Tuscany

by Matthew Thayer

  “Run! Run! Invaders!” the clanspeople shouted.

  Lanio retreated to the safety of the deep forest and crawled inside a hollow log to hide. Her husband of one hand of hands of days (about a month) was hacked to death, as were her parents and every last member of the Yellow Bug Clan. The Tattoos pushed the bodies into the river, then appropriated the camp as their own.

  The girl said she grew tired of the damp log. She could tell by the sounds of the forest, she had not been followed. She wandered down to the river to clean herself, planning to double back to look for other escapees. There she discovered the body of a favorite aunt washed facedown on the rocky shore.

  Upstream, snagged in the limbs of a fallen birch tree, she found her husband. He was a hunter from her clan and she had known him her entire life. Stab wounds checkered his torso. The girl dragged her husband to shore and held his cold body close as vultures and gulls filled the air over the river. She planned to bury them all, to say the proper words to send them into their next lives to become wolves or trees, but a pack of hyenas arrived to chase her up a pine. She had a bird’s eye view as they ate every piece of her husband, down to the marrow of his bones.

  Lanio spent a day and night in the tree waiting for the pack to complete its feast. When it finally slinked away, she climbed down from the tree to drink her fill of water and apply a quickly made poultice of mud, willow bark and crushed fern on her many scrapes and bug bites. In a daze, she followed the river upstream to see what was left of her clan’s camp and possessions. There she found the Tattoos in residence. Eating her clan’s food, sitting in front of its shelters, they laughed and sang while a female member of their tribe lay in the dirt flinching as a young man added a new tattoo to her face.

  The warrior tapped one stick against another to drive an ink-covered shark’s tooth into the skin of the woman’s forehead. I have seen the process. The shark’s tooth is secured tightly at the end of a foot-long stick. The serrated tooth is dipped in various pigments and then lightly hammered into the skin. It looks very painful. With skilled hands, the Tattoos create their distinctive geometric designs, lurid loops and whorls calculated to incite fear.

  Lanio spied on the Tattoo clan for two days. Finally, it packed up what it wanted and set fire to the rest. Once the intruders were gone, the girl salvaged spear flints, several blade kits, two ivory sewing needles and a leather cook bag which had refused to burn. She retreated to a hidden place in the rocks to decide if she wanted to live or die. She must have chosen life, for she began making spears and weapons. Whenever Lanio heard travelers along the trail far below, she crouched deeper into the shadows and let them pass.

  There she was, turning a rabbit over a small cook fire in the dark, when Gray Beard and Bolzano followed the wood smoke to her hidden camp. They arrived without a sound, and although she was frightened, something about the way the men carried themselves let her know she was safe in their company.

  “Would you like a fat grub to eat while you wait for your rabbit to cook?”

  The older of the two men explained they were hunting a bad clan causing trouble in the area. He said they were looking for fighters to help defeat the clan, and surprised her by asking if she would like to help. The man’s stories helped take away some of the pain of her many losses.

  It was at that point in her tale the man himself wandered silently into camp to lay two hares and three pheasant by the edge of the fire pit.

  “Hello, daughter, has Lanio paid you the proper respect?”

  “Yes, father. Indeed. She is a very polite girl.”

  Paul and the bitch arrived several minutes later, towing a pair of fat doe. With the assistance of Lanio and me, the men looped leather ropes around the deer’s necks and hoisted them to hang from the limb of the tree. The dogs began howling in anticipation, straining at their leads, as Lanio positioned a cured skin under a deer and used a razor-sharp blade to open the body cavity and let its guts spill out.

  The commotion woke Jones, who ambled over with his kinky hair squished over to one side.

  “It is good to see you sleep, large one,” Gray Beard said. “I apologize for the dogs. They are hungry and have no manners.”

  The old man stooped to cut away the heart and liver for the bitch, who sat quietly waiting, then motioned the girl to distribute the rest to the pack. The smells and sounds would have shocked me not so long ago, but now, butchery is just a regular part of life.

