The Dog Master: A Novel of the First Dog

by W. Bruce Cameron

  Only later, as Calli drifted off to sleep, did something occur to her.

  Renne, asking her if it bothered her that Palloc visited the widows.

  Renne, who was herself, a widow.

  * * *

  Whenever Silex returned from the hunt to wherever the Wolfen had established their gathering site, he slept in a bed made comfortable by laying an elk hide over grasses gathered in the spring. Ovi slept nearby, though not too near because at night she made snorting sounds that could keep him awake. So her eyes widened in surprise when Silex came to her sleeping place and lay down next to her. There was still enough daylight left to see him, though the gloom was starting to reach out of the shadows to envelop couples in their beds.

  “Ovi,” Silex whispered.

  She propped herself up on one elbow so that she could face him with a questioning look.

  “There is something very important I need to speak to you about,” he continued.

  “Yes?”

  He peered at her but saw no suspicion, no sign she knew he had committed adultery. “An important topic,” he stalled.

  Ovi merely waited.

  Silex sighed. “We have never laid as man and wife, not once in all the years we have been married.”

  She looked at him carefully. “Is this something you want to do now?” she replied cautiously.

  He pursed his lips. “Well … has it bothered you?”

  “Bothered me?”

  “Do you want me to, Ovi? Because I will. I do not wish to deny you my attentions if you desire them.”

  “What is this about, Silex? I have told you in the past. It was never something I enjoyed.”

  “What do you enjoy, Ovi? What makes you happy?”

  “I hate it when you ask me that. Why are you always asking me that? What has brought on this concern?”

  “I have recently learned that a woman might harbor desires, but feel constrained from revealing them, and that this might be a cruel thing.”

  “That is simply foolish. A woman does what she must, there is no desire,” Ovi replied with just a hint of scorn. “There is just the needs of the day. And the next day. And the next, until the final peace of death. I have never felt you were cruel to me, Silex. You just do what you have to do.”

  “I just want you to know that I am willing, Ovi. I want to be a good husband.”

  “You are a good husband, Silex. Will you be sleeping here next to me tonight?” she asked neutrally.

  Silex looked into her tired eyes. Nothing in their conversation had assuaged his guilt. “No, I will go back to my own bed now,” he replied.

  The next morning he left early, his conscience burdened, and headed toward a place where some logs had been laid against a rock, forming a protective shelter. Inside this lean-to was a sleeping area made of animal hide laid on summer grasses, and lying on the bed was his lover Denix, her arms and legs open and welcoming.

  * * *

  Mal skinned and butchered the lion. The meat was tough, dry, and stringy when fresh, and the strips that he hung over the fire to shrivel in the smoky air were so difficult to chew he took to softening them up in hot water before he bit off a piece. Dog, though, seemed to love the stuff, and would gnaw happily on a hunk.

  The first night, Mal cooked the lion’s heart over the fire on a stick, and it was the best meal he took from the animal. He was not able to make much with the rest of the organs, coming up with a stew so strong smelling that even Dog shied away from it.

  “This meat will not last all winter, Dog. We must find prey, now that my mother has stopped coming.”

  Mal had little doubt that his mother wanted to come, and he thought he knew exactly why she was not bringing him food—somehow, Albi was preventing it.

  * * *

  Mal was not at the rendezvous point the first day, nor the second. Calli refused to believe he was dead—their agreement was every third day. He would come.

  But the hunt returned in the morning of that third day, laden with meat, grinning with victory. At that moment, Calli would have given anything for another time of hunger, but the Kindred were fat with their kill and unlikely to venture out for more for several more days.

  Calli resolutely butchered a reindeer for the communal meal, feeling as she did a pair of eyes on her. When she looked up it was Palloc, grinning triumphantly, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Dog went with Mal every day to walk through the forest, tagging along with the leather rope tied securely around her neck. Mostly, they ate worms and bugs, supplemented with chunks of tough, smoky meat. She was hungry, but the only food she ate came from Mal’s hands.

