A New Beginning Ch. 13

"You're right, Regina," I interrupted her. I think we should fix it up and then move into it."

"OK, then when do you think we should start fixing it up?" Beth inquired.

Anthony asked, "What's wrong with starting tomorrow?"

"Whoa! Whoa!" Joseph called out. "Can we afford to take a day off? No one's killed any game in two days. How much meat do we have in the smokehouse David?"

"There are a two RedBaronibuses and three of those yellow lizards with the green spots hanging in there now."

Akira asked, "How about if two hunting parties go out together and kill an Antoinetteosaurus or possibly a juvenile hadrosaur or some other small sauropod? There's enough meat on one of those to last us a week. That is, if we don't leave any for the scavengers like we usually do."

"If we could find a herd of them," Thomas said.

"Juan, didn't you guys see a herd of them in that wheat meadow last week?" Akira continued.

"We'll go look tomorrow," Thomas put in. "Then we'll swing over to that corn patch Toni's hunting and foraging party found. We'll collect some corn. If we manage to get a hadrosaur then, with the potatoes and other vegetables we have growing in our garden, we should have enough food to last us at least a week, maybe longer."

"And if there aren't any hadrosaurs there?" Leonard asked.

"Then we'll just have to use plan B." Joshua answered him.

Joshua, Anthony, Thomas, Louis and Juan went out the next day. The rest of the men stayed back to help care for the children and start preparations to move us.

Luckily, the herd of hadrosaurs was still in the meadow. Joshua shot a juvenile with the .45 pistol. He used the pistol because he didn't want to waste time singling out and stalking one dinosaur. Besides, he knew that the sound of the gun would frighten the rest of the heard off, which would make it easier for them to gut and chop up the juvenile.

Then they went and collected four sacks of the corn where we killed the Triceratops Rex. Between the hadrosaur, the corn, the meat we already had in the smokehouse and the vegetables we had stored we had enough food to last us at least ten days, maybe eleven or twelve days.

Getting the cave ready then became everyone's main goal. Everyone pitched in to fix it up, although the men did most of the work. It's big enough to hold an extended family four times our size, maybe even larger than that if we build double-decker sleeping cubicles for everyone.

The front dried up pool we decided to convert into a nursery. As Laci said, it's a perfect place to put the babies and we won't have to worry about them crawling out and falling over the cliff.

Also, it required the least amount of work. There were a couple of jagged rocks along the wall which needed to be broken off. Some sludge hammers took care of that. We also built a step and a bamboo gate in the rear of it where it steps up into the next section, which we designated as our living and dining area.

The largest area, the leg of the L, we all agreed would be for our sleeping areas; it is also the darkest area. The hayloft we reserved for our love nests, although the rear of the cave is so dark at night that I'm sure some of us won't even bother to use them. I haven't made a decision on that yet. We constructed a wall for our infirmary out of bamboo in the front near the mouth where there is the most light. We put it on the right side of the cave so that it shades the nursery in the morning.

We put the main fireplace and kitchen on the opposite side of the cave to the infirmary. David, Josephine and Yves use one of the larger bamboo tables in the kitchen area to prepare our food. We put the center navigation table and the other bamboo tables in our dining area along with the laptop and wide screen monitor.

The men dismantled the five love nest in the James Cook and the women reassembled them in the cave. The women also built three more love nests with some bamboo the men cut down. We have them scattered farther apart so that those using them will have a little more privacy. There's room for several more if we decide that they are needed. Although each cubicle has a fan, the cave is a lot cooler than the James Cook and they are not needed. They still look like large pigeon holes.

The women reassembled the bamboo frames of our sleeping areas after the men took them down and carried them from the James Cook -- we all still use sheets for walls. As we did with the love nests, we also placed them father apart in order to offer ourselves a little more privacy. But for the life of me I don't know why. There is so much nudity among us that one would think that we're living in a nudist camp. I guess my plans to retire on Nuda Earth came true after all.

I hung my picture of Captain Butler and Father Ray in my sleeping area. Then I put Father Ray's crucifix in a small indentation in the cave wall next to our living and dining area; I felt it belonged to everyone. It's right behind and above the monitor.

