Mammoth Boy

by John Hart

  Urrell did. He pulled at a flap of the bison’s hide while Agaratz cut under it to detach skin from flesh, a long and strenuous task for two. But for Agaratz’s phenomenal shoulder strength, and seemingly depthless energy, Urrell knew the work of flaying a bison and butchering it into transportable joints was far beyond any two men, let alone a crookback and a youth. He knew this from hunts in his own clan where its seven-strong group of hunters had work enough with a big kill, when they managed one. Yet he did not doubt Agaratz, someone who bade wolves fetch him and whose gaze delivered strength.

  A man who could call up wolves to help him hunt could do anything, so Urrell helped with a will.

  Around them, in the stained snow, their allies were feasting on the gralloch, Agaratz having only kept back the suet and some liver for them to gnaw as they toiled. Urrell saw Rakrak happy to chew gut with her own kind. When he called her name she raised her head, acknowledged him, and went on eating.

  There was much to learn from watching Agaratz carve with a skill none of his clan could match. He cut round muscle and sinew with speed and precision, sharpening flint blades with a few taps, only using the axe on major joints. Urrell watched and memorised. The haunch came away in one piece.

  The beast’s shoulder was removed with equal skill followed by the best rib meat. That done they struggled to turn the carcass over in the failing light. Only with Agaratz’s strength did they manage. Their problem was to skin this side so as to pull the hide away in one piece. Agaratz sawed though the skin of the massive neck and round each leg, resharpening his blades constantly, showing Urrell how as he did so. The wolves sat watching.

  “What are the wolves waiting for?”

  “Oetsemeken wait we finish, then eat.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They know. I tell.”

  A last huge effort and the hide came free, dragged from under the carcass. They sat down to recover and chew suet.

  “Now cut last leg and go.” In the gloom, by touch, Agaratz cut out the second shoulder. The second haunch he left ‘for wolfs’.

  They packed the three joints with several rolls of flank meat in the pelt, rolled the whole into a parcel, and bound it with the thongs that Urrell had lugged all day and whose purpose he now saw. They made two tump lines and when ready to go Agaratz uttered a low sound to the wolves, one unfamiliar to Urrell, which released them from whatever thrall Agaratz held them in. They leapt forward to finish the bison they had helped to bring down.

  “What about Rakrak?”

  “Rakrak come later.”

  Urrell took up his line and Agaratz the other. With their gear piled on the parcel, they set off to haul home enough meat to last them weeks, cached in the snow.

  CHAPTER 15

  Midnight or later they reached home ground, through the ceaseless falling snow, now mid-shin deep, soft and hampering, piling in front of their burden as they dragged it along, so they had to stop every few dozen steps to clear it away. With unerring accuracy Agaratz headed straight across the featureless expanse, in the whitish obscurity of the arctic night, and brought them safely to their gulch. Whether by design on Agaratz’s part or by chance, the kill had been fairly near their home ground. Urrell was too tired to wonder about that, too weary to talk. The haulage took so long because of the parcel’s bulk and weight, plus the impediment of soft snow. When the snow froze Urrell knew movement would be easier, despite the greater cold.

  They left the meat in its wrapping at the foot of the cave, Agaratz only slicing off two fat collops of rib meat to take up. The climbing pole he left in place ‘for Rakrak’.

  “Now eat. Need foods. You work well, Urrell. Learn much and be strong. Good.”

  Never before had Agaratz commented on his efforts or uttered such overt words of praise. That day Urrell knew he had pushed his stamina to the utmost, to exhaustion. He had felt failure, loss. Then to be praised by this being of mysterious talents and powers, not reprimanded, suffused him with gratitude. The visit to the mammoth cave, the hunt with wolves, these had been acceptance tests and after Agaratz’s words he felt that he had come through with credit.

  The fire seemed to blaze more brightly that night as they waited for enough heat to build up for their steaks. Meantime Agaratz showed Urrell how to toast handfuls of grains they had spent so long collecting in the river meadows: he parched them on hot stones, releasing a nutty flavour that delighted the boy’s palate.