  Whistling the bitch to his side, he placed the bloody organs on a shingle of birch bark and set it on the ground for her to eat. As she dined, he loosened the twin packs from her back and opened them to extract handfuls of green onions, morels, truffles, various types of fern, and hazelnuts.

  “Lanio makes good stew,” he said.

  Paul and I helped the girl pluck the birds, skin the rabbits and section the animals into portions for the cook bag. Gray Beard kept Jones busy with questions about Tomon and the Green Turtle Clan. It wasn’t long before he was standing above us, tapping the butt of his spear against a rock.

  “Jones does not lie? You are leaving us?”

  “Yes, father, it is true.”

  “Why?”

  I had never seen him so flustered. The tapping continued as I delivered my prepared explanation. Kaikane, Jones, Bolzano and I must return to visit our home clan. Our home hunting grounds are far, far away. The trip will be over water. Much water. Our clan does not accept strangers. If we brought him along, we would be punished and he would be killed. I promised we would return next summer to again hunt and travel with our friend and father.

  Gray Beard turned, took a hop step and launched his light throwing spear in an arc to bury in the dead deer’s neck.

  “You are free to do as you wish. It is going to rain, you should leave now.”

  “Please, father, allow us to sample this girl’s cooking. I have heard it is delicious. We are in no hurry. We have much to say before setting off on a journey which will keep us apart so long.”

  “Stay as long as you like.”

  Dinner was a strained affair with little conversation. The stew wasn’t bad. Lanio assured us it would be much better after a night of simmering. We ate in the fading light, rapt by a lightning show far off to sea. Massive static electrical charges discharged horizontally across the horizon like blazing white tap root systems of acacia trees.

  That sounds like a botanist talking. I guess lightning bolts are like clouds, you see in them what you want to see.

  Moving steadily in our direction at about 10 miles an hour, the storm reached us about midnight. The smell of ozone filled the air as bolt after bolt cannonaded above the trees. Leaving all the dogs, save the bitch, to fend for themselves, we retreated to the back of the cave. I found myself sitting across from Gray Beard. Each flash of silvery light illuminated his well-lined face as he calmly rode out the storm with his arm over the girl’s shoulders.

  Lit by a series of stroboscopic bursts not more than 200 feet from the cave, we locked eyes. I placed my hand over my heart, then extended the palm toward him. “Sorry, father.” With a resigned look, he tapped his left palm against his right wrist. “You have my approval.”

  By morning, the trail to Nice had become an impassable muddy creek. Sharing the venison with miserable soggy dogs, we spent two entire days pinned down by the storm. Unlike the winter squall which confined us to the same cave seven months prior, this event reminded me of how I always envisioned the monsoons to have been in the Asian highlands before the Big Drought. Humid air, daytime temperatures in the 70s, nighttime in the low 50s, dense fog, an unending downpour, sheets of rain slashing diagonally when the wind kicks up to rattle the trees.

  At some point, we went back to being our old selves and stopped trying to protect each other’s feelings. Though sullen as always, I think even Jones enjoyed the forced togetherness. Paul dug a set of bones from his pack and challenged the boys to a match.

  “Leonglauix never loses,” Lanio marveled after yet another w
inning throw.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her he cheats. Whenever the rain let up, we set off in teams to scavenge firewood that hissed and sputtered when added to the cave’s bed of glowing coals. Suspended by ropes looped over the cave’s natural stone hooks, our two cook bags were raised and lowered to the correct height to keep them warm without burning up. They never left the fire as Lanio replenished them with new ingredients after each meal. Rotating hot rocks with cold, she brought the contents to a simmer. In the end, we were dishing up primarily boiled venison, but every once in a while, we would be surprised by a tender sliver of rabbit or pheasant.

  Of course, we all complained about the miserable conditions, being cooped up in a smelly, smoky cave where we had to sleep side by side. Every three hours, Gray Beard rose up to urinate. His dog has become more flatulent than ever. Why, then, did a collective sadness descend upon us when the storm finally petered out?

