Control of instinct shapes us.
Fighting down the animalistic urge to shy away from the burning hotness, she reached down for the branch, backing away at the last second. Millions of years of evolutionary programming could not be so simply switched off. After several more hesitant attempts, each braver than the last, she successfully snatched it up off the ground. Bushwalker screamed as the heated wood blistered the fleshy palm of her hand but grimly hung on to her hard won trophy, firmly keeping the torch at arm's length. A terrible creaking assailed her ears and she sprinted for safer ground, setting off back the way she had come as the fired tree, its trunk burnt through, groaned and toppled. A veritable forest of burning branches crumpled earthwards, showering the fleeing gracile in stinging sparks.
Managing to dodge the falling firewood and keep one step ahead of the racing blaze, Bushwalker gained a patch of savannah untouched by either flame or stampede where the smoke thinned to an opaque curtain that hung low over the tall, bendy grasses. Nursing a burnt palm, covered in soot and coughing horribly, she had nonetheless come through her trial by fire relatively unscathed. The time was at hand to put her impulsively contrived plan into action. Planting the flaming brand into the firm earth away from the grassy tinder, Bushwalker set her trap. All that was left to do was bait it.
'Here puss, puss, puss!’ she yelled out invitingly, the undulating pain in her belly a sharp reminder that all was not well with her.
The black cat flew out of the haze propelled by a wild screech, slamming into Bushwalker. Thrown violently onto her side as the attacking panther rolled away, the winded Upright automatically kicked out at her assailant and managed to draw breath enough to scream when he lacerated her feet with his scrabbling claws. Bushwalker frantically dragged herself out of Yowlar's reach before glancing anxiously over in his direction.
He was not in the best of health either and sprawled where he had landed. Bushwalker was not mistaken when she last witnessed him being stomped on by uncountable hoofed feet. A mess of smashed bones and bloody welts, it was a marvel the panther could move at all, let alone muster the gumption to have another go at the hominin. She need not have worried. This had been the Sabretooth's final stand against any of the Uprights. All of his nine lives were spent. His body and spirit battered beyond recovery, Yowlar was unable to even bare his broken teeth at the staring gracile. Yet he still had the energy to snarl one last taunt.
'I got you good, monkey-girl. You're not clawing your way out of this one. I may be going down, but at least I have the satisfaction of taking you with me. Fangs or flames, makes no difference to me. Death will be the end result for you.’ The irony of their predicament was not lost on the unwell cat. ‘Looks as if we'll both be roasted,’ he dourly laughed.
Wincing as she put weight on her bloodied feet, the grimy hominin faced her adversary standing and hoarsely declared, ‘Some of us sooner than others.'
With an effort Yowlar pricked his ears and scoffed. ‘You planning to hurry the fire along?'
Plucking her torch out of the ground with her unburnt hand, Bushwalker hobbled around the wasted predator in a wary circle, setting clumps of grass alight at four-foot intervals with the blazing tip, leaving bloody footprints as she went. ‘That's for Rockshaper,’ she informed Yowlar as she dipped the brand the first time into the combustible vegetation, ‘and this one's for Treeclimber,’ she said of the second. The third she dedicated to Troublefoot's memory, while the lucky last went to her. Tossing away her lighter, the arsonist sensibly stood upwind from her handiwork. The flames rapidly took hold and inexorably converged on the incapacitated panther, which appeared genuinely afraid by her unbelievable command of the burning beast.
But even in defeat Yowlar's arrogance prevailed. ‘Burn me to a crisp, Bushwalker, but know that my progeny will hunt your tatty-furred kind to the ends of the plains and beyond!’ he roared in pathetic defiance, relying on Miorr's litter to carry on his seed. ‘The Sabretooths will never die! You hear that Gurgon-Rha, you stinking, enslaving snake. The Sabretooths live on.'
Bushwalker limped backwards away from the erupting heat as the shrinking ring of fire consumed grass and flesh alike. The ranting cat uttered a bloodcurdling yowl of pure anguish when flames licked at his pummelled body. Too weakened by injury to flinch, he screeched his agony. Covering her ears, Bushwalker blocked out the terrible noise of his grisly demise. Yowlar's jarring cries ceased after half a minute of excruciating pain in which time his lungs seared to a crisp even as his fur burned down to the roots, the exposed skin sizzling like frying bacon. His barbecued remains smouldered, his fanged jaws yawning in a lifeless grimace.
