River Guide: Pawprints on the Riverbank

Torn in Two

Adam led the party forward into the narrowing upper valley to its end. There was a beautiful waterfall and a deep river gorge that ran for a few miles where the way they traveled would open up again. He kept them at the edge of the valley they wound through. It was farthest away from the clouds and storm that he saw ahead. Along those hillsides, they could escape almost any unforeseen natural danger. As for contact with other men, Adam and his wife kept a keen ear open, an eye on the horizon for smoke lines, and a nose for the same. Men alone made fires for warmth and cooking, and it was an easy sign to tell if you were alert. Adam could avoid or join another party of men based on what he could learn of them from a long way off. Star also kept an eye on the servant men out in front of them. She kept her knife at the ready.

The two men were afforded their shoes for walking. Star had burned all their other clothes. Their things stank, and the men were infected with fleas and lice. The only reason Adam and Star hadn't smelled them coming from way off was their playfulness out into the river. Their focus was on their lustful plans for that evening. That these two were already starving and stank so badly was all sign that these two men had no business traveling in this part of the world. They needed the basic skills of staying clean and gathering food from the land around them to survive in the wild. No wonder they couldn't find any game for their food. Animals would smell them even upwind, Star thought. It was a pungent stench. And if they were standing in a field of plants they could eat, starving and saying there was no food, she felt they deserved to die. She was disgusted with them on every possible level. Even children in her tribe were far wiser about such simple things than these two.

Still, they now served a noble purpose. They led the party well in front of Adam and his wife. On foot, these servant men were the perfect bait for any trouble in front of them. They would die first, giving some warning to Adam and Star that danger was upon them. She kept note of their whereabouts though they were often far enough ahead to be out of sight. They had already bathed in the river a few times, yet they still stank. It was milder now, but it seemed to come from within them. Nothing could wash it off. Nothing hid the noises they made while walking. They were crunching branches and knocking stones about. They made all manner of noises. Star could have followed them while blindfolded. They would never have known she was there.

"Sir. Which way forward now?" Leon called to Adam from well in front of the party. Joel was with him as Adam and Star caught up. There, before and below them, quite a ways down, was a long river gorge spanning both left and right past seeing. They were atop the range of hills running alongside the distant water cutting the land in two. The river flowed alongside this edge of a mesa of sorts, and, from what Adam could spy from their hillside, there might even be a settlement on the tableland. They were well above and away from it now, and the two servant men had stopped for a reason. The hills broke into two clear choices. Right meant going away from the water and over cliff-edged ragged hills with no end to that in their sight. Choosing left meant going downhill toward the water, the lower plain, and toward heavy storm clouds gathering up against the distant mountains.

Water was life, true enough. The small storm Adam saw growing in the sky was hiding the distant mountain range blocking the clouds and escalating the coming terror. Even Star felt safe enough with the choice to follow the hills down to the river. The party made it about half the way down to the river from that point during the remaining daylight hours. The hills were steep and rugged, making the going slower. Adam also watched the sky with anticipation. He knew there could be danger from above. He kept the party well up and away from the river gorge itself. Still, he realized they could only make the river by moving lower and upstream parallel to that gorge. They had to get where the river could be accessed and possibly crossed. That place would be above the river's carved gulch they made their way alongside now. Adam didn't like the situation, but he could only control a few things in this world. The increasing number of things that could become issues kept him on the side of worry constantly now.