John Norman (43 page)

For a time Hamilton had hoped that they would be trailed by the men and recaptured. But, day by day, her hopes had diminished. The first night there had been a heavy rain, after which Gunther, who seemed to lead these men, turned his trail to the side. If the Men followed the trail to the rain, they would have no way of knowing, after the rain, that it had been diverted. They would follow a line which, in effect, would, after a time, have been erased. It would be rational to suppose that the line, even though erased, would have continued in the same direction. Gunther’s cunning had foreseen this reasoning, and be had diverted their trek. The Weasel People had been thorough. The hands of the female prisoners, who were herded in throat coffle, were thonged, usually to the burdens they bore. Hamilton’s hands had been tied at the sides of the squarish bundle of furs which she had been forced to carry in the common manner of primitive women, balanced on her head. Ugly Girl’s hands, differently, had been tied together before her body and fastened, by two loops, at her belly. On her back was tied a heavy sack of flint, loot from the shelters. She had walked almost bent over, her thighs red from switching. One of the men of the Weasel People, other than those who were the rear guard of the march, followed the coffle line, to see that no girl attempted to leave a trail. Another, following him, with a branch, with leaves, had obliterated footprints. On the second night of the march it had again rained, and Gunther had, again, altered the course of the march. The minds of primitives, even those of the Men, Hamilton knew, could not follow the trail, concealed by one of great experience, a master. Hamilton hated Gunther, but she could not but respect him. William had not been with the attacking party. Even at the shelters of the Men he had seemed to exert little influence over Gunther. Gunther was in his element, leading men. With his rifle be was a captain, a hero, king in this savage world. Hamilton had seen Cloud, bound, groveling at his feet in terror. Gunther had scarcely looked at her. He would make her wait. He was, she knew, saving her for later, for his leisure. At night the women of the Men, alternately, the head of one to the feet of the next, had been thrown from their feet, and bound, wrists behind their backs, and the neck and ankles of each tied to the ankles and neck of the next, each girl, thus, besides her wrists being twice secured once by ankles, once by throat. Hamilton had hoped, the first night, to attack with her teeth the bonds of the girl next to her. Then she, and the others, as they were on the following nights as well, had been gagged. Escape was impossible. Primitive thongs, tightly knotted did not slip. In the morning the girls had been released, jerked to their feet their spoor covered with dirt, and put again in coffle. On the fourth morning, the men of the Weasel People, herding the coffle, came to a river. Here to the dismay of the females, there were four rafts, already built and concealed, waiting. The captives, bound hand and foot, and the loot, were placed on the rough, vinethonged logs. With long poles these rafts were then thrust out into the current. Before she had been thonged hand and foot, and thrown to the rafts, Ugly Girl, doubtless in misery and fear, had soiled herself. Hamilton had been disgusted. Ever since Ugly Girl had attempted to rescue her on the cliffs, and she had not reciprocated, but fled, Hamilton had hated Ugly Girl. See, had thought Hamilton to herself, how simple, how stupid, how repulsive she is! She has even soiled herself! She shuddered in repulsion. To be coffled with such an animal, as though she might, too, have been human, as though she might have been of the same sort as she, was found by Hamilton to be degrading, humiliating. It insulted all the women of the Men, perhaps Hamilton most of all, for she retained something of the refined sensibilities of a modern woman.

Hamilton sat with her back against the stone, bound, imprisoned with the others. She looked up, through the grille of branches, to the roof of thatch some feet above it. Hamilton was less fastidious now than she had been.

She looked across to Ugly Girl. Ugly Girl had again, to Hamilton’s contempt, when the rafts had landed, on the other side of the river, perhaps two hundred miles from where they had entered upon the river, soiled herself. She recalled how irritated, how scornful, she had been.

But now she thought less of such matters. She tried again to free the wrists bound behind her back, weakly. The women of the Men, bound had now been long in the cell. Even she, Hamilton, had been unable to help herself. She looked up again at the grille. She hated the men of the Weasel People!

“How long will you keep us here?” she cried out in anger, looking to the grille.

The other women looked at her in puzzlement. Hamilton heard a girl’s laugh from `above. Since they had been placed in the cell, they had seen, once, only two girls, looking down upon them; one had been fair complexioned with long, bright red hair, the other had been dark-eyed, a darkhaired, short. Both had worn hide tunics, concealing their breasts. It was now these two again who, hearing Hamilton’s cry, looked again down on them. They did so furtively, and Hamilton knew that it must be that they were forbidden to do so. The red-haired girl looked down, contemptuously. She hissed something in anger down at them, and, with a switch, sharply, struck twice one of the branches of the grille. Hamilton winced, as though she might have been struck.

