The Mantooth
'Aren't you afraid---'
'Tonight you have to be afraid of me. Now go wash yourself, before Ido it for you.'
He went to the basin, and as the water splashed across him, felt bothbody and spirit cleansed. From here forward, he vowed, he would chooselife over spiritual death, love over fear. This life was the only onehe knew, his mind and heart the only guides he would ever have in it.And as he half-tearfully dried himself, he felt moved as he rarely hadbeen. He went down on his knees, clutched his hands before him, andsaid to the nameless God.
'Thank you for my life.'
Again the two made love, and for Kalus the beauty and release were noless than on their first such communion. Sylviana knew only warmth andpleasure and affection, and as she drew him near, rejoiced to feel thelife and strength that were in him, even now.
And in the heart and essence of their love, was the essence of true God:the Universal, and unnamable spirit within all Life.
Chapter 29
The tiger padded silently through the forest, eyes and ears keen for anysign of game. The hunger in his stomach drove him, as well as thehunger of his heart. His hind leg, he knew, was not up to an extendedchase. But stalk he could, and hunt he must. The man-child fed him andgave him shelter, but more and more his restlessness grew. For he was acreature of the wild forests, and he heard their primal call. Even now,amidst the cover of thickening pine and mottled oak, he felt yet tooexposed, and longed to plunge into some limitless wood where clearingand field were the exception, and not the rule. Such a place had oncebeen his home, and must be again.
A black bear he had already passed, but this was neither prey nor foe.If it had confronted him he would have fought it, and almost surely havewon. Yet he was glad when it saw him coming and moved away. Thisforest was not his: there was no need to stake a claim. And seeing ithe recalled his fight with the grizzly, when in youthful ignorance hehad stood his ground against a more powerful foe, then been a step tooslow, or too proud, in retreating.
It had nearly cost him his life, as wounded and almost lame he had beenpursued by the raging beast for miles on end. In his crippled state hecould barely keep ahead of it, and this seemed to goad it on. Till atlast he gained an unknown, freezing river and half stumbled, half swamhis way across it. Even now the sounds of cracking ice, the final breakand splash into the death-like waters, swimming desperately, clawing outagain and scrambling forward..... Without his broad, padded feet tospread his weight upon the ice, without his clinging claws, alive withthe frightened desire of youth, he would surely have perished.
But now that the brush with death was past, he was not afraid. Thosewho learned fear from such a trial quickly lost the will they needed tolive. Those who learned caution and still greater determination, thesewere the hunters, the great cats who survived.
Coming to the crest of a long hill, he looked down upon a gentle valley,at the center of which lay a clearing along both sides of a swirlingstream. Just at the edge of it on the far shore, beyond which theforests rose once more to dominate, stood a tall buck and his troop,three females and their half-grown young. Engaged in eating bark andpawing through the snow for saplings, at that distance and with theireyes they could not have seen him.
Immediately he crouched, and in his wordless way, formed a plan. Thewind blew from right to left, with the stream, and to cross itsilently..... He snaked out of sight among the trees, and began todescend at an angle to his left. Coming to a place where the streambent towards him, he followed it a short way further, then quickly andquietly waded across. He heard the buck sing out as he reached thefarther shore and scrambled up, and feared that his chance was lost.But stubbornly he dove among the trees and made his swift, circling waytowards the spot.
>From ahead of him now came the sounds of conflict, a muted knocking and scraping of antlers and the angry, conch-like cries of the bull. Drawing hard upon the clearing he discovered the reason. It was not because of him that the herd-leader had spoken in warning. Another buck, younger but nearly equal in girth, had come upon him, and thought to steal away his harem. In this he was premature, since neither doe nor female fawn would be ready to mate until Spring. But such mistakes are often made, born of the cold and bitter isolation of a solitary male in Winter.
