The Kin (20 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

The Moonhawks stayed at the caves for only one day. They found that this part of the canyon had been heavily foraged and hunted, so there was very little to eat here. Even the grey swimming creatures Tor had shown them how to catch were small and scarce.

Suth, in any case, wanted to move on.

“This is not our place, Noli,” he said suddenly as they sat by the fire that evening. “It is a Good Place, but …”

He paused, and looked her in the eyes.

“Do they live, Noli?” he asked.

She knew at once that he was talking about the rest of the Moonhawk Kin whom she and Suth had left sleeping in the desert when they turned back to rescue Tinu and the small ones. Had they found the canyon and water and food? Or had they died in the desert, never realizing that the canyon was there?

Noli shook her head.

“Suth, I do not know,” she said.

He frowned and sat silent.

“I think they live,” he said decisively. “Tomorrow we look for them.”

Tor seemed just as anxious to move on—for much the same reason, Noli guessed: to see if any of his own people had survived the earthquake, further along the canyon. So the next morning, Tinu wetted the fire log again and smeared its inside with fresh paste and packed it with embers and sealed it, and they moved on. The river zigzagged to and fro, so that they kept having to cross it, but Tor knew the best places.

Gradually the floor of the canyon dropped away and the cliffs on either side became higher. Noli had never been anywhere like this before, with the unknown trees and birds—several different kinds of them, now—and the towering dark cliffs, and the river foaming white as it tumbled down a slope of boulders …

And something else …

Her whole skin crawled. She felt the hair at the base of her neck stir of its own accord.

A thought slid into her mind. More than a thought, a knowledge.

A First One is here
.

In her wonderment she had fallen behind the others. Now she stopped and lowered Otan to the ground. He stood, holding on to her leg and looking up at her. She didn't see him.

She didn't see the others moving on down the canyon.

She raised her right hand with its fingers spread, the gesture of greeting. The words came into her mouth. She whispered them.

First One, we come to your place
.

We pass through
.

We drink your water, we eat your berries
.

We know these are not ours
.

They are yours, First One
.

We, Moonhawk, thank
.

There was no answer, but the pressure on her mind eased. The hair at her nape settled back, and the tingling of her skin died slowly away. As she picked up Otan and hurried after the others, she wasn't sure whether the First One had gone completely or whether it had only withdrawn and was watching them now from somewhere high on the cliffs.

She had hardly caught up when Suth called a halt where the river spilled over a ledge and became a waterfall, higher than a man. The small ones were thrilled by the roaring white water flowing ceaselessly down. There were three trees close by, with shade beneath them, and fine spray from the fall drifted across, delicious in the noon heat.

“People rest here often, I think,” said Suth, sniffing the air. “Yes, see, there are wing nut shells.”

Noli barely noticed what Suth was talking about.

“Mana, you feed my brother,” she said, putting Otan down. “I thank. Suth, I do not eat now. I go over there. I go alone … Suth, a First One is here.”

He stared at her, startled.

“Moonhawk?” he asked hopefully.

“Suth, we do not know this First One. It is not Moonhawk, not Monkey, not Ant Mother or Weaver or any of the others. I do not know its name.”

Suth's eyes became wider still. His mouth opened. The idea was as astonishing to him as it was to her. The First Ones were the First Ones. There were ten of them. How could there be any more?

Noli moved off and chose a place out of sight of the others, a narrow strip of shade on the far side of a large boulder. She sat, crossed her legs, folded her arms, straightened her back, and began to breathe in the slowest, deepest breaths that she could manage.

She'd never tried this before. Moonhawk had come to her only in dreams, and once or twice suddenly, unasked, in the daytime. But she had seen Bal, their leader, sitting like this, breathing like this, waiting. Then he'd shudder and his eyes would roll up and perhaps he'd froth at the lips and speak with a voice that wasn't his own. Or perhaps he'd yawn and lie down, instantly asleep, and when he woke tell everyone his dream.

