Harkening: The Finding

This series of five short-stories is based on reoccurring ‘night terrors’ I’ve been having for the past few months. The way I’m figuring it — maybe, jus’ maybe — if I write it down and share it then it’ll go away.

‘Lives in Woods’ looked up at the gray sky as droplets of rain fell on his face. He’d been hunting for a day and a half now and hadn’t seen one deer or elk.

“Perhaps, I’ve gone to high,” he thought.

He could tell that the light would soon be gone as it filtered through the giant trees. He decided to it would be a good idea to look for shelter before it grew too dark and he’d have to set up camp in the rain.

As he silently, but swiftly moved amid the high ferns, he looked for tracks, eaten ends of plants and a possible place to get in out of the rain. ‘Lives in Woods’ was even willing to use a dead-fall log to get in out of the chilling event of the wetness as it continued to fall.

It was jus’ off to his left that he saw what might be an even better place to hole up than under a log. He could see an opening in the base of a huge Redwood, that was hidden by a growth of ferns.

“Hopefully, there’s no bear inside,” he muttered as he worked his way to the tree.

He thrust his spear forward into the opening. There wasn’t a bear inside the hollowed out tree trunk as he had first feared – it would make a good shelter for the night.

After gathering wood, he knelt and began the task of creating fire. He used the ancient technique passed down through the generations of spinning the end of a stick in the notch or a board, which he carried in a bag that hung across his body.

Even though the weather was wet, his board and stick we dry and he made fast work of making a glowing ember. He quickly added it a bird’s nest he also had in his bag, found days ago and soon he’d built himself a fire by which to dry himself and stay warm.

It had been a long day, so after eating some jerked salmon, he moved to the back of the hollow and stretched out. As he lay there, he felt something, perhaps a rock, poke him in the back.

Absent mindedly, ‘Lives in Woods’ reach under himself and dug at the object. He pulled it free from the compressed earth and looked at it.

It didn’t look like a rock at all. He studied it some more, turning it over again and again.

“Bone,” he concluded.

Rolling over and getting to his knees, he probed the area on which he’d been resting. To his shock he found another bone, this one long and slender.

Next to it was another long, bone, about the same length, yet thicker. That lead up to what ‘Lives in Woods’ knew to be a human thigh bone.

Before long, he had uncovered a nearly complete skeleton. While others of his people would have run away, terrified of such a thing, ‘Lives in Woods’ knew he must collect all that he could and return with them to town.

Along with the bones, he also pulled from the ground a large square object, made of a material he didn’t recognize. It looked to be wrapped at one time inside pieces of clothe that had long since rotted away.

It was hard to see through the square, like a heavily fogged over afternoon, yet he could tell it held something inside it. What it could be, he didn’t know, and he felt it best not to investigate it any further.

“I’ll let the Elders do that,” he thought.

Then much to his surprise, he noticed an object leaning in a crevasse of the tree trunk. It was long and made of metal, with a wood handle.

‘Lives in Woods’ knew it a gun when he saw one, though he never held one before. He gathered these items too and wrapped them all in a piece of deer skin he had planned to use to keep warm with.

In the morning, at first light, he would rig a travois and return to town.  ‘Lives in Woods’ was certain he had found one of the ‘Last Peoples.’