  It was late afternoon when the sun broke through. Within an hour, the clouds had vanished. We found ourselves under a bright blue sky with the crystal-clear Alps rising above us and the vast Mediterranean sparkling off to the horizon below. Waves rolled in to turn the shore into a line of white foam. Paul said it looked as if the waves hit the reefs in slow motion.

  Though it would be dark in less than two hours, and the trail down was a slalom course of puddles and mud, Gray Beard let us decide for ourselves if we should stay another night.

  “Father, you have taught us better than that,” Paul said as he placed a hand upon Gray Beard’s weathered shoulder. “If you will permit us to share your fire for one more night, we will. Let us hunt for something to eat other than deer.”

  The three men grabbed their weapons and waved over their shoulders as they set off through the mud. Lanio and I busied ourselves about the camp by gathering firewood, hanging leather tarps to dry, and untangling dog lines. The muddy beasts jumped all over us in canine joy.

  We were knelt by the brook, washing away muddy dog prints when Lanio surprised me with a question.

  “Do you believe your father would be angry if I wanted to be his woman? I’ve been waiting for Leonglauix to ask me, but he must think I am too young. I am not too young. I would make him a very good wife.”

  “What has he told you about Kolettelena’s?”

  “I know all about her place. She is a great teacher. Staying put in one camp is not the life for me. I like it on the trail.”

  “My father has many, many more winters than you.”

  “Two full trips around the moon calendar I tried with my first husband to become pregnant. He was killed by a boar that hooked a tusk into his leg. My second husband and I, before he was killed by the Tattoos, also tried hard to conceive. In the end, he took me as his woman though he knew I was barren.

  “I would make a perfect wife for Leonglauix. Who else would want a woman like me? Leonglauix has not asked me to stroke his root, but if he does, I will!”

  I told her I would talk to my father and suggest he take her on as a healer and storyteller in training. He would be a far better teacher and role model than the old madam.

  The hunters returned with smiles on their faces. Jones knocked a black-haired pig off its legs with an atlatl shot Paul described as “un-fucking-believable.” Jones just grinned as Gray Beard mimicked how he had cast a bolt in a high arcing shot over a pine tree. He said the bolt was traveling nearly straight down as it took the pig squarely between its shoulder blades.

  “Lucky.” That’s all Jones would say.

  We split the pig lengthwise along the breastbone, then suspended it over a roaring outdoor fire. While the flames singed off the hairy black coat with acrid plumes of smoke, we retreated to an upwind vantage point to watch the sunset. When the time was right, I pulled Gray Beard to the side and suggested he consider keeping Lanio on as a companion and student.

  “She should try Kolettelena’s first.”

  “It is not a place for this girl and you know it.”

  “Kolette takes in wild girls if the price is right. Some turn out fine.”

  “She loves you.”

  “I’m too old for love.”

  “Not the love she is looking for. Let her cook your meals for a year, then tell me what you think.”

  “I will consider it.”

  Following dinner, Gray Beard was strolling back from taking a piss at the edge of the firelight when he launched into a familiar refrain.

  “Listen, and I will tell you a story.” With a squeal of delight, Lanio plopped down and took my hand in hers. “He’s going to tell a story!” I motioned Paul to dig the helmet from his pack and set it where it could record Gray Beard’s voice. The following is my translation.

  “Far to the north, during a journey made when I was a young man with black hair and two legs of equal length, I spent several hands of days waiting out a storm far worse than the one we just bid farewell. Cold winds and snow without stop!

  “I was not yet a clan leader or much of anything. We all remember the age when every word our parents say is wrong. They insist you hunt for honey and gather food like a woman when you are eager to test every limit.

  “One day, I told my family I was going for a walk to see how far north I could go. Though Father wished me well, he forbade me to take a dog. I left with my blade kit, three spears and nothing else.”

  That brought a giggle from Lanio. “What about clothes?” she playfully taunted. “Were you naked?”

  Gray Beard gave her a mock-serious stare. “In my clan, it is impolite to interrupt a story.”

  “Forgive me, great storyteller.”