It was over. Bushwalker had intentionally avenged those slain by the transmuted big cat wrenched from another place and period, ridding her tribe of its feline pest. This was the second premeditated murder she committed for her cause, bloodying her hands in the name of troop survival. Homicide was fast becoming an unwholesome habit. But in doing so she was about to pay a heavy price: sacrificing her life, that of her unborn daughter (the weeks spent waiting for the panther to reappear convinced Bushwalker that the baby she carried was female, as a girl was preferable to a more troublesome boy) and leaving the band of graciles leaderless, vulnerable once more to exploitation by rivals and predators. Footsore, wracked with intensifying belly pain, Bushwalker stood no chance of outrunning, let alone outwalking, the closing brushfire.
Heaving a sigh of repent, she addressed in a croaky voice the virgin life unstirring in her achy womb. ‘What a tale this would have been to tell your children, little one.'
Pain engulfed her and Bushwalker wobbled, overwhelmed by the spasms lancing her abdomen. Amniotic fluid gushed from between her thighs, staining her trembly legs. Isolated from her troop, deprived of the Upright midwifery that lent birthing females much needed support and comfort, Bushwalker squatted alone and fearful, panting in the unburnt grass, involuntarily aborting her foetus. Her stomach cramped again, and in a spurt of blood her traumatised body ejected her premature infant face down on to the soiled grass.
Staring down at the scrap of sodden, unmoving fur, Bushwalker hooted bewilderingly. Deep-seated maternal instincts kicked in. Stooping, she cupped the newborn in her hands and perfunctorily sniffed the babe coated in velvety hair plastered down with womb juice, willing the petite female infant to live. Hugging her unbreathing daughter to her breast, Bushwalker puzzled over why the stillborn baby refused to nurse. Placing a nipple in its tiny mouth, agape in dreamless death, she encouraged the unresponsive infant to suckle, entreating her with soft ‘hoos'.
Understanding reluctantly seeped in, sorrowing her perception, and she unthinkingly dropped her bundle. There was no malice or callousness on her part. Lifeless, the baby abruptly ceased to hold meaning for the numbed maid. The sweetness of victory souring her mouth, Bushwalker struggled to make sense of it all. Even in death, Yowlar raked the lifeblood out of the Home-rock graciles. Her legs acting independently of her gloomed mind, she began limping woodenly and aimlessly, dragging her dead infant behind attached still by the defunct umbilical cord.
Stubbing her toe sharply on a rock made Bushwalker glance at her feet. Sticking out of the churned earth was her impotent stabber, useless when it came to the crunch. She impulsively picked it up and chopped through the birth cord, severing all ties with her nameless daughter. Continuing on alone, the stress and bleeding from the miscarriage dangerously weakening her, Bushwalker had barely taken a few faltering steps before her knees buckled.
She was abruptly caught in the scrawny arms of Ditchjumper. ‘Better late than never,’ the confirmed bachelor nervously barked, gently lowering his chieftain to the ground.
Yanked out of her catalepsy, Bushwalker looked up with surprise into the male's relieved eyes and coughed in his face. Demanding in a voice made husky by smoke inhalation, she rasped, ‘What are you doing here?'
'Rescuing you ... isn't that obvious?'
'But you're a faint-hearted poltroon.'
&nb
sp; 'Which makes me crazier than a laughing Bonecruncher for running headfirst into a fire on the off chance of spotting you.’ Alarmed by her reddened thighs, Ditchjumper jumped to the obvious conclusion. ‘You're hurt, chief!'
'Nothing I won't eventually get over. How did you guess where to come?'
'Last night Windchaser told me you were resting and to assume your lookout duty. I did so and kind of dozed off.’ The smoke thickened again, unnerving Ditchjumper. ‘Can't I tell you this later, after we get to safety?’ he solicited Bushwalker, a sense of urgency in his plea.
Gradually caring about her welfare again, Bushwalker indulged him. ‘Give me the short version then.'
'Er, okay. Anyhow, chief, I woke at dawn in time to catch sight of a black speck moving out on the plains. It could have only been your infamous clawfoot, so I figured you'd want to know and went to rouse you. Obviously you weren't in any of the caves I checked and then it hit me. Where's there smoke there's fire, right?’ A sheepish look crossed Ditchjumper's neurotic face. ‘Bad pun,’ he conceded.