Nature plays no favorites, nor does the hungry predator. The femaleshad seen the big cat's approach, and with their young fled swiftlyand silently into the wood, leaving the two bulls locked in obliviouscombat. The tiger leapt over a fallen tree, forgetting his pain, andcharged across the open space toward them.
The herd leader saw him coming, and stepped back. The young male in hisblind fury did not, and perceiving hesitation on the part of hisopponent, thought to charge again. It was his last mistake. The tigerleapt full upon him, knocking him to the ground, and before the buckknew what had happened, his throat was held fast and his life's bloodebbing.
The herd leader turned quickly to see what had become of his charge,then with a last look at the predator and his fallen foe, moved to jointhem. He did not run blindly, nor fully turn his back. But neither didhe dare a brave show. Not for nothing had he lived to sire offspring.
The yearling stood poised above his kill, looking about him cautiously.He felt neither sadness nor elation, only the openness around him, and asullen determination not to surrender his prize. Taking it firmly bythe scruff of the neck, he dragged it back among the timbers. Liftingit across the same fallen trunk he had leapt in pursuing it, he set itto rest in the hollow just beyond, and once more looked around him. Nosight or sound broke the silence of the afterkill.
It was only then that he let himself rest, and remembered his hunger andhis pain. His leg ached dully and his muscles tried to knot. But thesecould be denied. His hunger could not. Licking a spot on the carcassas he would a bosom friend (the feelings were not dissimilar), he laydown and began to eat, and once more to feel pride and confidence in thestrength he possessed.
He had made, with help, the long climb back. He would endure.
*
Kalus stood at the beginning of the plain. In one hand he held thesnares he meant to set, but in the other was his spear, which stubbornoptimism had told him to bring. And at his feet were the tracks of thetiger. Studying them more closely, he saw that despite the sharp climbup from the gorge, there was no blood from its injured hind leg, andonly a trace of a limp. The cub sniffed at the familiar prints,recognizing their scent.
Kalus felt a sudden surge of desire. An impulse had come to him, and heacted upon it at once. Hiding his traps behind a stone, he dropped downon one knee beside the cub. With his hand he indicated the tracks, thenthe line they followed into the distance.
'Alaska. These tracks. Avatar. We follow. AVATAR.'
The cub looked back at him, confused. But after repeating the gestures,the name of the tiger, and finally, walking along its visible trail,Kalus made her understand. Nose to the ground, she began to pursue thetrail ahead of him, always urged to greater speed by her master.Together they covered the distance swiftly, running whenever the snowand his strength permitted it.
For Kalus knew the tiger had set out the night before, and he had onlythe daylight to find it.
If only its hunt had been successful.
*
It was perhaps midday when he stood at the top of the same long hill,looking down with lesser eyes upon the valley and the clearing by thestream. He had begun to despair of his chances, knowing it would takenearly the rest of the day just to make his way back to the warmth andsafety of the cave. Almost he had let the hill turn him back. But he,too, felt the stubborn need to persevere.
Here, if the read the signs right, the cat had suddenly crouched andbegun to stalk. His shielded eyes strained against the blinding white,up and down the stream, searching for any further sign. But all sucheffort was defeated by the hard glare of the noon sun. Perhaps if hemade his eyes like a quiet pool, in which any movement would be as apebble dropping int
o glassy waters.....
Movement. His eyes shifted to the source. Again. The branches of aleafless tree, no, the tree itself, moved under the weight of some largeanimal, disturbing the snow-layered pines around it. At the edge of theclearing, on the far side of the stream. A short distance in front ofit the snow had been mangled and stained, as by a recent kill.
He cut a swath straight towards it, risking much that the creature inthe tree was his own, self-named Avatar, proud hunter of the frozenwoodlands. He came to the stream, and lifting both his garments and thestartled cub, waded across. The shaking of branches had not ceased, andnow as he gained the far bank and set down the cub, a muffled growl wasadded to it. He froze, spear lifted. But the sound had been neithersudden, nor seemed in any way to correspond with his movements. And atlast, his eyes describing the scene, he lowered his spear with a surgeof pride and gratitude. It was his ally, the tiger, struggling to lifta large buck into the crotch of a trembling beech.
