Time Slave

by John Norman

  "Up, lazy women," scolded Old Woman, getting up, even hitting Cloud and Antelope with her switch. "Prepare a feast!" The women sprang, to their feet to prepare a feast. The children, with the exception of Butterfly, who were standing nearby, leaped up and down and clapped their hands. Butterfly did nothing but, apprehensively, regard the new hunter. But Hawk was now sitting with the men, talking with them. Later he did notice her, with the children. It was then that he had said to Spear, "Is she not old enough to kneel with the women?" And Butterfly had been made to kneel with the women. None of the men had fed her. It was to the new, young hunter mat she went last.

  "Feed me," she asked.

  He cut a large, hot piece of meat. She eyed it. Then he began to eat it. "Feed me," she begged.

  He looked at her, and she dropped her eyes. When she again regarded him, he said, "We will see if you please me."

  He then rose to his feet, taking the meat and taking, too, the rolled skin of the bear he had slain in the afternoon. He left the fire and she slipped to her feet and followed him. Beyond the edge of the fire, when he had untied the skin and thrown it, spreading it, across the damp turf and snow, she had suddenly, with a cry of misery, fled. In a few steps he had caught her and, carrying her, returned her to the fur, on which he threw her, at his feet.

  Tooth called two children away from them, who had wished to watch.

  "Feed me!" she wept.

  "We shall see if you please me," he said. Then he dropped to his knees beside her.

  In an hour he returned to the fire. She, now naked, her head down, blond hair disheveled, followed him, and knelt behind him. About her throat, visible under her hair, knotted there by the hunter, was the necklace of loops of leather, and claws, and threaded shells; Butterfly was now of the women. Her cheeks were stained with tears. Hamilton regarded her. She thought that, in another year or two, Butterfly would be the equal of Flower. Butterfly reached her hand forth, gently, to touch the hunter. He paid her no attention. Hamilton then saw her lie on her back, eyes moist, reproachful, and lift her body to him. He threw her a piece of meat. She ate it eagerly, kneeling quite closely behind him.

  To one side Hamilton saw Ugly Girl lift her body to Tooth. He fed her.

  This made Hamilton happy. Then she went to Tree and, on her back before him, lifted her beauty before him, arching her back. He threw her meat, it. striking her body, and she scrambled up and ate it happily, kneeling behind him. Wolf fed Antelope, and Runner fed Cloud.

  No more had been heard of William and Gunther. Tree had, knowing Hamilton would have wished it so, returned their bullets to them. They had gone. There had been no meat for them in the camp of the Men. For more than two weeks following their departure, Tree, in his jealousy, had made her serve him exquisitely well, scarcely permitting her out of his sight. The first two nights, when not using her, he had kept her bound, hand and foot. During the first two days, he had kept her in close ankle shackles, as had been done with her when she had first been only a captive stranger in the camp, not even necklaced.

  She glanced at Tooth and Ugly Girl. He held her in his left arm and fed her with his right hand, bits of meat. Huge, homely Tooth, with the prognathous jaw, the extended canine, the lover and teacher of children, cared for the simple, doglike thing in his arm. She held him, and put her head against him. Then she looked up at him, the large eyes wide, soft, moist. She licked him softly with her tongue, and lifted her head again to him, to see if he would rebuff her. He gave her another tiny piece of meat. She could not aspire, of course, to wear the necklace, for she was only of the Ugly People. Hamilton supposed Tooth was fond of her body. It was short, and squat, and round-shouldered, but, from the point of view of Tooth, Hamilton supposed, it cuddled well, and the breasts were not displeasing. Even Tree, Hamilton recalled, occasionally ordered her to cuddle to him, drawing up her legs; it pleased her, too, when commanded, to do so, feeling his strength, his protection, making herself a small, helpless love kitten in his mighty arms. But the face of Ugly Girl seemed so repulsive to Hamilton. How could Tooth stand to gaze upon it? It was broad; the neck was short; the hair was stringy; the eyes were so large, so wide, so simple, so empty. Hamilton wondered how Tooth saw Ugly Girl. Did he see her as she did? Or did he see, or sense, something else in her? How could he stand to look upon her? Hamilton chewed on the meat which Tree had given her. Tooth looked down into the eyes of Ugly Girl. They were soft, wide, moist He kissed her. Her face, to Hamilton, startled, in that moment, had seemed somehow different than before. She did not understand what it was that she had seen. Ugly Girl now had her head against Tooth's shoulder. When she lifted her head from his shoulder there were tears in her eyes. Hamilton shrugged; the Ugly People were animals; yet Hamilton was pleased that Tooth should be kind to Ugly Girl. It was she whom the Men had used to steal bullets from Gunther and William.

  "Feed me, Master," wheedled Hamilton, putting her chin on Tree's right shoulder.

  He passed her back a piece of meat, with his right hand, over his right shoulder, not looking at her.

  "Here is a piece of sinew," said Hamilton to the miserable Butterfly, "which I have been saving. It is long enough. Now sew well. Next time measure more carefully."

  "Thank you, Turtle," said Butterfly, gratefully. She knelt, bending over her sewing.

