The Dog Master: A Novel of the First Dog

  Urs watched her, the slight wind blowing her hair. She was not much different than the first time they went upstream together, into forbidden territory, forbidden passion. His own body had changed, marked by scars, his face weathered, but Calli remained a beauty.

  She caught the way he was looking at her. She had influence with this man, she realized, and she needed to use it. “Then I have an idea. Something to spare my son the humiliation of living in the Kindred as a permanent child, without a purpose. And you must do this for me, Urs, this one kindness, as amends for vowing to marry me and then abandoning your vow and putting lie to your words. Do this, and I forgive you. Deny me this, and I will never speak to you again.”

  Urs was thunderstruck. “But Calli, I told you at the time, I had no choice, it was arranged…” He trailed off, helpless before her hard expression.

  “You broke your vow and now you must make amends. Will you do it, or not?”

  Urs raised his hands, then let them fall helplessly. “What is it you would have me do?” he asked.

  * * *

  Mal lay in the dirt where his father had knocked him down. The blood in his mouth was thick. He looked up and Palloc was standing there panting, fists clenched.

  It did not seem that another kick was coming. Mal pulled himself up, struggling into a standing position. His mouth did not even hurt, he realized. His ribs ached, but his face felt numb.

  “Fa—” Mal croaked. The word stuck in his throat, tripped up by his bloody lips.

  “What did you say?” Palloc demanded.

  Mal spat in the dirt. “Father,” he whispered defiantly.

  The moment he said it, he was sorry he did, did not know why he did, but the word was out and Palloc’s eyes widened and then narrowed. Mal ducked his head and raised his arms as his father hit him savagely in the ribs with his fists.

  “Stop!”

  It was Dog, marching toward them. Mal was doubled at the waist, dribbling more blood, feeling oddly like crying now that his big brother had arrived.

  Palloc watched Dog approach with contempt in his eyes. “This is not your business,” he said. “Go back to kissing your girl.”

  Dog did not even slow down. He walked straight up to Palloc and punched him hard on the shoulders with both fists, knocking him back. Palloc was too surprised to do anything but stumble. “What—” he started to say. Dog kept walking and shoved him again and this time Palloc fell, staring up at Dog looming over him.

  “There is no fighting among the hunt,” Palloc protested, still lying there.

  “Get up, and we will see about that,” Dog replied, his eyes cold.

  “This is a family matter. I am applying discipline.”

  “This is a family matter,” Dog agreed. “And I, too, am applying discipline. If you ever touch my brother again, I will beat you until your broken ribs protrude from your sides. Do you understand the discipline? Unless you want to stand up and finish it now. I am ready now.”

  “That is against the rules of the hunt,” Palloc insisted.

  “Stand up and fight and then let us see what is our punishment,” Dog suggested. “Perhaps I will be forced to stay with the women for the summer, serving you soup while your broken bones heal.”

  Palloc did not reply. He looked away. Dog turned to his brother. “Are you badly hurt?”

  Mal drew himself up again. This time, when he spat, it was more for dramatic effect. “No. He could not hurt me. He hits like a girl.”

  Dog looked at his bleeding brother and a small smile came to his face. “You are a hard stone, Mal.”

  Palloc crawled a few feet and then stood and left with a haughty set to his shoulders. Dog put an arm around Mal, and Mal grinned through bloody teeth. Brother to one of the most beloved men in the tribe, Mal felt accepted and normal, a man in all but formal name, soon to join the hunt and contribute to the Kindred.

  * * *

  Three children were in their third summer and were named by the eldest woman in the family—all boys, which was seen by all as a good omen for the tribe. No one mentioned the lone girl, Renne’s child, who had come down with a fever and died over the winter, but Coco, who had lost three children in such a fashion in her own life, sat with Renne and squeezed her hand.

  After the naming, Urs stood to announce the hunting assignments for the fourteen-year-olds. Calli drew in a breath, nervous despite the bargain she had struck with the hunt master. Her eyes sought out Valid, and the smile he gave her was calming.