“You will have us all beaten,” whispered Flower to her. “Be silent!”

Hamilton heard a man’s voice warn the girls above away from the grille and, giggling, they quickly fled away.

“Will they beat me?” asked Butterfly of Hamilton.

“If the men permit it,” said Hamilton. She could well remember how it had been when she had been only a stranger, a mere captured female brought to the camp of the Men by Tree. Could not Butterfly remember? She, Butterfly, though then fed with the children, had been cruel to her. Did she now expect to be treated differently?

“Lift your body to the men,” said Hamilton to Butterfly. “If you please them enough they may protect you sometimes from the women.”

Butterfly looked in anguish at Flower.

“Turtle is right,” said Flower. “We have no choice,” said Flower. “We are only females.” Then she looked at Hamilton. “I will please them most,” she said.

“Perhaps,” said Hamilton. “Perhaps not.”

Hamilton then closed her eyes again and leaned back against the stone. She wondered if Old Woman was dead. She had seen her thrown, tumbling and sprawling, down the slope of the cliff to the clearing below. Tears came to Hamilton’s eyes. In her own attempt to escape, Hamilton, instinctively, had fled to the cave entrance which led, by various passages, to the cave of the Men, the cave of the drawings. It was the deepest, most hidden cave in the cliffs, and she had wished to hide there. In the darkness she had taken a wrong turning. She had stumbled into another tunnel, one of several side tunnels, one in which she had soon been trapped. But Hamilton, a quarter of an hour after her capture, bruised and aching, half in shock, scarcely able to walk, wrists bound, on a leather neck tether, had been dragged into the cave of the Men, behind captors. They had found it. She watched while, with rocks, and spear points, reaching high places, they systematically defaced the walls, scraping away the glories which Drawer, years before, had placed there. Then she was dragged after them. Perhaps they wished to injure or impair the magic of the Men. Perhaps, in their hatred, they wished only to destroy what was beautiful. But when they left the antelope the bison, the lions were gone. Even the hands, reaching for what Hamilton did not know, nor even Old Woman, were scraped away.

In the cell, Hamilton wept. Had she not led the men into the cave they might not have found the drawings. Hamilton wondered if it would be better if Old Woman were dead, that she never learn what had been done in the cave of the Men, what had befallen the work of Drawer, one for whom she had once cared, one whose works, remaining behind him, she had treasured. The antelope, the bison, the wolves, the lions, were gone. Drawer was dead. And there was left only the rock.

The grille was thrust back. Hamilton, startled, looked up. The bearded fellow, he who seemed to be a leader, stood above. He shouted down, pointing. In his hand he held loops of rawhide rope. Hamilton shrank back, but he was not pointing to her.

Flower, unsteadily, frightened, rose to her feet. She looked up. A loop of the rope was dropped about her body. It tightened. She was drawn; easily, hand over hand, from the pit. When she was on her feet, standing near the top edge of the pit, the rope was removed from her body. Hamilton saw another man take her by the hair, bending her over, and pull her away. Then the bearded man was again scrutinizing them. He’ looked from one to another, intent, apparently, on recognizing one among them. He looked at Hamilton. Then he pointed. Hamilton almost fainted. But it was not she at whom he pointed. Cloud, terrified, trembling, stood up, half crouching down. Then the rope dropped about her and tightened, and she, like Flower, was drawn upward. At the top of the pit, when she was standing on the surface, the rope was removed from her body and she, too, like Flower, bent over, her hair in the hand of a captor, was dragged away. The bearded man then again regarded the women in the pit. They shrank back. Then the grille was replaced.

