The Dog Master

by W. Bruce Cameron

  As many times as those assembled at the fire had heard this tale, it still transfixed, because it explained who they were, and why they were special and better than any of the other creeds. Calli risked a look at her tribe and saw faces rapt and attentive with the exception of two: Albi scowled, jealously awaiting her chance to speak, and Bellu looked impatient, as if none of this had anything to do with her.

  “This is why we marry. The sun gives us life and we cannot squander, cannot waste, must avail, must requite. We marry to give birth, and we give birth to honor the sun who sacrifices her life, and those of her children and her children’s children, every day.”

  A stir went through the Kindred, because with these words, Sopho’s ritual pronouncement was at an end. She had barely taken her seat when Albi stood, thumping her stick into the ground. Now all the eyes were on her, and she savored the attention until everyone had begun to fidget impatiently. When it seemed no one could wait another moment, the council mother spoke. “It is a night when men and women come together.”

  With a whoop, the men jumped to their feet. The women rose much more soberly, and then the two groups came to where Albi stood, mingling with each other. Wives hugged their husbands, and single men shyly went to stand by the women they favored. Bellu’s brother Nix, Calli noticed, made his way to Renne, who was no longer bruised but who would forever carry a white scar on her cheek. Yet he did not speak to Renne, or even really look at her, as if he had picked the spot out of mere chance.

  Paired off, the Kindred arranged itself around the fire. The women who were to be wed that night sat with a tight knot of widows and young girls, while their grooms remained standing, as if lost and confused.

  The men began singing, a low humming sound, and stomping their feet rhythmically. The women soon joined in, clapping, and weaving a higher note into the song.

  Calli was sitting next to Bellu, who was bobbing up and down with excitement. She seized Calli’s hand, giving her a broad smile. They both wore their hair in the traditional wedding fashion, tied in a complicated knot with identical bows of leather, up on their heads and adorned with colorful bird feathers that every woman collected and kept for just this occasion.

  Now the grooms, shuffling as a pack, looking nervous and tentative, went over to their brides, but before they got there, the brides’ mothers sprang up and formed a barrier, arms crossed like lowered antlers.

  Everyone roared with laughter.

  As hunt master, Urs was the elected spokesperson for the males. “We will provide for your daughters,” he declared tremulously.

  Calli hastily wiped at her eyes. He was so handsome. She had so many times pictured this moment, and it had always been exactly this way: her standing with the other brides, waiting for Urs to come over, Coco blocking him with her arms crossed, shaking her head.

  She glanced at Palloc and saw that he had noticed that her gaze was on Urs. She blinked the wetness out of her eyes and lowered them.

  The mothers did not accept the hunt master’s claims at face value, so each groom retreated to his family. Urs, parentless, and without any surviving siblings, turned to Bellu’s brothers. In staged whispers, the grooms asked for help, and in each case came back to the center of the circle with some food to offer as proof they would be good providers.

  Coco accepted a tender cut of reindeer, killed just that day, and gazed at it as if it were infested with insects. She handed the meat to Calli’s father Ignus with a shrug. Ignus was the most taciturn man in the Kindred and could go an entire winter without uttering a word to anyone. Ignus appeared bored with the whole procedure, as if his daughter’s wedding was an inconvenience, dragging him away from the men’s side, where he preferred to spend his time, silently sitting with the hunters. He accepted the meat and sniffed at it.

  “Go,” the mothers commanded, making shooing motions. “You are not worthy.”

  The Kindred laughed and cheered and applauded. Calli watched as Urs played the part of dejected petitioner, returning to Bellu’s brothers for more help. Bellu was giggling uncontrollably, hugging herself with excitement.

  The men returned with fur pelts. These the mothers examined, frowning, picking through them and shaking their heads over the poor quality. The men hung their heads.

  “No no,” said Ador, Bellu’s mother. “My daughter’s husband must do better than this!”

