Beginning of Time

I found that was what I wanted now too, but I was afraid the ankle would last only so long and that we had better do our gathering as quickly as possible and get back to the cave before dark.

In addition to his carved staff, Big Stick had brought his spear, the magical one with the hard, gray tip on it that allowed him to bring down game with only a few tries. He did so with grace and power, and I admired the way he moved. I also began to wonder if the Gentle People too would have become Meateaters if they had discovered the magic of the pointed stick. And the magic of controlling the god of the consuming heat too—and the power to bring down the sharp teeth monster. There was no end to the wonder of the Sharpspears. And, when thinking of Big Stick, in particular, there was wonder too at the power of his penetrator that made me moan for him when he moved inside me.

We gathered game for Big Stick and fruits and berries for me—and I showed Big Stick which were the edible nuts as well. He at least feigned interest in what I was showing him, and I glowed at the thought that he wanted to share with me. This was nothing like the land of the Others, where the only connections were in fighting over a big nut or joining one body with another briefly and furiously. Then, while we were in the forest, Big Stick moved into a dimly lit dell and pulled up some of the moss growing there and put it in the basket with the fruit. I tried to take it out again and to signal to him that it wasn't edible, but he became agitated, insisting that it remain, so remain it did.

I assumed we were ready to return to the cave then, but Big Stick didn't end the hunt there. On our way back to the cave, he stopped along the base of the cliff. He was looking for something, but I didn't know what. But then he exclaimed in a happy sound, and I looked up on the face of the cliff. He was running his hands along seams of lumpy sandy dirt between the layers of the cliff rock. And when I looked at them, I saw that they were in different colors. Red, brown, and yellow.

Big Stick untied several hide pouches that had been hanging from his hide-strip belly belt and took the tip of his pointed spear and began to shave off this lumpy dirt into his pouches, one pouch for each different color of dirt.

I sat on my haunches and watched him in awe. Some more magic? I wondered.

And then I became more sure this had something to do with magic, but less sure whether it was good magic.

He seemed excited, keyed up, when we arrived back in the cave. Twilight was falling as we got there, and he almost absentmindedly settled me on the breeding pallet and pushed the baskets of fruits, berries, and nuts at me, letting me select my own.

He hurriedly summoned the consuming heat god and wolfed down a half-cooked small animal of the scrub lands.

Then he started the most strange of rituals, one that would go on for evenings to come. He usually came to me at this time of night and stood before me, as I paid homage to his penetrator with my lips and then lay down and opened my legs for him. But this evening after his meal he paid no attention to me at all. Instead, he took out his pouches of lumpy dirt and picked up a rock with an indented bowl shape in it. He sprinkled some of the dirt from one of the pouches into the depression in the rock. After that he took up the shoulder bone of a large animal he'd hunted. I had always thought this was a weapon, and I shrank from him when he took it up, ever mindful that my time was surely coming to an end at some point soon. But he didn't make an end of me. Rather, he went over to the mouth of the opening into the chamber behind this one, crouched down, and began to beat the lumpy sand dirt in the rock bowl with the shoulder bone. He was looking at me and smiling and humming while he did so. And I was thinking how strange the rituals of the Sharpspear people were.

After he seemed satisfied with this part of the ritual, he rose, with the rock bowl in his hand, and went over to the side of the cave, where our drinking water trickled down the cave wall from a fissure overhead. There, he filled the bowl with water, and, smiling at me in passing, he took the bowl into the back chamber. He returned and repeated this ritual in other rock bowls with the other two pouches of dirt.

The third time he came back, he took up a big staff of wood, which briefly made me fear for my life once more. But, without looking at me, he held the head of the staff inside the consuming heat god, until the god flared up in anger. Then when the staff came out of the god's grasp, there were two gods, one on the rock ledge outside the entrance to the cave and the other lapping around the head of the staff.

The cave chamber now was alive with shimmering light. There were seams of sparkling color running through the walls of the cave and several places where water seeped down in small rivulets, and the glow from the angry god bounced around the wall and made it come alive.

