The Index -|-
A breath of wind touched Thoka’s head, and the roots of her hair tugged gently at the skin of her scalp. She smiled and enjoyed the moment with her eyes closed. It had been so long since she had experienced a breeze that she had nearly forgotten what it felt like. A momentary chill brushed over her arms, and she shivered slightly before pressing against Kpleeb’s warm body. She felt him squirm for a few seconds before jerking suddenly.
She opened her eyes.
A ray of light flickered as particles floated down from above. Fog expanded as she exhaled.
She blinked to clarify the scene.
“What is going on?” she heard Kpleeb mutter.
The skin on Thoka’s back chilled instantly when he sat up, and she shivered again more intensely.
“Thoka, wake up!” Kpleeb’s large and hairy palm grabbed her arm and shook her.
“I am awake,” she said brusquely. Her eyes blinked again. Almost everything was white through the haze, and it was very cold. Thoka sat up and looked around. There were tree branches over her head, evergreen she realized, and they were heavy with snow. The branches shimmied slightly in the wind, and another shower of fine flakes scattered and settled gently on her and Kpleeb.
“What in the pit of the damned is going on?” Kpleeb stood awkwardly and in doing so his shook the branches. More frozen flakes of ice fell on Thoka. He remained hunched over under the low branches as he looked about.
“I’m cold. Can you stop shaking the tree?”
“Yes, maybe. This dream feels too strange. Let me look around.” Kpleeb ducked through a gap in the foliage and disappeared with the branches shaking in his wake.
Thoka huddled with her arms around her legs for warmth. Her belly jolted as she compressed it. “We’ll be alright, little one,” she said quietly. This dream was indeed the most realistic that she had ever encountered, but almost nothing could surprise her after experiencing the substantial and abnormal dreams of the past few months.
“Is this one of your dreams, child?” she murmured quietly. There was no response.
She breathed in deeply and savored the cold air. It had been so long since she had experienced the autumn chill back home on the wet mountains. [It is so cold. Maybe I am just soft from being cooped up inside the caves for so long. Or maybe this dream is more frigid than reality.] She rubbed her forearms with her palms and blew a fine fog out into the space around the tree.
The trunk was grey-brown and a pale. Green lichen clung to its surface in spots. The bark was craggly with sections made of layers of woody material separated by deep and natural gouges. Thoka put her finger into one of the gouges and pried a thin layer away. The wood underneath was lighter and browner. Branches sprouted from the trunk just above her head. It was an evergreen, much like the trees that covered parts of the wet mountains back home. The needles were a brighter hue and longer than her hand.
Thoka reached out and plucked a needle from the branch in front of her and smelled it. [This dream is incredibly lifelike and beautiful!] She put one end of the needle in her mouth and tasted an astringent and bitter flavor that instantly brought back memories of her childhood and the needle-tea that the village healer would make her drink when she was sick.
Just then, the branches to her left parted slightly and Kpleeb’s hand penetrated the space and waved wildly in circles. “You must come outside, Thoka,” he whispered loudly. His hand continued to gesture blindly at her.
Thoka shifted to her knees and took his hand. He tugged and she emerged from under the tree’s boughs into a dense forest.
The trees were mostly the same, though their size and shapes varied. The sky was hazy and overcast, and Thoka saw a few small birds flutter across between the tree tops. Snow blanketed everything in every direction and completely covered the ground except where the occasional large stone protruded above the drifts. Deep footprints led from where Kpleeb stood holding her hand to the left and out of sight.
Thoka’s feet were terribly cold and goosebumps raised on every inch of her skin. She stamped her feet and looked at the disbelieving expression on Kpleeb’s face.
“Come this way,” he said. “I know it’s cold, but you have to see this.” He pulled at her hand, and she followed. He bounded slowly at first, and then more quickly until Thoka had difficulty keeping up.
“Slow down, Kpleeb.”
“I know but…”
Thoka tripped and landed face first in a snow drift.
Kpleeb came to a halt when her hand left his, and he immediately helped her stand. “Sorry,” he said.
The look of chagrin on his face was enough to prevent her from berating him. She nodded at him and then adjusted her top and brushed the snow off of her skin before allowing him to lead her forward.
They followed the footsteps he had made in the snow until there was a break in the trees. The vista opened up as the stepped onto a rock formation at the edge of a canyon. From their perch Thoka could see that the canyon stretched in both directions for as far as she could see. It was long and winding, and in the far distance to their right was an icy mountain peak. She walked forward carefully and looked downward into the canyon. As she approached the drop-off, she could hear the faint sound of water rushing over rocks.
“I can’t see how deep it is,” said Kpleeb. He still held her hand. “The tops of trees are very far down, but there must be some way to get to the water.” He looked in each direction before shrugging.
Thoka nodded and her suspicions solidified to mesh with the facts. “This is not a dream.”
“If it is, it’s like no dream I ever had. It is too cold.” He pulled her back from the edge and wrapped his arms around her from behind. “You are freezing. We have to find shelter.”
