by Rod O'Grady
Chapter Five
As Kaayii was on day-watcher duties he was allowed to sleep at night in his grandmother’s sleeping den while the other clan members were foraging, hunting or eating. It was well insulated against any breeze – the wind, baffled by the thick pile of pine boughs stacked carefully against the vast fallen redwood tree, and the dried grass and moss shoved in between the branches, made it like a giant bird’s nest, all snug and soft and warm.
Early pre-dawn birdsong woke Kaayii from his slumber. Near his head were three small white eggs, and a large pile of red and purple berries, which he began to pop into his mouth as he lay on his back, looking at the thin shafts of grey light penetrating the tangle of branches.
He crawled out into the soft low light of dawn with the eggs in his hand. His mother and little sister Yaluqwa were looking at him from their sitting place against a redwood tree. His sister’s big brown eyes sparkled with mischief as she smiled at him. He popped an egg into his mouth and crunched. He thought how Yaluqwa’s face had more downy soft brown hair over her cheeks and chin than last time he’d really looked at her. You’re growing fast, he thought. He held an egg in his hand for her and she rushed over and grabbed it deftly out of his big, black, wrinkled palm.
She immediately ran to the nest under the redwood muttering her babyish noises, and disappeared in to the cave-like darkness. Kaayii smiled, knowing she would learn to speak soon and was practising making sounds and shapes with her mouth. At this age she was communicating by thought alone, and her mother was exhausted by the constant garbled questions. Take your sister with you. She implored him. It is not safe, he quickly responded, holding his mother’s hand. People, he reminded her.
His mother smiled and crawled in to the sleeping nest, and as she disappeared into the darkness she asked him to bring some onion plants back with him. His little sister clambered over her mother, looked at Kaayii with a serious expression and said, ‘Ploop!’
At the onion patch beneath the Giant X, Kaayii pulled up clumps of the plant. When he had his arms full of the floppy green leaves he ran back. Running smoothly, steadily, with browny-red hair streaming out behind him, he charged all the way back up the mountain to deliver the onions to his mother.
Dumping the pile of now drooping onion plants outside the nest he immediately ran back down the mountain taking the most direct route – down and up the three ravines. When he got back to the Aspen Grove, not far from the Watcher’s Place, he remembered the tree his uncle had pushed over in a rage. He went to find it.
It was a birch tree: its peeling bark, smooth and white, black and knotty; its jagged roots with earth stuck on them. He set to cleaning up the tree by ripping off the branches and piling them up together. He started pulling off all the bark. He chewed on strips of the fleshy white inner layer as he worked and stacked the rest of the bark in a neat pile.
Knocking off the earth from around the roots, he hoisted the tree on to his shoulder. In a clearing ringed by giant redwood trees was a huge structure of six tree trunks leaning together like the supports of a teepee. He lowered one end of the birch to the ground, and raised the other end. He was careful to fit the birch trunk in securely so it added to the strength of the structure, wouldn’t fall in a storm and would withstand being pushed by a bear looking for something to scratch its back against.
Kaayii moved to the top of the clearing where there was another X, to look at the ‘blind’. It had been built by carefully weaving and threading branches large and small, knitting them together into a strong tall barrier. It was impossible for a deer to jump over or get through, forcing them to go round it.
Whilst most of the time they just ate roots, shoots, nuts, mushrooms and fruit, when it was time for a deer to pass to the next life the Sasquatches would use a ‘blind’ to hide behind. As Kaayii worked he remembered the last hunt with his father, his uncle and two members of the clan. Two of the Sasquatches advanced on a deer, a few ‘throws’ apart, edging it closer to the ambush. Then using the lowest deepest sound they could make in the depths of their chest, they put the deer into a trembling trance with a magical vibration in the air that some animals couldn’t even hear. Then his father approached the deer and its passing was instant and painless, its life honoured with solemn words of gratitude.
Kaayii sat behind the blind. Happy with his work, he decided to take a nap and he stretched out on his back with his hands behind his head.
