The Gathering Night (44 page)

I ran back along the ridge, and slid noisily down the scree. I wanted Basajaun to hear me, in spite of the wind. He did. He looked back, hesitated, scrambled up the scree until he was level with me, ten lengths away. Then he leaped for the top of the crag. There he stopped. He watched me follow him across the scree.

I'd never faced a man at bay. He'd picked the high ground, just as I'd have done. He had solid rock under his feet. I had scree. So far he was the winner. There was empty air on three sides of him, a wild wind knocking him off balance, and no way out except by facing me. I had my spear in my hand and my knife at my belt. The wind was with me. He had – I saw as he stood there – a fresh hazel wand. I had Koldo coming towards me on one side, and no doubt Itzal on the other. So far I stood to win.

I came within a length of Basajaun and stopped. Koldo jumped down lightly beside me. I unhitched my spear and balanced it between my hands. Itzal slid to a halt on my other side in a clatter of stones.

Basajaun stood on his pinnacle of rock watching us. The two ravens circled behind him, waiting. Basajaun flexed his hazel wand between his hands. He'd had no chance to fashion it into a weapon, but it could sweep a man to his death if it caught him off balance. His feet tensed on the rock. In a heartbeat he would spring.

One on each side of me, Itzal and Koldo notched arrows to their bowstrings. Basajaun was within two man-lengths of them. There was nowhere he could go. I watched him watching them. His eyes showed no expression at all.

I aimed my spear at his chest. This would be the easiest kill I ever made. Some stubborn spirit held my arm back. Everything he'd decided had been just what I might have done myself, and yet he'd failed. He'd been trapped by his own cleverness – by so clearly
not
doing what an Animal would have done.

He met my eyes. No man does that to another man unless they're equals, and the closest of friends or brothers. Wolf is the only Animal that looks into a man's eyes like that. I lowered my spear. I couldn't help it. The spirits refused to let me kill a man who looked at me as if I were his brother.

Only the spirits know what might have happened if I'd met Basajaun alone. But no man can out-stare three men at once. Nothing I saw touched Itzal or Koldo.

I was still looking at Basajaun. I saw the arrow in his throat.

I saw the second arrow quiver in his chest. I saw the ravens fly upwards. I heard them croak.

I saw him fall.

Itzal said:

Koldo and I had no idea what was going through Amets' mind. We saw him balancing his spear, ready to throw. We saw Basajaun about to spring. Amets was out of breath with running. I thought that was what made him a heartbeat too slow. The kill was ours.

We slid down by the Dogs' Path and met the others. Our own dogs had run round the hill and joined the pack. We told the other men how Oroitz had fallen. Zeru and his brother went to bring Oroitz off the hill. I'd have gone too, but Edur and Amets said I must stay because I . . . because I . . .

I've never told you this before, Kemen. We've lived as brothers for six Years, and I've never told you. Now that we're telling everything that happened, I have to say this: it was I who struck first. The kill was mine.

The dogs found Basajaun's body at the foot of the crag.

I looked down at him. His head lolled from his body. The stump of my arrow snagged in his throat. He lay arched, broken backwards across the jagged scree. My brother's arrow pinned his torn deerskin to his chest in a welter of blood. His right hand still clenched his unbroken hazel wand. The stones around shone scarlet, winking in the morning Sun. I'd never spoken to Basajaun while he lived, but we'd stood opposite each other in the clearing the night before, while the Moon slowly sank across the loch. We'd been tested before the People together, he and I. Shame had touched us both. Now I lived, and he lay dead.

I looked up. Our greatest hunters – Edur – Amets – Sendoa – they were all waiting for me. The kill was mine.

I pulled the stump of my arrow from Basajaun's throat. I thrust my fingers into the wound. I cupped my hands and drank his blood. Koldo did the same. My brother and I smeared each other with the blood that held Basajaun's strength. We claimed it for our own.

I took my knife and slit his hide along the belly-line. I opened his body below the ribs and cut his liver free. My brother took embers from his pouch and made fire. We roasted his liver in strips. There was enough for every man to eat. The strength of Basajaun flowed into us. We stretched up our arms and gave thanks to the spirits of the Lynx, who had given us Basajaun so that the Auk People might live. The blood of Basajaun was our blood. Our hearts were his.

