Undiscovered: Book One: The New Jungle

Chapter 16

The group sat on th  logs that usually surround a fire, but this is morning and they were in no need of a heat source in the middle of a hot humid jungle.

"So, fishing I suppose?" Randal said, trying to break the ice.

"Actually I think we should try something else, it's been a week of fish and leather fruit. Maybe we could go hunting." Chris said, he was being inquisitive but also excited that Randal looked close to saying yes.

"I guess you two could, but I'm staying at the camp, maybe I'll pick some fruit. I could try and squeeze some juice.

"Okay then, Chris follow me. Me and my dad hunt a lot." Randal said. He then began widdling away at a stick, this time instead of sharpening it he placed a notch at the end and looked on the riverbank for a piece of flint. Upon finding one he placed it in the notch and wrapped a strip of plant matter around it.

"Okay, let's look for some tracks." Randal said. They walked for about half an hour until Randal placed his arm in front of Chris. He gestured for him to be quiet and looked on the ground. A large patch of ground lie almost empty of leaves. In the mud there were several cloves hoofprints. They were narrow, almost like that of a deer but smaller.

"These are prints of some ungulate. That means mammal with hooves. I can also say they were bovine animals. That means they are like a cow. When I say that I mean they are mammals with hooves that have several chambered stomachs. By this I think they are some sort of forest antelope. There aren't any rooting marks on the ground that would be from a wild boar or peccary. This must be a small group of them. Probably a buck with his harem. We would probably go with the largest one. I would usually go for the smaller one but these prints indicate they are from an animal about the size of a long legged medium sized dog. We'll have to track them." Randal explained.

They followed the trail of hoofprints until they started smelling something.

"What is that?" Chris asked. Pinching his nose in disgust.

"That's probably urine from the lead buck. He probably left this scent because this must be his territory, at least for the time being. You can also smell the actual antelope. They smell like a goat." Randal whispered. "Now I'm gonna find the herd and you follow close behind." Randal said. They approached the area where their quarry most likely was until the smell of the urine of the lead male was unbearable. Eventually they found the herd.

"Okay, we've found them. They may not smell us. Scent doesn't carry as far in a rain forest. That's why the urine is so strong. Okay, you can probably see the lead buck. He has the biggest horns." Randal said.

He then gestured to the largest antelope. It was three and a half feet tall. He had long ridged horns that were sort of like that of a gazelle, accept they were strait and faced strait backwards. The problem was the fact that he was mostly leg. He was very lanky and lean.

"Okay, I'm gonna wait until he is on the outer edge of the herd and throw the  spear. You make sure the herd doesn't see you and watch were the herd goes. They will smell his fear and run wherever he goes. Then we will have to track him down. They will guard him until he dies so we need to be careful."

"Okay." Chris whispered.

Randal crept through the brush until he saw the lead buck nearing the edge of the herd. He held his breath as the antelope looked around. Clearly he is more secure surrounded by other antelope. He then lowered his head and began to browse on the low lying vegetation. It was after about three seconds that Randal raised his spear, and after about three more that he felt comfortable to throw. He drew back and threw the spear with more force than he had ever. The spear must have struck true because he collapsed with a spurt of blood from the side of his chest. He coughed and blew. This noise Randal always hated, the noise a deer, or in this case stilted antelope, made when frightened and about to run. This time on the other hand was different. It barely made it up off the ground and shook off the spear stuck in his side. He staggered off, coughing up blood from his mouth and nose as he tried to follow the frightened herd. When he collapsed again he was barely ten feet from where he was struck. The herd gathered around him and, after a large doe nudged him with her hoof, declared him dead. They then trotted off, apparently assuming a freak accident was the cause of their leaders death. That would make sense, a beast cat would have made itself quite noticeable when hunting and they seemed to be the top predator around here. Randal crept out of the brush, followed close behind by Chris. The buck lie still and very dead.

The blood from the animals nose indicated that he had been struck on either the heart or the lungs. Randal then drew his pocket knife and knelt by the dead antelope. He began cutting around its waist. First he spread its hindlegs and cut off the extremities. He then began edging the blade further up until the upper body was more exposed. When he did that he managed to remove the organs with minor difficulty and spilt very little blood. He discarded the digestive system and grabbed the back legs.

"Well, we need to drag this back. It's pretty light." Randal stated.

As the two dragged the dead antelope Randal stopped them halfway through.

"I'm gonna do something for a second." Randal said. He then took out his knife again and cut the head of the antelope off. He then removed the skull and somehow managed to take out the brain. He washed out the skull in the river and the blood caused a school of those weird long-fanged fish. They looked for the carcass that they expected and found nothing but the little bits of brain. Then Randal found out why they took gulps of water. They feed off of blood as well as meat. They filtered blood from the water when food was scarce. "That is really efficient" Randal thought as he watched the vampire fish filter the blood.

The two walked back to camp to find Christine sitting over a pile of leather fruit. She also had several bottles filled with light orange juice that must have been the juice she was going to squeeze.

"So, you got something I see. Well wash up. I managed to purify like twenty bottles of river water so we could wash our hands and stuff." Christine said. "And set that thing down Randal, your giving me the creeps. Wait until it's bleached to carry it around like a trophy." She nagged.

"Okay, whatever you say mom." Chris joked.

"Well someone needs to mother you two. You would get  eaten by a beast cat if I didn't help you a little." Christine replied.

"How so?" Chris said.

"Well, she means you smell so bad a bird would retch at you sometimes. And birds physically can't smell. Well, excluding turkey vultures and kiwis but they're different." Randal stated, matter-of-factly.

The two washed up in the water and began to get ready to cook their catch.