Foragers

by Charles Oberndorf

  Chapter Six

  The Sixth Day

  Just before the sun rose, when everything had the color of smoke, Roofer began to walk the woods. His long call echoed among the empty spaces, and the specific words, stretched out like long-held notes, were hard to understand at first. She didn’t hear anger at a rival or the harsh warning off of others; instead she heard the music of astonishment, the kind of sound you heard from sons but not from men. Roofer had watched the night sky from his nest. He had seen true bodies grow large and change color. He had seen true bodies disappear from the sky. Where had they gone?

  Chest Scars sat up to listen. On the opposite side of the same fire, Arm Scars was nursing her knee-high son. Her older son walked to stand among the trees and listen to Roofer’s long call. Lightfoot Watcher’s daughter sat by the dying embers of her fire; her mother had not come back yet.

  The animal lifted its head from the ground as if to listen to what was being said. Her eyes found the healer’s, and I felt like she should explain something to the animal. But an animal would not understand. She pushed herself up and rose from the ground. She wore only her pubic apron, so she stood there, looking up into the woods and at the people watching her. She stood there with the pride of a woman who had just brought down a large male lightfoot. She then turned and walked back to the darkness within the boulder, and the opening disappeared.

  I stared at the boulder for the longest time. Most of the time she didn’t see the boulder at all. She was thinking about last night’s sky. She had watched it intently after the animal had fallen asleep upon the ground. All the true bodies still seemed to be in their proper position. But what else in the sky could have changed colors and disappeared but true bodies?

  Chest Scars called to her. “Healer, did you see the same thing as the long caller saw?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could the animal have caused that?”

  “An animal who could cause that is not an animal.”

  Each woman who lived along Winding River returned to the hillside and heard about the lights in the sky. Crooked said that the animal must be a first soul who had been cast from the sky because of trouble she had caused. Squawker was sure it was an animal, but she agreed that its presence would cause trouble, since no one knew the habits of such a creature. Flatface said if there was at least one or another to watch it, the animal could not cause trouble. Wisdom said the same thing for a very long time. Arm Scars wanted to talk about the true bodies that had disappeared. Lightfoot Watcher, who had returned, said when the true bodies have shined away who they are, they are fresh and waiting for a child to breathe them in. Maybe so many children were born last night that several true bodies had to shine away who they were so quickly that the effort lit up the sky.

  “Why, then,” asked Crooked, “would the first soul grieve the way that creature did last night?”

  “It’s an animal,” said Squawker. “It cried from fear.” Wisdom said, “When a smoke-ears sees a nightskin‚ the smoke-ears doesn’t cry. It tries to hop away. The lightfoot runs away when it sees the nightskin. No meat animal cries in fear when it is hunted.”

  “A person cries in fear,” said Flatface’s waist-high son.

  “A boy would say that,” said Flatface.

  The talk back and forth lasted all morning because no one could sit still at a fire. There were too many people, and so one or another would get up to walk into the woods to defecate or to find some solitude. All the fallen tree limbs, loose sticks, and the remains of winter-fallen trees had been used up for fires, so sons and daughters had to be sent farther away to bring back wood, and mothers accompanied them because you also had to walk farther to find something to eat. Returning for the second time, this time with wood, I noticed that Chest Scars and Arm Scars, who lived by the river s mouth, had not left their fires all morning, and she wondered how each one could stand having so many people nearby.

  The third time I left, she went to check out a nearby tree that should be full of ripe fruitnuts‚ a tree only a woman who’d grown up near the river would find. But when she got to the fruitnut tree, she discovered that there no nuts within easy reach. However, there were rounded pieces of wood that had been driven into the side of the tree. Many years ago, a man had carved the pegs and hammered them in, but every time he tried to mate with a woman, Sour Plum drove him away until he left the river for some other place. I clambered up to the second set of branches and plucked every fruitnut that felt soft enough to eat. She soon realized she would not have enough to give each woman by the clearing a handful, so she ate her fill while listening to Sour Plum long call his way through the woods. She saved a portion of fruitnuts to leave on a trail for Sour Plum to find.

  The old man, however, found her first. He stood away from the tree as she climbed down, and he ignored the nuts she laid out for him. Standing on the ground, not that far away, Old Sour Plum loomed over I, and she was both impressed and frightened by how large he had grown in his old age.