The men reassembled the shower. They put it along the left wall below the overhang of the hayloft, opposite our living and dining area. For the drain, they dug up some of the plastic 20 centimeter conduit and ran it from the shower along the wall on the left side of the cave to the mouth. This way the dirty bath water won't mix with our drinking water.

But the water is extremely cold; it's about 10 degrees centigrade. To take a shower we each have to heat up at least one or two 20 liter cans of water and lug them to the top of a water barrel and pour it in. There are always four or five cans by the fire warming up. I'm not complaining; I love the warm water spraying on me.

We still haven't solved the problem with keeping the door on. But since we now don't have to worry about the PrimusPrimates trying to take a shower with us, we voted to just have one large open area for the shower with three spigots, one for each 100 liter barrel.

I don't mind, as we have all seen each other naked and showered with each other at one time or another. Frequently, both the men and women walk around bare-chested and sometimes completely nude, particularly from the showers to their sleeping areas. I do.

Besides, most of us have had sex with every other person anyway. So, no one complains about having to take a shower with everyone watching them. Laci still jokingly calls us all perverts for showering in front of everyone but now she includes herself in that category.

After we reassembled the showers several of us were standing in front of them and admiring the work we had done. I should add that she was nude at the time but she quipped with mock sarcasm. "I guess I'll just join the rest of you perverts and shower in front of everyone."

"Are you admitting that you're a pervert too?" David asked her.

"No, I'm not a pervert. I've just decided that I can't fight you guys any longer. I'll just shower without a door like you other depraved degenerates."

"Oh, so now I'm a depraved degenerate?" he continued, suppressing a smile.

With a satirical smirk evident on her face she answered him, "Anyone who would willingly bathe in front of everyone cannot, in a civilized world, be considered a normal, rational thinking human being."

"But we don't live in a civilized world any more darling. We are living with dinosaurs or haven't you noticed? And by the way, you're naked now standing here in front of everyone."

Their playful banter was going great. The two of them frequently tease each other, each one trying to out wit the other. I'm sure its love. They sleep together almost every night, although she's still quite promiscuous. I also know that she lets him spank her; I've heard the smacks and seen her red ass.

"Just because I live in the stone ages doesn't mean I have to do perverted things." Laci answered David, sarcastically referring to both their bondage and discipline role play and her nudity.

"But what about when you walk around in the nude as you frequently do or when you shower with someone? There's really no difference in when you do that and showering in front of everyone."

"I'm not answering that. But I'll say this much. You keep it up and I won't let you fuck me any more." She then turned slightly and, while provocatively looking over her shoulder and presenting her ass to David, gave him a sensuous smile. He smacked her on her right cheek.

As I said earlier, we are growing. We are truly one large extended family.

Amazingly all the construction only took us ten days. I guess that's because most of it was already assembled. All we had to do was put it together like building blocks. Taking down the wall of plastic containers and transporting them was the hardest part of the move. We used them to construct a half wall between our living area and sleeping area. To haul everything up the face of the cliff, the men built a dumb waiter with a pulley.

On the eleventh day after we voted to fix up the cave we all moved into it. Beth decided to take Fur Ball with us. She knew that Boss Hog would kill him if she didn't. She covered his head with a towel so he couldn't see where she took him. He immediately ran around and inspected every nook and cranny of the cave and then made himself right at home.

We still have a lot of work to do. First, in all the hustle and bustle we forgot about constructing a place to go to the toilet. How we did that I don't know. We still have to move the solar panel and run some wiring to the rear. We also have to build another smokehouse and partition off a place on the beach to do our laundry -- so the alligators don't eat us while we're washing our clothes.

During all this time no one had done any hunting or food gathering and our food supplies were low. However, while we were fixing up the cave a three meter long alligator kept crawling up on the beach and sunning itself near the mouth of the cave. The morning after we moved in Yves and Josephine killed it. While they were butchering up the alligator Louis and his team gathered some corn and other vegetables. As they usually do whenever we eat alligator, everyone ribbed me about eating it.

