Great Sky Woman

by Steven Barnes

  It was a lie. Word would have spread to the outer bhan. Knowing he had been shunned, desiring the goodwill of the Ibandi, it was likely none would have taken Lizard in. So this was what their friendship had come to: a dance of lies. “I go, but Father Mountain goes with me,” Lizard said. “They say that the night itself is the mountain’s shadow.”

  There was a long pause, and for a time Frog feared that there would be nothing more to say, that those would be the last words they ever shared. Then a thought occurred to him. “Some say that the stars are the campfires of all the dead. I think them wrong.”

  “What are they, then?” Lizard said, so full of hope that Frog almost wept.

  “They are Great Mother’s eyes, I think. And they will see you wherever you go.”

  Lizard hugged Frog. “Only you would create a story just to comfort a friend. Only you could.” He kissed Frog’s forehead so softly it was like a whisper of wind. “Remember what I said. Never let them see. Stop speaking of faces in clouds. Don’t ask so many questions. You have a mother, and an uncle and brothers to protect you, but still…” He was trembling now, and Frog did not think it was from the cold. “Fear kills,” he said.

  Then without another word, Lizard crawled through the gap in the boma wall and was gone.

  In the days to come Frog hunted, kept his weapons clean, wrestled in the circle until he was exhausted. He helped the men burn the brush back from the boma walls, so that the leopards and lions could not sneak close. And as he did, the smoke blew back into his eyes and Frog was happy, because it meant that he could cry in front of his fellows, and no one would know.

  Almost a moon and a half later, Fire Ant hobbled back into camp, leaning on a branch, his right leg badly cut and infected, the skin hot to the touch, swollen and running with pus. But despite his wounds and sore condition, a freshly slain antelope was draped across his shoulders. His chest was scarred. A deep wound bloodied his left arm.

  The entire boma turned out to see the young man as, with one pain-filled step after another, he limped through the gap in the thorn walls.

  Uncle Snake took his burden from him, and the other hunters helped him to the fire pit, where he was given water as they all clustered around.

  Ant drank as if no water had touched his lips in days, his eyes sunken and haunted. When he had drunk his fill, he began to speak.

  “I saw them,” he said. “They were not beast-men.”

  Break Spear leaned in closer.

  “What did you see?” he asked.

  “It was after the first moon,” Fire Ant said. “I had made myself a blind to hide, near a water hole, and I saw them come. They were big, bigger than us. They were faster, and stronger.” For the first time that Frog could remember, Ant looked scared.

  “What happened?”

  “I watched them run down a springbok. They had not stabbed or poisoned it. They were that fast. It was quick, but they ran it down. Never have I seen the like.”

  “How did you hurt your leg?”

  “After the night came, I crept out and ran away. I fell down a ravine and hurt my leg. I thought I would die, but at last it began to heal. One of my traps caught an antelope, and I came back.”

  They were amazed. Wounded, possibly hunted, frightened, and still he had waited to trap an antelope before returning. This was a hunter indeed, and Frog felt stronger just knowing Ant’s blood ran in his veins.

  To Frog’s dismay, fortune was not with Lizard. He did not return, and after much argument and voting, the men decided to go in search of him. The nights after they left were filled with blowing dust, and Frog felt in his bones that their efforts would be in vain.

  When Uncle Snake and Break Spear returned, their faces told the story. “We searched,” they said. “And were almost lost in the storm. We were separated from each other, and knew that Lizard was gone. We came back.”

  Frog heard what they said, and suspicion burned in his heart. Had they really looked? Or worse…had Dry Hole found Lizard, quietly, privately, and…

  Frog stared at him. Friend, neighbor…and something else? “But we found these,” Dry Hole said, and laid out several crude arrows. The arrows were different from Fire boma’s: longer, of thicker branches. He’d never seen such clumsy, almost childish workmanship. They were far too heavy for Ibandi bows. Except for the crudeness, they might have been constructed for Father Mountain Himself.

