by neetha Napew
Lonit froze. It was a huge blur of black and white feathers streaking downward through the sky; its vulturine neck extended, its skull resembling both eagle and condor with its flattened cranium and long, aquiline, dangerously massive beak. That hornlike hook, so perfectly designed for its rapacious, carnivorous feeding, gaped open as it dove. The girl stared upward in horror, seeing its round, red eyes, its equally red stab of tongue, and the huge, concave openings of its nasal passages. It shrieked as it reached to rip the ptarmigan from her hand, just as the wild dog leaped out of nowhere to knock her from her feet.
The force of the dog’s impact caused Lonit to release the ptarmigan just in time; had she not done so, the condor would have ripped off her hand. She fell in a stunned heap, half expecting the dog to eat her; but it was gone in an instant, after the huge bird that was banking downward, screaming as it fell from the sky with one of Torka’s spears in its breast.
Lonit heard the hunters shouting now.
Her mouth had gone dry. She felt small and foolish and ashamed as she watched the great condor come down on its side, squawking, wheezing, and hacking blood. It was still dangerous, with its beak snapping and its enormous legs kicking out. Torka and Umak ran to kill it, bravely stepping close to plunge their spears deep as the wild dog kept close to Umak’s side, snarling and snapping and spitting feathers as, sneezing, the animal helped its brother man to make the kill.
Lonit watched. Her own foolishness had caused her to lose her fish and her ptarmigan. Tonight Torka and Umak and Brother Dog would gorge themselves upon the meat of the condor. Lonit would not eat. An ugly, unworthy girl had no right to partake of a feast to which she had contributed nothing. Umak teased her when she said that she had no right to share in the meat of the condor. He looked at her with a droll, but not unkindly, smile. “Little girl, without you and your ptarmigan, what would we have used as bait to bring the sun eater down from the sky?”
“I am not a little girl. I am almost a woman.”
Torka eyed her sternly. “Then, Almost A Woman, you will butcher the carcass of the condor. You will make a fire. You will roast the meat for Umak and Torka. This is a woman’s work. Complete it, and you shall be worthy of your share.”
She flushed to her hairline. Grateful for any word from him, she set to work gladly.
Umak at least was easy to please. While out from the camp, he and Torka had walked as far as the neck of the valley and climbed a low hill to look beyond, across a vast plain where, upon the horizon, they had seen what they had so long yearned to see.
“Tonight we eat the flesh of the condor,” said Umak, “and grow strong upon the blood and marrow of the sun eater, for we must not dishonor its life spirit by wasting that which we have killed. But tomorrow we go from this place. Tomorrow we walk far. Tomorrow we make a hunting camp in which we will stay many days. Tomorrow we prepare to hunt the caribou!”
His eyes glistened with excitement. “The herd walks toward us from out of the east, as this old man has promised. The herd walks from horizon to horizon, across a plain that stretches from forever to forever. Never has this old man seen so wide a land. Never has this spirit master seen so many caribou!”
Umak’s enthusiasm was contagious. Lonit listened as she worked, saddened at first as she recalled the long days of the starving moon, remembering the suffering of her people, wishing that the caribou instead of the mammoth had come to them, wishing that they had met life instead of death. But the band was no more. All that were left of the People were here, sheltering in this little encampment. Torka, Umak, and Lonit composed a new band. And when the hunters brought caribou to their camp, Lonit would make certain that her woman wisdom was put to good purpose. She would provide well for her men. Her sadness drifted away. She smiled a little, and dimples formed hollows beneath her high cheekbones as she thought of all of the fine things that she would make out of the caribou.
Torka was troubled as he listened to his grandfather—not by the old man’s words, but by his thoughts as he watched Lonit working at her butchering. As always, the sight of the girl distressed him. She was a strong, hardy, uncomplaining child, but he longed for his own woman now. And for his children. Again the longing ignited his hatred for the girl.
Why had she survived when all of the others had died? Why?
He stood beside the lean-to that they had raised, staring out across the world. It seemed so empty. It was so empty. Would he ever hear the laughter of children again? Or the sound of women talking low in the lonely dark and of men arguing over a friendly game of bone toss?
