The Gathering Night

by Margaret Elphinstone

  It hardly mattered. Basajaun was gone. Auk dogs were on his trail. Auk men were hunting him to his death. This was Auk hunting land; the Auk men had dogs and spears and arrows. Basajaun had nothing. He couldn’t escape. Perhaps he was already dead. Where would his spirit go now? He and my cousin – they were Lynx, not Auk. How would Basajaun’s spirit find its way through this strange land?

  I tried to think of Osané. She’d suffered last night too. I thought of her unborn child, and hoped – as well as I could hope anything – that the baby had come to no harm. I thought of my little Bakar. How much had he seen, or understood, of his parents’ shame? In one night my son had seen his mother’s father stripped of his name and sent away for ever, and his father’s brother sent to his death. I wanted to find my boy and take him in my arms and make sure he was all right. I wanted to comfort Osané. I wanted my friends to be my friends and not my deadly enemies. I wanted to lay out my brother’s body where the spirits would find it, even if I couldn’t save his life. But more than all that I wanted to piss. But shame myself I would not. I lay still and waited.

  Gathering Camp started to stir. Shrill childish voices mingled with birdsong. Fresh smoke rose. Women called to one another across the clearing. A dog whined. It wasn’t a nursing bitch or a pup. I knew how that dog felt. He and I were the only hunters left in Gathering Camp. We’d suffered the same loss; I wondered what it was like to be him. Dogs live halfway between People and Animal. We People know them very well, and yet we don’t know them at all. At least that dog could piss if he wanted to, and not think anything of it. I envied him that, and hoped someone had brought him water.

  It was Zigor who came at last. I was so glad it wasn’t Nekané I almost smiled when I heard his voice. He cut through my bonds – I’d tugged at them too hard for him to undo Edur’s knots. Zigor rubbed the blood back into my legs until I could stand. I was stiff with cuts and bruises from the fight last night, and when I tried to walk my ankle gave way. Zigor let me stagger outside to piss. I wasn’t in a fit state to fight or run, but I would have done, had I not known already that it was all too late. I let Zigor lead me back into the tent, and when he offered me his waterskin I drank deep. Zigor watched me as if he were a duck sitting on her eggs, and I a lynx about to spring.

  ‘Am I your enemy after all?’ I asked wearily. ‘What d’you think I’m going to do?’

  ‘The only enemy you have now is yourself,’ said Zigor. ‘You’re one of my People, and it’s my job to save you from your enemies.’

  ‘From myself?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Zigor had picked up the strap Edur had used to blindfold me and tossed it away. ‘I think you can see well enough without this now.’

  ‘You know what it was I saw?’

  ‘Your brother showed me the Lynx People understand as much of these matters as we do.’

  ‘They taught us about it at Initiation Camp.’

  ‘All People are kin, if you go back to the Beginning.’

  ‘I know that.’

  We sat in silence for a while. Zigor made no move to leave me.

  Then I asked him, ‘Is Osané all right? And my son? Have you seen them since?’

  ‘Bakar is very well. Osané knows how to survive.’ Zigor glanced at me under heavy brows. ‘So do you, Kemen.’

  ‘It seems I’m made to survive,’ I said grimly. ‘I don’t have much choice.’

  ‘Oh, you have choice,’ said Zigor. ‘Don’t tell yourself lies. You’re not the sort who gives in.’

  ‘You mean my cousin? It wasn’t fair on him.’ Suddenly I found my tongue was loosened. I never meant to confide in Zigor, of all men, but the words seemed to come tumbling out of my throat like water over a fall. I don’t know what trick he used to make me speak. ‘My cousin’s not clever,’ I told him. ‘He never learned to think like the rest of us. When he was little, Basajaun used to protect him. He wouldn’t let the other boys tease him. Basajaun never showed kindness where he didn’t love. And he never loved where he didn’t respect. So it wasn’t that. It was because my cousin was family. He was born weak. No one thought his mother could rear him. She was the one that named him. People said it was a pity she ever recognised him. He had a good name – I knew fine men who had that name, but they’re gone now. The sea took them and left him.

