by R Magnusholm
“We’ll be all right,” he said. “You’ll see.”
The promise sounded hollow in his own ears. They had few options, and none of them were any good. If Liz hadn’t been heavily pregnant, they could go upriver, find the ursine village and send them a message of peace. A couple of fire arrows posted into their dwellings at night might do the trick. He might go alone, but then he’d be leaving Liz vulnerable to a surprise attack. And if he died, she and their baby would be doomed. No, he and Liz could never be parted.
But there was one thing they could do.
Chapter 47
The Sunset Clan
The sun shone brightly through interlaced branches overhead, and birds chirped, piped, and twittered. Despite the frosty air and hard-packed snow, spring was in the air. Five miles west of Camp Bramble, the great tidal river glinted darkly through a curtain of swaying reeds to John and Liz’s left. They kept to the jumble of cracked shore ice where their moccasined feet left no prints. A dense forest of birch and spruce loomed to the right.
Spot ranged, scouting the ground in front. As usual, Liz carried the firepot in her canvas bag and a bow with a nocked arrow in her hands. Her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes darted around, looking for danger. Spot had sniffed a tiger nearby, and even though the predator kept well away, it wouldn’t do to be complacent.
John strained under the weight he carried. In the bearskin slung like a large knapsack over his shoulder were two deep-frozen ursine heads. A bundle of sharpened stakes to make bent-sapling traps had been tied to the sack. They came to a prominent headland jutting into the reed bed. The ursine trail turned inland, skirting a thorny tangle, and the path narrowed to squeeze between two holly stands.
He lowered his gruesome cargo to the ground. “I guess that’s far enough.” As Liz was heavy with child, it wouldn’t be wise to venture too far from the safety of their fort.
“Yes.”
He pulled the axe from his belt and selected a ten-foot high dead tree standing by the trail. He chopped off its top half and mounted the first head, turning it so its empty eye sockets (the crows had been at it) stared upriver. Then they searched for a suitable sapling for a spring-loaded trap further up the path. The sight of the severed head on a stake should distract the victim long enough to miss the trap.
After selecting a young pine, they worked in silence with John bending the sapling and Liz fitting the bent end to a notched upright stick. The sapling looked good, and John straightened it and tied a sharpened stake to it. Then they bent it back, added a trigger-stick, and camouflaged the contraption with fallen branches that littered the ground after the winter storms.
They headed deeper into the woods, found another ursine trail between holly thickets, mounted the second head on a spike, and made another trap.
“I feel horrible about it.” Liz stared at the concealed devil’s device. “These upriver ursines have done nothing to us.”
“If we don’t scare them off, they will find us.”
She sighed.
He dropped a couple of pine fronds to camouflage the sharpened stake. “I don’t want to kill anyone needlessly, either.”
“The trap’s more likely to strike a deer or an auroch than an ursine. Lots of wildlife here.”
“Wolves and tigers would be delighted. Foxes too.”
She glanced at the sun. “We’d better go before the tide turns.”
On their way back, they kept close to the water’s edge. With the tide still mostly out, the great slabs of cracked ice lay directly on the mudflat.
After they trudged downstream for an hour, the slabs beneath their feet shifted and groaned as the incoming tide began to refloat them. As expected, water spurted out of the cracks, sloshing and flowing over the ice, and forced John and Liz to keep close to shore. The water sparkled in the sun and brought with it a tang of rotting pondweed.
“That should wash our scent off,” he said, skirting a spreading puddle.
“Uh-huh.”
They returned home safely, but John’s heart was heavy. Even Liz seemed less than her usual bubbly self.
Chapter 48
The Day of Angry Birds
Camp Bramble
Day followed day amid the endless monotony of hauling water and firewood and stoking the hearth fire in the early hours of every night. Spot went on daily patrols around their camp, but no ursines had ventured close, and with every passing day John and Liz breathed easier.
