The importance of timing rvealed itself a couple of weeks later when a particularly succulent but young and stupid wild boar had dodged the flashing clubs of our intrepid and ever-hungry crew. Pausing only to collect the arm of one of the hunters that ventured too close (young and stupid he may have been, but this boar still had tusks and a scything action that would make Crocodile Dundee look like a pen-knife-wielding-twig-whittler) the squealing pig had scuttled through the bush, all the while chomping on the well muscled and unexpected lunch-nee-limb, and darted into a large cave at the base of a sheer cliff that had, up until the cave was found, threatened to become it’s last stand.
Our gang of still-intrepid but now very cautious pursuers had, as a man, skidded to a halt about thirty feet from the mouth of the cave. Not only were they not now a full complement in the skull-crushing-limb department (limb-nee-lunch, remember) but here they were, at the place where their prospective luncheon and missing limb had disappeared, a dark cave…… whatever the reasoning, it was very sensible to tread softly just around here. Yes, it was true, these sorts of places could act as shelters when the extremes of weather that bounced around the world at this time threatened to gather you up and flush you over the nearest cliff. They could, however, also harbour one of the many and varied carnivore’s that stalked, prowled and ambushed the landscape and who had the capability to rapidly turn a bad-weather refuge into the Stone Age equivalent of a fast-food outlet.
Unseen to the now flummoxed hunting party, our wild pig became a positively incandescent pig (albeit very fleetingly) when he scuttled along the cave-floor in certainty of a clean escape from the butcher’s-of-the-bog outside only to run into the welcoming yet terrible final embrace of a cave-bear.
This cave bear, whose stature and wrestling ability would have put Mongoush to shame, had spent some time sorting out this particular retreat. He’d made it his own, far away from the hub-bub of what passed for modern life. Here he could spend hours just relaxing, filing and sharpening his talons on an eighty-foot redwood he’d uprooted and dragged in one rainy day, making himself ready for his next blistering attack on anything that came within sprinting distance. This was one son-of-a-bitch cave bear that even gang’s of Plain’s Lions moved over for, that mastodon’s passed their next bowel movement most rapidly for. Anything with half a brain, which certainly included the majority of the human population on earth at the time, knew for absolute certainty that the swagger of an approaching cave bear meant trouble; trouble spelt A.R.M.A.G.E.D.D.O.N.; couldn’t have been more obvious even if he’d’ve carried a flag with “Imminent Death Squad” written on it and wore a white “T” shirt with “DON’T FUCK WITH ME-NOT NOW-NOT EVER!” printed on it. This was one mean bastard of a cave bear.
Snoozing gently in his cave, this bear could hardly believe his luck as he heard then viewed the startled boar’s gallop, unfinished arm all a-flop, into oblivion; the bear just lay there obscured by a rock until the hapless beast was almost past him then sent the boar to that great-pig-sty-in–the-sky with a single, brutal slash of a paw that silenced all protest, instantly, and who’s power and accuracy would’ve put a Hymac back-actor to shame.
Meanwhile, outside the cave, the puzzled group of cheap-suited huntsmen decided to gather round the mouth of the cave and make themselves ready for an ambuscade. Just how the group was divided was sorted out after much discussion……and three well-aimed blows by our leader that split the group and three ears in two. The now chastened group took up guard at various points around the mouth of the cave to await developments. It seemed obvious the wild boar would have to come out at some time in the very near future, if not to forage then driven out by its own stench. If they lay quiet and still for long enough they could gain a meal with little effort for the element of surprise was now on their side, and a wild boar would be no match for their concerted attack, particularly one laid out with such cunning as this one was………and included the New Labour Saving Tactic; “Top-Man”.
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