Abruptly her eyes cleared. She turned to Thakur, who was starting to rise. “Stay,” she begged, convincing him now that she understood the meaning of the word.
“All right.” He sighed, flopped down, and offered her a shoulder on which to rest her drooping head. He felt her go limp, as if exhausted. He felt weary and emotionally battered himself. Was it worth trying to teach her speech if everything was going to be such a struggle?
As if in reply, her good forepaw came up and patted his jowls, as if to say I will fight what scares me. I want to learn.
The barrier within her against learning to speak had weakened. Thakur used only the words in those few phrases she had spoken. Once she understood those, he was uncertain what to try next. Among the first things that clan cubs learned were their names. She didn’t have a name, as far as he knew. Or did she? Having proved herself much more self-aware than he had assumed, she might well have some image of herself or some sound that served the same purpose. But how to get it out of her?
He began the obvious way: by teaching her his own name. But here he ran into trouble. It was difficult to get across to her the idea that the sound Thakur meant himself. She didn’t understand any of the paw or tail gestures the Named would use to emphasize the idea of someone speaking about himself. And then the notion hit him. There were certain times when the Named felt most individual and personal. One of these was during mating, but Thakur decided that such an approach would have problems that he didn’t want to deal with. The other time was when someone was grooming, cleaning and smoothing their fur.
Despite the tang of seamare in his coat, he set about licking himself, trying not to be too thorough, for fear of having to roll in the creatures’ dung once again. She wandered up, sat down, and watched. Every few strokes, he paused and said his name. Her head cocked to one side. He smelled the fur along his back, taking a deep, noisy breath, and then said his name again. She sniffed him, then began to wash herself, but he quickly put a paw out to stop her. He didn’t want her to get the idea that Thakur meant the action of grooming oneself.
It took a little time, but gradually she understood what he was trying to get across.
“Thakur,” she said shyly, then sniffed his coat and touched him with a paw. Again he praised her, then sniffed her coat and stroked her with his pad.
“What is your name?” he asked.
She opened her mouth, closed it again, looked down in confusion. The fur between her eyes furrowed. He could see she knew what he wanted but was at a loss to express it.
“Stay,” she said, and then bounded away. He checked his impulse to go after her. This departure was different from the last. She wasn’t fleeing in terror; she had some purpose, though what, he had no idea. After she had been gone for what seemed a long while, he decided to go after her.
But no sooner had he gotten to his feet than she reappeared, carrying something limp in her mouth. When she put the thing down, it wriggled, throwing its body into sinuous curves. Thakur blinked and stared. She’d brought him a live newt.
He sat down, baffled, wondering what this action had to do with the lesson he’d been trying to teach. Was this supposed to be a reward because he’d done something that pleased her? He leaned over, sniffing the moist creature and grimacing with disgust. He wondered if he would offend her if he didn’t eat it. Perhaps he should at least try.
Her good forepaw batted him away. He sat up, cocking his head to one side. If the newt wasn’t meant as food, why did she bring it?
She pawed herself, then poked the creature with her toe, making it thrash. It writhed on the dry rock, covering itself with sand, but not before Thakur saw that the rust-black and orange markings on its moist skin approximated the color of his friend’s fur. He thought about her eagerness for words, for names. And that was what he had asked her.
By showing him the newt, she was telling him her name in the only way she knew.
“Newt?” he said, touching her with his forefoot. She pawed her evident namesake once again and danced around so excitedly that he had to intercede to keep her from accidentally squashing the it. Newt. She certainly hadn’t flattered herself by the choice.
She imitated the sound of her name, attached it to the creature. Again Thakur praised her, which resulted in more repetitions, more dancing, and the near trampling of the poor newt.
“All right. Why don’t you take that animal back where you found it, since I’m not hungry right now.” Thakur jerked his muzzle in the direction from which she had brought it.
She looked at him wide eyed. “Thakur stay,” she said, then scooped the sand-covered newt up in her jaws and dashed off on three legs.
Grinning, he sat where he was until she returned. He hoped the creature had survived the teaching session. He didn’t like to see things killed unless he was ready to eat them.
It was midmorning on the next day, and the two sat together near her cave. Thakur cocked his head at Newt and switched his tail in bafflement. He had risen feeling self-satisfied by what he had taught her the previous day, but now he was reconsidering.
“Thakur, stay,” Newt said. When he did as she asked, a mournful look came into her eyes, and she stamped a rear foot on the ground. Clearly, she wanted him to follow, but she was stuck with only one phrase.
“No, it’s Thakur come,” he corrected.
“Thakur stay,” Newt said again, with a stamp and an impatient grimace.
“I’m not coming until you figure out what the difference is and use the right word.”
“Yarrr,” was Newt’s response. “Yarrr, yourself. The word is come. I’ve told you that more times than I have hairs.”
She turned her back on him and stalked off, but she didn’t stay away for long. He could see by the little flickers in her eyes that she had something she wanted to show him.
She came back and tried, “Come stay.”
Thakur grinned. “Can’t do both.”
“Thakur... Thakur... ” Newt faltered, lost. Her ears twitched back. With a quick pounce, she seized his tail, pulled it, then made a three-legged pirouette in front of him, swatted him across the muzzle with her tail, and took off.
Thakur was several steps after her before he realized he’d been tricked. “You won’t learn to talk if you keep distracting me!” he yowled after her, but she was beyond earshot. He sighed and kept trotting.
Coming over a dune, he spotted her on the shore of the shallow lagoon that lay south of the beach. The early morning fog had lifted, letting sunlight spill onto the sand and across the wavelets.
As he came down the sandy slope, Newt bounded over to him. “Thakur, come,” she said triumphantly, then limped vigorously into the water. Welcoming a chance to cool himself, he followed, wading into the shallows until the wavelets lapped his belly. His casual glance at Newt sharpened as he realized that she was not just playing cub-games in the lagoon, as he had first thought.
He watched with growing interest as she spread herself out in the water. Using her hind feet and tail in a sculling motion that reminded him of how river otters swam, she glided forward, the waves forming a V-shaped wake in front of her ears. Her waterborne grace and agility surprised him. And then he saw that she no longer held her crippled foreleg tightly against her chest. The push and swell of the water drew the limb gently outward, and she moved it slightly to counteract each stroke of her good forepaw.
Thakur felt his eyes opening wider. He knew that water could be healing, for he had learned that the best treatment for bruises and sprains was to lie and let the limb dangle in the cold, running flow of a stream. The pain and swelling would fade much faster. If it could heal small hurts, he thought, perhaps it might give strength back to a withered forelimb.