The thing that made Schist complicated was that he was married to Thunder, sitting there by the women’s house. She along with her sister Bluejay were the headwomen of the pack, as involved as Schist in the running of things. And Thunder was a bruiser. She and Schist had grown up together in Wolf pack and married young, which was said to explain everything about them. But Schist was relaxed and agreeable, while Thunder was so intense and overbearing it was said her mother had eaten otter meat while pregnant. And her sister Bluejay was even worse, and the two of them were close. People joked that Schist had married two women, both meaner than him. How could he be headman of the pack when he wasn’t even headman in his bed? But somehow the necessary things got done. Their pack didn’t really want a headman anyway, he was always suggesting with his manner. They were better off this way. Except when it came to food. With food he was a boulder that could not be moved. Thunder and Bluejay left that to him, to avoid a push coming to a shove they would not win. And so he spent his days going from one task to the next, asking for help when he needed it, and people gave it when he asked. It looked like he was asking Ibex for help right now, although he was more agitated than usual. People said he had been good to Loon’s father when Tulik had married into the pack.
Looking down at the tiny people, Loon realized he could close his eyes and still see them all. Everybody knew everybody. The adults were married, the children were not, the young people were in between, thus on the lookout. Their bodies had begun to bleed or spurt, the older ones were putting them through their initiations. There was no way out of that, no place to hide.
Hunger shoved him back down to camp. He was not happy.
Hawk and Moss were sitting in the sun, straightening their tusk javelin tips with a bone-point straightener, Hawk laughing as he inserted the white point into the hole, miming a spurt into a kolby, in and out, in and out. Then a gentle twist on the bone handle to lever the point back into true. Mammoth tusk was strong and light, but it warped as it dried, also when it got wet. Point straightening was always a pleasure, it meant they were about to go out on the hunt again. But Loon was too hurt to go.
When you know a man you know his face, not his heart. Never help a person who doesn’t help anyone else. The more you give, the more you get.
To Loon these sayings seemed to suggest he should spend most of his time helping women. Heather often said it: find the right woman and do what she says. A woman will cook for you, and then you can hunt. And he dearly wanted to go with his friends on the hunt.
Heather told him he would only hurt his leg worse.-Real friends wouldn’t let you go, she said. She didn’t like the pack’s men. In her constant muttering Loon sometimes heard her quite clearly, though he didn’t always understand her:-Bunch of drunken old spelunkers, you shamans, and you hunters mere pig-stickers and jerk-offs, all your splendiferous vainglorious buffooneries and assholeries, hootenanies and corroborees, wandering around thinking you’re men, just get the meat! Get the nuts! Get the firewood! Do your work! Quit with the lies and the boasts and the tall tales, the flat-out undeniable fucking stupidity! Do your work and then brag if you have to, otherwise I shit on all your brave talk, it’s just the slubgullion left at the bottom of the bucket!
The people of Wolf pack had long ago stopped listening to Heather, as she knew very well. Sometimes she would shout at them just to see them turn their backs and move away. But Loon had to stay. After his parents’ deaths Heather and Thorn had raised him, and now, between them they had him trapped.-All these widows and orphans, I’m tired of it! Heather told him whenever he complained about this.-Quit getting killed and then it won’t happen! Heather the midwife, the herb woman, the loudmouth, the witch, the crone, the horrible hag, the deadly poisoner. A very busy and bossy old woman, small and bent and proud to have three teeth left, two opposed. The spider was her animal, and it was said she turned into one sometimes.
Now she was dismissing him with a wave, staring up into the hemlock over her nest. The cat that hung around their camp, enticed by Heather’s gifts, had climbed into the branches over her and was daintily eating the tree’s new spring leaves, even the new twigs. It seemed uncatlike.
— Get out of here, I have to talk to Schist.
He couldn’t go out on the hunt. All that day and in the days after, a feeling of doom grew in him, the weight of the sky weighed on him.
If he killed everybody in the pack he would be able to go out on his own, find a high place to sleep at night, and have a fire always, everything he needed, a cave to paint, new people when he wanted them; come and go, drop in on festivals, no duties to a pack or to anything at all. A traveler, a woodsman, a green man. He could do the deed in the night before dawn, before Heather woke up; kill her first because she would be the one to know, the hardest to surprise, catch her asleep, a blow with a chopper to the back of the head or to the temple, go around to those who were always first to wake, then to the heavy sleepers, the late sleepers, they would be late indeed on that morning! And in the sunrise, with all of them dead, walk out on a wander that would never end. Live a lifetime every month.
Better to be lucky than good. The cat had seen that many times. A sound snapped in her head like a thunderclap and she was far up the tree overhanging camp before she understood it was one of the humans stepping on a dry twig. Better to be safe than sorry. The humans would kill anyone, and then not only eat their kill but tear off its fur and tear out its teeth and wear them afterward, macabre trophies that were part of what made humans so awful, along with their smell, and their ability to kill at a distance by throwing rocks and sticks. None of the other animals could do that. The cat disliked all the other animals, including her own kind. Cats at least liked to stay away from each other, they had that basic courtesy. All except for the lions. Lions acted like they were wolves, it was sickening. The biggest of every kind of animal were gregarious, which the cat found mysterious. All the littler wolves were solitaries: fox, coyote, mink, weasel. So were all the littler cats. But the biggest of both kinds, wolves and lions, roamed in groups. There’s safety in numbers. So they clumped and safe they were. And their prey, the big herd animals, clumped together too. The lions should have known better.
Bears left their little sisters alone, wolves likewise, but big cats would eat little cats. Anyone would eat a little cat if they could catch one. Thus her jumpiness. To see the biggest cats ganging up in packs was a little disgusting, a little embarrassing, also terrifying. They looked like cats in every other way, then there they were, hanging around like wolves. How could they do it?
All the animals had been the same in the beginning, then things happened and they became sun and moon, northern lights and thunderstorms, and all the various animals, still the same inside and sharing an outlook on things. But some killed and some got killed, and many did both, like cat. Best be careful. Hiss at the storms and they might go elsewhere.
Another thunder crack of a twig snap and cat’s fur stood, her tail grew fat with unease. Another pair of humans were now under the tree. These were the two dominant males in the herb woman’s pack, deadly men with rock or stick. Cat peeked over the side of the branch to observe, and saw that the two humans were talking to another pair of them, from the pack that cut off their little fingers and gave them to the cats. Naturally cat liked these humans better, but they did not have an herb woman like cat’s, so she stayed mostly around the woman. It was a pack with a lot of camp mice, and the oddments left out by the old woman were interesting. The old woman teased cat with weird gifts.