Ki'ti's Story, 75,000 BC

by Bonnye Matthews

“Apparently Blanagah was interested in him maybe for joining or maybe for copulating. He didn’t say. He did say that he wouldn’t choose her and refused to copulate with her because he didn’t want her to think that he would join with her. He thinks that females can get tied to a male just because of copulating, tied somehow when they’re not even joined.”

  “That may have some real truth,” Pechki said. “He sounds smart, Minagle.”

  “Last night, he told me I was beautiful. He told me he would like to join with me when I am woman. Is that good?” Minagle asked very seriously.

  Pechki cupped Minagle’s chin. “My Dear, that may be very good. I think you will need someone who thinks carefully as you describe. How do you feel about him?”

  “I want to be close to him whenever I can. I still feel a little frightened from the time with Reemast. Is that wrong?” Minagle asked with imploring eyes.

  “Oh, my Special One, I still ache for you that you had a bad experience, but you need to put that behind you. It happened, but Ghanya is not Reemast, nor is he anything like him. What Reemast did was grotesque. Not at all what copulating is about. Those things you know, but you need to take it from knowledge of bad experience to moving forward in life doing what those in life do. Otherwise, you’re like a tied dog. You cannot go anywhere through life.”

  “So you think that Ghanya and I could join and be happy?”

  “That is for you to decide. I would expect so.”

  “I really think he is wonderful,” she admitted with a smile that warmed the heart of her grandmother.

  Her grandmother smiled slowly, savoring the time spent with Minagle. She was pleased that Minagle and Ghanya had found each other, especially if Minagle felt comfortable about it.

  The hunters had gathered. They planned to hunt in the lower grazing land. They had seen some antelope and thought that might be good.

  Wamumur and Emaea began their walk. They had inhabited the first large cave they’d found. It was situated to the south, the direction from which they arrived at the place. One of the things Wamumur and Emaea really liked about Cave Kwa is that it had water inside. They wondered whether any of the caves had water. Caves seemed to line this rock walk ledge and go quite a distance. They would first check all the caves that they hadn’t checked the day before.

  When they reached the twentieth cave down, Emaea noticed a different feeling. There was a very gentle movement of air. She motioned the others to be quiet. She listened carefully. The dog’s ears were tensely erect and he looked deep into the cave. Emaea turned into the cave. She noticed that the cave seemed to have a break in the back toward the left. She walked in and went to the break. There was a bit of a ramp down and the cave opened into an enormous room. Wamumur and Ki’ti and the dog followed her into the huge room. There was a ceiling hole which let light in. Going off to the left was another room and then another. In the very last room, there was the water that Emaea sought. That is what caused her to stop at the cave. She had sensed the water. Perhaps this is where they should live, she thought. She put her hand in the water and tasted the water. It was good. Wamumur was also thinking they should move to this cave. The safety of this cave was special because there was a vestibule of sorts and then a narrow entrance to the big cave. That could provide safety that they had never had. The cave was larger than any cave they had ever seen. Not only did the hole in the ceiling let in light but also it would be a great smoke hole. The cave was ideal.

  As they continued to look around, Ki’ti asked, “What’s this?”

  She had found a tiny shiny yellow selenite stone that appeared to have been worked somehow.

  Emaea took it and examined it. Then Wamumur. The two adults looked at each other.

  “It’s an owl far from home,” Wamumur mumbled with great feeling. “Very far from home.” His voice trembled as memories showered him.

  “What do you mean?” Ki’ti asked. “It looks like an egg at first, not a tool. I had to learn to see it. At first it just looked like a pretty rock.”

  They walked out into the sunlight. The stone seemed to glow from the inside out. It resembled an owl. Whoever carved it had made it smooth, amazingly smooth.

  The three sat on the rock walk ledge looking out over the stream bed below. Wamumur seemed lost in thought.