  Old Sour Plum said, “I saw the night sky, too. The boulder came, and it happened.”

  I waited for his next words.

  “The animal’s dangerous,” he said. “If enough individuals ask, I will throw rocks at it until it leaves or dies.”

  “We do not do that to a nightskin,” said I.

  “It is not a nightskin.”

  “She has harmed no one.”

  “She will,” said Sour Plum, and the old man ambled off, carrying his tremendous weight and strength.

  I stood alone, but she was not comfortable with her solitude. Off in the distance a long call wafted through the forest, the tone pitched low going high. The voice was deep, a man’s voice, and it was not at all familiar.

  When I returned to the hillside, the animal was still inside the boulder, and today’s new arrival was a man. He was at the point in his life where a man seemed to grow larger every day.

  Now he was a shade taller than a woman, his skin slightly darkened, and the pouches on either side of his throat puffed out, but they were not yet the size to make the kind of long call that I had heard before returning. The man had reached the size when a woman in desire would open up for him, and so he might well be looking for a woman who was unimpressed by the men who wandered near her hut.

  It looked like this Tall Enough man had taken an interest in Crooked. Crooked was seated by her fire, staring down at the boulder as if that were the only thing of interest. Sitting not too far behind her was Newcomer, who, as far as I could tell, had not left Crooked’s side. I had never seen such a patient almost-a-man. Usually an almost-a-man was so eager with his penis that he would try, with the slightest provocation, to find his way into a woman. Tall Enough was still in the woods, walking back and forth, but he liked to veer in, get close to Newcomer, and see if the almost-a-man would quiver, get frightened, run off.

  Newcomer was frightened. He held his body taut, as if he expected Tall Enough to get mating close and deliver a blow to the back of the head or the side of the face. Down the way, Flatface’s almost-a-man son was playing a toss game with the other son and daughter who shared his mother, but every time he held the hollowed melon, he stopped to watch Tall Enough, then Newcomer, and then to cast an eye on Crooked.

  Crooked was woman enough to act like none of this was going on. The wrong look could give a man the wrong ideas, and Tall Enough was just large enough in stature that he would be hard to resist once he thought a woman was open to him. Crooked was also anxious enough that she paid no attention to any other woman. Arm Scars and Chest Scars, who were talking like young girls who still lived with their mother, looked over at Crooked to see what was going on. Lightfoot Watcher was cooking fish at her fire, but she had started to watch I watch Crooked. Wisdom must have left to fish or to check her snares. Squawker was on the other side of the clearing, her back turned, her daughter nursing, her son running circles around them, his outstretched hand every now and then shoving his mother’s shoulder while he announced that
he, too, wanted to nurse.

  It was all too much for I. She walked down the hill, moving as far away as possible from the others while remaining in the shade of the trees, and sat down to watch the boulder Voices carried, and she wished she had the gzaet.

  The sun had walked high above them when dark clouds drifted in the distance, and I could smell a difference in the air. By tonight it would rain.

  The sun seemed directly above the boulder when Old Sour Plum strode onto the hillside. His long call had alerted everyone to his approach, and he stopped just at the edge of the woods. He seemed astounded to see so many others. Still he strode forward. Chest Scars and Arm Scars scooted away from their fires as he passed by. He walked down into the clearing and stopped right where the ground became black. He called to the animal. He told it to leave. He said the same things several times in several ways. Nothing happened. Was the animal scared? Was she curled up and cowering inside? Old Sour Plum called one more time, but what could he say? He was accustomed to threatening boys and men, not animals, not women. He walked to the edge of the clearing and seemed to stare off to the distant lake. After a moment he clambered down the hill and disappeared from sight.

  The sun was still high when one woman, then another, came to the hillside. The first was a tiny woman, smaller than Flatface’s eldest son, who came alone, watched the boulder, and shared no words. The second woman was as large as the other was small. She had the bulk of a man who had just started to outgrow a woman, and along her neck were faint splotches of gray, almost impossible to see from a distance, like those of a boy just before he began to grow. I would have thought this person was a man, but for the kaross she wore, the hunter’s scars cut into her arms from shoulder to wrist, the quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder, and the large, powerful bow she carried in her hand.