  ‘It wasn’t his fault he was weak. He went to Initiation Camp the Year after I did, even though he was born two Years before I was. He was weak and silly when he went away. Many People thought he’d never make a man. But he came back. He was still weak and silly. But something else had happened. If you breathed in the breath that he’d breathed out, it touched your lungs like ice. His fear was like the snow in a north-facing corrie that never melts. And yet he lived. He found a way to live with fear.’

  I’d been sitting cross-legged, gazing into the empty hearth as I talked. Now I swung round and faced Zigor. ‘None of this was fair on him! You think my cousin didn’t matter! You think he was weak and afraid. You saw him as hardly a man at all! Didn’t you? Didn’t you?’

  ‘No,’ said Zigor quietly.

  I took no notice. ‘Well, you were wrong! My cousin knew fear in a way that men like us never do. It weighed down his heart. He had to carry it with him wherever he went. He knew he wasn’t strong like the rest of us. He could see it was a joy to us to be alive, but he hardly ever felt that joy himself. Sometimes he did . . . I remember . . .’ I shook my head. ‘Never mind that. We were just boys, and it was long ago, in a land that’s gone. But he was happy sometimes, in the past when we were young.’

  ‘Don’t forget that,’ said Zigor.

  I didn’t understand – not then – why he said that. ‘You’re Go-Between. I’m not. You think I’m just a stupid man who sees nothing. But I knew my cousin and you didn’t. Now you’ve killed him. His name has gone. Basa . . . my brother’s name will live. You said that; you let him give himself. Don’t think I won’t mourn for . . . my brother. I do! I always will! But at least you People recognised him! But my cousin – you didn’t even see who he was. You didn’t give a thought to what happened to him. You’ve left nothing of him at all!’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You remember him,’ said Zigor.

  A sob rose in my throat. I killed it there, because Zigor was watching me. I knew what he could see. I looked away. There was nothing I could do. The hunters were long gone. I knew in my heart that everything had already happened. I’d never see my brother again. I’d spoken of my cousin, but I had nothing to say to Zigor, or anyone else, about my brother. I felt more than my heart could hold. My thoughts whirled inside my head without anything to hold them down.

  Basajaun had killed Bakar. Bakar lived as my son. If the Auk People had not hunted Basajaun down, it would have fallen to me, in the rightness of things, to make sure of the death my brother owed my son. What would I have done then? Because of the Hunt, I would never know. The spirits had been kind, because now I need never think about what I’d have done if the matter had been left to me. Except that my heart was so tired I could think of nothing else.

  Amets said:

  We set off before dawn, men and dogs together. Ortzi and I left from our hearth. With Ortzi at my side I felt strong. I was with a grown man like myself. I’d never seen Ortzi in that way before that morning.

  Only Nekané and Sorné were up and about when we crept from our tents, took our spears and bows and arrows and left the clearing. They looked the other way. The tents were silent, but we smelt a wakefulness in the air different from any other Year. After Basajaun and his cousin had fled into the wood the women had watched the Dance for longer than usual. When the Dance and the fire died down, the boys were seized and carried off into the woods. The rest of us had slept a little. The Hunt stayed awake. A wind rose off the sea, blowing clouds over the stars. A man who didn’t know these lands would be tossed by the wind, unable to see or sense where he was. If he found his way through the trees it could only be very slowl
y, with many mistakes. The Camp stayed watchful all through that short night. The wind died; the trees stood still enough to hear a twig crack. We knew that the women were aware of our leaving, but they kept their silence, and we kept ours.

  I had the cleverest dog. Some men say I’m the best man with dogs round here; I say I know how to choose the best dogs. After that boar killed my old dog, when Bakar and I last hunted together, Edur gave me the pick of a litter he’d brought to Gathering Camp. The pup I chose wasn’t the biggest, but I watched how he got through to his mother’s teats by wriggling his way in where he wasn’t expected. That was the dog for me. Now that pup had grown to be a dog in the prime of his life – still fast and strong, but wise too. Never did I think I’d chosen the best dog to hunt down a man! I didn’t want to lead the Hunt against my brother Kemen’s own brother, but there was no doubt that I had the best dog. I had no choice.