  Scuffling sounds heralded Rakrak’s return up the pole. Urrell jumped up to greet her as though they had been parted weeks rather than hours, Rakrak placing her forepaws on Urrell’s shoulders to sniff and lick his face.

  That night lad and wolf slept huddled together for warmth and companionship more closely than ever before.

  The trio would now see the wisdom of Agaratz’s campaign to lay in winter supplies. Snow fell endlessly for days, monotonously, adding silence on silence. Urrell had seen nothing like this in all his winters spent farther south, at the end of the clan trek to the same stretch of coastline that his group had used as wintering quarters for as far back as oral accounts went. Other groups, with speech much like theirs, camped not far off. The sea-shore was rich enough in shellfish and carrion flotsam to sustain larger populations than the summer hunting grounds.

  During lulls in bad weather groups met and mingled, a time Urrell liked. Among these strangers he felt less of an orphan. They accepted him as another boy from a neighbouring camp who showed more keenness to learn than usual. Old men were pleased to have an audience, even of one. By being a good listener, Urrell learnt from an old hunter of the great bears that had once lived in those caves. A forebear of the old hunter had been a boy when the last of them had been slain. There were stories that they still roamed in the mountains to the north, towards the land of Old Mother’s childhood mammoths.

  “Agaratz, have you ever seen the great bears of the caves?”

  “None now. They gone, like my peoples.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Gone.”

  Urrell knew Agaratz would not elaborate about his kin, so he carried on about the bears: had they gone to the mountains, to the mammoth mountains?

  “Not mammoths now. Not cave bears. Not my people.”

  “But there are bears in the mountains. The old hunters said so, and Old Mother spoke of the mammoths.”

  “They not know. I know.”

  “But how can you be sure, Agaratz?” Urrell felt emboldened by the cosiness of the recess, half buried in hay, hugging Rakrak. He noticed how Agaratz’s aloofness when questioned was slowly mellowing the longer they abode together, while Urrell increasingly performed his share of tasks and become better company. He could now flake flints, kindle fires, cure hides and cook with almost the deftness of the master himself, coached by him with sly approval, something none of his home hunters would have done for a half-grown youth.

  Agaratz did not answer. He remained silent so long Urrell was no longer expecting a reply when Agaratz suddenly spoke out in a high-pitched voice. First hesitantly, as if translating from his own or another language events remembered from the long ago, he gathered fluency in the rhythmic manner of reciters that Urrell had heard from old men down by the sea.

  “I tell,” began Agaratz. “I tell you. Long time past, long, long time, big bears, mammurak, long-tooth cat, and big animal with one horn live in these lands.” He paused to search for words in Urrell’s language to convey the subtle, more complex original language of the recital.

  “Great ice come, all down mountain and never melt.”

  He went on, speaking to himself in a low voice from his couch in the hay, in words Urrell did not understand, till, satisfied he had recollected the story aright, he resumed, “Winters colder, colder. Very long. Summer short. My people live here then. Living in caves, make snow houses, hunt bison, snow-ox, reindeers. Plenty eat for all. Share with big cat, big bear, and that time they learn to speak bear, long-tooth tiger, wolfs. They hunt together.”

>   “Then ice melt and go back up mountain. Not good for big cat, not for bear. New people come and hunt. Hunt much, so big cats go and bears go. Mammurak go. My people stay to keep caves, but they few, then fewer. Now all gone down caves. I last. When go, close cave. No-one find way.”

  Urrell had listened in utter silence. It was the longest sustained statement he had heard Agaratz make. He, Urrell, the waif, was being introduced into another reality, one in which Agaratz moved with ease, examples of which Urrell had glimpsed. Was Agaratz, its last guardian, testing him, this youth from another people, so that he, the waif Urrell, might become the tradition bearer of such knowledge?

  Urrell asked: “Agaratz, can you teach me how to speak to bears?”

  “I try.”

  “Can we go to the land of mammoths, to find them?”

  “None now.”

  Old Mother had spoken of them. She had been in no doubt at all.

  “Agaratz, the Old Mother came from that land. She knew the mammoths.”

  “When summer come, Urrell, we go find mammuraka.”

  Urrell snuggled down happily with Rakrak, to dream of mammoths.

