulled it away and then she started examining me, making a big production of looking at my supposed wound and then checking my temperature with the flat of her hand. Then she poured some water into the bowl and she made another big production of hunting through the medicine bag for the right medication to help fix me up. Finally, she had me drink the ‘medicine’, which was still plain old water since Clara hadn’t really put anything in it. After a moment or two, Clara helped me to my feet. When Clara did this, Gabby turned to Gort and gave him the word, ‘healer’. Then she tried projecting the idea that ‘Clara is a healer’. Amazingly, Gort got it in one try. After that things started to get interesting.

Gort only wanted Clara to go in the cave. I wasn’t happy with that thought, but I ended up biting my own tongue and keeping my opinion to myself. Clara was armed, so I figured if anything happened then she’d be able to handle matters until I could come to the rescue. I did suggest she take one of our solar powered lanterns with her. The light was halogen, so I figured that it would certainly be bright enough to light up the cave and give her enough to see by once she was inside.

“What about scaring Gort and whoever is inside the cave out of their wits with advanced technology?” Clara asked. She was suddenly hesitant at going in and looked very concerned.

“You’re a healer,” I pointed out. “Healers work with magic. You’ll be fine.”

Personally, I think the lantern did the trick in the end. Five minutes after Clara had entered the cave with Gort she was back out again. She pointed to me and she started barking orders.

“I need your help, Jake,” Clara declared in a very confident voice. “There is a little girl in there with a very high fever. I want her out here by the fire, so I can use the daylight to treat her injuries. While you’re doing that, I’ll be setting up out here. Now move it.”

I didn’t even hesitate or think about what Clara was telling me to do. I didn’t worry about Gort and his spear or the wolf pup that was tagging along by his heels. I just did what I was told to do, by someone who knew how to give a direct order. For a second, I thought I was back in the service!

Gort didn’t interfere with me once I got into the cave and moved over to the girl. The cave wasn’t that big; maybe thirty feet in diameter and about ten feet in height. The roof was dome shaped so I had to duck as I moved towards the back wall where the girl was lying wrapped up in skins. I simply brushed by Gort who was standing protectively off to one side and I picked her up into my arms. The little girl was unconscious. I could feel the heat coming off her body. The poor thing was burning up.

When I got the little girl outside the cave, I found that Clara had laid out a bedroll on the ground next to the fire pit. I also found that Gabby was quickly rekindling the fire. Without asking what she wanted me to do with the girl, I just carried her over to the bedroll. I gently lowered the kid down onto it, then I got out of the way and let Clara do her job.

Clara did just that. She quickly cut the clothing off the girl with her combat knife, then pulled them all off, leaving the kid lying naked on the bedroll. The kid looked to be no more than six years old.

“I’m going to need clean, warm water to wash down her body,” Clara said aloud, not really directing her words to anyone in particular, “and I’m going to need hot water to help clean out her wounds. I think this girl hurt herself badly, and the wound wasn’t cleaned out and properly taken care of. It’s infected, and she’s running a fever.”

I wasn’t around to hear all of that. When Clara said she needed water, I went to our sleds and found the case of pots and pans. I grabbed two medium sized pots, and ran over to the nearby river bank. Moments later I was back, toting two pots full of water. I just handed them over to Gabby to put over the fire she had going. It was at that point I spotted a small problem. There wasn’t much wood piled up by the fire pit. We needed fuel.

“Gort,” I called out to the boy, grabbing up a stick from the small pile that was left and waving it at him. “We need firewood. Go get some more firewood for the fire.”

I pointed to the stick when I said ‘firewood’ and I then pretended to put it in the fire. Gabby did the same thing in an effort to get the message across to the kid. He got the message the second time around. Still, he hesitated for a second or two, looking anxiously at the little girl. It was only when I called to him again that he finally headed off to do what I had asked of him.

