Time Slave

by John Norman

  Tree bent down and picked up his pouch, his spear and rawhide rope.

  Arrow Maker looked up.

  "I am going hunting," said Tree.

  He took his way between the huts, which they built far from the shelters.

  These huts, most of them, consisted of poles and branches. First a round pit was scraped, a foot deep, some eight feet in diameter. In the center of this circle a rooftree was planted, a peeled pole, with projecting, peeled branches. Other poles then, planted in the rim of dirt about the edge of the circle, the dirt from the pit, leaned against the center tree. They were, further, tied in place with root and vine. This framework of poles completed, branches were then interlaced among them. Then, beginning at the bottom, that each layer overlap the lower layer, a thatch of broad-leaved branches was woven into the lateral branches, those placed in and about the pole framework. Rain, thus, falling from one thatch of leaves, dripped to the next, and did not enter the hut. The rim of dirt provided not only an easy foundation for the poles, even and soft, but kept rain from entering the house pit. In the front of the pit, in front of the tree, was the cooking hole. There were six such huts, round huts, and two others, built quite similarly, except that they were rectangular in shape and had two rooftrees, and a roof beam between them, consisting of a long pole. The poles of the side walls leaned against this elevated, central pole, running the length of the hut. The back poles, closing the rear of the hut, leaned against the back rooftree. Both sorts of huts, the round huts and the rectangular huts, were open in the front. In the rectangular huts the cooking hole was in the center. The rectangular huts had a width of some eight feet, and a length of some twelve feet. The group had made only round huts, but Fox, who had come from far away, had introduced the rectangular hut. Spear had had Hyena dream on the matter before permitting Fox's women, those he fed, to build according to his directions. Hyena's dream had been favorable. The Horse Hunters built such huts, and there was luck for horse hunting in them. Spear wanted his hunters to be able to hunt not only antelope, and moose, and elk, but, if the need should arise, horse, too. No one in the group knew the horse prayers, but this did not mean they might not, if the need arose, be able to hunt horse. The horses might be fooled by the rectangular huts. Too, Hyena could make horse prayers, and if they were good prayers, maybe the horses would let themselves be killed. If one who was not a Horse Hunter killed a horse, of course, there could be danger. If the horse was angry, the men might die from the meat. But if the huts were rectangular and the prayers were flattering, perhaps trouble could be avoided. The horses might be gracious, and the group could feed. There was no reason why horses should let themselves be killed only by the Horse Hunters. Spear's hunters were good hunters, and it was not dishonorable for horses to let themselves be killed by them.

  "Where are you going?" asked Spear.

  "I am going hunting," said Tree.

  He continued on.

  To one side he saw Knife, who was the son of Spear. His descent was figured through Crooked Wrist, a woman who had died many years ago from the bites of a cave lion, who had hunted men in the vicinity of the shelters. But there was no doubt that he was the true son of Spear. The resemblance was clear, the same narrowness of eyes, the same heaviness of jaw, and so it was known that Knife was Spear's son.

  Tree did not know if any of the small children in the camp were his. He had had, since beginning to run with the hunters, seventeen years ago, all the women in the camp, except Short Leg, Old Woman and Nurse. And he had not wanted them.

  The woman who had borne Knife had originally been called Fern. She had once displeased Spear. He had broken her wrist. It had not healed cleanly. She had come to be called Crooked Wrist. Nine months after her wrist had been broken, the boy, to be called Knife when old enough to run with the hunters, had been pulled bloody from her body.

  The cave lion had killed four members of the group before it had been caught in a pit and killed with stones.

  Spear had been fond of Fern. The cave lion, dying under the stones, had died slowly. Spear had not seen fit to hurry its death. Sometimes even now, many years later, Spear angrily called the name of Fern in his sleep. This did not please Short Leg, lying awake beside him, who was now first among the women whom he fed.

  No one now in the group, except Stone and Spear, knew what the pit had been like or how it had been baited. Old Man would have known, but, when he had gone blind, Spear had killed him. Old Woman was old, but she had been purchased from the Bear People after the lion had been killed, for two sacks of flints. In those days she had been called Pebble; the man who had bought her had been called Drawer, because he made marks in the sand with sticks. Later he had been called Old Man.

