Worlds Apart - William L Frame

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he didn’t start preparing now for the cold moons, they would not survive.

      To Taric’s people, the light of day during the warm to hot seasons was for the necessities of life, hunting and gathering a stockpile of dried meat, wild fruits, berries, tubers, and grains to sustain an entire tribe in defense of the snow moon’s freezing winds and ice. They also had to collect a large supply of the tough long grasses to weave mats for sitting or sleeping upon and baskets for storing their grains, dried fruits, and dried meat, as well as stacks of firewood to keep them from freezing when the land is covered in a blanket of snow.

      His people wasted very little time in their lives. They worked to survive every day. They made every piece of clothing they wore from the skins of their kills. Flint was flaked off into useful sharp shards when struck at the right angle with a hard stone. The shards could then be shaped into a multitude of useful tools from arrowheads, knives for cutting or carving of wood and bone, awls for poking holes, and scrapers for the cleaning of hides. The people made and shared everything, but Jennifer had nothing, not even a practical set of clothes. She only had him and a broken bone that prevented her from traveling. All he had was his skills, a few racks of drying meat, and the contents of his backpack, but everything that he needed the most was not found in the small confines of his backpack.

      Fortunately, it was still early spring, and the valley would provide them with water, food, and wood for the cold moons. After Jennifer’s leg healed enough to walk on, he hoped she’d be able to assist him with the hunting and gathering of food for the winter, but first, they had to be able to talk, so he sat down beside her, turned to face her, pointed at the fire, and said in his language, “Fire.”

      He saw understanding in her eyes, and she immediately repeated his words with her words as she pointed at the fire and said, “Fire.”

      “Fire,” Taric repeated, learning the sound of her word and understanding what it meant, knowing she did as well. He rose to his feet unaccustomed to idleness, but he was excited, and he wanted to speak to her. What was she? he thought, beginning to rotate the meat on the racks so the strips would dry evenly. Taric began exchanging words with her as he worked. By the time he had finished rearranging the racks of meat, they each had learned a basic means to communicate and could identify items in the cave when spoken in the language of the other. Through hand signs and pantomime, they were slowly able to speak and understand the most immediate and simplest of phrases in the syntax of each other’s language. It was a good beginning for each of them to express rudimentary thoughts and needs.

      Chapter 5

      Along the River’s Edge

      The landscape’s appearance changed quickly in their valley from the lush green freshness of spring into the yellowing dry tans of summer. Jennifer calculated it had been forty-four days since her landing and she had seen no one other than Taric the entire time. Today she was going to lose the hard dried out splint on her leg and be done with it. Grateful she would no longer need the pair of crutches Taric had made for her a few days after he set the bone.

      She was waiting for him to come outside and called out to him. “Come on, Taric. What’s taking you so long?” she said in his language, thinking she said it rather well and smiled.

      “Coming. What’s the hurry? The river is not going anywhere,” she heard him reply in English from just inside the cave entrance.

      “Crutches or carry?” he asked Jennifer with a warm smile when he exited the cave, with a bow and a slender bag of arrows slung over his back and another neatly tied bundle over his opposite shoulder.

      “You can carry me if you’d like,” she replied, knowing he enjoyed the closeness as much as she did. “Taric, where are your people?” she finally asked him, curious about the life he lived in this world.

      He took the crutches from her hands and threw them beside the firepit. “You won’t need these anymore. Might as well burn them. They’ll make good firewood,” Taric joked as he swept Jennifer off her feet and into his strong arms.

      “My people are on the other side of that mountain range in the north. I was on a journey when you fell to the land,” Taric answered, beginning their daily walk to the river’s edge, nodding in the direction of the mountains. “What is it like living in the heavens? Are your people up there?” he asked in return, wanting her to be just a girl, but still believing she was one of his people’s ancestors come back to life.

      “I’ll tell you tonight when the stars are out,” she answered and then asked. “Do all young hunters take a journey into the wilds alone or are you running from something?”

      “I’m not running from anything. I wanted to see the land south of the mountains and meet new people. My tribe is a small one and has more hunters than women to provide mates. There is no future for me in my tribe without a mate. I’m much older than the tribe’s oldest girl child. When she comes of age, I’ll be too old to be considered as a mate. She’ll want a younger hunter in his prime as she will be. Who would want to start a life with an old man as a mate? I wouldn’t. So I left the tribe to find my future and I’m not sure where it will lead me,” Taric honestly replied, unaware that her modern, jaded, and cynical mind’s interpretation of his matter of fact statement meant; she was not worth his consideration as a suitable mate.

      “Oh,” she replied with a slight frown on her lips and then quickly smiled to hide the pain of her hurt ego and cheerfully quipped. “And then I came along and ruined your whole trip,” she said, forcing a slight chuckle out of her throat as she lay her head on his shoulders so he couldn’t see her watery eyes. At the embankment of the river, Taric relaxed his hold and lowered her softly to the ground next to the sunning boulder. He steadied Jennifer as she tested her weight on the leg using Taric’s body as support by leaning against him. The closeness and scent of him forced her to wave off his willing assistance because she did not trust her ability to restrain herself. Taric’s statement said it all, she thought as she watched him lay the bulky bundle onto the ground and then leaned his bow and quiver of arrows against the boulder. With practiced ease and easy smile, Taric swooped Jennifer up off her feet and back into his arms. He strode quickly down the embankment nearly to the water’s edge.

      “No! Don’t you dare!” Jennifer screamed out a hopeless plea for mercy. They both began laughing uncontrollably as she twisted and squirmed within his strong arms to escape what was to come.

      “Ready,” he announced, trying to suppress the laughter convulsing his body. Taric smiled as he held her squirming body firmly in his arms and launched them both into the chilly, quick-flowing, shallow water.

      Still laughing at one another with amusement over what had become a morning ritual. They stood up to their waists in the water and stripped down to skin and tossed their clothes onto the shore. The chilly water urged them to wash quickly and return to the river’s sandy embankment as soon as they could.

      As she washed, Jennifer thought about how their relationship had developed since they began their daily walks to the river in the mornings. It had become her favorite time of day. She was alone with Taric on a personal level, and it was the only time of day he wasn’t involved with some other activity. Taric never seemed to rest or simply stop what he was doing and enjoy life, except in the mornings with her.

      Every night after eating, he’d go out into the grass and bring armfuls of the stuff back into their cave and weave them into various sizes of tightly woven baskets or large loose ones depending on their intended use. If he wasn’t out hunting or drying meat, he was scraping the inner hides of his kills. He was constantly on the move, gathering fruits and wild vegetables was a daily obsession. There were neatly stacked baskets filled with fruits, grains, and dried meat stored in the cool dark inner cave. To Jennifer, it looked like there was enough to feed a tribe. Behind their sleeping furs, Taric also stacked rows of firewood piled high and deep against the entire back wall, and yet every night, he would add more wood and make a few more baskets as they talked to each other in the caves dim firelight.

      Jennifer finished washing and limped stiff-legged her way over to a large smooth, comfortable stone by the water’s edge. She sat

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