Chapter 2

The sight wasn’t pretty. One man was killing another and making sure by stabbing the dying guy in the chest many times. Both men were blond and well-built though much shorter than me by five or six inches. It was mostly due to their legs. They were both dressed in loin cloths and were dirty and ill-kept. Bathing didn’t seem to have been a priority or even a habit for them. I decided that if they were the current state of civilization, I was in trouble.

While I was ruminating, the killer left his victim, jumped in a canoe that was there and left paddling hard downstream. It was too late to shout even and, for some reason possibly shock, I stayed hidden. I was glad I did for, moments later, two more men ran up. They gave the body a cursory examination, and ran off heading downstream. They just left the dead guy there ignored.

All three of them and the dead guy seemed to be of the same species and different from me. The dead guy had a receding forehead and his legs were shorter than mine and crooked. It made him look ape-like to me.

The two guys seemed to be gone since I couldn’t hear them anymore. I slowly entered the small clearing to see what might be left that I could use. I saw some more knives like I already had and little else until I lifted a skin.

She was lying there tied and gagged. She was a blond but the legs looked long and quite shapely. The rest of her looked good, too. I started to untie her. I removed her gag and then untied her wrists. She moved to unbind her feet and then slowly stand. She was almost my six feet and was wearing a loin cloth that looked cleaner than those the men were wearing. She also was wearing a bandeau top similar to bathing suits I had seen before all this happened. It appeared to made of hide.

I quit looking her over when she spoke. Her tones were quiet and friendly.

Unfortunately, they were also unintelligible. She quickly realized that I didn’t understand her. She then used signs that we should leave. She moved her fingers across her palm and then pointed over the small river. I nodded with a shrug. We took a knife for her and the hide blanket that had been covering her. I took a scabbard that I found which was better than what I had been using. She had a scabbard into which her knife went. I bundled up the hide and we left walking out in the river which was quickly over our heads. I was a good swimmer and stroked for the opposite shore. She had an adequate dog paddle. I waited once I could touch bottom. We walked out together. She swiped her hands down her body to get most of the water off and I did the same.

She took my hand and led off away from the river. I followed her. I figured, if a beautiful blond wanted me to accompany her in the woods, I would go. Besides the “bad guys” were downstream which is the direction I had been going. I wasn’t interested in meeting them even if I caught up with them.

I looked back and saw some big dogs go to the dead man and begin feasting upon his body. I decided moving on was an idea whose time had come.

We walked through the forest for about an hour. I could tell she was tiring but wanted to go further. We continued on until we came to another creek. She was really tired and I was feeling it, too. There was a grassy area and we lay down on it resting.

After a while, I sat up stretching. She sat up and stretched also. I thumped my chest, though not hard, and said, “Josh. Me, Josh. You?” I pointed at her.

She didn’t thump but pointed a slender finger at her rather healthy chest and said, “Elena.” She pointed at me and said, “Josh.”

I nodded and pointed at her and said, “Elena.” We now had names and hers was pretty. She spoke again quickly but I had no idea what she said. As I listened, I thought it sounded a bit like Spanish. I decided that learning the language was my next goal. I walked to a tree and said, “Tree?” Our lessons started with me as student and her as teacher.

I carried my stick/spear in my right hand. A deer ran into the clearing and, before it had time to see that there might be danger, I stretched my arm back and let fly. I speared the deer! This would be the second one where spearing worked. I had missed a number of previous times. She liked that move clapping her hands and smiling.

She went to the deer with me. I pulled my spear out of the body and she pointed to a tree giving me the name for tree again as she did. I carried the deer there and used some hide rope that I had made to string it up. Before I could start, she had her knife out and began to dress the deer and skin it. I let her work. She was practiced and used economical strokes of her knife. I gathered wood for a fire.

Language lessons continued. Over the next week or so, we started to be able to talk a little bit.

I had kept my lecherous self tamped down. She was startlingly beautiful. Since I hadn’t seen anyone until sighting her and the gnarly men, it wouldn’t be difficult to think her good looking simply because of that lack of comparisons. However, she really was beautiful.

Kath was quite pretty but Elena had her totally out-classed. On top of that, she wasn’t wearing much of anything though I had seen more skin displayed at beaches. Her even tan indicated that this was her normal mode of dress.

She was also not self-conscious which suggested to me that her people were liberal on their dress codes. I was becoming able to converse with her on simple matters now. I felt it was agonizingly slow though, from my time learning Spanish, I knew we were progressing quickly.

When I stopped to think about it, I wondered if everyone here was a blond. It would make my dark brown hair noticeable and different from all others. According to my notches, we have been together now for just over three weeks. We were talking regularly and she was working on my grammar. Talking about any philosophical subject or even her people was difficult but we were trying. We just lacked sufficient reference points.