Great Sky Woman (20 page)

Then the taller of their guides turned. Owl Hooting smiled at her. And at that moment, she knew that all was right with the world.

Chapter Twenty-two

The four young dream dancers walked away from the rising sun. The girls carried slender bamboo walking sticks to help them across uneven ground and steep grades. Throughout the day they kept a steady pace, stopping occasionally to rest, study the plant life, or test the wind for unknown smells. Their escorts remained ahead of them far enough that it was all too easy to imagine themselves utterly alone.

They proceeded in a strange fashion. First the girls decided upon a destination near the horizon, and then the hunt chiefs led the way until they had reached that spot, and the girls chose again.

The nameless one found herself incapable of taking her eyes from Owl Hooting as he led the way. She found Owl’s loose, easy stride as dizzying as any of Stillshadow’s potions.

T’Cori found it impossible to ignore the flex and play of muscles in the small of Owl’s back. She could not stop looking at the clustered scars, rewards for his skills and ranking among the hunt chiefs.

When the sun was directly above them, Owl held up his hand, signaling for them to stop.

“What is it?” Sister Quiet Water asked.

“Lion scat,” he growled.

“Lions?” T’Cori asked.

“Perhaps,” he said. For two hands of breaths they waited as he tested the air, then his tight shoulders relaxed, and he waved them onward.

They encountered the actual droppings only a little later, partially covered in sand. Owl Hooting bent, speaking with his fellow about the antelope fur fuzzing the gummy mass, speculating upon where and how the hapless animal had been run down.

After the setting sun smote their eyes and the evening sky purpled, the girls stopped to camp. Owl and his brother cut thornbushes to make rude walls and vined them in a circle around their fire. T’Cori and her sisters ate some of their dried antelope meat. Not too much—it had to last until Owl and his brother made a hunt or until they found nuts and turtle eggs for a meal. Then the dream dancers lay down to sleep, trusting in the hunt chiefs to tend the fire and protect them.

In the morning T’Cori ate more, and the girls made their toilet. Then they continued on, traveling southeast.

The flat savannah was dotted with brush, patches of spiky green grass and trees with gnarled trunks. Herds of drowsy zebra and dusty wrinkled elephants lumbered past, usually ignoring the humans, but occasionally glancing and trumpeting in warning, protecting their calves.

Kites and hawks and buzzards weighed down the top branches of the trees, and although some fled as the humans approached, other birds and animals simply watched the procession, judging the newcomers to be no threat.

They saw evidence of both life and death: carcasses splayed in the sun with vultures or crows pecking, others that had crumbled to insect fodder. Dung beetles rolled away balls of half-dried elephant droppings in their path. Within days, nothing would remain.

From time to time, each of them looked back in the direction of Great Earth. Already, the only home T’Cori had ever known was swallowed in a blur of clouds.

“I have never been so far from home,” Dove said.

The sense of loneliness was swelling within them when Quiet Water called, “Look! Thistleroot!”

Instantly the mood shifted to one of excitement. “How much should we bring back?” Fawn asked.

Dove paused, fingering the green, minty sprigs. Thistleroot grew in knee-high bunches as large as a woman’s hand. “Should we divide this? Or should it all go to Sister Quiet Water, who saw it first?”

T’Cori clucked at them. “I think that it is more than that. Mother wants to learn how we are together. Do we work together? Who makes the way smoother?”

Fawn scratched her head. “You should not call her mother. Raven would beat you.”

“Raven is not here,” T’Cori replied.

Chapter Twenty-three

For half the day now, since long before dawn, Frog lay beside the wait-a-bit bush, struggling to keep his breath calm. Late the previous day he had detected the nyala tracks leading down to the water hole, and remembered one of the first things Uncle Snake and Break Spear had told him of the art of hunting.

Look for them at dusk and dawn. It is then that the four-legged go to the watering holes, knowing that many meat-eaters hunt at night and men hunt during the day. Dawn and dusk are the times when elands and nyalas hope the lions and leopards and men are asleep and unaware. This is when you will find them.

He’d spent the first day walking west, away from the places of possible danger. It took Frog three days to pass Great Earth and Earth boma, finally breaking into the bush beyond the Circle. Until this time he lived on fruit and nuts gathered as he went—all of this territory was known to him.

Singing songs of hunts and knots and whittling, he kept his eyes open for anything that he could use. A bleached buffalo skeleton, tumbled in a dry wash, triggered his imagination. Frog broke the rotted old ligaments to tear a shinbone free.
This,
he thought as he slipped it into his sack,
a clever boy could find use for.

The following day, Frog walked until he found new water, and then soon afterward found the branches needed for a fire-bow and spears. The happy discovery of a knobby stand of fill-cactus gladdened his heart. As he hacked out its heart and scraped pulp into a folded leaf, he swore he would not need it…. But on the other hand, if hunting went poorly and hunger bared its teeth, he would be happy for the respite.

