The Beginning

To his amazement, the third day found his wound healed. There was an angry red scar where the tear in his side had been and it was still very tinder.

Using the spear as a crude crutch, he managed to make it to the edge of the forest. He thought about going back to the caves, but knew that he would have to fight for his place as leader of the clan if he returned. He didn’t consider the position worth the effort.

"I find there", the old woman had always said, when he asked where he came from.

No longer having any ties with the clan, he decided to go see what might be found there. The cliffs dropped down as he went along the stream to the south. A half day down stream, he found a place that may have been a trail at one time. He followed the trail along the top of the cliff. The trail turned away from the stream as he approached a position opposite the clan’s caves.

Now, he understood what the old woman meant. The ground fell off to the west and the trail continued on across a small valley, then along a ridge to another stream, where there were more caves.

"This must be the place where she found me," he thought as he entered the largest cave.

He spent two days exploring the caves and the area along the stream to the south, but time scavengers, and weather had removed all traces of anything that may have been there. Hunting was good, so he was pretty sure no people had been in the area for some years. Game became very nervous when a bunch of screaming and yelling humans were around.

CHAPTER 2

Live Or Die

The Sow charged from a clump of bushes. He had paid little attention to the piglets rooting about in the stand of bushes. Most of the game animals had ignored him unless he made a threatening move toward them.

It came like a black streak of vengeance, its beady little eyes glowing red with hatred. It caught him in the calf of his right leg with a wicked tusk that was as sharp as the fire hardened point of his pear. His spear instinctively stabbed down as the animal passed, catching it between the shoulder blades. The thrust went deep, but not quite deep enough to be instantly fatal.

The animal whirled about, the shaft catching in some low hanging branches, twisting it about causing the sow to scream in agony. It pawed the ground, snorted blood and charged at the bushes causing the spear to do even more damage. Its beady red eyes found its prey. It snorted and squealed. A froth of blood came from its mouth and nostrils.

Evidently the last fit of rage had caused the spear to tear a hole in a lung. It charged. Blood frothing from mouth and nose. Some of it his. He stepped to one side. The injured leg gave way and he fell on his right side. The sow came in for the kill. Its head down blowing huge gouts of blood with each breath. It made a faltering charge, that ended lying on its side an arms length from him. He let out a sigh of relief. He could imagine himself lying there, gutted by the sow’s last charge with the piglets rooting at his intestines.

(Him is getting old, so lets give Him a name. John. A name he would use in the distant future.)

John wrenched the spear from the sow’s back, using it as a crutch, worked his way down to a small stream. He used thorns to pin the edges of the wound together, and washed away the blood. To his amazement, it began to close before his very eyes.