Eena seemed not quite satisfied, but she said, “Come, I show you something.”
Dave followed her across the cavern to where she paused before a young man with brown hair and mild brown eyes.
“Come, Beno,” she commanded.
The young man got up at once. As they left the cave, Dave saw that he limped. His right leg was twisted, and his foot would not meet the floor easily.
The three walked down the ledge to a much smaller cave, not more than ten feet square. They stepped inside, and Eena said, “This Beno’s cave. Show him, Beno.”
The young man, who was apparently very shy, straddled a log and picked up what appeared to be a small stone. With the other hand he pulled from his pocket a larger rock with sharp edges. He put the small stone on the log, aimed carefully, and struck it a sharp blow. A flake of stone fell off. He struck again and again, and all of a sudden Dave understood.
“Why, he’s making an ax head—out of flint.”
“Yes. Beno only one among People who can do. You try?”
Dave was fairly clever with his hands so he agreed at once. Sitting down, he held the stone Beno gave him, gripped the larger rock, and took careful aim. He struck, but it was his own finger that he hit.
“Ow!” He dropped both stones.
Eena and Beno laughed, and for a moment he stared at them angrily. Then he joined in, saying, “I guess I’ll leave the ax-head making to you, Beno. It’s very good work. How do you know where to hit it?”
The young man shrugged. “I just know.”
“He make many things, all good,” Eena said proudly. “Now I show you something.”
They left Beno behind in the cave, and as they walked down toward a clearing, Dave said, “It’s a shame he’s crippled.”
“What is‘crippled’?”
“I mean, he can’t walk very well.”
“No. Fell from big cave when he little. Never walk good since.”
They reached what appeared to be a small field of tall grass. Eena looked up at him proudly. “This mine!”
“This field is yours?”
“Field belong nobody. This mine!” She reached down and plucked up a stalk of the grass.
He saw now that it was some sort of grain. He looked over the field and understood. “You mean you grew this?”
“Yes. Here, you eat.” She stripped off a handful of the heads, poured them into his palm, and did the same for herself. “Eat,” she said. “Very good.”
The grain had a slightly dusty taste but a rather pleasant, nutty flavor. He almost strangled when he tried to swallow but managed to get it down. “Very good,” he agreed.
“Start little.” She made a sign with her hand. “Long time ago. Every year I scatter more. Now, big field.”
Actually it was a rather small field, but Dave saw the potential. “I think I can show you how to make this a lot better to eat, Eena. We’ll have a regular bread factory, if you’ll just give me time.”
“What ‘bread’?” she asked, a puzzled look on her face.
“I’ll have to show you.”
As they climbed back to the large cave, she said, “Tribe no like grass. They say better eat meat. But sometimes meat hard to find. Grass always good, even when put in cave for long time.”
Dave stared at her with admiration. “You’re probably the first farmer in Nuworld.” Then, recognizing that she did not know what a farmer was, he said, “I can help you with this, Eena, and it’ll be a good thing for your people.”
By the time they got back, it was growing dark. Dave joined the other Sleepers, who formed a little island at one side of the cave. While they sat talking, he studied The People and noticed that they kept looking fearfully at the cave opening.
Josh said, “What’s wrong with them? They look afraid.”
“I think they’re afraid of the dark.”
“I don’t blame them for that!” Abigail shuddered. “With those T-rexes outside and no telling what else, it’s something to be afraid of.”
“I guess that’s why they live in this cave up here. A T-rex couldn’t get up that cliff—or any of those dinosaurs.” Jake nodded. “Pretty smart.”
As time passed and the darkness became complete, the cave was lit by only the flickering fire.
Suddenly an old man got up and stalked to the cave mouth. He was wearing bracelets made of bone, and his face was painted.
“I hadn’t noticed him before, but I bet I know what he is,” Sarah said.
“What?” Josh demanded.