  The final offering was traditionally something decorative. Palloc handed Coco a small, gleaming shell of the type that the Blanc Tribe traded for knives. Urs gave Ador a smooth stone that had been rubbed with a shiny powder made from dried lumps of red clay, a substance the Kindred referred to as “rouge.” The other men had bones that had been carved with decorative designs.

  These final gifts seemed to do the trick. One by one, the mothers turned to their daughters. Ador was first, reaching a hand out to Bellu, who stood eagerly. Ador grasped Urs’s hand in the other. The three of them walked into the center of the ring.

  “My daughter will be wife to Urs. She will take care of him and bear him children. I give my daughter.”

  The crowd cheered with approval as Urs and Bellu kissed.

  Calli swallowed, tears streaming down her face. The next woman to be wed was Tay, to Bellu’s brother Vent, whose first wife had died. Then Coco, smiling, grasped Calli’s hand. It was time. Nodding bravely, Calli walked with her mother, Palloc on the other side.

  “My daughter will be wife to Palloc. She will help him through good times and bad times. She will bear him children. I give my daughter to Palloc.”

  Calli closed her eyes as Palloc leaned down to kiss her in a prelude to what was coming next, when the two of them would lie together as husband and wife, and the roar from the crowd matched the sound of the blood pulsing in her ears.

  NINETEEN

  Year Nineteen

  The mother wolf lay at the front of the cave, exhausted from her agonizing crawl from the den. A small hole told the story of the wolf pups digging at the dirt, curious about the air flowing in, widening the breach until they could each, in turn, wriggle outside.

  The mother-wolf’s nose was pressed to the hole. She had made it as far as she could go, her maternal imperative driving her to get out to save her pups, but her way had been blocked. Now she could smell what the lion had done, smell the blood of her offspring.

  She heard the sound of the man landing on the floor of the chimney. “No!” he screamed. “No!”

  He crawled to her. She did not resist when he picked her up, not even when the pain flashed through her at the rough movement. He carried her gently to the floor of the chasm, laying her down in the light.

  He leaned over her, his face wet, smelling salty. “This is my fault. I did not adequately block the entrance. It is my fault they got out. I saw the blood. It is my fault they are all dead.”

  He made choking noises. The mother-wolf took raspy breaths. A long moment passed with no other sound.

  “It is going wrong,” he finally said. “There are dangers everywhere, and I cannot protect either one of us against them. And even if I manage to survive the summer, winter will come, and that will be the end.”

  His hand was on her fur. The mother-wolf took reassurance from the touch. She could feel how easy it would be, now, to close her eyes and follow the deepest sleep imaginable, but she could not.

  Not yet.

  There was a small noise, startling the man, who whipped his head up and gasped in disbelief at the reason why the mother-wolf could not yet let go.

  The female pup stood at the top of the rock pile, gazing down at them, her little tail wriggling. She had retreated to the den when the lion appeared, and managed to escape the fate of her two brothers.

  The mother-wolf still had a pup to raise.

  The man stood, wiping his eyes, and reached for the little wolf, who bounded into his hands.

  Year One

  The news stunned the Wolfen: Silex had been deposed in battle with the much larger Duro. Evidence of the br
awl was all over their battered faces—Silex had not given up without fighting back with all his strength.

  As a tribe they prided themselves on their ability to move out quickly. Silex would leave in the morning.

  Silex’s friend Brach had already committed to accompanying him wherever he went, and Silex imagined he might attract a few other Wolfen males as well, the adventurous ones willing to take a chance on splitting from the pack—especially since there were so few unmarried females in the tribe. The parting would be free of enmity. As Silex had already announced, a mating pair might leave the main group but still remain friendly when they encountered one another out on the steppes.

  “Fia.” Silex caught up to her standing alone at the edge of the circle of illumination from the fire. She must have heard of the fight by now and known he would seek her out. She stared at him, eyes unreadable in the flickering light. He stopped a few paces away, not trusting himself to come any closer. He ached to grab her; it was like a hunger. “I have been challenged by Duro.”

  “I know this.”

  “I am leaving. In the morning. Going away.”

  Her face glowed in the firelight. “I will miss you,” she finally whispered.

