Chapter 7

I slept for four hours straight, the first time since arriving on Darwin’s World; the feeling of security from being inside four sturdy walls, of having a real roof overhead, allowed me to sleep without waking during the night to add wood to the fire.

My clothes were still in fairly good shape, but they needed a real washing! I had planned to do so more than once, but it hadn’t happened. The fear had always been there in my mind, of being surprised while naked and having to run for my life! So it was that tonight, removing my stinky clothes was the thing to do. It was the first time since being transplanted that I’d had that luxury! I could still reach the clothes quickly if necessary, but in the meantime I avoided at least some of the smell.

The cabin was dark anyway, with only the faint glow of coals showing where the fireplace was located; all else was dark. Waking up and a full bladder go together, so I got out of bed to head outside. After deciding not to get dressed, I pulled on my boots, picked up my spear, and looked through the peephole before opening the door. After another careful look around, I stepped outside.

Crickets burred softly, meaning that there was no threat stirring. A few steps took me to a bush that might need watering, so I did what I could to help it out. It was pleasant outside, more pleasant than in the cabin truth be told; I wasn’t the only one in need of a bath and clean clothes! After a final shaking, I glanced at the sky and admired the stars. The moon was no longer visible, only a faint glow that filtered through the trees, and except for insects nothing was stirring.

I went back in after a moment and secured the door. From there, I made my way back to the bed and tried to find ‘my spot’ by feel. And got a surprise; a hand grabbed mine and led me to the open space in the bed, then led my hand farther. One of the women, I had no idea which, had not been nearly so sleepy!

So much for assuring me that they wanted to be careful. Someone had undergone a change of heart!

I don’t know if the other woke up when we started or while we were “involved”, but after we finished I heard a mumbled “Slut!” before I dropped off to sleep again.

It’s hard to keep secrets when you’re sleeping three in a bed, even in the dark!

I woke up later than usual next morning. My new companions slept late too. Had the late-night activities kept them awake?

Finally my insistent morning need got me up and out to find someplace to take care of matters. I decided that yes, I would definitely find someplace to wash up before the day was over! The two women were up when I returned.

I said “Good morning!” and waited to see if there was any reaction. If there was, I missed it. I was greeted with essentially the same tone we’d used the night before when we wished each other a good night.

We worked together fixing breakfast; I set out the last of my cured pork, they provided more bread. There was water to wash it down, and we took turns drinking from the gourd. Little things are important; having your own personal drinking vessel and dishes constitutes wealth.

I mentioned I was going outside to look around and check the traps, and either or both would be welcome if they wanted to come along. The snares would need to be moved anyway, and if they came along I could explain trapping as we went and how to improve a trap site.

There was also a stream not far from the cabin and I wanted to see how useful it might be. There might be a pool where I could catch fish, which would certainly be an improvement to our present diet. Best of all, I might wash my clothing and even manage a bath for myself while they stood guard!

The women decided that Millie would go with me and Sandra would work on in the cabin, including opening the front and rear windows and letting the air blow through. An excellent idea I thought, and the bed could also do with a good airing! She would also prepare a few loaves of bread for baking later and grind more flour while we were out. The raw materials, already collected, were in pots against the back wall.

I rapidly fashioned a pack similar to mine for Millie, and explained that Sandra would get one later. I carried my spear, even though we weren’t going far, and Millie had her knife. After a short discussion, we decided we probably wouldn’t need the crossbow today.

Millie and I made the rounds of the snares and collected four dead rabbits along the way. Most of the snares were undisturbed, but I picked them up anyway, putting them into my pack to be set out elsewhere. We quickly gutted the rabbits and lopped off the heads, letting the carcasses bleed out; skinning could wait until we got back. Millie put the carcasses in her pack, since I carried my atlatl and spear in my hand with the extra darts in my pack. If there were predators around I didn’t want to find one the hard way, and if we surprised a deer I intended to be ready!

I reset the snares in several of the many animal paths and finished the task after about two hours. Millie had watched, and she set out the last few before we headed back to the cabin. The rabbits would be our supper, along with whatever greens or fruit we might come across later. There would also be fresh bread, so we’d eat well tonight.

We left the rabbits with Sandra and headed out again, this time toward the stream. I had several ropes in my pack that would work as snares for larger game if I could find where they came down to drink.

The women hadn’t been attacked, but they’d worked outside only for brief periods. Still, Amanda had been killed somewhere nearby, and where the grazers went, carnivores followed. The women had survived as much by luck as skill, I decided; we had that much in common! Maybe I could convince them to be more alert, more wary, before I went on my way. Amanda had been over-confident, I decided; tackling a big bovine was something to do only when you had a handy tree to climb! That had been a dumb move on Amanda’s part, shooting that size when you couldn’t be certain of killing it immediately.

Overconfidence kills, I knew that much. I would be sure to explain this to them, several times if necessary. An unfortunate truth: Amanda’s lack of wariness might be what Darwin’s World was expected to weed out of the gene pool.

The spring behind the cabin was a reliable water source, and close; take a few steps outside, fill a gourd, step back in the cabin. The water would also be pure, something I hadn’t been certain of regarding some of the places I drank. I had never known if some animal had been pissing just out of sight or had died and was rotting upstream. I’d depended on the ‘immunity’ that the Futurist told me I had. I’d been lucky too, or perhaps this region wasn’t as wild as I’d assumed.

The stream was less than half a mile from the cabin, running roughly north-to-south. It flowed in a narrow gully that was slightly more than six feet deep, and would probably flood if it got a heavy rain such as I’d experienced.

We followed an animal trail down the gully’s side. The vegetation was thick and varied, consisting mostly of willows but with other plants grown back along the banks and up the sides. None of the gourds they wanted, though; they might be growing upstream. I couldn’t see over the gully walls, which made me a bit nervous, but no sight-hunter was going to spot us either. Terrain can provide advantages as well as disadvantages. I looked for tracks, but found nothing new. Old tracks indicated that large deer frequently came to the stream, but if not deer, they might have been left by something I had no knowledge of. I had no way of knowing what else might exist on Darwin’s World.

I had good knowledge of fossil discoveries from before the twentieth century, but that didn’t mean everything had been found. Fossil creation depends on where the organism dies and what happens afterwards, so luck plays a large part in fossilization. There might be entire families of organisms where no evidence that they’d existed had survived.

Should I bother setting traps by the stream? Tracks of birds were plentiful and some of them were large, so the crosswise-stacked sticks that made up a pyramidal trap would serve nicely as a bird trap. But collecting willow shoots for the trap would take time, so I decided to put it off for now.

A snare might catch the deer that had left the tracks, but at the same time I didn’t want to discourage animals from visiting the water; sooner or later, they might decide to move away from danger. It was something to think about, our current requirement for food balanced against future needs.