A RACE WITH DREAD.
Ab looked toward the forest wherein Lightfoot had fled and then looked
upon that which lay at his feet. It was Oak--there were the form and
features of his friend--but, somehow, it was not Oak. There was too much
silence and the blood upon the leaves seemed far too bright. His rage
departed, and he wanted Oak to answer and called to him, but Oak did not
answer. Then came slowly to him the idea that Oak was dead and that the
wild beasts would that night devour the dead man where he lay. The thought
nerved him to desperate, sudden action. He leaped forward, he put his arms
about the body and carried it away to a hollow in the wooded slope. He
worked madly, doing some things as he had seen the cave people do at other
buryings. He placed the weapons of Oak beside him. He took from his belt
his own knife, because it was better than that of Oak, and laid it close
to the dead man's hand, and then, first covering the body with beech
leaves, he worked frantically upon the overhanging soil, prying it down
with a sharp-pointed fragment of limb, and tossing in upon all as heavy
stones as he could lift, until a great cairn rose above the hunter who
would hunt no more.
Panting with his efforts, Ab sat himself down upon a rock and looked upon
the monument he had raised. Again he called to Oak, but there was still no
answer. The sun had set, evening shadows thickened around him. Then there
came upon the live man a feeling as dreadful as it was new, and, with a
yell, which was almost a shriek, he leaped to his feet and bounded away in
fearful flight.
He only knew this, that there was something hurt his inside of body and
soul, but not the inside of him as it had been when once he had eaten
poisonous berries or when he had eaten too much of the little deer. It was
something different. It was an awful oppression, which seemed to leave his
body, in a manner, unfeeling but which had a great dread about it and
which made him think and think of the dead man, and made him want to run
away and keep running. He had always run far that day, but he was not
tired now. His legs seemed to have the hard sinews of the stag in them but
up toward the top of him was something for them to carry away as fast and
far as possible from somewhere. He raced from the dense woodland down into
the broad morass to the west--beyond which was the rock country--and into
which he had rarely ventured, so treacherous its ways. What cared he now!
He made great leaps and his muscles and sinews responded to the thought of
him. To cross that morass safely required a touch on tussocks and an
upbounding aside, a zig-zag exhibition of great strength and knowingness
and recklessness. But it was unreasoning; it was the instinct begotten of
long training and, now, of the absence of all nervousness. Each taut toe
touched each point of bearing just as was required above the quagmire,
and, all unperceiving and uncaring, he fled over dirty death as easily as
he might have run upon some hardened woodland pathway. He did not think
nor know nor care about what he was doing. He was only running away from
the something he had never known before! Why should he be running now? He
had killed things before and not cared and had forgotten. Why should he
care now? But there was the something which made him run. And where was
Oak? Would Oak meet him again and would they hunt together? No, Oak would
not come, and he, this Ab, had made it so! He must run. No one was
following him--he knew that--but he must run!
The marsh was passed, night had fallen, but he ran on, pressing into the
bear and tiger haunted forest beyond. Anything, anything, to make him
forget the strange feeling and the thing which made him run! He plunged
into a forest path, utterly reckless, wanting relief, a seeker for
whatever might come.
In that age and under such conditions as to locality it was inevitable
that the creature, man, running through such a forest path at night, must
face some fierce creature of the carnivora seeking his body for food. Ab,
blinded of mood, cared not for and avoided not a fight, though it might be
with the monster bear or even the great tiger. There was no reason in his
madness. He was, though he knew it not, a practical suicide, yet one who
would die fighting. What to him were weight and strength to-night? What to
him were such encounters as might come with hungry four-footed things? It
would but relieve him were some of the beasts to try to gain his life and
eat his body. His being seemed valueless, and as for the wild beasts--and
here came out the splendid death-facing quality of the cave man--well, it
would be odd if there were not more deaths than one! But all this was
vague and only a minor part of thought.
