Spirit and the Skull

by J. M. Hayes

  The stream widened as we followed it north, well ahead of our band. As it widened, so did the stand of willows. They grew thicker and taller as well. At a rocky spot where our footprints would be hard to see, I ducked off the animal trail we followed and dropped almost to my knees to get through a clump of willows. As I rose, looking for another trail, I realized the clearing we’d entered wasn’t empty. I tried to stop. But Down was right behind me. She plunged through the same hole I’d taken, head lowered to save her eyes from the branches. Her head rammed my rump and sent me tumbling until I lay nose to nose with the great bear.

  I might have screamed in terror, but suddenly, I had no air in my chest. When Down saw the animal, her voice worked just fine.

  “Get away, you ugly thing,” she commanded. She threw her bundle at him and then bent, picking up stones. My nose was only a few fingers from the beast’s jagged teeth. It could snap its jaws or swing a paw and end my life. It did neither, as surprised to find me in its face as I was to be there.

  ***

  Once, long before I froze in panic, facing instant death nose-to-nose with a great bear among the willows, with only Down’s shouts and hurled stones to protect me, a legend among The People visited us. It happened in the old country, before we began our migration or I left my father’s band. He was named Beast Slayer because he feared no animal and had hunted them all. The man’s reputation was so great that a crowd gathered to listen to him. Men asked questions. Boys crawled between brawny legs to hear what he said. I was one of those boys. I didn’t hear who asked, but I remember Beast Slayer’s reply.

  “No. There is one animal I’m afraid of. I won’t stalk a great bear alone.”

  I’d shivered in delighted terror, knowing there was an animal even Beast Slayer dreaded.

  “You all know how to kill a great bear. Every man and dog in the band fights him. We lose half the dogs, and some of the men. The dogs keep the bear busy long enough for the men to place their spears and arrows.” He touched his body to show where the most damage might be done.

  “We stay out of the bear’s reach and make him bleed. Hurt him enough and even a great bear dies. That’d be something to celebrate if then we didn’t have to bury our own dead.”

  Our men muttered agreement.

  “I’ve heard there are two ways to kill a great bear single-handed. I can’t explain the first because the man who planned to show me was torn to shreds before he could even set up his weapons.

  “The second method works. I witnessed it. A great bear killed a man’s woman and children. The man went to the sacred mountain and prayed to the spirits for revenge. They took pity on him and gave him a vision of how it could be done. The man cut segments of ribs from the skeleton of a mammoth and bound them together with sinew. He found the longest straight limb he could from a hardwood tree, shaped it, sharpened one end, and hardened the point by firing it. He lashed a flat slab of wood on the other end. Then he carved and shaped a short ivory staff and cut grooves along its length. He shaped obsidian blades and bound them in those groves, sharp edge out. He showed me how the blades would shave the soft hair from his arms. When all these things were ready, he went after the great bear that killed his family.

  “He used the ribs as a shield. He planted the base of his spear on the ground and aimed its tip just under the bear’s ribs. He provoked the animal to charge him and impale itself on the spear. The flat piece of wood at the spear’s base kept it from being driven into the ground or from sliding. The bear had to push the spear completely through its body to reach the man. The man lay, hidden beneath his shield, using one arm to reach out and slash the bear with the obsidian-edged staff, cutting the animal again and again. He slashed at the bear’s mouth and throat and cut open its tongue. It took a long time, but the bear died on top of his shield. In spite of the ribs, the man was badly injured. Still, he managed to crawl from under the beast and take its head. He brought the head back to me. I’d watched the fight from nearby. And I watched, when he died of his wounds.”

  Every word Beast Slayer said all those years ago flashed through my mind as I kneeled among the willows and looked death in his toothy face. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, instead of biting or clawing me, the bear laughed. It was a deep, rumbling laugh, but not so deep as I might have expected from such a broad chest. A paw flashed up to knock away one of Down’s stones and failed. She had a strong arm and a good aim and the stone hit the bear in the shoulder.

  “Ouch!” the bear said. A thick human arm swept up from inside the bear’s chest and threw its head aside. A man’s head appeared where the bear’s had been.

  “You’re not a bear,” I said, quick to note the obvious. Maybe I can be excused since I expected to die a very ugly death at any moment. Even then, I wasn’t sure whether this was a man wearing the skin of a great bear or a great bear who’d decided to appear to us as a man.

  “I’m not a bear,” the bear said, “and I won’t hurt you. So please make the girl stop throwing stones.”

  I looked over my shoulder. Down, glorious in her literally naked rage, stood poised with another rock. She didn’t put it down but she didn’t hurl it, either.

  “I won’t throw more rocks,” she said, “if you promise not to harm Raven.”

  “Good,” the bear said. “Now, you two wait for me here. I’ll go scare off those people chasing you. Then I’ll come back and explain why I’m wearing this bear skin and you can tell me why you’re wearing nothing but your bare skins.”

  He laughed at his joke, put the bear head back in place, and waded into the willows.

  “Should we wait or keep running?” Down asked.