  The brief skin which Butterfly wore about her hips was tanned from a hide, that of a deer, which Hawk had slain. Her first task, after pleasing Hawk, had been the preparation of the bearskin which he had brought back to camp with him. Turtle and Cloud had helped her with it.

  It had been evident, from the first, that Hawk had a special interest in slender Butterfly. It was almost always she whom he called upon to serve him. He insisted on exact and total obedience from her, as Tree did from Hamilton. Hamilton could see that the girl, to uphold her self-respect, pretended to resent this, and hotly, but was secretly, as could be seen from her smiles and expressions, much pleased. Hamilton supposed that Butterfly, an intelligent, arrogant, spoiled, vital girl, could only respect a man who was her total master. Hamilton, in living among the Men, had, for the first time, begun to understand the ratios of dominance and submission, endemic in the animal kingdom. She saw it in wildlife about her, and among the Men. Had Hawk been crippled by a subsequent psychological conditioning or caught in the meshes of social restraints, Butterfly would have constantly, protected by his imprinted conflicts, his self-alienation, and reinforced by a world invented to exclude hunters, fought him for dominance and, instinctually yearning for his authority to be imposed upon her, she genetically a hunter's woman, challenged him continually, both to his misery and hers. But Hawk was not weak. He could not have been weak, unless there had been a defect in his brain. His world had not been built to make him weak. Weakness is not a useful property of hunters. It reduces their effectiveness. Weakness and gullibility are virtues only in an agricultural world, or a technological one, where, in a complicated network of interrelationships, it is important to keep men bound to the soil, or to their machines or desks. Weakness in a hunter would work against the survival of the group. But this did not mean that Butterfly would not, from time to time, if only to call herself to his attention, or to reassure herself of his mastery and strength, challenge him. It only meant that her subordination, on such occasions, to her pleasure and satisfaction, would be again taught to her, promptly and effectively. Yesterday, Hamilton recalled, when Butterfly had spoken back to Hawk, he had, laughing, taken her by the hair into the woods. There he had switched her a few times and, finishing her discipline, thrown her over a log. She had followed him back to camp, red-faced, but pleased.

  "Since I gave you the sinew," said Hamilton to Butterfly, "you must, when the men return tonight, give me your share of the dried sugar berries, if Old Woman lets us have them." These were almost the last of the berries, dried and hard, but sweet when chewed, left over from the preceding fall.

  "No!" said Butterfly.

  "Give me back the sinew!" laughed Hami
lton.

  "No!" said Butterfly. "I will give you the sugar berries! I will, Turtle!"

  "Very well," said Hamilton. She looked down at Butterfly. "For whom are you making that garment?" she asked.

  "For Hawk," said Butterfly, angrily. "He makes me work so hard!"

  "Men are all beasts," said Hamilton.

  "Yes," said Butterfly. "They are! They are!"

  Hamilton looked away from Butterfly, happy. She breathed in the delicious spring air.

  The men were hunting. They would return by nightfall. There was now no man in the camp, with the exception of Hyena, who seldom ran with the hunters. He was in his cave, arranging stones in patterns, about the skull of an aurochs. He spent much time doing this, and such things. Hamilton hoped that the men's hunt would be successful. She was hungry. They had been gone now for two days. She had missed Tree last night. She saw Antelope returning to camp with water. Cloud was with her. Cloud no longer wore Gunther's watch, taken from him when he had been driven from the camp. She kept it among her belongings.

  Hamilton made her way up the face of the cliff. She made the ascent less circuitously than she would have the preceding fall. She did hot take the sloping path used by Old Woman, that used, too, by those who carried burdens, but scrambled upward, foot by foot, toward the second tier of caves, to the first broad ledges. Some forty feet from the ground, on a broad ledge, she looked out across the woods. The sky was very blue, with white clouds. The first leafage, delicate, very green, was on the trees and bushes. This past winter there had been only one visitor other than Gunther and William, a trader from the Bear People. He had brought shells from the Coast People, for which he had traded skins, and, for them, received salt from the Men. He had stayed for ten days. He had been known. Gunther and William had arrived some four weeks later. Hamilton was looking forward to the summer camp, in which the Men moved sometimes marches away, for new hunting, in which huts were built. It had been to a summer camp that Tree had first brought Hamilton. And from the camp they had gone to fetch flint and salt before returning to the shelters. The women did not know the location of the salt. Hamilton recalled how hard she had worked at the flint lode. But she was anxious to see it again. Flint, and salt, were necessary. She recalled how Spear had scratched out the sign of the Weasel People at the flint lode and drawn over it the sign of the Men, the arm and the spear. She wore that same sign on the five leather squares of her necklace, among the leather, the claws, the threaded shells. The flint belonged to the Men, and so, too, she thought, smiling, did the women of the Men, no less claimed, no less owned. She saw Flower below, at the foot of the cliffs. Flower, too, of course, wore the necklace of the Men. It was a pleasant day, shortly past noon. From where she knelt she could see the children playing.

