Death in the Time of Ice (4 page)

This was the most dangerous time. Some of her brothers would try to drive the rest of the animals away; some would concentrate on the animal chosen for the kill, teasing and taunting it so the spear throwers could get close enough to stab it.

After they brought down the animal, the male Hamapas would skin and butcher it, then use their might to drag the hunks of meat home on the large pieces of scraped skin they had brought.

Dragonflies buzzed over the tops of the grasses and two lingering butterflies lit down, flew up, and lit down again. The wind had quieted and the dry grasses no longer rustled, magnifying the silence of the plains. Light faded and Brother Moon appeared.

A scent on the still air made Enga lift her head and peek. The herd was still in the distance, approaching slowly. Enga had seen this herd before, but not for a long while. As always, she felt as she had the first time she ever saw a mammoth. The monstrous beasts never failed to awe her with their huge shaggy bodies and their immense, curving tusks, gleaming now in Brother Moon’s light.

A roar split the dusk and the throwers lifted their heads slightly, all senses on full alert. They had heard the mighty trumpet of a mammoth. Brother Earth shook with the ponderous footfalls. Enga’s nostrils spread wide, flooded with the exciting animal scent. Her grip tightened on her spear. Ung was the better thrower, but Enga had killed, too. She sent a silent message to Dakadaga,
Give us a kill tonight.

Eyes wide, Enga peered through the spruce needles of her cover. Brother Moon floated, full-bodied, through Mother Sky. He lit the animals and threw their shadows across the grass. Mother Sky’s breath blew the scent of the hidden huntresses away from the herd. Maybe she was trying to help the Hamapa.

Enga sent a thought to Ung.
Do you see the difference? This herd used to have many mammoths, more than the number of all my fingers and all my toes.
Their numbers were noticeably fewer now. Even so, the animals were magnificent, towering over her by at least the height of two Hamapas, one standing on the other’s shoulders. Her palms prickled and her chest beat hard against her hunting braid, which had fallen forward and hung between her breasts, reaching to her waist. She wished the braid were behind her. She did not dare make the movement to fling it back now.

A bright yellow warning thought came from Ung.
Quiet. Stay calm.

Ung Strong Arm was always calm. Enga Dancing Flower was not. Maybe that was why Ung was the better spear thrower.

Her breech cloth bothered Enga. It bunched between her thigh and lower leg as she squatted. A calf muscle jumped. But she did not shift.

The beasts shuffled toward the water hole. Their round feet sank into the mud at the edge of the water with squishing noises. The smaller animals waded into the water to play. A solitary large male stayed behind, guarding them. He would drink last. The huntresses must wait until the smaller ones, the females and young, were close.

Soon. Soon.

Enga heard a strange rustling in the grass near where Ung squatted. Was a small creature approaching? The scent was not that of a mammoth. Enga raised her spear arm slightly. Maybe she could kill whatever it was.

Puzzled, she saw Kokat No Ear rushing from the woods toward them. He was sending a mental message, tinged with the crimson hues of terror. His eyes and mouth were ovals of panic in his fire-scarred face, his arms waving wildly.

Ung cried aloud, “Gaa!”

Enga sprang up with alarm and ran to her sister. Ung lay on her side, both hands pressing her sturdy thigh. A boar fled through the grass, a lone long-nosed peccary, headed for the woods. For a brief moment Enga considered trying to spear it, but she was distracted by the Red of Ung that dripped from the beast’s two long, white tusks.

Enga looked down. The Red of Ung also spilled onto the grass, dark colored in the moonlight. Its sharp odor assailed Enga. Anguish and pain radiated from Ung. Enga bent to her twin and saw a wide gash in her thigh. Enga clamped her jaw on her anger and hurled her spear, futilely, after the peccary.

The other throwers and the male carriers ran to them. They barely noticed the herd of mammoths thunder away, across the plain.

Chapter 3

Teek Pathfinder, the youthful son of the Healer, knew what to do. He tore a strip from one of the hunting skins and bound her leg to slow the flow of Red from Ung Strong Arm. Enga Dancing Flower breathed her relief and went to lie next to her twin for the duration of dark time.

