“Does it belong to the animal?”
I looked to Hugger. What would he do if she told him he was right, that it was the animal’s knife? “Where’s the daughter?”
“She is not here.”
“Where is she?”
“Nightskin heard my calls. She took the daughter.”
“No one else came?”
“No.”
“Did the daughter see the killing?”
“I do not know.”
“Where were you?”
“I had left. I have been here day after day to watch after her. It was too much all this time nearby and no solitude. I should never have left.”
“Do you know where Nightskin keeps hut and hearth?”
Near the cold springs Nightskin had set up hut and hearth in a large clearing where a long time ago Talk Too Much, Flatface’s mother, and the mother of Crooked’s mother had first lived after their mother had died. This past spring, I, Flatface, and Flatface’s eldest daughter had burned the brush away there, so the area would be rich in grasses and lightfoot, and it would be rich in berry bushes this autumn. For now, a woman who lived there would have to walk far to find food other than fish. Her presence would frighten off the lightfoot.
The light in the woods was slowly dying, but here in the clearing the afternoon sun shone down, making everything clear. The color of the sky was deep and distant.
I called out her approach. Nightskin emerged from her hut and gestured a welcome. Huggable’s daughter came running out of the other side of the clearing; she must have been playing among the few trees that had been left standing.
I stopped where several burned logs had been placed to represent a waiting fire. Huggable’s daughter ran up to her, her eyes long with happiness, but she stopped short and looked respectfully away.
Nightskin said, “I have food to share.”
I said that she also had food to share at her own fire.
“Share mine with me while you’re here.”
“I would be glad to. If you share mine some other day.”
“I, too, would be glad.” Nightskin laid down a strip of leather by the cooking fire. She reached near the coals and took out several pieces of meat, which she laid on top of the hide. She gestured for I to come and sit.
I left the waiting fire and turned to see that Huggable’s daughter remained there. Nightskin did not look to the child or invite her to the cooking fire. Nightskin just stood on the opposite side of the fire, her eyes following I’s every move. I became uncomfortable. Nightskin was watching her movements the way one watches a lightfoot. I became aware of how tall the other woman was, of the faint ash-colored patches that stretched under the chin, of the flat strength of her belly, nothing at all like the belly of a pregnant woman. Like the Stranger in the village, Nightskin did not avert her eyes. They stood like that for a moment, on opposite sides of the fire, face-to-face, their eyes half-open so no one would feel there was anger or threat. It was as if she were a girl again, doing this with Flatface’s eldest daughter, seeing who would jump back first, but there was also something about it that was not like a game at all.
Nightskin ended it by sitting down and laying cooked meat out in front of herself. I sat, and they both ate. It was lightfoot meat. By the hut, two poles supported a third pole; from that hung numerous strips of meat. Behind I, Huggable’s daughter was walking around the waiting fire, singing softly, her voice as soft as a forest breeze.
“What words do you have to share?” asked Nightskin.
“I see you have become the mother to another’s daughter.”
“You know this other was killed?”
“Yes. I have seen the body.”
“Then you saw the knife the animal left in her.”
“Yes,” she said, even though she wanted to argue the point. But Huggable’s daughter had remained by the waiting fire and was watching her, averting her eyes whenever the healer looked in her direction. “Why have you become her mother?”
“I heard the almost-a-man who one and another call Hugger cry out in the night. I had been told where Animal Teats kept hut and hearth and how Hugger always stayed there. The woman one and another call Squawker came. She told Hugger to leave before the true body left for the sky. She was frightened by the death. When Hugger did not leave, she left. Who else was to take the daughter?”
“But you did not share mothers with Huggable.”
“No one did. She has lived in many places.”
“You despised Huggable. She shot at Roofer, but she killed Clever Fingers.”
“Her daughter did nothing. Who else was going to take her? Do you want to be her mother?”
Huggable’s daughter was plucking leaves off a tree. She held the branch with one hand, and with two fingers she pulled the leaf at the stem. She dropped the leaf and watched it float to the ground before she plucked another.
Nightskin said, “You are the healer. It is said that you have not felt desire for many winters. It is said that you do not have time for a daughter. Do you want one now?”
Another leaf floated, swaying back and forth across the air, and before it touched the ground, the daughter had returned attention to the branch.
“Healer?”
“My concern is that your feelings for the mother might become the feelings you have for the daughter.”
“You do not know my feelings, then. I was sure that the woman who shared my mother and who stayed the night by your fire would have explained. Then you would have understood my feelings about the daughter’s mother.”
Arm Scars had said things to I and other things to Lightfoot Watcher. I couldn’t remember how much she had believed. “The woman with scars on her arms told me that you had mated only with Clever Fingers and that you carried a child.”
“Then she did not tell you that the daughter grew from my pollen.”
I looked at the ash-colored patches under her chin, at the bulk of Nightskin’s body, and she remembered what Lightfoot Watcher had said about Nightskin. But it did not make sense. No man cared what grew from his pollen.
