Human

by Hayley Camille

  Xiou stepped forward. “There are some old spears that were not burnt,” he said. “Most have cracked points and will need reworking.” A handful of young men standing nearby volunteered and Setian began to issue instructions to them.

  “Kora,” Xiou continued, “You and Guntah should organise new shafts. We need as many as possible.” The woman and her mate nodded.

  “We’ll need a lot of food to replace our winter stores as well as feed ourselves now,” Kora said. “When will we leave?”

  “Within two days,” said Xiou. “Krue and I have already discussed it. We will hunt the probech.”

  Stegodon. A strange sense of foreboding filled Ivy’s heart.

  Hot, rhythmic drumming pushed the hunters from the cave. The mood was tense. There were three less hunters since the fire, and those leaving were terrified for the safety of those staying behind.

  Ten had volunteered to guard the cave; older hunters whose agility was leaving them. Still, their new responsibility was perhaps more dangerous and none liked the necessary separation. Families rubbed brows lovingly in farewell. The hunters turned away from the expectant faces of their children and the anxious frowns of elders and nursing women.

  “Look after each other,” Ivy said to Kyah and Trahg. The bonobo had followed the hunters down to the river with Trahg clinging on to her back. Ivy knelt down and pulled them both into a tight hug, then pulled back to look Kyah in the eye. “Stay safe, Ky. I need you safe. Always.”

  The bonobo gently dropped Trahg to his feet and took Ivy’s hand. Love.

  “I love you too, honey,” Ivy whispered.

  Kyah hooted softly and drew her fingers gently down Ivy’s face, collecting her tears. No. Cry.

  Ivy laughed, sniffing. “And when did you become the grown up here?” She kissed Kyah’s face and rubbed her brow against Trahg’s gently.

  “I’ll keep her safe,” the little boy said stoically.

  “I know you will,” Ivy smiled. With a deep breath, she turned and followed the hunters across the river terrace until the jungle closed in and silence took them.

  Forty men and women camouflaged into shadow like spectres of children playing a deadly game. The hunters carried spears and arrows, bludgeoning clubs and stone knives. To be so tiny but so capable… Ivy shivered in the warm air.

  Today they hunted probech, the great tusked giants of the forest. Stegodons were massive in their strength and fierce in their defence. Often, less hands returned home than had left. The waiting family had cause to worry.

  Ivy noticed the intensity of the hobbits as they moved together through the trees. They were silent, like a multi-shafted arrow with a single point. How they communicated while travelling, she couldn’t exactly tell. Perhaps it was only a glance from one to another and like a flock of birds; they shifted weightlessly, changing direction.

  They were athletic and relentless in their trek but didn’t run and Ivy thought she knew why. Over long distances, Homo floresiensis were built for endurance and stability but not speed. Their feet were a bizarre combination of ancient and modern traits. Their navicular bone, the one that formed the arch in a sapien foot, was primitive and depressed, giving the hobbits a flat-footed stance. A shorter big toe and comparatively long forefoot compared to the ankle bones were reminiscent of chimpanzees and other great apes. To compensate, their running gait was slightly different to Ivy’s own, longer but with less spring and efficiency to it and only good for short distances.

  Ivy paced herself to keep up, feeling her abdominal muscles tense and flex, her breath deep. She was barefoot, with a new spear in hand, watching for the fleeting smiles of Leihna, Rinap or little Filhia to correct her path. Her journal and pencil were tucked into a fold of her skirt. They ascended a steep mountain range at a fast climb, disappeared into its lush valley and followed a river that cut it neatly in half.

  After two hours they stopped. The sun hadn’t reached its peak but sweltering heat rose like waves from the dry grass underfoot. Krue was crouching near the tree line, conversing with Xiou, Setian and five others. Hunters re-materialised from the trees and Ivy slumped into the grass, catching her breath. Filhia’s petite fingers clasped her amulet.

  “You’re doing well Hiranah; it’s not an easy pass through those mountains.”

  “I’m trying,” Ivy replied. In fact, she’d never looked so healthy. Her light freckles added a touch of bronze to the pink glowing skin shining with sweat. “Are we nearly there?”

  “The probech are just up-river, Krue was following their trail.”