Some of them would have to return to the village with Ung, but the group did not want to travel when they could not see the predators waiting for them. Too many had died that way.

Fee Long Thrower shifted her pregnant belly and, taking stock of the troop, began to bed down in the grass between the watering hole and the woods.

Kokat No Ear is not here,
she thought-spoke.

A finger of cold walked up Enga’s back and she sat up.
Where is he?
asked Enga.
When he rushed toward us, he must have been trying to warn us of the peccary he had seen.

Tog Flint Shaper read her thought and her fear. He summoned several others.
Help me search the tall grasses.
Then Tog spied a smear of dark liquid in the grass, leading toward the trees.

He must be in the forest,
thought-spoke Tog. He ran into the woods, black with nightfall now, following the even blacker trail of Red and summoning the other three males to come with him.

The females squatted next to each other and waited. The males sent no thoughts to them. Enga checked on Ung. She was sound asleep. The wound still bled, but now seeped instead of spurting. Enga felt her shoulders relax just a notch.

Brother Moon moved through the sky, shedding shards of light through the spruce trees, showing the trampled mud of the water hole and touching the small band of spear throwers with its pale glow. The females did not expect good news. They dared not look at each other. Hunting was dangerous. This had been proven to the Hamapa over and over.

Enga reimagined her dancing. Had she let her thoughts stray too often from her task? Was it her fault the hunt had ended badly? She must not think so much of Tog when she danced next time.

At last Tog Flint Shaper relayed back an image of Kokat No Ear. The females held hands and bowed their heads to receive it. He sent them a flash of sorrow. Enga and the others steadied their breathing and closed their eyes to receive the vision.

Kokat lay on his side, on a bed of moss, his arms curled over his head protectively. He appeared asleep, a peaceful expression on his poor scarred face. But just below his face, Red poured from his neck. His Red and his life had left him through that wound. Tog Flint Shaper showed them how he believed Kokat had died. Enga felt Tog’s sharp grief and sent him a thought of comfort.

The peccary¸
thought-spoke Tog,
must have attacked Ung Strong Arm, then gored Kokat No Ear and dragged him here, into the woods.

Fee Long Thrower answered him.
We were so intent on tending to Ung Strong Arm, we did not even receive feelings of distress from him.

After the males hauled Kokat No Ear out of the woods, several of them stripped his body of his hunting garments, a lion-skin breech cloth and foot wrappings.

We must notify the tribe,
thought-spoke Fee Long Thrower.
Nanno Green Eyes should know. And everyone else, too, of course.

Fee took it upon herself to do this. Enga stayed out of that stream of thought. Nanno Green Eyes, Kokat’s mate, had never liked either Enga or her birth sister. Enga never went nearer Nanno than she had to. Now Nanno would have more reason to detest Enga and Ung, since she would probably blame them for Kokat’s death. Enga gritted her teeth, determined to shield Ung from Nanno’s wrath when they returned.

Nanno’s outcry drilled into Enga’s head, however much she tried to shut it out. It came sharp and piercing and impossible to ignore, throbbing through Enga’s mind. After it subsided somewhat, the small band readied Kokat’s body for his final resting place.

I will stay with Ung Strong Arm while they go to expose Kokat No Ear
, offered Fee.

It is my place to stay with my birth sister
, answered Enga.

You might feel better if you assist the final rites for Kokat. You will be with Ung for a long time in the future.

Enga wasn’t sure that was the right thing for her to do, but she did not feel like resisting the older female.

Teek Pathfinder and another male, their way well lit by fat Brother Moon, went to find a suitable site. The two males returned soon and Enga joined the dispirited group as they carried the naked body to a large flat rock amid the grass on the expanse of prairie.

The Hamapa would normally smear his body with bear fat so his going would be quick, but they had none with them, so, after sprinkling a few flower petals on him and mourning briefly, they turned away and left. None of them wanted to witness what would now happen to their tribal brother. Kokat’s body would return to the natural order of things, feeding the animals that would then feed the Hamapa.

