Primitive Instinct: The Journey Home

The next day, I noticed there was a lot more going on in the village than yesterday. There were a lot of people here compared to what I had seen before, and it seemed like they were all moving towards the center of the village.

“Fern’mak’tak,” Roar’kaol’tok said and put his paws on my shoulders, walking behind me and Diesel growled softly at my side. “Kaa, Diesel’mak’tak.”

“Easy, Dies,” I said softly, putting my hand on the back of his neck then my eyes went wide for a second. “Oh. I get it now.”

I touched Roar’kaol’tok’s paw and looked up and backwards to his face before nodding and looking back to where we were going, saying certainly, “Stay close.”

“Stayee clous,” he repeated. “Jins-iki.”

I tried it out in my mind as we got closer to the chief’s tent, and I was right. There was some kind of gathering going on, not that I could tell what it was about, since I felt itty-bitty surrounded by all of these very tall people.

“Dies, I suddenly understand how a chihuahua feels standing next to you,” I muttered, and Diesel grumbled again, pressing his side into my leg harder. “Awkward turn for you, huh?”

He looked up at me, not looking very amused, before heaving a sigh, which made me giggle a bit. I might not speak dog, like Roar’kaol’tok, but I understood the uncommon language of Diesel very well.

We stood there for a bit before what I assumed was a hollowed mammoth tusk was blown like a horn and everyone went quiet as they all turned to face the chief’s tent. I heard the chief talking and some of the people looked at Roar’kaol’tok before their eyes dropped down to me. They looked away quickly when the hunter growled softly and I felt a paw under my chin, lifting it higher.

I heard Roar’kaol’tok being called forward after a moment and he pushed me slightly, leading me in front of him through the crowd that parted quickly to let us pass. There were many curious onlookers and just as many that appeared to be less than thrilled to have little ol’ me among them. Some were even openly hostile, baring their teeth.

When we stood before the chief, the hunter put his paw to his forehead before turning me to face the gathered village. I was never one to feel at home in crowds and I was even less comfortable with attention. I was a lot like Rudy in that regard. We were what he, and most of society, dubbed as loners. I think that was why Diesel and I got along so very well, too. We socialized, but only on our own terms.

The hunter started speaking, gesturing towards me and then Diesel a few times before going quiet. After a moment, and some not well-hidden whispers and very open staring, the chief asked something else.

“Fern’mak’tak. Diesel’mak’tak,” he answered loudly before adding something else that the rest of the village repeated. The chief nodded, satisfied and pleased before clapping his paws together and then holding them out horizontal to the ground.

The people started to disperse and Roar’kaol’tok patted my shoulder before leading me back towards his tent.

“That was uncomfortable,” I said after we stepped inside the space and Diesel groaned as he flopped to the floor. “But I guess it needed to be done. Now, hopefully, nobody is going to get stab happy when they see the odd little creature walking around. And from some of the looks we got, I think that is a real possibility, don’t you?”

Diesel snorted before Roar’kaol’tok grabbed my snowshoes and handed them to me before picking up the long, bone spear that was leaning against one of the wooden posts and the bow that was nearly as big as I was. I quickly tied the snowshoes to my boots and followed him out of the tent with Diesel close behind. We walked quietly for a time, Diesel ahead of us, sniffing the snow and trees along the way.

When he barked once, both the hunter and I looked over at him before going over to find tracks and little black pellets in the snow. Something small, thankfully, and the poop pellets meant herbivore. Regardless, Diesel growled deeply, head down and eyes trained ahead of us, seeing something I wasn’t, or likely figuring that somewhere out there was prey. All of the meat he’s been getting was clearly doing something for his drive to hunt. I wasn’t going to complain, so long as he shared.

I snapped softly and Diesel looked at me. I pointed to my eyes, then to him, before making my two fingers ‘walk’ on my palm and the gestured for him to go. That translated to ‘Stay so I can see you. Go slow. Find it.’

Roar’kaol’tok tilted his head at the exchange before Diesel put his nose down and followed the trail. I crept along a short distance behind Diesel with the hunter doing the same thing. Diesel and I had done something similar to this before about a year ago. He had shown a profound interest in hunting a rabbit whose trail he had come across and I decided to let him. He tracked it well and quickly, but when he gave chase, he was outsmarted by the wily hare and lost it. He sulked for a week afterwards.

“Kaa,” Roar’kaol’tok whispered and held out his paw, lowering it slowly.

Diesel laid down, staring ahead, as was Roar’kaol’tok and I frowned, not seeing anything. The hunter slowly drew an arrow and notched it against the bowstring as I kept trying to find whatever he saw that I wasn’t seeing. The string was drawn back silently and with a quiet twang, the arrow was off. There was a short scream of startled pain before he grinned and stood up, following the direction the arrow had taken.