He made and set snares, determining to return the next day to check his luck. Now then…where
was
that poison-grub bush Uncle Snake had been so happy to find? A quarter later he located it, and dug up thumb-long, wiggling red-ringed crawlers. Grinning, he simply squeezed the grub’s guts directly on the tip of his spear. Uncle Snake probably wouldn’t approve, but then again, Uncle Snake wasn’t here, was he?

The previous night Frog had thought not to have fire, figuring that the smell of smoke sometimes scared off prey: fire was friend only to man, not animals.

But tonight he longed for the comfort of the leaping tongues, needed to remember home. He brought together the materials for a fine blaze, thinking that tonight he might very well cook chunks of a potential kill. Of course, he would have preferred to bring a coal from the family hearth, but Uncle Snake had watched him carefully. He would have to make his own fire. If he did not, if he
could
not, Frog Hopping was unfit to provide for a family.

So he took stock of his gathered resources. Most important among them was a flexible green branch as thick as his finger. It was both strong and springy, and about as long as his arm.

As he went to work, all disappointment drained away. The sun was near the western horizon and would be down shortly, only the stars and the moon above providing light. Time was vital.

Using his stone knife, Frog cut notches in the ends of the branch, then tied tough woven vine around the ends. This was an important skill: choosing the vines, weaving thin ones together tightly to make a strong, pliable cord. The texture was also important. Select the wrong vines, and there would be too much or too little friction, which was not good.

When the bow was bent and the vines tight, he tested the stretch. This had to be just right, and feeling the tension of the vines was another skill that took time to learn.

The vine was the right length, the bow tight. He was a little afraid that it might break, so when he inserted the drill stick he looped it once, rolling the bow back and forth, testing. Then he stopped, started over by adjusting the length of his makeshift twine, then tried again, this time satisfied that the flex of the branch made the vine snug enough to provide good traction.

Frog required two other pieces to build a blaze, and he had spent the earlier part of the day making these ready. One was the fire trough, and the other was a cap for the stick. Two pieces of wood were sufficient, but it had taken a quarter to find the right pieces.

Already, his efforts had gouged a furrow in the wood now flat against the ground, and braced between his knees. As he slipped the stick into position, Frog tested the friction and draw by rolling the bow back and forth. This time, he managed to make it turn evenly.

It was important to begin with a drill stick as straight as possible, about as thick as one’s small finger. If the drill stick was not straight, it would wobble and become absurdly difficult to control.

The fire trough was the buffalo shinbone Frog had discovered in the ravine. Uncle Snake told Frog that his father, Baobab, had always preferred bone to wood. The stick was cut to a dull point—not a sharp one, as he had seen some of the other boys make. Uncle Snake had judged that a bad idea. It could actually burn a hole in the bone, and where would he be then?

Frog braced his knee against the shinbone and nestled the stick in the depression. The bowstring was set facing his leg, with the bow wood horizontal and away from him. The piece of wood capped the stick, and he leaned down on it just enough to make the proper contact with the tip of the stick and the bone.

Then, humming a fire song to keep time, Frog began a gentle sawing motion, as he had been taught by Uncle, and as Uncle had been taught by
his
father, back to the first sons of Father Mountain.

Placing the bone over the log, Frog sawed smoothly, back and forth, back and forth, not letting the vine catch, a little worried that if it did, it might break. There was a perfect rhythm to be found here, and Frog searched until he found it. The smooth play of his muscles, leaning on the stick, turning it with each bow stroke—all of these melded together until he smelled the first smoky wisps. He continued for a few more strokes, until the smell grew stronger, then stopped and looked at the little coal glowing in the depression of the wood.

Although he added only a few tiny pinches of tinder at a time, Frog accidentally smothered the coal, and it died. He did not lose heart: this was a skill in which he was reasonably proficient, even if perfection continued to elude him.

He would continue. He would open the door between the human world and the world of fire, and it would come. It would.

With infinite patience, Frog began again. This time when the first spicy curl of smoke tickled his nose he smiled and continued. He sprinkled a pinch of shaved wood and dried moss into the depression, and continued his stroking until the smoke darkened, the sign that it was almost there.

Frog took away the bone and bow, and brought his lips down close to the glowing embers, blowing carefully, adding a few more scraps of dry moss, until the first tiny tongue of flame appeared.

It was easy to build on that initial success, and in a few hands of breaths he had summoned a healthy fire and was feeding it scraps of stick. When it could eat those handily, he gave it larger sticks, and then carefully stacked rocks around the edge of the fire pit, adding wood as it felt safe to do so.

And when he had summoned a fire-spirit fully to life, and it accepted his offerings of sticks and shavings with a grateful crackle, Frog lay back, ate nuts and berries gathered during the day and went to sleep with a reasonably full belly and a contented smile on his face.

Just Frog and the fire, two predators in the night.