  “The way of the hunt is to stalk the prey, to spear the prey, and then to cook what we need and bring the rest back to the Kindred,” Urs began ritualistically. “Today we invite a new stalker into the hunt. Markus, please come forward. A man of the hunt, stalking man—stalker.”

  Markus stood, clearly unhappy. Stalker was a far less admired position than spearman. Nonetheless, he stood and faced the Kindred, all of whom applauded. Soon the men would line up and, one by one, welcome the new hunter to manhood.

  “When a powerful arm is needed, our new man of the hunt, man of the spear, will be there,” Urs intoned. “Vinco, spearing man, come forward.”

  Vinco bounded up to stand next to Markus, grinning at the applause.

  Then a hush fell on the Kindred, a hush that seemed to carry a small dread in its silence. There was one adolescent left. People darted glances at Mal, who was sitting next to his mother.

  Urs took a deep breath. “When we cook our kill so that we have the strength to hunt and to return to the Kindred, our fire is made from the smoking horn that one of us wears. Always in the past, this horn has been packed by the fire maker.” Urs nodded at Bellu, who nodded back, looking ready to weep because her dead son, Salu, would have been named to the hunt today. “But now we have a situation where the fire maker is also the council mother. It is not a good…,” Urs searched for a word. “Thing,” he finally came out with, “for the council mother to make the fire horn.” Urs threw a glance at Calli. “We need a male to prepare the fire for the hunt. Not to go with us, but to make sure the hunt is properly outfitted, the way the tool master is a man who makes our spears. Mal, step forward.”

  Mal had been following Urs’s rambling speech with growing alarm, and now he stared with disbelief. Numbly, he stood, searching for Dog with his eyes.

  “Mal, you will be our fire…” Urs faltered. “Our fire boy,” he finally finished.

  Mal flinched. He did not see his mother behind him, glaring angrily at Urs.

  The applause was loudest for Mal, perhaps because everyone was relieved that Urs had so wisely found a solution to the problem that had been worrying them all.

  People were standing and heading back to their fires. Vinco and Markus were already on the men’s side—traditionally, a new hunter slept there his first night. The men were queued up in a single file line to give Vinco and Markus their formal welcome.

  Calli caught Urs as he was trying to slide away to the men’s side.

  “Fire boy?” she hissed at him. “You were to make him a man.”

  “I just could not … it did not sound right.”

  “Did not sound right?” she demanded incredulously. “You denied him a man’s place because of the sound of it?”

  “A man has to be in the hunt, Calli. I am sorry, but that is how it must be. He cannot hunt. He has an important job, as you asked of me, but nothing I can say or do can ever give him a good leg, and without two strong legs, he is not a man.”

  “No,” Calli snarled, her eyes down to slits. “You are not a man, Urs. A man keeps his vow, and when he breaks it and promises amends and then breaks that promise, he is shameful and weak. You betray me because all you care about is being hunt master. Because you like the way it sounds.”

  * * *

  Mal was waiting for Calli at their family fire. “You did this,” he accused.

  Calli bit her lip. “Mal, I am sorry.”

  “Where am I going to sleep tonight? I cannot sleep on the men’s side, because I am a boy, t
he fire boy. But now I have been given a job, so I cannot sleep here, with my mother, like a child, can I?” Mal sneered. “And can I now marry? Have my own family? No, because I am a boy.”

  “You are right,” Calli said. “This is not the honor you deserve.”

  “It is because of my leg! Everyone hates me because of my leg!” his voice filled with anguish, his face red. “It is a curse. It has ruined everything!”

  “They do not hate you,” Calli replied faintly, wishing it were true.

  “I should go.” Mal turned and stared out into the darkness, as if contemplating spending the night away from the protection of the tribe.

  “Perhaps you should,” Calli said.

  Mal whipped back around and stared at her with wide eyes. “What did you say?”

  “Mal … The father of Ema, the girl with the, with the arm, the Blanc Tribe. He came to me and suggested you might live with them.”

