Travellers #2

by Jack Lasenby

  Although nobody could see us from the mainland, although we ourselves had reached the island only by good luck, Taur insisted on building a retreat. I knew nobody would find us on Marn Island, but could see he enjoyed the idea of a hiding place. Under the southern cliff-top’s tower we dug a trench across its only approach, the narrow causeway. A fence of poles on the trench’s upper side made a palisade. Any attackers would have to advance in single file along the razor-back of the causeway and climb through the trench while we rolled stones and thrust spears through the palisade.

  We built a shelter and kept stores there: smoked fish replaced regularly, oats, and pots of fresh water carried all the way from the stream. It was Taur’s idea, too, that we plait and keep long flax ropes, but I shuddered at the seabirds swinging far below.

  There were autumn days when the fish leapt in a sea of silver grey, when we stood in the shallows and tossed them ashore. Bigger fish cruised outside, rounding them up as the dogs rounded up the sheep. Seagulls snatched the smallest fish as they leapt. The yellow-headed birds with angled wings dived amongst them. The splashing, the creak and rustle of feathers was deafening.

  We dried our split fish in the sun and the sweet smoke of Tara’s tea-tree. Since the dogs liked fish, and Taur now ate more of it, I felt safer, worried less about Taur’s not eating meat. He was bigger and stronger than me. Neither cold nor heat affected him. Besides, the threat of the Salt Men was much less now.

  We searched for the spiky feelers of crayfish and pulled them from under rock ledges. After one of two sore noses, the dogs learned to dodge their claws and slapping tails. As the goats also loved eating cress, we fenced off a stretch of the creek so we always had some to eat with the crayfish’s rich flesh. The island’s generosity was a never-ending delight for Taur. He was forever discovering new food, from the mussels at the southern end to the eggs he stole off the northern cliffs.

  There was a sadness about even the few walls we found near our stream, like the melancholy we felt in toppled Elltun. I wondered again how the Travellers’ messengers had felt as they explored the sun-scarred walls of Orklun, and tried drawing their story. Later, during the long winter nights, I thought, I might try painting again.

  I missed the donkeys, Hika and Bok, their friendly faces, and thought of them often, the willing way they carried their loads. Taur saw me staring to where the inlet lay and roared his sympathy. I knew he missed his cows.

  Each morning one of us climbed the knoll and scanned the coast opposite, but saw nothing to fear. Perhaps the smoke signals had not been Squint-face’s. Winter coming on, perhaps the Salt People had gone back north. Or, perhaps they had sailed from Elltun on their strange craft for the green stone in the South Land. When Taur said that, I felt the carved fish on its cord under my tunic. I did not take it out because Taur feared it. Nor did I tell him, some day I wanted to find the source of the green stone.

  One night I was telling stories, sitting in front of the fire. I must have drifted off to sleep and woke to a dreadful snarling from Jak and Jess. I grabbed the axe, followed them outside. Heads cocked, they stood listening intent. I listened, too. Nothing. Jak and Jess rumbled deep in their throats.

  “You’re imagining things.” I went in to throw more wood on the fire. “Taur!” I said. “What’s he up to now?”

  “Grrrrr!”

  I ran outside. “Come on! Where is he?” Jess bounded ahead up the knoll, Jak barking after.

  In the dark, Taur lay face down on the little hill, droning into the grass. Now and then he would stop his awful noise and bark sharply, then start the droning again. That’s what Jak and Jess – with their sharper ears – had been hearing, what had frightened them.

  “Sick him!” I sooled them on to Taur who broke off in the middle of a specially loud groan and first Jak and then Jess hit him, grabbed him with their jaws, rolled him over, snarling, pulling him this way and that between them, the Bull Man roaring now, shouting, “Gawk! Garph!” for Jak and Jess. “Gwoar, Urgsh! Gwoar! Gwoar!”

  “Serves you right! It’s your own fault if they bite you.”

  Taur bellowed, grabbed both dogs, rolled over and over with them struggling, barking, scratching at him with their paws, wanting to bite but just gripping his arms and legs, holding him down – despite his strength – with their own weight till he lay on his back, helpless with shouts and laughter, begging me to call them off, and I remembered the night we first met the Bull Man, and sooled them on again.

