I don’t think it’s going to work,” Josh said nervously. He had been pacing back and forth almost the entire two hours since Dave had left. More and more he had become convinced that Dave had made a mistake.
“What’s the matter, Josh?” Sarah asked. “Don’t you think Dave was right to go?”
“I’m not sure. We just don’t know those people over there. The first man he meets might bash his brains out before he gets a chance to say a word.”
Sarah bit her lip. “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” she confessed. “But what can we do about it?”
“I haven’t been able to think of anything.” He looked around at the rest of the Sleepers. “Any of you have any ideas?”
“Wouldn’t do any good for all of us to get together and go,” Jake said logically. “All of us wouldn’t be able to stand up against them any more than Dave would.”
Reb shook his head doubtfully. “It’s gonna be hard for him. You know what a time we had getting to be friends with Clag’s people—and Mord doesn’t know anything about us. I think Josh is right. They’ll probably knock him in the head as soon as he appears.”
A silence fell on the group.
Finally Abigail said slowly, “I think I have an idea.”
They all looked at her in surprise. Abigail Roberts managed to look neat and well-groomed even living with a savage tribe. Her long blonde hair and blue eyes made her look like a beauty contestant. But Abigail, as beautiful as she was, did not often come up with great ideas.
“What is it, Abbie?” Josh asked. “Anything’s better than what we’ve got.”
She seemed to be thinking hard. “I think we ought to send Ral after Dave.”
“What?” Josh exclaimed. “That’s crazy!”
“Of course it is!” Jake declared indignantly. “He’s the only card we’ve got to play. If Mord had him back, he wouldn’t have to give Eena back to us.”
“I don’t think we’re going to get her anyway,” Abbie said. She shifted her shoulders nervously. “I’ve had a funny feeling about this—and I think the rest of you have too. I’m not the greatest planner in the world, but it seems to me, if there’s any hope at all, then it’ll have to come from him.” She gestured toward Ral, who was sitting apart, his head pillowed on his arms. “If he’s the chief’s son, he could get her freed, I bet.”
An argument ensued, but Sarah at last came over to Abbie’s point of view. “I think she’s right. In the first place, how’s Dave ever going to find the village or cave where they live? He’s probably lost right now.”
Josh blinked. “I never thought of that!” he admitted.
“That’s right,” Reb said. “He could wander around in circles.”
“And maybe get gobbled up by one of them dinosaurs,” Wash added. He looked at Abbie with respect. “I think you’re right, Abbie, but how do we get Ral to do it?”
“Let me talk to him,” she said. She seemed a little embarrassed. “I know none of you think I have any sense, but somehow I think this is my job. It just came to me so clearly.”
Josh made up his mind. “All right, you go talk to Ral. It’s a long shot, but maybe it’ll work.”
Ral looked up as Abbie approached.
“Ral,” she said, “we want you to help us.”
He looked at her suspiciously. “I help you?”
“Yes, we want to get Eena back. You saw that Dave went after your father’s warriors. He’s going to offer to give you back if they’ll let her go.”
But Ral shook his head. “No, my father not do that. He kill your man.”
“That’s what we’re afraid of.” Abbie nodded anxiously. “But if you went and talked to your father, he’d let her go. Wouldn’t he?”
“Clag no let me go.”
“But if you could go, would you try?”
Ral seemed unable to believe what he was hearing. He shrugged, repeating, “They no let me go.”
Abbie looked around. For once Raddy, the guard, was gone, and they were alone. But she would have to work fast. She pulled a small knife from her pocket. “I can cut you loose. If I do, will you tell your father to let Dave and Eena come back?”
Ral considered for only a moment, then agreed. “I try.” But he looked doubtful. “My father—he hard man.”
That was enough for Abbie. She began to saw at the heavy vine that bound Ral’s ankle.
The sharp blade cut through it easily, and Ral was amazed. “What that?”
“It’s called a knife. Here—you take it. You’ll have to find Dave. He’s probably lost. He doesn’t know how to get to your father’s village. Find him, take him there, and when he talks to your father, you help him. Make your father understand that we let you go.”
Ral looked thoughtful, then leaped up and dashed away. He ran like a deer and disappeared into the undergrowth.
Abbie hurried back to her friends and said nervously, “He said he’d try.”
“I hope he means it,” Josh said. “It’s going to be hard on us if he doesn’t.” He looked over at the cut vine rope. “Now we can start trying to explain how he got loose. Maybe we better get out of here and just let Clag’s people worry about it.”
“That’s a good idea,” Reb said. “I’m glad I thought of it!”
Dave tried to follow the signs of the band that had kidnapped Eena, but he was no tracker and soon found himself wandering aimlessly through a heavily wooded area. A branch scratched one eye, and he soon grew exhausted.
What was worse, night was coming on. Jittery, he looked around, thinking of the ferocious beasts that roamed this land, and he knew that he was helpless.
I can’t even go back, he thought. I don’t know the way. He blundered on for another half hour and then threw himself down with his back to the base of a tree, panting. He tried to think, but his mind refused to operate. Then he began to hear strange noises, some high in the treetops, others rustling in the brush. He looked behind him and thought he could see movement.
“Get hold of yourself, Dave,” he said aloud. “You’re going to get out of this all right. Goél didn’t send you here to fail.”
