CRO-MAGNON (24 page)

At least that was what Leya thought she said. Her vocabulary was limited to words she had picked up from the three men during the forced march from the river, plus the camp gossip during supper, and she had to translate Wim’s gestures to guess at the one-sound Flathead words for “fewer” and “important.”

In newly-learned words and maladroit gestures, she said, “How do they do that? Are not the same number of girls born as boys?”

“
Same number birth,” Wim said in Flathead. She fell silent, her gray hair catching a moonbeam as she hung her head.

“
Oh,” Leya said, understanding the old woman’s meaning.

She lay trying to frame her next question in the unfamiliar words and gestures.

“
Why cannot I choose who
fuhfuh?
”

“
When girl get bleed or new female come from other clan, she go to oldest single man.” Leya struggled to translate the complex thought, expressed in words of one sound accompanied by gestures. “That be Caw.”

Leya shivered. To her, Caw was in the same class as Mungo—someone who would treat her as a possession to satisfy his lust and serve his other needs. She felt that if she had to become a Flathead woman, almost any other mate would be preferable.

She grasped at a straw. “Odd be older.”

“
Bor say Odd not mate. Afraid kid be slow.”

Leya noted the use of “kid” for “child.” She was growing more skilled at casting Flathead spoken and signed words in the clan’s manner. “What if I go to Bor, tell him”—this mimed—“if I must take mate, I want Gar?”

Even in the dark, she could see a tender look come into Wim’s eyes as the old woman shook her head. “To stay leader, Bor follow rules.”

Although some of the words were new and the gestures strange, Leya got the gist and tucked them away. At least now she knew the words for “mate” and “rules” and was beginning to build a store of gestures.

“
Puk and Gar your sons, Wim?”

“
Ay.”

“
What happen
fator?
”

The older woman picked up on the People’s word for “happen” and “father” and mouthed the corresponding clan words. Her eyes glinted in the fire-lit darkness.

“
Kel judge aurochs wrong. Aurochs gore.”

Leya did not recognize the terms, but she recognized Wim’s pantomime for
aurochs
and
gore
and added them to her growing vocabulary
.
The word-pictures told a familiar story. It didn’t happen so often to the People’s hunters since, with their javelins fletched for accurate throwing, they rarely needed to go in close. But she knew that if there was a fatal mishap, it was worse if the victim lingered.

“
Die quick?” she said, mouthing a newly-learned Flathead word for
quick
and miming
die
.

“
Men bring Kel. Live four”—Wim held up her fingers—“days.” Leya added “days,” a useful word, to her vocabulary. “I go with Rud. Not—
a hand-down gesture
—get kid.”

Another absent mate, Leya thought. She realized these people lived shorter lives than the People.

“
What happen Rud?” she gestured, surprised to find herself able to communicate without speech.

“
Never know. Scout game. Not come back.” Wim’s gray hair swished in the moonlight as she gave Leya a sympathetic look. “Your wounds heal”—she mimed the unfamiliar words—“you maybe”—a waggle of her hand—“run back your people.”

“
Clan not chase?” Leya signed.

Win waggled her hand. “Bor not send men after.” She glanced toward the single men. “But maybe Caw chase,” she signed.

“
I run away from my tribe.”

A lift of Wim’s gray brows.

“
The chief”—this by pointing toward Bor—“want mate me with man I not like,” Leya said, miming the last part.

“
Ghub.”
Wim waved toward where Leya supposed Caw was lying. “Maybe best run.”

Leya glanced at her torn thigh, which had stiffened once she lay down. She said, more to herself than Wim, “I wouldn’t have anywhere to go. Anyway, I don’t have to make a decision right now. I’m not going anywhere on this leg.”

Although the flood of mixed tribal and clan words would have been too much for Wim to comprehend, she nodded, apparently picking up the gist. “Leya be ready Caw,” she signed.

A shiver wracked Leya’s body, as much from Wim’s foretelling of her fate, she thought, as from the cold. At this altitude, just below the tundra, the night air held a bite. She was several body-lengths from the hearth, the others having surrounded it, and little warmth reflected off the back wall of the shelter. Apparently these people—for she had decided they were in fact people—did not heat stones to place next to their bodies, but relied on warmth from the fire. And, of course, they were more robust than her own people.

She snuggled into the skins she had been alloted, trying in vain to cover herself. Skimpy and crudely processed, they were probably leftovers from the fur wraps the Flatheads tied around their bodies. She would have to do something about that, she knew, before she succumbed to low-temperature sickness.

She felt a nip on her injured leg. Raising her torso, she angled her head to catch the diminishing light from the banked fire and saw that the skins were alive with lice.

She sighed. Nothing could be done about that tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps she could tie the skins in the stream bed, though she knew that some lice could survive a dunking, then dry them in the wind so they wouldn’t stiffen, and smoke them over the outer hearth. Finding sufficient wind should not be a problem. A chill shook her body and she pulled the skins tighter. What must this shallow shelter be like in winter? No wonder the clan complained about the Tribes overrunning the desirable land.

Her beleaguered mind kept ranging over her predicament, searching for a solution she knew was not there. As Wim had suggested, she would be better off returning to her tribe and submitting to Mungo. At least, her babies would be of the People and would not be too big for her canal.

But she couldn’t run because of her leg, and instinct told her the injury would need time. By then, she would probably be with child. She had jumped from the roasting spit into the fire. Her only hope was that a People-Flathead union would not produce a child. Yet she knew they sometimes did.

She sighed and turned over, trying to rearrange the scraps of lice-ridden fur. All she could expect here was to be treated like a possession and have her legs spread by a savage.

