From the Shores of Eden

by Shelley Penner

  * * *

  Many times over the winter Shusha fought the recurring fever. Buludumas made potions and offered prayers on his behalf, but the old medicine man confessed to Rabshen that he could do little to help. “This is someone’s ill wish, and Shusha must battle it alone. If his spirit remains stronger than the evil thought, he will recover.”

  By the time spring came the spells of sickness grew less frequent and severe. Pan-Dora’s belly began to swell with child and Kitana grew more and more sullen.

  * * *

  Pan-Dora gave birth at midsummer in the high mountain halavada. She named her son Jobo, which meant strong as a rock. Shusha felt delighted with them both. Jobo remained a contented baby, rarely fussing and never sick. When Pan-Dora went foraging, she carried him in a sling, often nursing him as she strolled along, for her breasts remained so full they leaked constantly. Shusha still occasionally went to Kitana’s sleeping furs at night, but once he had seen to her needs, he always returned to the bed he shared with Pan-Dora.

  Though Kitana continued to meet with Johara, her scheming met only with frustration, until finally one day, she said, “It is time for Shusha to die.” She unwrapped the clay ball in which Shusha’s blood spirit lived and deliberately crushed it, letting the wind scatter the dust. “He is powerful; the Mother protects him. But his totem alone cannot sustain him, and Pan-Dora cannot hold his ego-soul to this life forever.”

  Johara said nothing. He no longer felt anything but sympathy for Shusha, yet he remained trapped like a male spider in a mating dance, aware of his eventual doom, yet unable to resist it.

  “The Mother has made a covenant with Shusha. Though this is the source of his strength it could also prove his undoing. Only the Mother can destroy him. And how do you arouse the anger of a mother?”

  “Threaten her child.”

  “Yes. Wound the child and the mother will kill anything she perceives as a threat. Go, Johara. Find the mother who will kill Shusha and follow my instructions.”

  * * *

  Aradumi held up his hand and cocked his head. “Listen…”

  Faint sounds of distress rode the breeze. In silent accord, he and Shusha moved to investigate. In a clearing near the edge of the spruce forest they came upon a pit, freshly dug and lined with sharpened stakes. Remnants of grass mat camouflage remained around its edges and impaled on the stakes, mortally wounded, lay a baby mammoth.

  “Who would do such a thing? Surely none of the Danai,” Aradumi whispered, glancing around nervously. This abomination violated every law of the hunt. He stepped forward, readying his spear. “Sister Mammoth, I will end your suffering…”

  Shusha held forth a cautionary hand. “Aradumi, wait…”

  Trees and brush abruptly exploded with a sound like a hundred women screaming with one voice, and four thousand pounds of death thundered down on them, red hair bristling, snaky trunk thrashing and eyes gleaming with murderous fury. Aradumi froze. Shusha thrust him aside and darted past the enraged mammoth, jabbing with his spear to draw her attention away from his friend. She whipped around with deceptive speed and swatted him with her trunk, sending him tumbling across the clearing. Paralyzed with horror, Aradumi watched as Shusha scrambled to his feet and tried to run. The mammoth plucked him up and held him aloft, then threw him, smashing him against the unyielding trunk of a great spruce. Shusha fell like a broken bird and lay unmoving. The mammoth loomed over him, intent on trampling him into dust. With a cry of grief, Aradumi broke the bonds of terror and lunged after her, thrusting his spear into her vulva, deep, deep into her womb. Shrieking in pain, she whirled, trying to reach him, but he hung on, letting her drag his full weight. The spear shaft bowed, ripping the blade through her soft woman parts. She screamed and stamped in ear-splitting, thunderous agony. The shaft finally snapped, flinging Aradumi out of sight into the brush. Moaning in grief and pain, the mammoth fled, leaving gouts of blood to mark her passage.