An hour later a leather bucket, on a rope, was lowered through the grille. It contained water. The women looked at one another. Then they fought, on their knees, hands tied behind them, biting, shouldering to thrust their face into the water. Hamilton drank first. Water spilled. She heard the laughter of girls above, and saw the red-haired girl, and the darkhaired one, watching. They called out to the prisoners, laughing, and jeering them in the speech of the Weasel People. Only Ugly Girl, who was not even of the women of the Men, did not participate in the struggle for the water. She waited and, after the others had satisfied themselves, after Butterfly, drank. The bucket, emptied, its hide collapsed, to the laughter of the two girls, was jerked upward. The women of the Men, angrily, regarded one another. Then two handfuls of roots and apples were flung to them. Again the women fought. Antelope cried out shrilly. Hamilton kicked at her viciously, then fell, and, squirming, tried to get her teeth on an apple. She had pinned it against the side of the cell when, from behind her, Squirrel bit her in the left calf and she cried out with pain, jerking, losing the fruit. Squirrel was on it, scrambling, in an instant, trying to hold it. Hamilton bit at her shoulder, shrieking. Then Antelope kicked at Hamilton and Hamilton, unable to protect herself, caught Antelope’s heel in her stomach. Hamilton reeled, unable to breathe, against the wall, and slid down its side to the floor. She lay there in misery. The thought struck her that had there been a man present there would have been no fighting. He would have eaten first, and then he would have set them the order in which they would feed. Why are we doing this, Hamilton asked herself. We are females, she thought. There is no man to impose order on us. When she could, she crawled to a piece of root and bit it, eating it. She saw that Ugly Girl, crouching teeth bared, was protecting the pregnant girl behind her. She had found her an apple and two roots, and stood between her and the others. Hamilton eyed the food. Ugly Girl snarled at her. Hamilton clenched her fists, bound behind her back. If one of the girls had had the use of her hands, she would have been undisputed queen in the cell. Ugly Girl snarled again. “I do not want her food,” said Hamilton, backing away. Hamilton sat back against the wall again. Strange, she thought, that Ugly Girl, not even of the women of the Men, keeps the law of

Spear, that pregnant women are to be protected and fed. Hamilton did not know, of course, but that, too, was a law of the Ugly People. Ugly Girl, perhaps in her simplicity, did not distinguish in the matter of this law whether one was of the Ugly People, or of the Men, or perhaps even of the Weasel People. The pregnant woman must be protected and fed. It did not matter to Ugly Girl, in her simplicity, of what people the woman might be. That the woman was vulnerable, that she needed help, that there stirred in her belly the beauty of life meant all that needed to be meant to Ugly Girl. Ugly Girl could not speak the language of the Men; she could not even form its sounds; but she stood between the pregnant girl one of the women of the Men, and the others, her teeth bared.

“We will not take her food,” said Antelope.

“No,” said Hamilton.

The next day the grille was again thrust back. Again the bearded man loomed at the top of the pit, looking into it, again the rawhide rope looped in his right hand.

He looked from face to face. Then he pointed to one of the women.

“Stand up,” said Antelope.

“No!” cried Hamilton, shrinking back.

“Get up, you fool!” said Antelope.

Hamilton looked up. The man gestured to her, roughly. Terrified, scarcely able to stand, she rose to her feet.

She had wanted desperately to be free of the pit, its filth, its stone, its confinement, its crowding, the struggles, bound, humiliating and vicious, for a mouthful of water, a scrap of food. But now she wanted only to shrink back, to stay in its protection, to remain with the other women, even Ugly Girl. Why did they not take Antelope? She looked up, agonized. It was she, Hamilton, only Hamilton, who had been singled out.

She felt the rope drop about her.

“Perhaps they will eat her?” said Butterfly. “Perhaps Flower and Cloud have already been eaten!”

Hamilton tried to jerk away, but she only tightened the rope. It was now about her waist. Terrified she turned and tried to run but the rope, tight in her flesh, stopped her. She pulled against it; it burned in her belly. She turned and, looking up, faced the man. The man was not pleased. The rope was taut. She tried to back away. But his eyes stopped her. Then, angrily, he jerked her toward him. She spun, stumbled and then, her feet off the ground, swung, striking, hard, with her shoulder, the wall of stone. Swiftly, her burden nothing to his strength, he drew her from the pit. At the surface he threw her to his feet and, removing the rope from about her body, knotted it about her neck, making of it a tether. The two girls of the Weasel People, whom she had seen before, were standing near, apparently waiting to take charge of her. The shorter one took up the free end of the tether. The girl with the bright red hair held a switch. She struck Hamilton once with it. Hamilton scrambled to her feet. She felt a jerk on the tether and, stumbling, followed the shorter girl. The red-haired girl, following them, struck her twice more, to hurry her. Hamilton heard the bearded man replacing the grille. He was apparently no longer concerned with her. She was only a slave. The free women could handle her.