  At last I grabbed Jak and Jess by their scruffs, and Taur flung out an arm and clipped me across one ear. I howled, and he laughed. We went down through the dark, my ear burning hot, Taur chuckling – I could hear him.

  I didn’t think it was funny any longer. I got into my bunk, pulled my blanket over my head and tried to sleep, but my ear stung. It felt hot and thick, and I couldn’t stop touching it. At last, I fell asleep.

  Something woke me much later. I lay still and listened. Sure enough, Taur was chuckling to himself. “I suppose you think it’s funny, hitting my ear!” I shouted, and Taur roared. He laughed so loud, the dogs woke and barked. Taur couldn’t stop. He laughed on and on. In the end, I had to laugh myself. I laughed till my stomach was sore, and Taur bellowed.

  As I slipped back to sleep, I could hear Taur still sniggering to himself. I smiled, but my ear still hurt.

  Next morning, we were late getting up, so had to light the fire with care. Usually, what smoke rose from our cooking blew away, because of the winds around Marn Island. Only a bonfire on the cliffs at night could have been seen from the mainland. But we tried not to make any smoke, if possible.

  Taur insisted on a steep roof and thick reed thatching. “Grawgh!” he shouted, “So it won’t blow away!” and added a frame of heavy poles on top of the thatch, weighing them down with stones hung in rope nets. He was overdoing it. Our terrace was tucked away behind the knoll, safe from the wind.

  And, of course, Taur got his revenge on me, for sooling the dogs on to him. I was up on the ridge-pole, adding more thatch under his orders, when he crept down our ladder, removed it, and went fishing. I was stuck up there most of the afternoon before he let me down.

  That night I gathered seeds from a thorny plant on the western cliffs and sprinkled them amongst Taur’s bedding. Their sharp burrs kept him awake all night, and he spent much of the next day picking them out of his blanket. I’d hidden mine, but knew he would trick me with something. Still, it was satisfying to catch him out just once.

  I didn’t grin when he held up his blanket and muttered in disgust, “Gaw!”

  “You must have got them on your blanket when you put it out to air,” I said. I tried to look innocent, as if I was sorry for him, full of sympathy, but must have overdone it.

  Taur just looked at me and growled deep in his throat like the dogs. I spluttered. I couldn’t hold it in. I laughed helpless. Taur had ripped several big holes in his old blanket, trying to pick out the burrs. He snarled and leapt at me, but Jak and Jess were quicker. They stood between us, barking and growling. And Taur jumped up and down and shouted, “Gaw! Gaw!” I knew the only thing to do was to weave him a new blanket.

  Chapter 10

  The Island that Floated

  The air cooled one night as we bedded the animals and climbed to the hut now complete with a stone chimney and bunks heaped with dry grass. Taur bellowed it was time for our warm cloaks.

  I had built a large loom in one end of the hut and finished threading it for a blanket that morning. Taur watched fascinated. When I made his cloak, he wanted to learn how to spin and weave. Now he insisted on my teaching him. Beside the bale of wool and goat hair we had brought, we collected more by rubbing our hands over the animals daily. I started off his new blanket, that night, and Taur took over from me. He soon picked up the knots for weaving. In a few days, he was quicker than me, already trying different patterns and designs. I could see why he was annoyed at being unable to draw.

  Cool air and a lowering sky warn
ed of the first big southerly. It would have sucked off our roof, had Taur not taken such care to weigh it down. Flames fluttered, the chimney rumbled, the south wall shook with the buffets. Taur grinned at my face and opened the door which he had built on the northern side to lessen the pressure from the southerly. Excited by the raw air, Jak and Jess poked their noses in, checking us. We watched them go round the animals with Het, under the trees, and trot down to the beach to inspect it, too. That big southerly carried away the last of summer.

  Up the sheltered gully Taur had found some trees with green-skinned fruit, crisp and juicy. He called them something that sounded like “urll” by which, I made out at last, he meant “apple”. Stored on a false ceiling of tea-tree railings, they perfumed the inside of the hut bitter-sweet until my mouth watered.