  * * *

  The world seemed flooded with beauty. The sky looked bluer than ever before, the sunlight more nourishing to the spirit, the autumn leaves brighter and the winds gentler and more playful. As she gathered grain into her reed basket Pan-Dora even dared to sing…not so loudly that any but Jobo could hear, but loudly enough to release some of the exquisite joy that swelled inside her and threatened to burst her chest if not given release. When she had enough grain for the evening meal, she strolled toward home along the riverbank, hunting watercress, nettle greens and starchy cattail roots. She walked proudly, with a new sense of her own worth.

  As she neared the halavada she heard shouts, cries of excitement and dismay. In the distance she saw Aradumi coming, dragging something…a travois with someone on it. Pan-Dora’s lungs seized in her chest and her heart seemed to falter. The basket slipped from her hip to trail from numb fingers, scattering seeds along the bank as she began to run. She remained deaf to Jobo’s whimpers as he bounced against her chest. No, no, no, her heart pleaded in time with her pounding footsteps. But Ruanpye’s shrill lament confirmed her fears even before she reached the gathering crowd and fell to her knees beside the ruin that was Shusha.

  * * *

  Pan-Dora waited and paced outside the vadu as Buludumas examined his patient. Rabshen and Ruanpye huddled nearby, their faces already drawn in lines of grief. At last, the medicine man emerged, his expression grave.

  “I have done what I can to repair his injuries, but his spirit has left him. We must watch him closely for three days. After that, if he has not roused, we will know his spirit will not return and he is truly dead.”

  For three days Pan-Dora never left Shusha’s side. When the need for sleep became too great, she slept beside him, with his parents or Aradumi keeping watch. Kitana packed her belongings and moved to Johara’s vadu, and though some questioned her unseemly haste, no one denied her a widow’s right. While the vigil continued, the Korudanai began dismantling the halavada in preparation for the move to their winter camp in the foothills. When at last the day of departure arrived, Shusha still breathed, but he had not moved or given any other sign of life.

  “His ancestral spirit has returned to the Sky Father,” Buludumas announced sadly. “Only his ego-soul holds him here.”

  “No!” Pan-Dora cried. “He still breathes, his heart beats strongly. He lives!”

  The medicine man’s smile looked kind, pitying. “It is proof of his great love for you and his children that his ego-soul refuses to surrender to death. Come, child. We must go. Once you are no longer here to bind him to this existence, he will find his path.”

  “No! I will not leave him while he still breathes!”

  Bowed with his own grief, Rabshen said gently, “You cannot stay here, daughter. Snow already whitens the peaks, and soon winter storms will bury this vadu. You cannot survive here.”

  “Then I will die with Shusha.”

  Aradumi and Rabshen each took one of her arms and they dragged her away. For the sake of your child, they said. But by noon they had grown tired of fighting her, and before they made first camp she managed to elude them. In her hurry to return to Shusha, Pan-Dora took the shortest route, violating the strict taboo against women entering men’s country. By the time she reached the vadu night had come and the fire had burned down to coals. She coaxed it back to life and added fuel, then settled Jobo next to his father. As if awakening from a long sleep, Shusha’s eyes opened at last and stared at her with a blank expression that made her wonder if he truly had lost his soul.

  * * *

  Because of Shusha’s injury, the Korudanai had delayed their journey dangerously late in the season and, as if their departure provided a signal, the icy storms of winter began soon after. As the temperature outside the vadu dropped, Shusha’s rose. He rolled and moaned in pain-filled delirium, and at times Pan-Dora needed to bind him to keep him from aggravating his injuries. She used her meager supplies with reckless abandon in an attempt to strengthen him, making rich broths that he c
ould swallow despite a broken jaw. But in his fevered state he could take little nourishment. Finally, in desperation, she offered him her breast and discovered that the instinct to suckle survived and seemed to soothe him.

  The Korudanai had stripped the camp before abandoning it, so Pan-Dora needed to somehow renew their food stores before winter snowed them in and made travel impossible. She strapped Jobo on her back and set out to find the remains of the mammoth. Following the drag marks of the travois, she found the pit with no trouble. The cold weather had kept the mammoth calf reasonably fresh. She worried about Jobo, but she had few options. To leave him in the vadu with Shusha thrashing in delirium seemed as unthinkable as leaving him alone in the brush while she descended amongst the sharpened stakes. With her baby on her back, she moved with exquisite caution, butchering the meat, climbing out and hauling up one load, then descending to tie on another, up and down, up and down, until her every muscle ached with exhaustion. Most of the meat she bound in strips of hide and left hanging in the trees to retrieve another day.

