“I am hungry." Mai turned so quickly that he nearly fell away from Fa and she had to grab him.
“Where are Ha and Nil?"
“You sent them," said Fa. "You sent them for wood. And Lok and Liku and me for food. We will bring some for you quickly." Mai rocked to and fro, his face in his hands.
“That is a bad picture." The old woman put her arms round him.
“Now sleep." Fa drew Lok away from the fire.
“It is not good that Liku should come out on the plain with us. Let her stay by the fire."
“Mai said."
“He is sick in his head."
“He saw all things burning. I was afraid. How can the mountain burn?" Fa spoke defiantly.
“To-day is like yesterday and to-morrow."
Ha and Nil with the new one laboured through the entry to the terrace. They bore armfuls of broken branches. Fa ran to them.
“Must Liku come with us because Mai said so?"
Ha pulled at his lip.
“That is a new thing. But it was spoken."
“Mai saw the mountain burning." Ha looked up at the great dim height above them.
“I do not see this picture." Lok giggled nervously.
“To-day is like yesterday and to-morrow." Ha twitched his ears at them and smiled gravely.
“It was spoken."
All at once the indefinable tension broke and Fa, Lok and Liku ran swiftly along the terrace. They leapt at the cliff and began to clamber up. Directly they were high enough to see the line of smoky spray at the foot of the fall the noise of it hit them. When the cliff leaned back a little, Lok went down on one knee, and shouted.
“Up!"
The light was brighter now. They could see the shining river where it lay in the gap through the mountains and the vast stretches of fallen sky where the mountains dammed back the lake. Below them the mist hid the forest and the plain and rested quietly against the side of the mountain. They began to run along the steep side, flitting down towards the mist. They passed across the bare rock and reached high screes of broken and sharp stones, clambered down crazy gullies until they came to rounded rocks where there was a scant fledging of grass and a few bushes that leaned away from the wind. The grass was wet and spiders' webs hitched across the blades broke and clung to their ankles. The slope de- creased, the bushes were more frequent. They were coming down to the limit of the mist.
“The sun will drink up the mist."
Fa paid no attention. She was questing, head down, so that the curls by her cheek brushed drops of water from the leaves. A bird squawked and blundered heavily away into the air. Fa pounced on the nest and Liku beat her feet against Lok's belly.
“Eggs! Eggs!"
She slipped from his back and danced among the tufts of grass. Fa broke a thorn from a bush and pierced the egg at both ends. Liku snatched it from her hands and began to suck noisily. There was an egg for Fa and one for Lok. All three were empty between two breathings. When they had eaten them the people knew how hungry they were and began to search busily. They went for- ward, bent and questing. Though they did not look up they knew that they were following the retreating mist down on to the level ground and that towards the sea the luminous opacity contained the first rays of the sun. They parted leaves and peered into bushes, they found the un- awakened grubs, the pale shoots that lay under a load of stone. As they worked and ate Fa consoled them.
“Ha and Nil will bring a little food from the forest." Lok was finding grubs, soft delicacies full of strength.
“We cannot go back with a single grub. And back. And then a single grub."
Then they came into an open space. A stone had fallen from the mountain and struck another from its place. The patch of bare earth had been invaded by fat white shoots that had broken into the light, yet were so short and thick that they snapped at a touch. Side by side they concentrated on the circle, eating in. There was so much that they talked as they ate, brief ejaculations of pleasure and excitement, there was so much that for a while they ceased to feel famished and were only hungry. Liku said nothing but sat with her legs stretched out and ate with both hands. Presently Lok made an embracing gesture.
“If we eat at this end of the patch then we can bring the people to eat at that end." Fa spoke indistinctly.
“Mai will not come and she will not leave him. We shall come back this way when the sun goes the other side of the mountain. We will take to the people what we can carry in our arms."
Lok belched at the patch and looked at it affectionately.
“This is a good place." Fa frowned and munched.
“If the patch were nearer.."
She swallowed her mouthful with a gulp.
“I have a picture. The good food is growing. Not here. It is growing by the fall." Lok laughed at her.
“No plant like this grows near the fall!"
Fa put her hands wide apart, watching Lok all the time. Then she began to bring them together. But though the tilt of her head, the eyebrows moved slightly up and apart asked a question she had no words with which to define it. She tried again.
“But if ..See this picture. The overhang and the fire is down here." Lok lifted his face away from his mouth and laughed.
“This place is down here. And the overhang and the fire is there." He broke off more shoots, stuffed them into his mouth and went on eating. He looked into the clearer sunlight and read the signs of the day. Presently Fa forgot her picture and stood up. Lok stood up too and spoke for her.
“Come!"