While I hunted through memories for words, Nightskin stood up. “You are a healer, and you should not have to wait until I die to see this.”
I also stood, but she did not know what to say to these words, either.
“It has been said that you do things to dead bodies so that you know live bodies well.” She unfastened the kaross around her waist and laid it on the ground. She laid herself flat on top of the kaross. There was something about the way she lay there, back down, belly up, that made I feel awkward, as if Nightskin’s vulnerability truly belonged to the healer. I looked away. Huggable’s daughter was farther away now, running among some trees, as if none of what happened now concerned her.
Nightskin lifted her hips, reached behind to undo the knot of her pubic apron, then cast the apron aside. I stood there for a moment because now she remembered Lightfoot Watcher’s words and why she had not believed them.
“I want you to know this now and not take a knife to it later. I want you to see that I am both man and woman.”
There were labia, like a woman’s, and there was a penis, smaller than a man’s, but a penis still the same. The healer crouched beside Nightskin the way she would beside someone sick, careful to make sure that knees or shins did not come into contact with the sick person’s skin.
“You may touch,” said Nightskin.
I was split in two by her feelings. There was a revulsion, which began in her belly and moved on up to her head, and there was curiosity, which started in her head and moved down to her fingers. She lifted the penis. It was soft, and there was no trace of the thin bone that ran along the underside of a man’s penis, which made it possible for a desirous newly ripened woman to mount an uninterested old man and still take in his pollen. The penis itself joined the body where the clitoris should have been. With thumb and forefinger, the healer spread labia apart, but Nightskin’s legs were too close together to see anything
. As if guessing her thoughts, Nightskin spread her legs, her thigh touching I’s knee. I stood up and stepped away before she realized she had done so. Nightskin lay there calmly and acted like nothing had happened. She raised her knees and turned her feet out.
I wanted this whole thing to end. She could not understand how Nightskin with such ease could do what made every other person uncomfortable. Nightskin reminded her of the Stranger in the village; both did things so differently that you could no longer expect them to behave as a person should behave.
“You haven’t finished,” said Nightskin. Her eyes were still averted, just like every sick person turned her head away so that her eyes could not confirm that the touch was real.
The healer tried to find a position that was both respectful and secure, and instead ended up lying on her belly. She spread Nightskin’s labia and saw what you expected to see where you expected to see it.
“Feel the labia where they hang down.”
The healer took one labia between thumb and forefinger, felt down along it, down to where it hung away from the body. Nestled within was something round and firm, with a layer of softness around it. She felt the other labia, which hung down but was empty.
I let go and returned to a crouching position. The penis was still short, but it was tauter now. She touched it, then withdrew her hand and stood up.
Nightskin stood up too and found her pubic apron. “If I had been dead, you would have looked longer.”
I stood there for a moment, uncertain of all her thoughts.
“You understand now,” said Nightskin.
“You said on the hillside that Huggable had carried a child. You said the child grew from the pollen left by an almost-a-man who shared your mother. But that wasn’t true. The child she carried grew from your pollen, and Huggable buried the child before it breathed in its true body.”
Nightskin turned away from her and stared off into the woods. “Each woman who lived near the river’s mouth told Huggable not to allow that child to be born. No one would hunt with her. No one would share food with her.”
“Why?”
“I was a woman. I hunted like a woman. I shared food like a woman. I mated like a woman. But when I was still young, I mated with a newly ripe woman. No other woman would share food with me. No woman would hunt with me. When the child was born, it was buried, although it was a girl like any other girl.
“The woman who stayed at your hut and hearth shared my mother. The woman who stayed with Flatface, and who had scars on her chest, shared my mother. Each would share food with me only if no other woman was in sight. Each talked like she and I never had shared a mother. Then the small boulder with legs fell from the sky. I destroyed it.
“After that any woman would hunt with me. Any woman would share food with me. The woman who stayed at your hut and hearth now would tell another that she and I shared a mother. Huggable came with her daughter to live by the river’s mouth, and I mated with her. No woman could be cruel to me, because I had destroyed the small boulder with legs, so each was cruel to her. She buried the child and gave its milk to her daughter.”
“And this was the second time Huggable had mated with you.”
“Like anyone who has a child she truly loves, she wants to mate with the same man again. She came to the river’s mouth to find me.”
I said nothing.
“You want to know how it was that she and I mated the first time.”
“If you have more words to share.”
“I have too many words.”
“I am listening.”
“My desire is like that of a new almost-a-man who has discovered a pleasure in his erections. The desire has not grown smaller with age as it does for a man. So when the desire became too much, I would wander off like an almost-a-man whose mother will no longer share food with him. I wander until I find a woman who will mate with me. It is a long wandering. Young women already want to mate with old men. And then it is hard to present myself as a man. Usually I end up mating with a newly ripe woman who enjoys the freshness of mating, who is still playing with her solitude and still has not lost affection for her mother’s embrace.”