  Wamumur shook himself loose from his mind web travel and said, “When I was very young, I lived near rocks like this. It was very long ago when I was your age,” he looked at Ki’ti. “I was stolen from my home. I was brought to the People and raised as a special son. I ached for my People. But I never saw them again. We traveled and traveled. We went south and then east. So I think this rock came from the west somehow. Far, far away. Since we have moved so far north, I’m estimating that this may have come from that way, west. I had a happy life after grieving for my own family. By the time I met Emaea, I had all but forgotten the old life I had.” He squeezed the rock in his hand. “I hadn’t thought of that old life until now. This rock. It probably came from mountains near where I was born. We were called the Band of the Owl. I remember that. It’s like finding part of my childhood and that childhood is so far away that I cannot remember it except in little brief images. We don’t name our groups, but the group I was born into named itself the Band of the Owl. We each had one of these. I cannot remember the name of the man who carved it. I don’t know what happened to my owl.” He seemed submerged in thought again. Then he said, “These rocks are so fragile. I wonder how this one survived.”

  Emaea was dumbfounded. She’d known Wamumur for so long and never knew he’d been stolen. What things she still had to learn about this man! Emaea held out her hand for the stone. Wamumur gave it to her. She looked at the way the stone captured light and found it fascinating. It did in fact resemble an owl now that Wamumur had mentioned it. She could see the large eyes and the circles that feathers made around owl’s eyes. She could also see the beak. The wings were marked and there were feet. It fit neatly into her palm. Without knowing it was an owl, she, like Ki’ti, might have thought the pretty yellow rock contained only random marks. She realized Ki’ti had a point. You have to learn to see. She handed it to Ki’ti. The girl took it and looked at it marveling. In the light, it was so much more alive than in the half-light of the cave.

  Ki’ti gave the owl to Wamumur. “This should be yours, Wise One,” she said.

  He took it and thanked her. The offer and the owl meant much to him.

  “We should continue,” Emaea said.

  They got up and continued down the rock walk ledge examining caves. When they reached the twenty-fifth cave, Emaea stopped, almost running into Ki’ti who was in front of her. Ki’ti had come to an abrupt stop.

  “This is not good!” Ki’ti stated flatly, accompanied by a resounding palm strike and moan.

  “What do you mean?” Wamumur asked.

  Ki’ti was shivering. “Not good,” was all she would say. Ahriku sat staring at her face with a little shiver that showed his uncertainty and an almost perceptible whine.

  Wamumur walked past her into the cave. He could feel the creepy feeling himself, though it was not as strong as it appeared to Ki’ti. He rubbed his upper arms unconsciously. Emaea felt something that was not good as well. The adults sought the cause of the feeling, but Ki’ti simply stood just outside shivering. Emaea noticed a hint of a foul odor in the cave but could not imagine the source of Ki’ti’s reaction. Wamumur lit a firebrand he carried with him and moved to the back of the cave. In the far back of the cave, Wamumur found a body of a human. Had the hunters not checked the area for humans? he wondered. Who was this? It was a man and he was mummified. He was different: neither People nor Other. He wore pants and boots and a tunic top with fur left on the leather. In some places, the fur was black and in others it was white. He had a head covering and a spear. He was very tall. Wamumur turned the body to the side and found that he had been speared in the back, not once but three times. The spears had been removed. Emaea removed the jacket. Dried bl
ood was all over his tunic.

  Emaea marveled at the jacket. It was lovely. It was made of rectangles sewed together. The rectangles were sewed from the top down the garment on the front and back, long enough for an arm, and then the bottom had been stitched together under the arm. Clearly, the black and white fur came from a single animal since there was no seam to bind the two colors together. It was the first truly sleeved garment she had ever seen. The work was beautiful. It was stitched with some very fine material in a strand. It was brittle, but she assumed that when the man wore it, there would have been no brittleness. The tunic was made of soft skin with a collar at the neck that seemed to tie above the head just like the jacket. Beside the man was a green bag with a shoulder strap.

  “How long?” she asked.

  “Oh, he’s been dead for years and years and years,” Wamumur estimated. He looked for Ki’ti. “What’s the matter with her?” he asked.

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” Emaea offered. She knew when Wamumur said years three times that the man died a good bit before Wamumur had been born. How, she wondered, could something so old affect someone so young?