'Avatar!'
The great cat gave a sudden snarl, and dropping its prey, loosed itshold on the tree and leapt down to face him. All done in an instant,and with such angry determination that the man-child's eyes wentwide, and he took a step back in spite of himself.
The tiger, too, felt a moment of confusion. For here was something notstamped into the racial memory of instinct. Kalus it knew, as thecreature who fed and protected him at need. He felt an association tohim, even a kind of closeness. But he was also the first creature todisturb him at his part-eaten kill, and those feelings were strong andimmediate.
Kalus seemed to understand this, because he stood silent and made nofurther move, staying the cub, who would have stepped freely to the meather friend had provided.
The tiger looked at the tree, then at the man. He vaguely recalled hismother, coming upon the scene of another tiger's kill, and the way ithad first snarled, then yielded, allowing her to eat..... At last hesolved the puzzle. Searching the forest behind him for any sign ofdanger, he moved away from the buck and remained standing, patient butalert, leaving the other to eat his fill.
Kalus came forward steadily, and with a further greeting, began to cutaway at the untouched back legs (which a more experienced predator wouldhave eaten first, but which were ideal for his purposes). He workedhard and diligently with the hunter's knife, trying at the same timenot to jerk the carcass, which might arouse the tiger, at intervalsshooing away the cub.
He felt as he did so an almost irrational need of haste, which wentbeyond his concern for the tiger or the long journey home. He could nothave explained it. There was time to meet his ends. No, it was morethe aggressiveness of the act itself which put him on his guard. Afterso many days of caution and yielding, to have been so bold, and come tosuch a reward..... And whether superstition or sixth sense, his onedesire at that moment was to take his portion and be gone.
As the last stubborn tendon surrendered its hold of the second leg, hestraightened his back with a sudden glow of pride and happiness. Hewanted to walk right up to his companion, a thing which he had neverdone, and box his ears in relief and brotherly affection.
But in the same instant the shadow behind his fears took flesh, as witha mad crash a large grizzly split through a wall of bushes, not fortyfeet away. And as it growlingly surveyed them with but a moment'sconsideration, the tiger recognized his old enemy.
Fear rose instantly in the man-child, but stronger was his corneredrage. A mindless brute, who knew nothing of his struggles andyearnings, blindly sought to steal what had cost him so dearly, and inso doing, rend or even kill both himself and his closest companions.Knowing that to run would be the greater danger, and goaded by hispassion, he lifted his spear and cried out in fury, standing his groundand preparing for the inevitable charge. The tiger seemed to feel muchthe same emotion, for it too snarled threateningly, and even began tomove forward.
But in the dim perceptions of the monster there also burned dark fires.This land was his, as was any in which he walked, and he would not bedefied. His victory over the tiger still lived in him, and theman-child was beyond his experience. He was a prince of power, andaggression his only creed. Coming close in short, growling breaths, heraised up his quivering bulk for battle, and on his hind legs advancedtoward the tiger.
Whatever the poetic or philosophical may say, in Nature, as well as inMan's darkened nature, strength is often (and only) by corneredstrength defeated. As the full eight-foot carriage of the bear began tolower toward the mortal and extinguishable flesh of his friend, Kalusfelt the terrible white fire that lives in every creature whose dearestare threatened, take hold of him. And as the tiger drew back and raisedits extending claws in answer, he drove his spear deep into thegrizzly's brawny neck and shoulder. Nor did he draw away in the faceof its fury, but drove in against the scruff, pinning its head while thetiger's slashing blows fell unmercifully.
Pulling back the shaft as the spearhead lost its bite, he drove it thistime into the bristling shoulder, and with a strength he would not havethought in him, from both point of pain and pressure, drove the thousandpound menace onto its side.