While Gort was gone, Clara did her medical magic. She bathed the girl first, in an attempt to clean her body and reveal any hidden injuries. She found that the girl’s right arm had been burnt, though the burn was only minor, and that somehow she’d been cut on her right thigh. She also had a bruised left eye and scrapes on her hands, legs. Her feet looked sore and infected, too. Once Clara had cleaned the little girl up, she started on the worst of the injuries, and worked her way through them one at a time. She had drained and scrubbed out the gash on the girl’s thigh by the time Gort had returned with an armful of firewood. She was bandaging it up, when the boy dropped the wood down beside where Gabby was seated as she tended the fire and watched over the boiling water.

“Keep Gort busy,” I told Gabby, “and work on getting a grip on his language. From the look of it, both he and the girl got roughed up by someone recently, and I want to know who did it.”

It had been hard to tell that the boy had been injured also, initially. When we had first come on Gort standing guard outside the cave, he was as dirty as the girl. His long, stringy hair had been hanging over his face, but eventually I’d gotten a good look at the boy, and I’d seen that some one had split his lip and blackened his eye. I had also noticed bruising on his back. Someone had beaten him. I didn’t like that! I doubted that the women would like it either, once they put two and two together. Hopefully, Gabby could make a linguistic breakthrough, and we could get the kid’s story from his own lips. In the meantime I grabbed another pot out of our supplies, took it to the river and filled it up with some water. I brought it back to Gabby and handed it to her to put on the fire.

“Get this pot started,” I told her when she looked up at me in an enquiring fashion, “and then start adding some of the venison we still have in the sled. Chop it up fine when you do it. We need to make a bouillon for the little girl to drink once she comes around. While you do that I’ll see if I can find anything like wild onions, either by the river or the creek.”

It did take me some doing, but I found a patch of wild onions back the way we’d come. As I harvested them, I thanked my wilderness survival instructor for all the hard work he’d put in back at Ranger’s School teach us poor slobs how to identify edible plants when we were out on patrol, and how to harvest them. Within half an hour I was back to the cave with my prizes. Once there I washed them in the river and then I cut up a few bulbs so I could add them to the broth that Gabby was making. It should definitely help flavour up the food.

Clara had finished up on the little girl and she’d moved on to Gort. The little girl was resting peacefully by the fire, wrapped up in another bedroll taken from our supplies. She was still unconscious.

“How is it going?” I asked as I watched Clara give Gort the once over. To my amazement she’d already scrubbed him down in my absence and she was now tending to a few scrapes on his hands and feet.

“Not very good,” Clara sighed in reply. “The infection had taken hold on the girl, and she’s in a rough way. I’ve given her a couple of shots to help fight it, but I don’t know if it is enough. The medical bag has some antibiotics that I can give her, but I need her awake to give them to her. I also think she’s dehydrated because of the fever. The broth that you’ve got Gabby making is a good idea, but again we need a way for her to eat it.”

“What about an IV?” I asked pointedly. “I know our medics usually had a couple in their packs when we were out on patrol. Couldn’t you use them?”

“I could use them, but I haven’t yet,” Clara admitted hesitantly, “They would certainly help rehydrate her, but then once they’re gone there won’t be any more and then what? I’d like to see if we can bring her fever down naturally, first, and then rehydrate her orally. If that doesn’t work then I’ll use the IV bags that we have.”

“There are risks doing that,” I pointed out cautiously, not wanting to upset the good doctor considering the work that she’d already done.

“Of course there are risks in doing it this way,” Clara snapped back, with frustration in her voice, “but we really don’t have too many choices given the conditions we’re operating in. For now all we can do is to watch and wait.”

“What about bathing her in the river?” I inquired tentatively, already smarting from the last response that I’d received from Clara. “When I had a bad fever as a kid that was the way my parents did it. They put me in the tub in cold water, and they forced the fever out of me. I could always do it with the girl. If nothing else it might revive her enough that we could get some broth into her and maybe some medicine as well. You could always grind up what you need to give her, and put it in the broth.”

“I could do that,” Clara muttered thoughtfully. “Let me think about it while I finish looking at Gort.”

I let Clara do that. While she did I fetched a couple of bowls and spoons for the broth that Gabby had been cooking. I ladled out a portion of broth for the girl, and set it aside for it to cool. By the time I was finished doing that, Clara was done looking after Gort. She was then ready to consider my plan.

Clara checked the girl first and then sighed. Then she looked over to where I was sitting. I spoke first.