  Spear, who knew Knife as his son, coming to understand this as the boy had grown, was proud of him, in a way many of the Men, not knowing their own sons, found it hard to understand. But Tree thought he understood. Tree thought it would be good to know one's son. One could then teach him to be a great hunter. And one could be his friend. But though Spear was proud of Knife, he was not his friend. Spear feared Knife, for he thought Knife would supplant him, and become first in the group. Knife had already killed one man, fighting over meat in the winter, and was much feared in the group. Many of the Men, Fox, and Wolf and Stone, chief among them, did not understand why Spear, fearing Knife, did not kill him. But Tree thought he understood. One could not kill one whom one knew was one's own son. It would be worse than the killing of one's self. It would not be a good thing. Many of the men did not understand this. But Tree understood it, and he thought Arrow Maker, too, might understand it. If Tree had a son, he would not kill him. He would teach him to be a great hunter. And he would be his friend, and, sometimes, when the fires were small, he would talk with him.

  And so Spear waited for the time when Knife would kill him, and become first in the group.

  "Where are you going?" asked Knife. He was lying in the grass behind one of the huts, on one elbow, pulling at a piece of dried meat with his teeth.

  "I am going hunting," said Tree.

  At Knife's feet lay Flower. She was licking slowly at his ankle. He pulled off a piece of dried meat in his teeth and, with his hand, held it down to her. She took it in her teeth, and began to chew it, moving slowly, with her lips and hands, up his leg.

  At the edge of the camp there were two sets of poles. The first set of poles was a meat rack, consisting of two upright poles and, lashed across them, several small poles, over which were hung strips of meat, drying in the sun. The other set of poles was a game rack, or skinning rack. It consisted of two crossed poles at each end, bound together at the top, and a lateral pole, set in the joinings of the end poles. From it, upside down, hind feet stretched and bound to the pole, hung a small deer. Its throat had been cut that morning and the blood, dripping, had been caught in a leather piece, fitted into a concave depression in the ground. The hunters, as was their wont, had drunk the fresh blood. That it was a source of iron to them they did not know; they did know that it gave them strength and stamina. Blood was prized. Many of the women did not know its taste. None of the children knew. A boy was not permitted blood until he had killed his first large game animal. Then it was his right to drink first. The deer had been killed by Stone, who had driven it into a thicket and then broken its neck.

  Ugly Girl whimpered and cowered away from Tree as he strode past.

  He looked down on her. She crouched, bent over, her thick-legged, squat, round-shouldered body shaking. She looked up at him, her hair like black strings, her eyes stupid and frightened, like those of an animal.

  Tree despised those of the Ugly People, though he had never killed any of them.

  Spear, with Knife and Stone, had surprised Ugly Girl's group and had killed them all, with the exception of Ugly Girl.

  In camp Spear had tied a short rawhide strap on her ankles, shackling her in leather. She could move about the camp, but clumsily, and slowly. She could not run. When she had been brought to
camp the children and women had much beaten her with switches. Then, when they had tired of this, they had put her to work, carrying water in the hide buckets from the stream, gathering stones for the cooking holes, gathering wood for the fires. She was still much beaten, for the Men did not care for the Ugly People. Her heavy, clumsy fingers could not easily untie the rawhide. When Spear had caught her doing so, he had switched her until she had howled and covered her head with her hands. She then knew she was not permitted to touch the rawhide shackles. She knew she might, in time, untie them, but now she was afraid even to touch them. In her simplicity and stupidity, she remained shackled. She looked away from Tree, down at the dirt, whimpering. Had she been able to reach the leather with her teeth she might have bitten through it, tearing it in her teeth, but she could not reach it.

