Summer Page 14

  “Ah. Well, good luck.”

  The young man looked like he was turning to go, but Woday called out one last question. “Will you go to River Fork to trade later this summer?”

  The young man shook his head, “No,” he waved to the north, “we Zurgenspeople are going to the trading place on the upper plains this summer.” As he turned to go, he said, “Maybe we’ll meet again some other time.” Pell could tell he didn’t think it would happen though.

  That afternoon they began to hear a distant thunder. When asked about it, Woday said, “That’s the sound of the falls.” He sighed, “It makes me homesick.” Pell thought he looked apprehensive as well.

  The sun had fallen another fist in the sky before they arrived at the falls. Woday’s people lived over ten tens of paces from the river. As they walked toward the small collection of thatched huts, Yadin asked, “Why do you live so far from the water?”

  Woday glanced uncomfortably away from Manute and Gia. Speaking quietly, he said, “To live on ground that’s higher than the river when it floods.”

  “Oh,” Yadin said in a small voice.

  A little boy at the edge of the village saw them. He turned and shouted, “People coming!”

  Soon people started coming out of the village to stare at them. They didn’t look threatening, but the men prudently carried their spears. Yadin looked over at Woday, wondering why he wasn’t calling out, but then a young girl shouted, “Woday,” and ran across the remaining distance to throw her arms around him. Yadin caught an unhappy look on Gurix’s face before Woday turned to her and said, “Gurix, this is my little sister.”

  Woday’s mother ran forward to hug her son as well. Yadin watched the proceedings with interest. He felt relieved upon seeing quite a few people greeting the bonesetter’s apprentice with joy. Yadin’d seen plenty of clumsy, eager young men bullied by their peers over the years and he’d been worried about Woday’s reception. Yadin thought Woday’s trip to learn bone setting from Pell might well have been as much a flight from derision at the hands of his fellows as it was an attempt to better himself by learning an important new skill.

  In fact, it wasn’t long before a muscular young man swaggered through the group greeting Woday and stopped to look him up and down with a sneer. “So, you’ve come back, huh?”

  Woday drew himself up, “Yes. I’ve learned a great deal from the Bonesetter and his tribe.” He waved at the rest of the travelers, “Since my friends here were making a trip to the sea I came along to visit my old home.”

  Yadin immediately noticed that Woday called it a visit, rather than the move he’d talked about before leaving Cold Springs. He’s having second thoughts after just one sight of this man, Yadin thought. And, he didn’t introduce Pell as the Bonesetter. Yadin wondered whether this might be because of Pell’s apparent youth. Perhaps he’d like them to think he learned from an older and wiser looking person.

  “Well, I hope you’re not expecting us to feed you like we did when you lived here before…” The man looked disdainfully at the rest of the travelers, “Or your friends either.”

  An older man had just picked his way through the crowd. He put his hand on the young bully’s shoulder and said, “Hey now, Indo, don’t be rude to our guests.”

  Indo angrily shook off the older man’s hand, striding up to Woday and stopping about a foot away, glaring down into Woday’s face, “I was tired of feeding Woday when he lived here. I’m not looking forward to feeding him again, or these people he’s brought with him.” Indo’s eyes scanned over the rest of the Cold Springs group, but this time they paused on Gia. He smirked, “Though I wouldn’t mind feeding her.”

  Yadin angrily shifted his hand on the heavy spear that doubled as his walking stick.

  However, Pell, who’d been squatting beside his pack to adjust something in it, slowly stood to his impressive height and, without taking exception to the young man’s comment about Gia, said calmly, “Don’t worry Indo, we can feed ourselves.”

  A tightening around the eyes gave the only indication that Indo might be disquieted by Pell’s size. Indo said, “That’s good.”

  The older man had come up behind Indo again, he spoke chidingly, “They’re our guests Indo, let’s be polite.” He turned to the visitors, “Don’t worry. We’ll be happy to share our meal with you this evening.”

  Indo turned hotly on the older man, “You share what you catch then. I’ll keep my catch to myself.” He turned and strode away in evident fury.