Sometimes, as if to invite death, he yelled as he ran. He yelled whenever
in his fleeting visions he saw Oak lying dead again. So ran the man who
had killed another.
There was a growl ahead of him, a sudden breaking away of the bushes, and
then he was thrown back, stunned and bleeding, because a great paw had
smitten him. Whatever the beast might be, it was hungry and had found what
seemed easy prey. There was a difference, though, which the animal,--it
was doubtless a bear--unfortunately for him, did not comprehend, between
the quality of the being he proposed to eat just now and of other animals
included in his ordinary menu. But the bear did not reason; he but plunged
forward to crush out the remaining life of the runner his great paw had
driven back and down and then to enjoy his meal.
The man was little hurt. His skin coat had somewhat protected him and his
sinewy body had such toughness that the hurling of it backward for a few
feet was not anything involving a fatality. Very surely and suddenly had
been thrust upon him now the practical lesson of being or dying, and it
was good for the half-crazed runner, for it cleared his mind. But it made
him no less desperate or careless. With strength almost maniacal he leaped
at what he would have fled from at any other time, and, swinging his ax
with the quickness of light, struck tremendously at the great lowering
head. He yelled again as he felt stone cut and crash into bone, though
himself swept aside once more as a great paw, sidestruck, hurled him into
the bushes. He bounded to his feet and saw something huge and dark and
gasping floundering in the pathway. He thought not but ran on panting. By
some strange freak of forest fortune abetting might the man wandering of
mind had driven his ax nearly to the haft into the skull of his huge
assailant. It may be that never before had a cave man, thus armed, done so
well. The slayer ran on wildly, and now weaponless.
Soon to the runner the scene changed. The trees crowded each other less
closely and there was less of denned pathway. There came something of an
ascent and he breasted it, though less swiftly, for, despite the impelling
force, nature had claims, and muscles were wearying of their work. Fewer
and fewer grew the trees. He knew that he was where there was now a sweep
of rocky highlands and that he was not far from the Fire Country, of which
Old Mok had so often told him. He burst into the open, and as he came out
under the stars, which he could see again, he heard an ominous whine, too
near, and a distant howl behind him. A wolf pack wanted him.
He shuddered as he ran. The life instinct was fully awakened in him now,
as the dread from which he had run became more distant. Had he heard that
close whine and distant howl before he fairly reached the open he would
have sought a treetop for refuge. Now it was too late. He must run ahead
blindly across the treeless space for such harborage as might come. Far
ahead of him he could see light, the light of fire, reaching out toward
him through the darkness. He was panting and wearied, but the sounds
behind him were spur enough to bring the nearly dead to life. He bowed his
head and ran with such effort as he had never made before in all his wild
and daring existence.
The wolves of the time, greater, swifter and fiercer than the gaunt gray
wolves of northern latitudes and historic times, ran well, but so did
contemporaneous man run well, and the chase was hard. With his life to
save, Ab swept panting over the rocky ground with a swiftness begotten of
the grand last effort of remaining strength, running straight toward the
light, while the wolf pack, now gathered, hurled itself from the wood
behind and followed swiftly and relentlessly. Ever before the man shone
the light more brightly; ever behind him became more distinct the sound
made by the following pack. It was a dire strait for the running man. He
was no longer thinking of what he had lately done. He ran.
[Illustration: WITH A GREAT LEAP HE WENT AT AND THROUGH THE CURLING CREST
OF THE YELLOW FLAME]
The light he had seen extended as he neared it into what looked like a
great fence of flame lying across his way. There were gaps in the fence
where the flame, still continuous, was not so high as elsewhere. He did
not hesitate. He ran straight ahead. Closer and closer behind him crowded
the pursuing wolves, and straight at the flame he ran. There was one
chance in many, he thought, and he took it without hesitation. Close
before him now loomed the wall of flame. Close behind him slavering jaws
were working in anticipation, and there was a strain for the last rush.
