‘It must be their law to put down weapons in exchange for welcome. Drop your spear, they won’t take it away.’
Oak stared defiantly above the shouting crowd.
‘They won’t harm you!’ whispered Juniper. ‘They’re my people, our people. You remember Hornbeam? This is the place he wanted us to find!’
Oak spoke in a low voice.
‘She came in darktime. Dreamgoddess, dressed in black. She held a black candle. The smoke hurt my eyes. Her other self was huge. She said I would have to fight for my life, I would need my own spear.’
Juniper looked round. At the mouth of the shelter Icegoddess stood with outstretched arms. Her strange white light floated round them. It was bitterly cold. He turned back.
‘We have to stay, Oak. We’d die out there. This is where Fategod wants us to be. At least put your spear on the ground.’
Oak sighed angrily. ‘If only Dreamgoddess would keep out of my head.’
‘She will,’ said Juniper as Oak reluctantly lowered his spear.
Several boys dragged in twigs and branches to feed the fire. Its replenished warmth reached out and slowly the family trailed away. Only a hunter went on staring at Oak as if he couldn’t forgive him for breaking, even for a short while, their ancient rule of welcome.
Later there was laughter and singing. Children ran about, playing some sort of game. Juniper sat by the fire with Oak watching the children carry snow in a big hide bag and shriek as they dipped their fingers into it. They dragged the bag along the ground to the back of the shelter where they hooked it to a spike. They took out lumps and screamed at each other. An old woman shouted at them to stop, but they took no notice. Juniper smiled to himself. In Birch’s family they would have obeyed. The old woman shuffled round with a stick until the children grew tired of the game and gathered round the fire to stare at Juniper and Oak. Men, women and children came out of their tents and sat with them round the fire. Young men brought more branches and twigs from the cave that opened out at the back of the shelter. A scattering of bones was thrown on the fire and several men dragged over a deer from the snow-covered carcass pit that had been dug, a tree length away, near the entrance to the shelter.
‘Shako, Shako,’ they called until their leader came and hacked off its head.
Several hunters skinned the animal, singing as they worked. Women took away the hide and the head and a young girl with long black hair laid pieces of flesh between hot pebbles that lay in the ashes of the fire.
Juniper pointed to her. ‘Name?’ he asked a small boy who stood beside him.
‘Hira, Hira,’ said the boy grinning. A hide bag filled with snow—perhaps the same one the children played with—was hooked over a stave and placed on steaming pebbles. Other hot stones were thrown into the bag.
Juniper watched Hira float seeds into the melting snow. He liked her dark expressive eyes and her long black hair. He listened to the family sing as they drank the warm seeded water. Their clear high voices pleased him. Women speared pieces of meat onto thin sharp fragments of flint bound to wooden sticks and passed them round. But the boy next to Juniper threw down his stick and ate with his hands. Juniper offered the child his name.
‘Juniper.’ He pointed to Oak who sat biting into a juicy piece of meat. ‘Oak.’
The boy laughed. ‘Tepi.’
He stood up and brought over his father— a tall straight man with a beard and eyes as dark as his son’s. On his forehead he wore a brown mark in the shape of a flower. What does it mean? wondered Juniper. He admired the man’s tunic that was carefully sewn and gathered into a thick hide belt. He envied him his shoes. They were halfway up his legs and secured by a cord that wove in and out of holes. Juniper looked down at the rough foot coverings he had made for himself. In Birch’s tribe it didn’t matter how things were put together. Mostly Birch liked everyone to go barefoot. How could you tell the feel of earth if your feet were covered up?
The man nodded and spoke but Juniper didn’t understand.
‘If only the same words came out of my mouth,’ he muttered, tapping his lips in despair. He rubbed his hands. How empty and angry they felt! It was like a sickness!
As if he understood, the man felt in his hide pocket and brought out a handful of smooth pebbles. He pointed to the small brown flower on his forehead and showed Juniper and Oak a pebble he had decorated with a little leaping salmon. He handed Juniper some plain pebbles and a finely ground flint awl. Juniper smiled. He no longer felt the loss of words.
