The Trek: Darwin's World, Book II (The Darwin's World Series 2) by Jack L Knapp Page A

against a tree. He was eating a bowl of Colin’s stew and a second gourd held some of the sweetened pine-needle tea. Lee sat down cross-legged and waited.
    “Did you already eat, Lee?”
    “I did. Pretty good stew. I’m glad you brought Colin back with you. I doubt we’d have been eating nearly as well without him.”
    “I agree. Did you have something special you wanted to talk to me about?”
    “Yeah, I did. I’ve been thinking.”
    “Uh, oh. What about?” Robert smiled as he asked the question.
    “You know I’ve had scouts out ahead of us, but they haven’t had a chance to really see what we’re facing. We know there are going to be rivers to cross, maybe other dangerous things ahead of us. I was wondering what you’d think if I went on a scout? Maybe go out two or three days before I come back.”
    “Getting a little tired of camp life, Lee?”
    Lee smiled. “I am. It’s fine, but it’s the same old thing every day. I’m itchy. I want to know what’s ahead of us.”
    “Tell you what, Lee. We need food. You take a hunting party out tomorrow morning and see what you can find. If we have food, we can stay here for a week or two. It’s worth taking the time. People are getting really worn down, and we’ve still got a long way to go.
    “Get us enough food for two or three weeks and you can go. That’ll give us an extra food reserve when we move on. We’ll be sending our foraging parties too but some days we may not find much. Rain, too much wind, maybe the country won’t have as many animals. There might not be enough plants. We need a reserve.
    “Who did you plan to take with you?”
    “I thought I’d go alone, Robert.”
    “I’d rather you didn’t, Lee. Take one of the scouts, maybe Laz or Marc or Philippe.”
    “Not Laz. He’s spending a lot of time with Cindy and I don’t think he’ll want to leave. I could take Marc or Philippe.”
    “I’d suggest both of them. It would be good experience; you’ve done this before, with Matt, but they haven’t. Still, I’ll need one of them at the camp. We’re pretty shorthanded. So pick one to take with you.”
    “OK, but I’ll want to take all three of them hunting. I’ll let them know and we’ll leave tomorrow. We can talk about the scouting trip while we’re hunting and I’ll decide which one goes with me.”
    Lee led his three hunters southwest the next morning. He planned to repeat what he’d done before when he’d gone scouting with Matt, hunt southwest, bend northwest after a day, then turn back toward camp by heading east. When they reached the stream, they could follow it south to the camp.
    #
    Lilia held out her hand to caution Matt while she looked over the clearing. Seeing no danger, she slipped up to the tree and found Matt’s bow and quiver of arrows, hanging where she’d left them. She slipped the quiver’s strap off the stub, handed it to Matt, then took down his bow. He already had the quiver and his spear slung when she turned around with the bow.
    Taking the bow, Matt examined it for a moment. He braced a limb against his instep, then stepped across with the other leg. The practiced moves were smooth. He easily flexed the heavy bow and slid the string into its notch. With the bow in his hand, he withdrew an arrow and examined it before nocking it to the bowstring.
    His expression was nothing like that of the man she’d found only a few hours before. He might not have full recall of his memories as yet but now his expression showed grim purpose. Lilia looked at him and shivered.
    Matt would ask his questions. Pavel would need very good answers…if indeed he could answer at all.
    “Is this where they threw me in the river?” asked Matt.
    “No. That happened ahead of us, a hundred yards or so.”
    “Why don’t we have a look?”
    She led off, still cautious, but somehow the presence of Matt behind her was very reassuring.
    “It happened here. I found your arrows and the quiver over there, and the bow was a