  “Hiranah!” Xiou interrupted, beckoning them to where he stood, “Come rub this on your skin.” At Xiou’s feet lay the largest pile of dung Ivy had ever seen. It was olive green and spotted with half-digested grass, and was the foulest smelling concoction she’d had the displeasure of breathing.

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Of course,” said Xiou, “We have to disguise our scent so we don’t scare them off. The cows are very protective of their calves and will be quick to charge. We need to get as close as we can before we take one down.”

  Ivy crouched down. She looked doubtfully at the giant splatter.

  “Actually, I’m not getting that close to them anyway, I’ll be in the tree line with Filhia and the younger girls waiting.” Although Krue had begrudgingly allowed her to come, Ivy had been designated to carry butchering tools and hides to wrap meat in for their return journey. She would be far from the action and her spear was just a precaution.

  Xiou grinned. “It doesn’t matter where you are. Their eyes may be bad, but the probech would smell you a forest away.” Ivy grimaced as his finger deposited a chunk across her cheek with a laugh. “Besides, it looks good on you!” He laughed and turned back to Setian and Krue.

  Filhia had already begun covering herself, her little nose wrinkled. Ivy dug her fingers into the mess, holding her breath. She gingerly wiped it along her pale arms and legs, careful to avoid the journal tucked by her hip. Ivy imagined how ridiculous she must look with green stripes of dung adorning her white skin. She tried to clean her face of it, but only added to the mess and wiped her face on her singlet instead. By the time she finished, Ivy had more on her than anyone. They were joined by Rinap and Leihna, who laughed at Ivy’s appalled face. Ivy turned her face into the wind hopefully, but couldn’t escape her own smell.

  Ivy moved into the river terrace last. She watched as the brown grass waved the hobbits through with dark trails closing behind each step, leaving forty broken spaces in a tendrilled sea. She ducked down, crawling to afford the same cover. Only a faint rustle of grass and a dry twig cracking gave them away. They stalked their prey, bare feet to hard earth and warm blood saturated with adrenaline. As each minute passed, Ivy’s chest grew tighter as the tension in the air increased.

  Rinap’s face was unnaturally tense; a far cry from the impish grin and carefree spirit she usually wore. This was her first hunt, along with Leihna, her soon-to-be-mate Kari and two other boys. Rinap nudged Ivy forward, her fingers to her lips. She nodded to the sky, inviting Ivy to raise her head. Ivy gasped at what she saw, earning herself a hard poke in the ribs from Rinap.

  Three stegodon stood on the opposite shore of the riverbank. Two bachelors stood sentry, alert and restless, listening to the hot wind with keen ears. Unable to find a source to the noise that disrupted their feeding, they resumed. One was at the water’s edge, flicking his trunk in the cool water. The other shuffled nearby, grass to his underbelly, shredding slashes from the ground with his curled trunk and probing fingers.

  But the older male they guarded was the one who drew Ivy’s eyes. He was magnificent.

  Ivory tusks dragged his massive skull toward the ground. The left tusk was long and proud and the right was worn and torn from a half century of digging and stripping bark. They erupted together from deep within his skull, dead straight and conjoined from his top lip. They were over one and a half meters long and flared apart at the ends. His forehead was high
, parted with two bulbous domes and a distinctive nasal bridge unlike any modern elephant.

  At over two meters long and another one and a half high, Ivy knew this was the dwarfed ancestor of those that swam to Flores over 880,000 years before. The dwarf stegodon and their hobbit counterparts were the only large bodied mammals to make it across the dangerous watery divide to find their island paradise. They shared a fated bond, Ivy thought ironically; the hunter and hunted. Two intelligent species that had evolved together and now both shared a future of genetic extinction at the hands of Homo sapiens. But not if I can help it. Ivy squeezed Rinap’s hand tightly in her own.

  Six hundred kilograms of flesh and muscle swayed with agitation as the old bull looked up. The agile fingers on his trunk dripped as he brought it from his mouth to the hot air, holding it high to taste the delicate balance of the breeze. He seemed to detect a new smell, but so faint and diffused that it cast no suggestion to friend or foe. He looked experienced and confident, his solidity and weaponry well used to defend. Newcomers would pose little threat to him. His trunk fell, grasping a fist of grass and delivering it to his plates of ridged molars. Draping his trunk over his tusks for convenience, he resumed chewing.

