Chapter 4

As I walked toward the big limestone hill I started marveling over the work that must have gone into bows and arrows in the first place. I knew exactly how they worked to start with and it was still turning out to be a pain in the butt to get a setup together. How hard must it have been to figure out in the first place? Especially when sharpened rocks were all you had to work with and you even had to make them sharp yourself. I didn't want to think about that now though.

I didn't even have to go to the top of the hill to find something that would work. There were several chunks of limestone lying around before I even started up, and it made me wonder what in the hell could have done that.

Shit, I didn't have any idea how it happened and it didn't matter to me. I found a piece I thought was about the right size and started applying my hammer to it, gently at first. It was pretty easy to hollow out a bowl shape in it and then even easier to pound the roughest edges off the outside. I was headed back to my camp with it by a couple of hours after noon. Tomorrow I would try boiling the hooves.

After breakfast of some dried venison the next morning I got started on the great limestone bowl experiment. I already had a few hours work into this thing and I didn't want to fuck it up and have it explode like the other rocks had. I decided to just set it on my skillet and let the heat come up that way. I filled the bowl with water from the stream and then set it on the skillet rock, building a fire all around the skillet as normal. Then I waited and got an exact demonstration of what it was like to watch water boil.

Before we got to the boiling point though, I realized I had a problem on my hands. The water I'd put in the bowl was evaporating at an alarming rate. I was afraid it would all be gone before the bowl got hot enough to make it boil.

No, of course I didn't have anything to go get more water in. Even if I had a way to take the bowl back to the stream for refilling without burning hell out of my hands it would defeat the whole purpose - if it didn't destroy the bowl from the rapid cooling. Finally I went to the stream, got a mouthful of water, came back to the bowl and spit it in. I ended up doing this twenty-five times during the two hours until the boiling started. I had to do it ten more time while it was boiling because it didn't look like anything was happening to the hooves. Finally I gave up and let the fire go out.

Damned if I hadn't been fooled the whole time. When the bowl was cool I looked in it and the hooves were gone, replaced by sticky wet goo. I set the bowl aside and cooked a fish I caught just for the occasion, and I went to sleep that night with another feeling of accomplishment.

The glue debacle had taken me so long, especially thinking up, finding materials for, and making a bowl - that the rest of the arrows were already done. I now had twelve arrows with my handmade points attached and waiting only for the fletching to commence. By now I had the feathers cut up into the correct size and shape and I was ready to fletch.

I ate some venison, started a small fire to warm the glue back up, and got with it. I'll be damned if it didn't work. When they were finished I set them aside to let the glue dry and I went back to my flint knapping. Currently I was trying to make a decent blade to build a knife with a handle made of part of the deer's antlers.

Being especially cautious for once in my life, I gave the glue two days to set, or dry, or whatever. I mostly knapped flint the first day but wised up and made an arrow backstop out of grass I cut and gathered off the plain the next day. I had practicing to do and I didn't want to fuck up my new arrows doing it, even though I figured I probably would damage them at least a little.

The bow surprised me since it was much more powerful than I'd expected. My first try at the target, from only twenty feet, went straight through the backstop and about ten feet passed it on the other side.

Luckily the arrow was no worse for wear and I'd actually hit pretty near the black spot I'd made in the middle of the backstop with a cooled coal from the fire. What the hell, I backed up ten feet and tried again. I ended up practicing about four hours and still hadn't harmed an arrow.

I spent the rest of the day trying to carve myself a bowl out of a piece of wood I'd scavenged from a big deadfall.

The next day my arm wasn't sore like I'd expected it to be so I spent about six hours on and off practicing with the bow. My only casualties were the feathers of the fletching. They were pretty ragged by the end of the day, so before I ran out of daylight I warmed the glue back up and refletched the shafts.

After eating the next morning I decided I was good enough with the bow for now and I was practiced out anyway. It was time for me to go kill something. It was a decision that would change my whole attitude about living here.

I already knew I could get a deer practically at will now, but deer didn't have what I really thought I'd need before very long. I couldn't explain exactly how I knew it, but in my estimation the hottest part of summer was already over and fall would be approaching soon.

If I was correct the hottest part of summer hadn't been all that hot at all and I figured fall and winter might just be very cold to make up for it. I needed a couple of the bison skins to use for sleeping furs and as the main material for making a heavy coat. Of course this was all just my attempt to justify hunting a bison. The main thing was I wanted to kill one for the hell of it and I knew it wouldn't be wasted.