“I bet he’s their witch doctor. My parents used to say every tribe back in Oldworld had a witch doctor of some kind.”
Her words seemed to be true. The old man began to dance around, uttering strange sounds. His chant grew shriller as time went on, and then the witch doctor walked back and forth before the frightened members of the tribe, shaking a sort of rattle in their faces.
He chanted of the horrible things that lay outside in the dark that only he and Greska, the sun god, could save them from.
Moans of fear went over The People, and children buried their faces against their mothers’ sides. Even the strong warriors had nothing to say but sat with lips clenched.
At last the weird old man came to the Sleepers, and an evil light shone in his eyes. He shook his rattle in Jake’s face and renewed his chant.
Jake looked around with a frightened expression himself. “What’s he doing anyway?”
And then the medicine man—his name was Grak, Eena said—shouted, “Feed to Greska! Make Greska happy!”
“This sounds like the same thing we heard before,” Dave said in alarm, but before he could say more, Lom and another young man leaped up and seized Jake by his arms.
Grak snatched up a war club and raised it as though to bash Jake’s brains out.
Dave scrambled to his feet, but Eena’s voice stopped him.
“Father!”
Clag at once said, “No! No! No food for Greska.”
Grak screamed, but the chief was adamant. “They no be killed. Not yet,” he said firmly. There was a fierce struggle of will between Grak and Clag, but it was the chief who won out. He lifted his ax and motioned toward the small, wizened figure of Grak. “No.” Then he turned around and said, “People sleep now.”
Jake’s face was pale. “That was a close one. We’ll have to watch our step around here.”
“You’re right about that!” Wash agreed. “That old guy’s mean clear through. I’ve seen lots of folks like him.”
“Well, I don’t guess we’re going to be shown to our room in the Holiday Inn,” Dave said. “Looks like we better just roll up right here.” He saw that all the tribes-people had fur robes. “And they’re not offering us any of those, so it’ll be blankets for us.”
The People watched as the Sleepers pulled blankets from their backpacks, and there was a babble of voices as though they had done something magical.
Abigail and Sarah were arranging their sleeping spot when Abbie said, “What’s that man looking at you for?” She indicated a hairy, short, stocky individual who had been staring intently at Sarah.
“He’s been looking at me like that ever since we came,” Sarah muttered. “I wish he’d look at somebody else.”
Abigail shuddered. “I wouldn’t be surprised but what he’s thinking about offering to buy you. That seems to be the way they do things around here. I feel sorry for the women and children.”
“Yes, they need kindness,” Sarah answered.
Abigail let the silence run on, interrupted now and then by the sounds of a crying child and the shuffling of the old woman who kept the fire going. Then she said, “I don’t guess there’s much room for kindness. Not in this world.”
“I think that’s why Goél sent us here—to show a little kindness.”
6
Bakery
Clag summoned all the boys to go on a hunting trip. The girls, of course, stayed behind, and the first thing Abbie demanded was a bath. She sought out Eena
.
“Eena, I need to take a bath.”
“A bath? What a bath?”
Abbie tried to explain, but the concept was too difficult for Eena.
Sarah, who had been listening, smiled and said, “I guess one picture is worth a thousand words, Abbie. Come along—let’s go down to the river.”
They put a change of clothes and some soap into Abbie’s backpack, then made their way with Eena down the cliff, through the field, and to the stream. After Abbie and Sarah had bathed and washed their hair, they dressed and spread their hair out to the sun, which was beginning to grow warm.
Abbie had brought along her new cosmetic case and now began to apply makeup.
Eena’s eyes grew wide as she watched the process.
Abbie turned and said, “You are a very pretty girl, Eena. Would you like to try some of this?” She extended the lipstick and the small mirror.
Eena took the lipstick in one hand and the mirror in the other, obviously not knowing what to do next. Then she turned the mirror toward her face. When she saw her image, she gave a little scream, dropped both objects, and jumped to her feet.