  Literally and figuratively, the hunters were dwarfed by their prey. At best, Ivy’s companions would have reached a few inches above its underbelly. Sporting inbuilt spears, a tough hide and massive gait, the stegodon seemed in every way untouchable.

  Although there was a river between them, Ivy’s skin suddenly felt too white, her body too tall, her hair too bright. She sunk low into the grass, spreading it silently with her hands to catch glimpses through the veil. Again Rinap’s reassuring touch found her.

  “We won’t hunt these males; they’re too big for us. Krue is following the spoor of the matriarch herd downriver instead. Follow me and keep quiet – if the males hear or smell us, they’ll warn the others and charge.”

  They continued through the long grass. Midday became a furnace and rivulets of sweat ran into her eyes. Ivy blinked as she moved awkwardly on crouched, aching knees to keep her bright red hair well below the grass ceiling. Not for the first time, she wished she’d been born sporting an inconspicuous shade of dark brown. Her journal softly bumped against her thigh as she moved. This time Rinap stayed by her side, entirely upright and still sheltered by the long grass. They drew back from the river until the relentless sun was cooled by the shade of dalunut palms. Another twenty minutes on and their quarry was finally revealed.

  The female herd was bigger than expected. Nine adult stegodon milled in and around the gently cascading water. Some stood languid by the water’s edge while others enjoyed a bath in its deep centre, shooting trunkfuls of water across their backs to relieve the sweltering heat. On the riverbank, coarsely haired ears flapped rhythmically, cooling the blood circulating in the rich network of blood vessels under their thin skin. Six juveniles completed the family. One female and one male were almost fully grown and two infants and two calves were splashing in the shallows.

  A newborn calf was shadowed under a forest of browny-gold legs, constantly caressed by the trunks of its allomothers. Sisters, mothers, daughters and aunts made up the group of attentive babysitters, and all were dedicated to protecting it from its own naivety. Still exhausted from a twenty-two-month pregnancy, the new calf’s mother relied on her sisters to watch over the calf while she fed. Extra strength was needed to nurse her seventy-kilogram newborn and to regain that which she had lost in its carriage.

  The nursing mother stood alone on the far side of the river, vulnerable in her isolation. Her attention was consumed as she lifted her trunk high among leaves tasting the air. With a rumbling groan, her front legs left the ground and landed squarely on a thick tree, splaying with the pressure. The tree was ancient, colossal and strong, but it bowed under her weight and loud cracks echoed across the valley. She curled her long trunk around the high branch she sought and shook it with tremendous force, causing a cascade of hard green fruit. The tree straightened as she left it, landing back on her giant cushioned feet with an almighty thud that shook the earth.

  Delicately, the stegodon mother smelt the fallen fruit with her trunk, then rolled one into position and crushed it open with her foot. She brought it to her mouth while reaching for a second with her trunk as she chewed. Natural selection had provided her with an instrument so incredible, she could use it to tear an entire branch off a tree or pick up a single blade of grass. Ivy had never felt so humbled.

  Rinap’s signal drew her attention to the near adult bull. He was close; Ivy could see the long dark lashes framing a treacle-coloured eye. His skin was caked in yellow mud as protection from the harsh sun. He was still smaller than the adult females, but would eventually grow to tower over them. For now, he preferred the fringes of the herd, probably spending days or weeks off at a time on his own. Ivy guessed that within a few years, his independence would lead him to a solitary life, or to fight for dominance in a bachelor herd until he’d lived a half century and was deemed fit to mate.

  Standing alone on a rocky steppe, the matriarch missed nothing. She was the oldest female and therefore the one to lead the herd hundreds of miles each year through their seasonal feeding grounds. Her experienced eye kept them from danger and the others followed her lead unquestioningly. If such a thing was possible, and Ivy believed it was, the matriarch looked proud of her family.

  For the longest moment, all notion of why she was there was lost to Ivy as she crouched, transfixed by the scene before her. She felt alone, watching the stegodon family play and safeguard one another. It may never be hers again, this opportunity that shouldn’t have been hers at all. She committed each detail bright and sharp into her memory; the parallel ivory tusks, silty golden mud caked across their broad backs, lashings of grass ripped easily from the hard ground and the gentle, reassuring touch of an aunt to newborn. Ivy longed to pull out her journal right there to keep the memory from fading.