  We had been netting a large, fat fish, silver and red, and with a huge blunt head. It disappeared as cold currents moved up from the south, and others came, blue and brown and grey-scaled fish with oilier flesh, fine for smoking. About the same time, Taur noticed one of the seagulls had disappeared, and some of the forest birds had flown to the mainland. As he bellowed, with much bulging of his eyes and waving of his hands, these were signs of cold coming.

  Our softer-leaved vegetables stopped growing. I was pleased now we had not clipped the sheep and goats. They were going to need their coats against a winter more severe than any I had known at the Hawk Cliffs.

  One day Taur called me down to the beach. Cruising just off the stones were the strangest creatures, half-fish, half-animals, longer than us, puffing and breathing through a hole on top of their heads. As they surfaced, the sound came clear, like a man taking a quick gasp of fresh air. We even smelled their fishy breath. They leapt clear of the water, fixing us with their eyes, curving, splashing back. I knew them at once as the same creature I wore around my neck, held it up to them. As if they recognised it, the living animals leapt and frolicked beside our beach, their great fins riding up and over. And, looking at the dancing creatures, I saw how the carver had caught their spirit.

  Taur turned away at sight of the green stone, so I hid it again. The creatures dived and splashed, and he cheered up and shouted to them. It was while we sat calling, for they responded to our voices, Taur told me of a thing that came up between the island and the mainland in winter. I thought he meant the black sea-beasts we saw, crusted with white growths on their heads, things he called whales. For many days herds of these enormous creatures passed the island, rising to the surface, spouting rainbows of water from their heads, tails arching and clouting the water stunning smacks.

  Several smaller whales beached and died on our boulder bank, as if giving themselves to us. Beneath their black skin was a thick layer of fat, then red meat. Grateful, the dogs and I ate. And, to my astonishment, Taur.

  “You’ll need to eat lots of meat this winter,” I almost said. “It helps keeps you warm.” But stopped myself in time.

  Taur looked at me and smiled. “Gurgh!” he mumbled through a taste of whale meat. He didn’t eat any more. I felt my face go red. He knew what I was thinking! I was pleased I hadn’t spoken my thoughts. Still, I worried. Was his reluctance to eat meat part of the reason for his unwillingness to escape from the Salt Men until I came along? There was no simple answer to that question. Taur’s acceptance of slavery probably had many reasons, but I couldn’t stop wondering.

  Each day the air grew colder, the waters around the island richer in life – and food. We stored enough to carry us through a longer winter than I had known, even at the Hawk Cliffs. Taur rolled his bull’s eyes, smacked his thick lips, and talked of winter feasts.

  It was strange, I thought, how memories of the Hawk Cliffs and my earlier life kept rising from the submerged past, like whales surfacing from deep dives. And like their breaching and re-submerging, so the memories disturbed me then vanished into the depths of my mind, leaving me shaken with thoughts of Tara. I remembered Dinny’s plans to plant trees and regretted he was not here to enjoy the green forest on Marn Island. Sim and Petra would have fished, climbed for seagulls’ eggs, explored the island. They would have built rafts, trying to make something better than the crude craft of our lucky voyage

  I could not escape those memories. They kept surfacing, like my earlier ones of Hagar, Rose, and my father, painful, though not with their first sharp agony.

  Winter came on. Some days a wall of fog leaned over the island, hid us from the insane sun. Nights lengthened. We spent them in front of the fire. I told Taur all I could remember about the Travellers. The smallest details of our travelling life fascinated him. Then, when I thought I was running out, I remembered the stories Old Hagar told to the children – and anyone who would listen. Taur liked best the one Hagar told me as we travelled south on our first Journey after we had been left behind, and the rest of the Travellers were massacred by the Falcon People. The story of the crone.

  I tried to remember how Hagar had told it, tried for her exact words, her voice. I was no longer Ish but Hagar telling the story in the Painted Cave at the Hawk Cliffs, those years ago, and instead of Taur it was me, the young boy sitting at her feet on the floor of the cave, playing knucklebones, scattering, tossing, catching, and listening. Flames lifted and fell in the chimney. I heard not just Hagar’s voice speaking through mine, but a thousand others telling and retelling the story, sending it down its long journey through time. It was then I realised stories are messages that greet generations separated by death. That stories are our future as well as our present and past. That the past echoing in the story today makes images of the future, reflections ahead and behind.

