The Jo Fletcher Books Anthology

by Frank P. Ryan

  ‘Dorsey, what do you see behind your eyes when the night is deep and you are alone?’ Omaro asked.

  Dorsey looked him in the eye as she thought. He selected another piece of fruit, giving her time.

  ‘Mostly they are chased away by the painters that nest by my hut and I forget. When I don’t, I see bull tuskers as big as mountains next to me. We are the only line.’

  Omaro slapped his thigh. ‘My daughter amongst the bulls.’

  She nodded: as it should be.

  ‘Tajo, you are always alone, so you must see many things. There are no painters by your hut, so you must remember them all. Tell me.’

  ‘Father?’

  ‘I said tell me!’ Omaro threw a half-empty bowl of fruit at his son. It hit him square in the belly, making him double over.

  Dorsey sneered at her brother as Tajo righted himself. He stared at the bowl as he said, ‘Squares.’

  ‘Squares?’ Omaro leaned forward – perhaps the boy was confused; perhaps the boy meant rings?

  ‘Good solid lines. Green, some brown, but all mine. As far as I can see. And I can see far.’

  Omaro sank back on his ankles. There was only one mai-ring in the village.

  ‘Father, must I listen to this?’ Dorsey said. She spat at her brother’s feet. ‘It shames me.’

  ‘Explain, Daughter.’

  ‘He sees fields.’

  *

  Omaro picked up the baskets at the cave mouth, looking underneath each one, shaking them to make sure they were as empty as they appeared. He cast around. Finding a rock only half-buried he set his great weight to prising it free. He raised it over his head, ready to bring it down on the same spot he’d knocked with his mai-stick.

  ‘Will you come every morning until I own everything and you nothing?’ Violine said. She was perched above the cave. She wore his knuckle and tooth crudely around her neck.

  ‘If my possessions would cover your nakedness, the village would thank me.’

  She roared with laughter.

  He dropped the rock. ‘My son. He wants to be a farmer.’

  ‘The village needs to eat,’ she said.

  ‘On choosing day he will be amongst the last.’

  ‘Going first didn’t help you, Omaro.’

  ‘There will be talk. They’ll say my river ran dry those years ago.’

  ‘The wailers wail and do you listen?’

  ‘I won’t have it,’ Omaro said. ‘I give offerings. My mai-stick has been to the mountains so many times it wished for wings. You.’ He pointed a fat finger at her. ‘You must fix this.’

  ‘I will help you, Omaro. I will tell you a story. But to hear the story you must agree on three things.’

  ‘Three is a bad number.’

  She ignored him. ‘You must come here every day. You must do exactly as I say. And you must not see Tajo until the story is finished.’

  ‘What will you do to my son?’ Omaro said.

  ‘Do you agree, frontsman?’

  He rubbed under his chin. Three was a bad number, but it would be worth it for a story. A story would tell him what to do to stop his only son seeing fields behind his eyes. A story would tell him how to change Tajo into a man and cover the boy’s ribs.

  ‘When will we start?’

  Violine cleared her throat.

  *

  ‘It happened before our village, before our people, before trees grew here. And this is how it happened.

  ‘Umar was the wisest of the animal gods. He slept through the days in his burrow beneath the great tree. There, he first felt the vibrations – vibrations were very important to him. He left his burrow early, for the sun was too hot for him; it was a merciless god in those times, merciless even when dealing with its brothers and sisters. Family is like that.

  ‘The other animal gods were not happy to see Umar. Marla the wailer set to her noise. The bird gods spread their wings and filled the sky. All were chattering and wondering, and many were scared. Umar said they were right to be scared. Bad things were coming. He felt them beneath the great tree, in the earth, and all the way to the mountains.’

  Violine opened her eyes. She stretched and yawned.

  ‘Yes? What were the bad things?’ Omaro said.

  ‘Tomorrow, frontsman. Bring a mattock.’

  ‘The story, Violine.’ Omaro rose, towering over the wise woman.

