by Jack Lasenby
On his side. Trying to lick the gape in his belly. Guts sticking out of the hole which had stopped bleeding.
I remembered how Hagar saved a dog ripped open as it defended our sheep against a wild pack. I got the finest needle from my pack, threaded it with a strand of deer tendon, eased and poked in the grey loop of guts, and stitched and drew the lips of the wound together. Jak lay, eyes open. I knotted the last stitch. Wrapped Jak in the deer skin. He must be kept warm. Nip and me, too.
I was too tired to rebuild the wall. My lame leg felt weak. I knew I must hurry. I slit open the bear’s skin from the hole under the tail up over the guts, past the frayed stump of spear shaft, up to the throat and under the chin. It came off easily enough, like a deer’s, but so much bigger. Turning the bear to punch and knife the skin off the legs on the other side, along the flank, up the back, over the shoulders.
The short stabbing spear is clenched in the backbone, too hard to pull out. Clear the flank and shoulder, tug the skin over the back of the head. Although near exhaustion, although it took longer, I worked the headskin off still attached to the rest.
Nip lay by Jak all this time, shivering under the deer skin. Now and then, a little cry. Jak silent. But each time I reached and touched his head, he opened his eyes. I put a handful of snow where he could lick it.
Take the film of belly skin between the fingers of my left hand, slit and run the blade, sharp side uppermost. The mound of the bear’s belly splits, a steaming yawn, a gust of hot stink. The guts sag, dark gore on the snow.
As I worked, I tried to remember everything about the white bear in Hagar’s stories. The ones she told as we travelled. I cursed myself for not listening more carefully.
I plunged my hands amongst the hot innards, dragged them out. My spear had shattered the liver, rammed between two of the great knuckles of the bear’s backbone. That was what crippled it. I had to work with my knife-point to separate the rigid clasp of bones, work out the fire-hardened spear tip.
The short stabbing spear had gone in the gap where the head met the backbone – the pithing spot, Hagar called it – and killed the bear instantly. No time to waste. Getting tired and cold.
Several of Hagar’s stories had warned against eating the white bear’s liver. Down a deep slot between two rocks, I dropped it, still steaming.
Hagar had said to leave a wounded dog to recover, but I chopped some tidbits, set them beside Jak. Nip woke and gulped bloody pieces. I ate raw slices of the heart. Crammed down with fat from around the innards.
It gave me strength. With the two broken ends of the spear, I propped open the belly and chest. Worked Jak on his deer skin inside the mound of hot flesh that would keep him warm. Lifted Nip in beside him. I took out the props and folded back one corner of the belly flap for air. A whine from Nip, and she lay still.
Beside the carcass I rolled myself in the bearskin, soft fur beneath the long outer hairs, all bloodstained where the spear had gone in. Its lower end tucked up over my feet. The headskin drawn down. A long bag of fur. Comfortable. Warm. Closed my eyes. Sighed. Slept. It was Nip’s cries woke me.
Chapter 10
“You Took Your Time.”
I woke, blinked at the white glare. Nip whined again. Warm, comfortable, unwilling to get up, I spoke to the bear’s carcass.
“All right.” Expecting to see Nip nosing out, pushing apart the flaps of the belly. “Jak?” I called. At least he would have been warm in there, Nip snuggled beside him.
I rolled, frost on the heavy bearskin rustling, tearing apart. Harsh white light making me squint. Stamping. Nip whining. Took a few steps away, slipping, pissed on the snow, found it was covered in ice, and realised why Nip was whining.
I ran, tugged at the flaps – like curved plates of metal! Lutha’s knife bounced off. During the night the bear’s carcass had frozen into a hollow boulder of meat. Nip howling now. I didn’t want her upsetting Jak. The broken spear wouldn’t lever apart the flaps. Drive the butt against the flap. Again. Just flesh, no bone, it might crack and bend.
Taur’s axe would have had it open with a couple of chops. Drive the wooden shaft down. Again. Again. Like punching stone. Jarring. Nip howled at the chonk! chonk!