As he stooped to enter the lean-to, wishing to seat himself out of the wind beside Umak, the wild dog growled at him. The animal lay on the other side of the old man’s extended limbs—close but at a wary distance, just out of Umak’s reach. Always, the dog kept itself within the fall of the old man’s shadow. Always, when Torka came anywhere near it, it warned him away.
“Be at ease, Brother Dog,” Umak assured the animal. “Torka is a member of our band and flesh of this old man’s flesh. You must get used to him. He is also your brother.”
The dog lowered its head, visibly relaxing a little; but it did not take its eyes from Torka. “Aarrr .. It continued growling, albeit more softly.
“Aar!” repeated Torka in annoyance, seating himself beside his grandfather. Truly, Umak was a spirit master to have won the following of a beast. As for Torka, if it were up to him, he would brain the creature. A young dog would make good eating. Its pelt would make good fur. But it would never make a brother to a man. Never. No matter what Umak might say to the contrary, Torka did not trust the dog. Someday it would revert to kind. Someday, instead of leaping to the assistance of the girl, it would attack her. Someday, instead of assisting Umak with a kill, the old man’s powers over it would wane, and the dog would turn to try to kill one who no longer was master over its spirit. Torka would wait for that day; then he would kill “Brother” Dog.
“Look,” said Lonit, holding up one of the long wing bones of the condor. She had cut the meat and tendons from it with her fleshing dagger and now openly marveled at its lightweight structure. “How can such a fragile bone support the weight of such a great wing?”
Umak grunted. It was not a question that a man, even a spirit master, could answer. But Torka rose, intrigued. What the girl had noted was, in fact, worth considering, if for no other reason than to satisfy his innately curious nature.
He knelt across the carcass from her, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet within his multilayered boots. He took up not the bone, but the entire other wing of the condor. The girl had cut it cleanly away from the shoulder socket. It was intact, its intricate layering of feathers sleek beneath his ungloved hand. Never had he seen flight feathers of such size. He plucked one out and swept the air with it, remarking that the lay of the feathering along the flexible, hollow shaft created a powerful pull against the air.
Lonit eyed the feather. Her feminine eyes took note of more practical attributes. Sewn together along a belting of sinew cord, the feathers were long enough to make a skirt for summer wear, or a magnificent ornamental collar for a spirit master to wear when he called upon his powers, or an effective fan to keep away the biting flies that swarmed across the land on windless days of endless sun. She ventured shyly to share her thoughts with Torka, but he did not seem to hear her, or else showed no interest as he worked the wing, fascinated by its anatomical structure, intrigued by the strength and elasticity of the powerful tendons that gave a spiinglike movement to the muscles and bones.
“This is how it flies.. he said thoughtfully. Not to be outdone by his grandson, Umak got to his feet. He went to Torka and took the wing from him.
“Hmmph!” He scrutinized the severed member, nodded, and hefted it upon his back, extending it outward along one arm as he began to move about, slowly at first, pretending that he was a condor. He made a dance of it, mimicking the flight and vulturine sounds of the deceased creature.
Torka
could not help but laugh aloud. Lonit covered her own laughter with her hands lest, coming from such an unworthy girl, it offend the spirit master. The wild dog whined and backed away, not knowing what to make of such behavior.
Umak danced on, improvising as he went, moving the wing as though it were an extension of his arm, chanting a song of praise of the great bird whose flesh they would soon consume.
This is how it flies, Umak thought, and for a while he did not feel the weight of his years in his old body. He danced. He turned. He soared. And then, at last, he was a man again, and tired. He stopped, burdened by his years and by the long miles across which he had come since leaving the ruined winter camp of his people behind. He thought of the broad plain that he and Torka had sighted, of the caribou, and of the miles that still separated him from the long-sought-for herds. He dropped the wing of the condor and stood, hands on his hips, breathing hard, all too aware of the ache in his bad leg and of the pain in his feet.
“Hmmph! If only this old man could sprout wings like a sun eater! If only we could all fly with the wings of the condor! Think of the distance we could cover! Think of the things we would see! And think of the wear and tear it would save our feet!”