“And you feel desire the same way a woman does.”
“But no full-grown man will mate with me. A young almost-a-man or another who is in love with his erections will mate, but each man avoids me. The only exception was Clever Fingers, who was still almost-a-man even though he had lived as long as a man. I opened myself to him and only him, as Huggable opened herself to me, and so he knew the pollen was his, so he would make more gifts for me.”
There was nothing for I to say. She had heard so much that she found she both sympathized with Nightskin and despised her. Nightskin was like Hugger in the way desire still controlled her, but Hugger hunted affection. He stayed outside Huggable’s hut and hearth to insure there would be someone to take his embraces. This woman hunted more than embraces, as if in being both man and woman, she had taken on the worst habits of each.
I stood. Huggable’s daughter was sitting near the waiting fire and tracing her finger through the black charcoal spread out on the ground. She must have noticed that the healer had risen, because she looked up, her eyes open with questions. Did she hope that the healer had come to take her?
Nightskin also stood. “I will be a mother in time. There will be a child, and this daughter will have someone with whom she can share a mother.”
I was not a mother, nor would she be one soon. She could think of no reason to claim Huggable’s daughter as her own. She distrusted her own feelings, knowing they had much to do with the nature of Nightskin’s genitals. She said the meat had satisfied her hunger, and walked out of the hut and hearth, stopping to pat Huggable’s daughter once on the head.
“Healer.” It was Nightskin’s voice.
I turned.
“It is said that a healer wants a daughter to learn the music for healing. Huggable gave birth to one daughter then another. If you want a daughter…”
Nightskin said nothing more. She let the idea speak itself in I’s mind. I had no more words to share. She turned and strode off. But the words that never once touched air stayed alive in her head.
The following is taken from the notebook Pauline Dikobe kept during her 200 day study of the slazan foraging population on Tienah.
Day 68
We place the insects in their encampment to watch them, and then the women leave their hut and hearths. They wrap themselves in their chi!kans‚ take their quivers and knives, and head off with their children. It’s early summer. The afternoons are hot and humid. The leaves remain green throughout the day, and the lack of color feels alien. The locals have eaten out their residences. They’re moving to other areas to gather and hunt while the weather’s good. At least that’s my hypothesis. They’ll probably all get together and plan an attack instead.
Day 74
Slazans‚ both male and female, can move through the woods with hardly a sound, as quiet as a ghost. At other times a single slazan can be as noisy as an inept urbanite making his first hike in the woods. They break dried branches with a snap, shake green ones so leaves rustle, call out their Iamhere’s. No predator is caught unawares. No conspecific is taken by surprise.
When noise? When quiet?
Males seem to call out their I am here’s at regular intervals. If they hear no response, they don’t call out again. It’s a tremendous act of trust, or of hubris. It assumes that a silent male won’t sneak into his range and take advantage of whatever the adult male is trying to protect, whether it be access to food or to mates. Perhaps I’m missing the point; perhaps there’s no problem if male territories overlap.
Females remain quiet near their own hut and hearths, but they get noisier when they approach another woman’s hut and hearth. We have no images yet of male-female interaction.
What rules should I follow? I have taught myself to move through the woods, and I make little sound. I worry that I will come upon a slazan and t
ake her by surprise; I worry that she will interpret my behavior as that of a hunter and not a potential visitor.
But if I am not seen, I may see more; I may see something our imaging pins don’t pick up.
Day 77
My wanderings, nursing child in sling, yield nothing in the way of contact.
The mapping satellites have recorded night fires, so we have a census of summer encampments. Maryam is manufacturing more insects.
Day 78
Tamr has suggested that we inject an isotope tag into various locals so we can monitor where they go. Jihad, not to be outdone, wants us to gas shelters at night and take blood samples to measure the genetic relationships of the local community.
I’m glad their orders forbid them to come down and help me. If we treat the slazans differently from the human groups we study, if we draw blood without consent, then we have made a decision about how we view these people. If we observe them the same way we observe animals, we have established their position in the hierarchy of life.
“You want them to use this data for peace,” Tamr says. “You give them faulty data, you won’t give them enough to negotiate adequately.”
I don’t respond. The mark of the socially bellicose: she uses my values, values she dislikes, to convince me to do things her way.
Day 84
Today, while walking, I hear noises off in the distance. I shift my baby into the chi!kan so he won’t fall out. I crouch down and creep forward, over to the crest of a ravine. Below are two woman butchering a local version of an ungulate. One arrow sticks out from its neck, another from its hindquarters.
Later Jihad and I carefully review the images of each woman. The intelligence recognizes one woman. We’ve ID’ed her as !U. She owns one of the three hut and hearths we have monitored. The second woman we have not seen before. She appears to be roughly the same age as !U. The intelligence does a phenotype comparison of body structure, facial features, skin coloration, and concludes that they are not closely related. Jihad wants a blood sample.
I want to know if it’s kinship or the meat that bonds these two women together.
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