Suddenly They Heard Footsteps

by Dan Yashinsky

  WHY ALL TONGUES ARE RED

  This story was inspired by the many creation tales I heard from Mrs. Angela Sidney, a Tagish-Tlingit elder who lived in Yukon Territory.

  SCORCH WAS GREEDY. He owned all the fire in the world, and he kept it all to himself. He made his fire blaze high in his cave, glaring and staring at the bright flames and the dancing shadows. He had one eye, and it was red.

  The world was cold in those days, cold and quiet. It was cold because Scorch guarded his fire well. In the long winter of the early world, nobody but Scorch had the warmth of the fire. And it was quiet, too, because in those days human beings did not have tongues. We used the language of hands and the language of pictures to talk in those days.

  A hunter had once ventured near Scorch’s cave. He’d seen the fire, felt its warmth, marvelled at its brightness. But the fire ogre had spotted him with his bright vermilion eye, and thrown a burning coal at him. Scorch wounded the hunter, who barely managed to escape. By the time he staggered back to his people, his death was near. Before he died, he used the language of pictures and the language of his hands to tell what he had seen. For fire, he made a pile of sumac twigs, bright red. Then he drew a picture of Scorch, and put a red berry in the middle of his head to show the one glaring eye. He held his hands over the sumac twigs to show that they were warm. He pointed at the drawing and drew his finger across his throat to show high danger. His wife and his daughter and son held him close, but the wound was too deep.

  The people had gathered around the hunter and his grieving family. They looked at these strange drawings and shook their heads. They looked at each other. They shrugged their shoulders. Nobody’s hands said anything—people were confused and frightened.

  The hunter’s daughter was heartbroken. She loved her father, and now he was gone. She kept staring at the sumac twigs and wondering what her father had seen deep in the forest. Red was her favourite colour. She’d dyed her moccasins bright red, and she loved cardinals. She was curious about this strange red force her father had drawn. She knew how cold her mother was in the long winter. She knew her little brother shivered from the cold. She decided to see the sumac-coloured thing for herself.

  One day her mother went out to pick berries, and the girl was babysitting her little brother. She decided to take a walk in the forest. Usually the little boy napped for a long time, and she figured he’d sleep while she explored. She left him sleeping in their tent and began to walk into the forest looking for clues. She went in the direction her father had pointed before he died.

  She walked a long way.

  She walked until she forgot what time it was.

  Meanwhile, back at their tent, the little boy woke up. He looked around for his sister. She wasn’t there. He couldn’t call out for her so he climbed out of bed and started to look for her. He saw the trail leading into the forest, and he started to follow it. Like all children back then, he was a good trail-follower. But somewhere deep in the forest he lost her trail.

  She had been wandering a long time when all of a sudden she smelled smoke. It was a new smell to her. It was the smoke from Scorch’s private fire. She followed it until she came to a clearing in front of a cave. She crouched in the bushes and watched. There at the entrance of the cave was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Orange and scarlet flames leapt up, sparks cracked up into the air, and the smoke rose grey. Then Scorch appeared. He hunched out of the cave and crouched beside the fire. He was huge and ugly and his one red eye flashed suspiciously around the clearing. She wanted to run away, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the fire. Scorch tossed some dry logs on the fire, and it crackled and burned and looked even lovelier.

  Just then she heard the sound of footsteps. Her little brother stumbled out of the bushes, directly in front of Scorch’s cave. He had been wandering in the forest looking for his big sister. She couldn’t call out a warning—she had no tongue to call with—and she watched with horror as the fire ogre reached out from the cave, curled his claws around the little boy and pulled him inside.

  The girl didn’t know what to do. Her mother might be picking berries nearby, but she couldn’t yell for help. If she ran for the village it might be too late to save the little boy. She decided to fight the ogre all by herself.

  She reached down and picked up a rock. Then she stamped her foot to draw his attention. When Scorch turned to see what made the noise, the girl used all her strength to hurl the rock straight at his one glaring eye. Scorch saw her, reached into the fire and picked out a glowing coal. He threw it and it raced towards the girl. He threw it with deadly aim. Her mouth was open and the burning coal flew in. It scalded her mouth, landed deep in her throat and took root there. Scorch’s ember turned into the world’s first tongue, and when it did, she cried out in pain, and that was the first sound human beings ever made with their voices. Babies have been making that sound ever since, as soon as they’re born.

  The ogre’s coal hit her, but her aim was true. The rock she threw knocked out the ogre’s one eye. Blinded, he stumbled and pitched forward and landed in his own fire. His body blazed up like dry cedar twigs, sizzling and scorching in the flames, and there was a great explosion.

  She ran past the fire into the cave, and found her little brother. He opened his mouth and started talking—for everybody had received their tongues at the same moment the coal stuck in her throat—and said: “I was really really scared but I knew you’d find me because you’re my big sister and why did you leave me all by myself and isn’t fire beautiful and wasn’t that one-eyed monster ugly and now we won’t be cold any more and I wish Daddy could have seen you clobber him and he was wrong to keep fire all to himself and there’s mama coming through the woods.”