Eventually spring came, along with the ever-lengthening days and melting snow. They used to start their days in darkness, but now morning light streamed through the wigwam’s smoke hole. And one day, they found green shoots of wood sorrel gracing a sunny patch by the stockade. Cracked ice lining the tidal meadows of the Thames thawed. With a crack like a cannon shot, the ice broke in the Fleet, and a week later it melted away completely, and the small forest river ran free.
John had learned a more efficient way of making wooden bowls. Instead of carving them out with a knife and risking injury from a sharp blade, he now piled glowing coals on a slab of wood to burn out a concavity. This also made the dishes more durable and less permeable to liquids. He’d even made a substantial four-foot-long trough that stood outside the wigwam to catch rainwater.
***
In the early afternoon of their 240th day in the woods, they sat in the opening of their wigwam, waiting for their stew to cool. Earlier in the day, John had dug up a small patch of the ground along the south-facing wall, and Liz planted the tomato seeds.
“Why did they call it Stone Age when we mostly use wood and leather?” he said, working on a fourth bowl. Smoke curled around the end of the stick he used to add finishing touches.
“They were referring to stone tools and weapons. But I see what you mean.”
She sprinkled trifoliate leaves over a bowl of stew. With the first greenery of spring bursting forth, the danger of scurvy receded. But with so many woodland plants they couldn’t identify, they faced a different danger now. For instance, only yesterday they had argued over broad lancet-shaped leaves sprouting by the path leading to the stream. John thought they were wild garlic, but Liz said it might instead be the toxic lily of the valley. No way to tell them apart until they flowered. At least with the shamrock-like wood sorrel, there had been no doubt.
She popped a three-leafed sprig in her mouth and chewed it broodingly. “Somewhere, in another universe, people are celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.”
“Eating shamrocks makes you lyrical.”
“Uh-huh.”
He examined the bowl he’d been working on, then filed off a bit of charred wood with a rough stone. He spotted an imperfection and reached to pick up the burning stick when the birds started a mighty ruckus in the trees by the stream. Ravens croaked, crows cawed, eagles shrieked, and seagulls screeched excitedly.
“What now?” Liz asked, rising to her feet and taking her bow off a peg. Though eight months pregnant, she moved with surprising agility.
“Wait—” He connected to Spot who ranged a quarter mile to the north of the camp. The wolf was stalking a deer herd. He detected no hint of the enemy. “Spot says no ursines.”
John climbed the ladder to the top of the wall and peered into the woods. Birds were swooping around the beaver dam and over something in the stream. What could it be?
Cautiously, they headed down the path along which they brought water every day. He carried the javelin in his right hand and the longer fighting spear in his left. The axe hung from his waist. Liz held her bow at the ready, with an arrow nocked. Like himself, she carried an axe under her belt as a secondary weapon.
Birds of prey and scavengers of all types perched in the trees and wheeled overhead. Seagulls and crows lined the logjam beaver dam. A heron landed in the shallows at the other side of the pond.
“What the hell’s going on?” he muttered. “Like something out of a Hitchcock movie.”
She pointed at the water.
At first, he saw only the reflection of trees and sky.
Pretty, of course, but nothing to explain the odd gathering of angry birds. And then he spotted a silvery glint under the surface. Multiple shady forms surged upstream, and suddenly a huge fish leaped out of the water and over the dam. It landed in the beaver pond with a splash and was gone. The first fish was followed by the second, third, fourth, and soon they were leaping out in pairs and trios, and then by the dozen.
The birds went into a wing-flapping frenzy of wild swoops and shrill calls. John propped his two spears against a juniper bush and held his hands to his ears, and Liz did likewise. For a while they watched the pandemonium, then exchanged a glance, grinning. The fish were far too large to be taken by crows and seagulls. Even the long-legged herons could do no more than flap their wings and hop up and down in frustration.
Then an eagle swooped down and snatched a wriggling fish in its talons. It lifted off, pursued and mobbed by a score of other birds. Two more eagles seized their prey and flew away, each pursued by its own flock. The clamor diminished to a tolerable level, and John lowered his hands from his ears.
Liz said, “Phew, that’s better.”
“These are salmon, right?”