  It was as awful as when Duro punched him in the chest. He swallowed, staring at her. “Will you not come with me, Fia?”

  “You assume I will just leave the Wolfen, my friends and family, to run off with you,” she accused.

  “I did not assume,” he protested.

  “Then why did you not ask me first?”

  “Ask you? This just happened.”

  “Oh, I know that is not true. You did not have the courage to tell Ovi of your bold declarations to me, so you arranged for Duro to take her from you.”

  Silex was speechless, astounded she had figured out so much. “That is not entirely true,” he ventured.

  “Not entirely?”

  “I tried to speak to Ovi. She would not listen to me.”

  “So you are a man who cannot stand up to his own sister. Why should I go with you?”

  “Because,” Silex pleaded, “I love you, Fia. I think of nothing but you, I want nothing but you. Is it easy for me to leave this tribe, when I lead it and everyone listens to me, and set out with just a handful of others to hunt on our own? It is not easy. I am giving up a lot but I give it up to be with you. Please, Fia, can you not hear me on this?”

  He saw something on her face and seized the moment. Now it was him lunging for her, and when he pulled her into his arms it was with a force that surprised them both. His bruised face nearly flinched from the pain when they kissed, but he pressed it, clinging to her, and when he felt her respond he wanted to sing out loud. She did not say it, but her answer was yes. She would go with him.

  It was morning before Silex approached Ovi. His sister squatted next to a fire, her mouth set in an unhappy line. Silex crouched next to her.

  “I am leaving,” he said simply. There was no way she could not already know.

  Ovi stared at the fire as if she had not heard.

  “Duro has bested me. He will lead the Wolfen. Brach and his wife are going with me, as well as a few others, men who have no prospects for wives. And Fia. I am taking Fia with me and we will marry.”

  Ovi regarded him with eyes that looked weary.

  “This will be the best for all, Ovi,” Silex said softly.

  “You are the only family I have, Silex,” she replied, surprising him.

  “It is not as if I will never see you,” Silex reasoned after a moment. “We will all be following the wolves. It is just now Duro needs the validation of the tribe’s embrace. Once he is secure, I am sure he will greet us all without hostility. And he will be your family, Ovi. As you said, you will marry the leader.”

  “So it does not matter what I want. It is decided.” She said this without bitterness, just a resigned acceptance.

  “But what is it you want, Ovi?” Silex felt like clenching his teeth. “To marry me? Is that really what you desire? Duro will make you happy.”

  “Happy,” Ovi repeated. She regarded him blandly, her eyes full of a dark irony.

  * * *

  Calli had no appetite. Her teeth tore only the tiniest shreds of meat from the bone when she held it to her lips. Yet everyone thought she was feasting—it was her wedding night! The big fire collapsed in on itself, sparks swirling upward, the light ebbing away. Couples began drifting toward their sleeping areas. When Urs and Bellu stood, holding hands, her brothers cheered and clapped, and Calli turned her face away and vomited cleanly onto the ground.

  And then Palloc came to her, holding out his hands, and she nodded, steeling herself, and stood.

  “Calli. My wife,” he murmured.

  The men of the hunt made their hoots, less boisterous than for their hunt master, but still laughing and stomping their feet.

  Calli followed Palloc into the dark. He had spent a few days making a place for them, carefully building up a wall of dirt and rocks and laying thin branches up against them. Underneath this low roof, he had laid out elk hides and a piece of bear pelt that had once, Calli remembered, belonged to his father.

  Palloc stirred his fire, adding wood to it, and the licking flames brought their faces out of the gloom. Then he turned to her.

  “Are you tired?” he asked solicitously.

  “Yes.”

  The answer seemed to bother him. He involuntarily glanced at the bed he had made for them.

  “Not too tired for … that,” Calli sighed.

  He smiled. Gradually, his smile faded. “You have not spoken to me in recent days.”

  Calli, rather ironically, could think of nothing to say to that.

  “I have … you sometimes make jokes at my expense. Your wit, for which you are well known, can bite.”

