Tal agreed, and Mem plunged back into the tall grass disappearing from sight.
And a father spent what little time he had to prepare himself for a prodigal son.
When Mem returned, he was with a man whom Tal at once recognised but at the same time did not.
The man possessed the blue eyes, and round forehead, the unmistakable jutting nose which marked the kin of Tal.
But his hair was different, a mass of black, tangled rats’ tails, and his beard stuck out long and bushy in all directions, making his face look bigger than it was. And his clothes. The men of the Bison Clan favoured leggings and shirts made of soft red deer hide, stitched with sinew. Kek was wearing coarse reindeer hide, a one-piece garment tied at the waist with a braided belt. His spear was heavy and thick and shorter than the one he had left with so many years ago.
He had become one of them.
There was a story to tell and Kek proceeded to tell it with no acknowledgement of the extraordinary nature of his return. At first he stumbled over his words, a sign he had not used his native language for a very long time. As his tongue loosened, he blurted out the tale in rapid beats, click, click, click, like a man bashing flakes off a flint block.
That day, a long time ago.
He was hunting alone.
He was stalking a roe deer while a bear was stalking him.
The bear attacked and began to maul him.
It swatted away his spear.
His knife, the one made of white flint that Tal had made for him, saved his life. He slashed the bear’s eye, spilling its juice, and the animal ran off.
He lay wounded, bleeding from the mauling. He called out for help then slept.
Kek awoke in the camp of the Shadow People – he would learn they called themselves Forest People. Their name for the Bison Clan was the Tall Ones. He was very weak. Over many months a young woman stayed with him, feeding him, applying mud to his wounds.
He learned their language and came to understand that their head man and the others had debated whether or not to kill him. His nurse was the head man’s daughter and she protected him from harm.
When Kek was stronger, the head man told him he could stay and teach them some of the ways of the Tall Ones, or he could go. They would not kill him. The woman was squat and not as beautiful as those of the Bison Clan but he had grown to love her. And, he was tired of being the second son of Tal.
So he stayed.
They had no children. She was barren, but he remained with her and the forest people, strange as they were. They did not believe their ancestors were in the sky. They died and were no more. They did not respect the bison. They were food, just like any animal, but harder to kill. They did not sing and laugh like some in the Bison Clan. They did not carve little animals from bone and wood. They made fine axes but their knife blades were poor.
They exchanged some knowledge. He taught them how to haft a spear the Bison Clan way, they taught him how to surround and box in a reindeer and force it over the cliffs without throwing a single spear.
He was happy with them and they became his clan.
But now his head man had a crisis. He was getting old. He only bore daughters and feared he would die without a son. But when a boy was finally born, he was glad and the clan rejoiced. A week earlier, the boy became sick and would not get well. Kek told the head man about Tal and the way he could heal people with plants. He told him about the sacred cave. The forest people began their trek to the camp of the Tall Ones. Kek would ask Tal to heal the boy.
Tal listened, chewing hard on a piece of dried reindeer meat. It was not their way to let a tribe of Shadow People into their midst. It was dangerous. And the ancestors would surely object.
But Kek pleaded and called him wise father. He said he was sorry for going off to live with the Others. He said their men would lay down their spears when they entered the camp. He beseeched him to heal the head man’s baby.
The Neanderthals entered the camp, slowly and suspiciously, whispering to each other in a clipped, unknown tongue. Their darting eyes were veiled by heavy brows. They were shorter than the Bison Clan, with immensely powerful-looking arms, each like a club. Their hair was wild and untamed, their beards uncut by flint. The women were heavy-breasted with broad shoulders and they ogled their taller, leaner counterparts with plaited hair.
Tal had his men assembled in a gauntlet, spears at the ready and nodded when the Shadow People did, as promised, leave their spears in a pile.
Their head man came forwards, clutching a silent infant. The man wore a splendid necklace of bear teeth.
Kek translated. I am Osa. This is my son. Make him well.
Tal took a few steps forwards and asked to see the boy. He peeled back the hide blanket and saw a limp, listless baby, several months old, its eyes shut, its smooth chest contracting with each breath. With the permission of his father, he touched the skin – it was hot and dry as an old bone. He saw its bowels were leaking.
He let the blanket fall back. Then the head man took off his necklace and handed it to Tal.
Tal accepted it and put it around his neck.
He would try to heal the infant.
Through Kek, Tal instructed the Neanderthals to congregate at the river bank and wait. He had Mem organise the best spear men to keep watch while he and Tala ran off to find the correct plants. When they returned, they had filled a pouch with two kinds of bark, a handful of succulent round leaves and the stringy roots of a tuber. When Tala filled a skin with river water, Tal said they were ready to begin.
Because the boy was very ill, Tal decided to take him into the deepest, most-sacred chamber for the healing. He would need all the powers at his disposal. Osa bore the infant in his thick arms and followed Tal into the cave accompanied by three of his clansmen, brutish fellows who seemed genuinely scared to venture into the darkness with only lamp light. Mem, Tala and one of Tal’s nephews represented the Bison Clan. Kek rounded out the party. It was his lot to straddle both worlds and bridge their languages.
The Neanderthals cried out when they saw the painted walls. They pointed and jabbered. Kek spoke in their guttural tongue and tried to soothe them by showing he could safely touch the images without fear of being trampled or maimed.
It took a great deal of coaxing to get the visitors to crawl through the tunnel into the Chamber of Plants. Fearing a trap, one of the brutes insisted on being the last one through. Crowded together in the hand-adorned vault, they murmured and blinked at the stencils and held up their own hands for inspection in the light of the burning fat and juniper.
There, most of the joint party waited, in tense comity, with as much physical separation as the vault would allow. Tal, Mem, Kek, the head man and one of his kin entered the tenth chamber with the boy.
Tal immediately began singing one of his mother’s old healing chants and proceeded to prepare the cure. Using one of his long flint blades he cut the succulent leaves and stringy roots into small pieces and when done, he laid the blade on end, propped against the wall. He scooped the vegetation into his mother’s stone bowl. Then he added some bark pieces, shredded between his rough palms. Finally some fresh water from the skin. He stirred and mashed the mixture with his hands until it was moss green and added more water to make it liquid enough to drink.
In the light of the flickering lamps, he kept the chant going, sat the boy up and had his father open his parched lips wide enough to pour in a small amount. The boy reflexively coughed and sputtered. Tal waited and gave him some more. Then more. Until the child had drunk a fair measure.
The boy was laid down on the ground, wrapped in his skin and the men stood over him, two species, sharing one earth, united in the common interest of saving one tiny being.
Tal chanted for hours.
Fresh lamps had to be brought.
Throughout the night, word was relayed to the two clans huddled on the ledge on either side of the cave mouth in wary peace. Tala would emerge and tell the Bison Clan that the child was moaning, or vomiting, or finally sleeping quietly. Uboas would press on her son strips of dried meat before he rushed back to be at his father’s side.