‘Juniper. Oak.’
The man pointed to himself: ‘Ganti,’ he said.
All through the day Juniper engraved little reindeer and bison and mammoth on the pebbles Ganti had given him. From time to time he turned to Oak who always sat upright and aloof with his spear lying at his feet. But mostly he worked on his pebbles, only half aware of the men hanging new hides across the shelter’s ledge to keep out the driving snow, or the children playing round the fire. He had to show the Salvi he was a true maker of marks, so even when night fell he went on engraving by the light of the fire. When at last he put down the awl Oak had already fallen asleep. Then Ganti came over and squatted before him, stroking his shoulders. It was a sign of acceptance. In his turn Juniper stroked Ganti as | if he were his brother He had no words to describe what he was feeling. He only knew that as he lay down to sleep by the fire, Hornbeam was in his head, smiling and holding up the boulder that had blocked little Juniper’s heart long, long ago.
Chapter 20
DARKNESS EVERYWHERE
Oak was comforted by Juniper’s work, the slow patient engraving he had been watching since he was a boy. It made the other things easier, the talk he couldn’t understand, the loss of his spear The tribe didn’t like him holding it and made him put it in a little hollow near the entrance. From time to time he walked over to make sure it was still there. He wondered where the Salvi kept their weapons, but he didn’t dare explore the cave at the back of the shelter.
The cave reminded him of his dream, the pit where he fought for his life. Why was Dreamgoddess trying to make him afraid? It was true one of the hunters had shown him hatred but only for a little while.
It also helped him to watch Tepi, the boy who made him think of Juniper in his small time. He looked like him and was wilful and clever in the same way.
The Salvi feasts were also a source of comfort because they reminded him of the family gatherings in Greenwater. But other things puzzled him. Why did the Salvi cut off the deer heads and put them on the ledge at the back of the shelter? They were placed very carefully at a certain distance from each other. Once he saw Ganti going from one end of the ledge to the other, pointing to the heads. What was he doing? Then there were the deer hides hanging from another ledge. One night Oak woke and saw a man making marks on one of the hides with a piece of chalk. Another time a woman drew a circle.
‘What are the marks for?’ he asked Juniper, who laughed.
‘I thought I was the one who wanted to know things!’
A few days later Juniper asked Ganti about the mysterious signs, but the hunter frowned and said nothing.
There were other mysteries. Once Tepi came out of the cave with a strange stick. It was stretched into a curve by a cord that was attached to either end. The cord was threaded through holes that had been carefully pierced, perhaps with an awl like the one Juniper was using.
‘What’s it for?’
Oak and Juniper looked blankly at Tepi. The boy took a little thin spear out of a bag and placed the end that had been nicked, onto the string. He pulled the string back and pointed the little spear to the sky. He let go and it flew up and up and then down, landing by an old woman who was sewing a skin. She hobbled over to Tepi and led him away angrily.
Juniper turned to Oak with wonder in his eyes.
‘Don’t you see? It’s a flying stick that will wound anything that comes its way.’
He sighed. ‘These are clever people, Oak. Their weapons are better than ou
rs. Their clothes—’ he pointed to Hira, the longhaired girl who was walking by in her beautifully-sewn hide boots— ‘We’re nothing next to them . . .’
‘How can you say that?’
A wave of anger swept over Oak. Had Juniper already forgotten Birch’s tribe?
Another time Ganti brought them a bone rod, hollowed and hooked at one end. On it several deer were engraved, one following another.
He found Oak’s spear and placed the rod on one end. He made as if to throw the spear.
‘Of course, of course, it makes it go further,’ shouted Juniper. ‘A spear thrower.’
But Oak seized his spear and put it carefully back in the hollow. He wanted it just as it was.
When Juniper had done many engravings the Salvi gave them a tent of their own to live in.
It was Oak’s refuge at the time of the Great Blackness.