I thought Big Stick would come to me then, but, although he did bend down to me in passing, holding the angry god-tipped staff over his head, instead of reaching for me, he put his hand in the fruit basket and brought out the pieces of moss that he had insisted we bring back.

Then he took the staff and disappeared into the back chamber and I again was in near darkness, with only the consuming heat god at the mouth of the cave reflecting light back to me. I lay down, sadly, wondering what magic Big Stick was summoning forth, and worrying about myself—and, most strangely—worrying about Big Stick as well.

I slowly went to sleep, as did the consuming heat god at the cave entrance.

Sometime in the night, Big Stick did come to me and breed me. And he did so in a new excitement and exuberance I had not experienced from him before. Deep in the breeding, he pulled me up with him as he rose to his feet. I was connected to him at our pelvises, and I wrapped my legs around his thighs, under his big, firm buttocks, as he walked us out to the opening of the cave, and he breeded me deep and strongly as we both looked up at the twinkling dots of consuming heat gods in the night sky.

When he put me back down, he didn't come down to me to sleep, me in his embrace, as he had been doing at night before this strange ritual started. Rather he went back to the cave mouth and pulled several twigs, with blackened ends, out of the dying consuming heat god and carried them into the back chamber.

He did this for four days. And I was afraid that he had gone mad.

And the more I thought about it and the longer he did it the more sure I was that he had lost his mind and that something terrible was happening back there in that forbidden chamber, something deadly. My worst fears were realized the night he came to me and I woke with the fingers of one of his hands before my face. They were dripping in a bloody-red fluid. I sat up and screamed, knowing my time had come.

Big Stick looked surprised and then concerned. And then when he saw the blood red dripping off his fingers, he laughed and wiped his fingers on the sharp teeth monster hide. Then he stood and picked me up in his arms and carried me toward the back chamber.

I cried and whimpered, not wanting this to be my day, not wanting now to leave him. Not knowing how I had displeased him. I was beside myself in wanting another chance to please him and stay as we were before these four chilling days.

When he carried me into the back chamber, though, my eyes opened in wonder and awe. The staff tipped with the angry consuming heat god was wedged into the rock wall and was sending light reflecting all over a chamber slightly smaller than the one at the cave entrance but with much thicker veins of the sparkling earth between the white-gray rock.

That's not what caught my attention, though. The inside walls of the cave were covered with wondrous, colored scenes of animals and men in motion. Literally all of the walls were alive with action, depicting the lives of the Meateater Sharpspears. The paint—in rich reds, and browns, and yellow and defined by tracings in black—on the wall beside the lighted staff, however, was still wet.

Big Stick set me down on the rock floor of the cave, and I slowly approached this obviously still-unfolding scene. I knew now what all of the ritual was about. Big Stick was creating a scene on the walls of this inner room. And not just any scene. He was a master depicter. I could clearly see that he was painting our life together from the scene of his having taken me—saving me, I now knew—to our first breeding and the attack of the two Meateaters and his learning of what I could eat and our trip to the outside world for our food—and for the colors he was painting with. And I could see now, looking down at the lumps of moss with paint on them, for the brushes. The twigs with the blackened ends were there, obviously used for the outlining.

And, in the last frame, still being painted, appeared the gigantically big Meateater Sharpspear and the small one of the Gentle People—joined as one, contentment on their faces. He had the smiles on the faces of both outlined with the charcoal but not yet colored in.

I saw that there was another fur-covered pallet in this room, and I turned and pressed on Big Stick's chest until he realized that I wanted him to lie on the pallet on his back. He smiled as he laid down. I didn't have to prepare either his or my penetrators—I had realized days ago that we needed only to be in close proximity to both be ready for the breeding. And then I mounted his penetrator with my channel and rode him into the starry heavens, my eyes feasting on the magnificence of his wall paintings and wondering what this new, strange, happy feeling of belonging and wanting meant. But knowing without a doubt that the feeling was one I wanted to keep and that it all centered on this big man I was filled with—my Big Stick.

