Children of the Plains

by Paul B. Thompson

  Moving on, she found a swampy water hole. With her new spear she gigged a few fat frogs, then dug some tender cane shoots out of the malodorous black mud. She crouched on a stone by the water hole, washing the shoots and gnawing on them.

  The food and her weapon gave her new confidence. She walked all night, and just before dawn she smelled smoke. A thin smudge rose from a pine copse ahead.

  Hunters in these parts often slept with a slow fire going, feeding it with resinous green pine. The resulting smoke kept mosquitoes away and usually warned off prowling scavengers.

  Still limping on her mangled leg, Nianki crept up on the strangers’ camp. She saw two man-sized lumps on the ground, a smoldering heap of pine boughs between them. A hide bag hung from a tree branch, out of reach of badgers and rats. On the other side of the camp a tripod of sticks stood with a bark box balanced carefully on top. Soundlessly, Nianki entered the camp and sat down on the upwind side of the fire.

  One of the men, a tall fellow with bare brown shoulders, rolled over on his back. He began to snore loudly. His companion stirred.

  “Shh!” the sleepy man hissed, throwing a convenient pine cone at his snoring friend. It landed nowhere near him.

  The snorer rasped on. The one who’d thrown the pine cone gave a disgusted sigh and rolled to his feet. He had a cape wrapped around himself – soft elk hide studded with a crow-feather collar – and he hitched this up around his shoulders. He shuffled toward his friend, unaware of Nianki.

  “Pakito, turn over!” he said fiercely. The snoring man remained heedless. His snores were so loud Nianki thought he’d scare away all the game within a day’s walk.

  “Pakito! You worthless pile of ox dung!” The caped man aimed a kick at the snorer’s hip. No gentle nudge, it rolled the clueless offender over on his face.

  “Ow!” he yelped, sitting up and blowing brown pine needles out of his mouth. “Pa’alu! Did you kick me?”

  “I did! You were snoring again.”

  “Is that any way to treat your brother?”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t use an axe.”

  Nianki let out a brief, sharp laugh. Both men started and stared, noticing her for the first time.

  “If I were a panther,” she said, “you’d both be feeding my kits by now.”

  “Who are you?” demanded Pa’alu, the caped one. Nianki ignored the question. Pakito, taller by a head than his brother and broader in the chest, tucked his feet under him and faced Nianki. He had a round face and dark brown eyes.

  “You look like you’ve been fighting a panther,” he observed pleasantly. “Since you’re here, you must have won.”

  Pa’alu was staring at the short spear in her hand. “Your weapon – may I see it?” he asked. She held it out for his inspection, but did not relinquish it. Pa’alu’s eyes widened and he said, “Pakito! You said you lost your spear when the boar’s mate ran off with it. How did this – this scarred one get it?”

  “My name’s Nianki. I found this a night’s walk from here.”

  Pa’alu rounded on his brother. “You threw away your spear!”

  “It was broken,” the big man said sullenly.

  “It has a good head of gray mountain flint! The shaft could have been replaced!”

  Pakito gave an exaggerated shrug, saying nothing. Nianki decided the strapping fellow was actually the younger of the two, no more than seventeen or eighteen seasons old. Pa’alu seemed a few years older.

  “It was a bad luck spear anyway,” Pakito finally said. “It never hit anything.”

  With a shake of her head at such thinking, Nianki reversed her grip and hurled the shortened weapon at Pakito’s feet. It struck at his toes. He yelped and fell over backward. Pa’alu snatched up his own spear and held it high, ready to impale Nianki. She sat quietly, hugging her knees.

  Pakito got up, visibly shaken, but exclaimed triumphantly, “You see! He missed me, as close as he was!”

  Pa’alu snorted, but his eyes never left Nianki.

  She slowly stood, saying, “I’m a she, giant. And you have a cut between the first two toes of your right foot.”

  Pakito lifted his foot, grabbed it in both hands and spread his toes apart. A crimson bead oozed from the tiny cut.

  “I’m bleeding!” Pakito sat down heavily and blew on his toes. His brown eyes looked accusingly at Nianki.