So Noli sat and breathed and waited. She emptied herself of thoughts, of feelings. Her eyes were open, but she didn't see the sunlit cliff ahead of her or the rocks and bushes around her. She didn't hear the birdcalls or the snoring rush of the waterfall. She didn't feel the fierce noon heat or the hardness of the rock on which she was sitting, or notice how long she had sat there, a few moments or half the afternoon.

Nothing happened. She was certain a First One was there, not just close by but all around her, and yet it did nothing. It spoke no words to her. It made no pictures in her mind. It seemed to be just waiting, like her.

At last, a thought came to her. It didn't come from the First One. It was her own thought, slipping quietly into the emptiness she'd made.

It cannot speak to me. It is like Tor. It has no words
.

The thought broke her trance. She saw cliffs and bushes, and felt the afternoon heat and the hard rock beneath her. She heard sounds. New sounds.

Above the birdcalls and the waterfall, there were voices. Grunts and barks and cries, such as Tor used. The voices were angry.

Staggering with stiffness, she moved to see. There were people under the trees, brown-skinned like Tor, gathered in an excited huddle. She couldn't see Suth and the others.

She ran towards them, but stopped a little way off. Nobody had noticed her yet. She could see Suth now, with Tinu just behind him. They had their backs to a boulder. She still couldn't see the small ones. Suth's digging stick was half raised, and his hair was bushed right out. Facing him were several brown-skinned men. They had hands raised too, holding stones.

She moved a little and saw that Tor was there, between Suth and the men, nursing his bandaged arm as he faced them, snarling. They looked angry and uncertain. Noli guessed that these people must have arrived suddenly, expecting to have their midday rest under the trees, and the Moonhawks hadn't noticed them coming because of the noise of the waterfall. And if it weren't for Tor, the men would have attacked Suth, and perhaps even killed him, for foraging in one of their places without permission. Now they weren't sure.

Noli took a deep breath and was just going to rush in and join Suth and try to plead with the men, when something brushed past her. Nothing she could see, but …

There! That woman, standing at the edge of the group, with a small baby on her hip and a gourd slung at her back. Her head was turned, as if someone had called to her. Her eyes were round, her mouth half open.

Noli understood in an instant.

The First One comes to her!

She ran and touched the woman's arm, and then kneeled and pattered her palms on the ground, the sign the Kin used for
I submit. Do not strike me
. When she rose, the woman was staring dazedly at her, still half in her trance. Noli took her hand and led her to the front of the group. The woman didn't resist.

By now two of the men had grabbed hold of Tor and were pulling him out of the way. Noli let go of the woman and ran to him and put her arm around him, trying to tell these people,
See, we are friends
.

A man snarled and cuffed her aside, but then the woman was there, holding him by the arm to stop him hitting Noli again. He tried to shake her off, but she clung on, calling shrilly.

Other women joined in. Noli was knocked to the ground, and crawled clear with her head ringing. She stood, waiting for an opening so that she could dart in and try to snatch Otan out of the crush, but before she got the chance the shouting quieted and the men drew back, though they looked as angry as ever.

Tinu had been trying to shield Otan between herself and the boulder, but Tor was there before Noli, grunting urgently and pointing at the fire log slung from Tinu's shoulder. Just as vehemently, he broke a few twigs from the nearest bush, put them on the ground, blew on them, then pointed at the fire log again. He gestured to the newcomers to come nearer.

“Suth,” shouted Noli. “Tor says,
Make fire. Show these people!
”

Suth didn't hesitate. He moved his digging stick to his left hand and lowered it to the ground. Then he drew himself up and raised his right hand in the greeting gesture. His hair settled.

“Come,” he said confidently, and turned away. Luckily the strangers' curiosity was stronger than their anger now, and they came.

Suth led them clear of the spray from the fall and chose a place for the fire. The Moonhawks gathered dry stuff. Tinu kneeled and tipped the embers out of the fire log. They were still very hot, and as soon as she fed them smoke rose and the flames bit. Very soon there was a good fire going, and the strangers had joined in the fuel gathering, throwing whole branches onto the fire and laughing with glee. When the fire became too hot to stand near, they moved back under the trees to rest.