  My heart raced. My arms and legs had gone numb and tingly. Dry-mouthed, I felt too weak to move and nearly too weak to answer.

  “Stay,” I whispered.

  Down helped me dress, then dressed herself. She dabbed mud on us to keep off the mosquitoes. I didn’t feel aroused even when she touched intimate places. Meeting the bear had left me empty, incapable of making decisions. I’d trapped Down with me in my stupor. We did what he’d asked—waited for the man bear to have a second chance to kill us.

  Figurine

  I must have dozed. I’m not sure how. I should have questioned the man who’d been a bear before he left us. I should have consulted with Down about waiting for this stranger. There’d been something peculiar about him. He was huge. Big enough to wear the bear’s skin and make it seem real. And his face…There’d been something different about that, too. The shape wasn’t quite what I was accustomed to on members of The People.

  I’d noticed these things, but I couldn’t concentrate on them. Down had doubts about waiting. I should have led her to a safe spot to watch the man bear when he returned and then decide what to do about him.

  I heard the shouts of the men pursuing us turn to panic-stricken cries. The man bear must have showed himself. After that, their voices receded rapidly as they ran for their lives. That should have pleased me. But I’d entered some trance-like state. Something like what I’d tried to do when I sought the vision that gave me my secret name and directed the way I lived my life.

  I’d survived in these willows when I expected to die. The man bear might not have harmed me, but the experience numbed my soul. Or separated it from my body so I couldn’t think properly.

  I slipped into a waking dream, though I remained aware of Down and the frightened voices of our band in the distance.

  Bone

  While Down and I ran from Stone, met the bear, then waited for his return, the sun had made half a circle across a bright blue sky swept clean of clouds. But in my dream, Perfect Woman stood exactly where she’d been when Blue Flower woke us.

  The perfect one turned toward the flat place my skull always occupied. This time, she looked at something next to me.

  She stepped to the edge of the surface and picked up the carving
I’d made of Willow.

  “No,” I told her. “You don’t deserve to touch it.”

  That didn’t stop her. She turned Willow’s likeness in her hand, examining every surface. The way she caressed it with her fingers was erotic.

  Though the carving had worn terribly from when I’d last seen Willow wear it, it remained an object of considerable beauty. Perhaps I should have felt pleased that this woman obviously appreciated that. But I didn’t.

  She rubbed it against her face, closing her eyes to better feel its texture. I wished I’d left a sharp edge on it rather than polishing it so carefully. I also wished Ice Eyes had hidden the thing so Perfect Woman would never have seen it.

  I shouted at her. “Put it down. Leave it alone.” She couldn’t hear me.

  Instead, she opened that brightly colored pouch at her waist and placed the figurine inside. She headed for the hut’s entry. I’d have stopped her with the spear that should have been attached to that sharpened flint point next to me, if I’d had a body to go with my skull.

  As she went through the exit, something crashed to the floor of the hut. Now that I knew how, I looked to see what it was, even though the edge of the flat wooden surface blocked my normal sight. The flint point I’d wanted to hurl at her lay on the strangely patterned and flat surface where I’d assumed a dirt floor must be. The point had shattered. Several shards broke away when it hit that odd, hard floor.

  She turned and looked back, as puzzled as I.

  How did that happen? She hadn’t brushed against it when she took the carving. No other living being was in the hut. Just Perfect Woman and me—a skull. A skull that could talk to Ice Eyes, but not her. A skull, whose vision wasn’t limited to what he’d once seen from inside his eye sockets. A skull, that had become angry enough to manipulate a tool it could no longer touch…?

  If so, I’d failed. I might have moved the spear point, but I hadn’t sent it flying into her flesh. I thought about trying again. The obsidian blade was so much sharper. But before I fully formed the idea, Perfect Woman turned and left, leaving the broken point where it lay.

  My mind might have thrown the point at her, but far too weakly. Her departure gave me no second chance. And ended my brief reunion with the image of a woman who’d drowned so long ago. Enraged by Perfect Woman’s greed, I tried to hurl a chert scraper toward the place she’d gone. The scraper only tumbled over on its side. It didn’t even reach the wooden slab’s edge. Clearly, moving things in this world was a skill I had yet to master.

  ***

  I changed worlds again to face our bear lumbering back into the clearing. He walked like a bear, though he carried the bear skin in a great roll strapped to his back instead of wearing it over his head and shoulders. Now that I knew, I understood that the great bear who’d greeted us in this clearing had been too narrow through the shoulders. And, of course, lacked every part of a bear’s hindquarters. Behind chest, head, and paws, only skin and fur had dragged along the ground.

  Our bear laughed again. “Well, now you aren’t bare and I’m not bear.”

  My mind still reeled from things happening so fast, here and in my dream. But I could think again. This man might be dangerous. He was different. Very tall. Very broad. Dressed all in furs, I thought. Then I realized his body was simply matted with more hair than anyone I’d ever known before. He wore only a breechclout and boots. Was his hair thick enough to protect him from mosquitoes? Since he ignored them, other than to swipe at the ones hovering near his face, it must be. How convenient.

