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  “The smoke,” Pell said, still looking at the smoldering tip of the stick, his head cocked to one side.

  “What about the smoke?”

  “Look at it,” Pell said, slowly moving the smoldering stick around the opening to the smoke guide. “It isn’t just that the smoke guide is over the fire and catches the smoke and guides it out the opening up above like I was hoping. It’s as if there’s a little wind, even out here, that’s blowing the smoke into the smoke guide.” He tilted his head curiously, “Or, as if the mouth of the smoke guide is sucking the smoke into itself?” He shook his head as if to clear a distraction. “Do you see the smoke from this stick blowing from out here into the opening for the fire?

  Sandro stared. It was true! No wonder there was so little smoke out in the cave if some kind of small winds were rounding the smoke up and blowing it into the smoke guide!

  Slowly, Pell said, “You know how, when you’re trying to start a fire from a coal kept in a fire-keeper, the first thing you do is blow on the coal to heat it up? I’ll bet the little winds that are blowing the smoke into the smoke guide… I’ll bet they’re also blowing on the coals in the fire, making it hotter.” He turned to look up at Sandro, “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know; I guess?”

  Pell turned and looked behind him, evidently seeking another opinion. The old woman was laying there with her eyes open, watching and listening to their conversation. Pell said, “What do you think, Agan?

  Speaking slowly, she said, “I’ve also noticed that the fire was hotter, but didn’t have an explanation for it. Little winds blowing into the opening of the smoke guide would explain why so little smoke escapes and why the fire’s hotter… But what makes the winds? Little invisible spirits flying around the cave and blowing toward the opening in the guide?”

  Pell laughed delightedly, “Every answer just poses another question, doesn’t it?” He looked back toward the chimney and said musingly, “Still, the smoke guide works far better than I would ever have dreamed!”

  Sandro, his eyes focused on the elderly woman, said with some awe, “You’re Agan? The famous old medicine woman from Aganstribe?!”

  She nodded wearily.

  “But…! Almost everyone in Aganstribe died in the big flood last year!”

  “Yes, we’re dreadfully aware of that sad fact,” the beautiful young Gia said in a sadly sarcastic tone.

  “No, I mean, there were only two survivors! One who washed up with us at the lower river, and another who managed to get out of the river at the falls.” He paused, but when Agan turned to stare at Gia without saying anything more, he said, “Hargis, who came ashore with us, hiked up to the Aganstribe cave to find his people but it’d been washed clean with no evidence of survivors. He only found one other person who survived, the woman who lives with the falls people now.”

  Gia, her eyes filled with unshed tears, said, “What was the woman’s name?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know,” Sandro said. “Are both of you from Aganstribe?”

  “Yes, and Panute, Deltin, Manute, and Falin as well. Six of us.” She turned to Agan, “We should have had someone follow the river all the way down to the sea, looking for the rest of our tribe!”

  Sadly, Agan said, “We were too busy worrying about whether we’d survive the winter ourselves. Now that we’re strong again,” she glanced at Pell, “someone could go this summer.”

  Gia rose uncertainly to her feet, “Shouldn’t we go now?!”

  Agan slowly shook her head, “Anyone who needed our help right away is already…” she stopped without uttering whatever final despairing words she’d been thinking. “Whoever else might still be out there can wait for us to get there a little later. That way we can all travel together to one of the trading areas. A few of us can go on down the river to find any other survivors while the rest come back with whatever goods we trade for.”

  Gia looked like she might protest, but then she sat back down.

  “When you come,” Sandro said, “we of the Lower River tribe will certainly welcome you after what you’ve done for Jomay.”

  ***

  As Pell got up to leave the cave, Ginja rose to go out with him. She’d taken to resting and sleeping in a small recess back in the depths of the cave. It was in an area that would have been untenable in the past because it would have been filled with smoke. In fact, her recess was quite close to the high shelf where they’d put their meat to smoke.

