Don't ever stop believing...

Iceman Fragment taken from: The Storyteller, Volume VII “Animal DNA was also found on his coat, on the inside of it; probably from a dog or a wolf. That’s consistent with the hairs found under his nails,” Dave says to Greg. “Inside his coat? How do you suppose it got there?” “He was carrying a wolf or a dog; that’s the only explanation. The animal was hurt or dead and the blood managed to drip inside….”

“So he fought four men, bumped into a pack of wolves, killed one, and picked it up for supper…? It doesn’t make any sense,” Greg says.

“There is no evidence Otzi was ever attacked by wolves, Greg. There are no bite marks anywhere on him.”

“Yeah, whatever. I was just wondering.… But that makes no sense anyway, Dave.”

“How do you explain the presence of dog or wolf hairs under his fingernails, and yet he did not fight with one? Maybe the wolf was with him, as a pet or something….”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dave. This man had barely any intelligence in that caveman brain of his; and there’s no evidence of cavemen ever having pets.… This is ridiculous. According to what we know of these men so far, they had the intelligence of a five-year-old child of our time.”

“Well, how else do you explain it?”

“I don’t care for explanations or romantic stories, Dave; I care for forensics and science. Our man has told us so far that he was in some fight and died hours later. That’s all there is to know.”

“I wonder if he was scared when he died. I wonder if he was alone,” Dave says.

“I bet the poor bastard was shitting in his pants!” Greg laughs.

I have stopped now; we need to rest. The wind is blowing harder. This is as far as we can go; Wolf seems to be more awake than he was when I picked him up sometime back.

They wounded him on the side. I take some snow and begin to wash his wound; it’s so cold out here that our wounds are not bleeding anymore.

He tries to get up but I prevent him from doing it; he needs to rest. We can’t do anything in this weather. We will have to wait. At least I know the pack of wolves won’t follow us for a while. I sit down and lean my back on a tree; I am so tired.

I never expected to encounter so many men, much less to be able to kill them all. I retrieved my knives and a couple of arrows from the battlefield. I didn’t have more time to see if they had any food with them that I could take; the wolves made us run.

I am sure those men were explorers; they were not hunters. Explorers are the worst kind of warrior there is; they are mainly after people like us.

I take some lizards and bugs from my fur bag and give them to Wolf; he did a good job today. I am sure I would not have survived if not for his help.

I know I will be all right in the morning; we can’t go anywhere right now. It will be dark again soon. The wind has not subsided a bit; there’s too much snow falling.

I hope my family is fine.