Even if the sun came through, it would take hours to soften. What else could I try? The rocks – frozen into the ice. The broken saplings of our raft, they might lever open the flaps. I threw the skin over the frozen bear. Perhaps start it thawing while I trudged back to the river for the saplings. At least Jak and Nip were getting enough air. A coughing grunt behind me. I spun.
Like a granite upthrust, another white bear reared on its hind legs, raised huge paws. So close, I could see where piss stained yellow its belly hair.
I felt for the spear, the longer piece with the fire-hardened point. Wrenched it out of the snow, thinking where I might plant it in the white bear’s belly, try to repeat the magic a second time. But, even as I went to thrust, I knew the good luck that had helped before was used up.
“Drop it!” said the bear. “Or I’ll knock you down.”
It shambled forward. “Get out of the way.” Shouldered me aside, dropped on all fours, put its head to the carcass and sniffed noisily. “What’s going on here?” Twitched the skin aside. Ran furry paws over the carcass. Nip howled. And the live bear threw back its head and creaked from its throat, like long unused laughter.
“Little dog,” it said. “Are you trapped in there?” The dry creaking again. The skin fell back off the bear’s head and revealed another head, a man’s. Long white hair hanging forward over heavy brows. High nose. Mouth wide open, laughing silently. Large teeth blunted and discoloured. And hiding his eyes a broad strip of thin wood bound around the back of his head with thongs. I recognised it at once because Hagar had described snow masks in her stories. The man could see through the narrow slot cut in front of each eye. Even though I knew what it was for, the mask frightened me.
“You’ve got a pup in there? Idiot!”
That’s what Lutha called me, I thought to myself.
From his belt the Bear Man pulled out a hatchet and chopped the belly flap, frozen chips of flesh and fat scattering red and yellow against the snow. He felt and levered with the handle. Crackle! The flap ripped back, Nip scrambled out, yelping, whining. The Bear Man picked her up, and she leapt, licking his face. He laughed and rubbed his nose against hers. Nip gave him another lick, dived out of his arms, and scampered to me. I rubbed her ears but was bending forward to the deerskin.
“What’s in there?” The Bear Man shouldered me aside, running his paws over the deerskin.
“Jak. He got ripped.”
The Bear Man lifted back the deerskin. Jak lay, eyes closed. A string of dead gristle hung out of the wound. The man took off his gloves, ran bare hands over Jak, felt the gristle, the stitches. He leaned forward, put his face near as if sniffing.
“How did you let him get hurt? Idiot!” That word again. “He’s all right, but you could have worked out for yourself the carcass would freeze.” The Bear Man stood up, pulling on gloves made of bearskin so they looked like paws.
He wore a tunic of bearskin over leggings also of bearskin. The hood that had fallen back was the head skin of a bear. Pulled forward, it had covered his face so he looked out through the bear’s eye slits. He was taller than me. As old as my father, had he lived. The skin of his face red, as if it had seen too much weather. A spiderweb of lines at the corners of the masked eyes. Lined forehead, cheeks, chin. The whole face a mass of lines like crackled glaze. For a moment I remembered Taur teaching me how to glaze pots.
A high, raking nose like the up-turned blade of a skinning knife. Narrow, standing proud of the face. Tight mouth. Lines at its corners as if the lips pressed together too hard. Deep lines from the wings of the nose to the corners of the mouth. Trenched from them to the chin.
To my astonishment he leaned forward, ran his fingers over my face, exploring the shape of my head, my mouth, cheeks, nose, forehead, eyes. I shivered.
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“Idiot! Put this on.” He pulled the bearskin hood forward over his head, reached underneath and pulled out the strip of wood that had covered his eyes. “Here!” He tossed it to me, thongs dangling from its ends. “Tie it around your head or the glare off the snow will burn your eyes.”
I caught the mask, found it was bone, not wood. It curved to fit my face as I tied the thongs behind my head. The slits were narrow but long, so I could see to left and right and ahead. To look down at my feet, I had to bend forward. I bent back to look up at the white sky, my eyes already feeling the relief of the snow mask.
I looked at the Bear Man. He was gazing past me at something. I looked that way, too. Nothing there. Looked for his eyes hidden behind the bear’s eyelids, but could not see them. And for some reason, another shiver ran down my back. The bearskin-covered head turned with the furred shoulders, as if it could not turn by itself. The Bear Man’s gaze shifted. I felt it strike me. As if it scalded my skin. I shuddered and thought of the look the crippled bear had given me.