  “You are forgiven. Wait now, I must find my place.

  “I was wearing a summer mantle of soft reeds and grass when I left my family, but was forced to add clothes to my wardrobe as the temperature dropped. First, I made a leather cape to protect me from the rain, and moccasins for my feet. The farther I walked, the colder it became. Once I reached the northern coast, the days were growing shorter and great V’s of water birds were headed south. I followed the coastline to the east until it turned and I was able to resume my northwesterly course.

  “I killed several wolves for the fur to make a robe and warm hat. The hunting was everything a young man can hope for. I slew animals I had not seen before or since. Fierce badgers charged from their burrows with murder on their minds. Those little beasts could snap spear shafts in half with one bite of their mighty jaws. I saw giant bears with white fur. Seals with tusks longer than my legs. Herds of long-antlered deer so numerous they stretched to the horizon to black out the earth.

  “It was on the flat marshlands when the clouds told me a mighty storm was coming. My search for a cave or formation of rocks to shelter in was in vain. Nothing like that was to be found. Finally, I saw a clump of a pine forest in the distance. As I rushed for the trees, I was forced to wade through several streams and slog through an icy bog.

  “The wind was beginning to howl and snowflakes starting to fall when I looped a rope around the tops of four trees and cinched them together to make the roof of my winter house. With trembling hands, I collected pine needles and dry sticks. Striking flint against red rock time after time, I was ready to give up when a spark landed on a piece of bark and sent up a puff of smoke. It took many more tries to get the fire going. I knew it was possible, so I did not stop.

  “The first few days were spent collecting firewood and weaving pine limbs through the walls of my house so they held strong against the wind. I ate mice and squirrels and baked pine cones, confident I would survive. The wet snow did not stop. It fell and fell. It soon became hard to walk through the deep drifts ringing the trees.

  “I was standing inside my shelter feeling lonely when I heard what sounded like a human voice. Straining my ears, I listened for another call, convinced my mind was playing tricks on me. ‘It is only the wind,’ I said to myself. And then I heard it again. Men calling. ‘In here, in the trees,’ I shouted, not thinking I could be inviting
killers or bandits into my lair.

  “I was joined by three hunters, nearly frozen to death. The hunters were blonde-haired cousins who had become lost in the marshlands while tracking a wounded red deer with the largest antlers they had ever seen. They put three spears through the animal’s ribs and still it ran on like the wind.

  “We spent two hands of days together eating pine bark and struggling to keep the fire going. At least we had plenty of snow to eat. The cousins told me the stories of their clan, and I told them the stories of mine. We lost so much weight, the bones of our cheeks stood out and our eyes turned yellow. We did not starve. One day the sun came out, just like it did this afternoon.

  “The weather turned and the snow was melted within a day. One of the cousins broke the neck of a swimming goose with a rock and we ate it half-cooked. The oily meat tasted fine.

  “I told the cousins it was time for me to turn back to the south. ‘It is too late, winter is here,’ they said. ‘Come to our camp for the season, you will never freeze or go hungry.’

  “Already, the temperature was dropping and gray clouds were coming from the north. I followed the cousins at a trot as we raced the next storm back to their clan’s camp along the banks of a mighty river. The camp consisted of a circle of strange looking huts sheltered from the wind by a line of tree-topped hills. Each hut was made from mammoth tusks buried butt first into the ground and covered with mammoth hides.

  “Lanio, you may have never seen such a hut. You three know about what I am talking about, for you have seen for yourselves the ones I built at Summer Solstice Camp. Those were poor copies of the huts I am describing now. Their huts were warm and dry, with stone floors and piles of furs to sleep upon.

  “They called themselves the Fish-Eaters. Nearly everything the clan ate came from the depths of the river, or the many ponds and swamps. The main foods were fish and seaweed, clams and lobsters, eels and crabs.

  “The people of the Fish-Eater Clan had given the cousins up for dead. A feast was thrown to welcome them safely home. As we staggered from hut to hut with our stomachs full, the boys overstated the role I played in their survival. They made me out to be a hero.