A Glibertarians Exclusive:  Mog-ee, Part V

Late spring

Wolf had just finished sweeping the packed earth floor of the hut with a broom made of rushes tied to a stick when Mog-ee announced, “It’s almost time for the morning song.  Will you sing today?”

Wolf shook his head.  The pass had been open for days; he still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t crossed over, gone back to the People, back to his own life.  Mog-ee’s passion in the bedding, so appealing the year before, was starting to become more burden than adventure, yet he couldn’t countenance giving it up; being pressured into digging in the fields with a digging stick, though, was a greater burden.

Under pressure from Mog-ee’s family, Wolf had been doing what he had claimed he would not – digging in the fields, overturning the soil, and then bending and stooping to place seeds in the dirt, cover them, and pour water over the planted seed.  It was tedious work, but it was work for which he was ‘rewarded,’ nightly, in the bedding.

It made his back hurt.  Wolf knew he was a young man, and he knew his strength was great, but the unaccustomed work, bending at the waist, stooping, was tiring.  A diet lacking in meat didn’t seem to help.  Maybe once or twice in a ten-day, the Diggers had a few small chunks of rabbit mixed in with their thin gruel of stewed seeds and leaves, or occasionally some fish from the stream.  That wasn’t enough for Wolf, having been brought up on reindeer, elk, occasionally even mammoth.

Just thinking of a haunch of roast reindeer made spit flood into Wolf’s mouth.  More visions of roasted meat paraded past his mind’s eye:  Rich, fatty mammoth, elk stewed with pine nuts and juniper berries, even the rich fat from a fall-killed great bear.

His stomach grumbled, as though it had liked the morning meal of gruel no better than Wolf had.

The Diggers were starting to gather for the morning song.  Mog-ee gave Wolf one more questioning look.  Wolf shook his head and went outside to pass the time of the morning “song” as he usually did, sitting in the sunshine in front of Mog-ee’s little hut.

A moment later, Mog-ee came out and headed for the center of the settlement.  A few moments later the ululating “song” began.

They’re convinced it brings rain; Wolf chuckled to himself.  And it’s been a dry spring.  I think their singing has been in vain.

Why do they feel the need to interfere with everything?  They are trying to tell the rain when to come, when if they just wait, it will come in its own time.  They try to change the earth, to tell it what plants may grow in their fields, when there have always been enough good things to eat, if you just look for them.

And they want to change me.  To make a hunter into a Digger.  To make me grub in the earth for my meals.

And, sitting there, Wolf had to admit that they had succeeded.  He got up, went back into the hut, and retrieved his spears, spear points and thrower.  Enough, he told himself.

The morning song stopped.  Wolf looked up; it seemed as though the song had been unusually brief on this day.  He went outside to see if something had happened, just in time to see Yeeteep-ee stomp around the corner of his large hut, with Yeeklep-ee and Ord-ee on either side.  Mog-ee followed a few places behind, looking unhappy.

Wolf calmly tied the carrier for his spear points around his waist and hung the thrower from a loop of leather on the carrier.  He held his two spear shafts in his right hand and stood straight, to look down on the short Diggers; he had found that his height always annoyed Yeeteep-ee.

“What do you want?” he demanded of the Diggers.

“You will sing with us,” Yeeteep-ee demanded.  “You will sing, or you will not eat.”

“I have been grubbing in the dirt alongside you,” Wolf objected.  “I helped you to dig up another field.  I have done more than enough to deserve a share of the food.  I have even brought in game from the fields.  Two of the small ones yesterday told me how happy they were to tasted reindeer; they had never done so before.  So why should I sing with you?”

“It is our way,” Yeeklep-ee snapped.  “It brings the rain.  It makes our fields fertile.”

“It brings rain, does it?”  Wolf laughed out loud.  “Look you at the sky.  The clear, blue sky.  I see no rain.  I have not seen rain for more than a ten-day.  Your song is not working.”

“It is not working because not all are singing,” Ord-ee said.

“It is not working because it is stupid,” Wolf replied.  “A song cannot bring rain.”

Yeeteep-ee looked at Wolf’s belt with the spear-point case and the hanging thrower, then at the two spear shafts in his hand.  “Where are you going?”

“Today I will hunt,” Wolf said.  He angled his head back a little, to emphasize his height and look down his nose at the little Digger.  “I will hunt, reindeer, elk, maybe bear if any are about.  I will hunt, as a man does.  Today you will have to grub in the earth without me.  You want me to change, to take all your ways, but I tell you now, I will not.  I will never be a Digger full-fledged.”

“You will,” Yeeklep-ee said. “The gods demand it.”

“The gods will be disappointed, then.”

“No,” Yeeteep-ee ordered.  “You will not.  You will put your weapons aside.  You will come with us, to sing the morning song of our people, then you will work in the fields.”

Enough, Wolf thought.  He looked at Yeeteep-ee and Yeeklep-ee, standing in front of him, defiant expressions on both their faces.

He tossed his spear shafts up, grabbed them with both hands near the center of the shafts.  Then, he rammed the polished yew spear shafts into the Digger men’s faces.  A sharp crunch came from each as their noses broke.

Yeeteep-ee and Yeeklep-ee fell to their knees.  Blood gushed from their broken noses.  The Digger men let out a howl of pain.

Wolf smiled.  “There,” he told them.  “Now I have taught you the song of my people.”  The other Diggers were gathering.  Wolf looked at them, and shouted: “All of you!  Think well on this!  These… ways of yours, they will never last!  Grubbing in the ground, making the earth grow not what it wants but what you want – it is not a decent way to live!  In a generation, or two, you will be gone, forgotten, and the People will still be living free, moving on the earth as we please, following the herds, gathering the good things the earth provides.  That is how humans should live, and that is how I will live!”

Ignoring Mog-ee’s protests, Wolf strode away, towards the ridge.

Late that afternoon, he walked in as the People were engaged in breaking the winter camp.  Clear Sky looked up from the bison-hide tent cover he was folding and smiled.

“Son,” he said.  “Is this a visit, or have you left the Diggers?”

“I have.”

“I see you did not bring the Digger girl with you,” Clear Sky pointed out.

“I did not.  Father, I…”

“…have been stupid?” Clear Sky completed his son’s statement with a grin.

“Well, yes,” Wolf admitted.

“Of course, you have been.  You are a young man, my son, it is your time to be stupid.  I was not so different.  Young men are what they are, more balls than brains.  But you have learned, I think.”

Wolf nodded, embarrassed.

“Good.  See to your things.  We will move east, I think, this summer.  And son?”

“Father?”

“Welcome back.”

***

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

I try my best to be just like I am

Everybody wants you to be just like them

They say sing while you slave, I get bored

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more