  Basajaun’s quiver, pouch and ember bag lay where he’d left them by Arantxa’s hearth. My dog sniffed Basajaun’s things. I watched him make up his mind. Then, while Basajaun’s belongings were shown to the other dogs in turn, I took my dog to the place where Basajaun had leaped out of the dance and run across the Go-Betweens’ mound. The wind had blown hard in the night: there’d be little smell left in the air. But the ground would hold it. My dog cast about this way and that around the Go-Betweens’ tent. He snuffled in a drift of last Year’s leaves. His tail went up. He raised his nose and gave a short bark. He ran down the back of the mound and into the trees.

  The paths around Gathering Camp are all criss-crossed. People pass to and fro; while we’re there the Animals who keep the paths open for the rest of the Year retreat deeper into the wood. It’s hard to follow the trail of one man across a big Camp. That very man will have come and gone often as he lives his life from day to day. Many others will have gone the same way. People-smells hang in the air. We People read our own smells as a presence: we can say there have been many People and dogs in a place, or only a few. If it’s not long ago, we can guess at how long they stayed, and what they did while they were here. Dogs are much cleverer than that. Their noses tell them every story that passes their way as clearly as you hear the words I’m speaking now.

  My dog soon found how Basajaun had run in a half circle round the Camp, just out of sight under the trees. Then he’d done just what I’d have done in his place: he’d headed down-river to the marshy place where men shit. He’d trodden through the shit, tracking to and fro in the stickiest places, splashing his way through murky pools. The dogs were muddled. The air itself said nothing: it smelled of the sea it had just come from, and had no other tale to tell. Even my good dog couldn’t tell where Basajaun had jumped into the River. We knew that’s what he’d have done though – it’s what any man would do.

  The River grows big and dangerous long before it reaches Gathering Camp. All the more reason for Basajaun to cross it if he could. We looked at the sweep of brown water; it was just about low enough for a strong man to cross – if he were desperate. I leaped in. My dogs and Edur, with Arantxa’s sons, followed me. The other men waited – we didn’t need all of us muddling the trail before the dogs found it.

  Edur and I stood, dripping, on the far bank. Arantxa’s sons waited for us to speak. I had an idea Basajaun would head upriver because that was harder going: he’d think we’d expect him to take the easier way. Edur wasn’t so sure. He thought Basajaun would make for the boats. Basajaun wasn’t to know, argued Edur, that our dogs were already guarding the boats, with old men and boys watching over them, before ever the Dance began. Basajaun wouldn’t know that a hand-full of men had run to join them as soon as the Hunted one had left the dance. But I thought Basajaun was clever enough to have guessed.

  In fact it was those men guarding the boats – Sendoa and his brothers – who killed Basajaun’s cousin. He’d slipped away before Basajaun made his great leap out of the dance. He knew no one would be looking at him; sure enough he got clear away and crept down to the shore. He wasn’t as clever as Basajaun. He thought he’d found an unguarded boat. He turned it over and was groping for the paddle – there wasn’t one, of course – when they seized him. Sendoa said they didn’t expect him to fight much. But he did. He fought like a Lynx, with hands and feet and teeth and nails – they’d have let him draw his knife but he never gave them a chance. Sendoa cut his throat and that ended it.

  The dying man’s blood spurted over Sendoa’s chest. Sendoa dropped the body, threw off his clothes and ran into the sea. He plunged headfirst into the waves, then splashed himself all over. He pummelled his deerskins in the salt water until every spot of blood was gone. While he was doing that, his brothers rolled the Lynx man’s body on to a hide, and dumped it on a makeshift platform above the shore. They took care not to touch anything that belonged to the dead man. As soon as they’d finished their work they all stripped and washed themselves in the sea, until they were sure there wasn’t a drop of blood left on anyone. No one wanted the spirits who’d watched over Kemen’s cousin to start following his killers! Those spirits would make bad enemies! The Auk People would never have got rid of them either, because that Lynx man’s People were all dead, and his name had gone out of the world for ever.

  That was before the Hunt began. It didn’t matter: that man was never going to be part of the Hunt. He was your cousin, Kemen – I know you don’t like me to say this – but that man was nobody, even while he bore his name. He didn’t matter. Anyway, before the Hunt began he was out of it.