  The older man turned to Yadin, evidently deciding that the older man must be the leader of the Cold Springs group. He put his hand out and said, “Hello I’m Ramay, leader of the falls people,” he glanced back over his shoulder at the departing Indo, and sighed, “though I suspect not for much longer. Indo is our best spearfisher and a good hunter, though as you can see, quite the hothead. Unfortunately, without his contribution we may not be able to provide much of a feast to greet you this evening.” He smiled weakly, “But we’ll share what we have.”

  Never having liked being put in the position of leader, Yadin turned to Pell—who, after all, was their de facto leader despite his disinclination for the mantle. Pell said, “Don’t worry, we’ll be happy to contribute what we can. Do you mind if we go out for a brief hunt before the sun goes down? Perhaps we’ll be able to put in even more.”

  “Sure,” Ramay said with a shrug, “though the hunting isn’t good around here. We live off the river.”

  Suddenly a woman from the village shouted, “Gia?!” When Gia looked up at her name, the woman dashed through the crowd to throw her arms around Gia.

  “Canna!” Gia exclaimed with joy, yet somehow an ineffable sadness. Yadin thought it was joy that Canna lived, but sadness at the loss of all the others she’d hoped might have been the woman who’d survived and lived with the falls people.

  Manute stepped over and put his arms around Canna and his sister, as they rocked through their strong emotions. There was more joy when Gia told Canna that Agan, Deltin, Panute, and Falin had also survived.

  After that excitement died down a little, the Cold Springs people held a brief conclave. Gia, Canna, and Gurix went with Woday’s mother, Frinca and sister, Nuna, to Frinca’s hut where they planned to make some delicacies for the evening’s feast. It’d turned out that adding a little honey to the cakes that Gia made from ground grain and baked on a hot stone produced a delightful confection the likes of which none of them had encountered before.

  Pell whispered to Woday for a few hundred heartbeats, after which Woday untied his fish trap basket from the top of his pack. He left the pack with his mother, and trotted back along the river, apparently intending to try his luck with the trap above the falls.

  As Yadin, Manute and Pell started trotting away from the river with their spear throwers, a young man called to them from behind, “Wait, I’ll come with you.” As he caught up to them, he held up a pair of heavy spears and addressed Yadin, “There are big animals out in this valley. They’re too big and dangerous to hunt, but you’ll want to have a spear like this to fend them off if they take exception to you.” He glanced at their slender throwing spears, “Those skinny spears on your backs would be reasonable for fishing, but they won’t protect you from an aurochs.”

  Yadin managed not to glance at Pell before he said, “We’re happy to have you along. Thanks.” He turned to see if Pell had anything to add, but the young man had squatted down and was placing a snare in an opening to the thicket. Not sure whether Pell wanted the young man to see what he was doing, Yadin waved ahead and started walking, “I’m Yadin, what’s your name?”

  “I’m called Nolo,” he responded.

  Yadin introduced Manute, then said, “Where would you suggest we look for good hunting?”

  “Well, if you keep going straight ahead, you’ll come to a grassland populated with large animals like you find up on the plateau. They’re large because there’s plenty for them to eat, but their size makes them frightening and difficu
lt to hunt.” He waved to the left and right, “When we hunt them, we usually hide on both sides of one of the trails they take to the river to drink. That way we can choose a small one when it’s separated from its mother.”

  “Ah,” said Yadin, “but they almost always travel in big groups that make them dangerous to attack, yes?”

  Nolo nodded and looked bleak, “You don’t have to see many hunters gored or trampled by an aurochs before you decide you’d like to play it safe.”

  Yadin gave a sadly knowing nod. “Can you take us to the edge of their grazing grounds so we can see what we’re dealing with? Then we’ll know what to expect when we hide by the trail.”

  Nolo nodded and they resumed trotting. Yadin wasn’t surprised to see Pell catch back up to them before they reached the grasslands.

