Traffic Violation Ch. 01

The dead were beginning to decay so John began moving them away from the camp. When they saw him doing that, the children grabbed his hands and pulled him until he decided to follow. They led him almost a mile by his estimation until they came to a clearing with several raised platforms in it. There were skeletons on each of the platforms so he decided this was where they wanted the dead taken. He spent the rest of the morning caring for the dead.

He knew the older girl had been helping the wounded but he stopped in to check on them three times during the day. Each time he found their injuries healing remarkably fast. Each time he cleaned the injuries and touched the injured as he pictured what he thought they should look like after healing. By the end of the day, the older female was awake and trying to move and the children, though weak, were up and about. This was amazing to John.

Over the next week they learned more of each other's language. Mostly, the children and injured learned English. They seemed to catch on to it faster than John did their language. It was almost as if they knew what he was thinking and there were times he thought he could "hear" their thoughts.

When they weren't trying to learn each others language or care for the injured, the children spent a lot of time in the forrest gathering food plants while John was hunting. He also began working on both an Atlatl and a Bow and Arrows in case he ran out of ammunition before he found civilization.

Finally the day came when he thought everyone could travel. Thankfully, he didn't have much trouble convincing them to leave with him. He was beginning to think something was seriously wrong. He still hadn't seen or heard any signs of aircraft and the terrain features were just slightly off from those depicted on his maps. There was much greater variance than normally found in military maps.

John wasn't able to ride now because of the amount of possessions the natives (as he began to think of them) insisted on bringing. Each of them found and brought some flint knives, wooden spears and what he thought of as a war club in addition to hides and bone "plates". He had to use Buck to pull a travois. From the way they carried on he was sure they had never seen a travois OR a horse.

They continued heading west because, if his maps were accurate, there should be a couple of small towns in that direction. They should be closer than if he returned to Colorado Springs. Two days after leaving the camp he came to the location he was sure should have had one of the small towns. There was nothing there and didn't look as if there had ever been something there. There wasn't even a trace of a road!

With nothing else to do, they continued on, hoping to find the next town but by now John was fairly certain they wouldn't. He was worried—very worried. He decided to keep the remainder of his dry beans, potatoes and onions for planting the next spring in case he was marooned somewhere.