  Thinking of that, he turned to look at the smoke hole in the wall of the cave. When they’d realized their chimney worked so well at carrying away the smoke that none was left to rise into the back of the cave and smoke their meat there’d been some consternation. For a while they’d debated removing the smoke guide so they could keep making spirit meat, even though everyone preferred living in the cave without the smoke. However, one day Pell came home from checking the trap line to find Deltin standing on Tando’s shoulders below the smoke hole, suspending a pole down into the chimney.

  It turned out that Tando’d decided they might be able to hang their meat strips inside the chimney to smoke. Deltin thought that whatever they might use to hang the meat on might catch fire in the chimney, so the pole was a test of that possibility.

  When they pulled the pole out the next day it’d dried and turned black at the deep end. But it hadn’t caught fire. Deltin cut down a small tree with dense branches and trimmed the branches short enough it could be slid into the smoke hole after the branches were loaded with meat.

  It worked pretty well, with the branches down closer to the fire making the hard jerky that would keep for a long time and the higher ones making the softer jerky that was tastier. The only problem was that it was so difficult to slide the little tree into the chimney from the top while standing unsteadily on another man’s shoulders. Someone’s going to fall and get hurt, Pell thought.

  Pell sat out on the ledge, one arm around Ginja. He scratched behind her ears while he stared up at the smoke hole and tried to think of a solution. Noticing her bulk, he turned to look at her, She’s getting fat!

  After a moment, he decided that wasn’t a bad thing. Like humans, she needed to put weight on before winter in order to get through times when there wasn’t enough food. But, if she’s already fat in late spring, I wonder how heavy she’s going to get by the end of summer?

  He turned back to the problem of suspending the meat in the smoke hole. I could stack rocks beneath the hole. Then we could climb up on them to work at the top of the chimney. However, he kept envisioning the rocks rolling away, letting whoever had climbed them fall. That brought a memory of rocks falling down on to the path to the cave where it came up the ledge.

  The rocks that’d killed Roley and Denit when they’d come to attack the Cold Springs clan.

  The rocks that may have saved Pell’s life.

  He got up and walked along the ledge. He could still see those rocks, though grass and other vegetation had grown up around them. Unfortunately, they seemed kind of round—thus more likely to roll away if he stacked them up. Maybe we could put mud in between them like we do between the sticks for the wall of the cave? He sat down again and wondered whether the mud—once it had dried—would be strong enough to secure the rocks so they wouldn’t roll. Or maybe Deltin could build something out of wood?

  Deltin came out of the cave then. He snorted, “I hope you know just how crazy it seems to walk out here and find you sitting there with your arm around that oversized wolf?”

  Pell turned to look fondly at the wolf and she licked his face. “What wolf? Ginja’s my second mate.”

  Deltin snorted again, “I’ll remind you that you and Gia aren’t mated yet. So, if Ginja’s your mate, she’d be your first mate and Gia would be your second mate!”

  To Pell’s dismay, Gia had just exited the cave as Deltin spoke. She said, “I’d be your second mate?! Who’d you mate the first time?!”

  “He says he’s mated to the wolf!” Deltin said with
a laugh.

  “Oh,” Gia said, coming over to scratch the wolf herself. “Well, that’s okay then. Ginja would make a fine first mate.” Her eyes twinkled as she smiled at Pell, “She’ll be able to tell me how to keep him in line.”

  After a little more banter, which Pell definitely felt he got the worst of, Gia headed down to the stream to fill a water skin. Pell asked Deltin about building something out of wood to stand on while putting the meat into the chimney. He’d first described his idea about stacking rocks and Deltin got the idea that he wanted to stack logs instead. “Are you crazy?!” Deltin said, staring at Pell with wide eyes. “Logs might not roll, you could leave branches sticking out of them to prevent it. But big logs are nearly as heavy as rocks. And, just cutting down a tree that big around is really hard work! Then, you’re talking about cutting through it again and again to make short logs?!” Deltin grinned and lifted an eyebrow, “Of course, I’d be happy to watch you do it and offer suggestions?”

