Primitive Instinct: The Journey Home

Diesel sniffed around and I moved over to a small spruce tree and cleared the snow off the ground as best as I could. I sat down and waited for Roar’kaol’tok to return. I had to admit that sticking with him was the smarter choice in quite literally every way. I didn’t know the area and I was desperately under prepared for survival here and with the onset of winter I wasn’t likely to survive even if I was prepared. Not to mention that if there were mammoths here, there was no telling what else the hair-brained scientists had been able to recreate and release here. Mammoths were one thing because so long as you didn’t get too close and get stepped on or stabbed with a tusk, they were harmless. What if there were predators here, too?

Roar’kaol’tok came bounding back after about ten minutes and stood up, shaking the snow from his paws. He looked over to see Diesel biting at clumps of snow and smirked before kneeling to hand me a small leather drawstring bag. I pulled it open and found hide cording and a small stone knife.

I smiled at him, and he nodded before holding out a paw, helping me stand before taking his ax from his belt. He looked around briefly before picking a spruce tree and carefully pushing into the branches, which was a feat for someone of his stature. After a moment, I heard him cutting the branches and letting them fall before moving to the next one.

Diesel came over, tilting his head before sniffing at the broken parts from Roar’kaol’tok’s body and grumbling before sitting down. After about six branches, the hunter stepped out of the tree's branches and looked at the broken parts, annoyed.

“You are way too big to be delicate,” I looked at the branches. “What is it that you need from these?”

Diesel lowered his head at the branches and woofed softly and Roar’kaol’tok smirked a bit before bending and pointing to the small, thin, new growth. Teeny little sprigs of fluffy, light green leaves that dotted the larger branch like chicken pox. I mean, they weren’t new because it wasn’t Spring, but they were new enough.

I assumed he needed them attached to the main branch and not snapped in half, so I nodded and looked at the tree.

“Kaa,” he shook his head and pointed to another tree before going over with his ax.

“Harvesting sparingly. Got it,” I muttered and then rushed to catch up to him. I reached up to touch his elbow. When he looked down at me, I held up a finger and went to the tree, dropping down and wiggling under the branches before standing up near the trunk. “It’s very pokey in here.”

“Fern’mak’tak,” the hunter said, and the bone ax slid under the branches to stop at my feet.

“Thanks,” I said and picked it up. It was a little weird to hold since my hand was much smaller and couldn’t actually hold the handle, but if I choked up on it like crazy, I could make it work enough to drop the smaller branches like the ones Roar’kaol’tok had cut off of the first tree.

“Kaa,” he said after the fifth branch dropped and I picked my way out of the tree.

“Good?” I asked as he crouched to inspect the little sprigs.

“Good,” he nodded, drawing out the ‘oo’ a lot more than it was supposed to be, and carefully stacked the branches we had gathered so far, putting the ones he had gotten on the bottom to be ruined as he dragged them towards another tree.

Once again, I wiggled under the branches and cut a few of them off before we moved to another tree. After the tenth tree, Roar’kaol’tok stopped me and took his ax back, slipping it back into the loop on his belt before handing me a few branches to drag on our way back towards the village.

We were met by a male with a hell of a scar on his face, cutting through one eye and leaving it gray and milky. He wore clothes that were mostly thick, stiff hide and his hair and fur had clumpy mats in it.

“Fern’mak’tak,” Roar’kaol’tok gestured towards me then towards the other male. “Hool’gra’nat.”

The hunter spoke to the other male briefly and he looked at me with an appraising look before nodding once and walking away, making me tilt my head a little.

“Hool’gra’nat,” the hunter said and shrugged, lifting his lip and mimicking biting before waving a paw. “Good.”

The other male came back leading an elk, moose thing. It was huge, like a moose, and was proportionate to the people around here, had large paddles for antlers but not as big and grew back before going forward and the body was slimmer, like an elk and I stared quite openly at it as it tried to nibble on the branches we had brought. But only on the soft new growth.

“Lanka,” the hunter gestured to it before helping the other male lash the branches to a large sled that also held a few dozen cords of firewood, some hide wrapped packages, and some leather bags with more goods in them.

The hunter and the other male slapped paws before we parted ways, and I smiled after the creature before rushing to follow Roar’kaol’tok towards the trees once again. He handed me his ax and pointed to my feet, before gesturing broadly to the trees and I grinned.

Picking the branches to use was easy. Shaving the greenery off was a breeze. Bending and lashing the branches in the right shape wasn’t so easy. My arms were sore and tired from cutting the branches earlier and holding the pieces together was a task that made my poor tired muscles tremble. The cold had left my fingers numb long ago and they weren’t as dexterous as they should have been. I was very glad that I was only using a stone knife, because the much sharper bone would have sliced my hands up like crazy.

When one the middle pieces of the frame that kept the sides pushed apart slipped and pinched my hand hard enough to make me bleed, I growled and pushed my hand to the snow to sooth it. The hunter laughed before growling a much more impressive sound and Diesel barked, clearly finding the mockery amusing.

“Funny,” I rolled my eyes and shook my injured hand before quickly finishing the first snowshoe frame.

As I was winding the strips of leather back and forth, adding knots to them for added traction, the hunter picked up the second set of branches and put them together for me, smiling when he held it up.

“Good,” he nodded to himself then picked up some of the extra strips to copy my lashings.

I tied the frames to my boots and the hunter looked at them curiously, then with complete wonder when I stood and didn’t sink as deeply into the snow as before which greatly improved my ability to walk out here and would mean I wasn’t so worn out at the end of the day.

I walked around a little bit before I held up a stick I didn’t use, getting Diesel’s attention. He put his front end down and wagged his tail before I threw it and he darted off after it, bringing it back and asking to do it again.

“Fern’mat’tak,” the hunter called after a while and I looked at him, smiling. He tilted his head towards the village and I looked up, seeing the light had faded a fair bit.

I scratched Diesel’s head and he picked up the stick to carry back to the village for the night.