  Pa’alu grinned. “You have a plainsman’s eye,” he said approvingly. “Where’d you learn to throw a spear like that?”

  “From my father. He is – was – a great hunter.”

  Pa’alu yanked the spear from the ground and handed it back to Nianki. “Keep it. It doesn’t seem to bring bad luck to you.” He eyed her many injuries. “Or perhaps bad luck is finished with you already.”

  Nianki sat down cross-legged, laying the short spear across her lap. Pa’alu offered her a hollow gourd with a long thong tied around its neck. She shook it, heard sloshing, and sniffed the open neck. Water.

  She drank deeply, gulping rapidly to prevent any spillage. When she was done she handed the empty gourd back to Pa’alu.

  “A handy thing,” she said.

  “I made it,” he replied. “Haven’t you seen a water-gourd before?”

  “I’m not from these parts.”

  Little by little Nianki relaxed. Pakito was good-natured and devoted to his brother. Pa’alu was a bit harder to fathom. He had the quick reflexes and keen eyes of a hunter, but he also seemed clever in the way her brother Amero had been – always making things and thinking of new ways to do things. Cleverness like that made her uncomfortable.

  They shared their breakfast with her – raisins, salmon jerky, and soft white mush Pakito called “cheese.” It smelled spoiled to Nianki, and she declined to eat it.

  “What happened to you?” Pa’alu asked. “Who attacked you?”

  “Animals. A hunting pack. Never seen their like before.”

  “Wolves?” mumbled Pakito through a mouthful of raisins.

  “No.” With painful economy, she described the beasts who had destroyed her family. “I alone survived,” she said. She bit off a piece of jerky and chewed in silence.

  “What will you do now?” said Pa’alu.

  She shrugged. “I’ll live the best I can.”

  “You can come with us,” Pakito said, looking to his brother for confirmation.

  Pa’alu’s expression was unreadable. “You are welcome,” was all he said.

  Nianki stood up. “I will go where the wind takes me.” She lifted her head, watching the clouds stream to the southern horizon. “Alone.”

  Pakito was crestfallen, but Pa’alu nodded solemnly. He placed a few pieces of salmon in a bark box, tossed in some raisins, and handed it to Nianki, saying, “May the spirits of the sky and plain favor you.”

  “They haven’t yet,” she replied.

  *

  The brothers departed westward, laden with their food and implements. Nianki couldn’t understand why two hunters would burden themselves in such a way. Why carry so much food when it was all around, waiting to be picked or caught? Still, she couldn’t fault the brothers’ generosity. On the strength of their food and water she felt reborn.

  That evening she reached a broad river and found it teeming with birds – ducks, geese, cranes, herons. Raiding a few nests, she added four eggs to her provisions. Afterward, she bathed her wounds by swimming out to midstream and floating on her back for a while, letting the current carry her downstream. Curious minnows followed her, nibbling at her fingers and toes. It was an odd, teasing sensation that she half enjoyed, half ignored until it called up memories of the stormbird gobbling down whole elk. Everything in the world fed on something else. The mouse ate the grub, the fox ate the mouse, the vulture ate the fox – humans ate nearly everything and were eaten by still larger predators. Even the mighty elk were just morsels for the stormbird.

  And who ate him? What did the stormbird, he who breathed lightning and flew on the crest of a tempest – what did he fe
ar?

  Her eyes closed. She lay, bobbing gently, until an errant wave sent water into her nose and she jerked upright, coughing and spitting. The minnows vanished into the depths.

  The broad red orb of the sun was setting, so she swam to the south shore. The other side of the river was a cacophony of birds quacking and trumpeting as they came to roost for the night.

  Nianki climbed a sandy hill overlooking the river and bedded down for the night, her back against a sturdy vallenwood tree. It was just a sapling by vallenwood standards, yet still bigger around than she could reach. She laid Pakito’s broken spear against her chest and slept deeply. Only once did a noise in the night alarm her – a panther prowling nearby let out a scream. The high, almost-human sound brought Nianki rolling to her feet, spear ready. When next it screamed, the panther was farther away, so Nianki resumed her place under the tree and slept undisturbed.

