John Norman (29 page)

Spear’s flint knife, some eight inches long, the handle wrapped in leather, taken from a rawhide belt, thrust down into the hot meat.

It was the first time, of course, that Hamilton had witnessed a feeding.

Piece by great chunk was ripped and pulled from the roasted carcass and thrown to the hunters who, squatting down, with both hands, began to feed on it, tearing it apart with their teeth and fingers.

Spear cut a huge chunk away and threw it to Tooth, the hunter with the prognathous jaw, the atavistically extended canine on the upper right side of his mouth. The children clustered around him.

Then Spear cut pieces of meat for those females who were pregnant, their bellies heavy with child beneath the skins, their breasts already swelling with milk. There were four such females, slow, and awkward, who took the meat and began to chew on it.

The man with the large tooth cut small pieces of meat for each of the tiny children, those walking, those less than some five years of age. The small ones would be guaranteed food, and the pregnant females. It was the law. Spear had made it. The man with the large tooth then gave the rest of that chunk of meat to the young, blond girl, she who was some fourteen years of age, and she it was who would distribute it among the older children. She took the first piece herself, and ate it, they watching, eyes wide, waiting for her favor. Some of them whimpered, and put out their hands, and she struck them away. Others pointed to their mouths. One boy, Hamilton noticed, did not beg, but stood with the children, sullen, angry. He, too, might have been some twelve or fourteen years of age, but whereas the blond girl was lusciously, incipiently a female, he was only still a boy. He was not yet old enough to run with the hunters. He did not have the great leap of growth yet that would bring his body to the pitch at which he might follow the pace of the older men, in their long hunts, hanging behind them, learning the smells and signs of the forest. He was two inches shorter than the girl, and less heavy. He was still slight, still a boy. But Hamilton saw that he was proud, defiant. The girl, arrogantly, threw the meat to the other children, giving more or less as the child was or was not one of her favorites. Much of the meat she ate herself. The younger children leaped and cried, and she would throw them a piece of meat. The boy cried out angrily, demanding food. She paid him no attention. She ignored his outstretched hand. Then, angrily, he tried to snatch a piece of meat and she struck him, screaming, and drove him from the meat, hitting him, kicking at him. He fell to the ground. She kicked him and turned away from him. She returned to the meat and, pulling it apart, ate some herself, and threw other pieces to the children. One piece, dark with gristle, she threw to the dirt before the boy, and stood up, head high, wiping her hands on her thighs.

Hamilton saw that there were five women behind the leader, and first among them was the lame, scarred woman, who had so terrified her.

The leader, over his shoulder, handed back meat to the lame woman, who took it, eating some, distributing other portions to the other women. Behind each hunter there knelt one or more women, waiting to be fed. After a time the hunters, growing heavy with food, grease on their hands and bodies, juice at their mouths, began to hand meat back to the women. Some of the women, from time to time, would whimper, and point to their mouths, indicating their hunger. Most of the women seemed to have hunters who fed them. The young man who was the son of the leader gave meat to,, the older blond girl, who was muchly beautiful, and clung much to him, she whom Hamilton would learn was Flower. Her own hunter, to her anger, was feeding the darkhaired woman and the shorter blond woman. Sometimes he would hand them meat, sometimes he would hold it in his hand, or mouth, and make them take it in their teeth. He did not so much as look at Hamilton. “I am hungry,” she thought. “I am hungry.”

She saw that two of the women were nursing infants. They, like the others, knelt behind men, begging their food. Hamilton saw two other women, to her irritation, lying on their backs, holding out their hands to hunters, lifting their bodies to them. “Filthy bitches,” thought Hamilton. “Prostitutes! Whores!” She was furious that they would offer their bodies to the hunters’ pleasure, merely to be fed. “Whores!” thought Hamilton. Then Hamilton saw, too, that now one of the mothers, her infant in the arms of another, was lying before a hunter, lifting her body. Hamilton turned away. “I hate men,” she thought. “I hate them.”

She saw meat thrown to the women who lifted their bodies. Other women, still hungry, now lifted their bodies to the men. Some others crawled to them, and kissed them, about the ankles. Many had meat thrust in their mouths.

Hamilton turned away, disgusted. “They are slaves, the females are slaves,” she thought.