  Nolo had them slow as they approached the big grazing area. To his surprise, as they got close, the three men pulled their long slender spears off their backs and set them on sticks they removed from their belts. Nolo noticed that the little spears were decorated with feathers on their back ends and thought to himself that they must be show spears. Real working spears wouldn’t be decorated. The men rested the stick and spear arrangement on their shoulders. Uncomfortably, Nolo said, “You really won’t be able to protect yourself with lightweight spears like those. Stay back here in the bushes.”

  Pell, the tall man, calmly said, “We will, don’t worry.”

  They’d been crouching down as they approached, now they slowly stood to look out at the animals. Nolo wasn’t surprised to hear them almost gasp as they saw the hundreds and hundreds of grazers. Animals of all types heavily populated the wide grasslands of the valley. Closest to them was a small group of aurochs. With alarm, he heard Yadin say, “The small one facing to the right, okay?”

  Nolo immediately saw a yearling cow facing to the right as it chewed. It was about 40 feet away and Nolo could see the bull just beyond it. He said, “If you go out there after that little cow, its bull will be on you in moments!”

  Yadin spoke, but apparently not to Nolo. He said simply, “One, two, three,” then the three of them stepped forward as one and slashed a kind of throwing motion with their sticks.

  Stunned, Nolo saw the three slender spears fly across the distance and plunge into the side of the little cow. The aurochs bleated and arched its back, panic in its eyes. Moments later, the three men had loaded new spears on their sticks and sent them flying too, though the little cow was already sinking to the ground. The small herd of aurochs lifted their heads, eyes wide. The rest of the cows turned and rumbled away, but the bull charged toward where the little cow lay on the turf. The four men had all sunk back down, just their eyes peering over the tops of the brush. For a hundred heartbeats or so, the bull trotted around the little cow snorting and stamping, but unable to find anything to attack.

  Nolo desperately wanted to ask them what just happened, but he didn’t want to make any noise.

  After a while the bull, finding nothing to attack and unable to arouse its little cow, cut its losses and trotted off after the rest of its little herd. Nolo turned to stare at the men, “How did you do that?!”

  The big one, Pell, said, “We’ll show you later. I think we should get our cow before its death attracts a big predator.”

  The three men trotted out to the cow. After a lifetime of staying off the grasslands, Nolo found himself trapped nervously on the verge. Pell called to him, “I don’t blame you for not wanting to come out here, but can you keep a close watch? Let us know if the bull comes back or a predator approaches?”

  “Yes,” Nolo said, forcing himself to take several steps out onto the plain. The three men grabbed the cow by its horns and started dragging it toward the bushes, but progress was as slow as you might expect, considering that the cow probably weighed as much as the three men together. Suddenly his eyes tracked to the left, “Lion!” he pointed, scrambling back into the bushes.

  The men dropped the cow and stood. To his dismay, they didn’t turn and run. Instead, they slowly backed away. They had their throwing sticks out, even though they only had one each of their slender spears still strapped over their backs. All of them were fumbling at their pouches. Nolo, back peering over the bushes, kept his eyes just high enough to watch in horror. “Run!” he croaked, his voice breaking with fear. He wanted to run himself and wondered whether they could even hear what he’d said.

  The lion came slowly through the grass. Nolo had seen this behavior before. Lions approached slowly in order to give the predator that’d made the kill time to back off. The lion didn’t want to fight, it just wanted to claim the kill and eat the best part of it. He wondered if anything good would be left by the time the lion and any of its friends were done eating.

  To Nolo’s astonishment, Manute whipped his throwing stick forward, even though it didn’t have a spear mounted on it. To Nolo surprise, it looks like something flew over the cow toward the lion. That something had traveled the intervening distance was confirmed when it bounced off the lion’s head and flew high in the air. The lion appeared startled, jerking to a halt and shaking his head violently from side to side.

  The older man, Yadin, whipped his stick forward and once again something flew toward the lion. This one apparently struck the lion on the near side of his head as Nolo could see a stone skitter across the grass on his side.

  The lion opened its mouth to roar. Just as the loud and intimidating sound began, the large visitor, Pell, whipped his stick forward. Once again, Nolo saw a stone fly across the distance. This one appeared to strike but didn’t bounce away. At first, Nolo thought it’d hit the far side of the lion’s head, bounding off on the side he couldn’t see. However, the lion’s reaction was extreme. Its roar stopped and it bounded into the air, then fell to the ground thrashing about, all without making noise.

