Shaman

  He went down and drank from the creek, foraged for more firewood, hefted and carried back a big chunk of old log that would help keep the fire going, becoming first its roof and then part of the ember bed.

  Then it was time to find more food. He walked over to the meadow, looking for prints or scat or other sign, maybe a place for a snare. Snares were best when made of hide thongs. Bark ropes were not often strong enough. On the way past the meadow outlet, he removed the upper dam on the creek, checked and saw there were no fish in last meander to scare, so he continued across the meadow, avoiding the old snow. There were watering spots on the banksides there, with many animals’ prints, but they tended to be open places, and a snare would be hard to hide. He needed a tight passage between bushes, so that an animal scared away from water would perhaps rush through the passage without looking. Eventually he found such a place. The material of the snare itself remained a problem. He went to an alder with his choprock and cut a number of switches, flexible and strong and long, and split their ends and braided them together in a triple weave. These tied low above the ground could serve as a snag that might trip a young deer or goat. It was the best he could do that morning, so he laboriously set up the snare between the two bushes. If it even tripped a small beast while he was watching, that would give him time to leap on it. He would have to lie in wait and be there when it happened, or whoever got caught in it would thrash its way free. He would return at sundown, then, and hope to scare a drinking deer into a dash.

  When the snare was as good as he could make it, he walked back toward the fire looking for good throwing rocks. Even a snow hare or a grouse would be very welcome. When he had two good rocks, he foraged up the sunrise slope of the valley, looking for more of the previous year’s berries on the ground. He saw some mistletoe up in a bare-branched tree and considered climbing to it and chewing its white berries; this would make a sticky stuff that could be stranded between branches to catch small birds sticking to it. But there were no small birds yet. He came on a blackberry bramble, and while eating some old dead berries also swallowed some little white mushrooms he knew to be safe. Then he hurried back to see how the fire was going.

  The fire was fine, and he placed another log on it and went out again in the other direction. Downstream, Lower Valley deepened but did not get wider, and its east ridge gapped where Lower’s Upper dropped into it. Lower’s Upper was a higher canyon leading northeast. Where the east ridge rose again, beyond that gap, a tall rock called the Skelk’s Antler overlooked a short broad cliff. Below the cliff a steep forested slope dropped to Lower Valley creek, still mostly snow-floored.

  Loon headed down to the confluence of Lower Creek and Lower’s Upper, where a little frozen flat above an alder brake might have something interesting on it. There would surely be tracks.

  A crashing among the trees on the slope froze him in place, and he was perfectly still when a young doe burst out of the trees up there, pursued by two brown bears. The doe had a broken rear left shank, and three-pointed down the slope slower than usual. The lead bear on the other hand ran downhill with startling speed, and caught up to the doe and knocked her to the ground and went for the throat like a wolf. Loon had seen other bears bite down on the back of the neck, like a cat. But bears would do anything. They were almost like humans in that way, which made sense, given that they had been human in the old time. And they still looked human: big dangerous people in furs.

  Loon stayed still, watched the first bear take a few bites of the deer’s throat and lick up the blood. Loon’s mouth was watering as he watched. The deer was still shuddering through its death; bears had no regard for propriety when it came to that.

  Then the other bear attacked the first one from behind. Two young males, Loon saw, now fighting, mostly with ferocious snarls and swipes that did no damage. It looked like the continuation of some ongoing fight. They were totally oblivious to anything else, so Loon threw his two rocks at them, and hit both. They were startled by the sudden pain out of nowhere and ran off together into the trees without looking around. After that it sounded like they were fighting each other still.

  Loon ran hard to the deer, completely intent and trying to see in all directions at once. He surely didn’t have much time before the bears came back, or someone else came along. None of the rocks lying around had edges sharp enough to skin the deer, and the first bear had only gotten started on eating it. He pulled the body onto its belly with its legs splayed out, and with a Thank you began to hammer at the rear hips with one of his throwing rocks, soon enough breaking the hip, then separating the leg from spine, and cutting skin and ligaments, smashing the joint apart with the idea that he could carry away a leg if he had to flee. For sure the smell of blood was on the wind, which was blowing upcanyon.

