A Glibertarians Exclusive:  Setting Suns, Part II

 

The cave – 28,000 years ago

When a flock of birds gathers to migrate, there is no time scheduled and no particular single decision.  The flock will gather, slowly, over the course of days or even weeks.  Over that course of time the birds will burst into flight, whirl around the sky, then land again, over and over, until one day, suddenly, for no discernable reason, a tipping point is reached, and the entire flock takes wing and leaves the summer nesting grounds.

So it was with the People.  When Tuk said “tomorrow,” none of the clan understood that to mean any specific time; they had not the concept of hours, minutes, schedules.  Instead, they went about their morning routines as usual.  Eba awoke, chewed a birch twig to clean her teeth, breakfasted on some leftover stewed mussels from the previous evening’s meal, then helped Eda and Tlee cut up the red deer quarters into long, thin strips and stretch them on the drying racks over several small, smoky fires.  The others went about the chores of living as usual:  Making and repairing tools, knapping flint gathered from an outcropping up the coast, working hides for wraps and bedding.

About midday, when the sun was high in the sky, Tuk walked out of the back of the cave where he had been brooding over the clan’s symbol etched into the rock.  He walked to the big communal fire just outside the cave’s opening and sat down on a large, flat rock that was reserved for the clan’s elder.  Seeing this, the clan slowly coalesced around him, taking some time to do so.  Little Ghee, as usual, ran around making a happy nuisance of himself, but was treated tolerantly.  The People were gentle with children, and Ghee was the only small child in the clan, and thus doubly precious.

When all this had happened and the clan was seated, quietly, around the fire, Tuk looked up at the sky.  A small gray cloud was drifting across the great field of blue.  He nodded.

“When was the last time we encountered another clan?” he asked.

“Four summers ago,” Kleg said.  “I met three of their hunters, two days’ walk across the ‘above.’  They invited me to visit their clan, and I hunted with them for a week before returning home.”

“How many were there?”

Kleg thought for a moment, then held up both hands; all the fingers on one hand outstretched, and two fingers on the other.  “Three mated pairs.  One child.”

“Have you been back?”

“Last summer.  They were gone.”

“There are so few of the People,” Tuk observed, “and so many of the Runners.”

“They flock like birds,” Gula said.  “If they could fly, they would fill the sky.”

“They are not birds,” Hoo snapped.  “They are the Runners, and they are many where we are few.  What can we do?  They will take all the game, they will take all the hunting grounds, and the People will go hungry.”

“If they could talk,” Eda said, “we could talk to them.  Has anyone tried?”

“They cannot talk,” Tuk frowned.  “I have been near them, before we crossed the mountains.  They chatter like squirrels.  I think that the noises they make may be talking, among them, but it is not talking to us.”

“They are people,” Eda objected.  “They talk to each other; they can learn to talk to us, or us to them.”

“They are people,” Hoo said, “Maybe.  But they are not People.  How would we begin to learn to talk to them?”

Nobody had a good answer to that.

Eba sat quietly, thinking.  She heard the raucous call of a sea bird flying past the cave.  She looked at little Ghee, for once sleeping quietly in his mother’s arms while the clan talked.  She knew that her own chances of having children were slim, unless there were other clans of the People somewhere.  That thought prompted her to speak up.  “Maybe,” she said, “we should leave our cave here.  We crossed the mountains to come here.  We could move again.  We could find more of the People.”

“Where would we go?” Hoo gestured at the beach.  “The land ends here.  We could go ‘above,’ see if there is more land to north or west, but the Runners are already flocking over that land, and where the Runners come, the People leave.”

“The People must be going somewhere,” Eba pointed out.

“The People,” Tuk said quietly, “the ones that are disappearing, they may be setting their feet on the Star-Path.”

Eba remembered Hwoogh.  Suddenly Tuk’s suggestion seemed all too likely.  She sat quietly again, stroking her brow ridges, as was her habit when thinking.

“What to do, then?” Hoo asked.

Tlee spoke up.  “Ghee is too little,” she said.  “I do not want to go on a long journey with him being so small.”

Eba decided not to point out that she was still younger when the clan had crossed the mountains.  “Can a few of us walk across the ‘above,’ to see if we can find any more of the People?  And, if we encounter any of the Runners, try to speak to them?”

Hoo’s brow ridges shot upwards; he had not missed Eba including herself in the proposed journey.  “This might not be a bad thing,” Hoo agreed.  “Eba needs a mate.  There is no one in our clan that is not taboo to her.  In time, Ghee will need a mate, too.  Perhaps we can find another clan and combine the two to form one clan.”

“Who would go?” Tuk asked.

Hoo thought about that.  It was a serious question.  “I would go,” he said after a few moments.  “I would like Gula and Tep to come with me.  That leaves Kleg and Vekk to stay here as hunters.”

“I would come as well,” Eba said.

“Are you sure?” Hoo asked.  “We will be gone for many days.  We may encounter the Runners.”

“I am the one who lacks a mate,” Eba pointed out.  “If we find another clan, I would like to be there, to see with whom I might mate for myself.”

“That is not unreasonable,” Tuk said.  “It is Eba’s right to refuse any proposed mate.  Such is our tradition.  There would be little purpose to bringing a young man all the way back to our home only to find Eba does not like him.”

“Eba is strong and capable,” Hoo said, nodding.  “She should do well enough on the journey.”

“It is decided, then,” Tuk said.  “I will speak with the spirits.  If there is no bad sign from them, you can leave tomorrow.”

That evening, the four travelers gathered tools.  Eba selected a supply of dried deer meat and fish, in case they could not find sufficient game.  The men sharpened spear points in the fire and inspected their flint knives, re-knapping the edges as needed.  Then, as the Star-Path showed in the sky, they slept.

Hoo, anxious to be on the way, woke the others the next morning as the sun was just a pale glint in the east.  Eba was still rubbing sleep from her eyes when Tuk had them stand in a line.  The elder had his ivory bowl, this time filled with water from the sea.  Starting with Hoo, he dipped his hand in the water and rubbed it on each of the travelers’ sloped foreheads, just above their brow ridges.  “This,” he said, “the water from the sea, it will guide you home when it is time for you to return.”

Every member of the clan then touched their foreheads with the travelers, rubbing their brow ridges together.  Many eyes were damp.  Ghee looked around, confused; he was too young to understand, but his mother lifted him to touch brow ridges with those that were departing.

Then, with nothing else to say, the four walked to the sloping path to ‘above’ and went on their way.

***

Many in a circle,

Slowly ’round the fire,

When he is gone,

I want to know him better.

No one is forsaken.

No one is a liar.

He plants the tree of life on our foreheads with water.

Note:  This one isn’t a Bob Dylan creation but was in fact written by The Grateful Dead’s Donna Jean Godchaux.  You can hear the original here.