  She went outside and took Ki’ti back down the rock walk ledge and sat with her in the light. “What is the matter, Little Girl?” she asked.

  It took awhile for Ki’ti to respond. “I felt like I could see it.”

  “See what?”

  “There were” she held up five fingers “men.” They were chasing another very tall man. They were Others. The man they chased was different but not People, not Others. The Others were dripping evil.” Ki’ti shivered.

  “What do you mean dripping evil?” Emaea asked, fascinated but not understanding.

  “Black clouds drifted behind them as they moved to kill him. It looked like the black clouds dripped. They had found the man walking along the hill over there and they chased him here and killed him. He had done nothing to cause them to kill him. He tried to talk to them, but they wouldn’t listen.”

  Emaea was amazed. Ki’ti knew there was a man in the cave who had been killed, when she hadn’t set a foot in the cave? She knew he was tall? Not People; not Other. How, Emaea wondered, could she have “seen” something that existed a long time ago? How could she have known he was murdered when she and Wamumur hadn’t known he’d been killed until he turned the body on its side?

  “Mother,” she said shivering, “He was a good man. He was taking curing plants to his family. His family was sick up there (she pointed to the mountains). He got the curing plants from someone to the east. He just wanted to save his family. Why did they have to kill him?”

  “Hush, Little Girl,” Emaea had pulled her on her lap and held her in her arms. “Shhhhhhhhh.” She rubbed her arms trying to warm her. The girl’s skin was very cold.

  Wamumur came outside. “This looks like a bag for transporting herbs, a little like Totamu’s. I wonder how they made it green.” He had the bag in his hand. “That man was an arm taller than I, maybe more.”

  “Little Girl,” Wamumur said with authority, “why are you so upset?”

  “Wise One, I do not want to see those Others come here and do evil to the People. I fear them.”

  “Little Girl, what you talk about took place long before I was born. It is old. You are outside our time. Wake up from your dream. Those people, the Others who did this, they are gone. Long, long before I was born. A long time ago. If you are going to see things like this, you have to make it clear to yourself what time you are in. Otherwise, your mind web can become disorganized.”

  Emaea looked at Wamumur. Does he see this way, too? she wondered, but she chose not to ask. Later would be a good time to pursue it, not now.

  “Wise One, can we take the bag to his family?”

  Wamumur looked at her wondering whether she’d heard a word he said. “No! I told you, you are in the wrong time.”

  She got slowly off Emaea’s lap. She stood before Wamumur making herself as tall as she possibly could. “He can sleep again, if his family gets the bag. I know where they are. He is troubled.”

  “Little Girl, his family is dead.”

  “I know and you know, but he doesn’t.”

  “What makes you think you know where his family is?”

  “I only know that I know. I can show you. We need to get the curing plants to his family.” She stood first on one foot and then another, twisting her hands together. Her eyes were partly dilated.

  Emaea looked at Ki’ti and knew something was very wrong but could not understand exactly what the problem was. She was troubled by the way the child moved and acted and her eyes were too dark. This was, she thought, beyond her expertise.

  “You can do nothing of the sort,” Wamumur asserted positively. “We will bury him and that will be that. Do you understand me? He and his family are dead.” As far as he was concerned, that was the end of it, and he failed to wait for an answer. Wamumur was getting irritated with Ki’ti’s assurance and forcefulness. He didn’t pick up on her body language or anxiety as he thought he was dealing with an obedience issue and having never parented, he didn’t realize he had to deal with multiple issues at one time, especially with the young and willful and spiritually driven.

  Wamumur and Emaea headed back to the home cave. The green bag was swinging on its shoulder strap from Wamumur’s arm. They would suggest a move to the new cave that afternoon. Wamumur wanted to get a burial party for the mummified body.

  Emaea had taken the man’s jacket to share with Totamu and Pechki and anyone else who wanted to look at the sleeved design and two toned pelt before it was buried with the man.