  He was still pounding away at the deer’s hip, but it was not quite free, when a movement upslope caught his eye. It was worse than bad; three lion women were there in the trees, approaching in their easy padding way.

  Loon leaped out of the little clearing and ran doubled over between trees, up the other side of the canyon and over some boulders, where he threw himself flat and tried to catch his breath without gasping.

  The lions had stopped at the deer and were sniffing it as they looked around. They knew the deer had just been killed. Loon picked up two more rocks under him. If he could get back to his fire, he could probably hold these lions off, although if they saw he was alone it would be difficult, if they wanted him; they were very good at assessing their chances in any possible hunt, and would know they could kill him if they didn’t care about first taking some punishment from thrown rocks. Lion women would run right into a rain of rocks if the notion took them. Hopefully the dead deer would take their attention, take the edge off their hunger.

  He crawled for a while on the two held rocks and his toes, like a lizard. When he was far enough away to stay out of their sight when standing, he got up and ran as quickly and quietly as he could to his fire.

  It was still burning well, banked down but ready to light any wood thrown on it. He threw on branches of all sizes to generate a quick burn, also to prepare some torches for a better defense.

  That done, he hustled back toward the kill site, but on a traverse that took him above it. An open snowy stretch on this slope gave him a view down to the little flat and the lions.

  The deer was now substantially eaten, but what remained would still be a feast to Loon, and the skin and bones very useful too. He had to be like a raven, if he could, and shit on them until they abandoned the remains, while not getting swatted out of the sky. So he slipped down the slope toward them, completely on point, skin tingling, the whole valley present to him, everything looking fine-edged and particular, as if he had become a hawk. Boulders glowed with light from within, and trees quivered and hummed on the breeze, which still flowed upcanyon.

  The lions, each one as big as a small bear, now lolled by the remains of the deer, cleaning their bloody muzzles with their paws like any other cat. Lions with full bellies could be driven off a kill by a rain of rocks, but usually this was done by several men also holding spears. A single man was different. The lions might decide such a presumptuous fool would make a good dessert, when they wouldn’t have bothered if they weren’t being annoyed. So it was important to gauge their mood and the bulk of their bellies, now splayed beside them like pale tan water bags. Loon stopped behind a fallen tree and watched for a while. The lions were big and beautiful, glowing with the magical presence they always had—immense cats, the same in form as the little ones that hung around camp, except these biggest ones, as heavy as two or three men, ran in packs like wolves. That was an awesome combination, terrifying in what it meant for any other creature. Beautiful gods wandering the world, hunter gods who feared nothing.

  A rock of the right size, thrown hard and striking the head, was a terrible blow, especially coming from well above. But it was more likely he would hit them in the body, if he hit them at all. Would they then
slope off, hurt and affronted, or would they charge to kill the nuisance? This was not a question he could get wrong.

  For a long time he waited and watched the lion women groom themselves. Certainly they were among the most beautiful of animals, one of the nine sacred creatures, and how could it be otherwise? What living creature could be more godlike, with their indolent grace and murderous power, their feline wolfishness? The way they looked around with their black tear streaks dripping away from their eyes like festival paint; the way their gaze would come to rest on you, and you would quail and shrink; no, there was nothing like it. They could kill anything they wanted to.

  This time, one of them got up after a while and wandered down to the creek to drink, and the others followed. Thus they were now some distance away. Loon judged the distance sufficient, and dashed down and chopped free the sad remnant of the leg he had intended to take originally, also with a great two-handed blow he severed the chewed head, then he grabbed both up and ran back up the canyon all the way to his fire, fast enough to sweat and gasp most of the way. When he got to his camp his heart was pounding hard.