Enga curled up next to Ung, but slept only a little, and fitfully, disturbed by dreams of peccaries and their dripping tusks. She awoke often to make sure the Red of Ung had not begun to spurt again. She knew Ung would lose her life if too much Red departed from her body.

At one point during dark time, Enga jerked upright. She had not danced her best. She hadn’t concentrated on the hunt while she danced. Instead, she had tried to impress Tog, had thought of him. Again, she wondered if the hunt was a devastating failure because of her. Ung shifted and groaned and Enga checked her binding, then lay down beside her. She slept little the rest of dark time.

When Sister Sun should have embraced her Mother Sky, she instead hid behind thick layers of gray cloud garments, and Mother Sky began shedding light tears. Hot tears of frustration sprang to Enga’s own eyes when she realized they would make their return trip in rain and mud.

Tog and Bahg Swift Feet, another male on the mission, volunteered to carry Ung back to the village. The remaining two males and the other two females would stay and attempt to get a mammoth when the herd came back to the watering place. If it came back.

When Ung had been settled on a hunting skin for the journey home, Tog and Bahg carefully picked up the pallet, shouldered their burden, and started back. On Fee’s advice, they avoided sending news ahead of the double tragedy—made even worse by their not having gotten any meat. Kokat’s death would be enough for the tribe to deal with now, without Ung’s injury.

Enga, carrying the bundle of Kokat’s garments, trotted alongside the pallet that held her birth sister and occasionally stroked her waves of short auburn hair. She tried to keep her worries to herself. Her steps sometimes faltered with her tiredness, but she slogged on.

Ung kept pressing on her wound, but it had opened when she was moved and the Red flowed again. Several times, the bouncing of the skin pallet made Ung wince and cry out. But the carriers of the pallet did not slow. They knew they must hurry to get treatment for Ung. They trotted briskly through the light rain along the path to home.

Slogging through the mud, Tog Flint Shaper tightened his grip on the skin that held Ung and mentally reassured Enga.
The wound of Ung Strong Arm is deep, but no bone is broken. It will heal. Our Healer will make Ung Strong Arm whole again.

Enga shot him a grateful look, but continued to fret. She hoped she was keeping her worries from Ung. She realized she hadn’t kept them from Tog. It was hard when she was so weary. Her head ached so.

Even with their accelerated pace, by the time they returned it was nearing the time for Sister Sun to retire. The two guards sensed their approach and broadcast brightly hued public thoughts to alert the tribe. Most of them ran out to greet the hunting party, grinning and noisily cheering, thinking the skin held a slain animal, as it should, and mistaking the intense, jumbled emotions of the hunters for joy. When they saw Ung their jubilation changed to murmuring concern for her. Her leg now bled freely and she held her face tight, her eyes pressed shut in pain.

Nanno Green Eyes emerged from the direction of Hama’s wipiti. Spotting the small bundle of her mate’s clothing, she ran past Ung, screamed, and snatched up the packet from Enga. She sank to the ground, cradling it and moaning softly. Enga touched her shoulder in sympathy, but Nanno shook her off with a sharp twitch.

Enga withdrew her hand as if a wasp had stung her. Nanno’s bitterness almost burnt. Nanno had held Enga and Ung responsible for her mate’s crippled leg ever since the night the two little girls had been rescued, but Enga had always hoped Nanno would someday change her attitude.

Other females surrounded Nanno Green Eyes and embraced her, trying to soothe her grief. Enga returned to Ung.

The pale New One approached. He made his strange sounds and put his thin hand on the forehead of Ung. She did not pull away. She opened her eyes to see who touched her. The New One drew back at this, his own odd eyes, as usual, cast down and nearly shut.

Zhoo of Still Waters, the Healer, came running from the woods and motioned for the carriers to put Ung into her wipiti. Enga followed. Zhoo gestured to Jeek, her son of eleven summers, to bring articles of healing from her stores. He ran out of the wipiti, his thin young legs pumping hard.

Ung, my sister, Ung
, were the only thoughts Enga could form. Her head throbbed.
Be well, be well.
She dared not think beyond the moment. Kokat No Ear had just died. So many Hamapa died in hunts. She would not let herself think about Ung being one of them.