This was all the tiger needed. Slashing and biting, braving the perilof its roaring jaws, he tore away at the vital streams of his foe untilthey spilled recklessly, and the raging heart that drove them wasbetrayed in a self-defeating carnage of red. The bear lurched forward,dying.
Kalus stepped back, panting, his heart near exploding with the effortand fear, while the tiger yet leered over his fallen enemy, unsure ofits end. Then the bear's eyes faded, and all was silence.
The cub whimpered out from its hiding place, looking to Kalus for somesign of reassurance. He knelt down and caressed her head against him,feeling much the same need himself. Then turned to face his ally,feeling a fierce kinship as deep and true as any he had everexperienced.
At last the tiger stepped back, and raising its head, gave a growl ofpride and possession that told any who cared to listen that this landwas his, and his alone. Kalus stepped back, acknowledging this, andwith a surge of bittersweet emotion, realized that his friend hadascended to the magnificent freedom of a creature of the Wild. . .butalso that it no longer needed him.
'You've done it,' he said quietly, and with such feeling thatthe pent-up emotions burst forth in a flood of tears. Then he shook offall weakness, lifted the legs of the deer, and looked one last time athis friend.
'Fly well, my Avatar. My spirit is always with you.'
Kalus turned sadly toward home, and followed by the wolf, was away.
Chapter 30
It was a quiet morning, and for the first time in weary days uncounted,a truly mild one as well. The sun shone warm and wet, there was littlebreeze, and this time, Kalus knew, it was no illusion. Winter was onthe wane. If he had possessed a calendar, the day might have beencalled March 12.
And though the inexorable changing of the seasons brought with it newconcerns and dangers, he resolved this day to feel some smallsatisfaction in his victory over the Cold World. Perhaps victory wasnot the right word, since the primal elements knew no intelligence, andfelt no pain. Still.....
Sylviana came out to join him on the ledge, which through the softeningsnow, was once more discernible as the same from which she had firstsurveyed the confines of her new existence, and the untamable world thatwas to be the only home of her adulthood. Putting her hand throughKalus' arm and nestling against him, both felt emotion stir insidethem, as sleeping dreams and fears alike, awoke to the possibilities ofthe coming Spring.
The two looked at each other. And without speaking, both knew that themountains they had been forced to climb were too high, the valleys theyhad endured, too abysmal and black. Somehow a quieter space must befound, where they could rest and recover their spirits, and climb nohigher feeling than gentle warm affection and peace. Such, at least,was their desire.
'I miss the tiger,' said Kalus quietly. 'I knew he would haveto go. But still.'
'I miss Akar,' sh
e began. Then suddenly striking upon the heartof her emotions. 'I miss my FATHER.' Tears welled in her eyes.'He never knew, because I didn't. . .how much I loved him.' Shelowered her head and cried silently. 'How could I have been such afool?'
Feeling awkward, for all their time together, he gently took her handand rubbed it. For a time neither spoke. Then he said sincerely.
'If there is a God, he knows now.'
She looked up at him, so grateful, then embraced him with all themingled love and sorrow for persons and places forever lost, and othersfound. He held her warmly, and after a time he added.
'At least the season is mild and safe. Perhaps the safest of theyear. We will be free to move about with less worry.'
'And a month from now?' she could not help asking. Then shelooked up quickly, hoping she had not repaid his kindness unfairly.
'It's all right,' he said, knowing her enough by now to readthis in her face. 'In a month I will think of something else. I askonly this: that you don't punish yourself for what is gone, and whatcan never be..... Don't worry for the future, at least today.'
'All right.' She turned toward him, taking both his hands in hers.'Did I ever tell YOU, Kalus? That I love. . .you?' She lookedinto his eyes, her spirit naked before him.
'Yes, my sweet Sylviana. Though you never said the words like this,you told me many times. You showed me.' He struggled. 'You knowthat I would die for you---' She put a finger to his lips.