Rome

by Matthew Thayer

From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  As always, the fish stew tasted better the second day. The old man was hot to get moving, but even he saw the sense in emptying the food into our stomachs instead of throwing it away. We didn’t bother heating the leftovers or using bowls, just stood around the cook bag taking turns dipping our right hands in for scoops of thick, salty goo. Food writers would probably use a fancier word than goo. Paste? All I can say is it was a hell of a lot better breakfast than Gray Beard serves on the trail.

  He likes to split at daybreak and gather the first meal on the move. That’s been his deal ever since we met him. Usually that means grubs, berries or nothing, but sometimes stuff like raw bird eggs, salamander tails or honeycomb.

  We didn’t get too much crap for doing our morning stretches after breakfast, just a few heavy sighs and rolled eyes. He knows we’re doing him a favor going shopping for a dog nobody else wants.

  Back on the main trail, Maria and Gray Beard fell into step beside each other while I brought up the rear. The gruff old dude calls her “daughter,” and although he doesn’t show it much, I’d say he loves her like she was his own blood. He puts up with her questions, leaves it up to her to figure out when he’s giving the straight scoop and when he’s pulling her leg. Gray Beard gets a kick out of fooling her, making her think.

  Their connection goes beyond tricks and questions. She looks out for him and he looks out for her. Hell, if not for Maria, the guy never would have stayed with us in the first place. She was the one who got him to teach us his language and customs. I think he had the hots for her when we all met, but has settled into the role of father or maybe even grandfather. She always makes sure he’s got his share before she sits down to eat.

  Last trip to the lake, the trails were a muddy mess. This time, apart from a few stream crossings, the hike’s been easy going, almost dusty. For winter, things sure are dry.

  The round hilltop lake was down about 10 feet when it came into view through the pines. Cresting the rim and starting down a switchback trail in mid-afternoon, we noticed the crater was pretty much deserted compared to last time. Only two major campsites had smoke coming from them.

  Cro-Magnons have more than 30 big camps around the lake, and quite a few up the hills. The local clans, there’s about a half dozen, rotate between the main camps. When a place gets too polluted, overfished or runs out of firewood, they drag their nets and beddings to a different cave or lean-to.

  The lake draws a bunch of travelers too. With its forested hills, meadows cleared by fire and water that never freezes, it has a reputation for good hunting and trading. A lot of northern tribes travel down each winter. The lake was always a little too crowded for me. Sal dug the commotion. Good thing he didn’t make the trip expecting a party.

  Gray Beard had been told the clan with dogs to trade was camped where the lake drained into the Big River, what will be called the Arrone. Spotting fires there, he insisted we push hard to reach the camp even though it meant we’d arrive just before dark and empty handed. Maria tried pointing those problems out. He wasn’t buying it.

  “All you think about are your stomachs,” he snapped. “Andiamo! We go!”

  The pace he set seemed to really take a toll on him. Before we reached the perimeter of their camp, he was limping and leaning on Maria for support. His face had gone pale and he was sniffling and coughing. Poor guy looked a million years old. That didn’t stop him from tooting on his flute to get a few hunters to run up so he could ask where he could find the man with dogs for sale.

  “You want the Toad,” they said in trade dialect. “Toad! Toad! They want the Toad!”

  Smells of human shit and piles of rotting animal skins said the clan had overstayed the river camp. How hard would it be to dump all that crap in the river? The hunters led us down to the edge of the lake and along a beach trail away from the Arrone’s roar. Passing through camp, we saw a few mangy, timid dogs tied to trees. Nothing caught my eye as good stock.

  I wouldn’t call the attitude of the men either hostile or friendly. Mostly they stared at my wife. She had her hood up to hide her face, but they could tell she was a woman. For some guys, that’s enough. I kept my eyes narrowed into my mean look and scowled at any punk with the balls to look twice. It would have been rude and provocative to have our weapons out, but the meteorite was tucked in my belt, just one quick reach away. Each of us was using a spear as a walking stick and had two more over our shoulders. We got through camp without trouble.

