As Jake approached the camp he saw that it wasn't a large modern tribe. There were only a couple dozen people in a small clearing in the forest. There were four buildings made of roughly hewn wooden planks. Smoke rising from holes in the roofs indicated that fires were inside. The people were wearing mostly animal skins. How was it possible, Jake wondered, that there were people living like this only a couple hundred miles from Vancouver, a major city.
When they saw Jake, several of them continued working on whatever they were doing and several more ran into the largest of the four buildings. Jake stopped and waited. Moments later an elderly man came out of the building and approached him and asked in plain, indiscernibly accented English:
“What can I do for you?”
“My friend and I were on a plane that crashed a few miles from here, he’s injured and needs help. Do you have any way to contact someone to get a helicopter in here?”
“Sorry, we don’t even have a radio. We try to live by the old ways. We stay as far as we can get from your people. When someone’s in trouble though, we do whatever we can to help, but you must promise not to reveal us to the other outsiders. We don’t want the government coming and telling us we can’t live here.”
“I promise.”
The old man called back into the building and began speaking in a language that Jake didn’t recognize. A couple of younger men, about Jake’s age came out.
“My name is Klemtu. This is Suts, our medicine man and Ats, my youngest son. They will help you bring back your friend. They don’t speak English but I’ll tell them what’s going on.”
After some explanation by Klemtu, he saw some Suts and Ats get sour expressions on their faces. He assumed they must have been xenophobic.
“Suts and Ats will help you retrieve your friend but it’s getting too late and you wouldn’t want to be out in the forest at night. Spend the night here and you can go out in the morning.”
Suts lead him into the largest building and pointed to a place on the floor. The tribe was beginning to come in and settle down for the night. The smell of smoke was strong from the fire and flickering shadows danced across the rough walls. Suts provided him with a piece of dried fish which he ate with relish. It was so much warmer inside than outside. Jake lay down on the wood planks and went to sleep, hoping that Ming was doing ok.
