by John Hart
These Agaratz laid on the cave floor. As Urrell watched, wondering, Agaratz took a flint flake and drew the outline of a wolf in a single easy line round the weapons, muttering over the drawing in a language unknown to Urrell and sprinkling ashes from the hearth over the three spears. The hunchback was entirely absorbed in his ceremony.
“Now wolf no harm,” he said.
It was scarcely light as they set out, not towards the river as Urrell had half expected but straight from the gulch towards the distant range of mountains that the boy fancied as ‘the land of mammoths’.
Agaratz moved at a faster clip than usual, as though a great distance lay ahead, Urrell trotting along behind, his excitement slowly subsiding as the rhythm of the journey took over. Agaratz was more alert than usual, so Urrell kept a lookout too. By mid-morning their cliffs had sunk below the grass line. Huge herds of bison, seas of shaggy shapes, grazed slowly southwards. Ponies scattered at the sight of the two humans, galloping off only to stop and turn as if to see whether they were being pursued by such a puny pair. Deer loped away. Overhead vultures wheeled in ever-smaller circles as they descended on a distant carcass.
By the time the sun had passed its zenith the grasslands were beginning to break up into gullies and ravines. “Wolves soon,” said Agaratz. He pulled one of the cold fowls from the pouch and tore it into two rough halves, one for Urrell, one for himself, which they squatted to eat, their weapons on the ground by them, their eyes watchful.
Nothing disturbed their meal except marmosets popping up to stare at such unexpected visitors to their domain. When they had eaten, Agaratz descended into the ravine ahead, along a way he seemed to know, Urrell following. Across the bottom and up the other side to the top, where Agaratz beckoned Urrell to move with stealth. Over the rim of the next ravine Agaratz pointed at a burrow in the opposite bank, the earth worn at the entrance.
The secret place, the smell of weeds.
“Wolfs,” said Agaratz. He touched Urrell on the arm, sensing his fear.
The burrow remained blank. Agaratz began to make whimpering sounds. Soon a snout and pricked ears appeared at the burrow entrance and a she-wolf emerged, sniffing the air and locating the direction of the sounds. Urrell saw her dugs in milk. Her cubs would be in the den, her mate and the pack not far, ready to defend. Agaratz’s whimpering changed to a low call and the she-wolf, ears pricked, loped down the bank, across the bottom and up to where Agaratz and Urrell were crouched. Urrell moved to flee but Agaratz’s grip held him back.
“Stay. You see.”
The she-wolf came right up to Agaratz, licked his hand and rolled on her back. She showed every sign of pleasure at seeing him and answered his snuffling sounds with snuffles of her own. She turned and went back down the incline towards her burrow. Agaratz slithered down after her. At the bottom he looked and saw Urrell still on the ridge.
“Come, Urrell. Come, safe.”
Against all instinct, he did so, his trust in Agaratz overcoming all he had ever heard about not approaching female wolves, bears, lions and other animals with young. The trust was borne out when the she-wolf, at the entrance to the burrow, with whimpering sounds of her own, coaxed out her litter. They appeared, one after the other, biggest first, shy of the visitors, cowering near the entrance.
“Wolfs, eh?” said Agaratz.
“How do you do this, Agaratz, you speak to a she-wolf with cubs?”
“This wolf, my wolf.”
“Your wolf?”
“Yes. I keep when small.”
She approached Agaratz and when close dropped to a creeping stance, crawling towards him, submissive and friendly in answer to his cajoling sounds.
Shyer, drawn between following their mother and fear of the unknown, the cubs lagged behind, the smallest hanging back farthest. Their mother was three paces from Agaratz when she flattened her ears and looked away up the ravine. Their eyes followed hers. Standing, tail upright, was a big male wolf, slightly ahead of his pack. Urrell knew straightaway he was the pack leader and the father of the cubs. His hand tightened on his spear. If the wolves attacked to defend their pack’s cubs, he and Agaratz would be overwhelmed. He glanced up the ravine side: it would be too steep to scramble up with wolves in pursuit. He looked to see what Agaratz meant to do and saw only unconcern. What he was about to witness would raise both his boyish respect of and his devotion to Agaratz higher than ever.