  He crept away to where Fire Ant rested. Boma mother Hot Tree had tended to the wound and already sent for a dream dancer. Frog sniffed the mangled leg: the bad, rotten smell was not there, and for this he was glad, despite his brother’s pain.

  Fire Ant opened his eyes. “Frog,” he whispered, and reached out to take his hand. Frog was relieved to find his brother’s grip as strong as ever.

  “Did you see the creatures clearly?” Frog asked.

  He nodded. “They were not Ibandi, or bhan…. they were a type of beast-men we have not seen.”

  “Why?”

  “They were larger,” he said. “Larger than us.” He turned his face away. “I was afraid,” he said. Then exhaustion claimed him, and he spoke no more that night.

  After two days, the compress of sweet grass and herbs had eased the pain in Fire Ant’s leg. With the help of his brothers he was able to hobble out to the men’s fire.

  There, Snake and Dry Hole laid out the arrows once again.

  “These arrows are crude,” Break Spear said. “Perhaps the beast-men use them, and we have not seen.”

  You slaughtered them and lost not one of our own people. There is something else out there, something more dangerous than any beast-man. You slaughtered the beast-men for nothing, Frog said to himself, wishing that he could scream aloud.

  Fire Ant nodded. “I could not see. There was no moon, and the clouds stole the stars. But once there was light, and I saw…something else.”

  “What?” Snake asked.

  Frog strained to hear.

  “I saw one of them jump, and he was like a monkey. He went farther than even a hunt chief can leap.”

  Did they leap like his own totem jumped? Frog wondered. He envisioned them springing in the moonlight on all fours.

  Fire Ant bowed his head in shame. He was battered and bruised and scraped. “I should have followed them. Learned more. I was afraid and ran away.”

  Hot Tree laid her comforting hand on the youth’s head. “There is no shame. You lived to bring us this knowledge.”

  Frog wanted to scream, Let me go! Lizard may still be alive! But Frog knew it was hopeless. His heart said that his friend was dead, and his mind knew his heart was right. He curled up that night and cried for his own sins. Cloud Stalker’s stone had been black on the outside but white on the inside. Lizard’s life could not be saved by human intervention.

  Stupid Frog.

  Stupid, stupid Frog.

  He cried himself to sleep that night for his lost best friend, Lizard.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the time following Fire Ant’s return, Frog Hopping came to a decision. Others, he thought, might be stronger or faster than he, but no one would work harder at his practice. As Frog grew older he was given more tasks and chores, but his primary purpose was to become a hunter, and every moment of his waking day was filled with knife-making, spear-throwing, stalking, hunting, all the men’s skills. He had tried to be good with the bow, but despite his endless efforts, that skill seemed to elude him. With the spear, though…

  That was very different. The spear he loved. And it loved him in return. Point. Shaft. Butt. He learned to use them all as weapons and tools. Frog learned to find the perfect bamboo shafts and tree branches, to harvest and sharpen them swiftly and surely.

  The boys played games of their own, but other games were organized by the men. The favorite was the echo game: walking in each other’s footsteps, mimicking one another’s motion, walking silently in a circle, following one another up the sides of hills or creeping through the tree branches, placing each han
d and foot where a cousin had placed his before. During the echo game, they practiced breathing in rhythm with one another, that they might gain greater connection with their brother hunters. They were also taught the shallow breathing that allowed them to stay awake for days at a time while lying in the dirt covered with biting ants.

  And in between, they ran and wrestled and carried rocks or one another, becoming strong.

  All of this preparation was about far more than merely becoming strong. It was knowing with every sinew the strengths and weaknesses of the other hunters, so that each could anticipate the inclinations and actions of his brothers. This was what was needed to succeed in the hunt. “A man alone is vulnerable,” Uncle Snake said. “The boma together is strong. The Ibandi as a people are unconquerable.”

  Frog wanted desperately to believe that, but he had seen things, knew things now that caused him to doubt too much of his world. His brothers were secure in their trust and ignorance. Frog had knowledge, and that knowledge terrified him.

