In the Beginning (11 page)

With her foot she shattered the surface of the water, sending up a spray of silver drops which flashed rainbow colors in the sunlight. The fish twisted and darted, and Va ran down beside the stream in pursuit. But anticipation turned to disappointment as she reached the net—not a single fish was caught in it—and to gloom as she understood why: although the net came up to the surface of the water, it floated and so did not quite reach the bottom. The fish had swum underneath it and escaped.

Va took the net from the water and looked at it despondently. Then she realized what she must do—anchor it to the bottom of the stream as well as to each bank, so that it could not float up and leave a gap.

She waited until the fishes had resumed their place upstream before putting the net back in. She tried securing it with sticks, but the bottom of the stream was either too stony or too soft so the sticks would not hold. She was dejected again until she thought of anchoring it with heavy stones. She
found several big flat ones and laid them in the stream on the lower edge of the net. That made it quite firm: not even a small fish could escape beneath it.

Once more she alarmed the fishes, causing them to turn and flee. But this time when she went to the net she found three big ones struggling in the meshes—the rest had been small enough to wriggle through. Happily Va unhooked the net and dragged it out. One fish got clear while she was doing that but the other two flapped helplessly on the bank. Making a brief prayer to their spirits, Va quickly killed them with a stone.

She cooked them in the embers of the fire and picked the bones clean with her teeth. The white flesh tasted very good—sweeter than animal flesh, she thought. She looked at the stream, where more fish had already gathered at their favored spot. Even when she had caught those, there were all the fish in the lake. She thought of Dom, hunting throughout a long day, perhaps, for one rabbit. This was an easier and better way of getting meat.

The idea came to her, as sudden as the idea of the net, that she no longer needed Dom. She had the
plants growing in the earth, and a means now of getting fish from the stream. She had the hut for shelter, and Bel for company; without Dom she and Bel could be happy together all the time. She could sing to him with no one else hearing, and teach him things and tell him stories, and he would never have a killing club of bone. How good it would be!

When Dom came back that day, bringing a porcupine he had killed, Va was more sullen than ever. She cooked the porcupine for him, but refused to have any herself. Dom asked her if she was sick: she shook her head but would not speak to him.

She told him nothing about catching the fish, and she had hidden the net in the wood before he returned. If he knew the way of catching fish, she thought, he might not be willing to go and hunt far away. He would be there all the time and she would never be alone with Bel.

And if he continued to hunt, going farther and farther away, perhaps one day he would not come back at all. Perhaps he would lose his way, though that was very unlikely. Or perhaps a lion would eat him. She did not want to think about that, for although she still hated him the urge for revenge had
gone since her baby was born. All thoughts of killing and death were hateful to her—even Dom's. But it would be good if he did not come back. She hugged her baby to her breast. It would be so good!

• • •

But Dom did not lose his way, nor get eaten by a lion. Regularly he went out to hunt, and as regularly came back with meat for himself and Va. She was glad when he went, unhappy when she saw his figure returning along the shore of the lake. Dom did his best to placate and coax her, but to no effect: she tolerated his presence, as she had to, but she yielded nothing.

The year turned. Spring gave way to summer, to days of sweltering heat when at times the only relief was to bathe in the lake as she had once bathed in the pool in the wood. Bel grew fast and agile, and she took him with her into the water, and held him up while he splashed and laughed and gurgled. Then they lay together on the hot sand of the shore, basking in the sunshine. Except for the thought of Dom returning it was a blissful time.

The plants grew in rows as she had put them in the earth, and the wheat lifted high and began to
turn yellow with the promise of harvest. In the nearby woods red fruit hung from the boughs, and she found nuts that would soon be ripe. There were squirrels in the trees, and she thought that when the nuts were ready she might tame one, as she had tamed that other that Dom killed.

On a gray morning she thought of that, and of the greater killing that had followed—not of one small animal but of all her people. Yet it was very far away, the horror of it still there but faded in her memory. What mattered was that she was safe here, she and Bel.

Mist rose from the lake and spread out over its shores and up into the surrounding woods. A lighter patch showed where the sun was, though there was no sign yet of its breaking through. The air was still, not cold but dank to the skin.

Va decided to go and look for crabs—there was a section of the lakeside about a mile away, jagged with rocks, where she usually found some. She did not take Bel with her—he was asleep on his bed of moss—but put up the barrier she had made, out of sticks tied together with grass-cord, to prevent him getting out of the hut and crawling into some danger.

She realized again as she walked along the shore how much she had come to love the lake. Even in this mist it was beautiful. A few birds were singing higher up among the trees, and nearer there was the gentle lapping of water against the rocks; otherwise there was no sound except the crunch of her feet in the sand. Dom had been away since the previous day and was unlikely to be back before evening. She would catch a crab and take it back to the fire and bake it. Then, after she had eaten, she would play with Bel and make him laugh.

She reached the spot where the rocks were thickly clustered and waded out into the water. She found a big crab after a little searching, and almost immediately afterward a smaller one. She would eat well. Pleased with herself she carried them to the shore, their claws clashing futilely in the air, and looked for a stone with which to kill them. It was while she was so occupied that she heard a shout from farther along the lakeside.

When she looked she saw the club first, and thought with disappointment and annoyance that it was Dom returning early. But the voice had not sounded like Dom's, and he would have called her
name. At that moment she saw that there was not one man, but two: strangers and, as their clubs made plain, savages.

She dropped the crabs and without thinking ran back the way she had come. She heard a second shout, and a quick look over her shoulder showed them both running after her. She tried to run faster, her heart pounding with fear as well as with the effort. Now both of them were shouting and their voices were harsh and terrifying: it was a long time since she had heard Dom's voice sound like that.

