CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES) (12 page)

Gradually, Zena's
need to mate diminished, and she forgot about it, as did the males.  Once
again, her belly began to swell.  This time it was Tipp who patted it and
was surprised when something within her mother pushed strongly against her
hand.  But it was Rune who helped Zena through the birth. 

The contractions
began early one afternoon.  Zena went to an enclosed area among the
boulders where she had built a nest of grasses.  Sensing her need to be
alone, the others stayed away, except for Rune.  Zena was glad of her
company.  All afternoon, all through the night and into the following
morning, the spasms rocked her body, each more painful than the last, but still
there was no sign of the infant.  By the middle of the day, she was
exhausted and frightened.  This was not like Tipp's birth, which had
happened so quickly and easily.

Rune's wrinkled face
furrowed with worry as she watched.  She had seen many births, and she
knew something was wrong.  When the next contraction came, she crouched
down to peer between Zena's legs.  A tiny rump showed there.  Rune
pulled at it.  Zena screamed in pain and tried to push her away.  But
Rune would not let go.  She pulled harder when Zena's muscles tightened
again.  Blood poured from a jagged tear in Zena's skin, but still the
infant would not come.  Shaking her head worriedly, Rune sat back on her
heels to wait.

As evening
approached, Zena became still, and her groans subsided.  Rune sensed she
would not last much longer.  Desperate now, she tried again.  Rubbing
her hands with dirt so they would not slip away, she pushed her fingers down on
each side of the tiny rump and pulled with all her strength.  Once, twice
she pulled, and then, so abruptly that she fell over backward, the infant
emerged, already squalling.  Rune smiled in satisfaction as she handed the
little creature to Zena.

Zena took it in
her arms, momentarily forgetting her pain, her utter exhaustion.  The
infant was red and wrinkled, and had the protuberance at its groin.  She
licked it vigorously for a moment but soon fell back against the grasses. 
The licking had used the last remnants of her strength, and she was not sure
she could move again.  Her body felt as if it had been pulled apart, and
strong cramps still wracked her belly.  By the time the afterbirth
appeared, she felt incapable even of lifting her head.

Rune seemed to
understand.  Signaling to Zena to lie still, she cut the cord with a sharp
rock and then she disappeared.  In a few moments she was back, clutching
some soft bulbs and a pile of spongy mosses she had dipped in the lake. 
They were full of water, and Zena sucked at them eagerly, but she was too
exhausted to eat.

Darkness came, and
she slept.  Rune stayed close to guard her.  Once, when a large hawk
settled nearby, she called for Dak.  He chased the bird away, and left
again.

The tiny boy began
to whimper, and Rune placed it gently at Zena's breast.  It suckled
vigorously; when it had finished, Zena slept again.  All through the
night, the infant was quiet, but just as dawn broke, it started to wail
lustily.  Zena knew she must force herself to move.  To stay in the
birthing place was dangerous.  The smells, the sounds could attract
predators.

She struggled
painfully to her knees, then to her feet.  Tipp heard her movements, and
peeked out from behind a rock.  Her small face was perplexed.  She
could not understand her mother's long absence, nor did she know why Zena
carried a squirming bundle that made noises like the ones Myta's baby had made
after it was born.

Zena held the
newborn out for her to see.  Tipp's eyes lit up as understanding
came.  She reached eagerly for the infant, but her mother pulled it back
again.  Tipp turned away dejectedly, but when Zena called to her, and
gestured that she should help to pick up the stained grasses, her face
lightened.  Eager to help, she grabbed a big pile and followed Zena and
Rune to a place farther from the resting area.  They threw the grasses
into some thick brush.  After she had made one trip, Zena let the others
complete the task.  She felt terribly weak, and her legs shook under her
when she tried to move. 

She staggered back
to the resting place, holding Tipp's small shoulder for support.  The
others crowded around her, wanting to touch the newborn.  Rune snapped
sharply at them, and they backed away.  Grateful for her protection, Zena
lay down to rest.  Later, she tried to get up again, so she could go to
the lake and wash the stains from her legs.  But as soon as she stood, the
world went dark and she slumped to the ground.

