that he was now trapped here, he had to admit that something had gone very wrong. To keep despair at bay, he immersed himself in observing his little community of primitives, all the while trying to remember what he knew about the Stone Age.
Like most people, what he had gained had come from jokes and B-movies. Were these the cavemen of cartoon fame? Were they heavy-handed dullards who hunted such things as mastodons and dire wolves and giant sloths? Were they subhuman ogres that eked out a nasty and brutish existence in a world of dinosaurs and spewing volcanoes? Were they hairy, monosyllabic troglodytes that lived in holes in the ground? Were they any of these things?
The first discovery to surprise Kit was that he could no longer think of them as primitives, much less call them creatures. Since the night they had risked themselves to save him from the bear, they were people—albeit of an alien race and species. Kit spent a considerable amount of time trying to determine the blood relationships and hierarchy among the members of the River City Clan. Big Hunter seemed to be the chief, though he was not the eldest; there were two females that Kit pegged as the oldest members of the group of sixteen individuals who ranged in age from three or four years to, well, whatever age the oldest ones were—sixty, seventy? That is how old they appeared; though, the privations of a hard-graft hunter-gatherer life being what they were, Kit doubted the aged ones were anywhere near that old.
The clan consisted of seven males and nine females. In appearance, aside from the primary sexual characteristics such as beards and breasts and such, the two sexes differed little: both were of stocky, muscular build, thick-framed and sturdy; both more or less the same height, with the males only a couple inches taller on average and females slightly less bulky; both dressed in the same skins and furs—some of the women chose to cover their upper chests, but others did not; both possessed the same long, dark, coarse, wiry hair that they either plaited into thick ropelike braids or bound in leather bands into which they stuck interesting leaves, feathers, or other found objects.
As the days gave way to weeks, Kit gained a more rounded appreciation of their habits and means of survival. The world was their larder, and they ate whatever came to hand, bolting down many things Kit would not allow past his lips—insects, worms, and larvae included. For the most part, they ate with their fingers, but used sticks to sear raw meat in the fire. But the thing they seemed to relish most of all was marrow from the bigger bones of the larger animals they hunted.
One day the hunting party returned carrying an antelope or sheep—Kit could not tell because they had already gutted and skinned it, leaving the entrails far from camp so the scent would not draw predators. The carcass was roughly quartered with flint hand axes and then cut up in smaller chunks, which were put onto the reed skewers. Later, when the meat was cooking, a special cracking stone was fetched and the larger bones expertly broken open to allow access to the dark jellylike sweetmeat. Kit watched as the treat was doled out—Big Hunter first, and then the others in turn. Though one or two got bigger pieces than the others, no one appeared to complain. Kit, too, was offered a piece.
He lifted the broken shard of bone to his lips and sucked, imitating the clansmen. The congealed substance tasted of blood and meat, and though not altogether distasteful, and undoubtedly healthy in any number of ways, he could not work up the enthusiasm for it that the clansmen seemed to share. He ate some out of a sense of politeness, but did not ask for more.
The clan’s mostly carnivorous diet was supplemented by roots, berries, and various greens, most of which he enjoyed, though he began to miss simple seasonings, especially salt. He made a mental note to remedy this situation at the first opportunity. But all in all, they ate well enough—some days better than others, as determined by the hunt—and Kit reckoned that if he did not grow fat on the primitive regimen, neither would he starve.
One of the more arresting features of their society was how very quiet they could be, and most often were. They could speak, but usually became talkative only when excited. Kit marked an