17 Stones

by Paul Telegdi

  “There was one time I remember, among the Omaani we were, and because of his great reputation a case was brought before him to judge. I remember it well. A man dug a pit in the forest, making it wide and deep, thinking to trap something big in it to feed his family. He toiled and labored all day, and the sweat washed him and his muscles grew heavy with fatigue, but still he worked in expectation of success. Cunningly he hid it, covering it with branches and reeds and tufts of grass. The next day he went with great expectation for it was on a well worn animal path. He found the cover broken but the pit... empty! But there was blood and signs of butchering. Someone had stolen a fat buck that was his by rights. He tracked the animal to a hidden place where he found a family feasting on his kill.

  “He went before the elders of his clan and demanded justice. The thief was dragged before the assembly of the whole clan and accused. He was a sorry man. He could scarcely walk from being lame all of his days, his limbs were wasted, his ribs showing, for he was no stranger to hunger and neither was his family.

  “By clan code, he was guilty of theft and owed restitution, but the best parts of the carcass were already eaten by his hungry family. He was not hunter enough to ever replace the loss himself. Thus the elders were at a loss how to find justice. For the evidence clearly spoke against him, but they did not want to condemn such a disadvantaged person and banish him from the clan as the code required. So they were greatly relieved to dump the problem in Bogan’s lap and were curious how so great a man would solve this.

  “It did not take Bogan long to decide; he addressed them all, ‘It is true that the deer was stolen and belongs by rights to the man who dug the pit, for the reward should favor the one who toiled to gain it. But it is also true that you should not suffer your neighbor to hunger as this man and his family had. So he also had a right to the meat by dint of his need. Now it seems to me he had already eaten his portion, so what is left, its owner can claim.’ Then he dragged the remains to the man whose pit it was. ‘I award you the carcass, the head, the tail, and all the feet. Go take it and be thankful that you are whole and can hunt and trap at will without limping. Tomorrow your trap will fill again. So let your anger go my friend. And remember those who hunger and always share your bounty.’

  “He then turned to the lame man. ‘Hunger sometimes makes us forget we are men. And when the family goes hungry, there is no code that can prevent a man from feeding his family, by whatever means. Go then, you are free of any guilt. Your great need has justified your act as it filled your stomach.’

  “Then Bogan turned on the rest. ‘Are you not clan together? Are you not one? How is it that when one of you hurts you will not succour him? How is it that the eyes see need but turn blind to it? Will you wait until you too feel the hunger? Who will help you then?’ So he shamed them that the guilt of the man was really theirs for they had not helped where help was needed.” Saasha smiled as he had years ago, a smile of triumph.

  “How did the Omaanis accepted his judgement?” Chaiko asked.

  “How could they argue against it? The man’s children stood in front of them. Bellies distended, on spider legs, ribs all showing. Big eyes still full of hunger even though they had just eaten themselves full. Some just recognised the truth of what Bogan said, while the shallow turned their eyes away from it as they were wont to do. But I like to think that in all the years, the man was never hungry again.”

  Chaiko nodded and quoted Bogan, “Sharing makes you people.” It was exciting to learn of the actual event that had produced that moral. Very often only the saying survived, shrunk down to a terse statement, the rest lost as too complicated to tell or to remember. Yet to properly understand the context, what was said needed to be known.

  Saasha recounted more such episodes, his voice growing strong with pride as he recalled the days of his life when he too was strong and vital. Chaiko listened mesmerized. He felt close to Saasha; they were now linked by Bogan. The afternoon was whiled away most enjoyably for both of them. The shadows lengthened and the hum of insects grew in the air. Finally the old man said, looking at the stand of the sun, “I must go now...”

  They gathered up their fish, each with nearly a dozen. Chaiko worried about the weight the old man had to carry, but the other reassured him, “For a short distance this old body can still carry a load.”

  They walked back in comfortable silence, Chaiko full with what he had learned and Saasha with the pride of having been listened to... then their paths diverged. They shook hands in the fashion of men who knew each other, said their goodbyes, then went their separate ways. Saasha looked back at him one more time and mumbled, “Yes, I know of you, Chaiko of the Standing-Rock Clan... more than you realize...”

  Chapter 10

  The festivities continued unabated. Everybody was looking around curiously, always coming upon something interesting. There were activities for all interests and age groups. And when a suitable entertainment could not be found, people tended to make up their own.

  A group of young men, all about twelve to fourteen, got tired of wrestling with one another on a grassy meadow by the lake. All of them showed bruises where they had been hit or grabbed vigorously and slammed to the ground. They were tired and sweaty from their exertions but the competitive spirit was still strong. A Blackfoot had just come back from the cane field, having relieved himself. He made a great show of how much better he felt for it. A Dorgay looked him over with open disdain and said he could piss farther than any Blackfoot on any day. The Blackfoot then said too bad that he had just emptied his bladder, otherwise he would gladly accommodate him or any Dorgay.

  “Let not an empty bladder hold us back,” the Dorgay said taking a swig from a water-skin, and spitting a focused jet of water into the distance. “I could pee about twice as far as I can spit.”