Lonit made a fire of dried fox bones and sods, which she had carried in her pack for this purpose. They roasted the sun eater and ate all that they could, sharing the meat with the wild dog, then bundling beneath their sleeping skins to seek much-needed rest.
With bellies full of meat, warmed by the heat of the fire, they slept huddled close beneath the lean-to. Torka dreamed strange dreams in which he saw himself as a man with the wings of a condor—wings that carried him high above the world, that made him weightless and allowed him to experience the awesome thrust and power of flight. He was like a spear hurtling across the sky, a spear that could control its own passage, that could see with the eyes of a man.
He looked down upon the earth, the soaring peaks and ice-choked canyons, the tundral valleys and the vast plains where the caribou walked in an unending, continuous river of life across the land. And there, upon the eastern most horizon, he saw a mammoth grazing ... a mammoth like no other ... a beast with shoulders as high as mountains, tusks as hard and cold and relentless as glaciers, and eyes dilated with hatred of man. It looked up and saw his flight and trumpeted with a voice that shook the sky.
Torka answered that voice. He cried aloud in his dream as his wings folded flat and he hurled himself from the sky, downward, transformed into a spear that struck the mammoth with the killing power of a lightning bolt. The Destroyer fell where it stood, and Torka awoke, shaking, with the taste of blood and death and absolute frustration in his mouth.
For a long while he lay awake, thinking about the dream. Where did the mammoth graze now? he wondered. And was there ever a spear made, or a man born, capable of killing it?
The looped end of the leather thong hissed as it left Torka’s hand. The sleeping dog heard it, but too late. The loop encircled its head, and when the startled animal leaped to its feet, the noose tightened about its neck. The weight and stricture of the unknown thing set panic loose within the dog. He turned to run, only to be brought up short and half-strangled as Torka fastened the other end of the thong to a bone stake that he had driven deep into the tundra the night before.
Stunned, the dog stood still, head lowered, its body straining forward against the pull of the thong. The animal stared at Torka. Slowly, understanding dawned in the blue eyes as they traced the slim run of leather to the man’s hand. A growl formed deep in the dog’s throat. Without further warning, it lunged forward, teeth bared, and would have bitten right through the thick layering of Torka’s sleeve had the hunter not jumped away in time. The dog yipped in pain as it fell hard on its side, jerked off its feet by the fully extended length of its tether.
Lonit looked up, startled. They had come far since taking down the lean-to and heading eastward toward the distant hills. They had raised a pit hut in the lee of those hills and had spent another night resting and readying themselves to hunt the caribou that grazed by the hundreds of thousands upon the plain that stretched before them. The girl would not participate in the killing, of course, but she would do the bulk of the butchering. With this in mind, she had awakened before her men, eager to assemble her scrapers and fleshers, the sharp tools of stone and bone that would render caribou carcasses into meat and hides. She had crept from the pit hut and had seated herself before it, facing into the sunrise, placing her tool bag of lynx skin upon her lap. The wild dog had looked up to eye her once, then had dropped its head and gone back to sleep. The short, silken hair of the lynx had felt sleek and cold beneath her ungloved fingers. She had admired the meticulous stitching of its seams. It was her bag now, but it had belonged to another woman, as had the tools within it. Her own bag, which had been lost somewhere within the tumbled ruins of her family’s pit hut, was made of the skin of a marmot, peeled whole from the body with legs attached and head serving as a flap closure. She had searched for it to no avail. Stroking the lynx skin, she had remembered Enilik, maker of this bag, the bright-eyed woman of Nap. She closed her eyes, hoping that Enilik’s life spirit would understand why Lonit had taken her bag and tools and would forgive an unworthy girl for having survived.
Lost in thought, she had not heard Torka come out of the pit hut, nor did she see him cast the loop-ended thong toward the dog. He had given no advance notice of his intent to tether the animal, nor did she understand why he would wish to do so.
Umak burst from the hut, still naked. “What have you done?” he cried, taking in the scene, distraught as he watched the dog roll and strain, half-dislocating its neck as it arched back in a frenzied attempt to get its teeth into the thong to pull it loose.
