The Thinking Rocks (34 page)

Cano staggered through
the water and over to Gennos's dugout.  As he approached he cast a look
toward Na'pe and then over at his brother. “I don't feel right about telling
you this in front of Na'pe. But, it’s important and she will need to know
sooner or later."

Gennos heard the serious
tone in his brother's voice.  He glanced around quickly, looking for any
danger or treats that Cano may have seen.  He could see nothing.

"Danger is near
brother, can you see it?" Cano said in a low voice, as he looked back
upriver.

Gennos twisted around to
see what it was that Cano meant. He still couldn't see any danger. He turned
back and looked at Cano who had his head down and was speaking softly. Gennos
couldn't hear what he said.

Cano had moved closer to
the dugout and said something again.  Gennos still couldn't hear what it
was and he leaned closer to him so that he could hear.

Cano glanced
back at Na'pe who was sitting silently; he started to say something and then
grabbed his brother by the arm and jerked him into the river.  His brother
came up sputtering and shook the hair from his eyes.

"What I
wanted to say was, you are all wet!" Cano said.

Gennos lunged
at Cano and soon they were in a good water fight.  Whiteface barked and
Dola stayed out of the way so that he wouldn't get pulled into the water.

Na'pe stood up in the
dugout and stretched, and then she stepped over the side and into the water. She
waded over to where the brothers were trying to drown each other.
"Stop!" she shouted.  She looked toward the shore behind Dola.

At the sound of her
voice the brothers stopped fighting and looked at her. The serious look on her
face caused the smiles to fade from their faces.

"There is something
that you both must know," she said.

The brothers scanned the
island where she had been looking; neither of them could see any danger. They
both turned toward her and stood still.

She moved close to them,
"I wanted to tell you," and then she said something very softly that
they couldn't hear.

Both brothers said
"What?" at the same time.

She moved closer and
said, "I love water fights," and pushed them both backwards. They
went down with a splash, but came back up quickly.  She shrieked and
splashed water on them.  They tried to grab her, but she was quick and was
able to stay out of reach.  It was at this time that Dola came splashing
into the melee.

Whiteface stood in the dugout
and watched his pack in the water.  Strange, very strange.

In
retrospect, the slashing in the river may have seemed foolish, but they had
needed to purge themselves of the feelings of being prisoners, and the lack of
self worth that traveled with it.  The despair that they had lived with
was being replaced with hope and a feeling of well being.  They knew that
Lomasi would continue to follow them and that unless they were lucky they would
meet again. Additionally, there were untold dangers in the river and in the
forests to come.  They still had a long way to travel before they would be
safe with Na'pe's people.  Nevertheless, they were free.  They had
food and they could stop to rest when they wanted.  They were now able to
cast off the invisible shroud that they had all been wearing.  The waters
of the river had not been able to wash away all pain and worry, but they were
able to bathe them in hope and provide a cloak of companionship.

Marks in the sand

Later, when they were
sitting around a warm fire and they had eaten their fill, they discussed what
had happened since they had parted.  Cano and Dola each told of their
escapes and their meeting at the river.  Cano told of the cave, and the
snakes, and finally about the bones he had found.  He showed everyone the
strange black rock and then demonstrated its sharpness.  Then he went to
the dugout and retrieved the short spears he had found at the cave.  They
had the same kind of black points as the cutting stone.  The spears were
quite strange, not just because of their small size, but for other reasons.
Some of them had pieces of feather on the opposite end of the points, and there
was a notch in the end of the shaft.

Gennos was very curious
about the body and the spears. He asked Cano, "Had the bones been there a
long time?"

"I think so, there
was no smell.  Also, I think he had been there a long time because of the
marks on the wall."

"What marks on the
wall?" asked Gennos.

"I don't know how
to say this.  I found strange marks on the wall, and I think they are
important; the dead man must have made them.  They looked like this."
Cano tried to make the marks on the ground, but there were too many rocks and
things growing to show what he had seen.  He looked around until he saw a
place that was sandy and had few pebbles.  He motioned Gennos over and
then smoothed the sand with his hand. It took him a while to make the marks as
he remembered them.  The small group stood silently by while he worked.
"I think they looked like this," he said after he had finished. “I
don't remember what they all looked like, but some of them were like
this." he said. "Look at this mark," he pointed to one of the
marks, "I think it shows the man who died."

Gennos squatted down and
looked at the marks on the ground.  He studied them for a few moments
before looking up. "Why do you say that?"

"The
man's leg was broken."  He pointed again to the marks he had made and
then pointed to a line at the bottom of one of the marks. This mark is
different," he pointed at another mark, "than this one. The dead
man's broken leg is on the same side as this mark.  I think these marks
tell us that the dead man's leg was broken."  He paused and looked
into Gennos eyes, "I think the marks tell us a story.  The marks tell
us what happened."

Gennos became excited,
"I think you are right, the marks must mean a man with a broken
leg."  He paused for a moment, thinking.  “Cano, remember when
we were back in our old clan?  Koonai was making marks on the ground for
the women to step over and said they were like the banks of a river?"

Cano nodded as Gennos
continued. "This is the same kind of thing, but it means more." 
He was excited and could see that his brother was too.

Na'pe and Dola were
looking at the marks in the sand with the brothers.  Na'pe made the
statement, "Then the other marks must mean something".  She
leaned closer to Gennos and put one of her hands on his shoulder, she pointed
with her other hand to the group of twisted lines, "What do you think
those mean?"

Gennos couldn't
talk.  Her touch and closeness wiped any coherent thought from his brain.
He turned and looked into her eyes, his mind went blank.  He forgot
everything and could say nothing.