  The Blackfoot took a long drink from the bag and he too spit a long stream of water a very creditable distance. Then everyone was clamoring to join in the contest, and one after the other each took turns at spitting.

  A Sharp-Owl boy came by and regarded the activity for a while before he hazarded to ask a Pelican-Sands youth what were they all doing.

  “It is a pissing contest,” came the reply, and the youth then broke into hoots of laughter at the boy’s astonishment. Finally, after several heats, the Dorgay who had started it all was given the honor of being the Pissing-Chief.

  The girls went about their tests of skills with a little more decorum. There was a braiding contest to test who could braid a twist of grass the fastest, and a weaving contest for design and strength. Testing for strength was easy; a weave was suspended and rocks were piled on until the weave finally broke to spill its rocks. The one that could hold the most weight was considered the winner. An Omaani girl took top honors in that contest.

  Judging designs woven into grass weave was a trickier proposition. There were a great many submissions, as every girl hoped to win some prize. But the judges themselves got into disagreements about the finer points of design and relative aesthetic qualities. Discussion often became heated and it was not uncommon that stately matrons of reputation ended up in a hair-pulling contest. Who claimed that girls’ and women’s events were less competitive? They involved less sweat perhaps, but were no less driven by ambition.

  For the younger boys there was a stone throwing competition, rock climbing, pole climbing, jumping for height or distance. The favorite of course was a deep pit of mud that had to be crossed as the jumping off point was placed successively further and further away till all except the winner had landed in the smelly muck. This always drew a huge crowd as it was very funny to eventually see every boy come a hair short, totter on the brink with arms desperately flailing away, then fall full length back into the ooze. The hapless victim would then flounder about and sheepishly clamber out with his exterior like his reputation covered with mud. Roars would follow each jump which then changed to applause or laughter, depending.

  Chaiko was looking for the new l’bow
event supposedly to be held beyond the basket weaving place. So far he had found many baskets, but there was no venue to shoot a Falcon anywhere. He looked around undecided, and could see nobody who would likely know where things were. Just then Ushi passed by, arguing with a comely young woman. “What are you doing here shaman?” Ushi called out, a little too cheerfully perhaps. Chaiko threw a quick glance at the girl and found her very pretty, especially her rosy cheeks and the definition of her mouth, but they had obviously been arguing.

  “I am looking for the Falcon shooting contest.”

  Ushi chortled loudly. “That is beyond the grass weaving place on the other side of the camp.” And then he gave the shaman more detailed directions.

  Chaiko hurried off, annoyed that he had not listened more closely this morning when Cosh gave him directions. Sure there was a difference between basket weaving and grass weaving, but the mind could be easily distracted from one to the other.

  He found the place exactly as stated beside the grass weavers. Unaccountably, he still felt slighted as if it had been deliberately intended to mislead him. This thought was so strange that it immediately aroused his curiosity. Where had it come from? With some difficulty, he was able to lead it back to the vague unease he had felt all along about Corrigan and being a guest in his home territory. He did not trust the man, but did not know what to do about it. He shook the feeling off; he was here to see a contest.

  Surveying the field, he found to his surprise that almost all the contestants were young men. The older generation seemed not to be represented at all. Was it that the younger men had made Falcon, or l’bow, their weapon of choice? Certainly the older generation embraced change less enthusiastically than the young, but still he had expected greater participation from all hunters, regardless of age. Or was it the competition itself? The young men sought it out to prove themselves and achieve a reputation. Older hunters did not need to; their reputations had already been made. This also bore some thinking about.

  The contest had already started, the rules doubtless explained beforehand. Talon after talon was loosed, sent on its way toward a target of deer skin filled with sand, marked with a red spot. Already the skin was in tatters near the mark, weeping sand with each hit. Soon a new target would have to be erected. The accuracy he was observing was amazing. Talon after talon hit the target, spilling more sand.

  Chaiko watched them all, as one by one they pulled and released in a single smooth motion. It seemed to him that there was no thought behind it, no wishing the talon on its way. Instead was just a narrow focus of intent, the rest appearing almost casual, even offhand. Perhaps they never thought of missing, they were so full of confidence. Chaiko envied them such ease, to them it all seemed so understood, so beyond questioning. Chaiko, the creator of the thing, was still full of questions, still puzzled by the weapon’s mystery. But to these young men it was already part of their world, wood bent to obey, talon commanded to fly, to seek and find its target.

  Perhaps he had his answer in their attitude. The older generation was still beset by doubts; to them the weapon was still an instrument of mystery, perhaps even of magic, not quite trustworthy yet. Should he devise some incantation to counteract this superstition, to help ease the doubters into a mastery of such a weapon? But, he concluded, Falcon belonged to those committed to use it, as these young men in front of him.

  Quite a number of rounds had been shot, and the targets had to be renewed a few times. A favorite emerged: Archer, a Sharp-Owl, was clearly in the lead, with a Dorgay, Arro, not that far behind. The rest were good, but did not have the consistency of these two. Chaiko was glad he did not have to shoot against this field. He hated to think what a low rank he would achieve.