Thoka nodded.
Kpleeb turned back toward the trees and dug into the snow under the largest tree he could see. When he was done, he led Thoka into the tunnel he had created. “This isn’t much, but it will keep the wind out.” He arranged some of the dried needles and brush into a nest before patting her on the shoulder. “I will get more branches to cover any gaps, and for a fire.”
Thoka sat down under the branches shivering almost uncontrollably so that her bracelets clattered together. “Hurry up, Kpleeb. I need your body warmth very soon.”
He nodded and rushed back through the small tunnel. A few, long moments later he returned with an armload of dried brush. He dropped the brush next to Thoka and bent back into the tunnel to pull a large branch into the opening.
“I haven’t made a fire in so long,” he said conversationally. “I hope I can get it done quickly. Spread your legs straight out,” he said.
Thoka complied.
He sat in front of her, between her legs. “Now take the heat from my back while I work on this fire.”
Thoka shivered and quietly wrapped her arms around Kpleeb’s hairy torso from behind. It was cold, but heat emanated from him, and she was grateful for him. [Who knew a hairy man-body could have a legitimate function.] She smiled to herself and rested her cheek on his back.
Kpleeb muttered to himself, and his shoulder muscles writhed as he worked with his sticks and branches. After a few minutes he sighed loudly and stopped moving.
“Crack it!” he cursed. “We always banked the coals back home in the canyon. Nobody had to make a real fire. The last time I made one from scratch was during my cavemanhood training.” He shrugged. “My da gave me all the tools and it took me an hour to make a fire. Here, I don’t have all the tools.”
“Keep trying. We must survive.” Thoka patted his chest and hugged him closely. “I believe in you.” She was no longer shivering.
He did continue to work at it, and eventually after much cursing and grumbling, Thoka felt a new heat on the backs of her hands. She turned her palms away from Kpleeb’s warm chest and enjoyed the sensation. “Thank you.”
He nodded and silently continued feeding the fire for a few moments. “I think it will stay lit now,” he said. “I need to get more brush. Can you keep it going?” He stood carefully, and ducked into the tunnel without waiting for an answer.
Thoka slowly placed small twigs onto the tiny fire one at a time. She had tended and built fires on many occasions growing up and knew that extreme cold could sap the heat from a fire and make it go out. After a moment, the fire did sputter and die. She cursed quietly to herself. [I have to get this going again before Kpleeb comes back.]
There were small coals, and a few moments of blowing and care brought the vanishing flame back to life. By the time Kpleeb came back, the fire was a above her knee. Thoka looked up as he came in. “I’m glad you have plenty more. We’ll run out of wood pretty quickly.”
Kpleeb coughed lightly and dropped his arm-load of brush next to the fire. “Wow, it’s smoky in here.”
“This is another thing we did not have to endure in the caves. Were your caves back home smoky?”
Kpleeb nodded. “They were, but most of them had the smoke river to draw it away.”
“What’s a smoke river?”
“Well, the leader before Fab Elder Shoofit had some of the cavemen carve channels into the cave ceilings leading from the fire pits to the outside. The smoke always ran away from the fire in those channels. I never thought about it until now, but I guess the hot smoke rose to the highest point, the channel, and moved continually upward until they reached some other space. The caves further away from the main chambers were always smoky though. Maybe the smoke had cooled by then and began to sink and spread.”
Thoka nodded. “That makes sense. We lived in tips and caves. The caves had bore-holes and lead to the surface and the tips had simple holes in the top.”
“And the tips are those round, pole-shelters covered with hide? How did they drill the hole from the cave ceiling to the surface?”
“Yeah, that’s a tip. They worked very well for outside living. I don’t know who thought of the roof holes, but the healer told me once that the first holes were old water channels.” Thoka chuckled. “She told me that sometimes in a storm, the channel would dump enough water into the fire to douse it. They eventually dug some other pit that allowed the smoke to rise but diverted the water elsewhere.”
“Ahh, smart,” Kpleeb said. “Your tribe was very advanced.”
“Well, I don’t know,” she said shrugging noncommittally, “I mean… look at us now. We are so much smarter than before.”
Kpleeb looked thoughtful. “True.” He sighed and held his hands out to the fire that was now crackling happily. “Without the food outcropping, I will have to hunt, and I was never the best hunter.”
“Mmm. Yes. Do you know snares?”
Kpleeb shook his head. “We used spears and clubs. We used spears and nets for fishing. Maybe there are fish in the river down there,” he said in a hopeful tone. He sat down next to Thoka and put his arm over her shoulders.
“We will be okay. I’ll teach you about snares.” I need several long, green branches to start off with.” Thoka smiled at Kpleeb. “I’m not freezing any longer, but I can also teach you how to make caves out of snow.”
“That’s strange,” he said thoughtfully.
“Yes, but it works.” Thoka reached out and affectionately scratched his scraggly beard with her fingernails. “Let’s get to work.”