They padded down among the rocks and bushes. All at once the sun was through, a round of dulled silver, racing slantwise through the clouds yet always staying in the same place. Lok went first, then Liku, serious and eager on this her first proper food hunt. The slope eased and they reached the cliff-like border that gave on to the heathery sea of the plain. Lok poised and the others stilled behind him. He turned, looked a question at Fa, then raised his head again. He blew out air through his nose suddenly, then breathed in. Delicately he sampled this air, drawing a stream into his nostrils and allowing it to remain there till his blood had warmed it and the scent was accessible. He performed miracles of perception in the cavern of his nose. The scent was the smallest possible trace. Lok, if he had been capable of such comparisons, might have wondered whether the trace was a real scent or only the memory of one. So faint and stale was this scent that when he looked his question at Fa she did not understand him. He breathed the word at her.
“Honey?"
Liku jumped up and down till Fa hushed her. Lok tried the air again but this time a new coil of it came to him and this was empty. Fa waited.
Lok did not need to think where the wind was coming from. He clambered on to an apron of rock that held its area out to the sun and began to cast across it. The direction of the wind changed and the scent touched him again. The scent became excitingly real and soon he was following it to a little cliff that frost and sun had fissured and rain worn into a mesh of crevices. There were stains round one of these like the marks of brown fingers, and a single bee, hardly alive, though the sun shone full on the rock-face, was clinging perhaps a hand's-breadth from the opening. Fa jerked her head.
“There will be little honey."
Lok reversed his thorn bush and pushed the torn butt into the crack. A few bees began to hum dully, drugged by cold and hunger. Lok levered the butt about in the crack. Liku was hopping.
“Is there honey, Lok? I want honey!"
Bees crawled out of the crack and lumbered round them. Some fell heavily to the ground and crawled with fanning wings. One hung in Fa's hair. Lok drew the stick back. There was a little honey and wax on the end. Liku stopped jumping and began to lick the butt clean. Now that the others had dulled the point of their hunger they could enjoy watching Liku eat. Lok chattered.
“Honey is best. There is strength in honey. See how Liku likes honey. I have a picture of the time when honey will run out of this crack in the rock so that you can
taste honey off your fingers - so!"
He smeared his hand down the rock, licked his fingers and tasted the memory of honey. Then he thrust the butt into the crack again so that Liku might eat. Presently Fa became restless.
“This is old honey from the time when we went down to the sea. We must find more food for the others. Come!" But Lok was thrusting the butt in again for joy of Liku's eating, the sight of her belly and the memory of honey. Fa went away down the apron of rock, following the mist as it sucked back to the plain. She lowered her- self over the edge and was out of sight. Then they heard her cry out. Liku scrambled up on Lok's back and he flitted down the apron towards the cry with his thorn bush at the ready. At the edge of the apron was a jagged gully that led out to the open country. Fa was crouching in the mouth of this gully, looking out over thÈ grass and heather of the plain. Lok raced to her. Fa was trembling slightly and raised on her toes. There were two yellowish creatures out there, their legs hidden by the brown bushes of heather, near enough for her to see their eyes. They were prick-eared animals, roused by her voice from their business and standing now at gaze. Lok slid Liku from his back.
“Climb."
Liku scrambled up the side of the gully and squatted, higher in the air-than Lok could reach. The yellow creatures showed their teeth.
“Now!"
Lok stole forward holding his thorn bush sideways. Fa circled out to his left. She carried a natural blade of stone in either hand. The two hyenas moved closer together and snarled. Fa suddenly jerked her right hand round and the stone thumped the bitch in the ribs. The bitch yelped then ran howling. Lok shot forward, swinging the thorn bush, and thrust the spines at the dog's snarling muzzle. Then the two beasts were out of reach, talking evilly and afraid. Lok stood between them and the kill.
*
“Be quick, I smell cat,"
Fa was already down on her knees, struggling with the limp body.
“A cat has sucked all her blood. There is no blame. The yellow ones have not even reached the liver."
She was tearing fiercely at the doe's belly with the flake of stone. Lok brandished his thorn bush at the hyenas.
“There is much food for all the people." He could hear how Fa grunted and gasped as she tore at the furred skin and the guts.
“Be quick."
“I cannot."
The hyenas, having finished their evil talk, were circling forward to left and right. Shadows flitted across Lok as he faced them from two great birds that were floating in the air.
“Take the doe to the rock."
Fa began to lug at the doe, then cried out in anger at the hyenas. Lok backed to her, bent down, seized the doe by the leg. He began to drag the body heavily towards the gully, brandishing the thorn bush the while. Fa seized a foreleg and hauled too. The hyenas followed them, keeping always just out of reach. The people got the doe into the narrow entrance to the gully just below Liku and the two birds floated down. Fa began to slash again with her splinter of stone. Lok found a boulder which he could use hammer-wise. He began to pound at the body, breaking out the joints. Fa was grunting with excitement. Lok talked as his great hands tore and twisted and snapped the sinews. All the time the hyenas ran to and fro. The birds drifted in and settled on the rock opposite Liku so that she slithered down to Lok and Fa;
The doe was wrecked and scattered. Fa split open her belly, slit the complicated stomach and spilt the sour cropped grass and broken shoots on the earth. Lok beat in the skull to get at the brain and levered open the mouth to wrench away the tongue. They filled the stomach with tit-bits and twisted up the guts so that the stomach became a floppy bag. All the while, Lok talked between his grunts.