But the high females, like the lame woman, and those others, behind the leader, seemed to feed well. Their importance, their prestige, Hamilton thought, is a function of the males with whom they associate themselves. If one would be a high female, one must well please a high male. But the lame, scarred woman was not truly attractive, and yet she knelt behind the leader himself, behind his left shoulder. In some important way, Hamilton thought, she must serve him well. She shuddered as she thought what must be the menace, the power, of the lame, scarred woman.

She saw the young blond girl, Butterfly, walking among the group. She saw the leader’s eyes, narrow, watching her.

She did not think it would be long before the young blond girl would be told to take a new place in the feeding, among the women.

She saw the boy gnawing on the gristly meat he had been thrown.

Almost unaware of it, Hamilton discovered she had edged closer to her hunter.

Different hunters now were cutting into the meat, feeding themselves, and the women about them. The first pieces of meat had been cut by the leader, and distributed by him, for he was the leader, he was the one who gave meat.

The old woman and the nurse, too, were pulling at the meat, as though they might be hunters.

Hamilton saw the old woman take some meat and give it to one of the nursing mothers.

She also saw the heavy-bodied man, with the extended canine tooth, give a tiny piece of meat to a toddling child, who put it in his mouth and ran to his mother.

Hamilton edged closer to her hunter.

Then he faced her.

“I’m very hungry,” said Hamilton. “I know you cannot understand what I’m saying, but I trust that my need, and my condition, are sufficiently obvious. I would appreciate receiving some food.”

He turned away from her, eating.

“Please,” said Hamilton.

He paid her no attention.

She rose to her feet, and, hunter by hunter, asked to be given meat. Most looked up at her, and then looked away. She was not a woman they had elected to feed. She saw the women exchanging glances, and smiling. “Please,” said Hamilton. “Please!” She was becoming more desperate. She did not ask meat from the leader. She was too terrified of the lame, scarred woman behind him. Sometimes when she approached a hunter, the other women behind him would motion her away, angrily. But most to her consternation was the fact that the hunters did not seem much interested in her. Suddenly Hamilton was frightened. Was she not beautiful? Should they not be eager to please her? Her heart sank. She suddenly understood that she stood in a competitive situation, she against other females, even to be fed. “No!” she wept to herself. But the men had used her. But now they did not seem interested in her. “Oh, no,” she said, sinking to her knees, “oh, no, no.” She had not sufficiently pleased them. What could she do to please them? What must she do? “No, no,” she wept to herself.

Anxiously she returned, ankles thonged, to behind the tall, lean hunter, he who had brought her captive, slave, to this camp.

She knelt behind him. “Please,” she begged him. “Feed me!”

The darkhaired girl, and the blond girl, chewing, looked at her.

There was no interest in their eyes.

“Feed me!” wept Hamilton.

The hunter did not look at her.

Hamilton felt her wrists being drawn behind her back. She looked over her shoulder. It was the leader. She felt her wrists tied together, tightly, with a rawhide thong. He then untied the rawhide from her ankles and, crossing her ankles, used it to secure them. He then lifted her lightly and carried her from the fire. Before one of the small, round huts, he paused, and then, easily, threw her within. She landed in the hut pit, on her shoulder, a foot below the surface of the surrounding soil, in the dirt, in the darkness. She struggled. She could not free herself. She could not rise to her feet. For more than two hours she lay on the sunken floor of the hut, in its pit, bound. She wept, she struggled. Her body was hungry, and ached from the beatings she had been given.

Outside the hut she could hear a pounding on sticks and something like singing, and laughter.

She did not know but tomorrow, at dawn, the people would go for salt, and then to the flint, and then, when ready, return to the shelters.

When the camp was quiet Brenda Hamilton heard something coming, slowly, shuffling, animallike, toward the hut. In the darkness, she struggled to sit up. It was coming closer. Brenda shrank back against the side of the hut pit, pushing back against it.

A head appeared in the entrance to the hut.

“Stay away!” screamed Hamilton, suddenly terrified, knowing she was helpless, and could not defend herself.

The creature entered the hut, stepping down, its head low on its rounded shoulders.

“Stay away from me!” screamed Hamilton. “You’re not human! You’re hideous! Stay away!”