Agaratz fixed his eyes on those of the lead wolf and began to call it in a low, coaxing bark, at the same time crouching wolf-like, bending forward and mimicking the stiff, prancing manner of a dog-wolf approaching a rival. The big wolf responded in kind, prancing forward aslant on the balls of his feet, tail erect, till man and wolf were level, flank to flank. They circled. Urrell stood still, breath held: any sudden movement and they would both be torn apart. The pack, too, held back. Meanwhile, the she-wolf, crouching where she had been near Agaratz, kept up a snuffling sound directed at the two. Her cubs had scampered back into their burrow.
Weaponless, Agaratz circled the dog-wolf as the dog-wolf circled him and such was his mimickry of wolf behaviour that beneath the jerkin and breeches Urrell momentarily saw a wolf in human skin. He blinked his eyes. It was Agaratz again. He had a strange feeling that Agaratz was performing for his benefit, the stray boy, his sole witness.
Suddenly, the tension broke, the big dog trotted over to his bitch, ignoring both Agaratz and Urrell, nuzzling her in greeting. At this signal the pack followed and milled around. Soon the cubs came out again, the smallest last, and began cavorting with elder siblings in the pack. Urrell stood there, unbelieving, his eyes going from wolf to wolf as they moved about ignoring this human in their midst.
When the dog-wolf had broken off the confrontation, Agaratz had straightened up, his attention elsewhere. Urrell noticed the pallor, the vacant look in the eyes, usually agleam with malice, fun and meaning. He shook, or was it a tremor that ran through his body – either as far as Urrell could tell – then he moved towards the she-wolf which was rolling in submission before her mate. The pallor vanished and Agaratz became himself again before the boy’s troubled gaze.
“You want wolf, Urrell?”
CHAPTER 9
The question was so unexpected that Urrell, still afraid to move, could find no answer. When he tried, he yammered uncontrollably, unable to use his throat, and instead of words broke into paroxysms of tears that surprised him almost as much as they seemed to surprise Agaratz. He stood there, a little boy again, in an alien place, wolves all around. Dimly he knew that what he had witnessed lay beyond any experience he, his band or even Old Mother had ever known.
Just as dimly he sensed that to enter into such experience needed the companionship of a wolf.
“Yes, I would like a wolf.”
Agaratz nodded. “Come.”
He led Urrell – pulled him – from the spot where he was rooted and drew him, without the least concern, through the wolves to the cubs and squatted with them. He made the comfort sounds of a she-wolf to her young. They sat on their behinds and looked at Agaratz expectantly. Here he took from his pouch the second roast wildfowl, which he began to tear apart and feed in tidbits to the cubs. Delicately each in turn accepted the treat, taking the shreds of meat from his fingers and gulping them. Last to receive her share was the smallest, the shyest cub, a she, woollier than the rest, the litter’s runt. Agaratz picked her up and as she squirmed he rubbed noses with her till she quietened.
“You take, Urrell.”
Urrell did, awkwardly, an eye askance at the parents. But they went on with their bonding behaviour, the female on her back wriggling on the ground, her mate standing astride her. None of the other wolves showed any concern.
“Now we go.” Agaratz seemed keen to leave. On his way he picked up his own and Urrell’s weapons, and followed by Urrell encumbered with his cub, now contentedly cuddled in his arms, they scrambled up the ravine side. Once at the top, they turned to look at the wolves a last time, and Agaratz again surprised U
rrell: he threw his head back and howled as a wolf howls in a long ululation, beautiful to hear, and was answered by other wolves and far-off packs along the horizon.
The dog-wolf looked up and replied in song, chorussed by his pack, heads raised and their eyes on the two humans outlined on the rim of the ravine. When the call sank away, Agaratz turned and led off at a brisk clip to the grasslands, towards their distant cliff home, Urrell trotting behind him bearing his furry burden asleep in his arms.
Twice during their journey Agaratz stopped to call the wolves and each time they answered from the direction of the ravine. The third time, within view of the cliffs, as dusk fell, his call went unanswered. They were beyond earshot of the pack.
Urrell’s contentment with his newfound companion knew no end. He had once kept an injured squirrel as a pet; sometimes girls nursed and played with fledglings till they flew. But to own a wolfling! His gratitude and wonder at Agaratz’s ability to go and fetch one so simply grew greater yet.
