Chapter 3: I Need a Home

I sat around thinking about things for an hour. I worried about the cave, was it safe from big or dangerous animals. What about someplace in a tree, were the trees safe? What about the ground? I knew I wouldn't feel safe in anything less than a log cabin and that was not going to happen when all I had was a rope and a stone hatchet head.

In my mind, the cave as the best choice. I needed better weapons and tools. I set off into the woods and looked around for some dead fall. I eventually found one on the side of the river where the tree roots had given up and the tree was leaning in over the land. I found a suitable branch of about an inch and a half. I cut this branch off about seven feet long as this seemed the ideal length for someone my size.

I took it back to my river camp site and stoked the fire back up again. I sharpened a semi blunt point on it with the stone hatchet and started twirling it in the fire. I didn't want it to char, but I wanted it tough enough to stab any unknown critter that I may come upon.

It took only a few minutes to catch another fish with my basket and a little bait from under a rock. I started the fish cooking over the fire and untied the rope from the basket. I decided that I would keep the basket tied to the belt rope I had used to hold my loincloth.

It was time to find a handle for my hatchet head. Then I would have a real hatchet. I also would look for something smaller to act as a knife. I ate my mid day meal and went back to the dead fall for a hatchet handle. A judicious piece of branch had a knot that allowed me to split it at one end without the split continuing all the way. The hatchet head fit in nicely and I bound it with lots the twine I had left over from my basket weaving. I wet the twine so it would tighten up.

I started back and decided immediately I needed more hands. I had this basket with fire making tools in it, my spear and the hatchet. It was clumsy and hard to move around this way. I tied the spear to my back at an angle so I could move through the woods without it getting in the way. It went over one hip and the opposite shoulder. The hatchet handle could be wiggled into my belt, but that made it slow to get to. I decided I would keep it in the basket as it could be quickly pulled from that.

When I got back I made a fire, it wasn't so much to cook something as it was for security. It also allowed me to make a torch that allowed me to explore the cave more.

I found small animal droppings in the back, but that was about it. I did find a split piece of rock that was knife like. It was about three inches long. A four inch cutting from a sapling made a soft handle for my new knife. I carefully placed the knife blade into the sapling and wrapped it with some grass I had pulled from the basket.

I didn't have a gun, but I had the making of a set of tools. I gathered a little firewood to keep my fire going. When it started getting dark, I settled down for the night. The cave floor was cold and hard. I wished I had the foresight to make something more comfortable to sleep on.

I got up several times to feed the fire during the night. I had noticed that there didn't seem to be a lot of flying bugs which was good. Come to think of it, had I seen any flying bugs, I didn't think so.

I also noticed for the first time that the woods seemed pretty quiet. I was used to the chatter of birds and squirrels from Connecticut and Boston. Whatever was high up in those trees didn't make noise.

At dawn I was ready for some breakfast, I was just tired of it being fish already. I headed through the woods for the river. I was almost to the river when I heard a dragging sound. I looked through the gloom of the forest and saw what looked to be a large reptile coming my way.

As soon as the lizard knew I had seen it, it started running towards me. It was very fast. I ran for the nearest tree as fast as I could.

Being slight and a fast runner probably saved my life. I jumped up for a tree limb and wrapped my arms and legs around it. By tightening my legs and pulling with my arms I managed to get about eight feet up the tree by the time it got to me. I wasn't sure what it could do so I inched up further and untied the spear.

The huge lizard looked like it could not climb a vertical tree, but it got the top half of its body up several feet. I knew it wasn't going anywhere without dinner — me!

It took several pokes before something worked for me. I had stabbed into its left eye. With a horrible roar it was down on the ground and thrashing around to beat all. It eventually stopped all the fuss, but it stayed down there rubbing the bad eye with a paw.

After an hour of this I was getting hungry and the lizard was going nowhere. I finally remembered the rope. I threw one end over a branch and made a loop on the other end. I managed to work the loop around it's head and pull it tight. I then took a big chance and jumped from the tree holding the other end of the rope. The top was mostly in the air against the tree. I was now part way up the tree and feeling helpless.

Every time I tried stabbing with the spear, the lizard would twist away and I wasn't able to puncture that tough lizard hide. Seeing the messed up eye socket I suddenly knew a quick pathway to its little brain. I managed to get the head of the spear near the bad eye and shove it down into the head. It took a lot of fighting and thrashing from the lizard and I took some bad bruises from being slammed against the tree since I had now slipped down next to it, but eventually it succumbed.

I retied the noose around the tail and hoisted it partway up again. Using my new knife I cut around the neck where I expected the main veins to the brain. I sat down for a while to let it bleed out.

What should I do with it? There was too much there to eat but I did not have any leather and I suspected the guts could be used to make high quality bow string, or so I had heard. My grass was not strong enough to make a bow string, at least not the string I was making. I had never made a bow so this was a possible long range plan. Hey — no fish tonight! I was happy about that.

I started to cut on the big lizard. Having no idea how to do lizards, I did it like I would a squirrel or rabbit. I sliced from the bottom of the belly to the top. I then started separating the skin from the body. Since I knew nothing of jerking meat, I just took the two rear limbs, the skin and the intestines and headed towards the riverside camp since it was near.

I had not gone 50 feet when a horde of small lizards descended voraciously on the kill. I had not seen any of these guys. They ranged in size from 10 inches to a foot and a half. Had they always been around and were they too sneaky and silent to see?

One particularly large one charged a small one vying for a leg piece and the little one was ten feet up a tree before you knew it. Now I knew what I had been seeing from a distance. I still had not seen anything flying whether bug, bird or lizard.

I sat in the river bank about 50 feet from where I normally hung out and started expressing the contents of the intestines. I knew if I left the crap in there that it would rot out. You just couldn't hang it from a tree it would rot in a day. I also slit it along the length and used sand to scrub it out.

I next set about making small racks. I was going to roast one leg, but try to make jerky out of the other. I had no salt or other preservatives so I knew it would not last long on this warm damp planet.