  Chapter 4

  For Amero, the trip to Duranix’s home passed in a dream, one he would recall often in later years. He was flying through the air. There was wind in his face, pulling at his hair. Stars raced by through gaps in the clouds. Amero had dreamed of flying before, but never so vividly. Once he struggled to awaken so that he could see where he truly was, but sleep, like a blanket of fog, enclosed him again.

  His first impression after the odd dream was of noise – a low rumble, loud, yet not painful to the ear. The cool air was heavy with the smell of water. Amero opened his eyes.

  High above him was an arching expanse of rock streaked with red and black minerals. A pulsing, bluish light filled the air. Amero sat up. He was in a shallow, scooped-out hollow in the floor. The depression was full of fir boughs and freshly torn-up grass; some clumps still had dirt clinging to them.

  Around him was an enormous cave, a hundred paces along each of its three walls. The curved ceiling must have been sixty paces high. Light entered the cavern from three points. The first was a hole in the ceiling below the apex and facing outward, not straight up. The second was a large circular opening in the outside wall on the extreme left; it was well off the floor, and anyone entering there would have to do considerable climbing just to get down to the cave floor. The last was a small opening on the far right, at floor level, just the right size for a grown man to use. A wall of plunging water screened the view. A waterfall. That accounted for the persistent rumble.

  Amero climbed out of the bough-filled pit. His right leg where the yevi had clawed him was still painful, but much less so than before. He forgot his injury as he examined his new surroundings.

  The cave walls were unnaturally smooth, without stalactites or stalagmites. The floor in the wide part of the cave – the waterfall side – sloped gradually upward. In the rear, a level platform at least eighty paces wide filled the comer. The only other noteworthy feature was the smell. The cave smelled vaguely sour, like overripe fruit.

  Not seeing anyone, Amero limped to the lower, smaller opening and looked out. A column of foaming water thundered down the mountainside, concealing both entrances to the cave. To his astonishment, he found the cave was hundreds of paces above the ground, set in the side of a vertical cliff face. His head swam, and he lurched back from the precipice.

  How did I get up here? he wondered. Where was Duranix? There had to be a trail, a passage ascending from the river basin below.

  Recovering his nerve, Amero mounted the slope to the rock platform. The face of the platform was curiously notched with long, parallel scratches that served as handy footholds. After scrambling up, he found the upper floor was also hollowed out in the center. And there he found Duranix, lying in this upper-level bowl.

  His strange benefactor was curled up in a strange position, his knees bent backward in a way Amero had never seen a human’s legs bend before. Even odder, the floor was littered with peculiar objects, like large tree leaves, only these were stiff and shiny. Amero picked one up. A little bigger than the palm of his hand, it was oval-shaped, heavy, hard, and the red-gold color of autumn leaves. What could it be?

  “Rubbish.”

  Amero flinched and dropped the object. It rang loudly when it hit the floor. Duranix had rolled over and was watching him, his head propped up on one hand.

  “Wh-what?”

  “I answered your question,” Duranix said, eyes narrowing. “Those things – they’re rubbish.”

  “My question?” Amero’s confusion cleared when he realized the man had overheard his thoughts. Well, he decided, nothing such a powerful spirit-being did should surprise him. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said awkwardly.

  “Then don’t think so loudly. I’m bound to hear.” Duranix sat up with a quick, fluid movement Amero found hard to follow.

  The strangeness of his host, the unfamiliarity of his surroundings, began to overwhelm him. Backing to the edge of the platform, Amero asked, “How did you get me into this place? We must be a whole day’s climb from the bottom.”

  “Three hundred sixty-two paces, as you would measure it,” said Duranix as he rose and stretched. Amero saw there were several of those shiny leaves where Duranix had lain.

  Duranix straightened his loincloth and walked down the notched platform ledge. Amero hobbled along at the taller man’s heels, trying to keep up.

  “How long have I been here?” Amero asked.

  “Since last night.”

  Amero stopped dead in his tracks. “But how? We are many days’ journey from the plains. It’s imposs —” The boy cut himself off, once more remembering the ease with which his host had dispatched the yevi.

