Chapter 2

A month had passed since my arrival on Darwin’s World.

The trail of a deer led me to a muddy salt lick. A lot of tracks were around the site, some from animals I didn’t want to encounter. I could maybe scare off a bobcat or a coyote, but anything bigger? I was the one who’d be scared off, probably into the nearest tree!

The salt was poor quality, as much dirt as salt, but I could probably do something about that. Soaking the mix, pouring off the liquid, then evaporating the water; that would give me usable salt, but for now it was too much work for too little result. Still, it meant I could find salt without going all the way to the ocean.

The creeks I’d encountered hadn’t been a problem, so far; in fact, they’d been very useful. The river off to my west had been useful as a guide to keep me on course, although I had never thought about crossing it, but the tributary I encountered that afternoon looked dangerous. It was larger than any creek and if there was a way to go around it, I couldn’t think of one.

The water ran sluggish, murky, and at least a hundred yards wide. It looked too deep to wade and I had no idea what might lie under the surface. Was the bottom quicksand? There was no way to tell without wading in, and if I blundered into trouble it might be too late to turn back. Might there be alligators, even crocodiles? I hadn’t seen any yet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there! For that matter, were there ice-age predators I didn’t know about?

Swimming would be equally dangerous, and if I suddenly had to swim my boots would be a hindrance. Swimming while pushing my weapons and boots across on a small raft might work, but if I lost the raft I would then be barefoot and unarmed. I had a momentary vision of scrambling back to the bank, a crocodile in pursuit, while my equipment floated away downstream. Nope, not doing that! Should I carry my spear, or dump it in favor of making a better one after I crossed? I rejected that idea, because I might have immediate need for the spear on the far bank. It would have to go with me.

Building a raft and cutting a push-pole would take at least a day, maybe two, and then I would have to simply abandon the raft after it had served its purpose. A lot of work for not much gain! And there would be other tributaries farther south, maybe even bigger ones. If I had to stop at each river long enough to build a raft, I might not make it to the sea before winter set in. Not to mention that some of the rivers might simply be too deep to cross using push-poles.

A dugout canoe would be better, in that I would have directional control, but making one would require a lot more labor and time to construct. That investment would only be worthwhile if I intended to keep on using the craft afterward. I had no memories of making a birch-bark canoe, not to mention that I hadn’t spotted any birch trees. I could travel farther by canoe, even go upstream, but even so I could go only where the river flowed. I would also have to take time away from paddling or poling to hunt and gather edible fruits or nuts. Maybe, after I found a long term place to live, I could take the time to experiment. But not now; I didn’t have the time!

By contrast, traveling on foot allowed me to forage along the way as well as choose my course. Wind direction was always a consideration, but adapting to it was automatic by now. So: I didn’t like it, but I would have to turn back. I could at least follow the river upstream and look for a safer crossing. Not the direction I had planned to go, but I didn’t have a realistic choice, and even this lesser-of-evils choice might have long-term consequences.

What if I couldn’t reach the seacoast before winter arrived? How bad would ice-age winters be in this forest, and without access to the fruits and nuts I currently relied on could I find enough another food source to replace them? There was no way to tell. My only chance was to try to make up the time I’d already lost. I couldn’t move faster, but I could take fewer breaks and not stop until just before twilight made travel too dangerous.

Starting about a week after I turned north, I began encountering low-growing palm-like plants that had leaves arranged in a fan shape. Each spear-like leaf had sharp edges and a wicked point, so I cut the stems and chopped off the sharp tips for ease in carrying. After stopping for the night, I removed the long, strong fibers from what I concluded were palmetto leaves. The fibers were much superior to what I’d harvested from other sources, so I decided that palmetto leaves would be the fiber of choice whenever I could find the plants. My strings and ropes were weapon, tool, and building material combined, and quality was important.

Leather or rawhide might be better than plant-fiber cords for some uses, but first I needed string in order to make the traps that would catch the animals.

Each night after that, I hung my newly-twisted cords from a heavy limb, then added another limb to stretch them while they dried. The coils of finished cords I collected each morning were easy to carry in my woven bag, created from cords I’d made earlier.

Now that I had a plentiful supply of cords, it was time to add more meat to my diet. Hunting only works if you’re there when the animal is present, meaning that trapping or snaring is much more efficient. Rabbits, squirrels, and large birds were common if I could only catch them. They’d found it easy to avoid me so far, but now I had the means to build efficient traps. I might even catch a raccoon. I had seen tracks near the streams, and if I smoked the meat it could feed me for three or four days.

My deadfall traps, no more than heavy tree trunks suspended over a trigger, hadn’t caught anything up to now and I was ready to give up on them. I already had enough cords to put out at least a dozen loop snares each afternoon, so hopefully my trapping success would improve. More traps and better traps should result in more catches. Picking good spots was easy, because there were many visible paths that small animals followed. Just pick one with an overhanging bush or branch, suspend a slip-knotted loop in the middle of the trail, and wait for a small animal to hang itself.

My life settled into routine. Get up each morning, take care of personal necessities, then drink water from a gourd I’d cleaned by swishing dry sand around the inside. Breakfast was whatever I’d caught during the night, augmented by leftover cooked meats from last night’s supper, plus edible roots, greens, and fruit. Check the wind direction, look around for danger, then move out to the northwest. My actual course was determined by the wind and the terrain, and the big river off to the west originated somewhere to the northwest, so I kept it off to my left whenever possible.

There were times when the river looped, and I ended up just striking out on my own. If I found myself going east, so be it. I hiked longer each day before stopping and still found time to set up camp and put out my snares. Weather had become more of an annoyance than a real problem. There were times when I huddled under a spreading canopy to wait the rain out, but given enough warning I built a tree shelter. Branches, arched, tied, and overlapped shingle-style with leaves, made a fast and easy roof, and adding a cover over my sleeping platform kept me mostly dry as well as safer.