  Hawk Shadow had returned home after his seasons away, bringing with him a bride named Flamingo from Wind boma, a graceful beauty already heavy with child. In spite of his new responsibilities, he took time to help Frog learn.

  “Like this,” he said. Hawk’s round face set in a mask of concentration. He inhaled, swung up and back, then threw the spear twice as far as Frog had ever managed. “Now you. At that fever tree.”

  Frog’s own throw, which he had so recently been proud of, went only half the distance, striking nothing but dirt. Hawk Shadow laughed and walked away, leaving Frog running after the spear. Frog practiced from first light to dusk. But at the agonizing end of that day he realized that he had done more running than spear-throwing.

  He spent the next days crafting five spears. This was not an easy task: he had to find the right branches, of dark spearwood that effortlessly held the sharpest killing point. After he found his hand of branches, he stripped and sharpened them, built a fire with sober care and baked the tips to hardness while singing praise to the spirits of the wood. After that, when he practiced, he could throw one after another, seeking the perfect motion. At this point he wasn’t trying to hit the tree or any specific target, just trying to throw so that each of them landed within an arm’s span. Then, after throwing all five, he ran to collect them and began the process anew.

  The eyes of Fire boma’s hunters were upon him. At first those eyes were amused, but after some days he could reliably land all the spears within one arm’s span, and their mirth gentled and became approving nods.

  It was time to start refining his aim.

  Throw them. Fetch them. Throw them. On and on he went, endlessly, until his aching muscles forced him to stop. In this fashion he filled any time he could steal away from other chores.

  “Frog!” his cousins called. “Come play with us.” Over the days the other boys had become impressed and perhaps even a bit intimidated by his practice. Did they see? Could they see that he feared he was as different as Lizard?

  Lizard. That thought resurrected painful memories. What had happened to him, and would any of them ever know for certain?

  “I have to practice,” he said.

  Stepbrother Scorpion, the largest of them, grabbed his arm, twisting. They all swarmed over him, bearing him away with them. “There is more than one thing to practice!” Scorpion said. “We wrestle!”

  In the burned ring surrounding every boma was crafted a wrestling circle, raked earth ringed with stones. It was there that the young men found practice, competition…and occasional anguish. During Spring Gathering the various village champions contested for honor, rank, sport and sometimes brides. Every young man was expected to participate.

  The rules were simple and relatively consistent from one boma to the next. The younger wrestlers were free to contest with one another, but could not ask older, more experienced wrestlers for informal practice: such were considered challenges. But older wrestlers could “ask” younger to roll with them. Such invitations were almost never refused.

  Any wrestler who habitually thrashed younger, less experienced opponents swiftly became the target of the village’s most senior wrestlers, who would teach him that there were infinite gradations to suffering. If that was not enough to dissuade him, hunt chiefs could be summoned from Great Sky, and their strong, sure hands generally resolved the matter. An additional correction was rarely required.

  When Frog practiced with his brothers or one of the other hunters, he knew that they used only a portion of their strength. They were urging him to do his best, testing and encouraging.

  Many times, Frog had watched spellbound as Fire Ant and Hawk Shadow wrestled with the older men. If the elders were still active hunters, they were usually better, and the brothers and other boys were encouraged to use all of their strength. But if the elders were no longer running with the herds, the younger men were expected to refrain from shaming the older men, whose days of strength and challenge were behind them.

  During most practice one wrestled not just to win, but to “make pretty,” to be graceful in the midst of struggle. To win “ugly” was less than to lose “pretty.” This was something Frog strove to understand, and understand he must if he was to wear the scars.

  This is how it had always been, and how it would ever be.

  So they practiced with monkey rolls and baboon leaps, leopard-walking and all of the other exercises he had learned since he was a baby.

  “Now,” Scorpion said, “you can drive my shoulders down, or throw me from the circle, or make me cry Father Mountain.”