  Pell laughed, “No. No, if you say it’s too hard, I trust you. But, remember that frame of little sticks you tied together for us to suspend the meat in the back of the cave?”

  Deltin nodded slowly, a suspicious look on his face.

  “Maybe you could build something like that, but bigger and heavier so people could climb up on it?”

  Deltin got an interested look on his face, then turned to look at the smoke hole and the wall beneath it. “I don’t think you could tie something together strongly enough for people to stand on…” he said slowly. “But, maybe…”

  “Maybe what?”

  Deltin turned to grin at Pell, “Maybe nothing. I’ll think about it.” As he walked away, Pell heard him say, “Can’t have you be the only one having new ideas around here, can we?”

  Pell protested, “Other people have new ideas all the time!”

  Deltin snorted, but didn’t turn or look back.

  After Gia returned and dropped off the water skin, she came back out to sit next to Pell. “I’m realizing we should have our mating ceremony sometime soon.” She turned to look up at him with a twinkle in her eye, “Otherwise, the way things are going, I might wind up being your third mate.”

  “You may be my second mate after Ginja, but you’ll be my first mate in terms of precedence and honor,” Pell said, trying to look serious.

  She nudged him, “Now you’re trying to sweet talk me.” She put on a fake pout, “This right after I’ve learned that I’m going to be the second mate!”

  Pell put an arm around her, thinking about how happy he felt. “When do you want to have the ceremony?”

  “In a hand of days? I still have a few things to finish on my costume.”

  Pell stared at her wide-eyed, “Costume?!”

  Gia nodded.

  “Am I supposed to wear one?!”

  Drawing away, she frowned at him disbelievingly, “Of course! You don’t have it ready?”

  “Um…” Pell said with a rising feeling of horror. In a small voice, he said, “I didn’t know…”

  Gia rolled her eyes, “Of course you didn’t. Men never care about the mating ceremony…” She sat staring sadly off across the meadow and he feared she was about to cry. But then she looked at him out of the corner of her eye and turned a sly smile his way, “That’s why Donte and I have been making you a costume. We knew you couldn’t be relied upon to take care of such details yourself.”

  Pell hung his head sheepishly, “That’s true,” he said in as sad a tone as he could generate, hoping she couldn’t detect the relief coursing through his veins.

  ***

  Pell turned left out of the cave on his way up the ravine to practice throwing rocks and spears. He heard Gia’s voice calling. When he looked, he saw Gia and Donte just ahead, waving as if they wanted him to come to them. He waved back as he started in their direction.

  They were sitting on the boulder where Donte usually prepared her fruit for drying. The spot was at the base of the path up the small rocky cliff to the ledge where she set the fruit out to dry under baskets. The boulder provided a convenient place to slice apples, damsons, and pears. She flattened raspberries there, as well as splitting and deseeding grapes. As Pell walked up to them, he looked around and said, “Have you found fruit for drying so early in the season?”

  “No. But I’ve found something else you asked me to tell you about.”

  “What?”

  Donte waved at some vines that were climbing up the rock wall behind her. “Recognize those?”

  Pell blinked at them. They looked vaguely familiar, “Um, are they grapevines?”

  Donte nodded.

  Pell studied them a bit more, wondering why she was pointing them out. “They don’t have grapes yet.”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you wanting me to help you remember where they are this fall?”

  She laughed. “You told me to tell you if I found things growing in new places.”

  Pell looked at the vines in a new light. “There weren’t any grapes here last fall?!”

  “No, and that,” she pointed to where the vines sprouted from the soil, “is where we threw the seeds we cut out before we dried the grapes.”

  “Oh!” Pell’s eyes widened as he looked at the vines with dawning realization. He slowly turned his eyes to his mother. “It’s like the grain plants growing where the grain fell!” Donte nodded slowly. Pell could barely contain his excitement, “We should spread grape seeds around in lots more places this fall, shouldn’t we?”