  And this woman, this Far Hunter, lacked the habit of solitude that I would have expected of any man this size. She called an “I am here” to Arm Scars and Chest Scars, and they called back. She sat between the two women, their heads as high off the ground as her shoulders. Arm Scars’ knee-high son, who had been afraid of everyone else, appeared unconcerned by the presence of this large woman. I looked away so as not to stare improperly.

  Dark clouds drifted in the distance, and I could feel a shift in the breeze. Dust bugs had begun to chase each other in the air. By tonight it would rain. Huggable appeared, her kaross tied oddly so that it covered her teats and was useless for carrying anything. Beside her was her daughter, wearing a pubic skirt, leggings, and vest, as if she were dressed for the chill of early spring. The daughter saw I, and her face opened with a smile.

  She almost ran from her mother, who was holding her daughter’s hand, her attention held by something else.

  I looked to find the source of Huggable’s concern, She was looking in the direction of the three women from the river’s mouth. Far Hunter still wore her quiver of arrows, and across her lap was the bow.

  Chest Scars was the first to notice Huggable, and she said something to Arm Scars and Far Hunter. The other two looked up, but once they saw Huggable, they did not look away. They continued to stare. Huggable took several steps toward them and stopped. The three continued to stare. Huggable turned away, glanced about as if searching for a new direction in which to walk.

  The stare did not stop. Their eyes followed Huggable, and every time she turned her head to check on them, she found their eyes still gazing upon her. The encounter was strange enough that it created a kind of silence on the hill. One by one, a woman noticed and gave it her attention. Flatface picked up her kneehigh daughter and walked to a space between the three women and Huggable. She faced Far Hunter with her own full stare. “Do you come to hunt?”

  Far Hunter was respectful of Flatface and looked away. “I came to see the rock and the animal in it.”

  “Then why the bow on the lap? Why the quiver on the back?”

  “I thought that I would hunt if one woman or another wanted to track a lightfoot with me. I would share meat with any woman who lives near the river and lets me sit where I sit and eat fruit from any tree.”

  I approached Flatface, who turned to her and said, “She must live near the river’s mouth. She likes to talk.”

  Far Hunter pointed at Huggable. “That one, too, lived for a time by the river’s mouth. Ask her why she is here, and not there.”

  Huggable’s daughter stood as still as a lightfoot listening for an approaching predator. Huggable tugged at her arm and walked her daughter away, heading in the direction of the sunset fruit tree where she had built hut and hearth.

  Far Hunter’s gaze followed Huggable’s back. “I have arrows.” Far Hunter said it to Huggable, but she spoke her words loud enough so that probably the animal in the boulder could have heard them.

  “For hunting animals,” said Flatface.

  “For hunting animals,” said Far Hunter, with a new meaning added to the word animal.

  “For hunting animals that a hunter eats,” said Flatface.

  “Does she live near Winding River?” said Far Hunter.

  “Yes,” said I. “She lives near the river.”

  “She once lived near the river’s mouth. Before that she lived beyond the dunes. She came with her daughter. Even though she still nursed her daughter, it became time for her to mate. The almost-a-man who shares my mother mated with her. She mated only with him. The daughter did not live long enough to taste the milk of life.” Far Hunter stood up, walked to another part of the hillside. Alone, she began to clear the area for a new fire.

  Meanwhile, a newly arrived woman, who had come south from near the waterfalls, had tied two corners of her kaross to two young trees. She was now trying to break a rather straight limb off a nearby tree, probably to drive it into the ground and use it and another like it to attach the other corners of the kaross. The storm clouds were closer perhaps. The air smelled cleaner, cooler. A spread-out kaross would not keep out the hard, masculine rain that fell from such dark clouds; her daughters would get as wet as any other woman on the hill.

  I looked to the boulder. The animal would probably stay inside while it rained. Sour Plum was nowhere to be seen. His voice could not be heard. Flatface sat across the fire from her eldest daughter. Wisdom had appeared and was resting against an old, thick tree. And there was Far Hunter building her fire, Chest Scars eating some fruit, and Arm Scars watching the boulder. There were too many in so small a space.