Once in the cave, the fire lit and meat roasting, his new charge’s playfulness was revealed in full. It chased twigs, played with pinecones, soon learnt not to fear the fire, and adopted Urrell as its leader. That first night and thereafter it cuddled up with him as they snuggled into the leaves and dry grass of the bedding in the recess. He wondered what to call it. Agaratz would know.
Those late weeks of summer were the boy’s happiest yet. His wolf cub followed him everywhere, grew fast, losing its puppyish down and taking on the sleek lines of her kind. She mimicked Urrell’s behaviour when out hunting and foraging, learning to obey commands and signs.
Agaratz watched the relationship with his amused look, those fleeting grins, as fast to flit across his face as the wistfulness that Urrell had learnt not to question
“Soon, big cold come,” Agaratz said one morning when the autumn air felt chill.
“Why not go, like others, like bison and horses, to the lowlands, Agaratz?”
“Stay. My people here.”
“Your people, Agaratz? Where?”
“In cave.”
“Cave?”
“Special cave. Special for my peoples.”
Urrell had heard such caves existed. Old Mother had told him of those of her youth, the land of mammoths. Deep in them sacred pictures from legendary times recorded animals and rites.
“Where is the cave, where?”
“Near.”
“Can I see it?”
A cloud of such sadness passed over the long expressive face that Urrell knew he had overstepped a bar. Agaratz noticed the boy’s look.
“Other time, Urrell, other time we go. When you older.”
Boys had to wait to learn the ways of men.
“Now collect foods, much foods, for cold time, Urrell.”
All Urrell’s experience was of hunting and gathering and living from day to day. A big kill meant feasting, plenty; no kill meant berries, lizards, carrion. Nothing was hoarded.
“We collect foods,” said Agaratz to his doubting charge, “you see.”
It was the start of a systematic campaign of gathering. Agaratz planned each day’s activity in a way unknown to Urrell. They set off with pouches, grubbing sticks, lanyards tressed from thongs, each day to places Agaratz knew, as he seemed to know all places within several days’ march, in search of storable foods. Urrell, unsure of the purpose of these expeditions, followed wherever Agaratz led, the wolf cub happy to gambol from side to side, mock-hunting insects and anything else in the grass that their footfalls startled.
Their first expeditions took them to wetlands and water meadows by the river, the Nani, as Agaratz called it, where a variety of grasses and sedges throve in the damp, rich silts. The grasses were familiar enough to Urrell. Like Agaratz he chewed a few seed heads as they hunted wildfowl along the river, without a second thought. Now he was to be surprised yet again. Agaratz went to an old tree with a large hollow and wriggled in to reach up into the gap, from which he pulled down a hide, bound tightly with thongs. These he untied and the complete fusty hide of a bison opened on the ground. Urrell stared.
“Now Urrell collect grasses and bring.” He showed Urrell what he meant by wrenching off handfuls of grasses with ears of seeds and piling them on the hide spread bare side up. They toiled at this for a while, Urrell not inclined to ask why. When the pile was as big as Agaratz wanted, he handed Urrell a cudgel, took one himself, and said, “Now beat.”
As they flailed the heap seeds fell from the ears. They ended up with handfuls of grain, which Agaratz winnowed by shaking the hide with Urrell and blowing away as much chaff and awns as he could.
“Good to eat, Urrell, when big colds, no hunt. Eat.” He gave Urrell a big pinch. The grain formed a chewy gobbet in Urrell’s mouth, hard to swallow.
“You like?”
“Yes, I like it.”
They spent several days like this, camping and reaping. When their pouches were all full Agaratz replaced the hide in its hollow and they trudged back to the cave, where Urrell watched as Agaratz spread the grain on hides to dry. In a side gallery he had rigged a framework of poles lashed with withes and bast, from which he hung the dried grain in pouches. Round each he sprinkled a circle of grain, muttering as he went. Seeing the lad’s incomprehension, he explained: “For rats. Not touch pouches.”
Having gathered as much grain, in several such trips, as he seemed to think they might need, Agaratz said, “Now go for xaurak.” Urrell waited to see what these might be.
For this trip they hugged the cliffs to where they petered out into a gap letting the Nani cut through on its journey to the sea. A long day’s march along its bank and they came to groves of nut-bearing bushes Urrell knew well. They grew in his valley, where he and other boys cracked them when in season – cob nuts. Xaurak, Agaratz called them.
