The Trek: Darwin's World, Book II (The Darwin's World Series 2) (10 page)

Lee nodded and headed for a tree atop the knoll.

He returned after an hour.

“Matt, Laz is coming with Robert’s crew and the bison are drifting in their direction. I think the herd will pass us on the east side.

“I’ll send Philippe to warn Robert to hold his position. If they stop pretty soon, they’ll be able to push the critters toward us.”

“I’ll do it, Lee. You keep Piotr and Philippe with you. I’ll let Robert know what we intend. You OK with that?”

“Sure, Matt. That’s probably best. We can take several animals from this side, and if they head your way, you can probably get one or two.”

Matt nodded and set off, bent slightly forward. Half an hour of trotting found him approaching Robert’s group. He stood upright and waved his bow overhead in warning.”

“Matt, did you find Lee?”

“They’re on that little hill, Robert. Lee’s got Piotr and Philippe with him and the bison herd looks like they’ll pass between Lee’s party and us. We’ll need to be careful, but if they try to pass too far from Lee, we might be able to kill some here or push them toward Lee. The closer they are to us before we shoot, the shorter the distance we’ll have to carry the meat.”

Robert nodded. “Bring up the carts. We’ll put them out ahead, between the herd and us. If they decided to run our way, the carts might give us a little protection.”

“You’ve got carts, Robert?”

“Sure do. We’ve got three ready now and we’ll have twelve or fifteen before we move on. Maybe even more, or maybe we’ll need to build spare wheels and axles. We’re adapting the travois. Chop off the trailing ends, tie the travois poles to the axle and attach the wheels. It’s easy to do. Making the wheels has been a little slow, but the biggest holdup now is finding something we can use for grease. The wheels might last, but if we don’t have grease we’ll wear out axles fast.”

“OK, we can talk about it later. Let’s get them into position. Something else we can do, Robert. Get people gathering wood or dried brush, dried grass, anything. I’ll build a small fire behind the carts. If the bison look like they’re coming our way, toss brush or weeds on the fire. The animals won’t run over a fire.”

#

Matt pulled dried grass stems and crushed them into a near powder. The carts were now in position, lined up to form a barrier should the bison turn away when Lee began shooting. The first cart sat with the two poles resting on the ground. The other two had been pulled up in a line and the pole ends laid across the axle of the one in front. Matt nodded; clever way of doing it. He dumped the grass stems he’d crushed behind the cart and began making a fire. He soon had a wisp of smoke and a tiny flame, enough for now.

A stack of fuel had been brought up by the others. Robert appointed a fire-tender in Matt’s place, and the two leaders moved out in front to watch the herd.

The herd’s leader, what appeared to be an older cow, fed placidly along and the herd followed. She soon passed between the two groups of watchers.

“Robert, I think we need to push them toward Lee. We don’t have time to move the barricade and it’s not very strong anyway. I think we just move out and get as close as we can, then start shooting. The herd should move toward Lee and he can also get one or two. If they head for us, everyone retreats to the fire and builds it up fast. You explain it to the others, I’ll take a couple of people with me and head directly for the herd. You can bring up the rest when you’re ready.”

Robert nodded and turned away. Matt selected two men.

“You’re with me. Have your arrows ready. We’ll get close, and when you think you’re in range, take a shot. I’ll wait until you shoot. I’ve got more range, but I’ve also got fewer arrows. I haven’t had time to replace what I’ve already used. If you have a choice, try for yearlings. They’re easier to kill and better eating. Less dangerous too, if you don’t kill them right away.”

The two men nodded and followed Matt toward the grazing herd, all of them bent forward and moving at a trot. Glancing to his left, Matt estimated where the outlying animals would pass. A gesture to the others caused them to slow. They stopped and got ready to shoot.

Matt noticed when the old cow smelled something strange. She stopped and raised her head, sniffing the air. He realized she’d picked up the scent from Lee’s group; Matt and his two companions were still downwind from the herd.

“We need to get her mind off Lee. Time to give them something else to worry about. Ready?”

The two men nodded, tense.