Everyone waited for me to speak. I thought for a heartbeat. I made up my mind. ‘The kill is mine. No one gets any more meat from it. He was a man: we must give his body back to the spirits as if he were one of our own People. Since he didn't give any of his things away, all that he has on him stays with him for the spirits to find.'

I looked down at Basajaun's outstretched body, and the bloodied opening where I'd taken his liver. I thought about how he'd tried to get away from us. He'd had speed and cunning and strength, and he'd used all those things. If he'd known the land as we know it, he'd have got away. Men and Animals are the same: they belong to their own hunting lands, and nowhere else. If Basajaun hadn't been a stranger to the Auk spirits, they wouldn't have been his enemies. He never even tried to make them change sides. But that was only because of who he was. In a heartbeat I knew what to say next.

‘It's a long way to carry him, but there are plenty of us here to do it. We'll make his platform by Lynx Cave on Cat Mountain. That's what the Lynx spirits want us to do. When we danced Lynx last night they heard us. Lynx belongs in our hunting lands just as much as any other Animal. Now we'll give him back to Lynx.'

Edur slapped me on the shoulder so hard I staggered on the loose stones and nearly fell across Basajaun's body. ‘Quite right, Itzal! And come to think of it, there's quite a bit of Lynx in you and your brothers too. There's not much bulk on you, but the way you ran and climbed today – I think you got those Lynx spirits to change sides somewhere!'

I wasn't sure I wanted anyone to see Lynx in me, after all that had happened. But of course I was glad to have Edur's praise. I'll never forget the things he taught me at Initiation Camp, after Amets left. To be honest I was sorry when Osané didn't take him. I'd have liked to have Edur in my family. But that's all in the past – I'm happy where I am.

We got hazel from the woods and made a stretcher. The weight was nothing compared to a full-grown aurochs or stag or boar. We cut more birch and hazel wands in the woods at the watershed. We crossed the watershed and climbed the slopes of Cat Mountain until the trees thinned. We pushed uphill through old bracken, heather and bog myrtle, over spines of rock ablaze with lichen, right up on to the moss-covered slopes below Lynx Cave.

We raised Basajaun's plat form about three man-lengths below the Cave. There was no soil to drive the poles into, so we wedged them with piles of stones.

I looked up at the dark entrance to Lynx Cave and spoke to the spirits inside.

‘You Lynx spirits gave us this kill. If he'd been Animal the Auk People would have feasted in your name. We'd have raised his skull over our Camp to watch over us. But it wasn't an Animal I killed today. It was a man – a Lynx man. He belongs to you while his name's out of the world. We're giving him back to you. We want you Lynx spirits on our side. We want all you Animals to give yourselves again. We've only taken his liver, even though we've been hunting all day and we're very hungry. He was a man, not an Animal. Even his heart belongs to you. I'm talking to you, Lynx, listening up there in that cave: you can come out when we've gone and take whatever you want. This man is yours!'

Everyone stood in a circle round the platform where the dead man lay. We all faced Lynx Cave and raised our hands to the spirits. There was no movement from the cave. The spirits hung in the air above us. They leaned down so low they almost touched our stretching hands.

And that was how Basajaun died.

As for the Antlers: we found them the next day, wedged between two rocks in the rapids. Either he'd stuck them there on purpose so they wouldn't get swept away, or the spirits of the water held them safely for us until we came to claim them.

Zeru and his brother splinted Oroitz' leg and got him off the hill. They did my family a great service that day. If it wasn't for their skill, my brother Oroitz might never have walked again. As it is, he hardly limps, although his leg sometimes troubles him in winter. But then, my brother Oroitz has seen quite a few more Years than I have: maybe he's already getting old!