  This surprised her a little—she would have thought him too thick-headed to know when she was making fun of him. “Sorry,” she said.

  They stood regarding each other. “Well,” he declared finally, “you will not be doing that anymore.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  Wordlessly, Palloc knelt down, gesturing for Calli to follow him into the lean-to. She limply obeyed, and when he reached for her garments, she helped him remove everything she was wearing. The rough bear fur felt good against her skin.

  Unbidden, thoughts of Urs came to her mind. He was with Bellu now. They were doing this very thing, by their fire.

  Calli turned her head so that Palloc would not see the tears that sprang to her eyes. When he lay upon her, she reflexively wrapped her arms around him, and his broad chest felt wrong. Urs was much taller but not nearly so wide, nor were his bones as thick and heavy. Palloc’s back was more muscled. Still, in other ways, this was very much like being with Urs. Palloc seemed to know what he was doing, lining himself up in the correct position. Eyes pressed shut, Calli realized how she was going to get through this, how she would be a wife.

  By thinking of Urs.

  When Palloc’s hands stroked her, they were Urs’s hands. When he fumbled his way into her, she received him as Urs, and even felt the fantasy stir a response. Yes, it was Urs she clung to in the dark.

  Palloc’s breathing became labored, his movements fast. She was jolted by how strongly he was thrusting. She blinked her eyes open because she was not accustomed to such forceful mating. Movement caught her vision, and as Palloc groaned in her ear, she looked out by the fire and saw someone crouched there, watching.

  Albi. Her mother-in-law.

  TWENTY

  Year Four

  It was her favorite thing to do on a beautiful day like this: sit with her ankles in the Kindred stream, her hands resting comfortably around her distended abdomen. While everyone else had been remarking on how cool it had been that summer, for Calli, the temperature was always annoyingly warm. Her baby was probably not coming for a little while yet.

  She sighed. The elk hide she wore was uncomfortable, though it was nothing more than a simple drape, a
hole cut in the center for her head and the front and back flaps tied loosely at the waist so that the side slits allowed ventilation. The garment stuck to her sweat, irritating her when she moved.

  A sharp impact rang out from downstream, and Calli turned to see Hardy at work chipping a flake of stone that had been buried under the fire for several days, so focused he did not seem to know she was there.

  Barely able to communicate, slow to walk, his eyesight worthless beyond a few paces, Hardy had reinvented himself as the best toolmaker of the Kindred. To see a stone he held it so close to his face that the children suspected he was smelling the correct way to strike it, and then with precision his strong hands would chip until a point or cutting edge emerged. Most of the men made weapons, of course, but Hardy was the best. At his urging, people had begun to call him “tool master.”

  As she watched, a pack of young children, all naked boys under the age of five summers, crept up on the tool master, wet mud in their hands. They were grinning and nudging each other, delighted with the mischief they were about to visit upon the old man, and there, in the center of them, was Calli’s son.

  This was his third summer. Calli had delighted Coco by swelling with child not long after her wedding—speculation was she may have gotten pregnant on her wedding night, which was considered a real blessing.

  With a shout, the boys darted forward, slinging their mud. Hardy, though, had laid a trap, and with a roar he was on his feet, armed with his own dirt balls. His sight was poor but his range was long and by aiming at the middle of the crowd he was able to strike more than one. Calli winced when her own child took a hit smack in the back, but to his credit he only shrieked with pretend fear, fleeing and giggling with the rest of the boys.

  Calli clapped her hands with delight, and Hardy turned and squinted in her direction. His expression was unreadable, but his shoulders were shaking, and Calli realized the old man was laughing.

  “So,” Albi said from behind her. Calli started, a jolt of something like guilt flashing through her. Albi sat next to Calli, raked her stringy hair back from her forehead, and thrust her own feet into the water. Calli saw odd discolored spots on the older woman’s ankles and wondered what might have caused them. They reminded Calli of the spots on her elk hide. “You have not said what you think of his name,” Albi chided her daughter-in-law.