“This is bad. This is very bad."
Now the limbs were smashed and bloodily jointed Liku crouched by the doe eating the piece of liver that Fa had given her. The air between the rocks was forbid- ding with violence and sweat, with the rich smell of meat and wickedness.
“Quick! Quick!"
Fa could not have told him what she feared; the cat would not come back to a drained kill. It would be already half a day's journey away over the plain, hanging round the skirts of the herd, perhaps racing forward to sink its sabres in the neck of another victim and suck the blood. Yet there was a kind of darkness in the air under the watching birds. Lok spoke loudly, acknowledging the darkness.
“This is very bad. Oa brought the doe out of her belly."
Fa muttered through her clenched teeth as her hands tore.
“Do not speak of that one."
Liku was still eating, unmindful of the darkness, eating the rich warm liver till her jaws ached. After Fa's rebuke, Lok no longer chattered but stuttered instead.
“This is bad. But a cat killed you so there is no blame."
And as he moved his wide lips he dribbled.
The sun had cleared the mist now and they could see beyond the hyenas the heathery undulations of the plain and beyond it the lower level bright green tree-tops and the flash of water. Behind them the mountains sloped up, austere. Fa squatted back and got her breath. She rubbed the back of one hand across her brows.
“We must go high where the yellow ones cannot follow."
There was little left of the doe but torn hide, bones and hoofs. Lok handed his thorn bush to Fa. She swished it in the air and shouted rude things at the hyenas. Lok laced the haunches together with twisted gut then wound the end round his wrist so that he could hold them with one hand. He bent down and took the tail of the stomach in his teeth. Fa had an armful and he a double embrace of torn and quivering fragments. He began to retreat, grunting and fierce. The hyenas moved into the mouth of the gully, the buzzards flapped up and circled just out of reach of the bush. Liku, very bold between the man" and woman, flopped her piece of liver at the buzzards.
“Go away, beaks! This is Liku's meat!"
The buzzards screamed, gave up, and went to argue with the hyenas who were crunching the split bones and the bloody hide. Lok could not talk. The food from the doe was as much as he could have carried on level ground as a proper load over the shoulder. Now it hung from him, bearing mostly against the grip of his fingers and his clenched teeth. Before they reached the top of the apron he was bending and there was pain in his wrists. But Fa understood this without sharing a picture. She came to him and took away the floppy stomach so that he could gasp easily. Then she and Liku climbed on ahead, leaving him to follow. He arranged the meat in three different ways before he could labour after them. There was such a mixture of darkness and joy in his head that he heard his heart beating. He talked to the darkness that had lain over the mouth of the gully.
“There is little food when the people come back from the sea. There are not yet berries nor fruit nor honey nor almost anything to eat. The people are thin with hunger and they must eat. They do not like the taste of meat but they must eat."
Now he was padding along the side of the mountain on a slope of smooth rock where he depended on the grip of his feet. Still dribbling as he swayed along the high rocks he added a brilliant thought.
“The meat is for Mai who is sick."
Fa and Liku found a fault in the mountain side and began to trot onward to the gap. Lok was left far behind, labouring along and looking for a rock on which he might rest his meat as the old woman had rested the fire. He found one where the fault began, a table spread and emptiness on the other Side. He squatted and let the meat slither till it bore its own weight. Below and behind, the buzzards had been joined by others and an angry party was in progress. He turned away from the gully and its darkness and looked for Fa and Liku. They were far ahead, still trotting towards the gap where they would tell the others of the food and perhaps send Ha back to help him carry it. He was disinclined to go forward again and rested for a while watching the busy world. The sky was light blue and the distant bar of the sea not much darker. The darkest things to be seen were patches of deep blue shadow moving towards him over the grass and stone and heather, over the grey ou
tcroppings of the plain. Where they rested on the trees of the forest they damped down the green mists of spring foliage and took the flash out of the river. As they came nearer the mountain they widened in extent and dragged over the crest. He looked along towards the fall where Fa and Liku were tiny figures about to duck out of sight. Then he began to frown at the air over the fall and his mouth opened. The smoke of the fire had moved and changed in quality. For a moment he thought that the old woman had shifted it but then the folly of this picture made him laugh. Neither would the old woman make smoke like that. It was a coil of yellow and white, the smoke that comes from wet wood or a green branch loaded with leaves; no one but a fool or some creature too unacquainted with the nature of fire would use it so unwisely. The idea of two fires came to him. Fire sometimes fell from the sky and flared in the forest for a while. It woke magically on the plain among the heather when the flowers had died away and the sun was too hot.
The Inheritors Page 4