  “There was a young man, a great hunter. The animals he killed fed and clothed his people, but the tribe increased until the hunter had to go further to find enough animals to feed them. If the young man had a fault, he was vain of his skill as a hunter.

  “The hunter travelled far and came to a lake bitter with salt and so big it had no other side. A young woman sat and gazed into the water’s mirror. She looked deep into the reflection of her own eyes, lifting, admiring her beautiful, long, black hair, running the comb through, leaning forward to see herself. The hair in her reflection seemed lifted and combed by the bitter water, swept out, and carried free to fall down her back. If the young woman had a fault, she was vain of her long, black hair. She smiled into her eyes in the water and saw the young hunter reflected there.

  “The young man looked down. Reflected in his own eyes he saw the young woman’s eyes looking up at his. They fell in love. That summer they lived by the bitter water with the girl’s mother, a crone with wrinkled face and wispy hair.

  “The young man hunted, and the young woman looked at her reflection and combed her long, black hair. When the hunter returned with animals, the women cooked their flesh, made clothes from the skins.

  “The two young people were very happy. But each day the young man had to travel further to find enough animals.

  “They had a greater problem, one they did not know about. The old crone lusted after the young man.

  “One day she said to her daughter, ‘Sit on this stone, between my knees, and I will comb and plait your long, black hair. I will make you beautiful for your lover.’

  “The vain young woman sat between her mother’s knees. In moments she was dead, strangled with her own long black hair.

  “The old woman whetted her knife on the stone. Delicately, delicately, she skinned her daughter’s body, taking great care, so the skin came off the head with the long black hair attached. She pulled the young skin over her own body and sewed it tight with stitches so small they vanished. She smoothed its beautiful mask over her own face. The mother’s eyes peeped out between her daughter’s eyelids. Her teeth smiled between her daughter’s lips. She combed out her daughter’s long black hair, plaited and wound it around her head. And she laid herself naked on the bed of furs in the tent, and waited like a snare.

  “The young man returned in his canoe with the bodies of the l
ast animals, his hair and clothes wet with the salty water. He ran into the tent to embrace his wife. From their bed of furs her beautiful face laughed up, long black hair plaited around her head, arms raised to him. He threw himself upon her and they made love. The salt water dripped from his hair and clothes. As it dried, the salt tightened the skin of the face he kissed.

  “A wrinkle ran across that beautiful face. The young man scratched with his fingernail. The mask cracked open, and he was staring down into the eyes of the old crone laughing, lusting, gloating. The young man fled, horrified. He ran and ran, many days, until one morning he found himself back among the tents of his people. They were all dead, of starvation.

  “But the old woman gave birth to a new world of animals: goat, sheep, dog, and donkey; she gave birth to rabbit, hare, and deer. She gave birth to all the fishes of the rivers and lakes, and to all the birds: mynah, pigeon, magpie, quail, and hawk. She gave birth to the rivers, the mountains, and the plains. And when all was ready she gave birth to the people who were to live in the new land. ‘Be Travellers!’ she said, and they saw the Animals’ Dance and began the first Journey.”

  I found myself sitting, exhausted. Somewhere I heard her old voice vanishing, as if Hagar was walking away.

  Taur was deeply moved by the terrible story. He thought about it, got me to repeat it many nights, and said there was a great truth in it, perhaps a warning. He would ask me to tell it again, and sit and listen in silence, puzzling about the story’s meaning.

  There were other nights we played a game on a board that he chopped from a flat piece of wood. With the juice from berries, he ruled lines and stained squares on its surface, and we played against each other with shells for counters. The winner was the one who managed to jump the other’s counters and sweep them off the board. Taur was a terrible cheat, but I soon noticed he could not help grinning whenever he saw what looked like a chance to put one across me. I learned to watch his face and – as soon as he grinned – to look closely at his move. I told him off, but he laughed. Being found out never stopped him cheating. We’d start another game, and I’d notice he was grinning to himself again. It made me laugh. He was usually so straight-faced when tricking me.