She did not move
again for many days, but only lay there as if dead.  Blood dribbled
incessantly from a place deep inside her and stained the dusty ground.  At
night, she shivered; by day, the hot sun tormented her feverish body.  The
others watched, their faces bleak with worry.  Zena had found a special
place in their hearts, and they did not want to lose her.  They tried to
protect her from the burning sun with leafy branches, and slept close beside
her at night, to lend her their warmth.  Tipp searched the area for choice
bits of food, to tempt her mother, but Zena lacked the strength to eat. 
Each time she refused, Tipp's eyes grew sadder, her face more forlorn. 
Zena drank, though, and Rune kept her constantly supplied with wet
mosses.  She made Zena drink a liquid from the leaves of special plants
that helped sickness, too, grinding them carefully with her own worn teeth and
mixing them with fresh, clear water.

Dak watched over
them all, his heart leaden with fear.  Always, he had felt Zena's pain as
if it were his own.  Long ago, her howling had lodged inside him; now her
terrible weakness seemed to fill him as well.  It dragged at his limbs,
made it hard for him to gather the food he knew they needed.

The days crept by,
and his fear increased.  The bleeding had finally stopped, but Zena had
barely moved, and she had not eaten at all.  Then, one morning, Tipp came
running with a big egg, the first they had seen in months.  Eggs, she
knew, were her mother's favorite food.  She poked her fingernail into one
end, then the other, as Zena had taught her, and dribbled the contents into her
mother's mouth.  Zena's eyes opened, and she sucked eagerly.  Tipp smiled,
the first smile that had crossed her face since the birth of her tiny
brother.  She hurried off to find another egg.

That night, sweat
poured from Zena's body, despite the cool air.  Every time Dak touched
her, her skin was wet, and in the morning, her forehead felt cool to his
touch.  Frightened, he called to his mother.

Rune placed a hand
on Zena's forehead, then on her belly, and nodded gravely.  Her shoulders
slumped, and tears poured from her eyes.  Dak stared at his mother, his
face frantic with worry.  He could not tell if her actions meant Zena was
better or worse.  He thought she must be worse, because of Rune's tears,
but when he came to see for himself, he knew the answer.  He covered his
face with his hands and wept, for Zena had looked up at him and smiled.

**************************

The rains that
year were hard and long.  Monstrous black clouds slithered across the sky,
and they did not disappear after a few hours, as they usually did.  Instead,
they loomed over the bleak landscape for days at a time, dumping torrents of
rain that seemed never to stop.  The thick, heavy drops battered the lake
and flattened the withered grasses against the darkening ground. 
Miniature rivers descended from the boulders where Zena and the others huddled
miserably, tracing ever-widening paths as they tore through the cracked earth
toward the lake.

Zena shivered as
the rain pounded at her shoulders and pulled the infant closer, trying to keep
it dry.  But there was no escape from the wetness.   She had no
cave to shelter in here, only the scattered boulders, which were useless
against the driving rains.

She rose, made
restless by the constant discomfort and by her hunger.  She had been
ravenous ever since she had begun to recover from the birth, but in the interim
between the end of the dry season and the fulfillment of the rains, food was
hard to find.  Soon all manner of bounty would decorate the hillsides, but
until the plants matured and the new berries ripened, they struggled to find
enough.

Tipp followed her
mother.  Since her brother's birth, she had been reluctant to let Zena out
of her sight.  Zena stretched out her hand and Tipp grasped it
eagerly.  Together, they headed for the grove of trees on the hillside. 
Nuts could still be found on some of their limbs - if they could be
reached. 

Zena paused
beneath the big trees.  Here, the rain hardly touched her.  She
peered up into the leafy canopy.  She could see nuts, but they were too
high to reach.  Reluctantly, she passed out from the trees' shelter and
felt the rain pound once again at her unprotected back and shoulders.  She
hunched low to avoid it, and almost tripped over a tangle of limbs on the
ground.  A tree at the edge of the grove had been felled by lightning the
night before, and its branches were scattered over a wide area.

Tipp let go of
Zena's hand and ran to explore the fallen tree.  Squealing with glee, she
returned with a bird's nest.  Four small eggs still lay within it, their
shells cracked but the contents intact.  She and Zena each ate two of them
and then scoured the branches for nuts.  There were plenty, so Zena called
to the others to come and join the feast.

