[b]19 November 2021 
Day 6:[/b]

It was a long night for many in [color=red]Harry Timm's[/color] group: extra watches were posted, to watch for not just Saber-toothed cats but for encroachment from Victoria's group.  Other than some rude and sometimes profane comments hollered through the dark across the hundred-yard gap between the two encampments, though, there hadn't been anything of serious concern.

That is until the sun came up and [color=red]Cliff Sampson[/color]-- with a proper, armed escort -- went out to check the snares.  For the first time since he'd begun setting the traps, they hadn't caught a single animal.  Most of the traps were still set, and Cliff worried for a moment that maybe they'd overhunted the forest's edge or perhaps the remaining, yet-to-be-trapped animals had gotten wise to the snares. Then he caught a little detail that both angered and frightened him.

"Victoria's people raided our snares last night," Cliff told Harry when he returned to the camp.  He had the working mechanisms of a new snare he'd been ready to install this morning; it worked identically to the currently placed trap that led him to the discovery.  He showed Harry how it was supposed to be set and then how he found it.  "They took whatever got caught in it last night or this morning, then reset it."

"Are you sure, Cliff?" Harry inquired.  "I mean, maybe--"

"I found two others the same way," Cliff cut the group's leader off, knowing that Harry had been about to ask if maybe he'd set it a different way last night. "Whoever did this thought they were setting it correctly.  The trap would have still worked, but ... it's not the way I set them. I'm [i]sure[/i] of this, Harry. [i]And[/i] ... I think I know who did it, too."

Harry almost didn't want to know who was responsible: putting a name and face on the [i]thief[/i] meant possibly having to do more about it than simply questioning Victoria about her people.  It meant actually punishing someone specific. After all, this couldn't go without a challenge. 

"That Javier guy," Cliff informed Harry. "He went out with us day before yesterday, as our armed escort, in case the Cat was prowling about, he said. He saw where all the traps were set. He's the only one of Victoria's people who knew where they were."

Harry thought on the news a moment, then thanked Cliff and told him, "I'll deal with this. I don't want you going into the forest without an armed escort ... without my knowledge either. Your mother would kill me if you got--"

He'd been about to say [i]hurt[/i] or [i]assaulted[/i], speaking about what Victoria's [i]thugs[/i] might do if Cliff came upon them looting his traps.  Instead, he finished, "Inform me before you go back out there again ... got it?"

"Yes, sir," Cliff said before turning to head off again.

But before he got far, Harry called, "[i]Wait![/i]" The teen turned back, and Harry -- with a spreading smirk on his lips -- said, "Cliff, I have an idea that ... well, it just might solve our problems."

Cliff, Harry, and Harvey headed out into the forest again.  They looked for signs of the path that Javier -- or whoever -- might have taken to get to the snares. They found it: like something out of an Old West tracking mission, they found still visible shoe prints in the soft ground and broken branches and grass where the [i]intruder[/i] had made his way through sometimes thick foliage.

"Here," Harry said when they found an appropriate location.  He looked to the teen and asked, "Can you do it here?"

Cliff looked the location over, smiled, and nodded.

An hour later, they were back at the camp.  Later, just before sundown, the trio -- along with three others -- returned to check the traps; they retrieved a rabbit and an opossum, as well as half a dozen [i]tweety birds[/i], all of which would become part of the night's meal for the larger of the two groups of survivors.

After dark fell, Cliff slipped out of the little lean-to in which his family was now living in anticipation of building something larger, more solid, and more permanent.  He used the light of the full moon to reach where the two-person night watch was set, just fifty yards or so from the fuselage.  (There had been concern about the placement of the watch stations: too far out might endanger the night watch standers by not giving them a short enough retreat path to the camp, while too far in might result in the alarm raised by the night watch not giving the sleeping survivors enough alert time.)

"You're here," Cliff said with surprise, finding both Harry and Harvey at the [i]station[/i]. To Harry, he said, "I thought you always took the 3rd watch."

"Not tonight," the leader said. Nodding his head toward the forest, he explained, "I think I better be here for this." He handed a plastic mug to Cliff, asking, "Coffee? It's almost the last cup in the pantry."

"Almost the last cup in the [i]world[/i]," Cliff corrected as he took the mug. "Human beings didn't start drinking coffee until the 15th century A.D. ... 11,000 years from now."

Under the moonlight, Cliff saw the looks the two men gave him.  He smiled and while they probably couldn't see it blushed, too. "I did a report on stimulants for Health, junior year." He sipped at the cup, grimaced, and handed it back.  "That's awful."

Harvey spoke up, asking, "Whaddaya mean 11,000 years from now.  Where'd you get that?"

"From Julia," Cliff answered.  "She knows [i]so[/i] much about plants ... flora she calls it.  Putting together what she knows about flora and the fact that a Saber-tooth cat--"

"[i]Theory[/i]," Harry cut in, softly chastising, "And we don't talk about that. We have enough panic already."

