The cold and the wet nearly floored me. My hands and teeth shook so badly that I had trouble with undressing. I knew that I had to get out of my wet things or risk hypothermia. My priority was to build a fire and warm up, dry my clothes and then rest.
With flint and striker stone, I could have started one in seconds. But, neither of us had stopped to grab the most basic of supplies. I could start a blaze the old-fashioned way with bow and friction, but my hands shook too much to hold the tools steady.
I checked the pockets of my jeans. Nothing there but lint. “Crispin?” I called in desperation. “I need your help!”
No answer. Not even the slightest hint of his presence. I wondered if his time inside me had worn him down so much that he couldn’t materialize. I prayed not. There was not even the shimmer of his ghostly energy. I checked the cell phone and it too, had drained of power. The battery was dead. Besides, it only provided light, not heat.
Wrapping my arms around my knees, I huddled in the cave, shivering and wondering what I could do to prevent myself from freezing to death. It wasn’t long before my eyes closed, and I sank into a state of unawareness. Not sleep but not quite unconsciousness.
In that state, I saw ghostly forms moving back and forth in a campsite filled with bark shelters. I saw fish smoking on lattices of green willow, big, fat catfish, eels and strips of lean red meat. Venison. Other women nearby were working deer hides, chewing with their teeth. There was laughter and joy all around as these native people lived and worked in harmony with their environment.
They were red-skinned, hair so shiny black that it gleamed blue but strangely, many of them had green or blue eyes. Most were six-feet or taller, even the women. I wasn't sure what tribe they were but clearly, they lived in peace with the rhythms of the swamp.
I reached out my hand to the campfire and felt the glorious warmth coming off the flames. It encouraged me to come closer and the woman kneeling beside it gave me a soft smile, beckoning me closer still.
I came forward and she threw a fur over my naked shoulders. It was spotted yellow and black like an exotic cat. I thought it might be from a bobcat until I saw the little tufts on its ears. Lynx. Beautifully tanned, it was warm and plush. I stretched out and sighed as the heat made me sleepy and my wet things steamed as she laid them on nearby flat rocks.
She handed me strips of venison and a bowl made from a burled knot of cherry. Inside was steaming soup, a kind of chowder. Fish, clams and cattails roots gave it a thick, starchy consistency. I ate until I was stuffed. Warm inside and out, I drifted off to sleep. Without wondering who they were, how they came to be or whether they were real.
When I woke from my slumbers, I rolled over and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I had gone to my dreams just as daybreak had started yet the time was no more than nine or ten o’clock in the morning. So, either I had slept 24 hours straight through or what I had experienced was…other-worldly where time had no meaning.
Looking around, I found nothing left from my dream. There was no campfire or native village scattered across the small clearing. No food drying, venison smoking or women working equably before my gaze. Yet, I was warm, dry and covered with a lynx fur and my clothes were dry, laid across warm rocks. My stomach was full as if I had eaten.
My leg twinged to remind me that Crispin and I had traveled a long way stressing it almost beyond repair. I called him but was not surprised when he did not appear. Nor did any of the other ghosts of this place. I sighed and pulled my clothes back on, not an easy task with the heavy cast. My socks and sneakers were dark with mud, yet I had no choice but to wear them. Or go barefoot.
A broken limb from one of the gnarled willows provided me with a crutch and I chewed on the inner bark as I peeled the stick. Salicylic acid gave me some relief from the pain of broken bones. It was aspirin in its raw, natural form. Of course, poppy would have been better but poppy (or opium) didn’t grow in the swamp.
Crutch under my armpit, I searched the old foundation for items that would aid with my survival. I needed a container of some kind, a piece of flint, iron, a chunk of obsidian or slate to use as a blade.
What I found was an old arrowhead, carved out of flint which gave me a fine, sharp knife point. I could cut and shape wood with it which gave me access to firewood, staves, spears and fire.
Slowly, carefully, I used the old bow and friction method to start a fire. Twirling the thin rod faster and faster on a flat board creating friction and heat. As the first sign of smoke drifted up, I added tiny slivers of wood and dried moss, blowing gently on the pile. I had always used a fire starter or matches but Crispin’s memories gave me the know how to do it the old way.
Fire. I had a tiny campfire snapping cheerfully in minutes, just inside the cave’s entrance. The wood was dry so any smoke that drifted up was minute and would not be seen by those looking for me. There was plenty of brush and downed timber all around to keep it going for hours. Perhaps days. I would not need to go scrounging for fuel.
Once I knew it would continue burning and not sputter out, I went down to the edge of the island and cut thin saplings of black willows, two thick handfuls. Thin but no wider than my little finger and over six-feet long. Most I brought back to the fire and set them near the big rocks I had arranged into a makeshift chair.
Making myself comfortable which on a rock wasn’t easy, I peeled the twigs and plaited the whippy branches into the shape of a seine. I used the rest to make a lattice and a mat that was long and wide enough for me to lay on. From the same trees, I worked the longer limbs into a fishing net, drying rack for meat and a door to both close off and hide the cave’s entrance.