  I was right: Basajaun never looked for a boat. He was a strong man. He pushed his way upriver right through the rapids until he was above the watering place. Maybe some of you little ones haven’t been up there: before the River reaches Gathering Camp’s watering place it threads its way through flood plains, meandering between little pools. The higher pools were made at the Beginning – you can tell by the shelving shores of rock – but the two lower pools were built by beavers. The land is open: after the beavers drained the marshes to make their pools, we People made the wide meadows by burning off the birch saplings and willow scrub every few Years. Now aurochs and deer make for the open spaces, and that saves the hunters many a long journey into the higher grazings.

  The dogs and I followed every meander, searching for a scent. A little band of cows and calves were grazing two hands-full of ten paces away. The watch cow stared at us as we came near. The cows lying down got to their feet. Mothers lowed to their calves. The herd kept its eyes on us until we’d passed, but it didn’t bother to move. They knew no Aurochs had agreed to give itself that day.

  Before the River reaches the beaver meadows it tumbles down from the watershed between Eagle Crag and Sharp Peak. White falls force their ways through broken crag and loose boulders, then lose themselves in airy pools. We sent the dogs ahead on either side – Basajaun could have doubled back on his tracks and come ashore on the High Sun side after all. He could have headed up any of the many side streams that tumbled from the ridge. Some of the men kept to the near bank; some crossed over and followed me. The dogs searched to and fro across the rocky ground, sniffing among sallow willow, bilberry and bog myrtle. I was worried the dogs might have missed something – but how could Basajaun have fooled dogs like ours in open meadowland? There were no trees to climb into – no way of hiding his scent at all.

  Zeru’s dog on the far bank gave a warning bark. Next thing we knew, half the dogs on the far bank were in full cry. The dogs on our side stood still, ears cocked. I glanced at my dog. He sniffed the air. He scratched his ear. He trotted on up the hill. The other dogs turned their heads this way and that. My dog gave a sharp bark. Doubtfully, the others followed.

  Zeru and his brother were running downhill after their dogs. Sendoa’s dog hadn’t moved. Sendoa signalled across to me: ‘No!’

  Men and dogs vanished into the trees. We heard dogs barking, and a sudden silence.

  Across the River Sendoa traced a flowing Animal in the air with his two hands: ‘Otter!�
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  Koldo and I glanced at each other. ‘That dog of Zeru’s has a mind like an empty basket!’

  ‘Most dogs can’t think sideways,’ I said. ‘When did we ask them to hunt a man before?’

  ‘Lost children?’

  ‘Ah, but then they’re looking for their own.’ I glanced down the glen once more before turning to follow Koldo. Itzal was already well ahead, running uphill as light as a cat. ‘Here’s Edur! Here come his dogs!’

  Oroitz wasn’t far behind the dogs. ‘We got as far as the boats,’ he panted. ‘We didn’t pick up anything.’

  Edur came up next, looking glum. Surely Basajaun couldn’t have outwitted us so easily! The dogs trotted on, nosing the ground this way and that along the banks, which were rising now to the gorge that cuts its way down from the watershed. I looked down at the white water – narrow enough here for a man to leap across – and the steep cliffs where rowans clung between the rocks. A strong man could push his way up through the falls – the River wasn’t in spate – but he’d be risking his life. A hunted man faces greater risks than a few falls of water – but if Basajaun had still been struggling upstream he must have come out before the long fall below the ridge. Up there the rock is sheer and slimy with moss. Even the falls we’d already passed would be hard to climb. He’d have the water in his face and the rock was slippery. He’d be climbing through swift water by touch alone. All the while he’d be losing his lead on us.

  Yet his plan made sense. Soon after he’d leaped out of the dance, the Moon had set. The stars were hidden: he’d been travelling in the dark. The wind would have pushed him off course even if he’d known the woodland paths as we did. There was only one certain path away from Gathering Camp, where a man might feel his way through unfamiliar lands however dark it was, and where his smell would be washed away. The wind had brought rain with it – but from the sea, not the hill. Spate was a risk, but an unlikely one. Yes, it made sense.