  He built up his fire again, and through the rest of that day and well into the dusk, he chopped and pulled the skin and ligaments away from the deer’s leg, roasting and eating scraps of meat as he worked. When the leg was completely broken down, he moved on to the head, and feasted on the remnant of the tongue, the brains, the fat pads behind the eyes, and the jaw meat. The leg skin and its bone and ligaments he took down to the stream and washed, working by the light of the bowl moon, third night of the month. He took it all back to the fire to dry, hoping these parts would not be attractive enough to bring in any nocturnal scavengers big enough to challenge him.

  Again he built up the fire enough that it would last till midnight, and slipped under his branch blanket with the deer bits right next to him and the patch of leg skin as his pillow, its short hair soft against the side of his face. He rested then in his spruce bed and felt how full he was, how tired. It was the feeling of a good day; but he was uneasy, too, when he thought about falling asleep with no one else to keep watch over him. Those lions were out there somewhere, and they hunted at night. They would know what the fire was if they saw it or smelled it. But he was too tired to stay up all night. Sleep kept flickering out of the fire and washing over him. He could not resist it, but only gave a last order to his inner eye, to stay open and on guard. He slipped under with a rock in his hand.

  That night in his dreams the lion women were hunting him, and he woke groaning several times, feeling the dread of that. When dawn finally grayed the sky he felt like he hadn’t slept at all. He was sandy-eyed, and hungrier than ever.

  There were new heavy clouds to the west, briefly pinked by sunrise, coming in on a new wind. Another storm, maybe. Third day of his wander, second storm. But he could stay by his fire through this one and work up the deerskin scraps into some clothes and kit.

  So, back out into the cold. In the rocks bordering the creek he found a squarish block of flint that would serve as a source for blades and points and choppers. For a knapper he chose a big long chunk of chert. He carried these rocks back to the fire, and then went to the creek’s meadow outlet. There were trout again under the bank at the curve, so he took off his leggings and splashed in and scared them downstream, then reconstructed the upper dam. He clambered over the dam into his little fish pen and patiently scooped four fish onto the bank, growling wolfishly as each one flew up in a sploosh of water to flop out its life. Cooked trout; and this time he was going to add some meadow onions he had seen sticking out of the melting snow at the upper end of the meadow. They would accompany every bite of trout. His mouth watered, his stomach pinched. He went to the patch of meadow onions and dug up some bulbs using the deer’s leg bone, then returned to the fire and ate the four fish with the onions. He emptied the fish guts and cooked them on the embers and ate them too when they were black; they were a bit grainy, but good.

  When he was done he took the rocks he had collected and found a flat bedrock to work on. Every strike of knapper against flint he performed with the utmost care; he couldn’t afford to have a smashed finger this fortnight. With that extra caution the knapping didn’t go particularly well, as he was striking small and mashing flakes off. But eventually he cleanly knapped some rough blades, and one was right enough to hold in his hand and slice the deerskin. Even uncured the skin would be strong and flexible. He wanted some of it to make a proper belt to hang his leggings and crotch strap from, because what he had for a belt and ties would soon break and the leggings fall down. Other than that the cedar bark weave was holding up pretty well. A good belt would have a fold in it too, which he could use to wrap and carry his kit in. Not that he had much of a kit.

  Slowly he cut strips of skin. When he had made a good belt and replaced his cedar one with it, he tied two scrap strips together to make a necklace, then punched three holes through the strip with a sharp point of flint, so he could fit some of the deer’s teeth through the holes. This was not a good design for a necklace meant to last, but it was something he could make now with what he had. If the chance came later to make a better necklace, he would, but at least he had this one, if that chance never came. He wanted to return to his pack looking as good as he could.