And for what? To suffer a painful death trying to birth a Flathead-seeded child?

Nestling deeper, she made a final adjustment furs and willed her mind to shut down. Perhaps if she was sleeping when Caw came for her . . .

#

Leya awakened with a start. The air was colder. The hearth had banked to coals, but she could still make out the double-humped forms of sleeping couples. One pair—Puk and Jym, she thought—were kneeling, rocking in unison to rhythmic grunts.

She sensed something else move and turned toward the sound. With crushing force, a hand gripped her shoulder. In her sudden fright she saw Wim come awake, the old woman’s eyes catching a glimmer of cherry light. A broad hand flapped at her and the crone rolled to her knees and crawled way, dragging her sleeping fur.

Leya looked up into the gap-toothed face of Caw. She felt his humid breath on her cheek, smelled its rotten-meat fetor.

Ki!
It was starting already.

The hand moved, leaving her shoulder aching and half-paralyzed. Like a burrowing animal, it squirmed beneath her tunic and cupped a breast. She could feel its latent strength. She struggled to free herself but then remembered she could not run oh her injured leg. The Flathead’s other hand pulled up her tunic. In the next moment he was close behind her, his massive thighs cradling her buttocks, and her leather trousers were yanked down. A hand snaked over her belly and stubby fingers clamped her crotch. She felt his erect member trace the crack between her buttocks.

Closing her eyes, she braced. The rigid thing slid beneath her cheeks and nudged her crotch, and she felt blunt fingertips spread her lips.

Ki!

Alys’s face floated before her.
Mator
had warned her to give in to tribal custom, but she had not listened. Now, she had no choice.

She gasped as the warm thing entered. It felt like the organ of a bull, hard as wood and thicker than any man of the People could possibly possess . . .

She braced against the coming thrust, hoping it would not tear her apart, trying to force her mind away. “Flatheads got me,
Ma,
” she whispered.

A grunt sounded, the timbre throatier than Caw’s. He rocked back and Leya looked up. A stocky form loomed. In the residual light she recognized Gar’s broken-nosed visage.

Turning, she saw Caw’s shoulders stiffen as he grunted guttural words she did not understand. She saw Gar point to her injured thigh. By the hearth a head popped up, double braids swinging in the reddish glow. It was Kam. Leya saw the head woman turn to the man beside her.

Gar repeated the same words, and Caw responded again. Leya thought Gar was telling the other man to leave her alone until her injuries healed and Caw was refusing.

In a single motion Caw was on his feet, the gap in his teeth accentuating his snarling face. He swept a thick arm at Gar, but the broken-nosed man held his ground. Leya could see other male forms now. Beyond Caw she recognized the slow-witted drummer named Odd, and behind him Ull, the half-crippled flute player. The two seemed to be siding with Caw. A figure materialized in the semi-darkness beside Gar, and she recognized the neat wolftail of his older
brator,
Puk.

The two men faced the other three in a tense stand-off. For the moment, no one spoke.

The leader, Bor, must have approached from behind Leya, because he suddenly slipped between Caw and Gar. The older man planted his feet and spread his still-muscular arms.

“
Huh!”

Leya sensed a measure of relief sweep the opposing groups, except for Caw. With a final glance at Gar and a muttered epithet, the gap-toothed man stomped away, Ull and Odd following.

Bor flicked his hand and Gar nodded. With a glance at Leya, he signed to Puk and the two stepped away, Gar toward the single men’s area, Puk toward Jym and their daughter.

Kam stared at Leya, then grunted something to Bor. After pausing, the leader nodded, and Leya understood that she had been granted a temporary reprieve.

With a sigh, she sank back onto her lice-infested skins.

Not this night.

But soon, she knew.

Soon.

Chapter 11

Caitlin Blaine scrambled out of the submerged tunnel, frigid lake water cascading off her dry suit. Hunching her shoulders under the air tank, she set her flashlight in its frame and clambered to the body of the Cro-Magnon woman. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that the ice had melted from the latest panel of paintings. But right now she had a task.

Working by the light of her headlamp, she pulled down the woman’s fur trousers, revealing a triangle of dark hair. She took her scalpel and began to slice along the juncture of leg and abdomen, bearing down to cleave the frozen flesh. She heard Calder creep up behind her, his headlamp further illuminating the bloodless operation.

“
Ian!” She used her free hand to cover the pudendum. “You men! Don’t be leering at the poor woman’s privates.”

He leaned closer. “What are you doing?” he said, his voice muffled by the composition mouthpiece.

“
I can use somatic cells to sequence the DNA. But I also want germ cells.”

“
Why?”

“
I can’t tell you.”

“
Why not?”

She went on slicing, the flesh parting like medium-soft wood. “Because I don’t know, yet.”

Calder backed away. “Caitlin, you could play right into Salomon’s hands.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
You already suspect he wants to clone Neanderthals for military application.”

“
That can be done using the somatic cells I’m talking from the rest of the body.” She glanced up at him. “Ian Wilmut cloned Dolly from a skin cell, you know.”

“
They had a lot of false starts. Even I know it would be better to use a sexual reproductive cell. After all, that’s its purpose.”

She raised her chin. “Am I telling you how to do your job?”

“
Okay. But we don’t want to overstep our bounds. I don’t want to be known as the fool who unleashed a modern-day plague.”

“
You measure your bones. Let me worry about genes.” The blade met gristle and she pressed harder.

She refocused her lamp as Calder examined each of the woman’s frozen hands before moving away. Isolating and excising gametes in the prehistoric woman’s obstructed ovary required all her attention.