Claw had used her again.
Her hands reached for food — a sucked-out fruit skin dropped by somebody high in the tree above her, a caterpillar she spotted on a leaf. But her mouth chewed without relish, and her stomach did not want the food. Agony shot upwards from her deepest belly to her throat. A thin, stinking bile spilled out of her mouth. She groaned and rolled over onto the ground, huddled over her wounded hand.
The light leaked out of the sky.
There was rustling and hooting as the people converged on the roosting site from wherever they had wandered during the day. The high-ranking women built their nests first, weaving branches together to make soft, springy beds, and settling down with their infants.
Somebody thumped Shadow’s back, or kicked it. She didn’t see who it was. She didn’t care.
She stared at the dust. She did not eat. She did not drink. She did not climb the trees to build a nest. She only nursed the scarlet pain in her belly.
Just before the last sunlight faded, she heard screeching and crashing, far above her. Big Boss was making one last show of strength for the day, leaping from nest to nest, waking the women and throwing out the men.
The noises faded, like the light.
Something smelled bad.
She held up her hand in the blue-tinged dark. Something moved in the wound between thumb and forefinger, white and purposeful. She tucked the hand away from her face, deep under her belly.
She closed her eyes again.
Daylight.
She pushed at the ground. She sat up, and slumped back against the tree root.
The people were all around her, jostling, arguing, playing, eating. They didn’t see her, here in her brown-green dark.
There was shit smeared on her fur. It was drying, but it smelled odd.
The man called Squat was trying to lead the people, to start the day. He was walking away from them, shaking a branch, stirring bright red dust that clung to his legs. He looked back at Big Boss, walked a little further, looked back again.
Big Boss followed, growling, his hair bristling all over his back. One by one the others followed, the adults feeding as they walked, the children playing with manic energy, as always.
Here was Little Boss. He squatted down on his haunches before Shadow. He was a big slab of hot, sweating muscle, bigger in height and weight than Big Boss himself. He picked up her damaged hand and turned it over. He poked at the edges of the wound, where pus oozed from broken flesh. He let go of the hand, so it fell into the dirt. He inspected her, wrinkling his nose.
He got up and walked a few paces away.
Then he turned. He ran back and, with all his momentum behind it, he kicked her, hard. She ducked her head out of the way, but the kick caught her shoulder and sent her sprawling.
Others came by: women, men, children. She received more slaps and kicks, and was confronted by teeth-baring displays of disgust. Shadow just lay in the dirt, where Little Boss’s kick had thrown her.
But the heatings by the men were not severe today. They saved their energy for each other. Many of them jabbered and punched each other, in noisy, inconclusive bouts. The elaborate politics of the men was taking some new turn.
Then there were no more kicks or slaps. The people walked-away, the rustle of their passing receding. Shadow was left alone. She dissolved, becoming only a mesh of crimson pain.
She knew herself only in relationship to other people: not through the place she lived, the skills she had. Ignored, it was as if she did not exist.
Now somebody crouched down before her. She smelled familiar warmth. She turned her head with difficulty; her neck was stiff. It was Termite, her mother. Beyond her Tumble, the infant, was playing with a lizard she had found, chasing it this way and that, picking it up by the tail and throwing it.
Termite, huge, strong, studied her daughter. Her face was twisted by uneasy disgust. But she probed at the scratches on Shadow’s legs, dipped her fingers into the blood that had dried around Shadow’s vagina, and tasted it. Then she inspected the ugly wound on Shadow’s hand. Fly maggots were wriggling there.
Termite groomed carefully around the edge of the wound. She pulled out the maggots, squeezed out pus, and licked the edges of the wound. Then she gathered a handful of thick, dark green leaves. She chewed these up, spitting them out into a green mass that stank powerfully, and scraped it over the wound.
It hurt sharply. Shadow squealed and pulled her hand back. But her mother was strong. Termite grabbed her hand and continued to tend the wound, despite Shadow’s struggles.
Tumble kept her distance. She would approach her mother, stare at Shadow and wrinkle her small nose, and retreat; then she would forget whatever she had smelled, and approach once more. She hovered a few paces away, attraction and repulsion balanced.
Later, Termite put her powerful arms under Shadow’s armpits, hauled her upright by main force, and dragged her into the shade of a fat, tall palm. She brought her food: figs, leaves and shoots. Shadow tried to pull her face away. Termite grabbed her jaw and pinched the joints until Shadow opened her mouth. She forced the food between Shadow’s lips, and pushed at her jaw until Shadow chewed and swallowed.
Shadow threw up.
Termite persisted.
By the time the roosting calls began to sound once more through the forest, Shadow was keeping down much of what she swallowed.
The people returned. The adults carried shaped cobbles, or bits of food. Some of the men had meat.
But there was much unrest. Squat and Little Boss were jabbering and throwing slaps at each other. Squat grabbed at a bloody animal leg Little Boss was carrying, trying to snatch it off him. Little Boss punched him hard in the nose, sending Squat flying back, and Little Boss took a defiant, bloody mouthful of his meat.
When the women started making their nests, Tumble climbed up her mother’s legs and clung onto her shoulders and head.
Once again Termite tried to make Shadow stand, but Shadow fell back and sprawled in the dirt. So Termite leaned over and let Shadow fall across her shoulders. She stood straight with a grunt, and Shadow’s arms and legs dangled at her back and belly.
With powerful gasps. Termite began to climb a palm, laden down by her infant and her nearly grown daughter.
Shadow’s head dangled at Termite’s back. She saw Termite’s legs and rump, a dark slope before her, powerful muscles working. With every jolt. Shadow felt her innards clench, and bright red pain flowed through her. Tumble’s small hands delivered stinging slaps to her unprotected backside.
High in a palm, Termite let Shadow slide into the crook of a branch. Sweating and panting. Termite quickly pulled branches together to make a nest. Then she grabbed Shadow by the armpits and pulled her into the nest.
Termite settled herself, curling around her daughter’s back. Whimpering, Tumble settled down in the nest at her mother’s back, on the far side from Shadow.
The light slid away. The world was black and grey.
Shadow closed her eyes. She slept, entering a deep dreamless sleep, with her mother’s warmth around her.
When she woke, in the first pink light of day, she found her thumb in her mouth, as if she was an infant. Memories flooded into her head. Her illness was like a tunnel of blood red, leading back to greener days beyond.
Her back was cold. Termite wasn’t there.
She sat up. Termite and Tumble were in the nest, on its far side. Termite was assiduously grooming her infant’s fur. Tumble was picking through a lump of faeces, seeking undigested food.
Shadow inspected the wound in her hand. Green, chewed-up fibre clung to it. She licked away the green stuff. There was no sign of maggots or pus, and much of the damaged area was scabbed over, although the scabs cracked when she flexed her thumb.