"The [i]theory[/i] that Harold got eaten by a Saber-tooth cat," Cliff continued, "along with everything else we know about this place, [color=red]Julia[/color] and [color=red]Helen[/color] think -- you know she's a history teacher, right?"

Cliff got a nod from Harry regarding his shared knowledge of Helen Hartford.  He continued, "Anyway, they think that we might be at the end of what they called the [i]Younger-Dryas[/i] period.  She -- Helen -- called it the [i]LGP[/i], the [i]Last Glacial Period[/i], capital 'L', capital 'G', capital 'P'. It was the last ice age, and it happened between eleven and half and thirteen thousand years ago ... so ... before 10,000 B.C."

Both men were by now just staring at the teen in amazement.  He realized this, chuckled, blushed yet again, and shrugged.  "I remember things I hear, generally. And I like history. And ... Tammy was there and was listening, too, and ... well ... I sort of like Tammy, so..."

Harvey laughed and was contemplating something to say about the teen's chances of finding love in the LGP with a [i]damaged[/i] woman a handful of years older than him when the darkness was filled with screams of pain. All three men flinched in shock, looking off in the general direction of where they'd built their little [i]surprise[/i] earlier in the day.

"[i]Oh my god![/i]" Cliff said in shock, unsure of what else to say. The man -- still crying out in agony -- wasn't dead, obviously, yet the teen asked with concern, "Did we kill him?  I mean, do you think--"

"Relax, Cliff," Harry reassured him, "He'll be fine.  It's just briar vines.  It's not like we made a punji stick pit trap or anything deadly.  Cuts and scratches, nothing the Doc can't fix."  He looked to Harvey and said, "Speaking of which."

"I'm on it," the other man said, standing and hurrying for the fuselage. 

"Go back to your family, Cliff," Harry said. "You don't need to be indicated in this." The teen didn't immediately leave, listening in shock to the injured man and a second man who was helping him as well.  "Cliff, go.  You shouldn't be out here."

The boy did as told, looking back over his shoulder each time the man who'd set off his briar slashing snare cried out at the [i]help[/i] he was getting from his [i]partner in crime[/i].  Cliff's mother, [color=red]Shari[/color], was awake when he returned, sitting up and also listening to the agony-filled cries.  She asked him about it and where he'd been, to which he said as he slipped back into the shared blankets, "I was with Harry and Harvey at the night watch."

"What's going on out there?" she asked. "Who is that?"

"Dunno," he said, snuggling into the makeshift bed on the outside of his youngest sister. "Harry told me not to worry about it and go to bed. I'm sure he's dealing with it."

Shari continued making inquiries, but Cliff had gone quiet; he had no answers that he could share.

At the fuselage, Harvey gently awoke the sleeping doctor. [color=red]Cooper Mason[/color] almost immediately detected the distant cries still cutting through the otherwise silent night.  He asked what was happening, to which Harvey said, "Get you bag. You're gonna need antiseptics, bandages, and maybe some painkillers."

"I have very little of the first and none of the second," the Doctor said as he was quickly slipping into his shoes and coat. He asked again what was going on, asking a question that really didn't need an answer, "Is someone hurt?"

Harvey shrugged, but after a moment said, "Someone may have accidentally walked into a snare trap made of thorny briar vines ... meant to deter thieves from stealing food from our other snares."

Cooper's eyes widened in shock. As he headed for the door, he murmured, "Jesus Christ, what did you guys do?"

Outside, Harvey used the still hot coals and small flame of a nearby fire to light one of the torches Cliff's family had shown them all to make from available materials, both natural and manmade.  The pair was joined by Harry now, and the three of them together headed for Victoria's camp.  Halfway there, a guard hiding in the dark challenged them: Harry called out the three's identities, adding, "The Doc is here to help whoever it is that's screaming and waking everyone up.  What's going on? What happened?"

The guard told them to stop, but a moment later Victoria called from her own camp, "[i]Let'em through![/i]"

They reached her, and Harry noticed immediately that his leadership counterpart didn't look at all as if she'd just been woken from a deep sleep.  He said with an accusatory tone, "You're up late, Victoria. Don't suppose you have something going on you wish to tell me about?"

She stared at him a long moment; her expression told him that she suspected he had something to do with the screaming man.  Her response, though, was "Just hanging with my people. I've always been a night owl."

Several quiet, tense moments passed while they all listened to the sounds of the two approaching men: one was still crying out and moaning while the other was telling him he was going to be okay, adding just before they came into the light of the fire, "Stop being such a big fuckin' baby."

Harry wasn't surprised to find out that one of the two men emerging from the darkness was [color=red]Javier Flores[/color], the man with the guns who -- according to Cliff Sampson -- was the only man from Victoria's camp who knew the location of many or even most of the snares. Unfortunately, Harry thought to himself, Javier wasn't the man who'd stepped into the trap: that honor went to [color=red]William "Willie" Rogers[/color], who was the only real [i]outdoorsman[/i] type that Harry knew Victoria had in her little breakaway band.

Cooper hurried to Willie as the man dropped onto a crate near the fire. He asked with concern, "What the hell happened? Were you attacked? What did this to you?"