  "Lazy Girl," said Old Woman, emerging from the cave behind her. "Chew this hide for Runner." She threw a hide, scraped, beside Hamilton. What flesh and dryness remained in it would be chewed away, bitten and licked by the mouth of a woman; the acid in her saliva, moistening the hide, Hamilton knew, too, was important. "Let Cloud do it!" protested Hamilton.

  "I will switch you," said Old Woman.

  "No," said Hamilton. "I will do it!" Quickly Hamilton picked up the hide and began to chew it, beginning at one edge.

  "You are a lazy girl," said Old Woman. "You should be traded to the Coast People. Their girls are good for nothing." Old Woman cackled with satisfaction, and left.

  Hamilton chewed on the hide.

  She saw Flower below. Why had Flower not been given the hide? Flower did not work well when the men were not present and Old Woman could not see her.

  "Flower," thought Hamilton, "is a lazy girl. If anyone should be traded to the Coast People, it should be Flower." If Flower were traded, Hamilton thought to herself, she, Hamilton, would be the most beautiful woman in the camp, except perhaps in a year or two, when Butterfly was older. Hamilton thought of herself as being the camp beauty. The thought did not displease her. Then she laughed at herself. How strange it all was. She recalled her own time, her own world, her former identity and self, her education, her degree, her proficiencies, former friends, former surroundings. Now she smiled. Now she was only Turtle, a slave of primeval hunters, and of one in particular, a primeval woman kneeling on a stone ledge before a cave, chewing hide for a master, waiting for the return of hunters.

  "I am happy," said Brenda Hamilton to herself. "I am truly happy!"

  It was then that, from the ledge, she saw him, at first only a shaggy pelt of hair, the tip of a stone-bladed spear in the brush, more than fifty yards away, across the clearing at the foot of the cliff.

  She knelt on the ledge, speechless, frightened, confused.

  Then she saw others.

  She leaped to her feet, screaming.

  At the same time, moving swiftly, crouched over, carrying spears and clubs, they emerged from the brush about the clearing.

  They wore headbands.

  She saw Flower stand as though frozen. In an instant one of them was upon her, striking her with a club to his feet.

  She heard Antelope scream. Old Woman came running from the cave. The children, crying out, shrieking, scattered. Men struck at them with spears. Hamilton saw one of the men kneeling over Flower, jerking her hands behind her back and tying them. She saw Antelope in the arms of another man, squirming. Then she was thrown to her belly, to be bound. Other men swept around the clearing. Some began to climb. Numb, half in shock, not comprehending, Hamilton stood watching. "Run!" cried Old Woman. Hamilton saw the face of a man appear suddenly above the ledge to her left. Then his arm was over, and half his body. "Run!" screamed Old Woman. Hamilton suddenly felt the stinging cut of the old woman's switch. Frantically Hamilton began to scramble up the cliff. Gasping, fingernails scratching in the crevices, miserable, Hamilton climbed. She heard Old Woman's switch below" strike the man. He cried out with rage. She turned, looking over her shoulder, hearing Old Woman's scream, then seeing her dropping, hitting, rolling and dropping, turning, down the steep slope, sprawling to the clearing below, and the face of the man below.

  She climbed another foot. She heard his cry to her, ordering her to return to the ledge. Desperately she sought a new handhold. He cried out again. She found it, and moved higher on the cliff. She had seen Tree climb the cliff here, "and others, even some of the boys. A rock struck her, hard, on the left side, above the small of her back. She slipped, but caught herself. Then she heard the man begin to follow her. Then there was another, too, with him. She reached a small ledge, and, breathing wildly, with two hands, grasped a heavy stone. With difficulty she raised it over her head and, moaning, flung it downward. It struck the first climber a glancing blow on the side of his head. He lost his hold, scrambling and scratching against the side of the cliff, and, skidding, and then dropping, fell back to the broad ledge, twenty feet below. The second climber reached over the ledge on which she stood and grasped her ankle. She shook free and began again to climb. He ordered her back. He was swift behind her. He leaped for her but she was too high for him. For minutes Hamilton climbed. At first he did not climb after her but stood on the ledge, shouting at her. Twice he threw rocks. One struck her on the left leg, behind the knee, hurting her. The other struck near her face on the left side, nearly causing her to lose her hold, but, again, she did not fall. She heard men shouting below. She sensed that some were looking for a new ascent, an easier one, to head her off. Then she heard the man below, not wanting to risk losing her, perhaps wanting to be the one to take her, begin to climb. On a tiny ledge she turned. He was still following her. Far below she could see men in the clearing. At the feet of one, bound hand and foot, lay Flower. Between the feet of another, similarly secured, lying on her side, lay Antelope. The butt of his great spear, upright in the dirt, in his imperious grasp, that of her taker, lay near her face. She saw Old Woman lying at the foot of the cliff. Another man was dragging Butterfly by the hair, bent over, down the sloping path leading up to the first level of caves.
In his free hand he held a bag of salt. She saw one child, bleeding, lying in the clearing. From the brush one man emerged, pulling a young, pregnant female by the wrist. He tied her hands behind her back and made her kneel. With a rope he tied her by the neck to Flower's bound ankles. She saw two more women of the Men being prodded to the center of the clearing, shoved stumbling before the spear butts of captors.