Agent Out of Time

Another theory was that the direct competition and fight for survival against the super predators that were alive during the Ice Age had done much to slow down the migration of man. Caves seemed essential to the early settler's success at surviving the harsh elements, but even there they had met with competition. Cave bears, saber tooth tigers and perhaps worst of all, the cave hyenas, all claimed the caves the settlers needed to survive.

There was a lot of evidence that the fight for these caves had gone back and forth like a game of tug-of-war with different species and mankind trading off the same caves over and over through the years, with man eventually becoming the dominant factor.

While gray wolves such as those stalking us right now had existed in their current form during that time they would of been a mild foe in comparison with their larger cousins the Dare Wolf. On average the Dare Wolf had been at least 25 percent larger than the largest gray wolf. They had been built with stronger stockier frames and their jaw walls were much more powerful than a gray wolves'. It was thought that they had roamed in packs of sixty or more at a time.

You would've needed a cartridge belt fed machine gun to taking out a pack of those beasts, if they were on your trail. One had to wonder how man had survived at all faced with such challenges and yet we had and now mankind had virtually mastered every force of nature, save for weather and acts of God. If my ancestors could survive against the monsters the way they had, with stone tipped spears, then I was going to survive against a pack of gray wolves, if only as a matter of principle.

I saw what I had been looking for up ahead. There was a deadfall tree with plenty of dry wood to be had.

"We'll camp beside that tree."

Deshavi looked back puzzled at me, as it was but late afternoon and we typically traveled until just before dark. At that same moment a wolf howled nearby letting loose it's awful lilting melody that had struck fear into the hearts of man for countless generations. It had no less impact on Deshavi.

She froze in place, as even more howls erupted around us and further out in the distance. They were calling in the pack. I urged Deshavi along and we were soon at the tree. I made three fires that formed a triangle of which we were in the middle of and as it got darker we worked hard to pile up extra firewood; in order to make the fires last through the night.