The Doctor already knew the facts of the ambush, of course, but he acted ignorant to the details anyway. Willie -- with bleeding scratches and cuts all about his exposed face, skull, neck, and hands -- looked toward the other two men from the other camp and accused angrily, "[i]Those[/i] fuckers did this! They set a trap for us."

As Cooper instructed the man to strip his torso for a closer inspection, Harry took on an innocent tone and said, "I don't know what you're talking about. We set snares in our neck'o the woods to catch food. If you happened to walk into one of--"

"[i]Bullshit![/i]" Willie snapped. "That was no animal snare. You set that to catch one of us."

"Now, I don't understand how you come to that conclusion," Harry went on, sounding innocent as he could.  "I mean, we wouldn't have expected you in that part of the forest, right?  I mean, the only reason you would have had to be in [i]that[/i] part of the forest in the [i]dead[/i] of night ... would have been to raid [i]our[/i] snares of the food that we need to feed [i]our[/i] people."

He looked directly at Victoria now, the woman with whom he'd agreed on a [i]division of territory[/i] for snares and hunting to prevent just such situations, an agreement that her people had violated not just once but twice and, now, were paying the price. He finished, "And I'm [i]sure[/i] you wouldn't have done that, right? Come into [i]our[/i] territory and take [i]our[/i] food?"

There was a long moment of silence -- well, except for Willie's continuing sharp cries of pain as Cooper cleaned up his cuts -- after which Victoria finally spoke up: "I think Willie and Javier may have gotten lost. It was an accident, I'm sure, and I can reassure you, Harry, that it won't happen again."

"This is [i]bullshit![/i]" Javier growled. He stepped out from beyond Willie and Victoria and raised his Beretta up, pointing it directly at Harry's face. 

Victoria growled, "Javier, stand down."

But Javier only pulled back the weapon's hammer and accused, "This asshole could have killed Willie, [i]or[/i] me. You can't tell me that--"

"[i]Put it down[/i], Javier!" Victoria repeated.

"[i]Why?[/i]" Javier asked, glancing to Harry's waistband where another of the Beretta's was tucked away. "I can shoot him down before he can get that thing out of his belt."

"Sure," Victoria said as she casted her gaze out into the darkness beyond the camp. "But after you shoot Harry, his people out there in the dark are going to kill all of us before we ever even figure out where in the grass they're hiding."

She looked to Harry and asked, "Am I right?"

Harry hesitated, then turned his head a whistled.  A moment later, from a 120 degree fan around Victoria's camp, more than two dozen whistles came back to Harry.  He looked to Javier, then Victoria: "We may only have 3 guns, seriously outnumbered by what you have ... but they have instructions to kill Javier first ... then you, Victoria ... then anyone else who raises or fires a weapon."

By now, the face of the previously confident and aggressive Javier was filled with obvious concern as his eyes searched the dark for his potential killer.  Next to him, Victoria only stared at Harry with a smirk that seemed to show she was impressed. Harry stepped closer to Javier, reached his hand out, and regarding the pistol in the man's hand said, "I'll take that."

"What?" the gun runner asked, quickly adding, "Bullshit. You aren't taking my gun."

Harry hesitated, then whistles again. And yet again, dozens of whistles returned to him in the night.  He stepped back a couple of steps, saying, "I don't know how good a shot they are, so ... maybe a couple of paces back.

But Victoria stepped in front of Javier and gestured for the weapon.  Javier reluctantly handed it over, and Victoria turned back to Harry, offering it to him.  She mused, "To the victor goes the spoils."

"Oh, it wasn't that so much as it was a fear that that fucker would shoot me in the back," Harry said as he took the handgun.

Victoria looked to her left and then to her right, seeing that by now nearly the whole of her group was up and around, listening to and watching the encounter with great interest.  She said loud enough for all to hear, "[i]From this point forward, no one is to encroach upon the borders to which Harry and I agreed. No more filching from their snares; no more poaching in their territory; no more anything that can be considered a violation of our agreement. Understood?"

There was a low rumble of voices, some of which could have been interpreted as willing agreement while others could have been considered reluctance.  Victoria looked back to Harry again, then to Cooper.  She told the latter, "Thanks, Doc, but I think [color=red]the Chief[/color] can take care of that."

[color=red]Peter Wilson[/color] was just arriving near the fire, having hurried in from the dark with his belt unbuckled and still putting on his shirt. Harry knew the [i]walk of shame[/i] expression he saw in the man's face, though, he'd more often than not only seen in the face of women as men rarely felt shame when they'd just [i]gotten a little[/i].

"Let's go, Doc," Harry said, urging the man to turn over responsibility for Willie.  Cooper gave Peter a quick rundown of the worst of the cuts -- one of which was to the man's neck and would require stitches -- before joining Harry and Harvey for the return walk to their own camp.

In the dark, halfway home, Javier called out into the night, "[i]This ain't over![/i]"

Back at the camp, Harry set a double watch and stayed up all night himself.