  The contest ended, with Archer first, Arro second and a Black-Pearl third. The rest surrounded the top three and congratulated them wholeheartedly. Each vowed to be the best the next time, four years hence. Archer, as the victor, accepted a decorated quiver painted in rare scarlet, full of talons and brandished it high in the air, hooting the cry of exuberance as the Sharp-Owls were prone to do. Second and third got talons in less decorated quivers.

  “There is none better than Archer,” Arro declared graciously. “Hence we should name the best, Archer, in honor of his skill.”

  The contestants were slow to disperse, sensing that though they belonged to different clans, they were closer to each other in the sense of comradeship and purpose than to their neighbors back home. They were thus loath to scatter. They lovingly examined each other’s weapons and talked passionately about their qualities. Chaiko walked among them and recognized a few that he had made. It was then that a Lesser-Bear-Claw recognized him and started whispering to the others who he was. The whole lot of them then started following Chaiko around till he had to turn to acknowledge them.

  “Master,” one said, “tell us how you discovered the secret of the curved wood.”

  Chaiko thought, then passed on a lesson Baer had taught him long ago: “When you look at a star, look not directly at it but beside it. And then you will see it twinkling.” He smiled at them all. “So it was with Falcon, I mean l’bow: I was looking beside it, working on something else, when I first saw it and realized its power.” He left it at that, but it was enough of an explanation to satisfy them as they too needed to retain some mystery. Certainly that day another legend was added about the shaman of the Standing-Rock Clan. Many who listened to him took the feeling of awe back home with them and wove it into their descriptions of the man who invented l’bow.

  Then Chaiko added, “I might have made the first l’bow, and was the first to send a talon on its way, but today you have proven your mastery of the weapon and now it belongs to you. Some day they will still talk of Archer and Arro, and will remember their names long after they have forgotten me.”

  There was a stirring of protest among them, but the shaman’s praise felt good, nonetheless. After that they dispersed for they could think of nothing greater of value to say or to share.

  Chaiko too, drifted on, finding himself next in the midst of an argument. Two men were bartering but could not agree on the exchange. Both undervalued the other’s offering and both wanted Chaiko, a likely passer-by to arbitrate.

  “Look, Sir, at this fine staff, solid and hard all through its length. Note how well it fits the hand and how well it is balanced. Just the right weight, well fit to any man’s stride.”

  Chaiko examined the staff, made of a slow-growth, dense wood that he could not even nick with his fingernails. The heft of the rod felt good in his hands. “A fine piece indeed,” he pronounced and gave the staff back to its owner.

  The man complained, “He wants to trade for such an item of quality a moth-eaten travelling bag...”

  “It is not moth-eaten!” the other protested vehemently. “The holes are there to ventilate the bag to keep mould from rooting there. Here sir, see and assure for yourself what fine quality workmanship it has...” He gave the bag to Chaiko. The bag was indeed of good workmanship, with neat, tidy laces, tight all around, all the pieces matched and fitted to one another.

  “A fine bag, Sir,” Chaiko replied, “of superior quality.” He gave the bag back.

  “But he only wants to offer his staff. Something he probably found cast off in the woods, whereas this bag was the work of my mate’s mother.”

  “And the staff was given to me by my mate’s parents and I am only willing to trade it because my son gave me a new one, better suited to my stride as I grow old. But I will not let it go for some chewed over skin...” The other man could only open and close his mouth in indignation.

  Chaiko looked from one to the other, realizing that both wanted the other’s item, but were afraid of being taken advantage of. He rubbed his chin in pretence of great deliberation while the others looked at him hopefully.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Chaiko started, “I will give you this necklace of boar tusks and bear claws, of great value to me as they nearly cost my life, for you to hold
for your staff.” He then effected the exchange, turned to the other man and likewise offered his flute. “This flute once stopped a war and is of great value to one who knows how to blow it. Hold it for surety for your travelling bag.” Again he made the exchange.

  Then he smoothly turned to the first man, offering him the bag in exchange for the necklace. Without much thinking the items again changed hands. Chaiko then traded his flute back for the walking staff with the other man, and praised them both for what an astute trade they had made. So Chaiko had his own stuff back, while the other two went their way with new items of value, satisfied that they must have made a good deal, for the exchange was much too complicated to think about for very long.

  Chaiko puzzled through the transaction himself, thinking how useful it would be to have some agreed upon item of value to balance out trades. It was often hard to find things of equal value. In this case it had not been value that was the stumbling block, but the feelings associated with the items themselves. Both felt fond of the old items, somehow as trusted companions, while not having any feelings or relationship yet with the new.

  Chaiko found himself blocked by a crowd of onlookers watching a man juggling six sticks in the air. His hand was an impossible blur of motion as he plucked the sticks out of the air and tossed them up again. The sticks seemed to have a life of their own as they obediently arched through the air.

  Someone touched his shoulder and on turning, he found Ushi there with a downcast expression on his face. “She wants me to be her mate and won’t settle for anything less, no matter how much I talk or reason.” He made a face. “She is withholding her favors until I agree...”