Ugly Girl whimpered and cowered away from Tree as he strode past.
He looked down on her. She crouched, bent over, her thick-legged, squat, round-shouldered body shaking. She looked up at him, her hair like black strings, her eyes stupid and frightened, like those of an animal.
Tree despised those of the Ugly People, though he had never killed any of them.
Spear, with Knife and Stone, had surprised Ugly Girl’s group and had killed them all, with the exception of Ugly Girl.
In camp Spear had tied a short rawhide strap on her ankles, shackling her in leather. She could move about the camp, but clumsily. and slowly. She could not run. When she had been brought to camp the children and women had much beaten her with switches. Then, when they had tired of this, they had put her to work, carrying water in the
hide buckets from the stream, gathering stones for the cooking holes, gathering wood for the fires. She was still much beaten, for the Men did not care for the Ugly People. Her heavy, clumsy fingers could not easily untie the rawhide. When Spear had caught her doing so, he had switched her until she had howled and covered her head with her hands. She then knew she was not permitted to touch the rawhide shackles. She knew she might, in time, untie them, but now she was afraid even to touch them. In her simplicity and stupidity, she remained shackled. She looked away from Tree, down at the dirt, whimpering. Had she been able to reach the leather with her teeth she might have bitten through it, tearing it in her teeth, but she could not reach it.
Tree did not kick at her nor cry out at her, to frighten her. He ignored her. He did not know why Spear, and Knife and Stone, had not killed her as well as the others. She was not a woman. She was a female of the Ugly People. Tree would not have wanted her, any more than a doe or a mare. She could not even speak, though, he knew, the Ugly People did make noises which, among themselves, somehow, they found intelligible. It did not occur to Tree that they, like the Men, and like the Horse Hunters and the Bear People, might have a language. He knew, of course, that he, and the others, even Fox, could not understand her noises. Nor, as Fox established, did she know the hand sign of the Horse Hunters and the Bear People. Thus Tree inferred that Ugly Girl could not speak. Or, more exactly, he inferred that she was unable to speak until she had been brought to the camp of the Men. Here the children had taught her certain noises, which she could, in her guttural, half inarticulate way, imitate. Tree thought that Ugly Girl should be grateful to the Men, for they had taught her to speak, if only a few words. But Ugly Girl did not seem grateful, only miserable and frightened. The children of the Men, Tree noted, learned the words more swiftly than Ugly Girl. She was stupid, not of the Men. One could see that she was dull, that she understood nothing, that she was only an animal. Sometimes at night she cried.
Tree turned and looked back at Knife and Flower. Knife had now taken her by the hair and drawn her between his legs, where she, laughing and kissing, sought to please him.
Elsewhere he could see Feather, a thin woman, grooming Stone, taking lice from his hair, eating them.
She would lick sometimes his neck with her tongue, and whimper.
The women groomed the men. Men did not groom women. Women groomed one another, and the women, too, groomed the children. Children were permitted to groom one another, until the boys became old enough to run with the hunters.
Now Feather lay on her back before Stone, whimpering, and lifting her body to him.
Stone regarded her for a time, and then he crawled to her, and, as she cried out with pleasure, locked her helplessly in his arms.
It was the Capture Position, bolding the female down, confining her movements, making her helpless.
Feather cried out her pleasure to the camp.
Flower, angrily, broke away from Knife, and lay before him, lifting her body to him.
He went to her, and took her in his arms.
Soon, she, too, cried out with pleasure.
The women of the Men had two hungers, each as open, direct and piteous as the other. For the one hunger it was common to open the mouth and point a finger to it, and then extend the hands, palms up; for the other hunger it was not uncommon to do as had Feather and Flower, to lie before the hunter and, sometimes piteously, lift her body to him.
Again, from upwind, came the scent of female to Tree, and not one of the group.