  Back at the cave, things moved swiftly. Women took brooms to the new cave and were busy getting it prepared. Some of the men started hunting for a good place for burials. Ki’ti could not take her eyes off the green bag that Wamumur had laid atop his sleeping mat. She reached out and touched it. Touching it seemed to make it come alive again for her. She could see other things: The man’s wife and children. Their cave. She wanted to weep. The man was the saddest person she’d ever seen. He urged her. She filled up with a certainty, a certainty that she must at all costs get the bag to the man’s family in the mountains. She put her head through the shoulder strap to carry the bag. That’s how the man had carried it. On her, it almost dragged the ground. She didn’t even look around. She never considered hazards or consequences. She went to the end of the rock walk and began to scale the hill. Getting up there was not easy and she shoved a lot of dirt and small rocks to the ground below in her climb. It took her a long time to scale the hill and then she began her trip downhill to the next hill. She was unaware that her tunic and arms and legs and face were full of dirt. She went on as one possessed. She did not reflect on the wisdom of her choice, only that it must be done. She was driven. Soon, she was topping the next hill. She pushed on with a strength she didn’t know she had.

  Suddenly, Emaea realized she didn’t know where Ki’ti was. Her dog was with the dogs, but she was missing. She asked and someone had seen her heading toward the south end of the rock walk awhile ago. She was carrying a green bag. Emaea called to Wamumur. He came fast, noticing the alarm in her voice. “Ki’ti is missing. Someone saw her heading toward the end of the rock walk with a green bag. The south end of the walk. I cannot find the green bag.”

  “Wait until I get my hands on that child!” Wamumur said exasperated. “Men!” he called out.

  He told them what had happened and what he suspected. Nanichak-na and Mootmu-na and Ermol-na volunteered immediately to go to find her and bring her back. Wamumur wanted to join them but knew he’d hold them back with his slowness.

  The hunters grabbed water pouches and left quickly. It didn’t take long for them to find the trail at the end of the rock wall. They were excellent trackers but they’d need good skill as Wisdom had begun to suck the color from the land. When the men saw the loose dirt, they were shocked that she’d chosen to go straight up a steep incline. Only a little further there was a tu
rnoff that was a gentler incline, which the men chose to use. She was headed, perhaps, the way a bird might fly to the place.

  The men followed her over the first hill and down and up the next. She had walked through shrubs and grasses. She never thought to cover her trail but in the reduced light it was not easy to follow. The mountains were nearby and they were into them before much time passed. They noticed that she was going through a pass that they would never have seen without knowing this country well. She kept going straight up. It was getting to their leg muscles. They called out to her but either she didn’t hear them or she just didn’t respond. They all knew she was their next Wise One. She had to be found. What, they wondered, was the matter with this willful child? They kept on and on. They reached a large meadow and realized she’d gone straight through it, something wise hunters would never have done. They ran across it as fast as they could. The Others would have been quicker, since they seemed to have been made to run. Wisdom continued to suck color from the land. That was not good. In the mountains, dark came quicker than in the hills or flat lands. The men were pressed to find her. Alone in the mountains at dark, she could be prey to any number of animals.

  They had reached white rain. It was lying on the ground in patchy places, not falling from the sky. The men urged themselves on. They noticed Wisdom was about finished sucking color from the land. Suddenly, Ermol-na said, “Look up there.” He pointed to a place far above them.

  There was a single cave with a fire going.

  “Is that her, or Others?” Nanichak-na asked nobody.

  “Shall we go there?” Mootmu-na asked.

  “I think it is Ki’ti because the fire is so small. Let’s go.” Ermol-na said as he moved quickly to find the path up.

  With difficulty, the men found the path that led to the cave. It was well concealed. They wondered how Ki’ti had located the place, and the hunters shared a glance that without words showed how in awe they were of the child’s ability to know things. They were slightly shaken. It would have been far more comfortable to have found her wandering and not finding the place. The path appeared not to have been used for a long time. In some places, trees grew on the path. When they finally reached the top, they saw Ki’ti talking to three bodies in the cave. They were partly skeletons and partly mummified. Animals had not disturbed the bones. She had built a little fire and was seemingly unaware of the presence of the men. The men found the whole thing unnerving.