“We must get your dog to camp. Keep him warm.”
Together we lifted Jak out of the bear’s belly. I told him what we were doing, and the Bear Man kept up a crooning. Even I felt it comforting. Jak’s eyes stayed closed. I wrapped the deerskin over him again.
The Bear Man pulled forward a small sledge – like the ones Hagar had described – and tipped off two large silver fish in a net. I spread the bearskin over the sledge, and we lifted Jak on, taking both ends of the deerskin, lowering him together. The Bear Man was gentle in every movement around Jak. He draped the sides of the bearskin over. Tied a couple of straps across the sledge.
“Here!” dropping a leather harness over my head. “Don’t go jarring him.” And the Bear Man was off up the slope behind the overhang. I followed, harness tightening, sledge runners creaking across the snow.
Nip yelped. Ran a few paces. Squatted to piss. And followed again, jumping from footprint to footprint behind the Bear Man.
He heard her, turned back and swept her up. “Your legs are too short for this snow.” She disappeared somewhere under his hairy tunic. “Keep up!” he ordered me.
Surrounded by snowfields. Their white dazzle. My eyes felt grainy, as if rubbed with sand. I was grateful for the mask. When I looked back, the heave of mountains had disappeared under the black cloud. I pulled my old woollen cap down over the mask, trudged in the Bear Man’s tracks. Even so I stepped into a couple of drifts. Spluttering, spitting, blowing it out of my nostrils. Snow up my tunic. Working inside my foot wrappings.
Bad-tempered, struggling, careful not to bump Jak, I mounted another rise and saw more snow ahead. White heaves like the dunes of the desert I had crossed with Taur.
“How does he expect me to follow him?” I grumbled. Then I saw footprints curve up and over yet another rise. And I smelled and tasted something familiar. The furry smoke from the black rock Taur and I had burned on the Western Coast. Like the air at the Metal People’s village. Like the smell of the yellow sulphur Hagar gathered from the hot springs at the Hawk Cliffs.
Another hill. The smell stronger. The wind chill now. And sudden black smoke staining the white snow.
The hill dropped away. The tracks cut off in a dogleg slanting right then left under a stone face that leaned so no snow could cling. And blacker than black amongst all that white, the mounting column of smoke, its smell thick with memories.
The sledge bumping the backs of my legs, I turned and ran down under the leaning rock wall where the Bear Man was dropping Nip to the ground. Behind him an arched doorway and above it the skull of a bear. Teeth locked in grimace.
The heavy wooden door opened into a short cave with another doorway at its end, this one hung with a curtain of skins.
We carried Jak inside, lay him in front of a mound of red-hot ashes which the Bear Man stirred. He picked up a bag, slid black stones on the fire, the same sort of black stones Taur and I had burned.
Fat flames licked and lit table, benches, stools. Bunks along walls. The ride had tired Jak even further. His eyes opened, stared as if they did not see me, and closed again.
The Bear Man flung off his skins. Beneath he had on a light leather tunic and leggings, and he had tied another bone mask over his eyes. He knelt by Jak, too, felt his side, running his fingertips over the stitched rip.
“When did this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
“If he lasts another day and chews off that bit of gristle, you can say he’ll live. And just as well for you. Dogs are precious.
“Don’t get too comfortable. You’ve still got to sledge down the carcass. The meat’s too good to waste. There’s an axe near the door. And don’t forget my fish.
“This’ll have to do till we get you something your own size.” He took down another bearskin tunic like his own. Old, the fur worn, it was still so heavy I lurched as it dropped over my head. I told Nip to stay with Jak, but she was basking in front of the fire and didn’t hear me. When I dropped the skin curtain behind, the outer cave was cold. I slammed the wooden door. Outside it was colder still, the bearskin comforting.
I pulled up the hood, looked through the slits of the snow mask. Our earlier tracks were clear. I made two trips, sledging back the dead bear’s carcass butchered in joints with the axe. On the third trip, I loaded the silver fish, gathered up my pack, my broken spear.
