Excerpt
The Cave
When she had finished bringing in the logs and the sticks, the small brittle twigs, she sat down next to her stone tools. She broke up all the twigs, snapped them into smaller sections, crushed some of them and put them all in a pile. Then, she picked up one of the smaller sticks, felt it, sniffed it to make sure it was not wet and then picked up the flint knife. She began to shave off small flakes of its bark then shaved the wood underneath. She worked quickly, placing the bottom end of the stick on the dirt floor of the cave, slicing downward and evenly on all sides of its roundness as she turned the stick with the palm of her left hand. The wood curled when she cut it, or just flew off in tiny slivers into the growing pile.
Outside, the snow began to fall, just a few vagrant flakes at first, then more and more came down and the late afternoon light shifted, dimmed, brightened, pushed and pulled the shadows inside the cave, made them dance and skitter all around her. She watched them, fascinated, drawn from her work by the odd patterns of light and shadow that cavorted all around her.
Then, she picked up two stones and held them tight in both hands. She leaned down over the pile of shavings and struck the two stones together hard. Sparks flew from between the stones, flew downward into the tinder. She struck the stones very fast until a shower of sparks spewed into the loose, thin shavings, until one or two of them settled and pulsed inside the nest she had made. She stopped striking the stones, leaned down and blew gently on the tiny glowings. Her breath made them pulse even harder until a tendril of smoke spiraled upward. She cupped her hands around the shavings and blew until a flame erupted and more smoke rose in the air. Then, she leaned back and fanned the flame with her hands until it began to spread, catching all of the tinder on fire.
She picked up small sticks and made a cone over the burning tinder, a pyramidal structure. The flames licked the fresh wood and the sticks began to burn. Soon it was warm inside the cave as the snowfall thickened, covering the ground outside with soft white wool.
Lalu put two logs on the fire as it burned down to a flat surface of flaming faggots. The flames rose higher and sparks flew up like golden fireflies, seeming to melt to tiny black gnats on the cave ceiling, spinning crazily onto the cave wall where they turned into invisible cinders. Outside the wind swirled miniature cyclones in the falling flakes, while gelid gusts blew into the cave. She watched the high thick flames beat back the wind and smiled like a child watching a strange animated toy.
Then Krig appeared at the cave entrance, carrying a small deer slung over his shoulder. She saw his dark face, haired with iron filings such as a lodestone might shape, and then, as he stepped inside the cave, his cheekbones sheened like golden apples, reflecting the splash of flames on his face.
Meat, Krig said, as he stooped to lay the deer carcass on the ground.
Like she, he wore a sleeveless tunic made of bear hide, the hair inside for warmth. His arms were streaked with water from the melted snow, his fingers bloodless and blue.
Good, Lalu said. You bring much meat. I thank Krig. I thank our brother, the deer.
One day my meat will bring the grass his brothers can eat.
Yes, she said, and found the tool she needed, a thin obsidian blade, its edges chipped to a fine thin sharpness.
Krig did not warm his hands at the fire, but squatted away from it, not looking into it, but outside at the shawl of fleece falling outside in the fading light of day.
Lalu crabbed over to the carcass, grabbed one leg and pushed it outward, exposing the deers furry white belly. She touched the point of the blade to its anus and drew the knife up to its throat, slitting it open. She put the knife down beside her and, with both hands, lifted out the entrails, placed them in a pile. She picked up the knife and sliced through the esophagus, separating it from the blue coils of intestines, the bulb of its stomach.
Do not read the innards tonight, he said.
She looked at him as if he had suddenly gone rabid.
Why do you say this? she said.
Because I have much to say, he said.
Much to say? You do not say much. You grunt and make noises with your mouth, but you do not say much. You do that for which I have no word. That to which you gave a word and which has flown away from my hidden eye like a bird.
Ish, he said. That was the word he had given to it. It meant think in his primitive mind.
Yes, all you do is ish, she said.
Tonight, I will wogl, he said. Talk. Much talk. Good talk.
Pah, you make up names that do not stay in my hidden eye.
It is not a hidden eye, he said. It is...
She looked at him with that same look, as if she had thought he had been bitten by an animal with the foaming mouth sickness.
That is what you said it was many moons ago.
I have a name for it, he said. It is not a hidden eye. It is behind the eyes in the very top of the skull. It is a... a brain.
A brain? I do not know the word, she said.
That is the word I have given it. It has an eye in it, but it has many eyes.
The eye that comes in the night?
Yes, that eye, and an eye that sees the distant moons. The moons that have not yet floated across the sky.
You have the foaming sickness, she said, and went back to her cutting. She cut away the hide and laid it beside the deer carcass. Then, she cut out the heart and the liver and placed them on the bloody hide. She cut away the hind legs, and then the front legs. She cut the head off and placed it to one side, then began cutting away other pieces until the deer was butchered and ready for cooking or curÂing in the sun.
