Chapter 5

My course led northwest toward the smoke, but I was ever watchful for what the wind was doing. If it shifted, I looked for a path across the wind rather than going downwind; prey that goes downwind is soon dinner for something smarter.

I was still wary of encountering big predators, but either I had been lucky or the Futurist had cleared them away from where I’d been dropped. Another possibility, that hunted by night. In which case they would have avoided my fire.

Predators can’t afford to wander aimlessly; their behavior is based on what their preferred prey does. Not to mention that there was only one of me, at least in the area I’d come from, and I wasn’t following a pattern. None of that really mattered. I always knew where the nearest tree was, because I didn’t want to run into a stupid saber-tooth who didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to hunt at random!

The smoke vanished after an hour, but it didn’t matter; I now knew which direction to go.

The streams I was encountering now were smaller and the landscape had changed. It was now more savanna than prairie. Springs were fairly common and I no longer built weirs in the streams I crossed.

My pyramid traps had stopped working, but the snares still produced. Animals are suspicious, but they’re also lazy and creatures of habit. They follow established trails, and while they might step around a snare if they notice it, they’re unlikely to back up or detour around an obstacle. This is particularly true if they find themselves between two small trees whose branches have been hacked off, leaving sharp points that funnel them into the snare. If there were no handy trees, I improved locations by putting brush in position to guide the animal into the snare.

Snares could be improved by attaching the loop to a springy tree, which was held under tension by the rope. The trigger was a thin twig across a forked twig that had been planted solidly in the trail. As soon as an animal pulled on the snare’s loop the trigger released and the bent tree sprang upright, closing the loop and strangling the animal. Large snares were for deer trails when I could find them, smaller ones were for rabbits. And there were a lot of rabbits!

Two rabbits and a porcupine waited in my snares when I ran my trap-line at dusk. I made very sure that porky was dead before I tried freeing him! But the loop was buried in the quills around his neck, so I gave up and cut the loop. I skinned the critter and moved on to check my other snares, the ones I’d set along what I hoped was a deer trail.

One of my spring-snares had almost worked. It had missed the neck, but it had caught one of the critter’s front feet. This had then been lifted off the ground by tension from the spring-pole. The spring-pole had not been strong enough to lift its other feet off the ground, but it wasn’t going anywhere, and the unhappy creature was not dead, no indeed! It grunted angrily as soon as it spotted me.

The beast had a pig-like head, short tusks, and jaws that snapped angrily as I approached. Wheezing, it tried to keep me in view by swinging its body around. I decided that my spear would work better from the side, so I took three fast strides around the pig--a peccary?--and slammed the spear into the front of its ribcage, hard. I kept pushing and the spear went a little deeper as the animal squealed and tried to squirm away. It struggled briefly against the rope holding its front leg and the spear, then sagged. The stink of released dung told me it had died.

I relaxed briefly, still shaking from adrenaline, but then I made out a tan shape crouching across the clearing. Cougar? No; the nostrils were too large, the legs too long. Whatever the cat was, it had a long puma-like tail with a dark tuft at the end. It was a twitch of that tail that had caused me to notice it. I realized that the pig had seen the cat and been facing it with flashing tusks and bared teeth, but then I arrived. By moving around to where I could spear it, I had put the pig between me and the cat.

I was in trouble; my spear was stuck in the snared pig and it would probably take a really strong pull to get it out, leaving me with only my stone club and axe. Even if I managed to kill it, there was almost no chance that the —American cheetah? — wouldn’t get at least a part of me.

I wanted the pig, but not enough to wrestle that cat for it! Club in my right hand and axe in my left, I slowly backed toward the nearest tree. Take the pig, kitty! I’m not going to fight you for it!

My luck held; the cat made no move to attack. But it remained crouched and its eyes never blinked as I backed away. Had it seen humans before? Or did the sudden death of the pig cause it to hesitate? Brief thoughts, based more on hope than reason!

I had reached the tree but hadn’t started climbing when the cat finally backed away, spun, and disappeared into the undergrowth. Decision time; climb, or recover my spear? I wanted that pig...!

I raced as fast as I could for my spear and yanked, almost losing my balance when it came out. Relieved, I replaced the axe in its sheath and my club in its loop. Much better; I now had the means to make the cat keep its distance! The drawback was that I needed both hands to use it effectively.

My face was sweaty, my shirt was soaked through, and I was shaking. I hadn’t felt afraid — I hadn’t had time! But the body reacts to stress whether you’re consciously aware of it or not. So I backed to the tree behind me and just relaxed against the bark, still shivering from fear and adrenaline.

I’d left a fire burning back at camp. If I could reach it without losing my pig, I would eat well for a few days before it went bad. But it was heavy and not easy to drag, so I field-dressed the pig where it lay. I left the entrails for the cat, then switched the snare from its leg to its neck. That’s how I dragged the carcass to the fire, spear in hand and the rope across my shoulder.

There were enough coals to start cooking, so I dragged them to the side. I decided I needed more, so I added a few dried branches. While they burned down to coals, I prepared the porcupine for tonight’s dinner. The porcupine and maybe one of the rabbits would be enough for tonight and tomorrow’s breakfast too. While the carcasses sizzled, I built a hasty drying rack of green branches and butchered the pig. The thin strips of pork I’d cut went on the rack to dry, and I finally got to tuck into my now-cooled supper. I cooked the other rabbit too; waste not, want not! Sitting by my fire, I started in to make a real backpack, one with rawhide straps. I needed it to carry the extra meat. I had enough now to do me for at least three days, and by then I might be able to find out who’d made that fire.

While I worked, I became aware of running water not far away. I decided to wait for morning before investigating; wandering around in the dark, even with a fire burning behind me, was not healthy!

It turned out to be more like five hundred yards, but animal trails eventually led me to a stream located at the bottom of a small ravine. The largest pool was shoulder-deep, about twenty-five yards wide, and the ravine’s walls sloped gently to a small beach of sand. Another beach lined the far bank. I saw numerous tracks alongside the stream, some on my side but even more across the stream. Those tracks led to a whitish seam on the far bank that turned out to be salt.

It was far from pure, but it was salt, mixed with something gritty. I had no idea what the substance was, but animals had been using the salt lick so I could too.