As I started back, I realised I could smell the smoke all this way, could almost follow it back to the cave with my eyes closed. Over the last rise, it became much stronger, the reek of the black stone fire. Then the tracks I had been following disappeared. The air filled with sleet flying, cutting my cheeks. The high collar of the bearskin closed with a bone toggle through a leather loop so my face, even my nose, was hidden from the wind’s cut. I leaned into the harness, hands tucked up inside the long sleeves. Trudged through a cloud of spinning white.
I had climbed the last slope, should be angling down the dogleg. The sledge nudging the back of my legs. How many steps to the right, how many to the left? I should have counted them. The smell of smoke had vanished.
The wind hard as a wall. I rested against it a moment, and had to break the runners out of the ice to start again. This must be it! Turn left. Sidle down. Sniff for smoke. Wind moaned, whirling white, cutting my eyes when I looked into it. Hold my head sideways. Brush the snow off the hood, clear the slits in the mask. What if I walked into another white bear? What if I went over a cliff? Another hundred steps should see me there. I hoped.
And I smelled smoke. Just a trace. But smoke! The cave must be there, to my right. I’ve come too far left. Cut right. Further. Or I’ll go over the stone wall above the cave. Further. Now swing left a bit. Unsure. But my feet were telling me I was cutting across a slope. Just hoped it was the right one – that should carry me down to the cave mouth.
And I walked into something. Soft, but hard underneath. A snow-covered wall of rock? It moved so couldn’t be rock. Something grabbed my shoulder. A white bear shoved its snout in my face.
The shriek of the storm drowned my yell. “You took your time,” said the Bear Man.
Chapter 11
The House of Meat
An ice-lined chamber one side of the outer cave was already stacked roof-high. Frozen meat, and fish shining silver through sleeves of ice. Enough to feed a village through winter. I heaved up the two silver fish, the great joints of bear meat.
I could see where to stand the sledge in the outer cave, pegs above for the the harness. There was a place for everything. I put the axe back in its slot just beside the door. My pack and broken bits of spear looked puny beside all the Bear Man’s gear hung and stacked around the walls. Travellers never own much, I thought.
Jak lay still in front of the fire. Nip tripped me, raced to Jak, to the Bear Man, back to me again. The Bear Man spoke to her but did not look at me. I felt the distant quality in him I had noticed before. He had drawn some coals aside on the hearth, was stirring a pot hung over t
hem. My mouth watered so I swallowed and struggled out of the bearskin tunic.
“Beat the snow off. Stick by the outer door.” The Bear Man’s voice rasped dry, as if rarely used.
The stick was a long blade of bone that hung by a cord. Snow showered on the floor. The wind moaned. A fan of snow spilled through a crack in the door, powdery as the flour Taur and I used to grind from oats. I scooped it all up on a shovel, and lifted the latch.
Wind lurched in, shoved me out of the way. I heaved out the spade-load of snow, but more blew in. Back to the door, knees bent, heave, drop the latch. The disappointed animal outside howled and pounded. Two heavy beams slid home into their holes. Secure. A leather curtain drawn across stopped more snow blowing inside.
How useful was the outer cave! Everything well thought out. I hung beater, broom, and shovel in their places. Back in the main cave, the only sounds were the voice of the black stone fire, the knock of the Bear Man’s spoon against the pot, and Nip. Light leapt up the walls. The Bear Man’s heavy tunic on a high rack drawn up on a rope. He still wore the snow mask. I lowered a second rack, raised my tunic to the roof.
“Blowing up.”
“A bit.” I could be sparing with words, too.
“What are you called?”
“Ish.” I held out my hands to the heat. Something held me back from asking the Bear Man his name. He seemed to read my mind, knew I wanted to ask him. I wondered if he took pleasure in not telling me, leaving me to find things out. I had noticed the same kind of thing several times already.
Two clay bowls with wooden spoons stood on the table. He ladled one full of thick soup from the cooking pot and drew up a stool. “Help yourself.”
I was astonished. Taur and I would never get food for ourselves without first getting it for the other. You didn’t do that.
“Just got that meat back in time.” He said nothing about the fact that I could have been lost with the last load. “Won’t be going far till this lot’s past.”