Her hands were bloodied and she licked the blood from her fingers because they were now sticky. She smacked her lips.
There are sticks, she said. I sharpened them. Will you eat the heart?
Yes.
I will eat its liver then, she said.
Krig reached back behind him and took the two sticks from the wall. They were both sharpened on one end. He handed them to Lalu. She speared the heart with one stick, impaling it, and handed the stick back to Krig. Then, she impaled the liver on her stick. They roasted the meat on the fire. They chewed the meat in silence, swallowed it. Lalu put more wood on the fire as the snow piled up outside the cave and the light faded even more until there was only the darkness of the night, the whiteness of the snow.
He finished eating the heart and he rubbed his belly. Lalu cut a strip of meat from the shoulder of the deer and handed it to him. He skewered the meat onto his stick and held it in the fire until it was cooked. She cooked another small piece of venison for herself and ate it.
Krig put his stick against the wall and stood up. He walked outside and scooped up snow, put it in his mouth. He did this several times until his thirst was quenched. Then, he made a ball of snow and took it inside, handed it to Lalu. She nibbled on the snow and let it melt in her mouth until water trickled down her throat.
Krig put another log on the fire and stood between the flames and the wall, looking at his shadow. He moved his arms and watched his shadow arms move. He bent down and stood up. He lunged and his shadow lunged. Lalu watched him, watched his shadow on the wall; fascinated, her dark eyes wide with wonder.
He made shapes with his hands. He made the head of a rabbit. He made the head of the turkey. He made the gobbling sound in his throat and Lalu laughed. He squeaked when he did the rabbit and she laughed, clapped her hands together. He made a mans head with both hands and threw his voice against the wall so that the head appeared to talk. Lalu made squealing sounds in her throat to show her delight.
Then, Krig sat down, so that he could still see his shadow on the wall when he held his hand up. He made a bird shadow fly up and down. He made a worm wiggle. He made a snake with a forked tongue.
Do you want to dance around the fire, Krig? she said.
No. Now I will talk. I will tell you what my brain saw today.
Your hidden eye, your brain, is always seeing things, she said.
Yes, yes. And, when we go to the others of our tribe, we will have much to tell them, much to show them.
Tell me, she said.
Some suns ago I went to the creek and I dug into its banks and pulled dirt out. I made the wet dirt into things. I shaped the wet dirt. I call this dirt clay. The clay dried until it was hard. I dipped the object I had made into water, and the object held it and I drank the water from it.
No, she said. You did not do this.
I did this. I made a larger one and it did the same thing. I called the small one a cup and I named the big one bowl. With some of the clay I put sticks and grass and folded the clay over these things and let the sun make them hard. I could stack these up like flat stones. I made a small cave with these and they kept out the sun and the wind. You can build a cave with these things. A cave that you could put near a river or a creek and live in all the time. I will show you these things when the snow stops falling and melts. I have named all these things and we will take the names to the others and they will learn how to make them and what to call them.
Why would they want to do this? she asked.
Because I am a maker of words now. I make things with clay and I make words and the words stay in the brain and you can see what I made when you think of the words. This is good.
Why is it good? she asked.
Ah, he said, looking across the fire at her and smiling, because now when we see the others we do not have to wave our hands and make shadows on the wall, or in the brain. We do not have to use a lot of words to describe something that we know or see. We can use the names of things and everyone will have the same names that we do, for everything in the world. We can name the different kinds of trees. We know they are not all the same tribe. We will name things as we name people.
No one will want to name trees.
They must do this, Lalu. They must name creeks and rivers and hills and places where we go, where we hunt. We have named the animals and the birds and the fishes. Now, we can make things and name them. Can you not see how this will be good for us? Good for all of us? We can make things. We can paint stories on the cave walls with the dyes we get from flowers and seeds. We can name the hues and we can name the stories we paint with the tails of deer. Then, others who come to these places where we have been will know who we are, what we have done. After we give up our breaths to the sky, they can read these paintings and know that we were here, that we made things and lived in caves we built from the mud we took from the earth.
If we had these cups you made we could put snow in them and when it melted, we could drink the water.
Yes, Yes, Lalu, he said.
I could put roots in the bowls and cook them with water. I would not burn my fingers, and the roots would be soft and easy to chew.
They spoke of these things and other wonders of language long into the night. When they went to sleep, finally, they could see things in their mind, where other eyes were hidden, eyes that saw strange visions, places that were unlike any places in the real world. They could speak of these things, too, and tell others about them the way the old ones told of seeing what was in the entrails of animals.
Krig took Lalu in his arms as they lay close by the warm fire. Just before he went to sleep, he said something to her, whispered it into her ear.
One day, he said, we can make scratches in the clay and the scratches will be our words and the names of things. When the clay dries, the words and names will always be there. And, I know what I will write. My brain can see it. I know what I will write, Lalu.
What will you write? she asked.
I will write this: In the beginning was the Word....
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