Ne'er

Chapter 9

I returned to the camp with the dead Gallimimus on a fan of branches.  It was dead heavy, pun intended, and a struggle to tow, but I managed. 

Oddly, when I was packing it up, the raptor pack didn't attack me, nor when I was hacking down branches with my sword.  I didn't mind, as long as they weren't bothering me.

"Guys!" I shouted, "I come bearing gifts!  Fresh meat for all!"

They came over and looked at the dead animal with curiosity.  Alex poked it with a stick.  "What is it?"

"It's a Gallimimus," I told him, "a species of ornithomimosaur.  It looks like an ostrich, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, the feathers do make it look like an ostrich," Dani commented.  The grey and white plumage covered everywhere, except the clawed hands, the mid thighs down, and beak. 

"That's one puny head," Alex commented after poking it with the stick.  Indeed, it was tiny, dwarfed by the massive body.  I nodded in acknowledgement, and then we stared at the body some more in morbid fascination.

Curiosity satisfied, I said, "Let's get this thing cut up so we can actually eat some fresh meat."

"Steak..."  Alex salivated.

"Food..." Dani said dreamily.

"Sorry to crush your dreams, Alex, but its most likely going to taste like poultry, due to its close relationship to birds.  If you want something like steak, take down an ornithischian dinosaur -- preferably a Triceratops or another species of ceratopsid.  Their bone structure and build are the most like a cow's."  I told him.

"But I want a filet mignon!" he wailed, "I want red meat!"

"What do you call beef jerky?"  Dani snapped.

"Boring," he responded.

"Oh, shut up and help," she reprimanded, waving her knife around.  I was hacking away at the meat and bones with my sword; it was so strong and sharp that it sliced through them quickly and easily.  Only once did I have trouble, and that was when I was cutting through the belly ribs; they were a pain, given that there were so many of them.  When we were done, multiple pieces of meat lay all over the place, on rocks and palm branches.  We gave Dakota the viscera -- at that time, no one could stomach eating it.

"So what now?" Dani asked.  She and Alex looked at me expectantly.

"Huh?"  I asked, wiping blood off of my face, and then my sword.

"What do we do now?  I mean, we cut up the meat, what do we do with it?"

"Um, we cook it," I said in an uh, duh voice.

"And the stuff we don't cook?  I mean, there's too much here for us to eat in one sitting..."

"Well," I replied, "give it to Dakota.  She needs lots of meat on a daily basis."

"OK," Dani chirped.  We chose what we wanted, and gave the Tyrannosaurus the rest.  She happily sank her ivories into the meat.  Once she was done with that, she walked over to the torn apart carcass and began stripping the remaining meat from the bones.

Meanwhile, the three of us us set about making a fire.  We took out the tinder - cotton balls - and the magnesium striker.  We lit the tinder on fire and moved on to progressively larger pieces of wood until we had a roaring fire.  Then, we put the meat on sticks and placed them on a spit and left them to cook.

While the meat was cooking, I walked around.  Plenty of cycads were in bloom, as well as flowering plants, and the fleshy ginkoid seeds were abundant.  I plucked them off and ate some of the fruit.

When I got back, I threw the starchy tubers on the fire and handed the fruit to my friends.  We ate as we watched night fall over the forest.  When the  tubers began squealing, much like a potato, I took a sharpened stick and pulled them out.  Then, I put them on flat rocks, along with the cooked meat, and seasoned it with crushed fruit and fructifications.  I called my friends over, and we dug in.

Who knew that Gallimimus tasted like chicken?  Well, everyone, since everything tastes like chicken.  Just kidding, but  it did taste like chicken.  The fruit added the perfect amount of sweetness to balance the meat's smokey, burnt flavor.  I was happy with the turnout, as were my friends.

When we were finished, I looked around the sheltered clearing.  It was just that -- a clearing.  We had nowhere to sleep, so we began building a shelter.  As it was dark out, we couldn't see, that was, until I managed to activate my "handlights".  Then, they called on me so much that I couldn't do my work cutting down the trees. 

I swear, running back and forth between them gave me more of a workout than they got.

When the frame was finished, we wove cycad and cycadeoid leaves into the structure to form the roof.  Then, the three of us gathered fern leaves to make a lush bedding.

When we finally laid down, we realized how how exhausted we were.  I mean, running from a Carnotaurus and a T. rex can do that to you.  I curled up in my "bed" and prepared to fall asleep.

"Hey," I whispered.

"Yeah?" they replied.

"I'm glad you two are with me."

"Yeah, you'd probably go insane without my awesome presence," Alex joked.

"Shut up, Alex!  Anyways, I am too."

"Night, guys."

"Goodnight, Mattie."

"Goodnight, Johnboy."  Silence, then Alex's voice: "OW!  Dani..."

"Don't quote The Waltons.  I was forced to watch that horrible show when I was little; I hate that and Little House on the Prairie.  Believe me, it scarred me."

"Fine.  Goodnight."

"Goodnight."