  Tree did not kick at her nor cry out at her, to frighten her. He ignored her. He did not know why Spear, and Knife and Stone, had not killed her as well as the others. She was not a woman. She was a female of the Ugly People. Tree would not have wanted her, any more than a doe or a mare. She could not even speak, though, he knew, the Ugly People did make noises which, among themselves, somehow, they found intelligible. It did not occur to Tree that they, like the Men, and like the Horse Hunters and the Bear People, might have a language. He knew, of course, that he, and the others, even Fox, could not understand her noises. Nor, as Fox established, did she know the hand sign of the Horse Hunters and the Bear People. Thus Tree inferred that Ugly Girl could not speak. Or, more exactly, he inferred that she was unable to speak until she had been brought to the camp of the Men. Here the children had taught her certain moises, which she could, in her guttural, half inarticulate way, imitate. Tree thought that Ugly Girl should be grateful to the Men, for they had taught her to speak, if only a few words. But Ugly Girl did not seem grateful, only miserable and frightened. The children of the Men, Tree noted, learned the words more swiftly than Ugly Girl. She was stupid, not of the Men. One could see that she was dull, that she understood nothing, that she was only an animal. Sometimes at night she cried.

  Tree turned and looked back at Knife and Flower. Knife had now taken her by the hair and drawn her between his legs, where she, laughing and kissing, sought to please him.

  Elsewhere he could see Feather, a thin woman, grooming Stone, taking lice from his hair, eating them.

  She would lick sometimes his neck with her tongue, and whimper.

  The women groomed the men. Men did not groom women. Women groomed one another, and the women, too, groomed the children. Children were permitted to groom one another, until the boys became old enough to run with the hunters.

  Now Feather lay on her back before Stone, whimpering, and lifting her body to him.

  Stone regarded her for a time, and then he crawled to her, and, as she cried out with pleasure, locked her helplessly in his arms.

  It was the Capture Position, holding the female down, confining her movements, making her helpless.

  Feather cried out her pleasure to the camp.

  Flower, angrily, broke away from Knife, and lay before him, lifting her body to him.

  He went to her, and took her in his arms.

  Soon, she, too, cried out with pleasure.

  The women of the Men had two hungers, each as open, direct and piteous as the other. For the one hunger it was common to open the mouth and point a finger to it, and then extend the hands, palms up; for the other hunger it was not uncommon to do as had Feather and Flower, to lie before the hunter and, sometimes piteously, lift her body to him.

  Again, from upwind, came the scent of female to Tree, and not one of the group.

  In the camp he heard one woman, and then another, cry out her hunger, excited doubtless by the cries of Feather, and then Flower. He had seen this happen before in the camp. Soon, like a contagion, the manifestation of their need might spread, woman to woman, each in her moaning and whimpering stimulating the other, and then they would approach the males, timidly, fearing to be struck, and creep to their feet, begging to be touched. There were ten hunters in the camp, and sixteen women.

  Tree caught the scent again, but it was fainter this time. He must hurry.

  "Tree!" cried a woman, seeing him, standing between two huts. There was another woman behind her. They were Antelope and Cloud. He had often fed them.

  Tree looked to Flower, still wrestling, laughing, in the arms of Knife, who was once more refusing to release her.

  He would have liked Flower, but Knife now held her. He did not want to fight Knife.

  "Tree!" cried Antelope. She was tall, dark-haired, young. Cloud was shorter, more timid, thick-ankled, younger than Antelope.

  Tree's eyes warned them not to approach.

  "Tree," called Antelope. She fell to her knees. So, too, behind her, did Cloud. Either, or both, was his for the asking.

  "I am going hunting," said Tree.

  He was aroused. He was angry. He thought he would take Antelope, but then he might lose the scent.

  Antelope kicked well, he enjoyed her.

  "Tree," called Antelope.

  "I am going hunting," said Tree, angrily, and turned, and left the camp.

  Once outside the perimeter of the camp he stopped and, nostrils distended, drank in the scent. He had not wanted to do this in the camp, for fear another hunter would see, and, too, test the wind. Tree's senses were sharpest of the hunters, but the senses of these men, on the whole, would have seemed incredible to later, smaller men. There was not one of them who could not smell deer, in a favorable wind, at a thousand yards, or locate the droppings of small animals in high grass, by scent alone. They could see squirrels against a network of branches at two hundred yards, observe clearly the bright eyes of circling eagles, and mark instantly the place where a paw had minutely pressed aside a bit of leaf mold. The breathing of a human being they could hear at fifty feet, that of the cave lion at one hundred. Tree, alone of the hunters, could follow a trail by night, by smell.

