Before Adam Page #16

"Before Adam" by Jack London, published in 1907, is a unique blend of science fiction, evolutionary theory, and adventure. It explores the idea of genetic memory through a narrator who experiences vivid dreams of a prehistoric past.

• Action and Adventure
• Science fiction

								

was plain that Red-Eye was bent upon murder. I was desperate and angry
and fairly cool. Running back and forth along the neighboring ledges, I
gathered a heap of rocks at the cave-entrance. Red-Eye was now several
yards beneath me, concealed for the moment by an out-jut of the cliff.
As he climbed, his head came into view, and I banged a rock down. It
missed, striking the wall and shattering; but the flying dust and grit
filled his eyes and he drew back out of view.

A chuckling and chattering arose from the horde, that played the part
of audience. At last there was one of the Folk who dared to face
Red-Eye. As their approval and acclamation arose on the air, Red-Eye
snarled down at them, and on the instant they were subdued to silence.
Encouraged by this evidence of his power, he thrust his head into view,
and by scowling and snarling and gnashing his fangs tried to intimidate
me. He scowled horribly, contracting the scalp strongly over the brows
and bringing the hair down from the top of the head until each hair
stood apart and pointed straight forward.

The sight chilled me, but I mastered my fear, and, with a stone poised
in my hand, threatened him back. He still tried to advance. I drove the
stone down at him and made a sheer miss. The next shot was a success.
The stone struck him on the neck. He slipped back out of sight, but as
he disappeared I could see him clutching for a grip on the wall with
one hand, and with the other clutching at his throat. The stick fell
clattering to the ground.

I could not see him any more, though I could hear him choking and
strangling and coughing. The audience kept a death-like silence. I
crouched on the lip of the entrance and waited. The strangling and
coughing died down, and I could hear him now and again clearing his
throat. A little later he began to climb down. He went very quietly,
pausing every moment or so to stretch his neck or to feel it with his
hand.

At the sight of him descending, the whole horde, with wild screams and
yells, stampeded for the woods. Old Marrow-Bone, hobbling and
tottering, followed behind. Red-Eye took no notice of the flight. When
he reached the ground he skirted the base of the bluff and climbed up
and into his own cave. He did not look around once.

I stared at Lop-Ear, and he stared back. We understood each other.
Immediately, and with great caution and quietness, we began climbing up
the cliff. When we reached the top we looked back. The abiding-place
was deserted, Red-Eye remained in his cave, and the horde had
disappeared in the depths of the forest.

We turned and ran. We dashed across the open spaces and down the slopes
unmindful of possible snakes in the grass, until we reached the woods.
Up into the trees we went, and on and on, swinging our arboreal flight
until we had put miles between us and the caves. And then, and not till
then, in the security of a great fork, we paused, looked at each other,
and began to laugh. We held on to each other, arms and legs, our eyes
streaming tears, our sides aching, and laughed and laughed and laughed.




CHAPTER X


After we had had out our laugh, Lop-Ear and I curved back in our flight
and got breakfast in the blueberry swamp. It was the same swamp to
which I had made my first journeys in the world, years before,
accompanied by my mother. I had seen little of her in the intervening
time. Usually, when she visited the horde at the caves, I was away in
the forest. I had once or twice caught glimpses of the Chatterer in the
open space, and had had the pleasure of making faces at him and
angering him from the mouth of my cave. Beyond such amenities I had
left my family severely alone. I was not much interested in it, and
anyway I was doing very well by myself.

After eating our fill of berries, with two nestfuls of partly hatched
quail-eggs for dessert, Lop-Ear and I wandered circumspectly into the
woods toward the river. Here was where stood my old home-tree, out of
which I had been thrown by the Chatterer. It was still occupied. There
had been increase in the family. Clinging tight to my mother was a
little baby. Also, there was a girl, partly grown, who cautiously
regarded us from one of the lower branches. She was evidently my
sister, or half-sister, rather.

My mother recognized me, but she warned me away when I started to climb
into the tree. Lop-Ear, who was more cautious by far than I, beat a
retreat, nor could I persuade him to return. Later in the day, however,
my sister came down to the ground, and there and in neighboring trees
we romped and played all afternoon. And then came trouble. She was my
sister, but that did not prevent her from treating me abominably, for
she had inherited all the viciousness of the Chatterer. She turned upon
me suddenly, in a petty rage, and scratched me, tore my hair, and sank
her sharp little teeth deep into my forearm. I lost my temper. I did
not injure her, but it was undoubtedly the soundest spanking she had
received up to that time.

How she yelled and squalled. The Chatterer, who had been away all day
and who was only then returning, heard the noise and rushed for the
spot. My mother also rushed, but he got there first. Lop-Ear and I did
not wait his coming. We were off and away, and the Chatterer gave us
the chase of our lives through the trees.

After the chase was over, and Lop-Ear and I had had out our laugh, we
discovered that twilight was falling. Here was night with all its
terrors upon us, and to return to the caves was out of the question.
Red-Eye made that impossible. We took refuge in a tree that stood apart
from other trees, and high up in a fork we passed the night. It was a
miserable night. For the first few hours it rained heavily, then it
turned cold and a chill wind blew upon us. Soaked through, with
shivering bodies and chattering teeth, we huddled in each other’s arms.
We missed the snug, dry cave that so quickly warmed with the heat of
our bodies.

Morning found us wretched and resolved. We would not spend another such
night. Remembering the tree-shelters of our elders, we set to work to
make one for ourselves. We built the framework of a rough nest, and on
higher forks overhead even got in several ridge-poles for the roof.
Then the sun came out, and under its benign influence we forgot the
hardships of the night and went off in search of breakfast. After that,
to show the inconsequentiality of life in those days, we fell to
playing. It must have taken us all of a month, working intermittently,
to make our tree-house; and then, when it was completed, we never used
it again.

But I run ahead of my story. When we fell to playing, after breakfast,
on the second day away from the caves, Lop-Ear led me a chase through
the trees and down to the river. We came out upon it where a large
slough entered from the blueberry swamp. The mouth of this slough was

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