  Outlined by a blood red sunset, the crater’s black rim reflected its mirror image in the calm lake. Floating atop the flat surface, ducks and geese settled in for the night. Walking past nets hanging from tree limbs and rows of empty fish-smoking racks, we left the awful human smells behind. Three young hunters led us down the beach and into a thicket of birch and pine. Twice we had to call for the men to stop so the old storyteller could catch his breath.

  Pointing to a flicker of firelight high on the hill above, the hunters explained the orange glow came from the Toad’s camp. I wondered how we were going to get up the crumbly, cinder cliff until they led us to a goat trail worn into the side. I noticed they each grabbed an armload of firewood from a pile at the base of the hill before tackling the near-vertical path. In daytime the trail’s probably not bad. At night, not knowing where we were being taken, it was crazy.

  We got Gray Beard up the path and through a narrow crack in the rock to find the Toad sitting by a crackling fire at the mouth of what turned out to be a very cushy cave. Two startled women watched us with open mouths before running into the cave to hide.

  Mr. Toad didn’t bother to stand as we walked into the light of his fire.

  “They’re here to trade,” one of the hunters called.

  It was plain to see how he got his name. Wide-set eyes, red, fleshy lips, the bottom twice as fat as the top, pushed-in nose, puffed-out cheeks, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he opened his mouth and a four-foot tongue snapped out to catch a moth. Instead, he took another bite of fish.

  Gray Beard put up with the rudeness longer than I expected.

  “Do you always treat guests so poorly, Toad?” He asked. “Didn’t your mother Laughing Bear teach you any manners? How about your father, the Gecko? Did he teach you to disrespect old family friends?”

  Gray Beard didn’t wait for an invitation to sit by the fire and grab a cooked trout off a birch bark platter by the fire.

  “That’s my dinner,” the Toad croaked.

  “Ah, so you do talk,” Gray Beard coughed. “Did your parents ever tell you about the storyteller named Leonglauix for the red otter? The greatest storyteller to ever live?”

  “My father was the greatest storyteller, not you.”

  “Some said so. Some said not. How about you, Toad? I hear you tell stories. Did you memorize all of your clan’s lineages before your parents died?”

  “Most of them. As you must know, they died young.”

  “Your grandfather was also a fine storyteller. I learned by watching and listening to him.”

  “I have heard he was the best before my father. It is my great regret that he died before I was born. Why are you here? What do you seek to trade?”

  “I want a dog.”

  “Not women?”

  “No, a dog, a good one.”

  “What do you have to trade?”

  TRANSMISSION:

  Kaikane: “Look at ‘em all.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  The storyteller named Toad studied us unblinkingly for a full minute before calling to the women inside his cave. “Tiltic! Vuzad! Take your net to the lake and catch me some more fish. This rude old man has eaten my dinner.”

  Gauging by the number of fish bones by his side and flakes of trout littering his paunch, I doubted his entire dinner had been stolen.

  Jowls wiggling, he turned to our three escorts and ordered them to round up all expendable
dogs and bring them to his fire. That was about the time Gray Beard rushed to the edge of the firelight to puke up all the fish he had eaten.

  “Is he ill?”

  “We do not know,” I replied.

  “If he makes me sick, I’ll have his ears.”

  Gray Beard shrugged off my attempts to aid him. From the edge of the Toad’s terrace, I observed the mouths of two other caves illuminated by firelight. They too were located high on the hillside. I learned later that one of the caves is inhabited by the Acorn clan’s male chief while the other houses its female shaman, an ancient herbalist and healer with arthritic fingers and only four teeth. While the clan wallows in its own filth, its elite live on the hill in relative luxury. Talk about a blueprint for the future!

  The two women returned with a basket of gutted and scaled trout, proud to say they caught them with just one throw of their weighted net. As they efficiently skewered the trout on green alder branches and propped them over the fire to cook, people began arriving. Word spread fast. First it was the clan leader and his wife scaling up the trail, then the female shaman and her three female acolytes.

