When he woke, the dream of his father would not leave him. He clung to it as he lay burrowed in the pile of pine needles that lined the floor of his shelter. Finally, Tim roused himself to put more wood on the fire. It was pitch black beyond the small circle of firelight. He had no idea whether it was early or late in the night.

He very carefully drew his splinted foot up and crossed it over the other so he could sit cross legged in the mouth of his shelter. He did not want to sleep again now. He nudged the remaining bark box of water and juniper berries onto the fire. Soon the smell of it swirled around him, setting his stomach to growling again. He sipped it as he worked.

Tim has saved some of the wood he had dragged up, setting aside those pieces best suited to the making of a deadfall. He was very hungry, and it might be days before his foot got well enough for him to walk out, so it was time to get food. He had seen squirrels about, and there were certainly many small rodents he had not seen, so he would make traps.

As he worked, he searched through his memory for other ways to find food. If he had been at a lower elevation, it would have been relatively easy. There he could have lived on the bounty of acorns and digger pine nuts, as his Miwuk ancestors had done.

Miwuks had not lived this high in the mountains. They had stayed down where the oaks were, since acorns were their major source of food. Tim would have to adapt his knowledge.

Tim caught his head nodding and realized that his thoughts had trailed off into a half dream. He laid the deadfall aside, and burrowed back into his pine needle bed.

* * *

Tim awoke confused. It took him a long time to sort out where he was. It was full daylight outside and his fire was down to embers. He sat up, then had to brace his hands against the ground until a wave of dizziness passed.

He dragged himself upright on his crutch and counted up the days. The total shocked him. Four days had passed since he had ridden away from home to spend the day with his grandfather, and he had not eaten in all that time.

The deadfall would have to wait. Tim needed food now!

Tim limped down to the ponderosa pine with the driftwood pile at its base, and found nothing but old, open, empty cones on the ground. There were a dozen pines in the immediate area, all ponderosas and Jefferies. He circled each one without finding anything edible. Above him he could see the cones, but they were mature and their scales were all flared open. Most of the seeds would have fallen out or have been harvested by squirrels.

One Jeffrey pine had been lightning struck. It had regrown twisted and dwarfed compared to its tall, slender mates. The remaining cones hung lower, but still well out of reach. Tim found a piece of down wood the right size for a throwing stick and tossed it up toward the cones. It was hard to be accurate while balancing against his crutch, but he managed to knock down five cones in about twenty throws. By that time, he was exhausted, so he gathered his cones and sat down against the bole of the tree to search them for nuts. more next week