  I left. It was too much for her. But the thoughts stayed with her. Why had Far Hunter been so upset about an infant that was not her own? Newborns died and mothers had to bury them. Could Huggable have buried hers before it breathed in its true body so she could continue nursing her daughter?

  Back at her shelter, alone, she uncovered the gzaet, took it to where the coals of the ritual fire had turned to the color of ash, and she played, wanting to lose herself in the music, to recover a proper sense of solitude. She stopped because things felt different. The light was dimmer, and dustbugs drifted about like dust caught in a shaft of sunlight. She looked up to see the clouds above the canopy of leaves.

  There was movement behind her. It was Lightfoot Watcher. She was sitting near the black circle of the waiting fire. Her daughter sat between her legs and leaned against her mother’s big belly.

  I picked up the gzaet and entered her shelter. She ate from the basket of nuts Huggable had left her. Hanging above the dead cooking fire was the smoked lightfoot meat; she didn’t want to go out to get any. If she did, she’d have to share some with Lightfoot Watcher and her daughter. If she gave them all of it, they would feel compelled to leave, but then she would have no meat. In the distance, wood snapped. Later Lightfoot Watcher’s daughter carefully laid the wood out by I’s cooking fire. Unlike Huggable’s daughter, this girl took care to show proper respect. Not once did she look toward the healer’s hut as she put down the wood, laid it out by size, and walked away.

  I did not want to accept the gift, but fire kept the
night animals away. She walked out and made the fire without looking once at them. She pulled down four strips of meat and left them on the ground. Back in the shelter, she made a tiny fire to help keep her warm. Roofer had made an opening in the top and had made a wooden cover attached to a long, curved piece of wood so that the cover could be moved. I expected it to rain, so she left the roof cover on. She played music until the tiny wisps of smoke stung her eyes, and then she slept.

  She heard the thunder first in a dream she wouldn’t remember; the second clap of thunder shook the ground and the air. Her eyes were open, she was sitting up, and fear held her body taut. The rain tapped against the ground with the sound of running animals. Water made a whispery rush as it slid along the gutters that dead Long Call had built. Outside, a girl cried, her words lost among her sobs and the rain. A few coals burned among the night’s black, but they produced no warmth I could feel. In the distance the river churned with the weight of added water. Lightfoot Watcher was saying soft things to her daughter, comforting her.

  I stood in the doorway of her shelter and looked out toward the voices, but the night was black. All fires had been washed out. The rain was cold and made her shiver. “Come into my shelter,” she said to them. “It is better to be warm than to be alone.”

  Lightfoot Watcher politely refused, and I insisted, repeating her invitation. She heard the two approach, stumbling in the darkness. In the dim sunset light of the shelter’s coals, they were no more than shadows.

  She added the remaining dry wood to the fire. Lightfoot Watcher’s daughter complained that she was cold, that she was wet, that the fire wasn’t warm enough. I had two darkfur hides, each given to her after her music had saved a life, and she handed them directly to Lightfoot Watcher’s daughter. Her mother insisted that she refuse the gift. I insisted that mother and daughter accept. The daughter was already wrapping her body in the animal warmth. “Take off your wet clothes,” said Lightfoot Watcher.

  Mother and daughter finally slept together on one side of the fire while I tried to sleep on the other. She had been given other animal hides, but she had given those as stay-away gifts to one man and another. She wrapped her kaross‚ which was really too small to offer much warmth, around her body and stared at the slowly shrinking fire. At some point the wind changed direction and did something rare; it swept right through the opening, bringing in a nighttime chill and the splash of rain. The fire sizzled; the flames wavered with uncertain life. The cold slipped through skin and sank into bone. She curled up into a ball, but no warmth came. She listened to her teeth chatter; she felt the way her jaws moved. Lightfoot Watcher whispered something to her daughter, and then mother, followed by daughter, joined I on her side of the fire. Lightfoot Watcher’s back pressed against her back; the daughter’s back against her belly. The hides stretched over the three bodies. It took forever for the warmth to find its way back to her body; she couldn’t help but keep shivering even though her body was warm. Her hand lightly touched the hair atop the daughter’s head, then caressed the girl’s forehead and cheek. There would be comfort in having a daughter.