Agaratz climbed into the low dense trees, swinging from one bough to another, shaking down showers of nuts for Urrell to gather while the cub frisked about to catch hers, cracking the shells and eating the kernels as if wolves ate little else.
By nightfall they had a good heap. Agaratz showed Urrell how to bend hazel wands into a wickey-up for the night. Around them animals foraged, none of them making sounds to alarm them. Only once were they roused when some small forager emptied a pouch of nuts and Agaratz shooed and hissed till it scampered off, pursued by a yelping cub.
“Call her Rakrak,” said Agaratz, “make rakrak noise.”
In three days their harvest became sizable. How Agaratz intended to transport it he showed Urrell on the third day. He cut two hazel poles, getting the boy to pull them down so that his axe sliced better into the tensed wood. He stripped and laid the poles flat and showed Urrell how to weave wands between them to form a travois, something new to Urrell. He helped the lad to make a lighter one for himself and when both were complete they loaded their bags, pouches and skins full of nuts on to them, bound them with strips of green bark, lifted the butt ends on their shoulders and set off home.
It was hard work. They repeated the trip to the nut groves till Agaratz had enough to see them through the hardest weather, then he announced another crop. “Now we fetch intauraka.”
This foray took another direction. They went up the cliff using a chine not far from their cave, across upland and into a hidden valley, a long rift in the plateau created where the surface, in another age, had fallen in. Trees abounded in the shelter provided. Acorns littered the ground and beechmast lay everywhere. Urrell found crab apples starting to fall, a few medlars and in thickets the blue masses of sloes, uneatable till blackened by frosts.
Agaratz was unusually cautious, spear-thrower at the ready. Urrell was soon to see why. A herd of wild boar trotted past as both stood still in the undergrowth, Urrell holding Rakrak’s muzzle tight lest she yelped and attracted a charge. Deer abounded. Birds sang. “Here bear live,” warned Agaratz.
This was no longer the grasslands, with their open vistas and distant herds of bison, horses and deer that moved on
at the sight of humans. Here the humans were the intruders, in a hidden garden, whose denizens might not depart so easily. Urrell was alert, but as if the peacefulness of their mission was clear to the animals of the woods, nothing had befallen the threesome by the time they reached the trees which bore intauraka. “Ah, Agaratz, these are walnuts.”
“Walnuts, walnuts,” Agaratz repeated this new word from Urrell’s language. Urrell, in his turn, repeated intauraka to himself. Although both learnt scraps of the other’s tongue this way, Agaratz plainly knew Urrell’s from some other time or distant source, outdoing the boy’s attempts to understand the elusive, shifting language of his mentor.
Some nuts had already fallen, their cases splitting to reveal shells within. They cracked some to eat on the spot, feeding bits to the wolf, which ate anything Urrell gave her. It was an idyllic scene in the sun and shade of the slope, beneath the trees.
Urrell noticed it first. He looked up and saw the bear not a spear’s cast away, a massive male, sniffing their scent, drawn perhaps by the sound of cracking nuts.
“Agaratz, bear!”
His companion remained unconcerned. He said it again: “Bear.”
All hunters knew how irascible, how unpredictable a male bear’s behaviour could be, how irresistible its strength. Even the bravest, ablest hunters shunned them. Any boy knew that. Urrell knew it. He cowered, clutching Rakrak.
“Not move,” said Agaratz as he slowly stood up.
The bear responded by standing also. It looked immense. Should it drop on all fours and charge, neither flight nor shinning up a tree would save them. Agaratz was puny by comparison. All he held was a spear in one hand.
Bear and man eyed each other, neither yielding. When at last the bear dropped to all fours, Urrell hoped it would disappear into the woods, satisfied with its stand. Instead it charged, full pelt, at Agaratz. Instinctively Urrell curled up with Rakrak into the tightest ball he could, leaving Agaratz to dodge the bear, even draw it away. When he dared peep up Agaratz was still there: the huge animal, disconcerted, had reared up, fifteen paces from them, and was pawing the air as though inviting the man into a vast embrace. Agaratz grunted bear-like, spread his arms wide, pulled himself up to his full height and seemed to grow as he mimicked the bear’s pawing. His bear growls, his fixed stare, had their effect. The bear dropped to the ground, shrugged, grunted a reply, and turned off into the trees.