  The next morning he woke before dawn and considered the possibility that the lions might track him by his scent, or by blood that had dripped from the deer parts. It was also true that his grove was running out of easy firewood. It would be safer to move. The storm seemed gone for now, the western sky only lightly clouded. So he slipped out of his tuck to see if anything was drinking in the meadow where he had set his snare.

  There was; a young ibex was standing in the shallows. Loon crawled to the side of the meadow opposite the snare, then jumped to his feet and shouted. The ibex leaped at the sound and charged right up the passage between bushes, hit the snare and staggered, then burst through the ropes and bolted away, leaping right up the steep rock side of the valley. She didn’t stop until she was high on the slope, pronging upward from rock to rock in leaps that only an ibex could perform. Far above she turned to look down at him, offended; shook her head, as if dismissing Loon’s plan for her; hopped in another quick prong up, and disappeared over the ridge. Rockdancer indeed.

  Loon found a stone resting in his hand. There hadn’t been time to throw it. It was very hard to make a good snare without leather ropes. This one had always been a long throw.

  You can only kill disappointment with a new try.

  He went out to scout a new camp. He knew the area pretty well; they had crisscrossed it many times when out on the hunt. At the upper end of Lower’s Upper, its creek passed through a draw and entered a high basin called Hill In the Middle, where the creek split and ran around both sides of a rounded hill that was as tall as the basin’s ridges. The east ridge of this high canyon was an edge of the uplands, the west ridge dropped to a shallow valley rising farther west, up toward the ice caps. In terms of camping suitability, the creekbeds had the trees, but also the hunting animals. Possibly some kind of protected nook high on the valley walls would be better, or even a point on a ridge, overlooking a confluence. With a fire it would be impossible to hide, unless he were to find a perfect cave. The cliffs in the area were dotted with caves, but they were for the most part known, and used by both people and animals. Finding an unknown one did not seem too likely. And a big fire was his best defense, really. So, best perhaps to get a bit of height above a confluence; or head to the top of a drainage, the steeper the better, and camp in the highest copse of trees, as the place that would get the least passthrough.

  He fed his fire with a big section of dry log, then took off at a fast pace, watching his footwork carefully. He was on the hunt, skin tingling, everything big and sharp in his eye, be it ever so far away. Up the frozen creek of Lower’s Upper, staying clear of the bramble beds to both sides of a small icy waterfall, trying as he climbed to imitate the smooth flow o
f the ibex who had scorned him. Help me up, sister, make me a rockdancer. The creek lay back, and a small line of trees led to a copse under the headwall, thickest around a spring, with a flat spot overlooking the spring. Lots of downed wood, not too much snow or damp. Black spruce and bush pine for the most part, both good burners if the wood was seasoned. Quickly he searched the copse and assembled on a flat rock over the spring a pile of firewood and a mass of twigs. He even set a ring of stones and the first twig stack, with a hole for his arm to reach in to place the live ember on the flat stone in the center. All very welcoming.

  Then he ran back to his old site, pacing himself to what Thorn called active rest, and gathered up into the flap of his new deerskin belt all the little things he wanted to take. He built up his fire one last time, ate some meadow onions, then coaxed a glowing pine branch, burnt through but otherwise whole and entire, out of the fire onto the ground next to it. With his choprock he broke off a piece of this ember branch about twice as long as it was wide, and pinching the yellow piece between two rocks, he placed it on a handful of fresh spruce needles, then wrapped this hissing mass into a ball and put it inside a hollowed burl he had found. Shells from the great salt sea were best for carrying embers, but those were rare, and always owned by women. Women were as good with fire as men were, and better at moving a fire from camp to camp. But his mass of needles in a burl was pretty good for a fix-up; he could hold it in one hand, keep a throwing rock in the other, and carry his fire kit and the remnants of the deer in his belt flap.

  Off he ran to his new camp, pushing the pace hard this time. Every step had to be watched into its place. Overhead giant white clouds floated east on a mild breeze. It was cool in the sunlight, chill in the shade. A perfect day for moving camp.