“Alright, then,” I got up and Diesel and I followed just as he knelt beside what I can only describe as a jack-alope.

It looked like a fluffier, whiter jack rabbit, but it also had tiny little nub horns on its head. It was also bigger than any wild hare I’ve ever seen before, but I was starting to think that literally everything here was bigger than I was used to.

“Baan’tu,” the hunter grinned as he yanked the arrow free and used some snow to clean the tip and put it back into the soft quiver I hadn’t even noticed.

He was about to tie the... baan’tu by its hind legs when Diesel growled softly, and I giggled when the hunter stilled. I took the baan’tu and pulled my knife out, slicing with some difficulty into the belly and reaching in to take out the guts and toss them to Diesel. He had, after all, led us to it. I tied the carcass up and used some snow to clean my hands a bit before standing up and turning the long rope of braided mammoth hair into a cross body strap. It was plenty long enough to add more to it as we went through the day.

The hunter smirked and shook his head before standing up and holding out his bow to me. I slowly took it and tried to pull the string. I only managed to move it a small bit before I handed it back. Roar’kaol’tok nodded before slinging it over his shoulder and offered the spear, to which I immediately declined.

“I’ve never thrown one before,” I said, and Diesel grumbled as he licked his lips clean of the blood after his snack.

Roar’kaol’tok nodded and slowly went through the motions of how to hold it, wind back, sling forward, and release. It literally took his whole body, and I was not sure I could manage the large and probably heavy bone spear. When he tried to hand it me again, I took it slowly and tested the weight of it in my hand before he held up a paw and walked over to one of the barren trees. Using one of his claws, he cut a mark in the trunk and then came to stand behind me, moving me closer before he kicked my feet apart and adjusted my hold on the spear, getting me ready to try throwing it.

“This is a bad idea,” I muttered, and Diesel whined, making the hunter laugh and bend to pick up a wet and rotten stick and pointed at the dog. “There was no target when we were playing.”

Diesel snorted and scratched at the snow a couple of times before the hunter shrugged and pointed to the tree with the mark on it. I sighed and hefted the spear up, drew my whole body back, flung everything I had forward, and released the spear. It sailed through the air before it landed very, very short of the tree, tip down and slightly crooked in the snow.

“That was awful,” I muttered, and Diesel woofed softly.

Roar’kaol’tok put his paw on my shoulder and shook his head.

“Good,” he gestured to the spear.

“Kaa,” I wrinkled my nose, and he laughed before going to pick up the weapon again.

We hunted through the woods for a few hours, adding a couple more baan’tu and some kind of weasel thing he called a skaal to the rope around my body. We left the woods and walked across an open area that I imagined looked breathtaking in the warmer months with grasses and flowers all over the place. There was a small river running through it and Roar’kaol’tok stopped there, to grab some of the freezing mud to scrub the blood from his fur.

He had insisted I carry the spear and would mark a tree from time to time for me to practice, though I had yet to actually hit anything other than the ground. I walked upstream a bit while Roar’kaol’tok cleaned himself and grinned, seeing a sleepy looking fish near some rocks.

I untied the snowshoes and carefully inched closer, stepping on the rocks that poked out of the water and lifted the spear. It wasn’t the best design for fishing, but the water wasn’t moving quickly, and it wasn’t especially deep. Honestly, it was more like a glorified stream than a river. I waited, making sure of the current and adjusting slightly before I struck, catching the fish right behind the gills.

“Ha!” I exclaimed and lifted it from the water to pull it free and saw Roar’kaol’tok standing by my snowshoes with a wide-open mouth. “Um... Kaa?”

He snapped his mouth shut and shook his head before smiling widely.

“Good, Fern’mak’tak. Good,” he nodded, looking thrilled as I stepped back along the stones to the bank where I took the fish off the spear and dropped it to the snow.

“No,” I said firmly when Diesel sniffed at the fish and he glared up at me, which I returned in earnest before growling out a hard, “No.”

He walked a few steps away and laid in the snow with his head on his paws, sulking.

“Fern’mak’tak,” Roar’kaol’tok said and turned me back to the river, giving me a small push forward. “Alteen. Good.”

“Alteen?” I pointed to the fish, and he nodded eagerly, gesturing to the river again.

I nodded and walked along the bank, looking for another fish before stepping in along the rocks and spearing another fish, much to Roar’kaol’tok’s joy.

He was grinning hugely after I managed to get a dozen of them and he tied them to the rope, removing the baan’tu and the skaal. He used his bow string to carry them, and I frowned, knowing how hard those were to make by hand. Diesel grumbled and whined before I rolled my eyes and went back to the river, coming back with a smaller alteen that I tossed to him and all was forgiven, making the hunter chuckle and shake his head before we started heading back to the village.