'I'd hate to hear the long version of this,’ complained Bushwalker. ‘Get to the point will you. It's getting a trifle warm around here.'
Ditchjumper felt the heat spearheading the fire and cringed. He blurted, ‘I worked out that you were probably already going after your lone black Roarer, came down on the veldt myself just to make sure, and picked up your trail. That's it.'
'I knew you were dependable,’ she murmured gratefully.
'Did your quest succeed, chief?'
Yowlar's edgy derision came back to haunt Bushwalker and was blunted by her sardonic reply. ‘Oh yes, I achieved my goal. We can all rest easy now.'
'That's great. Can we please get out of here now? I don't fancy being charbroiled.'
A breath of wind parted the glooming smoke and Home-rock rose invitingly as an unassailable bastion of proto-humanity in the near distance. ‘Take me home,’ she commanded her frightened rescuer.
'Thought you'd never ask,’ replied Ditchjumper. He carefully hitched Bushwalker over his shoulder and set his sights on Scraggly Bush. ‘Sheesh, you're heavy,’ he whined. ‘Have you put on weight?'
Bushwalker smiled glumly. ‘I recently lost some.'
Thunderclaps broke overhead, reverberating sky and land alike. An instant later the cloudy heavens opened up and the thirsty countryside was deluged by the long awaited downpour, drenching the land with much needed water that staved off the impending drought and doused the ruinous grassfire all in one go.
The rainy season was commencing none too soon.
Chapter Seventeen
'What happened next?'
'Yes, tell us!’ a chorus of child voices urged.
The male Upright grinned indulgently at the crowd of spellbound youngsters seated on the cave floor about him. In his early twenties, he sported a handsome tan coat with black roots, his smoothed-down head and back hair shot with specks of grey that lent him a distinguished rather than aged air. His kindly eyes had the look of wisdom to them, offset by a twinkle of mischievousness lying just beneath their umber surface.
'Aw, c'mon pop, please finish the tale,’ begged a little female sitting up front.
'You lot never tire of hearing the same story over and over.'
'No, we don't!’ his juvenile listeners yelled in unison.
'Okay, alright,’ the storyteller sighed theatrically. ‘Majority rule wins. Where was I? Ah, yes. Ditchjumper lugged his crippled leader all the way back to Home-rock, where he helped nurse her back to health. She miraculously fell pregnant again and gave birth to a bouncing baby boy blessed with looks and brains.'
'What about the black clawfoot?’ one of the older kids asked.
'Yowlar was reduced to a pile of ashes blown into nothingness by a gust of prevailing wind.’ A round of ‘Ooohs’ rippled through the entranced children. ‘Although some say that after dark, before the night-sun rises, a phantom cat with glowing eyes can at times be seen in the branches of the trees right outside here, waiting ... to pounce!’ His audience jumped as one as the heart stopping last word of that epic echoed through the grotto. When the repeating shout finally died away, the masterly raconteur waved his hairy arms about and said, ‘Shoo, you lot. The sun is shining and it's too nice a day to be stuck in a gloomy cave listening to old stories. Go outside and play.'
The mob of younglings scattered and raced for the cave mouth, boisterously jostling one another as playmates do. The male elder reached out and grabbed the arm of the small girl handy to him. ‘Not so fast, my daughter,’ he cautioned the four year old.
She squirmed in his grasp and whined, ‘You told us to go out to play.'
'Don't get smart-alecky with me, young lady. The last time you went “out and played” your mother nearly shrieked the cave down after you sprained your foot falling out of that tree.'
'It was a big shrub, dad,’ she corrected him.
'I don't care if it was tall grass, Bushclimber. Promise me that'll you keep your feet firmly planted on the ground all afternoon.'
'Aw, dad.'
'I'm not letting you go until you promise.'
'I promise,’ she pouted.
'Good oh. Now scoot.'
Bushclimber scurried out of the cavern, eager to catch up with her friends. Her father rose from the boulder he was using for a stool and followed after. Loitering at the entryway, making sure his spirited daughter did as she was told, he moved off along the path encircling Home-rock only when he saw his little girl gaily partaking in an innocent game of tag. Turning from the track into a cleft fracturing a lofty wall of weathered rock, the spritely elder sidled down a narrow passage that emptied out into the cramped confines of a high-roofed vault lit filmily by a wedge-shaped skylight. The sounds of hammering and whittling filling the silence of the grotto abruptly stopped at his appearance.