  Duranix offered no explanation. Holding onto the rim of the lower opening, he leaned out toward the waterfall. Spray dampened his short hair. He leaned further and opened his mouth. Water beaded on his face and filled his mouth.

  When he’d drunk his fill, Duranix swung back into the cave. His fair skin glistened. He smiled with some secret amusement and said, “Thirsty? There’s no sweeter water in the world than my waterfall.”

  Amero was thirsty. He licked his cracked lips and gazed longingly past his host at the tumbling torrent.

  “I can’t reach out that far,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I’ll help you.” Duranix grabbed Amero by the scruff of his neck and thrust him through the opening. The boy let out a shriek of terror as he saw the distant ground between his feet.

  “No! No! Don’t drop me! Please don’t —”

  Duranix shoved him into the stream. The water pummeled Amero, and he locked his hands on Duranix’s arm, certain he would be dropped over the edge. However, Duranix never lost hold of him, and after a few heart-stopping moments, he was hauled back inside the cave.

  Gasping and sputtering, Amero collapsed on the floor. “Why were you screaming?” Duranix asked. “I would not drop you.”

  “The water – too hard – too hard,” the boy choked.

  Duranix sighed. “What fragile creatures humans are.” He left Amero coughing and spitting. A moment later he was back with a scrap of dry deer hide and one of those shiny oval leaves. He rolled the hide into a cone and crimped the seam shut by folding the leaf around and pinching it with his fingers. He held this odd object in the edge of the flow of water until the hide hollow was filled. He offered it to Amero.

  The boy pushed wet hair out of his face and took the proffered gift. The hide held a double handful of water, and he drank it quickly. The water was cold and pure, with a mineral tang missing from lowland streams.

  “Thank you,” he said, eyes closed as he savored the wonderful taste.

  His thirst appeased, Amero turned the unusual object around and around in his slender fingers. “You made this?” he marveled.

  “It would be foolish to die of thirst within sight of a waterfall.”

  Wet through and through, Amero began to shiver, his teeth chattering in the cool air. He returned to his bed of boughs and crawled among them, trying to get warm. The water-catcher he kept firmly in his hand.

  Duranix busied himself in t
he far corner, below the high, larger opening. He returned shortly with an armload of furs and hides.

  “Use these as you see fit,” he said, dumping the load beside Amero.

  “Where are you going?” The boy’s voice cracked as he asked the question, and Duranix turned slowly toward him, red eyebrows pressed together in a frown. Amero muttered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean... I’m sorry.”

  Duranix studied him silently for a moment, and Amero hid his embarrassed face by turning to the heap of furs.

  “What did you call the animals who attacked you?” the man finally asked.

  Amero pulled a thick white ox hide over himself, up to his chin. “Yevi?”

  “Well, boy, I must find out how far the yevi have penetrated into my domain.”

  “Your domain? Are you... are you the father of the whole plains, Duranix?”

  He smiled briefly. “Father? Quaintly put. I am the master of the lands from these mountains west to the forest’s edge.”

  “Are there other masters? In the forest?”

  Duranix’s handsome face darkened. “There is. He is called Sthenn.”

  “Your... brother?”

  Duranix folded his arms, looking angry. Then he relaxed and said, “I must remember you have a limited range of expression. Sthenn and I are of the same race, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You look like a man, but you do things I’ve never seen any other man do.”

  “I sometimes go abroad in human form.”

  “Why look like a man if you’re not one?”

  Duranix was silent and Amero realized he was asking a great many questions. It was a habit that got him in trouble so often with Oto. The boy bit his lip. It was hard not to voice the questions that filled his head.

  However, Duranix did not look annoyed, as Oto so often had. He simply looked thoughtful and replied, “It makes traveling easier for me to appear as a man. Besides, humans amuse me. Most of them are no better than the beasts they hunt and kill.”. He gave Amero a penetrating look. “You’re different though. I see signs in you of higher faculties – intelligence, curiosity, and perhaps something more. You heard the yevi speak. When you think clearly, I can hear your thoughts as loudly as I hear the falls outside.”