Pilot Lights - Chapter 2

Ten thousand Years ago: The clan had settled farther north than any prior clans ever had, of course they didn’t know that, they knew very little of history, only that which they had seen for themselves. The leader of the clan was not very tall nor was he very big; he was however very fast. Few other clans were as successful as Wanderers, most likely because few other clans had a hunter as skilled as theirs. Their leader lived for the hunt, he would run and scream like no other had ever seen. On more than one occasion he would run an animal down all by himself, very few of the other hunters were able to keep pace with him, and very few of the other hunters would bring home even a third of the food he would win for the clan. It was his love of the hunt that drove the clan so far north, the challenge of surviving drove him to wander farther north and the clan would follow, of course he would never tell you this, you see the clan did not have language sufficient enough to put those ideas into words. The clan followed where their leader took them, not out of respect, but because he was the provider, it was his hunting that feed the children and that was all that was important to the clan.

The mate of the leader could not recall seeing any other clans or nomads in many many moons. Perhaps she thought in her own primitive way that they were the only ones still in the world, perhaps the others had perished to the dreadful cold. Although she lacked the language to say it or even to think it, she knew that lack of outsiders was bad, very bad. If she had the words to tell her mate that this was wrong she would have, she would have tried to make him stay where they were, but sadly that was not within her ability. The chief had given his mate a child nine years prior to this winter, and this was a very cold winter. The game was few and far between; the chief hunter was still able to feed the clan, however not as well as in prior years. Though their son was very healthy and full of life, other members of the clan had not been as successful in providing for the existence of a future generation.

The child of nine years was set to inherit the leadership of the clan one day from his father. That child spent a lot of time studying the man whose genes he carried, of course he had no idea what a gene was or that he had any. When the boy was three he picked up his fathers habit of staring at the stars very late at night. The clan though he was destined to be a protector, to keep look out like a good leader. His mother worried that he was to young to take the job of protector, as best she could think such things. The little man and his father made for a cute pair staring at the night stars. When the men went out on the hunt, the women and small kids would keep to their business. The woman would look after the little ones and do the caveman version of household choirs. The little ones would play and have fun, except for the son of the chief. He would be at the entrance of their cave looking across the landscape looking for signs of the return of his father. Signs of the hunt gone well, looking for…

The winter was the coldest she could remember and this day was bitterly cold. Late in the afternoon she saw her son fill with excitement, was the hunting party back so soon? As the men got closer, the bad news became apparent. All the men were coming back, all of them except for one. When the hunters were back they tried as best they could to mime the events leading up to the terrible news. Apparently they had tracked down a pack of wild animals, something fast like a deer. The chief was running the biggest of them down; it must have been an amazing site. The deer was frightened and scared and ran off the edge of a cliff, and the chief full of adrenaline kept chasing him before he realized the fall he was about to take, it was to late. One of the hunters saw him go over the edge, he looked like a bird in the sky, and he looked like he was free and happy, for a few seconds. The little one went back to the entrance of the cave, he was going to continue his lookout, to young to understand how futile such an act was. His mother looked at him and in her caveman brain thought that he was too young hunt, and the tribe most likely would not survive without a great hunter.