  With winter closing in there was little to do but cure hides, sew garments and keep warm. Urrell grew to asking Agaratz about his people and seeking to be taught anything Agaratz was willing to reveal. Often it meant returning time and again to the same theme.

  “Agaratz, why did your people not move when the cold came?”

  “They…” he wavered, deciding which word to use “…look after caves.” Urrell noticed the explanation did not satisfy Agaratz’s sense of what he sought to convey.

  “Did they look after paintings?”

  “After paintings, yes.”

  “Who did the paintings?”

  “Olds, olds, from old times.”

  Urrell watched him roll hand over hand to show time long past.

  “Were they your people, Agaratz?”

  “Before, olds, other kin, all gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “To mamu.”

  “Is that where the dead go?”

  “Land of mamu…”

  More he would not say, nor where this land lay, except to wave vaguely into the earth beyond the depths of their cave. At this time Urrell noticed how little Agaratz ate – a few nuts, a handful of seeds. He grew lethargic, he who was so active, slept bouts of many hours in the hay-filled recess whereas his own and Rakrak’s appetites remained undiminished. Urrell ensured the fire was kept up.

  For many days and nights blizzards drove snow across the open lands, filling their gulch until they could step out of the cave entrance straight on to the drifts. No need for the climbing pole, left poking up through the snow. Before the drifts grew too deep Agaratz had hauled up their cache of bison meat in its hide, and the store of fish, to the lip of the entrance. The emptied bison hide they had dragged into the cave, thawed, scraped, and hung across its mouth. This lessened the worst gusts. Then Agaratz had surprised Urrell by getting him to help to scrape up snow against the hide, tamping each handful till they had built a snow wall, leaving only a small, blockable entry hatch.

  “Now less cold.”

  It left the cave in gloom, but livable, lit and warmed by the fire. As their fuel had dried well, little smoke was produced. Even so, Urrell’s hands became black with ingrained grime, his face sooty from the fire.

  It did not bother him till his fingers began to itch and the tips split, then he showed them to Agaratz.

  “Ishll. Bad. Eat plants.”

  He gave Urrell dried herbs to chew, roots and garlic to eat and the chilblains vanished within days. Such winter afflictions Urrell had known among his own people. He recalled children and women weeping helplessly at their kibed fingers and foot sores.

  CHAPTER 16

  As the spell of great cold deepened Agaratz grew torpid. He did not waken for two days, his breathing slowing, till Urrell grew fearful and with difficulty shook him awake. Agaratz woke, unconcerned, merely saying, “I sleep bear.”

  “Sleep bear?”

  “Sleep like bear, when cold. You sleep bear, Urrell.”

  “I can’t sleep like a bear.”

  “Yes. I show.”

  “But Rakrak can’t. She is a wolf. Wolves don’t sleep in winter.”

  “She sleep. I show.”

  Agaratz made Urrell lie curled up and still, breathing slowly, emptying his lungs and mind. At the same time he held the lad’s shoulders and looked intently at him till he dozed off.

  It must have worked, thought Urrell, when he came to from a dreamless blank. Rakrak slept quietly beside him in the hay and leaves, her snout nuzzling his side, scarcely breathing. He spent several worried minutes rousing her. Agaratz was nowhere to be seen. Boy and wolf unstiffened their limbs and eased themselves out of their hay-filled den, both compelled by an urgent need to urinate before anything else. They hurried down the gallery, accustomed to the route in the dark. Urrell guessed he must have slept for a number of days and nights, such was the pressure on his bladder and the painfulness of its contents’ discharge.

  This over, Urrell returned to see where Agaratz might be. Finally, he lifted the hatch flap and looked out on a world frozen into stillness, icier than ever, with all signs of blizzards vanished. On this perfect snow surface Agaratz’s tracks led off, out of the gulch, as though inviting him to follow. He scrambled into his outdoor furs.

  The tracks followed the base of the cliff towards the painted cave. Rakrak, in her winter livery, blended with the snowy lower branches of firs, now at surface level. Progress was easy over the frost-crisp surface. It was so cold that Urrell felt his cheeks burn. Even Rakrak seemed subdued, not gambolling as usual but trotting beside him, adding her paw marks beside his footprints, like a fancy stitch along the double seam his made with Agaratz’s tracks.