  The vadu felt ice cold when Pan-Dora arrived, but it was the smell that chilled her with fear, the smell of rotting meat. She got the fire going again and Jobo dry and fed, then, cringing inside, she parted the bandages on Shusha’s leg. The mammoth had stepped on his foot and ankle, four thousand pounds of force crushing delicate bones and flesh into splintered jelly. His foot was dead, she could see that, and death advanced up his leg, leaving a streaky trail of red. Instinct told her only one thing could save him.

  * * *

  Feeling a little unhinged, Pan-Dora built a funeral fire on the shore of the river. She carefully wrapped Shusha’s leg in a piece of mammoth hide and gave it to the flames, praying that its spirit would rise with the smoke and not haunt him with phantom sensations. Her stomach abruptly spewed its contents on the fire as well, and she wondered what the spirits would make of that. Perhaps they would consider it an offering.

  The first winter storm blew in later that night and raged around the vadu like a maddened bear. By the time morning arrived, she needed to dig her way out. Snow had piled up almost to her waist, and she realized despairingly that they could not winter here. One more storm like this would completely bury the vadu. The image of a dark cave mouth high on a mountainside came to her. She had seen it while passing through men’s country. It seemed their only chance. Before spring the snow would bury this valley so deep only the tops of the tallest trees would remain visible.

  * * *

  Shusha lived in a hell of pain, unaware of Pan-Dora’s coming and going. His first lucid awareness began as a sensation of jerky motion and the refreshing coolness of wind on his face. He opened his eyes on a confusing, dreamlike world of white. When had it snowed? Aradumi was taking a long time getting him back to the halavada. A slight motion at his side drew his attention to Jobo, tucked snugly against his arm, bundled up so only his bright eyes peeked out. Shusha realized it must be Pan-Dora pulling the travois, panting and floundering through the deep snow, and that confused him more. He wondered if this was another dream-vision, for it seemed strangely empty. The effort to understand the situation became too much for him and he drifted back into unconsciousness.

  Shusha roused later to dark stone walls surrounding him. A fire crackled nearby, and when he turned his head he saw grey daylight through a cave mouth. He recognized the entrance to the Mother Cave. He recognized Pan-Dora’s dark figure silhouetted against the light and felt a flash of horrified dismay. A sharp rebuke leaped to his mind, but all he could utter was a distressed moan. She hurried to his side and laid an icy hand against his forehead. “Shusha…” His eyes spoke to her urgently, but she misunderstood their anguished message. “I’m sorry about your leg. I had to cut it off, it was killing you.” His eyes widened and he managed to raise his head to look down at the stump where his left leg ended a handspan below the knee. A fresh wave of pain and horror rolled over him and plunged him once more into merciful oblivion.

  * * *

  The clouds moved on, leaving a crisp, starry night and a bright moon. From her vantage point at the top of the trail, Pan-Dora listened to the mournful singing of wolves and watched as they loped across the moon-silvered valley. By the next morning a crust had formed over the snow, making it easier for her to drag the empty travois back to the pit to retrieve the rest of the meat. She carried Shusha’s spear and sling, breaking another strict taboo, but there was no one to deny her the necessity of arming herself. She had almost reached the pit when a strange cry made her heart jump with fear. She left the travois and crept forward nervously until she could see through the trees. The storm had filled the pit until it formed a deep hollow in the snow, and with its dangers once more disguised it had claimed another victim. A ewe had stumbled into the trap, and the snow had not cushioned her fall enough to keep the stakes from driving into her throat and chest. Her lamb, an off-season youngling, for it could not be more than a month old, had followed her in and now lay shivering atop her, unhurt but frightened by the smell of blood and the strange lack of response to its bleating cries. As Pan-Dora considered this incredible stroke of luck, sudden inspiration came to her. The lamb was of a suckling age, and her own breasts provided more milk than Jobo needed. Shusha daily grew stronger and would not need that sustenance much longer. If she could keep this lamb alive, it could provide them with fresh meat when they needed it. The extra food would certainly become welcome before winter’s end.