My little bison hunting song and dance wasn't what changed my world as I knew it. When I stepped slowly out of the woods onto the edge of the plain I saw five men probably five hundred yards from me and they were chasing a bison in shifts. They'd cut it out of the herd somehow and they were keeping it from joining again and running it into the ground while they were at it.

While I watched, one of them chased it for about five minutes and then another one took over for him and did about ten minutes. Two more men took a turn before the bison was so winded it couldn't keep up the game any longer. They all approached it after that and put an end to it with their spears.

No sooner was the bison down with its throat cut than seven women came out of the woods and started the gutting and skinning. The men backed off and turned around facing away from their kill. They seemed to be standing watch so that nothing could approach and pester the women who were at work.

It was pretty likely these were fine examples of Cro-Magnon man, and woman, as it were. Obviously they were dressed in skins. The men wore what looked for all the world like a leather diaper. It was rather loose and though I couldn't see clearly from this far away, it appeared to have a drawstring around the waist to keep it up. The women wore the same for bottoms but had a sort of sleeveless tunic on top. They hadn't spotted me yet.

No matter. The bison herd didn't seem horribly distressed and there happened to be a mother with a fairly large calf following her about two hundred yards from me. I didn't need and probably couldn't manage an adult, but the calf looked to be no more than about three hundred pounds and I was sure I could deal with it. Another thing in my favor was taking the calf would put me even farther from the other hunters.

I started walking slowly toward my intended targets and even after I was within a hundred yards they didn't seem distressed about things. I assumed they were somehow accustomed to men chasing them around from time to time and they seemed to know the game wasn't on yet since I wasn't running.

This was just conjecturing on my part of course, but it seemed to fit the situation and it was more explanation than I really needed. Damned if I didn't manage to walk up within fifty yards of them before the mother even started obviously eyeing me. Not wanting to push my luck I knocked an arrow and let go.

The calf's broad side had been toward me and the arrow went home perfectly to my way of thinking. It must have slipped between ribs too, because it sank all the way to the fletching. I couldn't have asked for a better shot.

The calf gave a sort of bellow, though it was rather a high sounding one, and it turned its head as if to see what had happened. By now blood was pouring from its nostrils and I knew it would be dead shortly.

When it fell to the ground its mother seemed alarmed for a second and then walked over, nudging it with her snout. When it didn't move or respond in any way for a few minutes she just walked off, fairly rapidly, and as she came among others they moved off from the vicinity too.

After they'd gone I went toward the dead calf. If I'd been thinking more clearly I'd have brought my travois along so I could haul the thing back whole. I hadn't though. I'd been ready to try my luck and now I was here with three hundred pounds of bison to move.

Killing it had seemed so easy and the skinning and cleaning job looked like such a grind that I was about to turn to the others and see if I could make them understand they could have it. I could bring my travois back later and kill another one.

Just as I turned to try getting their attention I saw the shortest one of the bunch, maybe five-eight was my guess, running flat out toward me and he had his spear up like he was going to cast it. When he saw I was paying attention to him he started yelling something at me. Of course I couldn't understand, but I could tell from the tone it was meant to scare me off.

He was still two hundred yards from me, but coming fast. I didn't want any damned battle out here over a bison that I'd been going to give them anyway, but I wasn't going to let him take it from me on general principles. I knocked an arrow, but I don't think he understood what that meant.

When he came within fifty yards I drew the bow and it still didn't deter him. Ten yards closer and I took a shot at his chest and knocked another arrow before looking to see if I'd hit him. I decided at the last I'd let him get too close in the first place.

When I looked back to try one more shot I knew I needn't worry about him. He must be down because I couldn't see him. I headed toward the last place he'd been standing but kept the bow drawn for an instant shot in case he was trying to trick me.

As soon as I found him I could tell that his tricking days were over, along with all his other days. It had been a perfect center of mass shot and must have slipped in just under the end of his sternum. I felt for a pulse in his neck anyway and there wasn't one.

I looked up and saw the other four men were headed my way now, but they weren't running and yelling and none of them had their spears in what I'd call a threatening position. I didn't take my eyes off them though and as they got nearer, the one I assumed was the leader switched his spear to his left hand and held his right palm up facing me. I did the same with my bow and my right palm and they slowed down and walked the rest of the way to me.

They looked the dead one over carefully when they first reached us, and then the leader picked up the spear dead guy had been carrying and handed it to me, giving me a little short speech as he did it.

I told him "Thank you very much and I don't mind if I do get a good spear out of the deal," realizing that we were not going to be speaking the same language for quite a while yet and that if we ever did we'd be speaking his language.