  When they came upon a herd of reindeer, Mal could scarcely contain his excitement. Mal proceeded on his hands and knees through the late summer grasses, silent and slow, dropping his head whenever one of the reindeer glanced over in his direction.

  Dog was too short to see the prey at first, but she smelled something, and Mal’s behavior enlivened her. Dog sniffed at Mal’s face, panting in his ear, and gave a soft whimper.

  “Shhh!” Mal warned.

  Dog cocked her head, hearing something in Mal’s tones but not understanding it.

  And then Dog saw the reindeer. She went completely rigid, her eyes opening wide. Mal was completely unprepared when she unexpectedly lunged forward.

  The rope slipped from Mal’s grasp. “Dog!” he hissed, but it was too late. Scampering forward on feet too big, Dog joyously plunged directly toward the center of the herd. Mal put a hand to his mouth: both female and male reindeer had antlers—what if they lowered them to Dog, would she know to evade them?

  When the ungulates saw the wolf they reacted with a panicked scramble, milling momentarily before charging off, straight toward Mal.

  Gulping, Mal stood up, his spear at the ready. The motion alerted the stampeding animals and they veered, but several were close and Mal let fly and, to his shock, solidly struck an adult female in the hind quarters.

  The reindeer stumbled, but then righted itself and thundered off with the rest of its herd, Dog streaking off after them.

  “Dog!” Mal wailed at her retreating form. He ran as fast as he could, chasing the dust and the animal tracks.

  This was his worst fear: Dog, barely bigger than a puppy, off on her own, where countless predators might view her as an easy meal, or other wolves might swoop in and eliminate her as a threat.

  The reindeer, he knew, could run a long way, and would definitely do so with a wolf on their heels. Dog, on the other hand, was tired and hungry—how long would she go?

  Some distance, Mal found. The sun had noticeably moved in the sky when without warning the grasses parted and Dog bounded up to him, her tongue lolling out of her saliva-flecked mouth.

  “Dog!” Mal called in relief. He tackled the wolf and the two of them rolled on the ground for a moment, his face buried in her fur. “Do not run away like that again,” he scolded happily. But he gave her the last bit of lion meat from his pouch. They were now out of lion altogether. He scooped up the rope. “Let us find our kill, Dog. We will eat reindeer meat tonight.”

  No, they would not. The herd was easy enough to follow, even when they slowed and their hooves no longer chewed the soil. There was a nice blood trail, and at one point they came across Mal’s spear. “They will stop soon and the female I speared will lie down,” Mal reasoned aloud. Reindeer were grazing animals who would drop their heads to the grass as soon as the immediate threat of the wolf passed, but for some reason they kept moving on this day, and after a time Mal found out why.

  A bear had taken the wounded reindeer. Its chuffing sounded mocking and triumphant as it tore at the kill. Mal put his hand on Dog’s snout, willing her not to growl at the sight, and he did not linger, but turned and walked away immediately, lest the bear’s bloodlust find them and decide to add man and wolf to the dinner.

  “We will find some worms along the stream,” Mal murmured to Dog. “Do not w
orry, we will eat something.”

  They found very little before the darkness forced them to retreat to their cave. They entered through the back way, Mal moving aside the heavy stone he had put in place to keep other animals out, returning it to its position once they were inside.

  They settled on the wolf fur, Dog curling up and putting her head on his chest. He ran his hands over her soft fur, grinning with the pleasure of it.

  As he fell asleep, his empty stomach growling angrily, Mal remembered something: the bones of an elk leg, thrusting up out of the wet, white ice far upstream. The meat had long ago been stripped off by birds and the eroding forces of sun and wind, but the bones might contain marrow. It would certainly be better tasting than the fat purple worms he had just eaten. He could break the bones and see, anyway.

  Tomorrow, Mal thought to himself. He would go tomorrow.

