"Oct 7- I've decided to marry M.
"Oct 10- seems I was mistaken- M. is going to marry Margery Chung. Well, they are nice kids and if we ever get out of this I'll be glad I'm single since I want to buck for a commission in the Amazons. Note: be a little more standoffish, Caroline. Well, try!
"Oct 20- Carmen????
"Oct 21- Yes.
"Nov 1- well Glory be! I'm the new City Manager. Little Carol, the girl with two left feet Just a couple of weeks, temporary and acting while Roddie is away, but say 'sir' when you speak to me. Hizzoner finally let Roddie make the down-river survey he has been yipping about, accompanying it with a slough of advice and injunctions that Roddie will pay no attention to once he is out of sight-if I know Roddie. It's a two-man team and Roddie picked Roy as his teamer. They left this morning.
"Nov 5- being City Manager is not all marshmallow sundae. I wish Roddie would get back.
"Nov 11 - Hizzoner wants me to copy off in here the 'report of the artifacts committee'! Mick Mahmud has been keeping it in his head which strikes me as a good place. But Hizzoner has been very jumpy since Roddie and Roy left, so I guess I will humor him- here it is:
"12 spare knives (besides one each for everybody)
"53 firearms and guns of other sorts- but only about half of them with even one charge left.
"6 Testaments
"2 Peace of the Flame
"1 Koran
"1 Book of Mormon
"1 Oxford Book of English Verse, Centennial Edition
"1 steel bow and 3 hunting arrows
"1 boiler made from a wave shield and quite a bit of metal and plastic junk (worth its weight in uranium, I admit) from the Thunderbolt Jackie salvaged.
"1 stew pan (Carmen's)
"1 pack playing cards with the nine of hearts missing
"13 matches, any number of pocket flamers no longer working, and 27 burning glasses
"1 small hand ax
"565 meters climbing line, some of it chopped up for other uses
"91 fishhooks (and no fish fit to eat!)
"61 pocket compasses, some of them broken
"19 watches that still run (4 of them adjusted to our day)
"2 bars of scented soap that Theo has been hoarding
"2 boxes Kwik-Kure and part of a box of Tan-Fast
"Several kilos of oddments that I suppose we will find a use for but I won't list. Mick has a mind like a pack rat.
"Lots of things we have made and can make more of- pots, bows and arrows, hide scrapers, a stone-age mortar & pestle we can grind seeds on if you don't mind grit in your teeth, etc. Hizzoner says the Oxford Verse is the most valuable thing we have and I agree, but not for his reasons. He wants me to cover all the margins with shorthand, recording all special knowledge that any of us have- everything from math to pig-raising. Cliff says go ahead as long as we don't deface the verses. I don't see when I'm going to find time. I've hardly been out of the settlement since Roddie left and sleep is something I just hear about.
"Nov 13- only two more days. 'For this relief, much thanks...'
"Nov 16- I didn't think they would be on time.
"Nov 21- We finally adopted our constitution and basic code today, the first town meeting we've had in weeks. It covers the flyleaves of two Testaments, Bob's and Georgia's. If anybody wants to refer to it, which I doubt, that's where to look.
"Nov 29- Jimmy says old Rod is too tough to kill. I hope he's right. Why, oh, why didn't I twist Hizzoner's arm and make him let me go?
"Dec 15- there's no use kidding ourselves any longer.
"Dec 21- The Throxtons and Baxters and myself and Grant gathered privately in the Baxter house tonight and Grant recited the service for the dead. Bob said a prayer for both of them and then we sat quietly for a long time, Quaker fashion. Roddie always reminded me of my brother Rickie, so I privately asked Mother to take care of him, and Roy, too- Mother had a lap big enough for three, any time.
"Grant hasn't made a public announcement; officially they are just 'overdue.'
"Dec 25- Christmas"
Rod and Roy traveled light and fast downstream, taking turns leading and covering. Each carried a few kilos of salt meat but they expected to eat off the land. In addition to game they now knew of many edible fruits and berries and nuts; the forest was a free cafeteria to those who knew it. They carried no water since they expected to follow the stream. But they continued to treat the water with respect; in addition to ichthyosaurs that sometimes pulled down a drinking buck there were bloodthirsty little fish that took very small bites- but they traveled in schools and could strip an animal to bones in minutes."
Rod carried both Lady Macbeth and Colonel Bowie; Roy Kilroy carried his Occam's Razor and a knife borrowed from Carmen Baxter. Roy had a climbing rope wrapped around his waist. Each had a hand gun strapped to his hip but these were for extremity; one gun had only three charges. But Roy carried Jacqueline Throxton's air pistol, with freshly envenomed darts; they expected it to save hours of hunting, save time for travel.
Three days downstream they found a small cave, found living in it a forlorn colony of five girls. They powwowed, then headed on down as the girls started upstream to find the settlement. The girls had told them of a place farther down where the creek could be crossed. They found it, a wide rocky shallows with natural stepping stones... then wasted two days on the far side before crossing back.
By the seventh morning they had found no cave other than one the girls had occupied. Rod said to Roy, "Today makes a week. Grant said to be back in two weeks."
"That's what the man said. Yes, sir!"
"No results."
"Nope. None."
"We ought to start back."
Roy did not answer. Rod said querulously, "Well, what do you think?"
Kilroy was lying down, watching the local equivalent of an ant. He seemed in no hurry to do anything else. Finally he answered, "Rod, you are bossing this party. Upstream, downstream- just tell me."
"Oh, go soak your head."
"On the other hand, a bush lawyer like Shorty might question Grant's authority to tell us to return at a given time. He might use words like 'free citizen' and 'sovereign autonomy.' Maybe he's got something- this neighborhood looks awfully far 'West of the Pecos.'"
"Well. .. we could stretch it a day, at least?. We won't be taking that side trip going back."
"Obviously. Now, if I were leading the party- but I'm not."
"Cut the double talk! I asked for advice."
"Well, I say we are here to find caves, not to keep a schedule."
Rod quit frowning. "Up off your belly. Let's go."
They headed downstream.
The terrain changed from forest valley to canyon country as the stream cut through a plateau. Game became harder to find and they used some of their salt meat. Two days later they came to the first of a series of bluffs carved eons earlier into convolutions, pockets, blank dark eyes. "This looks like it."
"Yes," agreed Roy. He looked around. "It might be even better farther down."
"It might be."
They went on.
In time the stream widened out, there were no more caves, and the canyons gave way to a broad savannah, treeless except along the banks of the river. Rod sniffed. "I smell salt."
"You ought to. There's ocean over there somewhere."
"I don't think so." They went on.
They avoided the high grass, kept always near the trees. The colonists had listed more than a dozen predators large enough to endanger a man, from a leonine creature twice as long as the biggest African lion down to a vicious little scaly thing which was dangerous if cornered. It was generally agreed that the leonine monster was the "stobor" they had been warned against, although a minority favored a smaller carnivore which was faster, trickier, and more likely to attack a man.