  Dark, intelligent eyes peered from beneath a heavy brow. Yellow teeth smiled from a broad jaw with a prominent chin. Then I saw it. A single ornament hung from his neck on a leather strap—the same ornament the perfect woman in my dreams had stolen moments before…and yet in some unthinkably distant future. I’d carved it for Willow who died nearly twenty summers ago. What was going on? What was happening to me?

  “Where’d you get that?” I pointed at his chest and realizing I’d just—fifteen thousand years from now—asked the same thing of Ice Eyes.

  The stranger lifted it gently in his large hand and showed it to me. “This? My father found it at the edge of a river he crossed before I was born.”

  Dawn had been looking carefully at him. “Are you a member of The People?”

  Our bear grinned with his big yellow teeth. “Yes, or so my mother tells me.” He seemed a good-humored, patient sort.

  My attention was still fixed on the carving. “I made that. And lost it along with something even more valuable when we crossed a river. Did your father find anything else?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  He spoke clearly, but his voice rang deep and thick, almost as if a bear said the words. He might be a member of The People, but I didn’t think all of his ancestors had been.

  “When may I speak to your father?”

  Our bear shrugged his shoulders, massive for a man if not for a great bear. He looked at the ivory woman in his hand and then back at me. “Why not come and meet him now? If the two of you follow me, I’ll take you to my band’s camp and feed you well. You can meet him then. We can begin understanding each other better.”

  Down seemed fine with the idea. “It’s not like we have anyplace else to go.”

  “And, if you come,” he said, “I’ll give you back this carving, as long as Mother agrees.”

  Snow came barreling through the willows at that moment. Wagging his tail and jumping up to put his feet on my shoulders, then Down’s. While he licked our faces, the stranger reached out and scratched Snow’s ears. Snow wagged his tail even harder and gave the man nearly as enthusiastic a greeting as he’d given Down and me.

  I’d never seen Snow accept a stranger like that before. My doubts softened. Snow didn’t think he was a danger. Neither would I.

  The Bear of the Cave Clan

  We walked toward where the sun dipped lowest. Back in the general direction of the mammoth we’d killed and the place we’d camped when Tall Pine was murdered. We followed game trails that wound through the willows beside the stream.

  “How did you get the skin?” I asked the big man.

  “With some obsidian knives and good scrapers.”

  Was he teasing?

  “No.” I understood that skinning the pelt off a great bear would require good blades and much patience. “How did you kill him?”

  “Well,” he said, “I didn’t want to cut the skin, so I used my club.”

  My jaw dropped. I wished Beast Slayer had lived long enough to hear this.

  “You clubbed a great bear to death? How many of you did it take and how many died?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t like that.” The man showed me his teeth again. “Just me and Mother. The bear had grown fat and slow. He was getting ready to hibernate. Mother explained to him that we needed his skin. So he hardly tried to kill me at all. I had to concentrate on breaking his neck without damaging his pelt. Or letting him claw or bite me. He fought a little because of his pride. But he was much easier to kill than I expected. Because of Mother, I think.”

  “Your mother must be very persuasive,” I said.

  “What were you doing with the bear skin today?” Down wondered. “Are you a Spirit Man like Raven? Did we interrupt some ceremony?”

  He shook his head. “I’m no Spirit Man. Mother takes care of things like that for us. She’s the greatest Spirit Woman ever. She told me to take the skin and go upstream until I was just north of your camp. She said I should put on the skin and wait for you. So I did.”

  “Wait for us?” I asked.

  “Yes. She said you’d come to me. She knows things before they happen. She said I’d frighten you, but you’d wait for me while I scared off the people chasing you.”

  He nodded his head enthusiastically. “She’s good, isn’t she? When she tells us what the future will bring, she ne
ver gets it wrong.”

  “I may be a man of the spirits,” I said, “though I’m hardly as skilled as your mother.” I considered telling him that I’d dreamed while we waited for him and that my dreams were very hard to understand. Except for the possibility that my skull might one day lie in front of a perfect woman and a man with eyes of ice. Thinking that suddenly made it seem too real. I stayed silent.

  “She said you were a Spirit Man. She told me that’s why we need you.”

  I had no idea how to respond to that. Until these strange dreams began, my interactions with the world of spirits had mostly been explaining to others why we should do the things we’d been taught. Things like dealing with our dead or releasing the souls of the animals we harvested so their spirits could leave their bodies and join all the others in the sky. That, and purifying the band and guiding our people to follow The Mother’s Way. I’d conducted the rituals and sought visions, but my dreams hadn’t been more insightful than anyone else’s. Our band needed a man of the spirits, so I became one. Less because the spirits spoke to me than because I needed a purpose to survive. Especially after Stone took over the band’s leadership with the help of his friends.

  “And me?” Down said. “Did your mother mention me as well?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “She told me Raven would be in the company of a beautiful young woman. And she was right. She said I had to persuade you to visit us, too.”

  “Right.” Down grinned. “I must be at least as important to her as Raven.”