  * * *

  Some days Silex’s conscience would disturb his peace, forcing him into uneasy wanderings close to the gathering site. He did not know what he would do if his secrets were revealed, nor what the Wolfen would do. He felt shame and anguish and yet could not even contemplate being without Denix.

  The air was dry and cool and Silex carried his spear with him when he came upon the hyena. It was on the other side of a field, just on the edge of the woods. Silex sucked in a breath, staring, feeling his heart rate increase.

  The spiritual opposite of the beautiful wolf, the hyena was an evil canid, ugly and sly, who made humanlike sounds and fed on rotting meat. They were fortunately extremely rare and Silex had never laid eyes on one, though the day many years ago, when his father had stumbled and shattered his ankle, on that black day, his father claimed to have seen a pack of the beasts stripping the flesh off a dead bison.

  And now Silex had stumbled upon one, a hundred paces away—just one. What did it mean, to see a lone hyena? No campfire stories ever told of the predators as anything but pack animals. What horrible thing did its appearance portend?

  The hideous beast was feeding on what looked to be a dead marmot. It was aware of Silex and kept shooting him baleful glances. Silex tightened his grip on his spear. Should he try to kill it?

  There was something wrong with its front leg, Silex realized. It limped as it moved, not letting the right foot touch the ground. Was that why it was hunting alone?

  Silex realized he had no choice. He needed to kill this hyena, because if he did not, surely he would return to the gathering site and find his tribe standing in condemnation against his adultery. That had to be the message that the canid was here to deliver. The tribe might even demand Denix be punished, though none of this was her fault—it was all his weakness that kept him returning to her bed.

  Without a sound, Silex charged across the field.

  The hyena snarled, making its grotesque, snuffling noises. Silex raised his spear, still too far away, and the beast picked up the marmot in its bloody jaws and turned, dashing for the woods in an awkward three-legged gait.

  Silex followed into the woods and stopped, panting, looking about in disbelief. The hyena had vanished as if swallowed by the trees.

  This was truly a grim adumbration, far worse than if the ugly animal had merely gotten away.

  Dismally, Silex turned back toward the gathering site. He knew he would tell no one about what he had just seen, not even Denix.

  * * *

  Mal tied Dog to a tree near the base of the wall of white ice, and then stood looking uncertainly at the leg bones poking forlornly at the sky. He had no idea what it meant that the bones were there, nor any good plan for breaking them out. The ice was hard and coated with a thin layer of water, making climbing all but impossible.

  The ice lay against a steep, rocky hill. Clutching his club, Mal gingerly worked his way upward, rock to rock, testing each move before he made it.

  Below him, Dog yipped, and when Mal glanced down the wolf spun in a frustrated circle. “No Dog, all is good. Stay quiet,” Mal told her.

  When he was a little more than four men high, Mal was parallel to the bones. He was able to slide sideways along the rock wall until he was right next to them. This close, he could see a dark shadow inside the ice just below where the bones tilted skyward. The knee was just visible in the ice.

  He swung his stone-headed club, which bounced off the ice wall with a spray of particles. He wanted to hit the knee, to sever the leg cleanly, but his awkward position made it difficult to swing accurately. He shifted his good leg and tried again, giving it several hard whacks.

  He did hit the knee, but mostly he hit the ice. He stopped, frowning. He had exposed something near the knee with his errant club strikes. He leaned closer, wiping irritably at a trickle of cold water that dripped onto his forehead.

  It was elk hide.

  Mal stood, considering. Could there be more elk beneath the frozen water? How was that possible?

  He threw himself into an attack on the ice, grunting as he bashed the hard, slick surface, which yielded grudgingly. When he fatigued, he leaned forward and wiped away the accumulated crystals and water. He had exposed a little less than half a finger length’s worth of elk, but it was enough to see that under the ice, there was more than just bone.

  “Meat!” Mal called down to Dog. “I have found us meat!”

  He began bashing away with abandon, throwing all his strength into it, and was rewarded by a cracking sound and tremors traveling up and down the frozen surface. What if there was not just a leg, but an entire elk in there?