Night and Icegoddess had flown away on the back of the wind. Everything was still, the air bright and cold. The tribe was sitting round the fire and above Moongoddess walked, round and golden. The stargods were so clear Oak thought they too must be feasting. He gnawed his bone and watched the moon. He felt more peaceful than he had done since he first came to the camp.
Suddenly he noticed Moongoddess was being eaten up. There was a small bite in her golden side. The bite grew larger and larger. He looked round to see if he alone saw what was happening but the chatter and laughter were already falling into silence. Soon they were all watching Moongoddess disappear.
Shako stood up:
‘We’ve done something wrong. We must call her back.’
Everyone looked up at the darkness. Stars gave no light. Only firelight shone in their black frightened eyes. Then a man stood up and pointed at Oak. He shouted and the others looked and nodded.
‘It’s the one who hates me,’ thought Oak, putting his hands over his ears as everyone had begun to shout. The man rushed out into the dark and came back with Oak’s spear broken into pieces. He uttered an incantation and everybody waved their arms and shouted. Oak rocked to and fro.
Juniper put his hand on his friend’s shoulder: ‘Listen! We must pray to Hornbeam. He’ll help us!’
Above the terrified shouts and screams Juniper prayed and called loudly to Moongoddess:
‘Come back, come back. If you go forever our nights will be without light. We will die. Moongoddess, return, return.’
As he rocked backwards and forwards Oak also prayed to Hornbeam. Surely the old man’s spirit could hear their prayers?
No one spoke and the darkness was everywhere.
At last Moongoddess returned, slowly, little by little. When Oak saw the golden rim swell out like a ripe berry, he put his head on his friend’s shoulder and wept. The Salvi crowded round and Oak felt protected by Juniper’s glory. At last the family smiled and talked and he smiled back as if he had found his longlost brothers, as if Moongoddess’s return had in some way bound him to them. Even when Shako went out to bury his broken spear in the badpit he still felt close to them. He wondered if it was Hornbeam’s spirit, whispering in his ear.
Icegoddess returned. She hung little ice spears from the tents. The deer hides hardened in the cold. The men built up the fire to melt her freezing breath. Everybody lived by the fire until it was night when they huddled in their tents.
Early one morning Juniper woke to the sound of low voices. He crept out to see what was happening then came back and shook Oak awake.
‘The hunters. They’re walking by the ledge. Pointing to the deer heads.’
The voices outside were raised. There was a banging and clattering and sliding. Oak rubbed his eyes.
‘What’s all that noise?’
‘They’re getting ready.’
Together they peered through the opening in the tent. In the half light—for the fire was low and night still lurked in the camp—the hunters were walking one by one to the back of the shelter. They were taking deer heads from the ledge and placing them round the fire. At the entrance to the camp a sledge was loaded with hides, knives and many little light holders Juniper had watched the men make out of clay. Another was loaded with skin bags and pieces of meat. On other sledges headless carcasses, knives, spears and harpoons had been secured, and what Ganti called bows and arrows. On another sledge a few reindeer heads were piled up. No women or children were about. Shako stood at the entrance to the shelter watching the men complete the circle of deerheads. Then he held up the hoof that dangled from his neck and uttered a command.
Oak frowned. ‘What’s happening?’
His heart lifted when he saw Ganti coming over to them, beckoning them out of the tent.
‘Where are you going?’ said Juniper. Ganti smiled and replied with a mixture of signs and words.
‘Soon you’ll know. Now you must look after the women and children. We count the deer heads. It’s time for us to go.’
‘Count?’
Ganti led Juniper and Oak over the fire. He pointed to a deer head and using hands and words indicated one length of time.
He pointed to the next deer head in the circle.
‘Another length of time. Like this, we know when to go.’
Juniper turned to Oak.
‘But time is always with us. Past time, present time, dream time, how can it be—?’
Ganti said no more but strode over to the hunters who were throwing other deer heads onto the fire.
Juniper and Oak watched their eyes burn, their heads shrivel until there was nothing left but blackened skeletons.