The thin mat to sleep on was much better than lying on the ground but wasn’t the best option. I was too close to snakes, spiders and other critters and I couldn’t see how I could sleep in a less vulnerable manner. A hammock would have been better, a tent ideal. That could have kept me from biting insects, crawling critters; safe from everything but a bear. Or a man. But those things were lost to me, so I had to make do with what I did have.
I watched the game that came down to the water to drink. Marsh hares, key deer, possums and raccoon. Cranes. The water popped as a fish broke the surface. Behind me, I heard a stream bubbling over stones and my dream guide had told me where to find it.
Trouble was that I had no way to carry water and modern man had not found this island to leave its discarded refuse for me to find and re-purpose. No empty soda cans or water bottles. No plastic bags or tin cans.
My small arrowhead/knife wasn’t big enough to cut a limb or gouge out a bowl for drinking. So, if I wanted a drink, I had to make do with lying on my belly near the stream and sucking water with my mouth. I didn’t think about the animals upstream who might have peed or pooped in it, I had only one choice. Drink or do without. Thirst satisfied, I explored the entirety of the island.
The stream started near the northwest corner, coming up out of the ground in a spring no larger than a metal wash tub. Artesian by the look of it. Pure, sweet so it wouldn’t give me stomach cramps or upset bowels.
The only structure left on the small island was the old foundation. Not even a stone wall had been left behind from pioneers and the natives didn’t use boundary markers. Not even the Park service had tagged the trees.
The thick black willows and cattails hid me from view, but I spotted game trails; left snares where I could to catch rabbits, partridges and maybe an unlucky turkey.
I’d seen tracks and sign of both turkeys and pheasants, their meat would be a welcome treat and turkey smoked into jerky very easily.
I retraced my steps and found where Crispin had left the swampy water and stepped onto the island. There, I slid back into the shallow muck with the seine I had spent an hour on, created from the willow lathes. It took me a long time with careful patience, I had sieved a bounty of frogs, golden perch and fresh water mussels. Carrying them back to camp was not as difficult as I would have thought, the seine was thick enough to hold them even though it was not intended to use as a basket.
Cattails proved equal to the task of basket making and once I’d laid my catch on the lattice to smoke, I finished off the rest of the afternoon by making as many sizes and shaped baskets as I could from the green reeds. They were more pliable than the older, dried reeds. My first efforts were childish, unequal, and loose but by the fifth one, my skill had improved so that the reed containers were almost waterproof.
If I could find a clay deposit and with a hot enough fire pit, I could throw and fire pots. Pots that would hold up for cooking and drinking. If large enough, I could store things in the ground and keep them cool.
The frogs were too small to eat but would make good fishing bait. I loved frogs’ legs, but these were too tiny to bother with, I turned them loose until next time. They hopped off and disappeared into the brush. The fish I cleaned, gutted and filleted, laying the small pieces on the smoking rack. The mussels went into the coals on a flat rock where they popped and opened. I dug them out with a stick, playing hot potato as I tried to eat them. Once cooled enough to handle, they were sweet and chewy.
This food sat in my belly with the same sense of fullness as my dream meal, yet I knew this one was real. I sat on the rock seat with my feet stretched out in front of me and fed the fire as the afternoon lengthened its shadows and made monsters out of other shadows in the woods. Above me, jets laid contrails against the narrow strip of sky that I could see and let me know that I was not in Crispin’s century. That time had not passed me by. I shook my head at such foolishness. Time for me to worry about how I was going to keep out of my father’s clutches, escape the swamp and find a life on my own terms. If that meant spending the rest of my childhood as a hermit in a haunted swamp, so be it.
I gazed around at my new backyard and made plans to make it more livable yet remain hidden. My first priority had been to ensure that I had a warm, dry place to sleep. With that well underway, all I needed to do was close off a few holes in the roof where tree roots and rocks left it open to the rain and sky.
There was plenty of broom weed growing in the open, too small to be called a clearing. Gathering armloads of the fine weed, I carried it back to the cave. Broom weed was called that because the early settlers had used it to make brooms before straw was available. My handle was a broken limb off a sassafras tree, lightweight but strong. I kept its location in my mind, sassafras made both a good tea and a weak beer.
I used fibers from the cattails to bind the broom head to the shaft. My broom worked well to sweep the dirt floor of the cave even though it left behind small pieces of the weed. The dust billowed up in the air and made me sneeze. I wasn’t the only one sharing the hole under the tree roots. Deer mice and squirrels had gathered generations of nuts, pine cones, and trash, burying them in the crannies of the cave.
I managed to explore the whole island leaning on my crutch. Roughly shaped like a comma, it sat on a slightly raised mound and was covered with first growth trees that were massive and ancient. Because they were so large, their crowns kept light from reaching the forest floor. As a result, no brush or smaller trees could grow, and walking was like moving through a solemn hallway of thick columns. Sort of like pictures of Greek or Egyptian temples.
Stones of decent size were hard to find and the kind I wanted didn’t appear in swampy areas. I was looking for broad, flat plates to use as a table top and a bench. Something that was large enough to work yet small enough for me to carry. I came back without finding anything of value.
In the end, I used stones that came off the foundation and shaped by tools. I could see the marks of the stonemason chiseled on the rock’s surface. Once I had stacked enough to reach my waist, I struggled to lift the slab atop the ends. Finally, I had a table that I could eat off, work on and keep things off the ground.