  Never having seen anything like this before, Nolo watched wide-eyed as the lion acted like it was fighting some invisible opponent and losing. It rolled and flogged around as if trying to dislodge something; opening and closing its jaws and retracting its ribs as if it were being choked.

  It wasn’t long before it became obvious the rock had dealt the lion a mortal blow. Certainly the lion was no longer a threat to the men.

  In fact, it’d soon fall victim to other predators.

  Feeling embarrassed about hiding in the brush while the other three men not only killed the cow, but protected it from a lion, Nolo ran out and grabbed a horn to help them haul the cow into the brush. With two men pulling on horns and two pulling on front legs—plus a rousing fear that another lion would soon appear—they made good speed dragging the cow off the grasslands and onto one of the small trails through the brush.

  They stopped once they’d made some distance from the site of the kill. Panting, Manute said, “We need to get our packs.”

  “Yes,” Pell said, “I think we could use some rope to haul this beast. Maybe I could help you get the packs while Yadin and Nolo try to remove our spears?”

  This was immediately agreed, and the two men hurried off to retrieve their three traveling packs. Yadin started gently tugging and wiggling one of the slender spears, so Nolo began trying to pull out one of the other ones. He said, “What happened to that lion?!”

  Yadin grunted, “I don’t know. Pell’s stone entered its mouth while it was roaring. Maybe it broke the bones in the lion’s neck?” He glanced at Nolo as if wondering if Nolo understood how that could happen, then apparently decided to elaborate. “The bones of the neck are just under the back of the throat, right?” Apparently deciding Nolo knew this, he said, “Or, perhaps it bounced down the throat and broke or plugged the windpipe.” He shrugged a little disbelievingly, “I didn’t think you could kill a lion with a stone. I hoped we might drive it away, but…” he laughed, shook his head and growled, “Pell lives a charmed life.”

  The spear Nolo was working on came out relatively easily while he listened. And out, and out, astonishing him by how deep it’d
been. When he had it all the way out, he held it over the cow and realized it had gone most of the way through the animal and nearly out the other side. As he laid it to one side, he saw its flint point remained intact. Yadin was still working on the spear he’d started with. It seemed to be stuck into something. The next one Nolo grabbed was barely stuck in, evidently having hit a rib and stopped. Its flint point had broken off. The one Yadin’d been working on came out, also missing its point. Presumably it was stuck in a bone deep inside the animal. One more spear had broken its point against a near rib, but two more were deep inside the animal’s chest for a total of four profound wounds.

  No wonder the cow died so quickly, Nolo thought.

  Pell and Manute returned with the packs and each got out a coil of leather rope. They looped those around the cow’s horns, then over shoulders cushioned with leather pads. They began to pull while Yadin and Nolo lifted on the front legs. The cow came along much faster.

  They’d almost reached the village when Woday caught up to them. Nolo was astonished to see Woday carrying three large fish. Woday’d always been laughably bad at spearfishing. Him spearing three really big fish in such a short period of time seemed unbelievable to Nolo. In fact, Nolo found himself wondering whether Woday might have negotiated a trade for the fish.

  It seemed only moments later that they dragged the cow up to the big fire circle in the middle of the village. This was done without any fanfare and since none of the falls people were out in the central clearing of the village at the time, it didn’t create any stir.

  Manute deftly set about skinning the cow. As soon as he’d parted the skin down the cow’s belly, Yadin opened the belly and started removing entrails. Woday spoke briefly to Pell, then began cleaning his fish.

  Pell started across the clearing to the hut that belonged to Frinca. Amazed by the men’s efficiency and unsure how he could help, Nolo’s eyes followed Pell. With a bit of alarm, he noticed Indo was standing at the corner of Frinca’s hut, talking to the people on the other side. If he was flirting with the beautiful young girl that’d come with these men and Pell took exception to it, Woday wondered what would happen.