We had to leave Bob outside of the wall, which worried me a bunch, but I could sense both his and Hope’s general attitude, and neither seemed distressed during the night. I figured that the giant parasaur was large enough to take care of himself against any of the green raptors, or anything a bit bigger than me. He’d probably have a problem with a carnotaurus, but I could always order him to run, and I knew he’d easily be able to get away.
I woke up the next morning at the crack of dawn to find both Galmine and Trel sleeping with smiles on their faces and their hands on my chest. I did my best to wiggle out of their embrace without waking them, and then I looked over to see Kacerie sleeping with her back to us on the other side of the fire. Sheela was not inside of the hut, but I found her outside of our gate cutting more sinew. She had a second basket almost full and didn’t notice me walk up behind her.
“Good morning,” I said, and she spun around to face me.
“Good morning, Victor,” she said as she gave me her usual nod.
“Need some help?” I asked. There was a bit of movement off to my left, and I turned to see more of small dino scavengers coming to eat from the piles of bodies.
“I am almost done here,” she said. “There is more sinew to gather, but I will have to walk out to the clearing near the cave, and I am worried that the orange birds will attack.”
“Alright,” I replied as I looked to where she pointed. Ten of the turkey-sized birds occupied the ramp, but another thirty were relaxing on the grass below the cave. There used to be hundreds around, and but their corpses were now decorating the clearing.
“I have moved most of the bodies we have already processed away to the outskirts,” Sheela continued. “But I did not know if you wished me to spend more of my time moving any more.”
“I think we need to get this group right here away,” I said as I gestured to the pile of ten bodies at her feet. They were starting to smell a bit now, and I guessed the whole clearing would reek by the end of the day.
Then we would really have a problem with all sorts of scavengers.
“I will get to work on it,” she said as she reached down to finish pulling the sinew from the last bird.
“I’m also worried about that pond of blood,” I said.
“It might soak into the grass,” Sheela said with her usual shrug. “I do not know what we could do about it besides just wait.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “We’ll also need to clear a working area for the lumber. That part of the grove over there has trees a few feet wider than what we used for our current wall. Let’s clear the bodies away from there and then get to chopping.
“Should we retrieve water first?” Sheela asked.
“We’ve got a pot left after last night,” I said. “It should last us till lunch. Then Trel will have a new saddle made for Bob, and Galmine will have taught Kacerie how to make more pots. I’ll make a run then.”
“It is a plan,” Sheela said with her usual stoic nod.
“But is it a good plan?” I asked her as I grinned.
“Victor, all of your plans are excellent,” she whispered. “It is why I obey you.”
“Is something else wrong?” I asked since I noticed she wasn’t looking up at me when she spoke. It could have just been that she was working on cutting the sinew, but Sheela normally looked at me when we discussed our plans.
“You continue to ask me that,” Sheela said.
“Yeah, and you then explain to me that there is a problem. Then we talk about it and you feel better.”
“My feelings hardly matter in this case,” she said as she cut the last sinew off the bird.
“They matter to me,” I replied. “Is this about Trel and me? Or Galmine and me?”
“I have finished this task,” Sheela said as she tossed the last strap of sinew in the basket. “I will work to remove the corpses from this area and the trees that you wish to process.”
“Okay,” I said as I considered what to say next. Her tone made it apparent that she didn’t want to talk any more about it, so I really had two choices: press Sheela more, or give her some space. “I’m going to do a quick loop around the valley on Bob. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Very well,” Sheela said as she turned away from me.
I walked around the wall to where Bob was resting. The big parasaurs raised his head when I approached him, and I rubbed my hands across his snout.
“Hey buddy, did you have a good night sleep?”
He let out a soft toot, and I moved to climb up on his back. As soon as I was on top, he rose up on all fours, stretched out his body like a dog, and then let out another series of low toots. These noises were a little louder than his first greeting, and I suspected that they woke Trel, Galmine, and Kacerie up.
I turned Bob away from our wall and urged him to the edges of our clearing. He was getting more used to carrying me on his back, and the acceleration wasn’t as bumpy as it had been yesterday. I did a quick lap around the edges of the redwood grove surrounding the clearing but avoided the orange birds’ cave.
I hadn’t expected to see anything unusual in the clearing, so I rode Bob deeper into the redwoods. Dawn seemed to have the least amount of dinosaur activity, but I still startled some smaller birds, lizards, and a few large mammals that looked like a cross between a squirrel and a monkey.
I hit the hill on the north side of our clearing and checked over the valley as I rode toward the lake. The lack of a saddle meant I really couldn’t push Bob up to his max speed, but then again, going any faster would make it hard because of the wind stinging my eyes. We were someday going to have to learn how to make riding goggles, but I didn’t even know where to begin that process. Couldn’t you make glass with heated sand? How did you shape it? How did you cool it?
There was way too much to do, and here I was going for a bit of a joy ride.
Well, it wasn’t quite a joy ride. Yeah, Bob was really awesome to ride, and I felt like I was in control of a super fast tank, but I also needed to check our territory out, and I wanted to double check on the fire that Sheela and I had seen yesterday. Thoughts of a potential enemy tribe filled some of my dreams last night, and I wanted another look at the smoke.
I descended the jungle so I could ford the river, then I pushed Bob back on the low slope of the hill. I was getting really used to the trails we frequented to get through the valley, but now I realized my habits might put me in danger. I’d played plenty of first-person shooting games where I’d just camped a popular spot with a sniper rifle. How soon would someone figure out that this was a path we frequently took and set up an ambush?
I pushed my fears aside and focused on the task at hand. It was good for me to be concerned about this new danger, but there wasn’t much I could do about it this instant. All I could do was make tiny adjustments to my plan and then stick to that plan the best I could. I didn’t know my enemy, but I knew there was a potential enemy out there. I was already way wiser than I was yesterday, and I was tweaking my plans a bit to account for the new danger.
I made it to the crest of the lake’s valley and stopped Bob’s run. There was still a bit of smoke outside in the distance, but it looked like most of the fire had died down. It was what I expected to find, and I let out a sigh of relief. Hopefully, whatever was going on over there kept going on so that no one bothered to come this way.