  He was angry, for in the camp the women had been becoming aroused. Soon they would be much in their need. Tree enjoyed seeing them in their need. He enjoyed seeing them come to him, creep to his feet and, whimpering, lift their bodies to him. Then he would take which one he wished. When their need was upon them they kicked well, any of them. But Tree had his favorites. His favorites were Flower, and Antelope and Cloud. Flower was quick to arouse, but she did not, Tree thought, kick as well for Tree as for Knife. This made Tree angry, and made him desire her more. Flower, he knew, wanted to be the woman of the leader. Tree would not be the leader. Knife would be the leader, when he had killed Spear. But Antelope and Cloud, Tree admitted, kicked well for Tree, very well. Even when their need had not been upon them, it would become manifest when he touched them. He had only to take them in his arms to make the desire-smell break forth from between their thighs. The desire-smell excited Tree. It made him want to have the women. Old Woman, when he had become old enough to run with the hunters, had showed Tree how to make the desire-smell come in any woman, if he wished. She had also showed him how to touch, and be patient, and wait, like a hunter, caressing and licking, until a woman, even one resistant, could not help but kick for him. "I did not want to be the woman of Drawer," Old Woman had told the youthful Tree, "but he made me kick for him." Her eyes had been shining, in the wrinkled skin. She had cared much for Drawer. But when he had become Old Man, he had gone blind, and Spear had killed him. But it took time to do with a woman what Old Woman had shown him, and Tree, like the other hunters, seldom had such patience. It was usually not as Old Woman had told him. When the members of the band were in their need things did not usually proceed as Old Woman had recommended. The woman, if in her need, usually came whimpering to the hunter, lifting her body to him; she would then be used at whatever length he might please; the hunter, in his need, no other hunter intervening, usually took what woman he wished, swiftly, then discarded her. Often, of course, the women, even if not in need, would lift their bodies to th
e hunters. They would do this to please them, and to be fed. It was well to be pleasing to a hunter, if one were not pregnant, if one would eat.

  In the feeding, Spear cut meat first, for he was the leader. He would give meat, then, to the hunters. Later they would cut their own meat. Pieces, then, by Spear, or Tooth, or others, would be thrown to pregnant women, and to the children. The smaller children were thrown separate pieces, that they might eat; the older children were thrown a larger piece of meat which the oldest and strongest, who might be male or female, but was usually female, for at this age the females tended to be larger than boys of comparable age, would divide among them. The leader of the older children in Spear's group was the girl, Butterfly, who was not popular with the children, for she played her favorites in the distribution of the meat; the young boys hated her, for she made them beg her for meat; in time, of course, as she grew older, and the young boys grew tall and straight, and strong beyond her, and she became a woman and they became hunters, their situation would be, to the pleasure of the boys, well reversed. She would learn to lift her body to them. As the men were eating, and the meat had been thrown to the pregnant females and the children, the other females would creep nearer, for the men, if they wished, to feed them. They might not steal meat or take it for themselves, for they were women. The only exceptions to this were Old Woman and Nurse, who took meat when they wished, neither challenged. Old Woman was simply Old Woman; and Nurse was important for the small children, the infants. Sometimes a mother did not have milk. In some human groups, the Bear People, for instance, nursing mothers were extended the same meat rights as pregnant females, but this was not so in Spear's group. In Spear's group such women obtained their meat like other women, by begging and by being pleasing to hunters. Spear had discovered that a woman who needs meat to make milk in her body for her baby will kick well. After the hunters were finished, of course, anyone, woman or child, might fall on the remains of the repast, to pick what bones might be left, to poke about in the ashes for bits of gristle or to lick grease from the charred wood of the fire. After these were finished, Ugly Girl would, the others not stopping her, creep to the fire, scratching and smelling for what might be left. It was not always the case, of course, that a woman would beg for meat, or lift her body to the men to be fed. Such women, though rare, often wandered away from the groups. Usually they died; if they did not die they did not have children. Women who wished the touch of hunters, who accepted being owned by them, who willingly, eagerly, lifted their bodies for meat, would be those women who would survive, whose children would be born, whose young would take in time their place, in turn, as hunters and the women of hunters.