  Tiltic and Vuzad didn’t need to be told to collect their net and go catch more fish.

  I would have loved to compare notes with the shaman, but she and her entourage snubbed me completely. My questions went unanswered, my conversation starters ignored. They clustered with the Acorn leader’s wife and focused their attention solely on the men. Runny-eyed and weakened, Gray Beard deferred to Paul as representative of the Green Turtle Clan.

  Though chief is not his standard role, my man has learned the language and customs. He’s seen enough leaders in action to know how to behave–dignity, gravitas and just enough Cro-Magnon pushiness to see that we each got a plate of food and spot of honor near the fire.

  By the time the handlers dragged their dogs up the trail, Acorn people lined the entire perimeter of the campsite. They squatted in the sandy loam, perched atop boulders and climbed into overhanging pines for better views. I counted 67 men, 42 women and 24 children, an incredible number for one clan.

  “Do not any of you foul this camp the way you do your own,” the Toad admonished as he lumbered to his swollen feet. “I walked to the river this morning and was disgusted by the smell. Now we have guests, including a man who claims to be a great storyteller. Do we want him to tell people stories how the Acorns live in their own shit?”

  Toad waddled over to stand before his clan’s leader. I expected the wrinkled man to rise for a speech. Politicians rarely pass up an opportunity to address the masses. This one sat with a stone face, staring into the fire. After a long pause, raising his arms for silence, the leader muttered four words. “Storytellers, tell us stories.” The crowd picked up the call. “Stories! Tell us your stories!” Cries for entertainment circled the stones and cascaded down from the trees.

  As host, Toad went first, beginning with a long chant that described some of the Acorn clan’s greatest deeds. In a relatively monotone voice, modulating his volume from high to low, he detailed the clan’s first successful mammoth hunt and its journey to the northern ocean where islands of ice float by. His people stirred in anticipation as the exciting parts drew near. Although they know the stories by heart, they still revel in them.

  Shifting from past legends to present topics, he dropped the monotone for a more lively voice.

  “These visitors arrived in the middle of my meal looking for dogs to trade. I asked them if they would prefer women! We have more of those to trade than dogs. Tiltic and Vuzad are for sale! For the right price they can have them both! Bring the first dog into the light.”

  The gray male limped at the end of a leather leash pulled by a man who couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. About the size of a German Shepherd, it looked to be on its last legs. Of course, I thought, they will show the weakest first. Gray Beard dismissed it with a flick of his wrist.

  The parade of mutts continued for another 15 minutes, each dog more sorry than the first. When the final beast was rejected, this one missing a hind leg, the Toad began to wind up his presentation.

  “I do not believe they like our dogs. We’ll eat them before we give them away. We’ll have a feast the night before we leave for the north.”

  “The north?” The question rose from the back of the crowd. “Why must we go north? We are a lake clan. The lake is good hunting.”

  The Toad scowled toward the voice.

  “Show yourself Gollib! I recognize your voice! The rest of you, look at my feet. Do they look ready to trek to the heart of the far mountains? Do you think I want to leave my cave?”

  The Toad scowled at his clan, slowly turned to take their measure.

  “This is why we learn our clan’s stories,” he fumed. “If we listen, if we pay attention, they warn us of trouble before it happens. You saw the yellow ducks flying back to the south in the Spring! You have watched the level of the lake drop by the height of a man though it is still winter. When was the last heavy rain?

  “Drier times are coming. The legends speak of the yellow ducks, they tell about the level of the lake and many hands of other indicators I have seen. The legends are clear. This lake will become the domain of the herds, its waters will be fouled by dying birds, fish and animals. The legends say the lake will drop so far the Big River will not flow. Every creature in the river from here to the sea will die. All the streams and springs will dry up. There will be no frogs to gig, turtles to catch or crawfish to net.

  “We must go north to find a valley of melting ice where the water always flows. That is what our ancestors did to survive. Do you mock our revered elders? Do you question the clan’s wisdom?”