  Their mother had heard the huge explosion and come running. She hugged her two children and said, “Are you all right?” That’s still the first thing mothers—and fathers—say when they find their kids, before getting mad at them for being lost in the first place.

  “Yes, mama,” said the girl. “We’re fine.” And she stuck her thumb up to show they were. Even though she could talk now, she still liked to speak with her hands. “And look at the fire, mama. Isn’t it lovely? We won’t be cold any more. It was wrong for that mean one to keep it all to himself. Now we can share fire with everyone who needs it.”

  “And can we have a snack when we get home because I’m starving and I think I have the best big sister in the whole world and that bad guy was really ugly and I think I’m going to like talking,” said the little boy.

  Little brothers—and sisters—have been doing a lot of talking ever since.

  And so the girl, her mother and her brother shared their fire with everybody in the village, and the tribe, and the whole early world. Since that day human beings have used fire to stay warm, cook soup, bake bread, harden pottery, melt metal, make toast, launch rockets, dry wet socks, burn things down, gather people into storytelling circles and kindle light.

  Since the coal landed in the girl’s mouth, all human beings have had tongues, and all tongues are as red as the fire they came from. Like fire, our tongues can be used to bring light or tell lies, to sing or to curse, to cry freedom or speak hate. Best of all, we use our good, red tongues to tell stories.

  RICH AND POOR

  This is a version of a story well known in Eastern Europe. I don’t remember where I first encountered it, but I’ve always loved the image of the circle of men around that mysterious campfire in the snowy woods. For me, it echoes the scene in the Japanese story “Urashima Taro,” when the young fisherman enters the magic garden under the sea and beholds all four seasons taking place at the same eternal moment.

  Once upon a time

  so long ago the “good old days” were still to come,

  and noodles weren’t instant, food wasn’t fast,

  there were no split seconds or rush hours,

  and people said, “Come sit down,” instead of “Hurry up, hurry up!”

  and
nobody carried watches

  but they always had enough time,

  and prime-time meant story time,

  and people listened before they spoke

  and remembered what they heard,

  and every granny knew a thousand stories

  and each story had more levels than a video game—

  back in that time…

  There was once a woman who was very poor. Her husband had died and left her to raise their five children. Times were hard, she couldn’t find a job, and the family barely scraped by. At night, if her children were hungry, she’d sing them her favourite lullaby:

  Summer, autumn, winter, spring

  Turning ’round their blessings bring

  When she didn’t know what else to do, she and the kids would take a long walk in the woods. She taught them to find extra food in the forest, to gather berries and mushrooms and wild honey. And even if they found no food, they’d come back feeling a little happier.

  She had a neighbour who was as rich as she was poor. This woman’s husband had disappeared, but she always seemed to have lots of money. She had two kids, quite spoiled. Whatever they whined for they got. They’d play with their stuff for a day or two, then get bored and throw it on the garbage pile: toys, clothes, running shoes, bikes. But they never thought of sharing their things with their poor neighbours, and the poor woman and her children were too proud to ask for help.

  One day, after her kids had gone to school, the poor woman heard a knock at her door. It was her neighbour. “My maid ran away,” she said, “I need someone to clean, cook and bake today.” The poor woman was so happy to take the job that she forgot to ask what the pay was going to be. She cleaned the house, made the beds, picked up the children’s toys and dirty socks; then went into the kitchen and began to cook and bake. She baked wonderful loaves of bread for the rich woman and her children. Her mouth watered as she worked. When she finished, she came to the rich woman and said, “I have to go home now. I’d like my pay.”

  The rich woman barely looked up from her magazine. “Right,” she said. “You can keep all the dough stuck to your hands from the baking. That’s your pay. Now leave.”

  The poor woman looked at her boss, looked at her doughy hands—then she heard her children coming home from school, so she hurried away to greet them. The rich woman’s laughter echoed behind her.

  When she went into the kitchen to make supper for her children, she saw there was nothing to eat. The children came in, looked up at the empty cupboards, and looked at their mother.

  “Don’t worry, kids,” she said, “I’m going to cook something special for supper tonight. Bring a soup-pot. Fill it with water. Light the fire.” When they had done these things, she put her hands in the water and began to scrape the dough off her fingers. As she did, she was humming:

  Summer, autumn, winter, spring

  Turning ’round their blessings bring

  She put the pot on the fire and waited. The kids ran away to play, but they came back pretty soon because a delicious aroma was coming from the pot. It smelled like chicken soup, minestrone, beef barley, won ton, cream of mushroom, mulligatawny—all at once. She ladled out a bowl for each kid, and took some for herself. It was the best soup they’d ever tasted, and the best thing was that there was enough for seconds, and thirds, and fourths. Their bellies were full when they went to bed that night. The poor woman stayed up for a long time, thinking and giving thanks for those scraps of bread dough. She remembered seeing the fields of golden wheat back in the summer.

  In the morning, there was still plenty of soup left in the pot. They ate it that day, and the next, and for a whole week.

  The next day the poor woman came across the street and knocked on her neighbour’s door.

  “What?” she hissed.

