But the women, and the men, on whom Brenda Hamilton looked, had not felt this oppressive weight.
They were free of it, simply free of it.
They still owned the world, and the mountains, and hunted the animals, and went where Spear decided they would go.
They were as free as leopards and lions, as once men were, as once men might be again, among new continents, among new mountains, once more being first, now among the stars.
“Her body is alive,” said Old Woman, looking up into the face of Brenda Hamilton. “I do not understand why she would not kick well.”
Brenda Hamilton looked away from her.
“You must learn to kick well, my pretty,” said the old woman to her. “You must learn to kick well for the men.”
Brenda Hamilton turned to her, miserable, looking down into her face.
The old woman looked up at her, and cackled. “You will learn to kick well, my pretty,” she said, “if you would eat.”
Then she turned away.
Spear looked at her. Then he said to the men, “Let us go to the men’s hut.”
The men turned and went between the huts, leaving the women and children at the rack.
Spear was the last of the men to leave.
Before he left he faced Brenda Hamilton. “You are a slave,” he told her. She looked at him, blankly. Then he said to the women and children about, “Teach her that she is a slave.” Then he, too, walked away, following the men, between the huts.
The women and children pressed closely about her, poking at her, smelling her, feeling her body.
“Please untie me,” begged Brenda Hamilton.
One of the women struck her, sharply, across the mouth.
Brenda Hamilton hung, wrists apart, hands now numb, from the pole, her feet some six inches from the ground.
She tasted blood in her mouth, where the blow had dashed her lower lip against her teeth.
She closed her eyes.
Suddenly, from behind her, she heard the hiss of a switch and she cried out in pain, the supple, peeled branch unexpectedly, deeply, lashing into the small of her back, on the left side; she twisted in the thongs, agonized, to look behind her, and another switch, swiftly, cut across her belly; she cried out in misery, writhing in the thongs; first on one side and then the other, and in front and back, and the length of her body, the women and the children, chanting, circling her, leaping in and out, struck her.
Brenda Hamilton saw the ugly girl, the stupid, horrid one, crouching, naked between the huts, watching her.
Then the switch fell again, and again.
Then she saw, limping from between the huts, the woman with the scar, who had screamed something before, and had later, after the sticks had been thrown, left the group. She demanded a switch from one of the other women. It was immediately given to her. And then the others fell back. Short Leg looked at Brenda Hamilton. Then she lashed her with the switch, making her cry out with pain. She lashed her methodically and well, with care and strength, and then Brenda Hamilton, broken, blubbering, wept in the thongs. “Please stop,” she wept. “Don’t hurt me,” she wept. The older woman with the scar, Short Leg, held her face to hers, by the hair. Brenda Hamilton could not meet her eyes, but looked away.
She knew that she feared this woman terribly, that she was dominant over her.
Short Leg, angrily, threw away the switch, and limped away.
Hamilton saw another woman pick up the switch, a darkhaired woman, one of the two women who had left with the hunter who had captured her. It was Antelope. Behind her was the shorter woman, blond, thick-ankled, who had accompanied them, Cloud.
Antelope strode to her and struck her five times, and then gave the switch to Cloud, who, too, lashed her five times. Antelope smiled at her over her shoulder, as she walked away. She had the hip swing of a woman who has been muchly pleasured by a man.
A little later the young, blond girl, who had left with the other hunter, Flower, strolled to the rack, and she, too, smiling, lashed Brenda Hamilton.
“I don’t want him!” wept Brenda Hamilton. “Don’t beat me! He’s yours! He’s yours!”
Flower threw away the switch and strolled from the rack.
Then the old woman was among the other women and the children.
She pushed them away, and they, weary now, from striking, and taunting and chanting, left the pole.
Brenda Hamilton hung, beaten, alone. Her body was a welter of lash marks.
To her left hung the deer, hind feet apart, tied upside down, with its cut throat.
The sun passed the noon meridian and none paid more attention to her. She watched the shadows of the poles then creep across the ground.
Her hair was half across her face. In the early afternoon she fell unconscious.
She awakened in the late afternoon, when the shadows were long.
She saw most of the men sitting cross-legged, watching her. Among them, though, were not the hunter who had captured her, nor the small man who had thrown the sticks. Too, the small, quick man, Fox, was not among them. He was to her left, beginning to skin the deer. He began at the bound foot to his left, cutting around the leg with a small stone knife, and then made a deep vertical incision down the animal’s body. In a few minutes he had freed the skin from the meat.
The men watched impassively.
When he had jerked the skin free and thrown it to one side, to the grass, he looked at Brenda Hamilton, who regarded him, numbly.
Then, to her horror, with his knife he reached up to her bound wrist, that on his left and laid the knife against it.
“No!” she screamed. “No! No!”
The quick man, with a wide grin, took the knife away, and the other men, all of them with but one exception, the heavy-jawed, dour man she would learn was Stone, roared with laughter. And across even his face there was the trace of a smile.
She blushed, so completely had she been fooled. She was still shuddering, when she was lifted in the thongs, untied from the pole, and carried to a place on the grass.
She was sat on the grass, naked, the men about her.
The one who was their leader handed her a broken gourd, filled with water.
Gratefully she drank.
She was then handed small bits of meat, dried. She ate them.
She saw some of the women now-untying the skinned deer from the pole. Others were preparing a large, rectangular fire in a clearing between the huts. Poles would be set up; it would be gutted and roasted. Another woman had picked up the skin, and was taking it away with her.
Her body felt miserable, from the beating. She could scarcely move her hands; she could not feel her fingers. Her wrists bore deep, circular red marks, where the thongs had bitten into them.
She was given more water, more pieces of meat. She drank, and ate.
The men sat about, watching her.
She felt less frightened with them than with the women.
She knew that, to them, she was an object of curiosity, of interest, of pleasure. To the women she sensed she was only another woman, a rival, competitor. Moreover, she had recognized, with a woman’s swiftness and awareness, that she was among the most delicious of the females in the camp. She had seen only one she had felt was her superior in beauty, the young, blond girl, whom she would learn was Flower. It was not without reason that the new slave feared the other women in the camp. She hoped the men would protect her from them. She sat now among them, naked, shielded from the women. She could see that they were pleased that she had been brought to the camp, that they were pleased that she was theirs.
She felt some strength coming back to her body. She looked about herself, at the men.