They came up on a small hill and found a large tree with some kind of nuts. There were nuts all over the ground and they saw some kind of macaque, its face slightly red. He nudged her, and he took the spear from her, putting his finger to his mouth. The macaque was about fifteen feet away, sitting on a low limb, its back to them. He’d only thrown spears in fun, growing up. He’d never had his life depend on a hit.
He didn’t know what macaque tasted like, but it was meat, and fat. He pulled back his arm and threw as hard as he could. The spear shot past the macaque who screamed in warning and all of a sudden, about twenty flew out of the trees around them and disappeared. He’d missed, and wasn’t happy about it.
“I think we need to make more spears and practice. Our lives could depend on it. Sorry, no meat.” He shrugged.
“That’s okay, there are all these nuts on the ground, they have plenty of protein and fat. We can crack a few now, and then take a bunch back to the cave and bury them. That way, we’ll have plenty on hand for like a breakfast. I can try to make a nut pancake with the berries we found and mix it with ground tuber.” She smiled up at him.
Both sat down and each found a couple rocks to break the large nuts. It was a bit of work and took a bit of practice hitting them just right. The meat inside was delicious, like a Brazil nut, but less bitter. They scattered the shells and after a bit stopped.
“I hate to say it, but I’m full.” He laughed, his dark eyes squinting up in humor. He began to fill his bag with nuts. Sarah did the same. They looked around, there were still lots, thousands of nuts on the ground. He shook his head. Plenty to eat, for now. He thought perhaps they’d come back tomorrow and get more, and store them away. They continued on until Sarah started hopping around pointing.
“That’s it, that’s the soapberry tree, at least I think it is. Let’s pick some and when we find a pond or stream, we can try them out. If it works, then when we get back, we can wash our clothes. Oh man, that would be great to have clean clothes and clean hair.”
“Hell yeah, I don’t think I’ve stunk this bad since I was in the SEALs on a mission.” He laughed and sniffed at his armpits with exaggeration and made a face. He staggered around a bit and fell to the ground and his tongue stuck out to the side. He saw her blush and hoped she didn’t think he was talking about her. He could smell her, but she really didn’t stink too bad. It was a natural body odor.
He got back up and they went to the tree. They gathered the berries, which almost looked like hard nuts, and he suggested they start back for the cave. It was getting late and he didn’t want to be far from their home when it got dark. They took a more southerly route back and came upon a small streamlet, they took out their berries and wet them, and then their hair. Rubbing the berries together, they began to leach out a lather. Rubbing it in his hair, it tingled a bit, and he hoped it wouldn’t make his hair fall out.
He grinned as he watched Sarah do the same, her shoulder length hair was lathered, though not quite like normal shampoo. Both rinsed their hair, and she leaned over and asked him to smell her hair, he smiled at her trust in him.
“Smells clean, how about me?” he asked, and he heard her sniff like a dog and laughed at her and splashed her.
“What was that for?” she cried indignantly.
“You sounded like a dog sniffing for treats, I think your soapberries work. When we get back, we can wash some of our things out and let them dry. Let’s get back, I can’t wait to take a shower in the waterfall and wash this grime off me.”
They walked for almost an hour without talking, it was peaceful in the darkening woods. The air was beginning to cool. They heard insects chirping in the woodland and birds calling, settling in the branches above, settling in for the night. They heard an animal cry, and he saw Sarah shiver. Their footsteps were quiet in the dead leaves and pine needles. Then Sarah’s hand shot out to stop him, and he looked at her. She mouthed the word snake and pointed.
Ahead of them was a large snake and from the shape of the head, it was venomous. It was a big damn snake too, nearly five feet and fat as hell. He pushed her back and raised up his machete, he carefully angled his body, it was laying across a branch, damn near invisible. They’d have walked right past without seeing it. He got as close as he dared, he didn’t know the striking distance of it and didn’t want to test it.
He brought the machete down swiftly and cut the branch and the head off the snake, its large body coiling in on itself, writhing and rolling around on the ground. The heavy body flipped and twisted toward him and he stepped back.
“Good eye, how the hell did you see it?”
“I don’t know, I was just looking around for more berries, or fruits and then I saw it and had to look again. Geeze, that is a huge snake. I
