He ventured deeper into the forest, the stick held at the ready. Up ahead, he found what he had been looking for. The white bones of a rib cage rose through the ferns like ivory swords buried at the hilt.
He pushed the green fern fronds back and caught sight of the skeleton’s skull. Sam looked around and spotted the end of the tail. The beast had been at least thirty-five feet long and maybe twice as tall as him.
At the skull, he brushed away the dirt and inspected the teeth. Unfortunately, they were blunted. This was an omnivore. Probably a Melanorosaurus, based on the books Daniele had drilled into him.
Sam was about to turn away when a thought occurred to him. He examined the skull a little closer. The top was flat and about as wide as his chest, with enclosed sides. He smiled. Nature tests you. And nature provides.
Sam lifted the skull away and stopped when he saw the earthworms writhing where it had been. His Triassic seafood grill wouldn’t be a reality for a while. And he was hungry from scavenging in the woods.
He squatted and ate his fill, marveling at how the slimy worms no longer triggered his gag reflex.
At his camp （which is how he now thought of the small cave and soon-to-be fire）， he set the upper part of the skull on top of a pile of rocks. He lined the inside with layers of thick fern leaves, covering the openings and using clean rocks to make sure the leaves were firmly joined together.
When he was done, Sam sat back and smiled at it. A dinosaur skull rain barrel. By nightfall—if it rained again in the afternoon—the small reservoir would be full of water, and Sam could drink from it, staying by his camp instead of venturing back into the woods to drink from the velvety fern leaves. That might save his life.
On his next trip to the woods, he found what he had been searching for the first time: the skeleton of a carnivore. He snapped off a sharp tooth and brought it back to camp. He grabbed a stick of wood and ran the tooth up and down it, sawing away. Tiny slivers of wood peeled off, some as thin as human hairs. They would do. He placed them atop the twigs and dry leaves in the pile of tinder.
He then used the tooth to sharpen his self-defense stick. When he was done, he inspected the small spear. It would do. He carried it into the woods and found another stick and sharpened it （for a backup）。
Finally, he turned his focus to the fire. He carved a deep groove in a piece of flat softwood, then sharpened another stick and began plowing up and down the groove, creating friction and shearing off thin layers of wood.
The friction and heat ignited the hairs of wood above and soon, smoke rose from the tinder pile. Sam leaned forward, eager to see flames sprout up. He blew gently, but the smoke drifted away and the fire died.
He had been too eager.
Total rookie move.
He sat back on his haunches and exhaled. At the end of the piece of flat wood, he repacked the tinder, careful to ensure the fine wood fibers were at the end of the groove.
Then he began plowing again.
As he rowed back and forth, he thought: that’s life. You push and pull and sometimes things catch fire and sometimes they don’t. You keep going: that’s the key.
Soon, smoke rose again.
But still he plowed. He wanted to be sure this time. The flames needed to be strong before he gave them oxygen. When he smelled the fire and saw the first flames rising, he leaned down and blew and fueled it. The fire licked the twigs and ignited them and burned into the sticks steepled above it.
He had made a fire.
He sat back, watching the growing flames. It was a representation of so many things he had taken for granted in his old life. Before, fire was always a click away. Here, it was a struggle. And probably the key to his survival.
To survive, he needed to take the fire with him. That was easier said than done.
He needed a torch. The ideal torch would have a slow-burning fuel. Tree sap, pitch, oil, or animal fat were best. All were problematic. Specifically, they were hard to come by.
The best fuel options available to him at the moment were moss, wood, and leaves. They wouldn’t burn long. And if the torch itself was wooden, it would burn down to his hand.
A thought occurred to him. A prehistoric innovation.
He returned to the Melanorosaurus skeleton, gripped one of the long rib bones, and leaned back until it cracked and broke free. As he suspected, it was hollow inside. It was also just the right size to be stuffed with a piece of hardwood wrapped in moss. And that’s what he did.
He held the torch over the fire, lit it, and hoisted it up.
In one hand, he held a spear. In the other, a dinosaur bone torch. He hadn’t mastered this land, but he felt safer than he had since the night Nora had died. The thought of her brought a sharp pain to his soul. He wasn’t ready to think about her. But his mind wanted to, like it was trying to lick a wound that was still raw.