  Shuffling over to stand before his stoic, wrinkled leader, he waited for the man-sized raisin to speak. Not one to waste words, the leader’s verdict was concise.

  “North,” he mumbled.

  As the Toad sunk to his fur-covered seat, all eyes turned toward the Green Turtle contingent. Gray Beard let them stew for a good 30 seconds before springing to his feet like a leopard. Gone was the sniffing and coughing. In their place were clear eyes and the strong voice of the great storyteller, Leonglauix.

  Deftly backhanding a scoop of tiny pine cones into the fire to make them crackle and flare like firecrackers, he walked without a limp to the center clearing. Turning a slow circle, meeting their eyes, he waited for the laughter and shouts to fade to silence before launching into his story. From his trademark opening line to the end, he held them in the palm of his hand. Plucking funny bones as well as heartstrings, he wove a tale that would have made Shakespeare proud.

  Listen and I will tell you a story!

  Before I begin, I must ask a question. Where did you get the dogs you offered to trade me? Did you drag them from the bottom of the lake? Did a great bear walk by and shit them out his fat ass? I have seen healthier dogs in a cook bag. Thank you, but no thank you. Your great storyteller is right. Those dogs will make a good meal before you head north. Eat them or carry them. Those are your two choices.

  On our way here, as we traveled through valleys and over hills, I told my daughter and her husband about the best dog I ever owned. The female stood tall as my chest and had teeth as strong as any wolf. She was fearless, but not so stupid to get herself killed by a hippo or lion. She knew her limits and she knew we were better fighting together than alone. This dog stayed by my side whether we were battling an aurochs or a clan of thieves and rapists. She saved my life more than once, and I saved hers.

  Nobody on this earth has seen a smarter dog. I did not have to tell her what to do. She knew what I was thinking! My bitch had four litters of pups. The dogs she bore were strong and healthy, but not one as smart as her. In fact, some were really dumb, almost as dumb as the dogs my new friend the Toad tried to sell me! Ha ha! I joke with him because we are friends. I knew his grandfather and father.

  Everywhere I took my dog there were people who wanted to buy her. Or steal her! Many a night I woke to fi
nd some thieving Neanderthal Flat Head sneaking to take my dog. None ever got close. When she slept with me, NOTHING ever got close. She had a different growl for every animal, and a different pitch that told me how far away the lion or bear was, if it was a big danger, little danger or no danger at all. Since her death, I never sleep as soundly as I used to.

  She did not bark her head off over every little noise. That is annoying in a dog. No, she only bothered me when she needed to. For a bear on the hunt, she would make a sound like this, grrrrrrrrrrr, woof! A little fox come to steal our food? Goorrrrrrruf! A porcupine trying to chew our tools? Hhrrrrrrhhrrrrhhrrrr. A herd of mammoths charging down the path, headed into camp? Ahrrr! Ahrrrr! Ahrrrrrrr!

  I can see some of you have survived a mammoth attack. It is something you never forget. The sights and sounds of the people you love being stomped and snatched up by great hairy trunks and thrown high into the air. Did you know mammoths like to curl their trunks around people and slam them against a tree over and over long after they are dead? Oh yes! I’ve seen it with my own eyes. A bull mammoth once picked up my cousin and tossed him so high in an oak tree we had to leave his body there. We wanted to bury him, to sew hazelnuts beneath his eyelids, to equip him with tools and weapons for whatever comes next, but could not get him down.

  This attack came before I had my dog. My father was leader of the Green Turtle Clan at the time. We had killed two female mammoths by running them off a cliff in thick fog. It was good hunting. My father was a skillful hunter. He trained his people well. We used smoke and fire to break up the herd, startle the two females into running the wrong way. They ran and we ran after them, waving torches and screaming. Ahhyyee-Yah! Ahhyyee-Yah! Not one of us considered the danger. If the giants had turned to face us, we would have been dead. Oh, to be young and stupid again. I would happily trade my knowledge and memories for a young body and a chance to do it all over. Wouldn’t you?