They came running,
chattering excitedly at the unexpected bonanza, and began to stuff themselves
and their baskets with nuts.  Zena had finally succeeded in making herself
a container like the weaverbirds' nests she so admired.  It had worked so
well that she had made a basket for each of the others.

The twins,
however, did not bother with the fallen tree.  They wanted an excuse to
climb.  Myta watched worriedly as they shimmied up a tree and shook its
branches to loosen nuts high above their heads, but the nuts clung stubbornly
and would not fall.  Klep grabbed a long, slender stick and climbed after
them.  He hit hard at the high branches.  There were swollen pods up
there, as well as nuts.  Dak found a stick and tackled another tree; the
twins found sticks as well.  Soon nuts and pods were falling to the ground
in indiscriminate showers.

When they had
eaten their fill, Zena and Tipp returned to the boulders.  Zena brought a
branch filled with nuts for Rune to eat.  Dampness made the old female's
joints stiff and painful, and she could not walk very far.  All of them
helped by bringing food back to the resting place, so she could share whatever
they found. 

Zena held the
leafy branch over her head to protect her from the driving rain.  Tipp
watched with wide, interested eyes.  She scampered back toward the fallen
tree and returned, holding a branch proudly over her head, just as her mother
was doing.  Unwilling to be outdone, the watching twins ran off to find
branches.  Grinning at their accomplishment, they positioned a bundle of
leafy twigs above their heads while they dragged two stout limbs behind them.

Now Dak joined the
game.  He went to the fallen tree and came back with an unusually
thick-leafed branch.  He propped it up in a crevice between two boulders
so that it sheltered part of the area where they sat.  Lop put some smaller
branches on top, to provide more cover from the rain, but it was Zena who
suddenly saw the potential in their arrangements.  Signaling to Dak and
Klep to help her, she placed the twins' stout tree limbs across the tops of the
boulders that enclosed their sleeping area.  Dak's leafy branch went above
them.  The others gathered still more twigs and branches to pile on
top.  Before long, they had a roof. 

Tipp and the twins
crawled under it, squealing with delight.  The others followed. There was
room for all of them, if they squeezed together.  That they were happy to
do, for the cool air made them shiver.  Zena smiled with
satisfaction.  Now, at last, she could keep the infant warm and dry, and
Rune could escape from the rain.

She settled back
and began to work on a new basket.  The others brought out digging sticks
and stones to sharpen.  There was little else to do until the rain
stopped.  For weeks, they huddled together, chipping and scraping and
weaving.  Zena began to wonder if they would ever again feel the warmth of
the sun.  But one morning, it finally burst through the clouds, and she
crawled out to toast herself in its welcome glow.  Rune followed, but she
was not content to rest in the clearing; she wanted to go down to the lake where
she could watch the storks and flamingos, and all the animals that gathered to
drink.

Zena frowned
anxiously as Rune rose painfully to her feet and started down the muddy path,
still slippery from the rain.  She called to Tipp to go with her.

Tipp's usually
cheerful face was somber as she adjusted her pace to match that of the old
female, but once they reached the lake, she regained her high spirits and ran
off to look for frogs and turtles.  She loved to creep up on them and hear
them leap into the water with a resounding plop. 

Rune settled
herself near the water, where she could reach bulbs and mosses.  Zena
watched her for a time, then she closed her eyes and basked luxuriously in the
sunlight.  She did not see the ripples, the rounded back, as a
hippopotamus surfaced near Rune.  Rune did not see it either, but she
looked up abruptly when a second hippo, a huge, lumbering male, charged out of
the reeds near her to challenge the one in the water.  It was the rutting
season, and they were irritable and full of aggression.

The hippos thrust
their massive heads at each other, mouths open to reveal sharp, tearing
incisors.  Their bodies lurched through the water, and big waves rolled
toward Rune's feet. She hauled herself up and tried to run, but the massive
creatures were locked in combat, and moved toward her with incredible
speed.  Rune fell heavily.  Screaming, she tried desperately to crawl
away, but she was too late.  By the time Zena had sat up to see what the
racket was about, Rune's frail body had disappeared beneath the lumbering
monsters.