  When they were not more than two spear-casts from the spot in the cliff-face where Urrell remembered the entrance into the painted cave ought to be, the tracks stopped dead in a patch of snow between two vast firs. Urrell stopped too, even looking up to see if Agaratz had taken flight and settled on a bough overhead. So bemused was he in the intense cold that even this might have seemed natural. He could see no explanation for the abrupt end in the tracks. No other prints showed anywhere, human or animal. He circled the area and found nothing. Instead of following him Rakrak sat whimpering, her behaviour adding to his unease. With a growing sense of fear, Urrell set off to return as fast as his double moccassins allowed, his face raw from the cold, the icy air rasping his throat, yet sweat running under his quilted pelts, Rakrak pacing alongside.

  The secret place, the acrid weeds

  But this was no headlong flight of a small boy down a summery combe to meadows below. Youth and wolf arrived back at the cave as to the safety of a lair.

  By the fire crouched Agaratz. He raised his eyes as Urrell and Rakrak tumbled through the flap, but seemed not to notice them both, his look elsewhere as though neither was standing before him, still panting. Then the eyes lit up, focussed, and Agaratz looked intently at Urrell’s face. He touched the lad’s nose and muttered in his own tongue, went to the entrance and came back with a handful of snow. To Urrell’s surprise he rubbed his nose and cheeks with it. Urrell felt nothing.

  “Bad,” said Agaratz. “Sit not near fire. Nose get well, but hurt.”

  When it warmed it did indeed. His nose and cheeks smarted so much that he did not think to ask why the tracks had suddenly ended nowhere. His nostrils cracked and the chapping of his cheeks made life miserable for days till they healed under the goose-fat plasters Agaratz employed to soothe the frostbite.

  Urrell’s confinement brought out kinder aspects of Agaratz’s character. He lit lamps in a small recess, hung hides across it and they spent hours carving wood, horn and stone with animal designs. Urrell’s skills developed under Agaratz’s tuition. During those days he became aware that he had passed another unspoken stage of acceptance in Agaratz’s esteem. />
  With each design, each beast, Agaratz recited stories. They were new to Urrell, familiar only with the simple folktales of his own people. In Agaratz’s recitals, often made in the high tone of story-tellers, Urrell learnt of an age long past when great beasts jostled and conferred. Men were puny by comparison, tolerated by the beasts as jesters. In those tales humans often played tricks on the animals. None minded. Sometimes the animals had the upper hand. No one hunted for food as it abounded in yon times before the great cold. The lad’s imagination was nourished and enchanted by these legends summarised by Agaratz as best he could in Urrell’s language.

  Indeed, Agaratz’s grasp of Urrell’s speech improved that winter. A word or turn of phrase new to him and he seized upon it, repeated it once or twice for Urrell to correct, and consigned it to his faultless memory. Sometimes Urrell half wondered if Agaratz made play to learn his language to please the growing lad, able as he seemed to follow wordlessly much that Urrell thought but did not say. Urrell, too, improved his store of words in Agaratz’s tongue but could not fluently master its structure, so different was it from anything he knew. It seemed to him of unbelievable complexity, designed to express much he could only dimly perceive, or not at all, let alone understand. He preferred to turn his attention to carving, to making hunting gear, working leather garments, to a background of stories about insects, birds, plants, beasts and their lore. He discovered inner skills of which he had been unaware. Agaratz smiled at his delight in carving mammoths and told him of the wisdom of that greatest of beasts.

  During this time Agaratz dipped into their stores to vary their daily fare, devising meals with the skill and invention he displayed in all he did.

  A favourite of Urrell’s were collops of bison meat, rolled round nuts and garlic before being baked in embers. “Rakrak like too,” said Agaratz.

  As a treat Agaratz took combs from their honey pouches. Some honey he placed in wooden beakers with water and herbs, where it lay for days till the water bubbled and they sipped it by the fire, rolling the scented liquor round their mouths and feeling it warm their veins.