While we were eating the alligator Vickie brought up the subject of where we were going to build our toilet. She said that she couldn't continue to climb up and down the cliff just to go to the restroom. Several of us agreed with her. Natalie suggested putting it on a small ledge that is about a meter below and to the left of the mouth of the cave, near the water that is flowing out of the cave. She noted that if we build it there we could use the flow of water to wash up after we were finished.

For toilet paper we use a very soft, large velvety leaf. Everyone refers to it as a fig leaf but it doesn't look anything like a fig leaf. It is much larger than a fig leaf, almost twice as large as an elephant ear leaf, which it more closely resembles.

Joshua suggested we get a 100 liter barrel from the James Cook, cut it in half and fix up two port-o-lets and place them on the dumb waiter. He said we could rig up the dumb waiter so that it rests on the ledge. Then we could move the pulley to the top of the cliff and just haul all our garbage and waste up there every evening. He said he noticed a small clearing up there that would be perfect for us to deposit our refuse. We voted to follow his advice.

The next day Louis and Joshua moved the pulley assembly to the top of the cliff, which is another 20 meters above the mouth of the cave. We now haul our garbage and waste up there every evening. In fact, hauling the garbage and waste up to the top of the cliff every evening, collecting firewood, dinosaur bone and "fig leaves" is about the only duty we have -- we used the last of our toilet paper a few weeks before we moved. The wood, bone and leaves are collected by everyone when they hunt or forage.

It only takes two people to haul the garbage and refuse up the cliff. So now a person only has garbage detail once every ten days. We all like that.

Also, we are 30 meters above the beach and beyond the reach of even the tallest carnivore. Therefore there is no need to stand guard duty at night. We all love that. As for fire watch, we learned a long time ago to place a couple of large dinosaur bones on the fire at night and the fire will still be burning the next morning.

By the way, the leaves are quite durable. So much so that we sew them together using strips of animal hide and make loincloths out of them. While they're green they're quite resilient. It takes about a week for the leaves to turn brown. Then they fall apart. I'm not a botanist. I don't know why it takes so long for the leaves to turn brown.

True, clothes made of animal hide last longer. But clothes made from these leaves only take a few minutes to sew together. Whereas it takes several days to make an article of clothing out of animal hide. It's a tradeoff, ease of making the clothes verses length of use. But then I don't use the leaves for clothing. I wear my Bambiraptor hat, Marineosaurus bikini shorts and alligator shoes, except when I go naked.

We also use the leaves for diapers and sanitary napkins. They're very absorbent. I just wish everyone would stop cracking jokes about wearing fig leaves for clothes. Their not fig leaves!

We don't all run around naked all the time; we are not nudists. Our attitude toward wearing clothes is very pragmatic. We have become in essence one large extended family, living and working together. We have all seen each other completely naked at one time or another -- particularly in the shower with everyone having to bathe in front of everyone else. Also, all of us have had sex with several other persons.

Further, washing our clothing by rubbing them against stones tends to wear them out rapidly; they become thread bear and tear more easily. We cannot wash the fig leaves at all; they tear immediately. Nor can we go to the local shopping mall and buy some blue jeans or whatever every time we get a little tear in our clothing. We have to make and repair our own clothing. None of us has extra clothing. So, the wearing of clothes has become somewhat of a luxury.

We often find ourselves in a situation whereby what we may be wearing exposes part of our body that a person wouldn't normally expose. Therefore, none of us sees the necessity of trying to continually cover ourselves every time we tear an article of clothing, do our laundry, get up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water or go to the toilet -- some of us still sleep in the nude -- or do some other mundane thing.

We have learned to cope with it. We don't make a big issue over nudity. In other words, we don't flaunt our nudity all over the place. We just don't go to the other extreme and try to constantly cover ourselves when nude or partially nude in front of someone who has already seen us naked or someone we've had sex with.

Louis and Joshua made a bamboo and rope ladder and attached it to the top of the cliff, making it easier for us to climb up there.

