Chapter 3

Back at the car, they started butchering the latest kill. Jeff hoped that Julie didn't ask him to identify this bug, because he thought it was a roach. Jeff was sure that the knowledge would gross Julie out, and she needed to keep a level head about things. They were able to get quite a bit of meat out of this carcass, so Julie hoped to jerk some of it. Jeff built a drying frame while Julie was butchering the meat. The two of them worked together to fasten it to the frame over the smoky fire.

Once that project was completed, Jeff started working on the spears for the atlatl while Julie worked on the throwing stick. They had no points for the spears, yet, so Jeff planned to fire-harden them. They would work on bugs like the dragon flies without an exoskeleton, but they would be of no use against bugs with the hard carapace like beetles and roaches. He didn't know about millipedes, yet. He would just have to try one to see.

One thing for sure, they needed to find a source of flint or obsidian. The stuff should be reasonably common, it was just a matter of stumbling across it. Neither one of them had any geology training, so they had no idea what to look for as pointers on where to find either one. They would just have to make do until they got lucky.

Julie figured to make another stew, since it had worked so well last night. While the stew was cooking, she looked around for likely looking plants to supplement their diet. No telling what kind of deficiency diseases they were courting by eating only meat. Jeff was still working on the spears, so Julie decided to look seriously for something to try to put some variety in their diet. Mindful of the danger of wandering off alone, she told Jeff what she planned to do and started looking around close to the camp.

She did find something that looked like it had promise as a tuber. She only had enough for a taste test, so there was no hope of making a real stew with what she had for tonight. She also breathed a sigh of relief when she found something that looked like it would serve for toilet paper. She had just turned back to camp when Jeff screamed at her, "LOOK OUT! OVERHEAD! A DRAGON FLY!"

Julie dropped to the ground and rolled so that she could look up and bring her machete to bear. She saw the dragon fly start to dive in her direction and she waited as long as she dared before dodging to her right by rolling. The dragon fly must not have seen this sort of thing before, because it was slow to react, but Julie wasn't.

She reached as high as she could and swung her machete as hard as she could. It was the dragon fly's turn to dodge, but it was not ready for the attack and lost a wing in the process. It tumbled to the ground when that happened, and Jeff was on it with his hatchet before it could recover. He chopped off the bug's head with two blows and stepped back to let it die. It took a few minutes, but its death was inevitable. They just waited it out.

They must have been getting hardened to the life they were now leading, since neither one was badly shaken by the narrow escape. They were breathing hard from the effort, but the higher oxygen level in the air made it easy to recover from their exertions. Their main thoughts right now were how they were going to preserve the meat they had suddenly acquired. They dragged the dead bug the few feet to their butchering spot and quickly cut the bug into pieces suitable for hanging on the drying rack.

Julie brought up the question of how they were going to keep the meat from being stolen by other bugs while they slept or were away from camp. Jeff immediately thought of storing the meat in the trunk of the car. With the lid closed and locked, there was no way that any bug was going to get in. Julie thought that the idea was brilliant, and Jeff preened a bit under her praise. The trunk was large, but not large enough to hold a huge supply of meat, so they would eventually have to find another storage container, but the trunk would do quite well for now.

Jeff had made four throwing spears so far, but they were really nothing more than pointed sticks. He used one of the launching sticks that Julie had made and tried an experimental throw. The result was a dismal flop. The spear wobbled in the air and started to tumble. It didn't even land on its point. Obviously, something had to be done to stabilize the spear's flight. Fletching was the answer, but it would be millions of years before feathers were available, and they couldn't wait.

Julie was the one who came up with the solution. She took the pocket knife and worked on the back end of the spear. She shaved thin sections of wood so that they made a kind of drag stabilizer. Starting at the base of the spear, she split a thin sliver of wood away from the shaft for about four inches and left it connected to the shaft at the end nearer the point. She made six of these drag stabilizers on a shaft and gave it to Jeff to try. Success! This time the spear flew through the air and landed on its point in the dirt. Julie said, "We are going to lose a little bit in speed and range with this kind of stabilizer, but the improved flight characteristics should make up for that." Jeff agreed immediately and they worked on the other spears to make stabilizers for them. Tomorrow, they would collect some more wood for more spears.

Supper that night consisted of the Roach meat stew and the roots Julie had found. Julie had started heating another pot of water and put the cleaned roots in to cook. They were surprised that the roach meat was somewhat bland compared to the dragon fly. However, when they munched on the tuber, they both shouted almost together, "HORSE RADISH!" Julie used the pocket knife to chop the roots into small chunks, and they used the combination of roots and meat to make a very tasty meal. Now, that was a valuable discovery!

That night after supper, they put all of their food in the car trunk and closed it, confident that it would be safely stored overnight.

It was nearly dark, so they decided to try out Julie's toilet paper substitute. They walked about 100 feet from the camp, and Julie squatted first while Jeff kept watch. When she finished, she tried out her leaves and found them to be adequate for the job. Jeff then tried his luck, and his results were the same. Tomorrow, they would find a good place for a latrine and set one up with a supply of the requisite leaves.

Now, they were ready for a rerun of the sex games of last night. The sight of Julie crawling into the car ahead of him reminded Jeff of another position that was discussed among his friends. Nobody had tried it out, but they had all heard of the "dogie position." Julie's cunt looked like the perfect candidate for the position, so Jeff filed the idea for future reference.

This night was an almost exact repeat of the previous night, except that Julie had decided to sacrifice her blouse to the cause. She had plopped her ass on it after it was folded a couple of times. The folded blouse was supposed to catch the major portion of the spillage so that they would have pants to put on when they got up in the morning. It seemed to work, so they went to sleep with happy thoughts about what they would find when they woke up.

The next morning, for breakfast, Julie heated some of the smoked dragon fly meat with their horse radish substitute, and it was an immediate hit. They resolved that day to find as much of the horse radish as they could. Jeff decided that anything that tasted that good just had to be full of useful vitamins!

That morning before they left camp, Julie practiced with the atlatl until she was in tears of frustration. She just could not get it right. Oh, she could throw the spear with adequate force, she just couldn't hit what she was aiming at. They finally decided, after an hour of fruitless frustration for Julie, that Jeff would stick with the atlatl, and Julie would find something else to fight with.

The thing that occurred to both of them was the crossbow. All they really needed to do was to find a material suitable for the bow, since the bow string could be salvaged from a strand of the brake cable from the car. Every time they came upon a new variety of wood, they tested it for bow use. Eventually, they found an adequate material, judging from how difficult it was to cut it to take back to camp.