  She grinned and lifted an eyebrow, “That’s what I’m thinking.” She squatted down and fingered some different plants, this time ones that were standing up alone rather than climbing the rocks. “Of course, I was also removing the seeds from the apples, pears, and damsons. I can’t help but wonder whether these might be young fruit trees starting to grow.”

  Pell’s eyes widened in awe, “That’s amazing! To think we’d have a bunch of grapevines and fruit trees all in one little place!”

  Gia looked dubious. Donte took in her expression and said, “You agreed that those look like grapevines. Are you thinking that they aren’t fruit trees? I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never seen a fruit tree this small, but the trees have to grow from something.

  Gia said, “Oh no. I think they’re fruit trees all right. I just don’t think you can grow grapevines and several different kinds of fruit trees this close together.”

  “Why not?” Pell asked, not as if he thought she was wrong, but as if he wondered why they couldn’t.

  “I don’t know,” Gia said musingly. “You just don’t see them this close together naturally. “She shrugged, “We know plants need water, because when there’s a drought they all get sick, turn brown, and many of them die. Agan told me once that she thinks the bigger plants take the water away from the littler ones. That’s why, in the forest, once there gets to be a lot of really big trees, there aren’t any little ones—the big trees took their water.”

  Pell studied Gia face for a moment, then looked down at the little plants. “So, do you think we need to scatter the seeds farther apart from one another and put them in places where there aren’t any other plants?”

  Gia chewed her lip, “I guess. But I’d be worried that if you find a place where there aren’t any other plants, there’s a reason they aren’t growing there. Maybe there’s no place for their roots or something. We know plants don’t grow on rocks. Certainly, fruit trees don’t grow there.”

  Donte frowned as well, “If we can’t put them where there are plants because the big plants that’re already there will steal their water, and we can’t put them where there aren’t plants because plants can’t grow there, where should we put them?”

  Gia shrugged, “Maybe… Maybe we have to find a place where there are plants, then pull those plants up and put in the seeds for the plants we like?”

  With some enthusiasm, Donte said, “We have to dig up the root vegetables anyway. We could just put the seeds in that soil af
ter we’ve dug them up.”

  Pell said, “Wait, we like root vegetables! If we plant something else there that takes their water, maybe they won’t grow back!”

  “So you want us to dig up plants—that we don’t need to dig up—just so we can drop seeds there and see if fruit trees appear the next year?!”

  “I’ll do it,” Pell said in a long-suffering tone. “Come fall, you tell me what plants to pull up and I’ll do it for you.” He sighed, “I suppose you’re going to want me to pull up the plants where you’re going to scatter your grain too, right?”

  “That’s a brilliant idea you had Pell,” Gia said, a huge grin on her face.

  As he turned away, Pell muttered just loudly enough that they’d hear, “I had no idea getting mated was going to be so much work…”

  ***

  The day before the wedding, Donte and Panute took Pell off up the ravine a little ways and, insisting he keep his eyes closed, they helped him put on a tunic and pantaloons they’d been making for the mating ceremony. He had to stand still while they argued about how best to adjust the garments to make them fit better. Then they had him sit on a rock while they removed his sandals and put something on his feet that felt like an enclosed winter shoe made of soft leather. They argued about the way the shoes fit while he sat there with his eyes closed, wondering what was wrong with his regular tunic, pantaloons, and sandals.

  When Pell walked back to the cave, he saw Deltin out on the ledge below the smoke hole. He had a tree trunk laid out on the ledge that still had quite a few stubs of branches sticking off of it. Deltin looked around, and seeing Pell coming, said, “You have time to help me set this up?”

  Puzzled, Pell said, “Sure, what is it?”

  Deltin shrugged, “You asked me for a safe way to climb up to the smoke hole and put the meat in.” He grinned, “I’m just trying to make you happy.”