While they were attaching the rope ladder, Louis and Joshua discovered another cave about three meters above and to the right of the cave. Its mouth is oval, covered with vines and only about 2 meters high by 1.5 meters wide. It is very small, measuring only about 4 meters deep, 2 meters high and 1.5 meters wide. There is also a small trickle of water flowing out of its rear and into the flora down the slope of the cliff.

It's perfect for a smokehouse. David, Yves and I went to work on it immediately and finished fixing it up in a day. We disassembled the smokehouse under the James Cook's wing and reassembled it in the cave.

While we were doing that, Anthony, Leonard and Thomas cut some small logs and fixed up an entrance to the mouth of the cave so that the smaller carnivores cannot climb up. They built a wall at the ascent where it meets the beach at the bottom of the cliff. It's a little less than three meters high. But not even the smartest carnivore, or primate for that matter, is going to be able to figure out the double latch system they have on the gate. Anthony carved the words 'Hope Cave' in the logs over the front of it.

Anthony said he got the idea after we watched the 1933 classic movie King Kong. Standing in front of it, it looks like the entrance to King Kong's island.

Meanwhile, Joseph and Juan moved the solar panel and attached it to the outside of the cave right above the mouth. While they were doing that, Josephine, Veronica and Akira strung some wires and extension cords for some lights and desk fans. Joseph and Juan then got some lights from the James Cook and the five of them strung them up in various places in the cave; the infirmary got two of the largest lights. But we are not going to use the lights in the infirmary unless someone gets hurt at night.

I am extremely satisfied. We have been here a little over a year -- 16 months and a couple of days to be exact -- and not only have we proved that we are superior to even the fiercest predator but we have a safe, comfortable place to live and raise our children.

The only thing we have left to do is convert the James Cook into a storage warehouse and partition off a section of the lake so that we can do our laundry, catch fish and swim without having to worry about the alligators and Gatorhogs.

No, we didn't celebrate our one year anniversary. In fact, no one even mentioned it until supper that evening. Even then it was only in passing. But that night, I looked up to the sky and thought about Father Ray and the others. By that time I'm sure they were down to rationing what food they had left, if there was any food still available. I said a prayer for them.

This evening, after everyone went to bed I went to mouth of the cave and looked up at the sky. By now they are all probably dead.

Two days after we constructed the gate I woke up to see a giant Pterosaur sitting in the mouth of the cave. I was the first one up -- I usually am -- and I was nursing Dawn. I got up, holding her in my arms, to get a drink of water from the stream flowing by the showers. Then I looked up and saw it. My first thought was that it looked like a large Louisiana Brown Pelican. It was just sitting there looking out over Lake Hope with its back to me.

I very quietly woke up Thomas who sleeps three cubicles away from me. I was completely naked and confused him. He started to complain that it was too early for sex but I hushed him with a finger over my mouth. Then I motioned for him to follow me with his crossbow -- we all keep our crossbows by our sleeping area now. But we don't keep them loaded; there is no need to. When Thomas saw the Pterosaur he smiled that great big teeth showing smile of his.

He very quietly went and got the .45 pistol, which we keep in the living and dining area. I shook my head no but he whispered that it was just in case his first bolt didn't kill it. He need not have bothered getting the gun. His crossbow bolt went straight into the creature's back and into its heart. It let out a very loud screech waking everyone up and fell over dead in the mouth of the cave.

What we didn't eat for supper David and Yves smoked. It tastes like duck.

The Pterosaur's wing skin is very soft and leathery. In fact, all of its skin has a soft leathery texture but the wings more so. It also had a light covering of hair all over its body. Anthony said that it was probably a Quetzalcoatlus or a relative of one. It was big enough; it had an eleven meter wing span. The only ones we've seen were the ones that flew over us a few months ago and they were so high up we couldn't make out their coloring.

We decided that after tanning the skin we would make baby blankets out of it. They all need something to keep them warm at night.

We have been here for ten days now. Yesterday evening Aleks, Laci, Juan and Veronica went down to the beach to do their laundry. We are only half way finished partitioning off a section to keep the alligators out, so Anthony went with them to stand guard.