  “With them?” Mal repeated, dumbfounded.

  “That you might take Ema. As your wife. And live with them. They have no history with you. They have never heard of Albi’s curse, any of that calumny. They only know that Ema needs a husband.”

  Mal remembered Ema kissing him, the shock and the pleasure of it. He regarded his mother blankly. “But I am in love with Lyra,” he objected.

  “If only it were that simple. If only it were about love. But Mal, the council will never let you marry Lyra.”

  “Why would it stop us? We are in love!” he insisted.

  For a moment all Calli could do was stand there and remember mating with Urs, thinking, He loves me, he loves me, when the heartbreaking truth was that it was probably never true, never true at all. The illusion, the story she told herself, had been the most sweetly satisfying thing in her life. Should she really deny Mal the joy that came with such jubilant delusion? Her vision focused on Mal’s tormented face.

  “Mal. Are you sure Lyra feels this way, too? Has she told you this?”

  “She does not have to, Mother. I know the truth of it. She spends all of her time with me. We laugh together.”

  “And Dog,” Calli added softly, committing herself. It sickened her, what she was about to do, but she needed him to see that the arrangement with Ema was the absolute best for him.

  “What?”

  “You spend all of your time with Lyra and Dog.”

  “Yes, my brother is my best friend in the Kindred.”

  “And you are sure that it is you that Lyra is spending her time with, when it is the three of you. That she is with you—and Dog—because she loves you.”

  Mal looked horrified. “No,” he whispered. “You are wrong.”

  “When we visit the Blanc Tribe this next winter, why not consider staying with them,” Calli urged gently. “Spend time with Ema, and learn their ways.” She wiped her eyes. “You could stand in the water, your powerful spear…”

  “You are wrong, Mother. Lyra loves me. She loves me!”

  FORTY

  Dog came upon Lyra sitting on a rock by the Kindred Stream. “Well good summer, Lyra! I did not know you were here,” he hailed her, smiling broadly.

  “Why did you come here, then?” she replied.

  Dog’s habitual grin slipped a little. Though he was seventeen and a member of the hunt, this girl just three and a half years younger always seemed to confound him. “I was just seeking a drink of water,” he finally explained unconvincingly.

  “Pretty far to come just for a drink,” she observed. “Are you sure you did not want to see me?”

  “No, of course,” Dog answered.

  “I am not at all sure what you mean by that statement,” Lyra returned lightly. “Of course, or of course not?”

  “I mean yes, of course not.”

  Lyra laughed. “Where is Mal today?” she inquired, looking past Dog as if expecting his brother to be shadowing him.

  Dog’s face fell a little. “He is not doing well with being made fire boy. He sleeps off by himself and does not speak to me.”

  “It is not your fault, Dog. You cannot protect him from everything,” Lyra said softly.

  Dog grunted, hearing the truth in her words. “Someday, though,” he started to say, and then broke it off.

  Lyra gave him a speculative look. “They do say you are our best hunter. Someday, you may well be hunt master, and then your brother will finally be able to take his place with the men.”

  Dog was nonplussed at her correct reading of him. She smiled at his expression, then stood and gestured to her garments. “What do you think?”

  She wore a light tunic made from reindeer skin, exposing her bare arms, which had tanned from the summer sun. As she posed with her hands on her hips, Dog could see that she had tied small bits of leather thong to the front of it, the hide pierced and gathered at each knot.

  The design was eye-catching and unique. Each knot was the same distance from the one before it—five across, and five down. For Dog, accustomed to the sprawling chaos of nature’s constructions, such uniformity was nothing short of astounding. He simply had no words for what he was seeing. “They are … I have never seen such a thing. What do you call it?”

  Lyra cocked her head at him. “Call it? I am not sure. What do you say when the reindeer return to the same place every year?”

  “We say … it is a habitual pattern,” Dog replied.

  “Just so. This is a pattern, then.”

  “It is very pretty.”

  “Pretty?” Lyra raised her eyes at him. “A bold thing for you to say to me.”