Chapter Three: Early Time

I stuck to my promise never to go from the cave alone. My promise, however, crumbled into many pieces—and not because of anything I could have helped. One time Big Stick left the cave to gather food, and he did not come back. We already needed food badly when he left. He waited until he could wait no longer, showing that he did not want to leave me but could not take me with him—that there was trouble on the air in the land of the Sharpspears. He knew that bands of the Yellow People had been coming into the land and that there was war upon our world.

But at last he had to go—and because of the danger abroad, he refused to take me with him.

And then he didn't return.

When I could bear the hunger—and, yes, the sense of grief—no longer, I left the cave myself and climbed down the cliff face into the forest below. I cannot say that I cared whether I lived or died at that point, but my hunger had overpowered my willingness to starve myself to death in mourning for my lost Big Stick—for I did believe he had died. I could not think that he would stay away from me for any other reason.

I immediately fell into trouble. I had no sooner started off into the forest than I heard thrashing about. They came close enough that I could smell them. Meateaters. A band of Sharpspears. I moved away from them—only to come close to another band of them. Turning again and then a third time—helped by my hunger—made me lose my sense of where I was.

I kept moving. I did manage to find food and water, but then I heard a band of Meateaters nearby again—very close—and I just turned and slipped away. I walked and walked, without knowing where I was going. When I eventually came to a clearing, I saw that I had moved very close to the land that rose up sharply to meet the sky.

I heard voices, but they weren't the primitive grunts of the Sharpspears. It was some sort of language—some means of way of making each other understand by sounds they made with their mouths—but it wasn't the language of the Gentle People either. It was more complex, and it was spoken in differing tones, almost sing song. Strangely, though, it was harsh as well as sing song. Curiosity got the best of me, and I moved as quietly as I could across the clearing to a fringe of trees on the other side. The forest wasn't thick here, though. There was another clearing beyond—a strange clearing, as it was really like a path, but much wider than ones the Gentle People made between their village and field.

And when I got to where I could see who was making the harsh sing-song noises, I was amazed—and numb in shock. There was some sort of wooden cart on the cleared path. It had round circles of wood at its corners that raised its platform off the ground. At the near end of this cart was a long wood stick that curved up. A strange-looking man—yellow skinned and slanty eyed—stood near the cart. He had a thing, such as the Gentle People wore, covering his tube, but it was dirty, and he was standing this side of the cart. He had a wooden yoke around his neck and his wrists were bound to the end of this on both sides. There was another yoke beside him, but it was on the ground. Tied to it and also lying on the ground was another man such as the first. A third man, covered in a white cloth, also yellow skinned and slanty eyed, was standing beside these two and was beating the man on the ground with a whip.

I should have turned and fled. But even if I had, I would have run into the small party of other yellow-skinned, slanty-eyed men who were stealing in behind me.

As, yoked to the wagon and straining along with the other man to pull the cart up the side of the land reaching for the sky, I tried to think on what was happening to me and why I was here, I chose to think that it didn't matter. Big Stick had not come back. I had willed myself to be no more. The pain and strain of pulling this cart—and knowing that another had died in this yoke before me—spelled my fate well enough.

On the other side of the mountain, I was astonished to find new wonders. The Yellow People sheltered not in the forest under branches, nor in a cave, nor even in the grass piles of the Gentle People. Their shelters were made of wood and were squared off in neat four-sided bundles.

I didn't live in one of these shelters, though. And the only times I went in one was when the man with the whip pulled me into one and slapped my thighs open and made groaning sport of my hole with his penetrator—which gave me no problem, his being much smaller than that of Big Stick.

Where I was sheltered was under a tree, tied by leather strips to the trunk of the tree. There weren't even low branches for me to hide from the rain and sun under. Whereas the Yellow People lived in wooden shelters—and had mastered the leaping, hot flickering fingers that warmed within rock containers inside these wooden shelters—I was sheltered no better than I had been when living among the Others. Much worse.