Noli saw the woman who had helped her settling down and getting ready to feed her baby, so she went over and kneeled in front of her, bowed her head, and put her palms together.

“I, Noli, thank,” she said slowly.

For a moment the woman looked puzzled. Then she smiled and put her baby down. She took Noli's right hand in hers and patted it gently with her left. This wasn't a gesture that the Kin used, but its meaning was clear:
We are friends
.

They smiled at each other, and Noli went back to the Moonhawks.

Later most of the newcomers left in small groups and spread out up and down the canyon, looking for food. Before long it became clear that they were all expecting to camp here for the night, because this was where the fire was, and they didn't want to leave it.

“I say this,” said Suth. “These people know fire. They do not know fire logs. They are glad of fire. But they cannot carry it from this camp to another camp.”

“They know other stuff, Suth,” said Noli. “People stuff. They make cutters. They use gourds. They are people.”

Suth grunted agreement, but frowned, still thinking.

“Noli,” he said. “You say there is a First One here. Is it the First One of these people?”

Noli was feeling ordinary now, with none of that strangeness inside her, or outside. She knew what it had been like, sitting alone, emptying herself, waiting, but it wasn't part of her now. It belonged to the nighttime Noli, the one to whom Moonhawk used to come. Thinking about it was like remembering a dream. You can say,
This happened in my dream
, but you can't go back and dream the dream again.

“Suth, I do not know,” she said. “This First One comes also to one of their women. I saw this. And in the cave it woke her. It woke her before the rocks fell. She called to her people. They woke. They ran from the cave. They were safe when the rocks fell … Suth, I think this First One does not have words.”

Suth nodded. “It is their First One,” he said decisively, and looked around. Except for Tor and one or two others, they were alone under the trees now.

“Now we find food,” he said.

“Do these people allow this?” asked Noli. “This is their Good Place.”

“We give a gift,” said Suth, reasonably. “It is fire. They are glad of it.”

“They are not Kin,” said Noli. “They do not know Kin stuff.”

“We see,” said Suth. “They stop us, we go. They allow us, we stay. Tomorrow we go. Tor stays. These are his people. They care for him.”

Noli was sad about that, though she knew it was probably for the best. She liked Tor, he was so friendly and helpful. He knew things about the canyon that the Moonhawks didn't. And though he seemed glad to be back with his own kind of people, she could see he was waiting now to see that the Moonhawks were all right, as if they meant something special to him.

They learned more that afternoon. The canyon people didn't seem to mind the Moonhawks foraging in their Good Place, and after a while they came across the woman who'd helped Noli during that first terrifying encounter. There was nothing strange about her now. She seemed friendly and ordinary.

The woman was wading up to her knees in the river when they found her, and Noli guessed she was hunting for the grey swimming creatures. But while they watched, she bent and lifted a rock from the riverbed and carried it to the bank. She laid it down, crouched beside it, and started to bang at it with a smaller rock.

Coming closer, the Moonhawks saw that she was hammering at some small grey lumps that grew on it. They wouldn't have recognized them as food, but then the woman knocked one loose, turned it over, and scooped out its insides with her front teeth. She handed the next one to Noli to try. There wasn't much of it, but it was salty and delicious. After that Ko and Mana had a great time splashing in and out of the shallows, while the older Moonhawks hunted for more of the things. Were they some kind of water nut? Noli wondered.

They all ate together by the fire that evening, and then slept in the drifting smoke to keep the mosquitoes at bay. But in the morning, as the Moonhawks got ready to leave, there was trouble.

Tinu wetted and pasted and filled the fire log as usual. The embers hissed as they touched the damp paste, and a cloud of steam rose. Several of the canyon people came to watch, which Tinu, of course, hated. Shyer than ever with those strangers, she huddled down as if she was trying not to be noticed, and perhaps that made them suspicious. Somebody must have gone and told their leader, and he came over with three of the other men.