  * * *

  When next Shusha woke, it was to a scene so strange he felt certain he must be hallucinating. Pan-Dora sat cross-legged beside the fire, cradling Jobo, who suckled diligently from her right breast while his chubby hand explored the soft wool of the white lamb that suckled from her other side. For a long moment Shusha’s heart battled superstitious fear. She must indeed be one of the Ancestors incarnate.

  * * *

  Pan-Dora could think of no way to block the icy wind from the cave mouth, so before the next blizzard arrived, she moved her family down the tunnel into the next chamber. No heartbeat thundered through its cavernous expanse now. It lay silent and chilling in its immensity. Leaving Jobo in his father’s increasingly lucid care, Pan-Dora took a torch and explored the tunnels and caverns through which thousands of generations of men had travelled in darkness. Air currents moved in and out through the Cave of Winds, but they remained shallow, whispering breaths. When she reached the bowels of the cave system, where hot, sulfur-scented pools bubbled up from deep underground, she could not resist the temptation to test the water. She discovered that the sides of the pool had been carved and smoothed into a perfect seat, allowing a bather to sit back and relax in the luxurious warmth of chest-deep water. This sign of human engineering brought home to her the full consequence of her invasion here. She had no idea what penalty she might pay for defying the taboos, but she would willingly do far worse to keep her loved ones alive. Pan-Dora continued her exploration, nervously skirting the edge of the well. She almost missed seeing the narrow tunnel on the other side, for no light showed within now to draw her as it had drawn Shusha. The beauty and potency of the murals in this last chamber took her breath away, and one part of her wanted to bring her family here to the security of the Mother’s Womb, but another part of her deemed it too sacred a place for occupancy. The fact the chamber offered no exit to the outside world troubled her. The potency of the Mother should not be denied release.

  * * *

  Pan-Dora moved her family to the cave of hot pools, where the steamy water warmed the chamber. Thereafter, she only needed to collect enough firewood for cooking. She rendered the mammoth fat into oil and made twisted wicks of lamb’s wool for lamps. When her moon time came she could not isolate herself, for Shusha still needed care. She washed herself carefully in snow-water before touching him and touched him as little as seemed practical during that time.

  In the eternal night of the caves, Shusha’s only indication of passing time came from the slow knitting of his
bones and flesh. But while his body gradually reasserted a pattern of health, a pall of depression lay over his mind and heart. What could life hold for a one-legged man? How could he provide for his family? He knew his parents and Aradumi would not have left him if Buludumas had not pronounced him dead. Yet Pan-Dora risked not only her own life, but the life of their child, in order to anchor him to this existence. She violated a dozen taboos and desecrated the Mother Cave with her female presence, and even her female blood. While he felt grateful for her faithfulness, her dedication frightened him. Was there anything she would not do to keep him from passing that final initiation into the spirit world?

  That Pan-Dora was more than human seemed clearly confirmed. The evidence showed in the wild creature that suckled from her breast and followed her as trustingly as it had followed its own mother into the pit. Shusha sensed power building in Pan-Dora like flood waters swelling a river and, more than anything, he feared the source and direction of that power, for he remained caught in her current like a piece of flotsam.

  * * *

  Over that winter Pan-Dora learned to set snares to capture small game and to use Shusha’s weapons skillfully. She ate of her own kills with no concern for the anger of animal spirits. With food scarce, she had little choice. She kept her family healthy by supplementing their meat diet with tea brewed from pine and spruce needles. Even after his jaw healed, Shusha spoke little. Though he treated Pan-Dora with the same love and respect as before, she sensed that some part of him would never forgive the price she had paid for his life.