In the camp he heard one woman, and then another, cry out her hunger, excited doubtless by the cries of Feather, and then Flower. He had seen this happen before in the camp. Soon, like a contagion, the manifestation of their need might spread, woman to woman, each in her moaning and whimpering stimulating the other, and then they would approach the males, timidly, fearing to be struck, and creep to their feet, begging to be touched. There were ten hunters in the camp, and sixteen women.
Tree caught the scent again, but it was fainter this time. He must hurry.
“Tree!” cried a woman, seeing him, standing between two huts. There was another woman behind her. They were Antelope and Cloud. He had often fed them.
Tree looked to Flower, still wrestling, laughing, in the arms of Knife, who was once more refusing to release her.
He would have liked Flower, but Knife now held her. He did not want to fight Knife.
“Tree!” cried Antelope. She was tall, dark-haired, young.
Cloud was shorter, more timid, thick-ankled, younger than Antelope.
Tree’s eyes warned them not to approach.
“Tree,” called Antelope. She fell to her knees. So, too, behind her, did Cloud. Either, or both, was his for the asking.
“I am going hunting,” said Tree.
He was aroused. He was angry. He thought he would take Antelope, but then he might lose the scent.
Antelope kicked well, he enjoyed her.
“Tree,” called Antelope.
“I am going hunting, said Tree, angrily, and turned, and left the camp.
Once outside the perimeter of the camp he stopped and, nostrils distended, drank in the scent. He had not wanted to do this in the camp, for fear another hunter would see, and, too, test the wind. Tree’s senses were sharpest of the hunters, but the senses of these men, on the whole, would have seemed incredible to later, smaller men. There was not one of them who could not smell deer, in a favorable wind, at a thousand yards, or locate the droppings of small animals in high grass, by scent alone. They could see squirrels against a network of branches at two hundred yards, observe clearly the bright eyes of circling eagles, and mark instantly the place where a paw had minutely pressed aside a bit of leaf mold. The breathing of a human being they could hear at fifty feet, that of the cave lion at one hundred. Tree, alone of the hunters, could follow a trail by night, by smell.
He was angry, for in the camp the women had been becoming aroused. Soon they would be much in their need. Tree enjoyed seeing them in their need.. He enjoyed seeing them come to him, creep to his feet and, whimpering, lift their bodies to him. Then he would take which one he wished. When their need was upon them they kicked well, any of them. But Tree had his favorites. His favorites were Flower, and Antelope and Cloud. Flower was quick to arouse, but she did not, Tree thought, kick as well for Tree as for Knife. This made Tree angry, and made him desire her more. Flower, he knew, wanted to be the woman of the leader. Tree would not be the leader. Knife would be the leader, when he had killed Spear. But Antelope and Cloud, Tree admitted, kicked well for Tree, very well. Even when their need had not been upon them, it would become manifest when he touched them. He had only to take them in his arms to make the desire-smell break forth from between their thighs. The desire-smell excited Tree. It made him want to have the women. Old Woman, when he had become old enough to run with the hunters, had showed Tree how to make the desire-smell come in any woman, if he wished. She had also showed him how to touch, and be patient, and wait, like a hunter, caressing and licking until a woman, even one resistant, could not help but kick for him. “I did not want to be the woman of Drawer,” Old Woman had told the youthful Tree, “but he made me kick for him.” Her eyes had been shining, in the wrinkled skin. She had cared much for Drawer. But when he had become Old Man, he had gone blind, and Spear had killed him. But it took time to do with a woman what Old Woman had shown him, and Tree, like the other hunters, seldom had such patience. It was usually not as Old Woman had told him. When the members of the band were in their need things did not usually proceed as Old Woman had recommended. The woman, if in her need, usually came whimpering to the hunter, lifting her body to him; she would then be used at whatever length he might please; the hunter, in his need, no other hunter intervening, usually took what woman he wished, swiftly, then discarded her. Often, of course, the women, even if not in need, would lift their bodies to the hunters. They would do this to please them, and to be fed. It was well to be pleasing to a hunter, if one were not pregnant, if one would eat.