  Rinap’s fingers closed around her own and Ivy’s joy collapsed. They were here to hunt. One of these animals was about to die.

  “Xiou is ready. Filhia’s waiting for you.”

  With a sinking feeling, Ivy made her way to the trees. It was no longer her own safety she was concerned about. The stegodon family were devoted to one another and about to lose a member. The matriarch would defend an attack. Ivy suppressed her instinct to protect the animals’ lives and forced the faces of the hunters into her mind instead. Xiou, Kora, Guntah, Setian, Krue, Leihna, Rinap, Kari - this was their livelihood. It was necessary and to be fair, the size and strength of the stegodon far surpassed the hunters. It could easily be her own family that lost and suffered today.

  On the sloped forest edge, Filhia found her. Of the forty that came, eight stayed in the trees. They were there to assist, to butcher, to carry. Some, like Filhia, were too young or unskilled to hunt and others were experts only in butchering or had injuries from the fire that rendered them less agile but still strong. Ivy watched as the black spaces below wove through the grass in a wide arc. Beside her, Filhia’s eyes were straining to follow her sister’s shadow. With both parents taken by the Swift Death, the girls were inseparable.

  Ivy watched as the arc closed in precisely, like a shower of arrows. In the centre, the young bull startled from his cud, sensing danger. The vibration of thirty pairs of tiny feet came to him through the soles of his own, as a myriad of nerve receptors shot the low frequency message to his brain.

  Rearing back on two legs, his low groan escalated to a bellow, splitting the tranquillity as the jigsaw of hunters suddenly materialised around him. Instantly, the air was rent with trumpeting, bellowing and a stampede of massive feet. With a rush of air, he crashed to earth and charged forward, scattering the hunters crouched before him like so many mice. The matriarch screamed in fury and stamped her feet sending vibrations far into the hard earth. She rushed in from her outpost.

  The stegodon herd thrashed though the water. Confusion reig
ned as they sought an escape through the minefield of spears upon them. The calves were swept up in a rush of trunks and thundering feet. With weak newborn eyes, the little one fell, lost in the long grass. Within an instant she was surrounded by a barrage of trunks rolling and lifting her to unsteady feet. With a roar like thunder the mother stegodon reached her, eyes rolling with rage. She led her baby in the direction of the retreating herd. The calves were pushed back from danger by young adults, while the matriarch and her eldest daughters fanned out, fiercely protecting their precious ones.

  Still separated, the young bull roared and fought, holding the hunters at bay. Spears slashed from all sides to weaken and tire him. The females rushed to his defence crushing the long grass and its hidden attackers beneath them. Tusks ripped at the hunters who returned lightning jabs of razor-sharp stone.

  The stegodon threw bodies in their wake. The hunters ducked and weaved underneath, caught in a dangerous game of dare beneath feet bigger than their own skull. But it was the bull they sought; they had no interest in killing the others and only defended themselves to achieve their end.

  Ivy’s heart pounded at the sight of bodies being thrown. She had lost sight of Rinap and Leihna in the chaos surrounding the bull. Are they hurt? The prospect of such fragile girls being thrown or skewered by a tusk ran her blood cold.

  Filhia’s face beside her was frozen in fright. Her little lips were pinched and her brow was so deeply furrowed it looked cut into ridges. Sweat pricked her face, collecting on her top lip and her fist was clenched almost white around Ivy’s fingers. Ivy squeezed her hand, realizing it was cold and clammy, despite the heat.

  Quickly, intuitively, the hunters realigned themselves. With a half dozen keeping each of the tyrannical females at bay, the strongest men gathered at the head of the young bull, now foaming at the mouth with anger and exhaustion. In one swift move, Ivy saw Krue, Setian and Xiou leap into his path. Xiou’s spear broke clean through the centre of his forehead directly below his treacle eyes. Simultaneously, Krue thrust his spear into the soft knobbed bone of his temple and Setian sprung high clinging to its back piercing the tender flesh under his shoulder blade with enough force to pierce his heart. With a final bellow, the bull crashed to the ground, dead.