"Take it easy, Longtusk," Walks With Thunder warned.
"What does he want?"
"If Lemming can’t tame you, then Spindle will do it. His way—"
Suddenly Spindle’s thin arm lashed out toward Longtusk. His goad fizzed through the air and cut cruelly into the soft flesh of Longtusk’s cheek.
Longtusk trumpeted in anger and reared up, as high as his hobbles would allow him. He could crush Spindle with a single stamp, or run him through with a tusk. How dare this ugly little creature attack him?
But the Firehead wasn’t even backing away. He was standing before Longtusk, forelegs extended, paws tucked over as if beckoning.
"Don’t, Longtusk," Walks With Thunder rumbled urgently. "It’s what he wants. Don’t you see? If you so much as scratch Spindle, they will destroy you in an instant. It’s what he wants…"
Longtusk knew Thunder was right. He growled and lowered his tusks, glaring at Spindle.
The Firehead, tiny teeth gleaming, lashed out once more, and again Longtusk felt the goad cut deep into his flesh.
But suddenly it ceased.
Longtusk looked down. The girl-cub, Crocus, was standing before him. She seemed angry, distressed; tears ran down her small face. She was tugging at Spindle’s foreleg, making him stop. Her father, Bedrock, and the Shaman Smokehat were standing behind her.
Spindle was hesitating, his blood-tipped goad still raised to Longtusk.
At last Bedrock gestured to Spindle. With a snort of disgust the keeper threw his goad in the dirt and stalked away.
Now Crocus stood before Longtusk, gazing up at him. She was growing taller, just as he was, and an elaborate cap of ivory beads adorned her long blonde hair, replacing the simple tooth necklace circle she had worn when younger. She seemed afraid, he saw, but she was evidently determined to master her fear.
"Baitho," she said, her voice small and clear. Down, down.
And Longtusk, the warm blood still welling from his face, obeyed.
She stepped onto his trunk, reached forward, and grabbed hold of his ears.
He raised his trunk, gingerly, carefully.
Thunder was very quiet and still, as if he scarcely dared breathe. "Right. Lower her onto your back. Gently! Recall how fragile she is… imagine she’s a flower blossom, and you don’t want to disturb a single petal."
Rumbling, working by feel, Longtusk did his best. He felt the cub’s skinny legs slide around his neck.
"How’s that?"
Walks With Thunder surveyed him critically. "Not bad. Except she’s the wrong way around. She’s facing your backside, Longtusk. Try again. Let her off."
Longtusk lowered his hind legs. Crocus skidded down his back, landing with a squeal in the dirt.
"By Kilukpuk’s hairy navel," Walks With Thunder groaned, and Bedrock stepped forward, anxious.
But Crocus, though a little dusty, was unharmed. She trotted around to Longtusk’s head once more. She pulled her face in the gesture he was coming to recognize as a smile, and she patted the blood-matted hair of his cheek. "Baitho," she said quietly.
Again he lowered his trunk for her.
This time he got her the right way around. Her legs wrapped around his neck, and he felt her little paws grasping at the long hairs on top of his head. She was a small warm bundle, delicate, so light he could scarcely feel her.
Rumbling, constrained by his hobbles, Longtusk took a cautious step forward. He felt the cub’s fingers digging deeper into his fur, and she squealed with alarm. He stopped, but she kicked at his flanks with her tiny feet, and called out, "Agit!"
"It’s all right," Walks With Thunder said. "She’s safe up there. Go forward. Just take it easy, Longtusk."
So he stepped forward again.
Crocus laughed with pleasure. Keepers ran alongside him — as did Bedrock, still wary, but grinning. The watching mastodonts raised their trunks and trumpeted in salute.
But the Shaman, ignored by the Fireheads and their leader, was glaring, quietly furious.
It was all a question of practice, of course.
By the end of that first day Longtusk could lift the little Firehead onto his back, delivering her the right way around, almost without effort. And by the end of the second day he was starting to learn what Crocus wanted. A gentle kick to the left ear — maybe accompanied by a thin cry of Chi! — meant he should go left. Chai Ghoom! and a kick to the right ear meant go right. Agit! meant go forward; Dhuth! meant stop. And so on.
By the end of the third day, Longtusk was starting to learn subtler commands, transmitted to him through the cub’s body movements. If Crocus stiffened her limbs and leaned back he knew he was supposed to stop. If she leaned forward and pushed his head downward he should kneel or stoop.
Crocus never used a goad on him.
It wasn’t all easy. Once he spied an exceptionally rich clump of herbs, glimpsed through the branches of a tree. He forgot what he was doing and went that way, regardless of the little creature on his back — who yelped as the branches swept her to the ground. Alternatively if Longtusk thought the path he was being told to select was uncomfortable or even dangerous — for instance, if it was littered with sharp scree that might cut his footpads — he simply wouldn’t go that way, regardless of the protests of the cub.
After many days of this the keeper, Spindle, came to him, early in the morning.
Spindle raised his goad. "Baitho! Baitho!"
Longtusk simply glared at him, chewing his feed, refusing to comply.
The beating started then, as intense as before, and Longtusk felt old wounds opening on his cheek. But still he would not bow to Spindle.
Nobody else, he thought. Only the girl-cub Crocus.
At last Crocus came running with the other keepers. With sharp words she dismissed Spindle. Then, with Lemming’s help, she applied a thick, soothing salve to the cuts Spindle had inflicted on Longtusk’s cheek and thighs.
Without waiting for the command, Longtusk lowered his trunk and allowed her to climb onto his back once more.
Although Longtusk’s workload didn’t change, he became accustomed to meeting Crocus at the beginning or end of each day. She would ride him around the mastodont stockade, and Longtusk learned to ignore the mocking, somewhat envious jeers of the mastodonts. As she approached he would coil and uncoil his trunk with pleasure. Sometimes she brought him tidbits of food, which he chewed as she talked to him steadily in her incomprehensible, complex tongue.
She seemed fascinated by his fur. Longtusk had a dense underfur of fine woolly hair that covered almost all his skin. His rump, belly, flanks, throat and trunk were covered as well by a dense layer of long, coarse guard hair that dangled to the ground, skirt-like. The guard hair melded across his shoulders with a layer of thick but less coarse hairs that came up over his shoulders from low on the neck.
Crocus spent a great deal of time examining all this, lifting his guard hairs and teasing apart its layers. As for Longtusk, he would touch Crocus’s sweet face with the wet tip of his trunk, and then rest against her warmth, eyes closed.
Eventually Crocus’s visits became a highlight of his day — almost as welcome as, and rather less baffling than, his occasional meetings with the young mastodont Cow, Neck Like Spruce.
Once he took Crocus for a long ride across the bare steppe. They found a rock pool, and Longtusk wallowed there while Crocus played and swam. The sun was still high and warm, and he stretched out on the ground. She climbed onto his hairy belly and lay on top of him, soothed by the rumble of his stomach, plucking his hair and singing.