For untold changes of light to dark and back to light, when I was nudged awake in the dark, I would be handed a bowl with sticky and watery grains of white food in it. Happily, no one of the Yellow People tried to make me eat meat, although they themselves ate fish from the waters. Then, before light returned, I was herded with others, some Yellow People, some Sharpspears, but all as enslaved as I was, out into a water-covered field, where I soon learned along with the others how to work with growing and dividing and growing the white sticky grains that I was given to eat. They were filling, though, so I could not be sad about that.

During my time with the Yellow People, I slowly began to understand that the sounds they made had meanings and to learn what some of these meanings were. I never, however, was able to make those sounds myself. There were just too many of them and they were too complex—and the Yellow People sang them just too quickly. I was awed, though, that these people not only had fields of food plants they laid out nearly like those of the Gentle People, but also that they had wooden shelters for themselves and carts that moved over the ground and a way to move many thoughts and meanings to each other.

As the world became cooler again in another cycle, the water was drained from the fields and we harvested the grains, which were put in tightly woven baskets and loaded onto the cart with the wood circles at the corners.

Then, once again, I found myself bound to the yoke of this cart—for that was what it was, a land vessel to carry the baskets of sticky white grains—and I was helping to pull the cart back up the side of the land reaching for the sky. This was only slightly less backbreaking than trying to keep the cart from running over and crushing me on the way back down the other side.

We seemed to be moving on the same wide path where I had first encountered the Yellow People, and pushing toward the ribbon of sand that ran into the broad sea stretching to the horizon where the first light after the dark rose in an eye-torturing disk.

We were struggling along, with the man with the whip jabbering harsh sounds at us and flicking us when we weren't moving fast enough, when he stopped jabbering in a gurgling sound. I looked around in time to see him crumple to the ground with a pointed stick running completely through his chest and out his backside.

Sticks were flying all around us, and the other Yellow People, who had been walking around the line of carts that others like me were pulling, began falling down or turning this way and that with their own pointed stakes at the defensive.

I have no idea how long this went on, because I felt a stinging pain in my shoulder and looked down in surprise to find that I too had been struck through with a pointed stick. I went down like a rock, with my last feeling being of rolling down between the two circles of wood at the front of the cart I had been pulling.

When I woke, I was feverish and sensed that I was jabbering in some variation of the Yellow People's language. My arm, which was covered in leaves, felt like it was too hot for me to bear, and my eyes could not focus.

Through a cloud, I saw a huge body of a male leaning over me, lifting my head and pouring water into my mouth from a soaked piece of white cloth. Not knowing what I was doing, I had the vision of the white cloth being just like that which covered the Yellow People. Only later, when I was more aware, did I find out that this was exactly what it was.

I knew that the man giving me the water was a Meateater Sharpspear. As a habit, this realization caused me to painfully open my thighs, ready to receive him. That could be the only purpose for him trying to revive me.

Later—I know not how long ago later—I opened my eyes gain. The fever was gone, and my vision was clear—or at least not nearly as cloudy as it had been before. I saw that I was in a cave and I was alone, although I heard grunting and humming sounds coming from the dark recesses of the cave.

I dragged myself to a sitting position and winced at the pain in my shoulder. But I saw that the leaves were the right ones—the ones that would pull any poison from the pointed stick out of me and would help heal the wound.

I was in pain, but it was not too bad. And the pain told me that I was alive. That in itself was a surprise—whether a good surprise or a bad one I did not know.

I managed to get up on my feet. I would have moved better on all fours, except that the pain was less on my shoulder when I stood. There was a thick stick near the mat I was on and I used it as a crutch.

I moved slowly, but deliberately, toward the back of the cave, toward where I heard the sounds of a man coming from. I could see that it would be no use moving toward the mouth of the cave. Its floor was not at ground level. Beyond the ledge outside the cave, I could see the tops of trees. I would never escape that way.