  Suddenly there was a bang as loud as thunder and the ice fell away, striking Mal on the back. He toppled forward, hitting the cold, hard surface, and tumbled with it, sliding and bouncing and shouting. There was no way to stop—his club fell from his hands and he cried out, digging for purchase, tumbling toward the ground.

  * * *

  Dog did not understand. She was frantic to follow the man, who was above her, playing with a heavy stick. Loud thumps sounded each time he swung the branch, releasing a spray of wet drops that brought his scent cascading to the ground.

  She had grown accustomed to the leather strap and even had come to regard it as something that attached her to the man, but now it restrained her attempts to get to him.

  When, with a loud crack, the ground fell away and the man slipped, she could sense the fear in his voice. His slide stopped at her feet and she jumped on him, licking his cheeks. “Dog!” he laughed. He sat up and reached for her, and she nuzzled him in relief. She did not like this game, but she craved being hugged by him. “I love you, Dog,” he said.

  The warmth that flowed through her at his embrace was reminiscent of the sensation of nursing from her mother.

  * * *

  Mal retrieved his club and surveyed what he had done. In his fall he had imagined the entire wall of ice collapsing, but from his perspective now he could see that he had only managed to dislodge a chunk the size of a few men.

  His elk had fallen with the avalanche and would be much easier to access now, but that was not what drew Mal’s astonished stare. Instead he was looking up where he had just been, focused on a dark shadow that appeared close to the surface of the translucent ice, entirely visible and identifiable as belonging to an elk.

  There was another one.

  The ground around the ice wall was frozen—Mal used a stone to smash a hole, filled the evacuation with chunks of ice, and stored his frozen bounty there, planning to return to hack off pieces and thaw them for cooking as needed. Meanwhile the wall itself yielded up more than just another elk; chipping away, Mal found a young reindeer. For some reason, the animals up top were venturing too close to the edge and sliding off to their deaths, eventually being buried in the steady accumulation of frozen water. The white wall was actually nothing other than a huge number of ice tongues, many as thick as a man’s chest, but many thin and breakable. When he threw these to Dog, she pounced and crunched them up as if they were bones.

  With food in hand, Mal and Dog worked on the commands
that would keep her safe. “Dog! To me, Dog!” he called to her many times a day. They also worked on “remain,” which seemed to go against Dog’s nature. With frequent repetition, though, she came to understand both the word and the accompanying gestures, and also to obey the command “away.”

  Now he could have her run away if there was danger, and call her back to him when the threat had passed. When they hunted, he would be able to control her, keep her from harm.

  She was gaining weight, though Mal could still easily pick her up. Her feet were ridiculously large for her body and she seemed to trip over them when she ran, but standing on all fours her head was above Mal’s knees. She followed him everywhere, so he knew she would be upset when he walled her in the cave one morning. “I will be back before sunset,” he promised her. Dog curled up on her mother’s fur and watched alertly as Mal wrestled a heavy rock over to block the back exit, but sprang to her feet and whimpered when he climbed up the narrow crevice, yipping at him, heartbroken, when he pulled himself up at the top.

  “I’ll be back, I promise,” he told her. “Remain!”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Lyra had spent the better part of the morning in her cave, working on the project that had consumed her that summer—painting a herd of reindeer, one animal at a time. Her fingers were black from the carbon she extracted from fires and ground up into a paste with a little water, and her nails were red from the rouge, an effect she found she actually liked. Now she squatted by the stream, lightly singing to herself as she patiently washed her hands, trying to rinse enough off so that her hands merely appeared dirty.

  She stood abruptly when she heard something approaching from the north. Should she run, or hide? Frozen in indecision, her legs tense, she held her breath.

  “Lyra,” someone called.

  Kindred. A male. She sighed the tension out of her lungs. “Here,” she called back. She waited by the stream and was shocked at who emerged from the bushes. “Mal!”