Sarah scrambled up and put her arms around her. “It’s all right, Eena. It’s not magic. Look!” She held the mirror, put the girl’s hand on the surface, and said, “You’ve looked in the river or in a pond and seen yourself, haven’t you? Well, this is almost the same.”
After some time she got the girl quieted.
Then Eena became very interested. She touched the lipstick with a finger and smeared color on her mouth. Then she looked in the mirror and nodded. “Good!” she said.
Abbie was amused. “Let me help you with that.” She began putting a little makeup on Eena’s face. As she worked, she said, “I think Lom likes you a lot.”
“Yes. Want me for mate.”
Sarah, who had been watching the young man Beno, said, “Beno is very nice.”
“Yes, Beno good,” Eena answered, “but he no bring home food.”
“But he makes the clubs that they kill the game with,” Sarah said.
But this concept seemed far beyond Eena.
Then a thought came to Sarah. “Eena, if the men don’t bring back something to eat, you go hungry, don’t you—the whole tribe?”
“Yes, men must bring food.”
Sarah’s face grew thoughtful. She tapped her lower lip, then said, “I want to show you something, Eena. A way you can have something to eat even if the men don’t kill any animals.”
Eena stared at her unbelievingly.
“Dave told me about the field where you grow grain. Would you show it to me?”
“Yes, I show.”
Sarah and Abbie gathered their things and followed her to the small grainfield. “It was very wise of you to grow this,” Sarah said. “Would you let me show you how to cook it?”
Eena looked bewildered.
“I’ll show you. You and Abbie gather some of this grain. Abbie, why don’t you put it in the backpack, and I’ll go back and start preparations. We’re going to start a bakery school today.”
As Abbie and Eena began to gather the ripe grain into the bag, Sarah went back toward the cave. She knew that the grain would have to be ground into flour, so on the way she searched for just the right rocks to perform that operation. She finally found a large concave stone with a natural hole worn in it, perhaps by water, and then looked for a rounded one that would fit inside.
Having found that, Sarah began hunting for flat rocks. Fortunately there were many of those around, and she built what amounted to a small oven. She could think of no way to build a door, but she was confident that her stone oven would bake bread.
Eena and Abbie soon returned with a bagful of grain.
“That’s fine,” Sarah said. “Now, let me show you how to do this.” She put a handful into the concave rock. Then, taking the rounded stone, she began to pound the grain. When she finished she had crushed it into a kind of rough flour. It was more like commeal, but she knew it would do.
Scooping some up, she put it into one of the pans they had carried for cooking stew.
“Now, you try it, Eena.”
As Eena began to pound the grain, Sarah noticed that the women and children had gathered around them. “This is what we call making bread,” she said. She tried to explain the process, but it seemed beyond their ability to understand. “I wish we had some milk,” she said, “but water will have to do.”
A small boy—Tor, his name was—asked her what milk was. When she explained awkwardly, his face lit up. “Come, you see.”
Mystified, Sarah followed him, and not far from the cave she found a goat and a small kid. They bleated, and the boy said, “Milk!”
“That’s wonderful!” She went back for a stone container and soon had milked the goat. “I learned how to do this on my grandfather’s farm,” she told Tor as she finished. “Now, we’ll make something good to eat.”
By the time she got back, she found that Abbie and Eena had ground enough meal to make a small supply of bread.
Sarah began to mix the milk and the flour, adding some salt from their own supplies. She showed the women how to make small round cakes. “You do it like this,” she said.
Soon the women were all eager to try their hand at it.
When the little cakes were made, Sarah put them on the flat rock inside the oven. “Now we build a fire and let them cook. Tor, will you make a fire in front of this little house?”
She motioned to the stone structure, and Tor at once began to gather sticks. Then he brought a glowing branch from the fire in the big cave and soon had a brisk blaze going in front of Sarah’s oven.
