Chapter 5

I needed better killing tools, food, and a better idea of what was around me. Since I had been partway up the river I decided that I should go the other way to start. Since I don't have a compass or maps I have to be careful so that I can find my way back. With the women enslaved and not having any real plan to rescue them, I headed out on a mission of discovery.

I stayed within sight of the water but at least 100 feet from the river as I traveled. I felt that I was less apt to run across any angry "something's" this way. I watched what was going on around me and still did not see any bugs or birds this is very strange. It seemed too odd that two major niches of evolution were totally void on this planet.

A dead fall close to the river gave me a better spear as the river had changed course here evidently and undermined the roots nearest the river. The tree fell over away from the river and eventually died. Since it had not died of insect damage, of which I had still saw no evidence of, I had a good source for whatever I needed and a better spear was foremost.

I chose a medium sized branch partway up. Preliminary investigation showed it to be ideal and I started working on it with my hatchet. Since this was good cured wood, it was hard yet springy. I used the chard of rock I had as a knife replacement to continue to mold my chosen limb into a better spear.

It was only seven feet long however it tapered from about two inches to and an inch and a half. For now it just had a sharp blunt end, but I would affix a head of sorts when I got around to making a good blade to fit it. The only good source of sharp rocks so far was in my cave.

About a short hour and a half later I was on my way again. After walking another few hours I decided I may be too far inland. I did not see any bamboo or other suitable material so I changed directions to walk closer to the river walking slower and more carefully.

I ran into another of the lizard creatures like the one that I had killed earlier. It was near the water in a wallow like where you would see an alligator. This one was green-gray and had a very narrow head and it had what appeared to be fearsome teeth. It charged at me, but I think it was more of a "keep away" warning than anything else. I skirted it with a respectful distance and we did not bother each other any more.

I did spy something that seemed to flit by. I just caught the movement out of the side of my eye so I was not sure what I saw, it wasn't large, smaller than a robin.

I found a bush with small blue berries and tried two of them, they were not sweet. I wasn't sure if they were good to eat or not so I limited myself to two of them, barely a taste.

It being super time and me being a typical hungry male, it was time to see about dinner. Other than my large friend earlier, I had not seen a small lizard close enough for me to dispatch, that meant fish again. I decided to try my new spear however it took quite a few abortive attempts to get a hang of the parallax caused by the water, but I did manage to pin one fish to the river bottom while getting myself soaked, I got it landed with one bop of my mace he was a dead fish. It was a larger than the normal fish I was use to.

It was lucky I had taken everything off my belt, because it would have been all be wet and that would have made making a cook fire fun. I scrounged some sticks and built a small fire. There were lots of round rocks in the river here so I made a surround for my fire and used a larger flatter rock as my frying pan. I still needed a better knife.

While my fish was cooking I took the fish head and went inland about 25 feet. I speared the ground a little to rough it up and put the fish head down onto the roughed up area. I went back to my fire and with a forked stick continued to worry my fish until it was somewhat edible.

After dinner I went back to the fish head and low and behold it was being attacked by about 20 white worms. That explained what happens to carrion. These small worms must replace the job flies did at home. I had not seen these bugs closer to the water perhaps the dampness or the riverside bothered them.

I found a tree with a branch I could walk out on. It forked about 6 feet out and made a nice place to sleep so I settled down for the night.

Next morning after doing my necessaries I started another fire and was back in the river looking for breakfast. I speared a fish much faster this time.

After breakfast as I headed further down river I wandered inland a way to see if things were different here. I entered a cleared area in the trees and saw an open meadow that had a lot of low bushes.