“Now!” Matt stood up and drew the arrow back, anchoring it with his hand tight to his jaw. His concentration narrowed to the area he intended to place the arrow…just behind the shoulder, midway from the hump to the bottom of the ribs…

Two arrows flashed past him and he released his own arrow, watching as it struck a yearling bull. Dust and bits of hair puffed from the animal’s side and Matt heard the solid thump as the arrow hit. The young bull stumbled and fell forward to its knees. Matt immediately reached for an arrow and nocked it. The young animal wouldn’t need a second arrow, but he had time for one more shot before the herd fled…

A second arrow, longer range now, struck the only target he had, an older bull. The arrow hit, but Matt had little time to wonder how lethal the hit was.

The herd, veering away from Matt and his two companions, had moved into range of Lee’s group, and they had immediately started shooting. Now the herd had turned again and the big animals were coming toward Matt.

“Let’s go! Back to the fire!”

Turning, he ran for the barricade, now facing the wrong way.

“Build up the fire, quick!”

After that, he had no breath for anything but running. Behind him he heard the hoofbeats from the herd. Gasping, he reached the fire, now flaring up as it consumed the dry brush the fire-tender had placed on it. He turned and pulled another arrow from his quiver.

The two men who’d been with Matt were slower. Behind the last one, a big bull bison had seen the small creatures ahead.

A fast calculation and Matt moved away from the fire. He had one chance…

A fast draw, steady on the oncoming bull. Release. Reach for one final arrow, the last in his quiver. Nock and wait, judge the situation...

The bull was blowing blood from straining nostrils. The two men were nearing the fire as the old bull stumbled and paused, legs braced. The herd went past him to the north as he wearily collapsed, face down. Dust churned up by pounding hooves obscured the scene as the remaining bison passed on, now two hundred yards distant and rapidly drawing away.

Behind Matt, two terrified hunters now stood behind the fire.

Matt waited while some of the dust settled. The rest of the thin brown cloud slowly drifted downwind. Several dark lumps out on the prairie showed where bison had died. Two others waited, not yet dead but too badly wounded to flee.

Matt replaced his last arrow in the quiver and slung the bow across his shoulder. Spear in hand, he walked toward one of the wounded bison.

“No need for that, Matt. Let me.”

Robert paused briefly, pulled the bowstring back to his ear, and launched an arrow into the yearling bison’s ribs. As it collapsed, Robert drew another arrow and trotted toward the other animal.

As it happened, Lee’s group had the same idea. The remaining wounded bison fell to Lee’s arrow.

“Ask Colin to bring up the carts, Philippe. We’ll field dress these and get them back to the treeline. We can’t carry this many at once, even with the carts. We’ll need to take three and come back for the others. We’ll work as fast as we can.”

“Robert, I’ll go with the Lee’s group and take over guarding the animals while the cart people come back for a second load.”

“No need, Matt. I sent messengers off to find Lilia and the Wise Woman where they were picking plants. We’ll have the whole tribe here except for two I assigned to guard the camp. We can do the butchering here and only haul edible meat back to camp, but we’ve still got a lot of work ahead!

“I think we’ll use the fire to cook some meat while we’re working. It’s going to take several hours to dress out this many animals, because some of us are going to have to guard the rest. Chunks of liver and heart should cook fast, people will be glad to get the fresh meat, and maybe predators will keep their distance.”

Matt nodded wearily and went off to see if he could recover any of his arrows.

Chapter 9

Killing the bison was the easy part.

Lilia set up a secondary camp in the trees that lined the stream. With Laz’s help, she cut green saplings and two women used the wood to construct drying racks. A number of fires were soon readied; the coals would be ready when the meat arrived.

Piotr remained with Matt and Marc stayed with Lee farther north, providing security for the tribe while they worked. The rest quickly field-dressed the carcasses where they lay, working in teams of two. They left the offal in place but saved the hearts, lungs, and livers. Colin collected those and packed them back to camp. He immediately started a stew using the livers and hearts, then sliced the lungs into strips for people to toast and eat as snacks.

The smell of blood would attract the notice of any predators within a mile of the killing ground. Bows and spears wouldn’t deter an attack, so Matt and Lee fashioned torches to keep the animals away.