As the cakes cooked, Sarah and Abbie talked with the women. They had become very friendly and seemed interested in everything about the two strange girls. From time to time they would reach out and touch their long, silky hair, seemingly mystified by it. Their clothes fascinated them too, especially their shoes.
Finally the cakes were done. Sarah reached in with a stick and awkwardly pulled one out. “I wish we had some yeast,” she said to Abbie. “This is what they called ‘unleavened bread,’ I guess. Somehow we’ll find some kind of yeast, and then we can have real biscuits.”
She took the first cake, broke it in two, and handed half to Eena and the other half to Tor. “Taste it and see if it’s good.”
Both the boy and the girl looked at the bread doubtfully. Then each took a bite.
“Oh, hot!” Tor touched his tongue. But soon he bit off a chunk and began to chew. An odd expression crossed both his face and Eena’s.
“Good!” she said and chewed eagerly “Bread—good!”
The rest of the women crowded around. There was not enough for all to sample, but they made bread three times that day.
As they sat in front of the oven, waiting for the last batch to bake, Eena said, “Now, we have food even when men no get game.”
When the hunters came back, they brought only one small creature that looked like an undersized antelope, not nearly enough to feed the whole tribe.
Eena ran to her father, holding up a cake and saying, “Eat.”
Clag stared at her, took the morsel of rounded bread, and took a bite out of it. He was obviously hungry after his long hunt, and as he ate she explained to him how it had been made from the grass that grew in her field.
“See, we plant big field. Put grain in cave. When we hungry, we cook.”
An odd look crossed Clag’s face. Clearly he had never had such a concept before this. As far back as any man of The People could remember, if they did not find meat they starved. He stared at Eena, then at the two girls. “Good. What you call this?” When they told him, he repeated the word. “Bread, good. We have bread.”
Dave came over to the girls and smiled. “It looks like you had a better day than we did. I’m glad you thought of this.” Then he said, “Eena, it looks like you’re going to be the farmer in this tribe.” He had to explain again what a fanner was, and she seemed
pleased with the idea.
But one was not pleased. Lom had a scowl on his face. When he was offered a bit of the bread, he tasted it and spit it out and said, “No good. Need meat.”
Dave tried to make peace with the young man. “It doesn’t mean you won’t have meat,” he said, “but when you have a bad hunting day—like we did today—it’s nice to have something to eat, isn’t it?”
Lom was insulted. “Me hunter—best hunter in tribe. I bring home meat.” He saw that the others were watching, and he said defiantly, “Greska angry. When Greska no angry, we kill meat again.”
A thought suddenly seemed to come to Lom. “We have meat.” He looked to his right, and a smile touched his lips. “We kill goat.”
The little boy Tor cried, “Don’t kill the little one, Lom.”
But Lom was angry and said, “We have meat. Kill both.”
He stomped off, and the boy’s face screwed up as if he would cry. “He kill goat, Eena?”
Eena said, “Lom catch goat. It his. He do what he want.”
But Dave had heard the conversation. He ran after Lom. “Lom, let me talk to the chief, please.”
Clag was not far away and, overhearing, turned toward them.
“Chief,” Dave said, “I know you’re hungry and the goat would be good eating. But think about this—there may be a time when you’re even hungrier. Wouldn’t it be good to have meat then?”
“Hungry now.” Clag shook his head. “Lom catch goat. It his.”
Dave turned back to Lom. “Then think about this—if we could capture a male goat and keep the male and female together, they’d have little goats like this one. Soon you might have many little goats. Then, every time you get hungry, you could kill a goat and have food. Besides—” he looked at Sarah “—it takes milk to make good bread, doesn’t it, Sarah?”
When she nodded, he went on. “So if you keep a flock of goats you’d have milk and meat when you wanted it. You wouldn’t have to depend on luck in hunting.”
But Dave saw that he was wasting his breath.
Lom’s face was set in an angry expression. He glared at Dave and said, “We eat now!”
Caves That Time Forgot Page 5