Hawk immediately burst out onto the moor and ran toward the elg, which was trotting away, both spears hanging from his right haunch. So they had both hit him, but now they had to get him. Loon and Moss crawled out of the brake and followed Hawk, who was chasing down the elg with his javelin held in his right hand just over his right shoulder, ready to throw. It would take a thrust to the gut to bring him down, so Hawk would have to outrun it, and to Loon’s surprise he was actually doing that, running faster than Loon had ever seen any human run.
Then the elg suddenly stopped and kicked back at Hawk, who had to tuck and roll over his spear, then stop on one knee and thrust the tip up into the exposed gut and roll away, dodging a kick of the elg’s foreleg. That too missed, and Hawk had stuck him deeply in the gut. For a time the beast stood there, breathing heavily and bleeding from Hawk’s puncture, which was so close to the ribs that it might have hit a lung.
— Die brother die, they implored it, looking around for rocks of the right size to make a useful blow to the head. It might also be possible to withdraw one of their spears from the right haunch, but that would risk another vicious kick, and backward rear leg kicks were dangerous. And the last kick is the worst.
There were rocks ready to hand almost everywhere on the moor, and as soon as they all three had both hands full, they threw six rocks in a flurry, and Loon’s first throw caught the elg right on the ear, causing him to bellow and turn as if to charge, but this was too much for him. He stood there quivering and bleeding more than ever from the gut stick, as the spear was dragging on the ground. Moss dashed around him like a mink and darted in to pull out one of the spears from his haunch. The elg did indeed kick at him, but feebly. Moss got his spear out and prodded briefly to spur another weak kick, and after Moss ducked away from that he came back in with the returning leg and stabbed deep at the gut just in front of the haunch, twisting it at the end of the thrust and then leaping back to avoid another kick. It was just like when they had fought as kids: Moss was a counterpuncher.
The elg began to bleed from the mouth and nose, which meant one of them had punctured a lung. They cheered as the elg went to his knees and snorted out his last breaths.-Ha! they shouted, slapping each other with a huge delight.-Thank you brother! they shouted at the dying beast.
The elg crashed onto his side and gurgled his last breaths. When he was gone they could tell; there was always a noticeable difference when the spirit departed a living thing. Immediately it was as inert as a stone. The spirits sometimes stayed nearby, and there were certain proprieties and taboos about eating creatures too soon after they had died, just to respect these hovering spirits. But the bodies were empty. And none of the taboos obtained when it came to getting meat back to camp before scavengers arrived to complicate things. Indeed this was a time to hurry.
They had to work hard to cut up such a big brother. Their spear tips could be used as cutters, and though they weren’t as good as real meat blades, they were immensely better than the choprock Loon had used to break down his deer. Even so it was hard sweaty work, and they huffed and puffed as they speared the joints apart and cut hard at the ligaments.
They cut the haunches entirely away and then gutted the body, then cut the head and neck off just in front of the forelegs. The head would be the most awkward of the three pieces they wanted to carry back to camp.
As they were working the sun went down and quickly darkness fell, as always on the moors of the upland. And they were covered with elg blood. So they were not comfortable being out there, as several wolf packs regularly passed by here. The closest pack to their camp ran a ten-day circuit around its land, and had not been seen for most of a fortnight, so they were due back anytime.
When the waning half moon rose they hefted their pieces of the elg and began to run toward the mouth of the Ordech. They traded the elg parts during brief rests, to alter the kind of load they had to carry. It had already been a long day and night, and at a certain point Loon felt the weariness in his thighs and calves, and all through him. He had to limp pretty hard to keep his bad leg quiet. He breathed deep and fast, working to call up his second wind. There was a period between when you called for the second wind and it came, when you felt like shit and simply had to bear down and slog through the weakness; that bearing down was the call for the second wind, and the sign that it was on its way. And as often happened, when the second wind came he forgot he had ever been tired at all; the night could go on for as long as it wanted, it didn’t matter. He was eating his own body at that point, Heather said, so there was food enough for a long haul.
But Loon had to admit, as the night wore on, that his bad leg was bad. He also had a good one, however, and because the good leg was so good, he could do it; he could favor the bad leg and in time it would get better. So tonight, the trick was to see how well he could get along on the good leg, and not hurt the bad leg further in this run home.
They came into camp around a fist before dawn, and most of the pack woke up and cheered them, and built up the fire and ate a little roasted meat, while breaking down the elg into parts that would preserve better. Hawk and Moss and Loon were congratulated and cosseted as they told the story of the hunt, and Loon didn’t say anything about his leg, but he couldn’t help protecting it around the fire, and both Heather and Thorn saw it, and glared at each other as if each thought it was the other’s fault. It almost made Loon laugh, but he was too worried to laugh.
The next day Loon looked down at his body and pinched the skin over his hip bones. The lobs of fat that had been there through the winter were completely gone. His skin was the same brown as certain horses’ manes, a particular brown lighter than most of his pack’s skin color. People said he had some lunkhead in him, that that was why he was so stupid. There was no fat in the ring around his belly button either. He couldn’t have packed on much more fat last fall or it would have slowed him down. Some men got so that they almost looked pregnant, but of course they never really did, because they carried the weight low and looked like dropstones in the river, whereas women carried their kids right under their ribs and looked beautiful. It was a stark contrast, and sometimes struck Loon’s eye very strongly when he saw a bag-bellied old man; which was rare, as usually he only had eyes for the women. Men he evaluated with the same dispassion he gave to himself; how was that one doing, how was his body faring in the daily struggle? Not bodies but motions he admired in men, in the way he would admire his own leaps and jumps when they surprised him, coming so fast he could only witness them after the fact, as memories. Things happened so fast he could only remember them. When he saw the other men move like that it was beautiful. They were capable creatures, tough animals among the other animals. They could outlast any animal in a long chase, and that said a lot.
But the women-the women were beautiful. They were as beautiful as horses. Their hair, either braided or flying free from their heads, looked like manes. They tossed their manes like horses, they worked in groups and chattered like squirrels and looked at you; they looked at you, they looked at everything with a most piercing glance. They were the most curious animals of all, even more than their sisters fox and cat. They could spear you with a look.
There was a grove with some soap trees scattered among the spruces, just over the pass at the head of Upper Valley, in the north-trending canyon they called the Lir. Loon spent some days after their hunt walking slowly over there and cutting off some straight soap-tree branches. It was a hard wood, but filling the core of new shoots was a soft pulp that could be hollowed out. The hollow stick that remained could be used as a dart blower, or made into a flute. Other pieces could be split into four lengths, and each quarter polished and its ends sharpened and fire-hardened and polished again, and the result be two pair of knitting needles, one for Heather, the other for Sage.