#

Robert assembled crews, two to a cart, for hauling meat to Lilia’s temporary camp.

The butchering teams worked on the most-distant animals first. After skinning the field-dressed carcasses, they quartered them for ease of transport. When the carts arrived the two helped load the meat and skin, then moved to another carcass.

The carts proved less durable than Robert had hoped. The wheels had been ‘greased’ with beeswax, but even so the screech of crude wheels turning on axles shaped by knife and axe was enough to wake the dead.

The first wheel broke while making its third trip. Robert helped the crew unload and backpack the meat to Lilia’s drying camp, the two crewmen went back to Riverbend Camp and brought up a replacement wheel, and the cart was soon repaired.

#

The bison had fallen within a roughly-oval area that was perhaps a quarter-mile long. The first predator, a huge saber-toothed cat, arrived shortly. He slunk up to a pile of intestines and began feeding as soon as the cart moved away. Others soon arrived and found their own piles of offal.

The area soon hosted a second saber-tooth, a pride of three lions, and a bear. Matt watched, but couldn’t tell the bear’s species from his distant viewpoint. There were no cubs, so this one was probably male.

Despite the guards, now equipped with lighted torches as well as bows, spears were never more than a few inches from nervous hands as the tribespeople worked.

#

The early scavengers often dragged the offal away to feed at leisure. As a result, the tidy piles of guts the tribesmen had left were soon strewn across an area a mile long and half-a-mile wide.

A number of fights broke out among the predators, but usually a series of thunderous growls sufficed to warn off the thieves. Not always; a few well-fed ones decided it was safer to leave rather than fight over what was left.

Coyotes managed to get their share, away from where the larger animals were feeding. Condors, vultures and ravens flew in and joined the impromptu feast. A fox and two bobcats sniffed at the scraps but soon left, uneasy at being close to so many larger predators.

Matt and Lee moved the defensive line as people finished working on the more-distant kills and moved to carcasses located closer to the trees.

Lilia had built the drying racks in a large circle, with the fires outside the circle to keep the predators at bay. If that wasn’t sufficient discouragement, Laz and the women had their weapons.

Exhausted crews parked their carts near the drying racks and were soon asleep inside the ring of fires. Lilia’s crew kept working and soon had the last of the meat sliced into strips, some of it cooking directly over the fires to be ready when people woke up, some of it drying in the smoke. Tired women lay down and slept when they could go no further.

Still, someone had to remain alert. Lee and Matt, still paired with Marc and Piotr, circled the loaded drying racks and added wood when the fires got low. The stack of ready firewood got smaller. Lee and Marc took a cart and loaded it with dried wood, dumping it near the center of the small camp. Then they too slept.

Piotr and Matt, nearly exhausted, remained awake. Matt knew that he too might fall asleep if he stopped moving, so he continued walking around the fires. Piotr never complained. He worked quietly, patrolling with Matt, tending the fires, cutting more wood to have it ready when needed.

He’d make a fine addition to Matt’s group. The two paused periodically to munch on fresh sections of lung, roasted over the fires. Food substituted for sleep.

#

Lee woke up about four hours later and shook Marc awake. They took over for Piotr and Matt, then the two took their turn among the sleepers.

Six hours later, they woke and walked off to the woods for a necessary visit. Returning, Matt spoke to Lilia, now up and turning strips of meat where they continued drying in the smoke.

“I’m for the stream. It’s only a couple of hundred yards away and I need a fast dip to wash off some of the stink.”

“I would join you but I can’t take the time just yet. We’ll wash off later, after everyone’s up. I suspect your dip will be a quick one. That water is cold!  I had water gourds brought up and the small pot is boiling, so I can make tea when you two get back.”

Matt nodded and set off with Piotr. The sun was just rising off to the east, so there was enough light to see as the two approached the stream.

A small herd of deer, perhaps half a dozen, were drinking at the water’s edge and spooked as the two approached the stream. Matt nodded to Piotr and they watched for a moment, leaving the deer in peace. The tribe had all the meat they could use, at least for now. Still, it was a good sign. The animals were back. The tribe’s hungry time was over.