There was no alternative. Straight at the fire wall where it was lowest
rushed Ab, and with a great leap he went at and through the curling crest
of the yellow flame!
The man had found safety! There was a moment of heat and then he knew
himself to be sprawling upon green turf. A little of the strength of
desperation was still with him and he bounded to his feet and looked
about. There were no wolves. Beside him was a great flat rock, and he
clambered upon this, and then, over the crest of the flames could see
easily enough the glaring eyes of his late pursuers. They were running up
and down, raging for their prey, but kept from him beyond all peradventure
by the fire they could not face. Ab started upright on the rock panting
and defiant, a splendid creature erect there in the firelight.
Soon there came to the man a more perfect sense of his safety. He shouted
aloud to the flitting, snarling creatures, which could not harm him now;
he stooped and found jagged stones, which he sent whirling among them.
There was a savage satisfaction in it.
Suddenly the man fell to the ground, fairly groaning with exhaustion.
Nature had become indignant and the time for recuperation had been
reached. The wearied runner lay breathing heavily and was soon asleep. The
flames which had afforded safety gave also a grateful warmth in the chill
night, and so it was that scarcely had his body touched the ground when he
became oblivious to all about him, only the heaving of the broad chest
showing that the man lying fairly exposed in the light was a living thing.
The varying wind sometimes carried the sheet of flame to its utmost extent
toward him, so that the heat must have been intense, and again would carry
it in an opposite direction while the cold air swept down upon the
sleeping man. Nothing disturbed him. Inured alike to heat and cold, Ab
slept on, slept for hours the sleep which follows vast strain and
endurance in a healthy human being. Then the form lying on the ground
moved restlessly and muttered exclamations came from the lips. The man was
dreaming.
For as the sleeper lay there--he remembered it when he awoke and wondered
over it many times in after years--Oak sprang through the flames, as he
himself had done, and soon lay panting by his side. The lapping of the
fire, the snapping and snarling of the wolves beyond and the familiar
sound of Oak's voice all mingled confusedly in his ears, and then he and
Oak raced together over the rough ground, and wrestled and fought and
played as they had wrestled and fought and played together for years. And
the hours passed and the wind changed and the flames almost scorched him
and Ab started up, looking about him into the wild aspect of the Fire
Country; for the night had passed and the sun had risen and set again
since the exhausted man had fallen upon the ground and become unconscious.
Ab rolled instinctively a little away from the smoky sheets of flame and,
sitting up, looked for Oak. He could not see him. He ran wildly around
among the rocks looking for him and despairingly called aloud his name.
The moment his voice had been hoarsely lifted, "Oak!" the memory of all
that had happened rushed upon him. He stood there in the red firelight a
statue of despair. Oak was dead; he had killed Oak, and buried him with
his own hands, and yet he had seen Oak but a minute ago! He had bounded
through the flames and had wrestled and run races with Ab, and they had
talked together, and yet Oak must be lying in the ground back there in the
forest by the little hill. Oak was dead. How could he get out of the
ground? Fear clutched at Ab's heart, his limbs trembled under him. He
whimpered like a lost and friendless hound and crouched close to the
hospitable fire. His brain wavered under the stress of strange new
impressions. He recalled some mutterings of Old Mok about the dead, that
they had been seen after it was known that they were deep in the ground,
but he knew it was not good to speak or think of such things. Again Ab
sprang to his feet. It would not do to shut his eyes, for then he saw
plainly Oak in his shallow hole in the dark earth and the face Ab had
hurried to cover first when he was burying his friend, there under the
trees. And so the night wore away, sleep coming fitfully from time to
time. Ab could not explore his retreat in the strange firelight nor run
the risks of another night journey across the wild beasts' chosen country.
He began to be hungry, with the fierce hunger of brute strength, sharpened
by terrific labors, but he must wait for the morning. The night seemed
endless. There was no relief from the thoughts which tortured him, but, at
last, morning broke, and in action Ab found the escape he had longed for.