I don't think I have anything more to give to the story. You all know how I took Haizea – or perhaps it was Haizea that took me – don't snigger like that, you three! Wait until
you
find yourselves up at High Clearing! You won't be children for ever, you know! Anyway – when everyone left Gathering Camp that Year, Haizea and I went away together. We made our Lovers' Camp in the hills above the trees, facing the Evening Sun Sky. From our tent door each evening we watched the red Sun fill the sky with flames, until he dropped so low that the waves which break at the edge of the world seized him and doused his fire. No People have trodden those distant shores since the Beginning, but in the fall of that Year the far edges of the world seemed to draw nearer to me. Alone in that high place with Haizea, I was as close as ever I've come, in this life anyway, to the Beginning.

Deer Moon waxed and waned. Hail clattered on the tent, and covered the hides with rime as thick as my hand – this thick! Haizea and I scraped the snow off our hearth each morning and woke our sleeping fire. We trapped hare and ptarmigan and snow buntings, but the Animals were withdrawing into the cold, and didn't want to give themselves. The Year was telling us to go back to our People. So I went with Haizea to River Mouth, and we joined her family. That was my first winter at River Mouth Camp.

I was happy. I'd made a great kill. I'd been treated with honour by the finest hunters of the Auk People. Now I was going to hunt with Amets all the Year round! And Kemen – I soon found out how much I could learn from Kemen. I missed my brothers, but all three of us were ready to find women of our own, and new families. Now I had Haizea for my woman! What man among us wouldn't envy me that! Haizea and I now lived with her sister and Amets, and my sister Osané and Kemen – my sister who'd been out of my life for five Years. I had my sister back again, and I had a nephew to get to know too – yes, you, Bakar!

I was a happy man. That first winter I spent with Haizea will live in my heart for the rest of my life.

E
IGHTH
N
IGHT
: R
IVER
M
OUTH
C
AMP

Haizea said:

Deer Moon had gone into the Dark when Itzal and I came back to River Mouth Camp. On our way we stopped at Zeru's Camp on the Morning Sun shore of Long Strait. Zeru lent us his old boat because he was making himself a bigger one. Itzal said that if the sea wouldn't let us cross Long Strait so late in the Year, we could go to Zigor's Camp for the winter. I could tell Itzal liked that idea. Neither of us suggested going back to Itzal's family. I didn't want to stay at Zigor's Camp one bit. After all that Itzal had been through at Gathering Camp, you'd think he'd be more scared of Zigor than I was. But it was quite the opposite: Itzal seemed to think now that Zigor was his greatest friend. Men are very strange!

While we waited for a kind wind I called on the spirits as often as I dared – I didn't want them to get fed up with me – begging them to let us cross. I wanted to take Itzal home. I didn't want to go anywhere else. The spirits teased me for four days. Then early one morning, just as the tide was slackening, the wind dropped and the swell went down. We crossed Long Strait as fast as we could paddle, between one gale and the next. Oh, but I was happy to set foot on Mother Mountain Island! I'd never been away from it so long. We left Zeru's boat at Sheltering Island Bay – it was far too late in the Year to paddle under the wild cliffs of the Sunless shore to River Mouth Camp. We walked over the hill to River Mouth Camp, hand in hand wherever the path would let us walk side by side. I showed Itzal where Mother Mountain rose beyond the River Mouth hills, far away under the High Sun Sky.

At last we stood looking down, over the heads of the tossing birches, to my beloved River. Yellow leaves swirled upwards as gusts of wind swept over Mother Mountain Island from under the Evening Sun Sky. Lichen-covered trees glowed pale green through the dusk. Flocks of geese, and swans like scattered flakes of snow, grazed on the red salt flats of River Mouth. Far beyond the islands, the Sun was dropping into the sea in a blaze of pink and orange. Twilight crept across the windswept lands below us, and mixed with it . . .

‘Itzal, see the smoke? Down there, look! That's River Mouth Camp. Look, look! We're nearly home! See the smoke?'

Itzal spat out the husk of a lily-seed. ‘Uh-huh.'

I glanced at him. I was getting to know him better every day. It dawned on me that he wasn't surly because he was angry, but because he was scared. His family had hardly been the best of friends with my family. Before I could tell him there was nothing to be frightened of, a picture of my sister Alaia flashed into my mind. Alaia would
never
tell Amets not to be frightened. I watched Itzal, and bit my lip. He was scowling into the wind, his wolf-fur hat pulled down tight over his ears. What would Alaia do now, if she were me?