And by the time Longtusk was born, much later, a time when the ice crowded down from the north of the Old Steppe, there were many bears and horses and wolves, and many mammoths.
But only mammoths, the Calves of Kilukpuk, had Families.
Now at one time in his life Longtusk lived alone, and he wandered the land. Everywhere he went he won friendship and respect — naturally, since he was the greatest hero of all, and even other, stupid creatures could recognize that.
One spring day Longtusk, wandering the land, happened to come by a snow bank. He saw a bear alone, mourning loudly.
Now a cub of Ursu likes to live alone, in caves she digs out of snow banks with her paws. She will spend her winter in the snow, nursing her cubs, until they come out in the spring to play and hunt.
Longtusk called, "What is wrong?"
And the bear said, "My cub has grown sickly and died. My milk was sour, and I could not feed him."
And Longtusk was saddened. But he knew that if a mammoth’s milk soured, she would ask the others of her Family, her mother and sisters and aunts, to suckle the calf for her, and the calf would not die. But the bear lived alone, and had no Family to help care for her cubs.
Longtusk stayed with the bear a day and a night, comforting her, and then he walked on.
In the summer Longtusk, wandering the land, happened to come upon a horse as she cropped a stand of grass. She was mourning loudly.
Now the foals of Equu like to run together in herds, but they have no Matriarch, and no true Family.
Longtusk called, "What is wrong?"
And the horse said, "I was running with my brothers and sisters and our foals when we ran into a bank of smoke. It was a fire, lit by the Lost. Well, we turned and ran, as fast as we could. But we ran to a cliff’s edge and fell — all but me — and the Lost have taken the flesh and the skin of my brothers and sisters and foals, and I am alone."
And Longtusk was saddened. But he knew that if Lost hunters tried to panic a mammoth Family, the wisdom of the Matriarch and her sisters would keep them from falling into such a simple trap.
Longtusk stayed with the horse a day and a night, comforting her, and then he walked on.
In the autumn Longtusk, wandering the land, happened to come upon a wolf as she chewed on a scrap of meat. She was mourning loudly.
Now the wolves run together in packs. But they have no true Family.
Though Longtusk was rightly wary of any cub of Aglu, he approached the wolf. He called, "What is wrong?"
And the wolf said, "We were hunting. My brother was injured and he died. My parents and my sister and my cubs fell on him, and I joined them, and we fought over the entrails we dragged from his stomach. But the meat tasted sour in my mouth, and I am still hungry, and my brother is gone, and I am alone."
And Longtusk was saddened. But he knew that when a mammoth died, her Family would Remember her properly, and those who had to live on were soothed. But when a wolf died he became nothing but another piece of meat between the teeth of his pack.
Longtusk stayed with the wolf a day and a night, comforting her, and then he walked on.
If you are a Cow you are born into a Family, and you live in that Family, and you die in that Family. All your life. A Family must share in the care and protection of the calves. A Family must respect the wisdom of its elders, and especially the Matriarch. A Family must Remember its dead. In a Family, I becomes We.
All these things Longtusk knew. All these things Kilukpuk taught us, and more.
…I know, I know. I have not said what became of Purga, brother of Kilukpuk.
Well, Purga sired clever creatures who climbed and ran and hunted and built and fought and killed. And they became the Lost.
But that is another story.
1
The Bridge
The mammoths spent a night on the lip of the great cliff, huddled under a sky littered with hard, bright stars. Icebones was surrounded by the warm gurgles of the mammoths’ bellies, their soft belches and farts. Sometimes she heard a rustle as Woodsmoke scrambled through belly hair and sought a teat to suckle.
But every time sleep approached Icebones imagined she was back in the maze of rock, and that a lithe black creature, all teeth and claws, was preparing to spring out of the air.
It was with relief that she saw the dawn approaching. Finding a stream, she took a trunkful of ice-cold water and tipped it into her mouth. The mammoths were already drifting away in search of the first of the day’s forage. The place they had stood for much of the night was littered with dung.
Autumn’s wounds still seeped blood that leaked into her ragged guard hairs. Shoot cleaned the wounds of blood and dirt with water, and plastered mud into the deepest cuts.
Breeze encouraged her calf to pop fragments of the adults’ dung into his mouth, for it would help his digestion. But his control of his trunk was still clumsy, and he smeared the warm, salty dung liberally over his mouth. He was growing rapidly. His legs, to which tufts of orange hair clung, were spindly and long, and he was already half Icebones’s height.
Finished with the dung, Woodsmoke trotted from one adult to another, chirping his simple phrases: "I am hungry! I am not cold!" — and, most of alclass="underline" "Look at me! Look at what I am doing!" Autumn grumbled wearily that it might be better for the nerves of the adults if calves did not speak from the moment they were born. But Icebones knew she didn’t mean it.
Icebones walked to the edge of the Gouge.
The canyon was vast, magnificent, austere. It stretched from east to west, passing beyond the horizon in either direction. Its walls, glowing red and crimson and ochre, were nothing but rock, cracked and seamed by heat and frost and wind. Peering down, she saw gray clouds drifting through the canyon, feathery rafts floating on the languid river of air that flowed between those mighty walls.
The wall beneath her was huge, tall enough to dwarf many mountains. Its face was cut into columns and gullies, carved and fluted by water and wind, the detail dwindling to a dim darkness at its base.
But the Gouge’s far southern wall was a mere line of darkness on the horizon. She imagined a mammoth like herself standing on that southern wall, peering north across this immense feature. To such an observer, Icebones would be quite invisible.
The Gouge’s floor was visible beneath the flowing gray cloud. She made out the ripple of dunes, the snaking glint of a river, and the crowded gray-green of forests or steppe — all very different from the high, frozen plain on which she stood. The Gouge was so deep that the very weather was different on its sunken floor.
Thunder, the young Bull, stood beside her. "The valley is big," he said simply.
"Yes. Do you see? It is light there, to the east, but it is still dark there, to the west." It was true. The morning sun, a shrunken yellow disc immersed in pale pink light, seemed to be rising out of the Gouge’s eastern extremity. Long, sharp shadows stretched across the Gouge floor, and mist pooled white in valleys and depressions. And, as she looked further to the west, she saw that the floor there still lay in deep darkness, still in the shadow of the world. "The Gouge is so big that it can contain both day and night."
Thunder growled. "It is too big to understand."
Gently, she prodded his trunk. "No. Feel the ground. Smell it, listen to it. Hear the wind gushing along this great trench, fleeing the sun’s heat. Listen to the rumble of the rivers, flowing along the plain, far below. And listen to the rocks…"