Awakening the very next morning, Frog knew the ancestors were pleased with him. Through the tall grass he spied, just within spear-casting distance, the gray-brown flank of a grazing antelope. He was as silent as he had ever been rolling up, setting himself and making a good throw. The spear struck the antelope in the belly, driving fist deep. The wounded buck bucked and tried to run, but made only five steps before toppling onto its side.

Thank you, Father Mountain,
he thought as he cut its throat. Fresh meat, and so soon after beginning the hunt! But it was too soon to take the carcass back to Fire boma. His people needed to know that he could survive in the bush for at least a moon.

He had to dress the antelope immediately, remembering the lessons learned from Uncle Snake. The sooner the organs were removed, the faster the meat would cool, delaying putrefaction.

Hands shaking, Frog ripped and sliced the liver free from the steaming guts and ate it raw, savoring the hot blood spilling over his chin.

Then Frog got down to business. It was important to keep dirt and foreign objects away from the exposed body cavity. Removing the scent glands was not absolutely necessary, but the hunt chiefs saved the glands for use as cures while hunting. Removing the glands carelessly could taint the meat.

He rolled the carcass over on its back, placing the rump lower than the shoulders, and spread the hind legs. With his uncle’s obsidian knife Frog made a cut along the centerline of the belly, from breastbone to base of tail. First cut through the hide, then through the tough belly muscle. To avoid cutting into the paunch and intestines he held them away from the knife with his left hand while guiding the stone sliver with his right.

Frog cut through the sternum and up the neck as far as he could, looking to remove as much of the windpipe as possible. The windpipe rotted rapidly and would taint the meat before he could eat or cure it.

He cut around the anus and drew it into the body cavity, so that it came free with the guts. Very very careful here. Piercing the bladder would be an unpleasant mistake: no hunter wanted a dead antelope pissing on its own flesh!

Frog loosened and rolled out the stomach and intestines, then cut around the edge of the diaphragm, which separated the chest and stomach cavities. He split the breastbone. Then Frog reached forward to cut the windpipe and gullet ahead of the lungs. This allowed him to pull the lungs and heart from the chest cavity. The heart was good meat, a nugget of pure chewy flavor the size of his brother Wasp’s fist.

There were important decisions to make. He could hang the corpse from a tree, using spice to keep the flies away, but he had no spice. Frog wasted no time longing for what he did not have, choosing instead to make himself a slow fire, enveloping the meat with smoke. This would both cook it, dry it and add a savory smoky flavor.

That night he ate well, and was satisfied with himself. No mere berries and nuts tonight! Young Frog was off to a very good start indeed.

Two days later, Frog smeared his flanks with zebra dung to hide his scent, and crouched out of sight in the brush. If the animals came down here, then he would kill with his spear. He had made two more spears, but the firehardening was not yet complete. Still, it just might be enough.

In a moon he would return in triumph, as a full-fledged Ibandi man, and earn his second scar. His root was still sore but improving with every passing day. He could run without lightning bolts of pain lancing through him. Then at the next Spring Gathering, one of the eligible women might ask her father to pick him, and his life would begin.

For two days Frog had seen no other human beings, just endless horizons of brown and green grasses, low bushes and flat-topped trees below a fleece of thin white clouds. Against that placid background loped giraffes, herds of zebra and the occasional waddling warthog. In midday he passed a lake pink with storks and white with lazy, sleeping ibis. Although he was more completely isolated than he had ever been in his life, Frog was too excited to feel lonely.

A sound tickled his ear. Antelope?
No.
Nosing its way over the crest of the ridge came a single pig, dark gray against the predawn. It snuffled the air carefully, perhaps searching for predators. To his delight, Frog remembered that that was what
he
was. A predator. One who brought death to the unwary.

His heartbeat quickened.

“Come, little pig,” he whispered, so softly that in the tremor of a breeze that stirred the grasses, his words were lost. “Come to mighty Frog. My spear is thirsty.”

The pig wandered down, snuffling to itself, and finally reached the pool. It looked around again. Did it smell the zebra dung? If so, did it wonder where the zebra itself might be? He wondered if leopards ever rolled in dung to mask their scent, and thought it unlikely. Frog had seen the cats hunting, at rest and at play, and they usually seemed fastidious, pausing to lick themselves or groom each other whenever any kind of soil mucked their fur.

So his plan
might
work. Only a few steps closer, and the pig would be near enough for a cast. Frog held his breath, as he had been taught, making his breathing shallow enough that he himself could not hear it. Some of the old men said that pigs could smell your breath, but he didn’t know if he truly believed that.

It was closer now, and soundlessly, he drew his spear back.

He could hear Uncle Snake in his mind.
There is great magic in the casting of a spear. The hunter must feel the connection between himself and the prey. He must find the animal heavy with life, ready for death. And when the animal’s heart hears the prayer spoken by the hunter, it decides whether this is the time and place for it to return to the mountain.