  ‘And remember the three things asked of you.’

  She left him to make his slow way home.

  *

  That night he ate without tasting, and when he lay down his head he found no sleep. He was troubled: what bad things would worry the husht god? Stories were full of questions. He shouldn’t have dealt with the wise woman; when answers were needed she only gave questions. She bet at the mai-ring as well as anyone, and just as poorly – what kind of divine eye behaved so?

  Omaro threw off his furs and strode naked into the night air, enjoying the coolness of it. He entered his first wife’s hut. It was dark – not even embers in the fire pit. He waited for his breathing to wake her, but she didn’t stir. She was there in the blackness, seeing whatever it was she saw behind her eyes: full breakfast bowls and braided hair, perhaps. He did not want to take her from that.

  His second wife woke as he drew aside the hide of her hut. Her fire still glowed. She didn’t sleep with furs, though she had many. She saw him and made soft noises. He felt her heat under his palms and he mounted her, like a tusker mounts his mare. He enjoyed the smoothness of her back and how her hair fell about her neck. When he finished, he patted her flank and once again enjoyed the coolness of the night air. The questions no longer plagued him. Violine was the wise woman. She had the story within her and Omaro would soon know it. It was a good story: of animal gods and the like. They would show him the way with Tajo.

  *

  His youngest daughter, Meera, brought him the mattock, using both hands to lug it in. He smiled at her seriousness. It was bigger than her, and top-heavy like her. He’d seen many daughters grow and though it surprised him at first, he’d come to understand their heads were too big at birth and too small at death.

  ‘Show me your teeth,’ he said.

  She growled at him, and two wonky pegs spoke of her fierceness. He laughed, and she was not pleased.

  He used the mattock like a stick to help him up to the cave, carrying it across his shoulders for the last twenty paces.

  Violine was waiting for him. She beckoned for him to follow and they walked for a way, her ten or so paces in front. He wanted to ask her the questions that boiled and bubbled inside him, but when he opened his mouth to let them out she was just a little too far away, or a wailer group began its call, or she’d passed beyond a tree.

  When they stopped, she held up a hand for his silence. ‘From the river there,’ she said, ‘to where the trees grow dense. You see?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You must bring down every tree in between. Root too.’

  ‘I have questions,’ he said.

  ‘Good, frontsman.’ She slapped his buttock. ‘I will tell the story as you work.’

  He started to count the trees she wanted him to pull from the earth, but there were too many and they danced in the heat of the morning. He’d downed many men in a single festival day, back when his body was quick as well as strong.

  ‘This will take many days,’ he said.

  ‘So it will.’

  ‘What are these trees to you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Violine said, settling on a rock. She wore husht teeth but she moved and sat like a tamtar.

  ‘And what are they to everyone else?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Riddles do not make one wise,’ he said.

  She cleared her throat.

  He waited. She was waiting too, he realised. He ap
proached the first tree. Hefting the mattock, he thought of Meera and her two-armed struggle to shift it. He swung it wide and low, as near to the ground as he could, striking the tree a wicked blow. The years had taught him to expect the sound of snapping bone, of warriors’ cries, of blood like rain on leaves. The thump of mattock-head on wood left an emptiness in him; where a fire should have been there was only the bitterness of ash.

  ‘This is not work befitting me,’ Omaro said. ‘Find yourself another—’

  *

  ‘Umar set about gathering the animal gods. Some were lazy, and some already knew of the bad things. He sent those who could walk on the winds to the far places across the great lakes and beyond strange-looking mountains, where ice grows instead of trees. Many he did not see again.

  ‘Umar started his own long journey, his task to rouse Jornder, the slumbering tusker god. There was no love between the two, and Jornder would normally have slept through any of man’s trifling affairs. And that was Umar’s understanding of the bad thing to come: it was man’s doing.