  Although trembling with fear and excitement, Frog’s words were bold indeed: “And what if I kill you?”

  The boys stamped their feet, applauding his bravado. “Well, then, you win!”

  Frog put his head down and charged…. all the way out of the circle. The others laughed. He bounced up and charged again. Over and over again he was thrown out, but no matter how tired and sore he became, he never quit. Then Scorpion pinned him to the dirt and began twisting his arm until he was sure his shoulder socket would rupture. He screamed, “Father Mountain!” and the contest was over.

  The boys cried out for the best of the young hunters: Frog’s elder brothers Hawk Shadow and Fire Ant. One at a time the brothers entered the circle, and their strength and skill swiftly drove the younger ones into the dust.

  To the side, boma father Break Spear was quietly watching every move.

  Frog was fascinated by a twisting move that sent Fire Ant’s opponent flying out of the circle. He had the next idea. “Now the two of you!” he cried. “Wrestle each other! Let’s see it!”

  His brothers grinned at each other. Some of the others in the boma stopped their work and drifted over. Fire Ant shook out his left leg, a flicker of unease floating across his face. Was the leg still bothering him? Hadn’t it healed yet?

  Whatever discomfort he experienced, Fire Ant hid it behind a face of stone. “You taste dust today, brother.”

  “One of us will cry Father Mountain today,” Hawk Shadow said. “It will not be me.”

  Frog’s brothers took their places on opposite sides of the circle and began to stalk each other.

  The two collided in the center of the circle, each of them so well balanced and so well matched that, in straining together, their muscles leapt out in stark relief.

  A flicker of pain crossed Ant’s face. The injured leg again?

  There was a fluid blur of limbs, a shout and a drop to one knee, and Fire Ant flew through the air. Hawk Shadow was the winner! Never had Hawk won so easily. Even now, a year after his injuries, Fire Ant was still diminished. Frog sensed that never again might Ant be Hawk Shadow’s equal.

  Hawk Shadow pounced, twisting his brother’s arm. “Say Father Mountain!”

  Fire Ant struggled, and twisted, and was unable to free himself. “Father Mountain! Father Mountain!”

  A gigantic hand fell on Hawk Shadow’s shoulder, lifting him off his vanquished broth
er.

  It was the mighty Break Spear himself, breathing deep and slow and strong, vast belly jiggling, his eyes alight with mischief.

  “Come, wrestle me.” The hunt chief was squat and muscular, seeming to Frog to be as wide as he was tall. He was a gristly boulder of a man, his black eyes sheltered beneath shelves of bony ridge.

  This was one of the most important moments in Hawk’s life. It was a great honor indeed for the boma father to offer a younger hunter the right of challenge.

  Next to Break Spear’s massive form, Hawk Shadow’s smooth, muscular body seemed almost girlish. Now it was his turn to shrink back. He was a handsbreadth taller than the hunt chief, but that made little difference. There was something…quiet about the broader man. This quality Frog had seen in some of the elders, a familiarity, a certainty born of experience. He had wrestled countless matches and knew every clever twisting move.

  Hawk Shadow took a position on the far side of the circle, spreading his legs and planting his feet firmly.

  Word spread swiftly through the boma, and the folk gathered to see what was about to happen between Fire boma’s greatest hunter and its most promising young man. Hands of them gathered around. In a way that all understood, Father Mountain and Great Mother had granted the family a glimpse of seasons to come.

  Three of the boma’s old hunters hobbled happily to the wrestling circle, dragging their hollow-log drums with them. They planted themselves and began to stroke them vigorously, providing rhythm.

  Hawk Shadow and Break Spear wore only twists of skins tied with knotted cord covering their genitals, but even if they hadn’t, that tender target would have been taboo in a practice match. Mortal combat was, of course, different.

  The drums throbbed with a beat that would have compelled dead bones to dance. Frog swayed and jumped, excited.

  For the first time, Hawk Shadow stood in the challenge circle with the boma father.