He was suddenly awakened by the crow. Caw … caw! It was perched on the blind, looking at Kaayii with its beady yellow eyes, still bright as jewels in the low light of late afternoon. People, it told him. He was on his feet in a flash, and crouching behind the blind he peeped over the top. Yes, he could sense human energy and dog energy.
The yellow dog bursting out of the underbrush on the far side of the clearing raced towards the high, pointed structure in the centre and started sniffing eagerly. Now he could hear the girl calling for the dog. He tried saying the name she kept calling, ‘Musto’. He pondered what it might mean, ‘small yellow wolf’?
Through the tangled web of sticks and tree limbs, Kaayii spied the girl as she emerged into the clearing. She shrieked when she saw the seven-trunked teepee structure, and to Kaayii she looked happy and surprised. She touched the very same birch trunk that Kaayii had carefully secured in place. She pushed it, and of course it was rock solid.
The dog stood right in front of the blind sniffing the air, looking right at Kaayii, directly into his black eyes. Kaayii hummed the deepest sound he could, looking at the dog to see what would happen. The dog started to tremble, his yellow fur quivering. Kaayii was pleased that his deep hum worked so well. He wondered whether this creature smelled like a wolf.
He told the dog: here, now! The yellow dog crawled into a narrow gap in the blind and wriggled itself through, and Kaayii grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and slid to the ground amongst the tall grass. He sniffed its neck – no, nothing like a wolf. Kaayii thought the dog smelled of forest mud. He licked the dog’s coat and there was a faint trace of salty sea deep in the fur.
Kaayii stood up in the bushes with the dog held tightly between his legs. He could see the girl gazing into the blind. She must have been affected by his ‘deep hum’ because she just stood there not moving. He picked up a stick and, hurling it at a redwood on the side of the clearing, it made a solid clunk against the bark of the tree.
Kaayii and the dog dashed away up the slope through the underbrush. The dog wagged his tail foolishly, jumping up and licking Kaayii’s hand. They ran together and the dog barked and barked.
Kaayii took off down the ravine and up the other side as fast as he could. Just before he leapt behind a large juniper bush, he glanced back to see Musto cresting the top of the ravine. He slowed to let the dog catch up.
Then he heard a short sharp scream.
Chapter Six
The girl lay at the bottom of the ravine. Peering down from the edge, Kaayii could see blood on a rock near her head.
Closely followed by the dog, he ran quickly down. The dog was fussing over the girl, fretting and agitated. It tried to wake her by licking her face. Kaayii lifted her up in his long hairy arms and carried her to the top of the ravine. He gathered up some leaves and grasses and laid her gently down.
With a handful of moss he wiped the blood from her head. Seeing that her hand was bleeding from a cut, he wiped that clean too. He found a large smooth flat leaf and placed it under her cheek to keep the soil off her face. He looked at her closely. He put his huge hair-covered face close to hers and smelt her breath. With one long, black and wrinkly finger he touched her smooth and hairless face. No wrinkles! This was very strange to Kaayii, and he imagined she must always have a cold face, because it was bald. Her skin was a smooth golden brown with freckles on it, a scattering of light-brown dots across her nose and cheeks. He touched her curly brown hair, which felt softer than moss, softer even than bird feathers. He sniffed her hair. It smelt fruity so he licked it. It tasted
of nothing. He knew humans were very strange-looking but to see one up close was fascinating.
He couldn’t stop staring at this bizarre-looking creature and the more he looked the more his heart ached because he knew she was sad about something. He thought it must be because she had to go back to living in one of those big human nests with straight, hard-looking sides that light up from the inside at night. When she wasn’t in one of those she would be stuck in the ones that moved somehow, on things that looked like round rocks. He worried for her. He worried that her life was always going to mean she had to leave the forest, leave the energy of plants and animals and grieve for that loss again and again.
He broke a thick branch to a good swinging length and, wanting other Sasquatches to come to where he was quickly, Kaayii knocked loudly three times on a tall straight pine tree – KLONK! KLONK! KLONK!