Lonit gasped. She bowed her head. She lowered her eyes. Not against the sight of the old man’s nudity, for, among the People, families often slept naked together, although Lonit, Umak, and Torka had not slept so since the night of the great storm. It was the tone of the old man’s voice that had shocked the girl. He had shouted at Torka. It was to avoid seeing Torka’s shame that Lonit had lowered her eyes. One man did not speak so to another. Ever. Only females might be so abraded. Torka paled, not understanding what he had done to so anger his grandfather. “One whiff of dog, and the caribou will scatter like willow leaves driven before an autumn gale,” he explained, then added that he had thought Umak would want the dog to be restrained before they readied themselves for the hunt.
“A man does not bind his brother!” Umak shivered violently against the morning cold. One weathered, high-veined hand went to his throat. He could feel the stricture of the dog’s tether closing about his own neck. He was sorry that he had shouted. Torka’s words were not without substance, and he had obviously meant well. But when he had tethered the dog, he had dishonored it, and Umak as well. “Between brothers, there must be trust. That is the only bond that may exist between them. Without it .. .” He let the words trail off and took a step toward the dog, knowing that his fear had not been misplaced.
Seeing his approach, the dog got to its feet. Its black masked head went down as every hair along the crest of its spine stood on end. A deep, reverberating growl came from its throat as its quivering lips rolled up to reveal the threat of its bared teeth. Umak paused. A terrible sense of remorse filled him. He knew that he had lost a friend.
The dog took several backward steps, then ran forward, throwing all of its weight against the thong. Stressed beyond its limits, the loop around the dog’s neck snapped, and the stake that held the thong broke in two. For an instant, it seemed as though the dog was hurling itself at Umak’s throat. Lonit cried out, spilling the tools and bag from her lap as she jumped to her feet. Torka whirled to grab one of his spears from where he had placed them, upright, against the pit hut. But the dog leaped past the old man, hit the ground with its two forepaws, and kept on going.
Torka readied to throw a spear after it, but Umak stopped him with an imperative shout.
Respect for his grandfather stayed Torka’s hand, but that hand trembled with frustration as he said, “The dog will drive away the caribou.”
Umak’s eyes narrowed. Torka was looking at him with an expression that was more chilling than the air. There was pity in the young man’s eyes, pity for one who was old and no longer capable of making decisions that could stand unchallenged. A defensive anger sparked within Umak, warming him with the heat of pride. Dignity kept him from reminding his grandson that he would be lying dead upon the tundra, looking at the sky forever, had it not been for Umak’s strength and ability to make lifesaving decisions. He scowled with the regal disdain that only the very old could feel for the ignorance and impatience and arrogance of youth.
“Torka has acted for the good of the band. Torka believes that Brother Dog cannot be trusted. But Torka has driven off one who has saved Umak’s life, and Lonit’s, and, yes, Torka’s too. Umak and Brother Dog have walked many miles together. We have eaten of the same kills and have slept in the same camps. Aar is this spirit master’s brother. And if he comes back to claim his rightful place as a member of this band, Torka will raise no hand against him.”
Umak had spoken quietly, but clearly the words had been as much a rebuke as a command. “The dog will not come back,” replied Torka, frowning. Had he heard correctly? Had Umak actually called the beast a name, as though it were a man? Although he had already pressed his grandfather beyond the bounds that propriety and tradition allowed, he could not resist pressing for an answer. “Aar?” Umak’s chin jabbed imperiously at the sky. “My grandson has a name. So, too, has my brother.”
“Your brother is a dog, Grandfather,” reminded Torka. He was deeply troubled. The old man looked so frail standing stark naked in the cold, with his lean, sinewy arms locked together across the bony expanse of his chest. Torka recalled the many times that Egatsop had pointed out Umak’s failings to him. Her voice seemed to be whispering contemptuously upon the rising wind of morning. Umak is old. Umak has lost his powers. Umak is no longer the man that he once was. Umak is no longer a spirit master. Umak is no longer even master of his own mind. Umak is a liability to the People.
