He had turned from her and again taken his way through the trees, she, leashed, following.
“I will resist you!” she cried.
She was furious with him.
Now, outside the tiny village, the trail encampment, Tree, with his caught female, stopped.
He was downwind of the camp, that he might approach it sensing, rather than being sensed. If anything was amiss in the camp, in particular, if there were the odors of strange men, it would be well to know. The Weasel People were enemies of the Men. They and the Men did not sell women or salt to one another. Antelope had originally been of the Bear People. But Wolf and Runner had stolen her from the Weasel People, who had taken her, with others, in a raid. The Men and the Bear People and the Horse Hunters did not steal from one another. They would sell women, or flint or salt to one another. But Antelope was not returned to the Bear People. They had not taken her from the Weasel People. The Men had done this. Besides she was comely. The Men kept her. Antelope did not mind. The Men were fine hunters. She and her friend, Cloud, were often fed by Tree. Both of them were good females, good kickers. The white-skinned slave girl, the girl he had taken in the forest, was a cold fish. But she would learn to kick, if she would eat. Antelope was not kept as a slave. That was because she was of the Bear People, who were friends of the Men. But she was not permitted to return to the Bear People. She belonged, now, to the Men. Though not a slave, the Men kept her as they did the others, as a woman. Ugly Girl was kept as a slave, which was like being the woman of a woman; she was not of the group, or of a friendly group; she was simply slave; the white-skinned female, Tree’s catch from the forest, too, was not of the group; she, too, thus, like Ugly Girl, or a girl of the Weasel People, would be kept as a simple slave; she must take orders from anyone in the group; she would be much beaten; she would have no rights, not even the life right, that accorded to members of the group; if she did not work well, or was not pleasing, she might be killed. Tree tested the odors, and found that all was well in the camp.
He would now circle the camp and approach from upwind, that they would know his approach, and that he brought with him a female. That would give the camp time to gather, and greet him. It would please Tree’s vanity to bring her in, presenting her as a new slave to the men.
They would be much pleased to see the new acquisition.
In Tree’s opinion she was more beautiful than the other women of the camp, with the possible exception of Flower. Tree smiled to himself. He did not think this would make the life of the new slave any easier.
Tree circled about the camp, for what reason Brenda Hamilton did not understand. She thought that perhaps it was customary to enter it from a given direction. But if that were so why had he approached it from the opposite direction? It did not occur to her at that time that the difference was an important one for Tree, and other. Hunters, the direction of the wind.
Soon she heard shouts in the camp, the cries of children and women.
Then, to her surprise, Tree took her in his arms and lowered her to the ground. Then, from his pouch, he took a length of rawhide, similar to that which now so tightly confined her wrists, some eighteen inches in length, and crossed and tied her ankles, tightly. She looked up at him. He then removed his rope from her neck, and, carefully, looped it about his body.
He looked down at her.
His pouch was slung at his side, the rope was looped about his body, some four times, from the right shoulder to the left hip. His spear, hafted, the flint point bound in the shaft with rawhide, lay beside him on the grass.
His legs were long and powerful and bronzed. He wore a brief skin about his waist. His belly was fiat and hard, his chest large, his shoulders broad, his arms long and muscular. He had a large head. About his neck there was a tangle of leather and claws. His dark hair, black, jagged, was cut back from his eyes, and cut, too, roughly, at the base of his neck.
Brenda Hamilton looked up at her master.
Then, lightly, he picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder.
He bent down and picked up his spear, and turned toward the camp.
The shouting, and the cries, were much louder now.
Brenda Hamilton would not be permitted to enter the camp on her own feet, even wrists bound, and tethered.
She would be carried, trussed, over the threshold of the camp, as meat or game.
She would be thrown to its ground at the feet of the skinning poles.
She was slave.
Brenda Hamilton, bound hand and foot, was carried lightly, helplessly, into the camp, over the shoulder of Tree, the Hunter.
She became aware of men, and women and children, crowding about her.
She was aware of huts, and smells.
She was aware of two sets of poles, one set consisting of two upright poles and several small, slender poles, lashed horizontally between them, from which hung strips of drying meat; the other set consisting of two crossed poles at each end, bound together at the top, with a lateral pole set in the joinings of the end poles; from this lateral pole, on the one set of poles, there hung, upside down, hind feet stretched and bound to the pole, a small deer, its head dangling peculiarly, its throat opened. There was dried blood matted in the white fur at the bottom of its head, beneath its mouth.
Tree stopped with his prize before this latter set of poles, from which hung the deer, which had had its throat cut, that the hunters might have the blood.
Brenda Hamilton was conscious of the ease with which she was carried, that she was so slight a burden for his strength, and of his arm, bronzed and muscular, holding her on his shoulder.
Tree stood with his prize before the skinning rack, to which is brought meat, and game, and slaves.
Over his shoulder, head down, Brenda Hamilton felt the inhabitants of the encampment press about her, eager, excited, talking, curious, commenting, speculating, some feeling her body and hair. Then she felt Tree’s body stiffen. And the crowd of women, children and men, fell back, and was silent.
Someone, she knew, had approached.
She heard voices.
“Where have you been?” asked Spear.
“I have been hunting,” said Tree.
“What have you caught?” asked Spear.
“This,” said Tree.
Rudely Brenda Hamilton, bound hand and foot, was thrown to the dirt of the camp, at the foot of the skinning rack.
She lay on her side, as she had been thrown. Her shoulder hurt.
She was conscious of the feet, and knees and legs, of those about. Some of the women wore strings of shells about their left ankles. They made a sound when they moved. She wondered at how far they might be from the sea.
She would learn later that these shells had been obtained in trade, exchanged for flints at the shelters, in barter with traders who had come from the world’s edge, scions of the Far Peoples.
She heard a man’s voice, harsh, direct.
“String her on the rack, that we may look at her,” said Spear.
Brenda Hamilton felt her hands being untied, and then, by two men, she was lifted into the air, and, by two others, with rawhide thongs, was bound, wrists apart, hands over head, to the lateral pole set in the joinings of the crossed end poles. Her feet did not touch the ground. She hung suspended, in rawhide thongs. Her ankles were untied. To her left, tied upside down, bound by its spread hind legs to the same horizontal pole, hung the carcass of the bloodied deer.