  “What? No, I just meant to compliment you.”

  “That is why you sought me out, to compliment me,” Lyra noted. “All is good.”

  Dog was blushing furiously. “That is not what I meant.”

  “You are a man.” Lyra gazed up at him. “The tallest of the Kindred, everyone says.”

  Dog drew himself up. “Thank you.”

  “Oh,” Lyra laughed, “was that a compliment?”

  “This conversation is following a pattern,” Dog replied. “This is how we always talk to each other.”

  They held each other’s eyes for a moment, smiling over something shared. “So as a man, do you believe you will soon be married?” Lyra finally asked. Then she laughed at Dog’s startled reaction. “I am sorry, did I alter the habitual pattern of our conversation?”

  “The council has not yet said anything to me about marriage.”

  “So that is why you came to gift compliments upon me,” Lyra speculated.

  “I thought we said you would compliment me.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “Do?”

  “I am not yet a woman.”

  “I am not able to track the pattern of our conversation.”

  “No, I am serious now, Dog.” Lyra gazed at him levelly. “Have you thought about the problem? I am not a woman so the council cannot propose me as a wife. Are you willing to wait for me?”

  “I just came for a drink of water!”

  “Dog. Will you wait?”

  “Why,” he asked plaintively, “cannot the council just declare you to be a woman now?”

  Lyra threw back her head and laughed. “That is not how it works. Do you seriously not know?”

  “Not know what?”

  “This is a topic for you to bring up with your mother. I am not going to tell you.”

  “When boys turn fourteen summers, they are named to the hunt as men,” Dog insisted stubbornly. “It does not matter if they have no beard. Most, in fact, do not. But they are deemed old enough. I do not understand why women do not adopt this sensible solution.”

  “We have a different, uh, pattern,” Lyra admitted. “We must be ready, and it is not up to any person, but rather something inside the woman herself, that determines this. So: I am not yet ready. Will you wait for me?”

  Dog nodded. “Yes, Lyra,” he replied.

  “Well, that is the right answer.” They were back to smiling at each other. “So we
cannot marry yet, but you will speak to your mother? And I will speak to mine.”

  “I may have already raised the subject.”

  Lyra’s eyes danced across Dog’s face. She held a hand up to touch his cheek. “Exactly,” she told him softly.

  * * *

  After just a few moments with Bellu, Mal could strike a spark with a single strike of the flint. Learning to pack moss and sticks into the severed tip of smoldering hollow bison horn was just as easily accomplished—and this was what Bellu was given as a full-time job? As council mother, Bellu seemed to turn to Calli for guidance whenever any sort of decision was required of her. What did Bellu do all day?

  Now that he had a job, Mal was no longer free to run around playing all day, and it gave him a new perspective on life in the Kindred camp. The pine nuts they ate in winter, of which there always seemed to be an inadequate supply, turned out to be tremendously time intensive to harvest and prepare. Mal went with his mother and several other women into the pine forests, and Calli taught him that the trees they sought had both open and closed pinecones—the open ones meant the seeds were ripe, the closed ones still had their seeds. Then the cones themselves were set out on hot rocks by the fire until they opened, and then Calli and Coco smashed the cones with rocks, so that small pieces fluttered out, each with a tiny seed. The seed itself was encased in a shell that could only be cracked with teeth. No wonder they always wound up with so few!

  As fire boy, Mal wore the horn around his neck with a loop of leather, or carried it in his hand by the strap. Every so often he would blow into the wide end of the horn to assure the fire was still smoldering, and he fed in tiny sticks and more dried moss whenever it seemed appropriate.

  If any of the boys he ran with knew that his job entailed “finding moss” he would be completely humiliated. The term was fraught with significance and was even considered something of an insult—young boys often accused each other of having to go find moss without have the slightest idea what it meant.

  The whole fire boy thing was a colossal exercise in nonnecessity. There were fires burning all over the Kindred encampment. Even a drenching rainstorm would leave some coals. And the hunt always carried some of these fire horns with them, assigning them to the most junior members.