She imitated me and put it on. It took her a second to realize there was a different slot for every finger, but then she got it and readjusted.
She looked kind of cute, standing there in her fur clothing and wrappings… but with one Goretex glove on her right hand.
“Good,” I said approvingly. Then I used my glove hand to grip the rope and slid outside the cave entrance, lowering myself to the ground.
She stood above me, watching with great interest as I did it.
I reached the ground and sank waist-deep in fresh powder.
Jesus, it had been quite the storm last night…
I looked up at the entrance. “Okay, Lelia – ”
Before I could get the words out, she was flying out of the cave entrance, leaping backwards like an Airborne Ranger rappelling in a firefight.
“LELIA – ” I screamed in alarm –
Just as her boots hit the stone wall and she rebounded off effortlessly, landing in the snow beside me like an Olympic-class athlete.
She smiled as she took off the glove and handed it to me. “Good glove, Jack.”
Then she moved away through the snow, leaving me standing there with my mouth wide open in surprise.
She started rooting around in the snow near us. It took me a second to realize what she was doing – and then she bent down and resurfaced with her spear.
She nodded at me. “Jack and Lelia go.”
Then she started wading through the waist-high snow towards the woods.
Okay…
I followed along in the wake she cut through the powder. She didn’t seem to mind being the point man, so I let her.
We reached the trees, which were laden with white, their boughs bent under the weight of the snow.
She picked a tree and shook the snow violently off the boughs. I realized it was one of the firs with the orange berries – which she immediately began to pick and stuff inside a fold of her fur bodysuit.
Good to know that the berries really were edible.
“Here,” I said, motioning to her as I picked off a couple of berries and stuffed them in a pocket of my jacket.
She was immediately enthralled with where I’d stuck the berries. In fact, she looked like a child who had just seen a magic trick.
“Pocket,” I said, holding it open between my fingers.
“Pocket!” she said in awe as she stuck her own fingers in.
From that point onward, she loved stuffing berries in that pocket.
Then she went to another type of pine tree, shook the snow off a branch – and began stripping the needles off and stuffing them in another pocket.
I didn’t ask what the pine needles were for – I just figured I would see for myself back at the cave.
Once we were fully loaded up, she looked at me questioningly like, What now?
I looked around. There were absolutely no tracks anywhere – no animals were out. No deer to catch.
Might as well get the raw materials I needed for a bow and arrow and call it a day.
I gestured to her and walked over to a small tree in the snow. I needed a hardwood for the bow – something similar to ash, whatever an ash tree was called on this planet.
I inspected the sapling for springiness… decided it was too flexible… and checked out another couple of trees nearby.
Lelia just watched in confusion, but followed me as I went.
Then I found one that would do. I cleared out the snow down to the base, took out my Craftsman tool, flipped out the saw extension, and began cutting through the base.
Lelia flipped out.
“What?!” she said, amazed, as she knelt in the snow next to me and pointed at the Craftsman. “What?!”
I grinned and held out the tool towards her so she could see the serrated edge. I pointed at the extension. “Saw.”
She gawped at the tool and touched one blue finger along its jagged ridge.
I pointed at the small fir. “Tree.”
Then I started sawing again. “Jack is sawing the tree. I am sawing the tree.”
She watched in amazement as I finally cut all the way through the two-inch-diameter trunk and pulled the tree out of the snow.
Then I looked around.
“What, Jack?” Lelia asked.
I pointed at the shaft of her spear. “Wood. I want wood like that.”
Then I pointed at a nearby pine tree. “Not like that.”
I pantomimed cracking a stick in my hands. “Crack!” I said loudly.
She nodded, then bounded off through the snow. Despite the fact that she had to plow through three feet of it, she made it almost look graceful.
She disappeared into the snowy trees. A few minutes later, she returned with an armful of hardwood branches that were as long as her spear. They had been covered with snow, but they were seasoned and dried out.
“Those’ll do,” I agreed. “We need wood for the fire, too – ”
“Fire?” she asked, and spun around in amazement, as though looking for a fire in the woods.
I chuckled.
“No – wood,” I said, lifting one of the sticks. “For fire.”
“Ohhhh,” she said, and smiled shyly. “For fire.”
“Yes, good. Show me,” I said, and pointed from where she’d come from.
“Show you?” she asked.
I pointed to my eyes, then back at the way she had come. “Yes – show me.”
She led me back along the trail she had plowed. We finally wound up at a fallen hardwood, where she had dug through the snow until she had exposed a series of broken branches.
I broke some dried-out limbs by stomping them and loaded up my backpack. Then we set off for home with our wooden treasures.
Halfway there, though, I realized I needed to take care of some business.
“Stay there,” I told Lelia as I cut a different path through the snow.
“Jack?”
“Stay there,” I said as I put my hand out like Stop!
I went about 20 feet away, faced a tree, undid my pants, and had just let the lizard out for a leak –
When I heard her boots squeaking