Na'pe saw the look on
his face and inherently knew it for what it was.  The female of the species
seems to operate from a different set of rules when it comes to interacting
with males.  They are subtle and effective when the situation requires
it.  She had seen signs that Gennos was more than casually interested in
her, and this display was sealing his fate.  She knew she had him if she
wanted. She also knew that now was not the time to push.  Later she would
lead him to the next level of interaction.  She gently removed her hand
from his shoulder and leaned away from him. Before she could say anything Cano
interrupted.

"I think they are
supposed to be snakes.  They are below the man." He paused and then
said "I think he was trying to tell us a story about himself." He
looked around at his companions.

Gennos slowly seemed to
remove himself from a cloud. A look of awareness returned to his eyes, he
became aware of where he was and what they were discussing.  "Snakes,
that could be it. A man with a broken leg; above many snakes.  Yes, that
could be right.  He must have been a great man to have known how to do
this."

Dola looked
doubtful.  "He couldn't have been too great if he died in a hole with
a broken leg."

Gennos seemed to be his
old self again.  He said, "We all die someplace and sometime."
After a few moments of thought he continued, "I doubt that any of us would
pick the time and place where we will die. We will want to live as long as we
can.  But we all die someday.  We don't know who this man was or what
he was doing, but we know he left part of a story to tell what happened. When we
each die what will we leave behind?  Will anyone ever know who we are or
what we did?"

Dola had listened
quietly, and he said, "I don't know.  I still have a lot to learn,
but I wonder; does it matter?  He lived and died.  We live and
die.  Who cares?"

Gennos answered quietly,
"You have answered your own question.  You care.  You came back
to help Na'pe and me.  You care for the little wolf."  He
hesitated and gathered his thoughts. “Some people like Lomasi care only for themselves."

Dola looked uncertain,
"I don't see how caring about the little wolf can have anything to do with
the marks in the sand.  Why do you think they are important? Are they
magic?"

Gennos answered quickly,
it was apparent that he was excited; “These marks aren't magic. They are much
more important than magic."  He stopped for a moment before
continuing. "Magic is something we don't understand.  If something
happens and we don't understand it, we can say that it happened like
magic.  If something happens and we know why it happened, then we don't
say it was magic.  We know why it happened.  The magic is not
there.  We say Magic when we don't understand.  These marks aren't
magic, they are a story.  The dead man made the marks and we know what he
wanted us to know.  This is important.  These marks let us know what
a dead man knew.  This is more important than magic.  It is easy to
say what we don't know is magic. It’s much more difficult and important to say
what we do know.  These marks let us know something that a dead man
knew."

"I hear what you
are saying, but I don't understand. Why are these marks so important?  I
can't eat them. They won't keep me warm at night.  They won't help me if
Lomasi comes again."

"You are right;
these marks aren't powerful enough to help you with these problems. They have a
different kind of power, I don't understand it yet, but I feel that as we learn
about it, we will understand the power it does have better."  Gennos
turned to Cano, "Tell me about the other marks."

"These marks look
like an animal to me," he said indicating another figure on the ground,
"and these marks are like spears stuck in it."  He moved his
hand across the drawing until he came to another mark. "It seems to me
that the ‘spears’ came from here." He looked up at the faces of the small
group.  "This mark looks like the one of the dead man, except his leg
isn't broken."

Gennos said, "I
think you are right, but I think there is a problem.  The spears do seem
to go from the man to the animal, but look at the mark for the man. Look at the
way he holds the spear thrower. He has one arm out in front of him and the
other is behind his head.  How could he throw anything like that? And
look, he is also holding the spear thrower in the middle and with the wrong
hand. How could he use it like that?"

Cano shook his head,
"I don't know."  He thought for a few moments before continuing.
"There was another thing in the cave that I didn't bring; I didn't think
that it was important." He paused again, "It was like a short heavy
spear with no point.  It was bent and had rawhide strings on each
end.  It was about this long," he measured a distance with his hands.
"I didn't think it was important, I thought he might have used it to carry
the short spears."

"Did the rawhide go
from one end of the wood to the other end?” asked Gennos.

"No" Cano
answered.  The rawhide was old and broken; it was only on the ends of the
bent piece of wood.  He hesitated, and then said, "Maybe it did, and
the rawhide fell apart when I touched it.  I really couldn't tell."

Gennos nodded and then
went back to the drawings in the sand.  He was looking at another part of
Cano's drawing.  It was a large long marking with a series of things along
the top.

As Na’pe moved to the
side, she avoided touching him so that he would be able to answer. 
"What do you think it is?"

He kept studying the
marks without looking up.  "I don't know.  Any ideas Cano?"

"None at all. The
things on top are the same as on the wall in the cave.  There were a lot
of marks so I put a finger on each mark and then did the same here.  They
are the same, but I don't know what they mean."  He paused and then
said, "I forgot something."  He quickly made some more marks by
the long thing.  The marks were similar to the snake marks, except that
the snake marks went in all different directions. These marks all went the same
way as the long mark, but they were all around the bottom of it.  There,
does that help any?"

Gennos kept examining
the drawing, "Maybe snakes again, under something long?"

They all
quietly studied the marks until Dola spoke. “I’m probably wrong, but this
reminds me of something.  When I reached the river, I didn't know how I
was going to get across.  I was trying to think of a way when I saw a
turtle floating by on a log.  I thought if he can do it so could I. 
I found a log and held on as I floated across.  What I think is that those
marks on the long thing are sort of like turtles on a log," He paused and
then said "and maybe the ‘snakes’ aren't snakes.  They could mean
water."  He stood quietly; everyone was looking at him.