  ‘He took Marla, with her loud cry, and Norna, whose red-wink cunning would be needed to convince the most stubborn of gods. They journeyed under the sun and under the moon, neither of which concerned themselves with such things. The gods did not grow tired but bored: Marla wailed and hooted at every man they saw, blaming them for the tedious hours, and Norna ground her teeth at the wailer god.’

  *

  Omaro wiped the sweat from his face. He was slick with it all over. His great chest heaved as he sat on one of the fallen trees. He had felled three and dug out their roots and the afternoon was growing old. Digging in the soil was slow and he’d found no comfortable way to set himself. His back throbbed and sores were forming on his hands.

  ‘Carry on,’ he said.

  ‘Carry on,’ she said.

  ‘I am done today.’

  ‘Then we are done. No good story is heard in a day.’ She stood and moved as if her joints ached and her legs were tired, although she had done nothing but sit there and watch him work. She trudged with him as far as his home and then was gone, off into the village.

  He called for his first wife. She came out to the yard. Her hands were dusted in ground corn and striped with spices that scratched at his nose. He took her hands and licked each finger clean.

  ‘Bring me more,’ he said.

  ‘It is not ready.’

  ‘Bring it anyway. And I need to be washed.’

  She ducked her head.

  ‘Where is Tajo?’ he said.

  ‘He’s not—’

  ‘Don’t tell me. I should not have asked. I will sleep like Jornder tonight.’

  His wife’s eyes grew wide at the mention of the tusker god and she made signs across her chest that he shouldn’t wake and turn his wrathful step towards their village.

  He lay in his hut and waited for his first wife. Meera, his youngest daughter, peered around the edge of the doorway, no doubt wondering where the mattock was. He let her stare.

  *

  The following day was the same: more trees to clear, and although his body ached, he rested only when he had to. He found a rhythm in the swinging mattock, though it still felt bitter and his blood was cold, even if his body wasn’t.

  Violine continued the story; Umar and the other gods found no easy passage to the resting place of Jornder. Omaro only half-listened to the tale as he grappled with roots. Their tapering thickness put him in mind of fingers: long, spirit-like fingers that he pulled one by one out of the earth. They released their grip grudgingly, but Omaro enjoyed the struggle.

  Violine’s voice was clear across the glade he was creating; no matter how far away he worked, from riverbank to dense treeline, he heard her, telling about the rough-and-tumble play of Marla and Norna. He smiled at that, remembering his own brothers and sisters and how they spent their early years making mai-rings of their own. Leepo, the pecker-bird god, gave them trouble: he wanted them to turn back, to leave Jordner to his slumber. Pecker-birds were always a nuisance. When he returned home that night, his first wife brought a stone to rub at the hard skin that had grown on his palms.

  *

  ‘Omaro?’

  He looked up from his bowl of fruit. He’d been favouring fruit more of late.

  Naylen, his neighbour, bowed her head at the entrance to his hut. He beckoned her enter and she took her time settling. She was not much smaller than he.

  ‘The village is talking,’ she said.

  He offered her a bowl. ‘That is what villages are for,’ he said.

  Naylen picked at her fruit – she would have eaten before leaving her own home. She had three husbands, if such a thing could be believed. It was no wonder she looked tired.

  ‘People are wondering why you walk to the wise woman’s cave every morning.’

  ‘They wonder, but do not come to see for themselves?’

  ‘They mean no disrespect, they are only curious. Curious and idle,’ she said.

  ‘And you want to know?’

  ‘I have my own curiosity.’

  ‘You don’t look like a mouser,’ he said.

  She laughed. ‘I did, once, before I felt the weight of a mai-stick and decided it would be mine to hold.’

  ‘Once. I find myself thinking in such a way more and more often now.’

  ‘Is that why you see her?’

  He waved her question away.

  ‘My nephew is to be married at the next fat moon,’ Naylen said. ‘There is a place by the fire for you and yours.’

  ‘So long after the choosing?’

  Naylen spat out fruit seeds. ‘Her mother is a trader from another village. She counts the flakes in her porridge each morning.’