When she was almost in sight of the hut a thought more urgent than fear stabbed her—she was leading them to where Bel was. She glanced back again and saw that they were gaining on her. At once she changed course, running away from the lake instead of alongside it. She might lose them among the trees; it was her only hope.

She heard their shouts and the sound of their blundering progress behind her, but once they were in the trees she could no longer see them. Or be seen. If she were to hide and let them go past. . . . She found a dense patch of brush and crouched inside it, shivering.

They went past, one of them no more than a few yards away, and she waited with beating heart as the sounds grew faint. She felt a half-relief from fear, but it did not last. After a time there was the sound of feet crashing through the undergrowth again, and rough voices calling to one another. They had guessed what she had done, and were coming back to search for her.

Va was torn between the instinct to flee and the hope that they might not find her. Her indecision, sharpened by fear, resulted in her doing something which combined the worst part of either course: she waited until the savages were quite close, then suddenly ran.

With a shriek of triumph they were after her, the leader only a few paces behind. She ran as she had never run before, not even when she was fleeing from Dom in the valley, but it was no use. Feet pounded closer and closer in pursuit; then a hand grasped her hair and she was dragged brutally to the ground.

She looked up, sobbing, and saw them standing over her, grinning, holding their cruel clubs. She had no hope now, and her heart was seized by a fear and despair more terrible than anything she had known or
could have imagined. For she knew they would find the hut, conspicuous as it was on the lakeside, and when they had finished with her they would kill Bel.

It was then, not from hope but out of the depths of her being—a cry formed by all the things that had happened to her since that day by the pool in the wood—that she shrieked Dom's name.

“Dom! Save me. . . .”

One of the savages reached down, taking a fresh hold on her hair, and hauled her painfully to her feet. She cried Dom's name again, and he dropped his club and smashed his fist into her face.

At that moment there was another roar, not from either of these, and a figure charged from the bushes, club in hand. So there were three of them, she thought, her head dizzy from the blow—it made no difference. But as she thought it, the club crashed against the skull of the savage who was holding her and he fell, dragging her down with him. Incredulously she saw that it was Dom who had struck down her attacker.

Howling, the other savage struck at Dom. Dom tried to dodge but the blow caught his arm and his own club dropped from his nerveless fingers. The
savage yelled, a screech of victory, and raised his club to strike again—he was as tall as Dom but more squat, with powerfully muscled arms. Va saw that in the instant in which she heaved herself up from the ground and threw herself at his legs. It was like throwing herself against the trunk of a tree: she could not budge him. She could not even maintain a hold—she was kicked sprawling away, her remaining breath beaten from her lungs.

But she had enabled Dom to parry the second blow, and given him time to recover his club. The two men faced each other, growling their hate. With a new thrill of fear Va saw how much bigger the savage was than Dom: he looked twice as broad. He raised his club with a shout that shocked her ears, and brought it crashing down. Dom dodged, but only just. Twice more the savage struck, and twice more Dom was agile enough to make the blow miss.

But the eventual end was certain—Dom could not possibly overcome an enemy as big and strong as this. She must help him. Gasping for breath, Va tried to rise, and failed.

The savage saw her movement from the corner of his eye and glanced that way. It was only for a
moment before he turned back to Dom, but the second distraction like the first gave Dom the chance he needed. He struck hard—the savage put up his club to fend off the blow and the club was knocked aside. Before he could raise it again Dom got in a second blow which caught him on the side of the neck and sent him staggering. As he fell back Dom went after him and hit him a third time, on the forehead. He crashed to the ground and Dom fell on him, stabbing viciously with his knife.

• • •

They left the dead savages as prey for the vultures and went back together to the hut. Bel was awake, and laughed and gurgled when he saw them. Va saw how beautiful he was, and knew how much she loved him; and knew also that but for Dom it would have been the savages who came here now, to murder him.

While she held Bel close, Dom told her how it happened that he had been at hand. He had first seen the two savages early that morning, many miles from the lake. Because they were heading in that direction he had abandoned his hunt and fol
lowed them, trailing them but keeping out of sight. He did not want to have to fight them, and hoped they would not go near the hut, perhaps not even go to the lake. It would be better if they traveled on undisturbed.

When he saw them reach the lake and go along the shore, he knew that they were bound to discover the hut. So he stopped following them and instead took a shortcut through the wood, to get to the hut first and take Va and the baby away. He found Bel but there was no sign of Va, so he went down to the beach and looked along the lakeside in the direction from which the men would be coming. That was when he heard Va's cry for help, and ran through the trees to her aid.

She said: “You saved me, Dom.”

It was the first time she had used his name since the days in the wood in her own valley. She remembered that he had also saved her when she was attacked by the leopard: yet this was entirely different. She had not really cared whether the leopard killed her or not, but today she had cared. Because it was not just her he had saved—he had saved Bel also.

Dom said with a worried face: “The men might have come another way to the lake, and then I would not have seen them, would not have known there was danger.”

She looked at him, her arms tight round Bel, and said:

“Do not go away again, Dom. We want you with us.”

Dom shook his head. “I do not want to go, but we must have meat.”

“The fishes' meat is good and sweet.”

“Maybe. But they are too slippery and move too quickly through the water for me to catch them.”

“I can catch them.”

She told him about the net. He listened in astonishment, and said:

“You are very clever, Va. I would not have thought of such a thing.”

“If we make a bigger net and wade out into the lake together with it, one of us at each end, and then draw it back to shore, we might catch many fish. The lake is filled with them, as is shown by the diving birds.”

Dom nodded. “We can do that. And I will not
need to go away to hunt. I can be with you and Bel always.”

“Yes.”