Free Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure by Allan Richard Shickman Page A

stupid to be afraid. He tossed his spear to the other side and ventured with extreme caution, testing the steadiness of the log with a shift of his weight. Then holding on for dear life and never releasing one branch until another was in his hand, he ventured out. A quick, giddy glance below reminded him what was at stake. Then he looked no more. The last few steps had no branch to hold onto, and he had to trust to his sense of balance and a nimble final leap. Once across, Zan picked up his spear and looked back at the arid region he had traveled. Then he turned toward his destination. Rydl, who now could have led, followed behind as before.
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    Zan did not notice the changes in the terrain until his feet began to hurt. The land was becoming rocky, and soon he could see the projection of round, red boulders breaking the surface of the soil. After an hour’s walk, rough trees began to reappear, but they were little more than scruffy bushes with dying, gnarled trunks. The rocks became larger and closer together, so that the two boys could almost walk from one rock to another; until with time they rose in sheer verticals over their heads and took on fantastic shapes and forms. This was the land of red rocks that Aniah had spoken of. As the travelers wandered into the region, which was fenced on two sides by high red cliffs, Zan thought he had never seen anything so wonderful and strange. Huge boulders, shattered from the sides of the rocky walls by the shaking earth, werescattered like giant toys and lay in crimson heaps. Some were smooth, some craggy and sharp. Some were round and others were squarish slabs cleaved from the face of the red cliff when once the ground had trembled. Ten strong men could not hope to lift the smallest of them.
    Horizontal crevices marked the side of the cliff like deep wrinkles on an ancient face; while opposite, the might of nature had tipped the entire mountain on its side to reveal its inner workings. The titanic force had split the earth and sent its layers exploding upward or splaying downward according to its mood. There were time-eaten pillars absurdly balancing large boulders that ever threatened to fall if once disturbed by so much as a gust of wind. Zan wondered aloud what invisible hand had shaped these deadly marvels, but Rydl, jumping sportively from rock to rock and testing with playful shouts the echo that he had discovered, did not hear him.
    The two walls of stone, immense and silent, between which the valley was situated, barred any escape. In the distance before them they could see a row of blue hills miles away. Rydl, who was wandering this way and that, luckily came upon a thin stream of water in the otherwise parched land. As the boys progressed, the cliff on their side curved inward, revealing a number of cave-like pockets dotting the red wall. Zan and Rydl climbed to several that were within reach before they found one that would make a good shelter. It was accessible and yet elevated some from the floor of the canyon, so that they could observe, unseen, any danger that might appear. In this empty vale, where every footstep seemed to produce an echo, they had not encountered a single soul, but that did not meanthat no one was there. Zan was glad he had Rydl with him, for he had never seen a place so lonely, but he wished the child would be more cautious and not so noisy. Best to remain quiet and hidden as much as possible.
    The cavelike dugout in which they settled was only three or four strides deep, and hardly high enough to stand up in, but of the several they had explored it was the best. Rydl soon discovered a store of nuts and seeds kept in a deep man-made indentation in the stone floor. Zan noticed some secret signs scratched into the wall directly above it. These things meant that people came, or once had come to this spot, and that the two boys could not stay for long without risking an encounter. Yet who knew how long these signs of life had been there