What Happened?

By

Apache

All rights reserved

Chapter 9


We had arrived at the cave and the men went in and checked it out.  It would take a lot of cleaning to make it livable.  Everyone in the tribe pitched in to clean the place.  Some of the men grumbled about doing 'womans' work.  But when they saw me doing my part, they shut up.

It took almost a week to get the cave cleaned to the point that the women were satisfied with it.  Gone was the stink of cat and bear piss and shit. The cave was nice but kind of inconvenient.  The nearest water was a little over a quarter of a mile away. 

Then it happened.  We were all still inside the cave, because it had just gotten light out.  There was a minor earth tremor.  A couple of rocks fell and landed near people.  Needless to say, everyone was headed out of the cave a second later.  Me and mine were at the center of the pack.  Everyone had just cleared the cave when we got a good shock.  Dust came boiling out of the mouth of the cave.  I was thinking, 'Time to look for another home'. 

The chief of the tribe came up to me and asked, "Do you think that it is over". 

Damned if I knew.

We camped out for the rest of the day and night.  No more shakes or tremors. 

At first light I went into the cave a little way, and looked around.  Not too bad.  A few rocks had fallen but none so big as we couldn't move it out of the way.  The rest of the day was spent cleaning up the stuff that had come down.  Everyone, including the children were helping in the cleanup.  Then one of the boys came running from the back of the cave.  He was wet from head to toe, and shivering.  His father started to get all over him about running around in a place that they didn't know.  I stopped him.

I asked the child where he had gotten wet.  He took me to a little passage.  It wound back about thirty feet then widened out to an oval shaped room.  In the center of the room was a pool of crystal clear water.  We had out water supply without going to the stream.  

When I went back into the cave proper, and made the announcement about the water, the rush was on.  Every woman in the place wanted to take a look for themselves.  I didn't blame them at all.  The next thing I knew the celebration was on.
It seemed that almost every other day or so a cooking bag would burst while it was being heated.  So, I tried a little experiment.  I went to the river and dug up some of that fine clay.  Back at the cave, I tried to shape a cooking pot from the clay.  It took almost two days for me to get it right.  In my exploration, I found a patch of fine white sand.  I coated the inside of my 'pot' with the sand.  Then I laid up a big fire.  I set the pot in the center and put more wood on top.  Then I lit it off.  For the next day we kept the fire going as hot as we could make it.  I kept looking at the 'pot' in the fire.  Once it was glowing red hot I told everyone just to let the fire die out.  When it was cool enough, I pulled the pot out of the ashes.  Kind of rough looking, but it looked as if it would serve some purpose.  I taped it with a stick, to see if it were brittle, and it rang like a bell.  The inside looked to be lined with glass. 

I gave the pot to one of my wifes, and told her to try to cook something in it.  She looked rather dubious about the thing, but said she would try.  At the evening meal, I was served a meat and vegetable stew, by a very happy looking wife.   She told me that she had tried the new pot.  It cooked things much faster than a skin bag over the fire.  Several of the men had watched me make the pot.  Now they all wanted to try to make something out of the clay.  Hell I was all for it.

Over the next three or four weeks, every kind of plate, bowl, and pot were made from the clay.  Some of the designs were very good looking.

Life was getting just a little easer for the people. 

But as life will, it bit us in the ass one morning.  One of the children came screaming into the cave.  He had a cut on his arm.  He was crying and I don't blame him.  I got out the kit and got his arm bandaged as best I could.  He was going to have a scar, a large scar.

I asked him what had happened.  He said, "I went down to the stream to look for fish.  I was leaning down, when some one threw a spear at me.  I ran back to the cave".

That pissed me off completely.  To harm a child was, to me, a crime, and that crime carried a punishment.  Who ever did this was going to pay.

I walked to the entrance to the cave and looked out.  I spotted a group of five men just coming across the stream.  I shouted, "Stop and turn back, we do not want anyone that would hurt a child in this camp".

As an answer, three of the men threw their spears at me.  I ducked back behind the small lip of the opening.  I drew my trusty .45 Cal. and fired at the lead man.  Center of mass.  He went down, taking two others with him.  The other two stopped and looked at the one I had shot.  They didn't know what had killed their mate, but that didn't stop them.  One of them turned and tried to throw his spear.  BLAM!!  Another one down.  They checked him out and then started to walk off.  I yelled, "Take the dead ones with you, I don't want them stinking up my camp"!  It took them a long time to figure out how to carry the two men.  But finally they were on their way.

Dawn came up to me just as I was turning to go into the cave.  She asked, "Why are you not following them"?

I asked a question in return, "Why should I follow them"?

She replied, "You have killed two men.  They might have mates.  If you do not claim the mates, they will go hungry.  It is our way to claim the mates and things of the ones you have had to kill".

I thought about it for a few seconds, and made up my mind.  I would follow the men, but not right away.  I wanted them to think that they had gotten away with something.  I told Dawn about what I thought and she said, "It is good".

We waited until almost night fall before starting out.  I got the cart and trailer and started out of the cave.  Dawn was right there to stop me.  She said, "I am going with you".  I knew that once she made up her mind that it would take at least small earth quake to make her change it.  I let her git on and we were off.  The trail was easy to follow.  The men were scared of the unknown, and that unknown had killed some of them.  They didn't even try to cover their tracks.  

It took almost three days to get to the small camp.  The men went inside a hut and I heard a bunch of yelling.  Someone was pissed.

I had pulled right into camp, and everyone had scrambled into the huts, and were hiding.

I yelled, "I have come for the women that were mates of the ones I have had to kill".

Dawn was looking around and said, "Andy, behind you".  I turned just in time to see a man trying to throw a spear at me.  I put a round into his gut.  He wemt down.  Two wemen came out of the hut he was near.  I could see that they were in rough shape.  They both were brused over their face, arms and legs.  Dawn called them over.  They told Dawn that they had been mates to the dead one, and that he had been the chief of the people in the camp.  What I didn't know was, I was now the chief of this group.  But Dawn was fast in the explaining. 

It took a couple of days for the people to get ready to travel to my cave. 
It was slow going because of the shape the people were in.  It took almost a week to get to my cave.  I did a lot of hunting on the way back.  These people needed food and I was providing it for them.