  ‘If only we could choose for them,’ he said.

  Naylen shuddered. ‘Would your father have chosen well for you?’

  ‘He had no eye for women. We will attend, of course.’

  She bowed her head again. At the doorway she stopped. ‘Eat more than fruit, Omaro. You are shrinking in your old age.’ She slapped her ample flanks as she walked from his hut.

  He considered throwing a bowl at her – little chance he’d miss – but instead he pinched the flesh on his own thighs. Was he shrinking?

  He called to his second wife to bring more food.

  *

  When Omaro reached the clearing Violine was already there, perched on her rock. At her feet were a number of tools.

  He picked them up one at a time, examining them, as she said, ‘You are to build a fence from the trees you have cleared.’ She marked where it was to be with a sweep of her hand.

  He prodded a small axe with his toes. ‘How do I build a fence?’

  ‘However you wish.’

  He surveyed the clearing and then wandered to the nearest felled tree. He lifted one end and shifted it until it was sitting on his shoulder. What a sight he must have made: old Omaro, big as a bull tusker and just as strong, tearing trees from the ground to do his bidding. With small steps he made his way to the riverbank, where he dropped the tree.

  Violine was at his side. Omaro took a step away from her – nothing natural moved that quietly.

  ‘That wouldn’t stop a line of crumbers,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing any man could build would stop a line of crumbers.’

  ‘What would this fence stop?’

  Omaro rubbed the base of his back. ‘A grain-thief, perhaps.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Then tell me, what am I supposed to stop with this fence?’

  ‘That,’ she said, pointing to the trees on the far side of the river.

  He squinted against the early sun. There was something moving beyond the trees, something causing the leaves to fidget.

  ‘What is it?’ Omaro said.

  ‘You are not to
know. Just build a fence, so high,’ she said, tapping at his belly.

  ‘But what will—?’

  ‘Enough questions. Remember your promises, Omaro the great frontsman, bellower of the lines, shaker of the heavens, dread of the . . .’ She continued on, waving her hands in the air in mockery of the words she was saying; she clearly thought to provoke him.

  He shook his head. She was so small – the worker, in all its buzzing fury, raises no more than a paw from the bern; he could swat her away. But she was beginning the story again.

  *

  ‘Jordner slept beneath the mountains. This was not a blessing for the mountain folk, for in those early times he was an angry god. His great tusks would rend the earth and spew running fire. The mountain people learned to tread carefully, as did Umar, Marla and Norna. As they approached the entrance to Jordner’s cave, Leepo fluttered down on his quick wings. The pecker-bird god threatened to make a great noise and wake Jordner too soon, risking their journey’s ruin. Leepo’s bright red beak opened and closed many times, and no matter how much Umar hissed, the bird would not be moved.

  Marla gave up her hooting and sat in the dirt. She cursed birds and their gods alike. As she began to groom herself, wishing she were not alone and so far from her troop, Leepo flew onto her head and began pecking. One time among many the bird actually found a speck, but more often it came away with nothing but Marla’s fur. The wailer went to swat the bird, but Umar stopped her. She stayed behind to keep Leepo busy as Norna and Umar entered the cave, but her quiet grumblings following them and her occasional hoot made Umar wince.

  *

  Omaro was whittling when Violine stopped talking. He was fashioning spears to thrust into the wet ground – he had placed six already, and needed two more for his fence. Then he would lace sticks between them before slapping mud and leaves and tusker dung over the top, just as his wives did to build his huts. He considered bringing them here to do the same, but this wasn’t a place for wives. He tested the point and found it good. When he looked up he was alone in the clearing.

  He finished the last two spears and as with the first, used his bulk to drive them deep into the earth. He said his prayers, asking the earth-mother for forgiveness for his intrusions (and to blame the wise woman, if any blaming was to be done). He peered again at the opposite bank, which was still and quiet now, and took half a step towards the river, then he remembered Violine’s command. He ground his back teeth all the way home.