A short while later there were two distant answering knocks from the near the top of the mountain – klonk! klonk!
As Kaayii waited three squirrels gathered in a nearby pine and shouted at him, the girl and the dog for being in their territory, ‘cheek! cheek!’ they yelled. He practised his throwing by lobbing sticks and old pinecones at the squirrels and this made them even noisier.
To direct the approaching Sasquatches to where he was, from time to time he whacked a tree just once, loudly, with his stout stick – KLONK!
The girl began to stir. She moaned. Kaayii quickly hurried behind a large bush and the dog followed him. On all fours, he began to crawl away through the underbrush. Sticking close to his side, the dog kept jumping up at him and sniffing him all over and he understood why the dog would love the smell of a Sasquatch, because the girl smelt of nothing very interesting.
The next ravine was really steep, with loose flat rocks scattered about its edges. After a couple of tentative attempts, the dog stayed where it was, pacing back and forth at the top and barking at Kaayii, who’d climbed down to the stony gully at the bottom.
Night was closing in on the forest, in the gloom under the canopy of high pine trees. The moon was still low in the sky, hidden by cloud cover, and the wind barely troubled the tops of the pines. Down on the forest floor, all was still. Kaayii sensed Sasquatches approaching and his father and mother appeared at the top of the ravine and looked down at him.
A human is hurt, he communicated to them and they hurried down into the ravine and up the other side with Kaayii.
The two older Sasquatches towered over the shaggy yellow dog cowering behind Kaayii. To the dog in the fading twilight they were vast hulking shadows that smelt very strange.
His father picked up the dog by the scruff of the neck and looked at him closely: small smelly yellow wolf?
Kaayii led the way back through the darkening forest towards where he’d left the girl. They trod carefully and quietly, the noisiest by far being the dog, which trotted along with a foolish grin, kicking up leaves like it was on a regular walk in the woods.
Kaayii spoke the name of the dog out loud for his parents in his deep rich voice, ‘Musto’. Then used language to explain. ‘His name is Musto. It is yellow in the human language. He is yellow like the tall grass in winter. Yellow. Musto.’
‘Musto!’ they repeated, and both parents laughed so much they farted, and this made them laugh even more, shouldering each other playfully off the path and giggling.
Kaayii watched his parents, wondering at their behaviour, then realised this was the first time they’d left the clan together in many days. Not since the fire had driven them away from their caves. His father had not left the side of Kaayii’s dying grandmother for more than a few moments in her last days and Kaayii’s mother always had Yaluqwa clinging to her, so this must be a welcome change for them.
They stopped behind a pair of pine trees near the top of the first ravine, watching the girl as she pulled things from her bag, stumbling slightly on the uneven rocky ground. It was almost completely dark now and easy for them to hide from the girl amongst the trees.
They watched as she crawled under the low branches of a large pine tree. Kaayii held the dog, and they crouched down and waited.
His father nudged Kaayii in the ribs, nodding in the girl’s direction. Kaayii understood and so let the dog go. Musto ran straight to the girl’s tree crashing through the underbrush, sniffing and circling it, looking for a way in. It pushed in through the branches.
Yumiqsu grasped Taashi’s arm, and soon Taashi silently disappeared off into the trees.
Yumiqsu and Kaayii crept closer to the girl’s tree. They could hear her talking to the dog. They sat cross-legged on the ground in the now total darkness, focusing their attention on the human girl behind the curtain of pine boughs, sending her calming energy. They waited. Soon they could sense that she was in a deep sleep.
Taashi returned with the two plants Yumiqsu had told him with her mind to find. In one hand he had some dark strips of bark, and in the other a handful of juniper needles. Yumiqsu put the soft green needles in her mouth and started to chew. She peeled the bark away from the inner layer and rubbed off the dark resin from the papery dark outer bark. She held the resin in her hand, rubbing her palms together until it heated up, becoming soft and sticky. Then, fishing out the juniper needles from her mouth, she mixed the mushy green needles in with the resin in the palm of her huge black hand.