“Right. So many. So beautiful.”
But it’s spring, he thought, and salmon were supposed to run in the fall. Weren’t they? Maybe these weren’t even salmon. He stepped closer to the bank and raised his javelin.
“Wait,” she cried.
“Huh?”
“We have too much bear meat as is.”
“But—”
“We have no need to kill these magnificent creatures,” Liz said and then launched herself into a passionate denunciation of consumerist culture and throwaway society. He, apparently, had been tainted by it too, and on seeing the brave fish returning to their place of birth, his first reaction was to seek to destroy them. To rob them of their little, innocent lives for no other reason than because they came within striking range.
John imagined it was her maternal instinct speaking. He sighed, lowering his weapon.
An eagle took a salmon and flew off with it wriggling in the predator’s hooked talons. Before the huge bird could get away, another eagle tried to snatch its catch, so the salmon fell among the winter-dead ferns on the other shore. A flock of seagulls and crows descended upon it like a shrieking and cawing whirlwind.
John said, “But if birds can take fish, why can’t we?”
“Birds are hungry, but we’ve got a pot of stew waiting for us.”
“But, Liz, don’t you have—ahem—cravings?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, for ice cream and pickles.”
Spot arrived and sat on his haunches, watching the leaping fish wistfully. His luxuriant winter coat was molting, and tufts of lighter-gray fur hung in rather unattractive clumps round his neck and flanks.
John said, “We need to vary our diet. Think of all that Omega-3 fish oil. We’ve been eating bear meat all winter.”
“Tomorrow. The salmon will run for days, even weeks.”
“If it’s salmon.”
She made an impatient gesture of dismissal and turned to go. John watched the stream of fish surging within easy reach and considered jabbing at them with his spear. But he wasn’t hungry. Besides, he didn’t know how well the smoke-cured bear meat would keep in warm weather, considering it was zero-salt. They had to eat the meat while it was still wholesome.
His long-spear and javelin, too, weren’t the best fishing tools. Too heavy. He needed something lighter and with barbs.
Chapter 49
The Salmon War
Woodland Clan’s Village
A commotion outside Gnorrk’s hut interrupted his serene contemplation of his navel. After a midday nap, he always liked to stretch, scratch, and ponder the mysteries of existence before getting up. But now some moron began hollering at the far end of the village, and running footsteps were rapidly approaching. Gnorrk sighed and struggled to his feet, fetching his club.
It better be good. Or else.
“Grandpaw, the salmon are back!” someone yelled excitedly.
About time, Gnorrk thought, putting his club aside. He threw the entrance flap open, blinking in the bright afternoon sunshine. A dozen young hunters (all of them his grandsons) gathered outside. One held a large fish in his paws. It struggled feebly, opening and closing its mouth.
“We caught it in the Crooked Brook,” the hunter said, offering the first salmon of the season to Chief Gnorrk as was the Woodland Clan’s custom.
“Only one fish?”
“A couple more got away. Sorry, Grandpaw.”
Gnorrk accepted the fish and bit into its back. Cool fishy juices flooded his maw as he tore out a chunk and swallowed it without chewing. The posse watched with hungry eyes as he ate. Even half-eaten, the stupid fish continued to struggle. Gnorrk bit again, his fangs crunching on the salmon’s spine. The fish’s tail stopped swishing, but it continued to open and close its mouth.
He said, “Don’t be sorry about the two that got away. You gotta leave some to breed.” He gobbled up the best parts of the fish, then tossed the head and tail to the hunters. “Enjoy.”
As he watched them fight over the leftovers, he ruminated over the reasons why every year there were fewer and fewer salmon swimming up the Crooked Brook. The fish strove to reach the gravel beds upstream where they thrashed about, indulging in some strange fishy dances. Gnorrk suspected it was some kind of breeding ritual. The salmon mated, spawned, laid their tiny eggs or gave birth to their young, or whatever. Then they became too exhausted to swim back and mostly died. That much he knew, because he’d seen tiny fishes teeming in the gravel beds later in the year. Were they baby salmon?
