Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) (31 page)

10

Seseidi squatted in the quiet depression of the two short hills and
waited until the bird-god stopped its shrill sound. Care had to be taken: if
the spider was frightened, he would refuse to come out and be captured. It was
a good spot for spiders, with good, soft soil and plenty of food crawling by.
He had found hundreds of spiders here over the years and his first son, little
Pudabi, who squatted quietly next to him now, would continue to hunt spiders
here long after Seseidi’s spirit joined the trees.

He placed
the long, thin twig just inside the three-inch-wide hole and tapped it against
the smooth side of the tunnel, like one would tap the ash from a cigarette. He
tapped quickly and randomly to simulate the scrabbling legs of a beetle. If the
spider was home, Seseidi would call him out with his tapping. No sooner had he
begun that the woolly legs of the spider appeared just where the light reached
them and Seseidi moved the stiff, thin twig back a little and tapped some more.
To trick the spider, the spider must never get close enough to smell or touch
the twig, for he would know it was not a beetle then and not be lured up by the
tapping for hours or even days if he were too frightened. But Seseidi had
captured many spiders this way and this one followed the tapping twig up out of
the hole and along the ground while Seseidi kept it just out reach. It was a
big one, with plenty of good eggs inside the round belly. Little Pudabi
squatted motionless, swallowing his saliva, watching the fat, hairy spider as
it crawled along after the vibrating twig.

With the
spider now more than a foot from its hole, Seseidi reached down slowly with his
outstretched thumb and pinned the spider firmly to the ground with it. He held
the spider so firmly that it could barely move the last joints of its legs.

Seseidi’s
hands were well practiced at the next step and one by one he lifted the
spider’s legs up and worked them under his thumb until he had them all bent
back and pinned. Then, using a two-foot-long piece of thin fiber he had
prepared earlier, he wove it around the spider’s legs until they were tied
tight making the woolly, leggy spider into a tight little bundle with its black
fangs clearly visible. That done, he mounted the spider on a stiff stick about
a foot long, by sliding it along its back and under the juncture where its legs
came together. He handed the spider-on-a-stick to young Pudabi whose white
teeth shone with a grin at the prize so received. The little fire had burned
down to coals just right for roasting a fat, eggy spider.

“Big
spider,” Pudabi said in his native tongue, tempting the spider’s fangs with a
cautious finger.

“A big
one,” his father said. “Go cook him. I’ll get another one.”

The gray
hunter burst from the brush just ten feet from Seseidi and stood on all fours
spread wide, turning its head from boy to man and back, defying them to move.
The shock at seeing such a demon startled Pudabi, who dropped the spider with
a trembling start as if he’d stepped on an electric eel. Seseidi froze
motionless, and knew he was looking at a real tree spirit; it had to be—what
else could look so fearsome? He didn’t know if tree spirits could be killed,
but Seseidi was a survivor of many battles and knew how to use spear, and bow
and arrow, and he would not let even a tree spirit kill him without a good
fight. His needle-sharp spear was propped against a large leaf just a few feet
away. He flashed his eyes toward it then back again just to be sure of its
exact location. He could hear little Pudabi whimpering behind him, but could
not turn fully to look, keeping his eyes instead on the ugly face of the tree
spirit.

When the
tree spirit raised its head and called up to heaven with a loud roar, Seseidi
shifted over, grabbed his spear, pulled it back with both hands and lunged at
the monster’s chest. Before the poisoned tip reached its skin, the monster
swooped down with its head in a flashing arc and clamped onto the spear with
its teeth. Twisting slowly, it rose up on its hind legs and wrenched the spear
from Seseidi’s grasp like a toy. It snapped its head to the side and tossed the
spear so violently that the spinning weapon whirred several times, like the
wings of a bird, before disappearing into the brush.

The tree
spirit loomed over Seseidi like a huge panther, daring him to move; and once
again it called out to heaven. The sound was so deep, Seseidi could feel it in
his chest.

“Run!” he
said to Pudabi. “Run!”

As if the
words were magic, the stunned boy came back to life and ran into the brush. The
gray hunter gave only a glance as the boy ran. Such prey lacked substance and
was of little concern when it had the larger one.

What will he do with me?
Seseidi thought.
Eat me, or carry me off? Perhaps he’ll
just beat me.
He wondered what sin he had committed to bring the
wrath of a tree spirit down on him.

“I have
cared for your forest and have not been wasteful,” Seseidi prayed to the gray
hunter. “I have killed no forbidden spirits and have eaten only the allowed
ones. Must I die?”

The gray
hunter listened to the squeaky noises the prey made, then bellowed again. It
extended its neck and sniffed loudly at Seseidi’s leg and let the warm scent of
prey fill its head with thoughts of blood and tearing flesh. It hoped the prey
would attack again so those images might become manifest.

The burr
came in from the thick brush with a
phoop
and a hiss and struck Seseidi in the side. A moment later he slumped, as if
dead.

With the
prey safely removed, the gray hunter, curious by nature, found the spider and
sniffed it to make sure it was food. It took the spider into its mouth, then
shook its head to fling off just the stick the spider was mounted on. It lifted
its head, chewed down once and swallowed. The lack of blood in the morsel was
disappointing.

It lifted
its head and breathed the faint scent of new prey on the still air. The gray
hunter took a few steps, and moving its head back and forth in a wide sweep,
was able to tell the exact direction of the source of it.

With more
hunting to do, the creature loped off into the brush toward the prey. It barely
made a sound and slipped around the brush and vines like a snake. The dark and
wet warmth of the jungle thrilled it, and in some deep recess of its mind, it
felt at home.

*
 
*
 
*

Gilbert sat
with his thin, white legs spread because he was too weak to cross them. Sitting
there on the stool-like protuberance, naked, was most unpleasant. He looked
down at his bent and dark yellow nails and slowly wiggled his toes. Gilbert
Keefer had no interest whatsoever in the appearance of his feet. They could
have been shaped like duck’s feet and would not have changed his expression
from the brief, solitary tightening of his mouth on viewing them. He looked at
his sagging belly and the fine scars that crisscrossed it and thought of them
as suddenly noble, even holy. He imagined a full-sized sculpture of himself,
which would have laced on its naked torso the facsimile pattern of these
virtuous scars.

Yes,
he thought,
if God thinks it not too vain, perhaps.

He was in
the alpha’s chamber. It had to be. There were demon things all about: strange
objects and containers hung from the ceiling and littered the floor. There were
several other stools in the chamber and a single long ledge, which ran around
most of it, was covered with even stranger objects. Without his glasses, he
found it difficult to see clearly, but if he squinted, he could make out that
several of the objects were alive. They twisted and squirmed like upright eels,
but were attached to bases that looked like they themselves might have eyes.
He couldn’t tell. He drew his mouth into a brief line and had absolutely no
further interest in such things.

He
propped his thin arms on his pale, soft knees and waited. He wondered if he
would get to go into the soakers and have his new wounds cleansed and healed
there. He hoped so because the wounds were beginning to sting as the anesthetic
wore off.

He drew
his mouth into a thin line, then wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb
and middle finger.

The pain
is nothing,
he thought.
The pain is nothing.