Kaayii and his mother lifted a pine bough and crawled into the space near the sleeping girl. Their long hairy legs stuck out from under the branches. Taashi must have thought it would be amusing to tickle their huge feet, because Kaayii had to kick his father’s fluttering hands away, and so did his mother, muttering angrily.
Kaayii stroked Musto to keep him quiet. He was curled up next to the girl with his head on her shoulder, watching warily. Yumiqsu wiped blood from the cut on the girl’s head with some damp moss, then applied the sticky, green-black goo to the cut on her head, pressing it onto the cut with her finger. She did the same with the cut on the girl’s hand. When she’d finished they crawled out from under the branches, leaving a pile of the inner white strips of bark beside the girl.
The three Sasquatches sat back under low branches, against three pine trees nearby. There is honey, thought Kaayii, and he pointed into the darkening forest.
Kaayii stood up, and as he did so he sensed animal energy approaching. He peered in to the darkness up the trail. He could see clearly that six deer were grazing on the slope above him, making their way down towards the Sasquatches. There were four does, one spotted fawn and one stag.
Down-wind of the deer, the Sasquatches’ scent wasn’t detected by the deer’s black, ever-twitching nostrils. They kept on nibbling delicately at low growing shoots, unaware of the presence of the three massive creatures just yards away from them. The stag, his antlers draped with bits of twig and leaf caught on the pointed ends, led the way.
Munching on a patch of young sprouting fern shoots, bright green and still tightly curled, one doe lifted her head with huge, comically large ears to listen while the others, heads down, kept grazing. Then another would look up, her eyes rimmed with black, proud but wary. She’d listen for a few seconds before lowering her head to feed.
The deer worked through the stand of ferns but suddenly they all stopped and looked back up the mountain. Their black nostrils twitched, their big ears flicked. After a few silent seconds they resumed grazing. The Sasquatches stayed as still as statues as the deer, on their long slim legs, elegantly stepped over the ferns, picking their way carefully through the forest.
When the deer were all grouped right by the tree where the girl slept, and only a few feet away from the Sasquatches, Kaayii’s father, sitting unseen under his pine tree simply opened his mouth and uttered, ‘Oosh,’ and in a second, and a flash of white tails, the startled deer were gone. The Sasquatches chuckled together.
A twig snapped somewhere in the dark. The Sasquatches looked up the slope, peering into the darkness. Squirrels had started chattering and calling to each other an alarm ca
ll that the birds took up, like the crow – caw caw! And the owl – hoooot!
The Sasquatches caught a glimpse of a murky shape in the shadows slipping from underbrush to tree, moving stealthily down the same slope as the deer. It was a mountain lion. He was sniffing the air, finding the scent of deer threading through the night. The cat stopped suddenly, bracing his two front legs, his paws digging in to the soft duff. He sniffed, and sniffed again as an unexpected scent invaded his senses. It was very alarming to the big cat as Sasquatches smell like nothing else in the forest.
Kaayii looked at the lion’s huge clawed feet and yellow fangs in his mouth and thought of the serious damage they could do, even to a massively powerful Sasquatch. Kaayii’s father rose from his haunches, unfolding his huge body, slowly standing up to his full height of eight feet two and a half inches from the padded soles of his feet to the top of his conical skull. ‘Humph!’ he grunted.
The cat’s head flicked round to look at the massive hairy beings, keeping his body low, head down, his tail swiping left and right.
Knowing it was scenting the girl and the dog, Kaayii picked up a rock, as Taashi and Yumiqsu grabbed heavy branches and stepped out from under their pine tree. The cat was between them and the sleeping girl’s tree. The cat sniffed the earth below the branches, ignoring the three Sasquatches.
Kaayii knew that hunger makes animals very bold and that this cat could easily choose to swoop in under the branches to grab the girl in his jaws and run away in to the dark-shrouded forest. He lifted his hand, drew his arm back and was on the point of hurling his rock, when from a great distance the song of a wolf rang out, piercing the still night air – the howl was long and anguishing. The lion reacted by swinging his head round, swivelling his ears in the direction of the wolf call.