No way of knowing, but he suspected they might be.
Other bears had no interest in tiny fishes, but there was a reason why Gnorrk was chief. He noticed things and made connections. Long ago, he’d realized that things generally happened for a reason. Salmon didn’t surge upstream simply to feed hungry bears as idiots claimed.
The fish did it out of self-interest.
So, he reasoned, if they took every fish swimming upstream, there would be no baby salmon this season. And no big ones the next.
Excited shouts from the edge of the village abutting the Crooked Brook interrupted his reverie. Another salmon caught, no doubt. According to the custom, the second fish belonged to the shaman and the third to whoever caught it.
Gnorrk followed the posse of hunters to the Crooked Brook. Fed by melting snow, the brook had swelled into a torrent two feet deep and ten feet wide. In summer, it would shrink to a paltry trickle. Most of the village were already thronging the shore while others stood thigh-deep in the stream, combing water with their claws. Several bears had stuck their heads under the surface.
More and more villagers were arriving by the second.
Gnorrk doubted that many fish would make it past the raking claws and snapping jaws today. Bad news for the next season.
Something had to be done about it, but what? If he tried to ban the traditional salmon harvest, there’d be a riot and he’d be deposed, torn limb from limb and eaten. Strong as he was, he couldn’t fight them all. Under a new chief, they’d simply resume fishing, as if nothing had happened. He had to move with tact and play his hand at the right time: when the bears were less hungry, perchance. Or he needed to redirect their ire at someone else.
Somebody external—like Salmon Clan, for example.
Gnorrk’s head spun with his own cleverness. Crooked Brook was a tributary of the Big Salmon River. He imagined that even now the entire Salmon Clan was grabbing every fish they could, stealing them from the Woodlanders. That other clan would know nothing about salmon spawning in gravel beds upstream. And even if they knew, Gnorrk felt certain they wouldn’t care. The reason for that carelessness was simple. Every bear he’d ever met was an idiot who refused to see beyond the end of his own snout.
Another fish was caught and devoured on the spot.
Gnorrk ground his teeth an
d turned away. It would be far wiser if they let the salmon spawn first and then eat the already doomed fish. His mind snapped back to the rascals of the Salmon Clan. Ever since the aborted joint raid on them in the winter, his paws itched to crack some enemy skulls. The scoundrels were taking his fish. Intolerable! But he’d teach them a lesson they wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
Yes, he’d send messengers to the allied Sunriser Clan.
Together with the Sunrisers, they’d show the salmon-stealing sons of weasels what happens to those who cross Chief Gnorrk.
***
Three days later, the Sunriser Chief Moorgs arrived with ninety of his warriors. The clam-eaters were as eager to settle the score with the Salmon Clan as were the Woodlanders. Over the preceding days, Gnorrk had managed to rally the Woodlanders against the villains stealing fish from the Crooked Brook, and he had 130 eager warriors at his command. Together with the Sunriser allies, he had 220 fighters—a huge army.
Gnorrk and Moorgs had been marching since dawn now, chatting in a desultory manner.
“So, what did da Salmon Clan do dis time?” Moorgs asked.
“They’re taking fish from my river.”
“Your river?”
“My river.”
“But rivers belong to no one.”
“This one’s mine,” Gnorrk growled.
Moorgs goggled owlishly, clearly flabbergasted by such a novel notion as river ownership.
Gnorrk nodded smugly. “My woods—my river. Your salt marsh—your . . . grr . . . whatever.”
“My sea?”
“Yeah, sure,” Gnorrk said, thinking what a fool Moorgs was. What use is the sea? It’s just water. And not just any water, but salty and undrinkable. But now a nice forest stream, full of good water and, occasionally, salmon and other fish, held a lot of intrinsic value.
They camped for the night in pine thickets and resumed their march at dawn, hungry and irritable.
At midday of the second day, the bears made a camp and began foraging for fresh shoots and leaves. The Crooked Brook had been joined by a tributary here, so the narrow woodland stream widened considerably.