The sky was a bruised, somber grey.
A sudden blizzard descended without warning. Snowflakes swirled in a violent dance with the gale, unleashing frantic power across the landscape. The world dissolved into a murky haze; visibility dropped to near zero.
Even the Mississippi plains get hit with blizzards this massive... the weather in the Ice Age is completely erratic.
Faced with the volatile elements, James and his family huddled deep within the cave, pressing their bodies together to share warmth. The storm didn't break until late afternoon. By then, the heavy snowfall had dwindled to a light dusting, but the ground was buried under a thick, half-meter layer of white. Only then did the family emerge from the cave, stepping out to scavenge for a meal.
Wait. Why is there blood in the snow?
James spotted a jarring smear of faint crimson against the pristine white snow. It stood out like a wound on the earth.
"ROAR~~"
Mom and Dad bellowed low grunts, lowering their heads to catch the scent. They tracked the strange blood trail through the drifts. Soon, they stumbled upon a carcass half-buried in the snow. James's eyes widened the moment he saw it. It was a Columbian mammoth! However, it was only a juvenile, not yet possessing the terrifying proportions of an adult. It was unclear which predator had attacked it before the storm finished the job, but the young mammoth had succumbed to its injuries and the freezing cold.
Meat falling from the sky?
James and his parents didn't hesitate to rush toward the frozen prize. However, as James closed in, he noticed several stone-tipped spears embedded deep in the mammoth's flank. The dried blood had seeped from the jagged puncture wounds created by those tools.
Stone spears!
The sight of those hunting implements made James's heart beating violently. His breath hitched. In the vastness of the Late Pleistocene, what other creature besides the Terrible Upright Ape—early humans—could craft such weapons? This was the first time since his rebirth that James had found evidence of human activity.
Mom and Dad, however, couldn't care less who had killed the elephant. They weren't about to turn down a free meal. They staked out their positions and began tearing into the flesh. Mammoth meat was a rare delicacy! The scent of the unexpected feast quickly drew other starving scavengers. Teratornis and California condors circled overhead. A few nomadic Giant Hyenas followed the winged scavengers from a distance, their eyes locked on the prize.
The scavengers didn't dare approach the feeding Smilodon family. They lurked on the periphery, salivating as they waited for the apex predators to finish.
From the side, Zack noticed James hadn't started eating and grunted a call to his brother to join the feast.
"ROAR!!"
James snapped out of his shock. He bellowed a sharp, urgent warning, using his voice to convey a message of immediate danger to Mom and Dad. The discovery sparked a deep, unfamiliar panic. This mammoth calf had likely been hunted by humans before the blizzard struck. It had escaped into the family's territory, where it finally collapsed and died. If the calf had made it here, those humans wouldn't be far behind.
James feared those humans would track the trail and eventually arrive at the core territory. He didn't know what would happen then, but the risk was too great. Roars in the animal kingdom often express simple meanings. The roar James aimed at his parents carried the specific frequency of a danger signal.
Danger? Where?
Mom and Dad stopped eating, scanning the surroundings. They looked for an American lion, but the horizon was empty.
"ROAR~~"
James felt a flash of helplessness. His parents were ultimately animals; they found it difficult to grasp complex, abstract threats. He changed his signal to a simple "leave," concisely stating his objective. Since their thinking was simple, he would just tell them exactly what to do.
Finally, the parents understood. There is danger. We must leave immediately.
"ROAR~~"
To James's surprise, the parents deferred to his judgment. They prepared to depart, but they refused to leave the mammoth behind. They would not waste a kill or leave a prize for other scavengers. James didn't argue further. As Dad began dragging the juvenile mammoth back toward the cave, James followed behind, clearing the drag marks and tracks in the snow as much as possible to erase their trail.
Shortly after the family vanished, a group of uninvited guests approached.
A hunting party of Clovis people, originating from the Grand Canyon region. They were dark-skinned with flattened foreheads. Though they stood less than 1.6 meters tall, their physiques were exceptionally sturdy, with muscles like hard stones. They followed a diurnal cycle—rising with the sun and resting at dusk—to avoid lethal conflicts with ferocious carnivores.
Despite their stone tools, the risk of facing massive predators was extreme. One mistake meant dying in a beast's jaws. They had been hunting this mammoth calf when the blizzard struck, causing them to lose their prey. Unwilling to let such a massive prey fly away, they waited for the storm to die down before using their hunting dogs to track it.
Dare, the leader, signaled a halt. He caught the sharp, acrid stench of predator urine. This was a marked territory. He hesitated, but hunger eventually outweighed his fear. Dare signaled the team forward. After a search, they reached the clearing where James had found the calf.
The hunting dog barked and dug into the snow. When the snow was cleared, Dare saw the dried blood. As expected, the master of this territory had claimed the mammoth. Dare was forced to accept reality. He signaled his men to turn back. They weren't brave enough to invade a core den to snatch food from the mouth of a beast.