Ugly Girl, her ankles in their leather shackles, but otherwise free, peered down, in the darkness, looking at Hamilton.

She thrust her wide, round head toward Hamilton. Hamilton felt the greasy, stringlike hair on her shoulder.

“No! No! No!” cried Hamilton. “Help! Help!” She tried to turn away, trapped against the side of the hut pit.

The creature looked at her, quizzically.

“Stay away from me!” screamed Hamilton. “You’re a monster! You’re repulsive! You are hideous! Keep away! Keep away!”

Ugly Girl backed away, squatting down.

“You. haven’t the intelligence of a dog!” screamed Hamilton. “Keep away from me!”

Ugly Girl made no noise, squatting in the darkness, near Hamilton.

“Stay away!” hissed Hamilton. “Stay away!”

Ugly Girl did not move for some time but then, slowly, neared Hamilton. “Stay away!” screamed Hamilton.

Ugly Girl, steadily, not listening to Hamilton, disregarding her cries, her movements, thrust her mouth against Hamilton’s. Hamilton tried to twist her mouth away, terrified, hysterical, almost retching, but Ugly Girl persisted, forcing her mouth to Hamilton’s. Suddenly Hamilton realized that there was something in her mouth.

It was meat.

Hamilton suddenly took it and chewed it, and swallowed it. Ugly Girl pulled back her head.

There was a long silence.

“Thank you,” said Hamilton.

Ugly Girl’s hand reached out, tenderly, and touched Hamilton’s cheek, and then she went to the other side of the hut and lay down.

In a few moments Hamilton heard the breathing of her sleep.

During the night, at times, Ugly Girl whimpered, and twisted.

“How hideous she is,” thought Hamilton. “How hideous.”

Brenda Hamilton struggled tied back to back with Ugly Girl, her hands tied behind her, about Ugly Girl, fastened in front, tightly, of Ugly Girl’s belly Ugly Girl’s hands similarly in front of her own belly. The two girls knelt, their ankles tied together, Ugly Girl’s left ankle to Hamilton’s right, Hamilton’s left to Ugly Girl’s right. They could not rise. They saw the ovoid eyes gleaming in the darkness, like fiery copper.

They were in the vicinity of the shelters.

Yesterday the animal, in the morning had dragged one of the women into the brush. That same afternoon it had killed a child.

It was a lone animal, like most who would prey upon human groups, taking them as game when, being too old or too ill, it could not pursue and slay its more accustomed quarry.

But men were dangerous game.

That afternoon and morning, in a narrow place between thickset trees and brush, the women, Brenda and Ugly Girl among them, had, with stones and sticks and shells, dug the pit, lifting the dirt from it in leather sacks on rawhide ropes. In the bottom of the pit Spear and Stone had set a large number of sharpened stakes, at intervals of some six inches from one another. The pit was some sixteen feet deep, some ten by five feet wide. It had been covered with light sticks, over which leaves and grass had been spread.

Ugly Girl’s breathing seemed almost to stop. Her back felt cold against Brenda’s.

Hamilton threw back her head and screamed, and struggled. The eyes came a foot closer. By their movements Hamilton could see it turn its head from side to side. It was a large shadow, lithe and sinuous. She heard the breathing, and smelled the animal.

It was ten days after Brenda Hamilton bad first been brought by Tree to the camp of the Men. The morning after her arrival in camp the camp had broken and the Men had trekked to the salt. It was only a half day’s trek from where the game camp bad been set.

Once in the vicinity of the salt the women, and the children, with Brenda and Ugly Girl, were herded between some trees. There they were made to huddle, closely together. A thin strip of rawhide was stretched about the trees, like a tiny string fence. The women and the children, and the two slaves, must remain within this perimeter until the men returned with the salt.

The location of the salt was a secret of the Men. Women must not know its whereabouts. Women might be stolen, and were subject to barter. They were exchangeable. If a woman knew the location of the salt, a most precious commodity, more valuable than themselves, they might reveal it to others. A male, of course, when he became old enough to run with the hunters, when he became of the Men, would be taught the location of the salt. He, in learning it, would not be sworn to secrecy, sworn to keep it from the females. That was not necessary. Any male knew that females might not know the location of salt. They were females.