‘Time gone,’ said Ganti, making a downward gesture. ‘Ganashor, proving time.’ He put his hand onto the brown flower on his forehead. ‘We must go.’
‘Where?’
Ganti turned and waved his arms. Smoke and smell hung like a deerskin over the shelter.
He made himself clear to Juniper. ‘You stay. You and Oak look after Tepi for me. He likes you both but he’s wild. His mother’s dead, his grandmother has a stick—’ he smiled, ‘but she’s no help.’ He paused. ‘My only son. Look after him.’
Juniper nodded. ‘We will.’
The hunters disappeared into the swirling smoke and returned wearing their own deer heads.
But Juniper was still staring at the skeletons in the fire. How was it time had been in them and was now destroyed with them?
His thoughts were cut short by Shako’s cry. His deer head was the most splendid of all, with antlers that rose through the smoke like leafless branches. Answering his call all the hunters stood upright, their deer heads towering above their skulls, like crowns.
They circled round the skeletons in the fire, chanting and clapping. Shako swayed backwards and forwards as if he was in a trance.
The ceremony didn’t last long. At a final cry the hunters stopped and without waiting began to pull the sledges out into the snow. As they went they hummed.
What a strange low sound, thought Juniper. But the silence that followed seemed even stranger.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Oak.
They felt abandoned and ran back to the tent. Oak lay down and closed his eyes, dreaming of Greenwater, while Juniper sat up, listening to the wind howl down the hillside, watching the grey light at the top of the tent lift into white. He understood and yet he didn’t understand. He remembered all that Hornbeam had said about the Salvi painters yet he shook his head. He was like a blind man who has been told about the earth but who has never seen it.
Chapter 21
THE WAY OUT
The women and children often laughed as Juniper tried to learn their words. It was Hira who first taught him as she sat by the fire stirring the soup.
‘Seedpat,’ she said slowly, making him say the word over and over again. Juniper liked her voice and the way the flames made her long hair gleam.
‘Seedpat,’ he repeated obediently. She smiled and began to teach him other words, pointing to different things. Without the Hunters there seemed to be more time to laugh and talk. Yet everyone was w
orking: some were scraping skins and hanging them out to dry; others were sewing hides, like Hira’s old mother who threaded the gut cord through the pierced holes. It pleased Juniper to see the pieces of hide clinging neatly together.
He made Oak watch Hira’s mother:
‘This is how we have to do it.’
‘I don’t mind sewing,’ said Oak, ‘but the words —’ he waved the thought away with his hands. He didn’t like the words. When Juniper spoke them to Hira, he felt as if he had lost his friend.
Outside the shelter snow muffled the sounds of animals. The paths beyond the entrance were marked with footprints of bison, oxen, horses wolves, bears and foxes, and once Oak saw the spoor of a maneless lion near the camp. He and Tepi took it in turns to guard the great pile of frozen carcasses that lay in the pit not far from the fire. As a new mark of trust Chenti gave Oak a Salvi spear and a finely carved bone thrower to pitch at any animals that might come near. But Oak wanted his own broken spear. Would he ever find it in the badpit, out there in the white wood?
It seemed as if the snow would never stop falling. Most days the boys were out, clearing the path with shin bones and antlers. One night Oak had another dream.
‘I stumbled,’ he told Juniper, ‘The hunters dragged me to the wood. I was left in the snow, naked and blind. The snow piled over me.’
He shivered, as if he had caught a fever in his sleep. He had the dream several times. Perhaps if he knew where the real hunters were Dreamgoddess would leave him alone.
‘Now you can speak Hira’s words,’ he said to Juniper, ‘you can ask her where the hunters are. She likes you. She’ll tell you anything.’
It was dawn and they were lying together in their tent listening to the low crackle of the fire.
‘She’ll never say anything. It’s forbidden.’
‘Tell her you want to know. Say you’ll make her an engraving if she tells you. If I know the answer my dream won’t come back.’
But Juniper shook his head.
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