'Ho, Stonechipper!’ he hooted in greeting.
A straggly haired female with a dusty pelt of russet glanced up from the pebble-tool she was minutely examining in the shaft of illuminative sunlight streaming from the broken ceiling. The look she gave the old male was contemptuous. ‘Nice of you to make it down here at long last.'
He shrugged off the complaint. ‘Been busy. You know how it is.'
'Bah! This scraper has no edge to it,’ she grumped, tossing the piece of shaped flint into a growing reject pile behind her. The look of disgust Stonechipper threw the pair of trainee males to one side of her, paused in crafting their individual quartz tools, could have melted stone. ‘Do over and do better,’ she crisply instructed them. ‘And get back to work. Just because he has turned up doesn't mean you two can lollygag about.’ Turning her attention back to her visitor, the surly female said above the restarting background noise of rock striking rock, ‘Have you come to get your hands dirty, Toolmaker?'
'Er, no. I just called in to see how things were going.'
Stonechipper rolled her eyes and half-muttered, ‘Men.’ She addressed his general enquiry with a scowl. ‘Quality control is slipping, there's a ridiculous demand for cutters over diggers, I have a shortage of workable core rock, and there's never enough time in the day to get everything done.'
Toolmaker considered her grievances. ‘I'll see what I can do about sending a party over to Whitetop to collect some more cobbles. However, lengthening the days is quite beyond me and the shoddy workmanship of your apprentices not my problem.'
'You taught me. Instruct them too.'
'Not anymore, Stonechipper. I'm happier delegating.'
'You are your mother's boy for certain.'
'I'll give her your regards.’ Toolmaker winked as he left Rockshaper's old haunt, Stonechipper's admonishment to her juniors ringing in his ears; ‘Not like that, you dunderheads. Hammer them like I showed you, or you'll go back to flensing strips of meat off Roarer leftovers.'
After a leisurely walk upslope he was standing outside a spacious cave with a vista to die for and marched on in. The sunny day dispelled a measure of the interior
dimness and he saw in the half-light a white-haired figure dozing on a mat of strewn grass near the back. The old male lingered a moment, checking her slow but steady breathing before turning away to creep out of the grotto.
'Is that you, Toolmaker?’ croaked a drowsy voice.
He stopped, looking back reverently. ‘Yes, mother.'
'Come kneel beside me, my boy.'
He did as was bidden, albeit reluctantly. ‘I didn't want to disturb your nap,’ he apologised to the bleary-eyed matriarch with the snowy pelt.
'Feel free. About all I ever do these days is sleep and it does get boring after a while.'
'You do need your rest, mother.'
Bushwalker cackled amusingly. ‘I recall telling an old rock-shaping pal of mine something similar.’ She frowned harshly. ‘I see now why that upset him so much.'
Old age was a state Bushwalker had immense difficulty accepting. The body was worn-out and arthritic, yet her sharp mind remained as active as the day Ditchjumper had borne his wounded boss home on his stout back after she outfought that devil cat using her wits. Never properly recovering from the lacerations Yowlar inflicted on her soles, she had since hobbled painfully about. Until recently, that is. Now that the foot ache made it unbearable for her to get around at all, Bushwalker was reduced to a bedridden invalid tended to by her doting son and his gentle mate.
'Can I fetch you anything, mother?’ he offered.
'My youth back,’ she wheezed, irony prickling her reply. ‘On second thought, your company's just fine,’ she amended, patting his hand fondly with her good one. The palm of her gnarled hand bore the wrinkly burn marks from clutching that super hot stick she torched Yowlar with, a physical reminder of the mental scars she carried to this day.
Bushwalker treasured her boy. Windchaser midwifed his birth and confided to the exhausted mother after the happy conclusion to the prolonged labour and unusually difficult delivery that she was most fortunate to be blessed with a strapping son. The panther claws digging into her belly could have just as easily rendered the adventuresome maid barren after her frightful miscarriage. Bushwalker was grateful for that not so small mercy, hiding well her slight disappointment at not bearing the daughter she so earnestly desired to replace her earlier loss. Toolmaker had grown into a fine adult despite his maleness. Though inheriting a measure of his sire's timidity, that prudence offset larger doses of his mother's derring-do and mulish determination. A combination of traits that gelled into a personality ideally suited to her successor.
Chosen Too Page 20