Suddenly a form appeared before him, and he jumped up uttering a cry of alarm. At first he thought it was a wild ape, but then—
“Ral!”
Ral apparently had trailed him easily. He probably could read the signs of a track as well as the Sleepers could read the pages of a book. He motioned to Dave and said, “Come.”
“Come where?” Dave asked in bewilderment.
“To my people.”
Dave was puzzled but was glad to have someone to guide him. He stumbled along after the surefooted warrior.
At last Ral said, “Too dark. We climb tree.”
The tree Ral chose was huge, and Dave found climbing it difficult. Twice Ral had to reach down, grasp his wrist, and haul him up bodily. Finally they came to where the great tree intersected another, making a sort of platform. “Here. We rest till light.”
Dave threw himself down on the branches, not wanting to look toward the ground far below.
The forest was almost completely dark now. Ral was nearly invisible. And as he lay there, Dave began to be aware of the noises that came out of the blackness. There were snortings and gnashings of teeth, and he was very glad to be up in the tree.
“What’s going on, Ral? How did you get away?”
Ral’s voice came cautiously. “Little female—Abbie. She cut me loose.”
“Why? Why did she do that?”
Ral’s answer was long in coming. “She say you never find my people.”
“Well, she was right about that. I’d probably have been eaten by a dinosaur if you hadn’t found me.”
“She say my people kill you.” He hesitated. “My father, hard man. Small female, she say I talk him for you. Ask for Eena go home.”
Dave was stunned. I should have thought of that. Aloud he said, “Are you going to do it, Ral?”
But Ral did not answer. Apparently he had gone to sleep.
Dave slept by only fits and starts. He was afraid of falling, and, judging by the thrashing sounds below, there was nothing pleasant down there for him.
At first light Ral shook him awake.
The boys scrambled down the tree and soon were again threading their way through the jungle. Once they passed by a brontosaurus, bigger than a building. Ral paid no attention to him. “He eat trees,” he said.
To Dave the trek seemed to take forever. They navigated several trails before finally coming to a series of stone ridges lifting out of the jungle.
Ral pointed. “My people.”
Dave swallowed hard and was very glad that Ral was with him. He followed closely, and soon the pair stepped into a clearing and were surrounded by the tribe of Chief Mord.
Mord himself came forward, towering over his men. He greeted his son, who was almost as tall. “Good! You back!”
“Yes,” Ral said. He motioned to Dave. “He talk.”
Mord stared at Dave suspiciously and stood waiting for him to speak.
“Where is Eena?” Dave asked first.
“Here I am! Here!”
Then Dave saw her. She was sitting with two women, apparently her guards. “Are you all right, Eena?” he called.
“Yes. All right.” Otherwise she remained silent, but there was gladness in her expression.
Dave turned to Mord. “Chief Mord, we come in peace.”
Mord scratched his head. “Peace? What peace?”
“It means no fight,” Dave answered. “No war. No kill.”
A murmur went around the tribesmen, and Mord grinned suddenly. “We kill enemy. You enemy.”
“No!” Ral spoke up quickly. “He not Clag’s people. See, he different.”
Mord seemed to understand that Dave came from a different race, but he was still suspicious. However, he listened as Dave haltingly explained that he had come to exchange Ral for Eena.
“So, you see, you have your son back, and now we ask you to give Clag’s daughter back.”
But Mord was shrewd. “No! I have son. We have new woman. We keep.”
“But that’s not fair!” Dave cried.
Mord stared. “What fair?”
“It means … well … doing what’s right.”
“What right?”
Dave saw that the conversation was going nowhere. He turned helplessly to the young man beside him. “Ral, you tell him.”
Ral faced his father. “They let me go. We let her go.”
Mord gazed at his son, seemingly trying to understand, but all this was so foreign to him that he could not. Finally, after extended talk that went around in a circle, Ral sighed and turned back to Dave. “It take—time. We wait. We see.”
Dave saw that argument was useless. “All right, that’s fine. Am I a prisoner?”
“What that?” Ral asked.
“I can’t go back?”
“No. You stay.”
Ral then went over to Eena and freed her but said to her also, “You stay.”
Finally he looked at his father. “We talk.”
Later that night as the tribespeople sat around the fire, Dave drifted over and seated himself close to Eena. “Your father’s worried about you.”
“Why your people let Ral go? He enemy of my father.”
“You know Abbie? Ral says she cut him loose.”
“Why?”
“They want to trade Ral for you.”
Eena shook her head. “Now they have both. They no let me go.”
“Maybe they will,” Dave said encouragingly. “Mord’s got his son back, and Ral is going to ask him to let you go.”
Hope flared in the girl’s eyes, and she said, “Good.”
The two sat near the fire for a long time, and more than once Ral came by. He would sit with them silently, and Dave would explain what he and the Sleepers were trying to do.
He explained about Goél and how Goél called for kindness to others. “There’s a better way than fighting, Ral,” he said. “Goél says the best way is to treat other people just as we want them to treat us.” He concluded by saying, “Your people and Eena’s people—killing is not the way to go. There are even things they could do together that they can’t do alone.”
“What?” demanded Ral.
For the moment Dave was blank. “Well, I don’t know right now, but some things. The more people you both have, the better.”
Ral leaned back and stared at them. “You tell me how. I tell my father. But he hard man.”