  “I’ve come to see if you need me again this week. I’ll work hard, and I don’t mind the wages.”

  The rich woman hired her again, muttering something about fools and beggars. But the poor woman was already busy working, cleaning, cooking, baking. At the end of the day her hands were again covered with dough. She came home, made soup, and the family feasted for another week.

  This went on week after week, and there was always plenty of soup—soup made from the scraps of dough from the rich woman’s kitchen. The poor woman rejoiced to see her children gain weight, and laugh, and play together. Every night she heard them out in the yard giggling and shouting with well-fed glee.

  So did her rich neighbour. She heard the poor kids playing and laughing, and it drove her crazy. Meanwhile, in her own fancy house her own children were always yelling, fighting, biting, complaining, whining. It wasn’t fair. Why should those poor kids be so happy, and her kids, who got everything they wanted, do nothing but scream for more?

  One day she brought a bag of gold to the local wise woman. She explained the problem.

  “When did it begin?” asked the wise woman.

  “Since she came to work for me.”

  “What do you pay her?”

  “Nothing but the dough stuck to her hands from her baking.”

  The wise woman explained: “That’s your problem. That dough contains your good luck. Every time she leaves your house, she’s taking your good luck away with her.”

  The rich woman thought about this. How did her fortune wind up in a scrap of bread dough? How could her luck get stuck to a worker’s hands?

  The next time the poor neighbour came over to cook, clean and bake, the rich woman fired her at the end of the day. She made her wash her hands first, then paid her a dollar and told her to get lost. Sadly, the poor woman crossed the street, and for the first time in many weeks she had nothing to offer her hungry children. The dollar went for a loaf of day-old bread, and that was gone in a minute. But there was no soup that night.

  She put the kids to sleep and sang them her song, and there were tears in her eyes as she sang:

  Summer, autumn, winter, spring

  Turning ’round their blessings bring.

  When they were all asleep, she did what she always liked to do when things were too hard to bear. She put on her jacket, tied a thin scarf around her neck, and went for a walk in the woods. But it was a cold, cold night, and the snow on the ground made for hard walking. Still, she walked deeper and deeper into the icy forest, humming her good song:

  Summer… autumn… winter… spring…

  All of a sudden, in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the night, there she saw an amazing sight, a campfire blazing bright and all around in the firelight were twelve strange men. They were sitting in a circle. There were three teenagers, wearing sandals, shorts and T-shirts. They sat by the fire holding primroses, daffodils and cowslips. Next to them in the circle were three men in their late twenties. They wore straw hats and held sheaves of wheat. Next were three middle-aged men wearing jackets. They were holding bright red apples and bunches of purple grapes. Then there were three old men with long white beards. They weren’t holding anything, just looking at the fire.

  The oldest of the old men looked up and saw her standing behind a tree. “We have a guest,” he said. “Come and join us. It’s cold out here tonight!”

  She was glad to step into the circle of men, and come close to the fire.

  “We heard your good song a long way off,” said the old man. “Now tell me, what are you doing out in the forest on such a cold winter’s night?”

  “I’m poor,” she said, “and my children are hungry. Whenever I’m scared and worried I like to walk in the woods.”

  “Well,” said the old man, “we may be able to help you. But first I must ask you a question. What do you think of the twelve months of the year?”

  The poor woman smiled. “I love them,” she said, “very much. In spring, the first flowers poke up through the ground and the earth begins to turn green. In summer, the fields are full of golden wheat, and the bread made from it will feed many. In autumn, the leaves turn bright colours, and apples ripen, and
grapes grow heavy on the vine. And winter is when the earth is covered with a blanket of white snow, and goes to sleep, and gets ready to waken again in the spring. These are some of my favourite things.”

  The men were smiling as they listened to her answer. One by one they handed up gifts: flowers, wheat, apples, grapes. Then the old man said, “You have spoken well. Please accept our gifts. This, too.” And he handed her a small chest. “Just one thing—do not open it until you get all the way home.”

  She went around the fire and thanked all the men. Then she started home. If the way there had been long and cold, the way back seemed short and joyful. She got home just before dawn, and waited until the children wandered into the room. They stared at the beautiful spring flowers, the bright red apples, the purple grapes, the yellow sheaves of wheat. Then she asked the youngest child to open the chest. Gold shone in it. It was filled with gold.

  They feasted that day. Then the woman took some flour, yeast, honey and eggs, and made a loaf of bread. She took it across the road and knocked on the rich woman’s door.

  “I told you you’re fired,” snarled her neighbour.

  “I’m not looking for work. I brought you a gift.”

  “What is it?”

  “A loaf of bread. I baked it to thank you for everything you did for me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, when you fired me, I didn’t know how I’d feed my children any more. So I took a long walk in the woods…” And she told her neighbour about singing her song, taking her walk, finding the campfire, receiving the gifts. When the rich woman heard about the chest of gold, she slammed the door. Her neighbour left the loaf of bread by the closed door.

  That night the rich woman hurried into the forest. She left her children fighting over the remote. Deeper and deeper she trudged and tramped through the icy woods. As she did, she cursed:

  Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall.