It was ten days after Brenda Hamilton bad first been brought by Tree to the camp of the Men. The morning after her arrival in camp the camp had broken and the Men had trekked to the salt. It was only a half day’s trek from where the game camp bad been set.
Once in the vicinity of the salt the women, and the children, with Brenda and Ugly Girl, were herded between some trees. There they were made to huddle, closely together. A thin strip of rawhide was stretched about the trees, like a tiny string fence. The women and the children, and the two slaves, must remain within this perimeter until the men returned with the salt.
The location of the salt was a secret of the Men. Women must not know its whereabouts. Women might be stolen, and were subject to barter. They were exchangeable. If a woman knew the location of the salt, a most precious commodity, more valuable than themselves, they might reveal it to others. A male, of course, when he became old enough to run with the hunters, when he became of the Men, would be taught the location of the salt. He, in learning it, would not be sworn to secrecy, sworn to keep it from the females. That was not necessary. Any male knew that females might not know the location of salt. They were females.
It was said in the group that Spear had found the salt, but there were those among the Men who remembered that it had been Tree. He had found it while following antelope.
Brenda and Ugly Girl had waited with the women. Their ankles were no longer thonged. That was impractical in the trek. But they were tied together by the throat, by a length of rawhide some five feet long.
In the trek the women had, on their heads, carried hide bundles. Ugly Girl had held hers on her shoulder, for it was painful for her, with the placement of her neck to support weight in that fashion. Hamilton balanced the bundle she was given by Short Leg on her head, in the fashion of the other women. Hamilton was human. The bundle she carried, though perhaps heavier than most, was not particularly heavy. She was not permitted to carry food or water. The possessions of the Men, other than the women and the children, were few. The men traveled lightly. Hamilton’s bundle, like that of Ugly Girl, consisted of several skins, prepared during the sojourn at the game camp.
About the huddled women, inside the rawhide string, strode one of the men, Fox, with a switch, to be assured that they did not attempt to follow the Men and learn the whereabouts of the salt. Even Short Leg, to her irritation, must remain within the string. She, too, was only a woman. Even Old Woman did not complain. She had long since resigned herself to the fact that salt must remain a secret of the men. Too, she did not much care any longer where the salt might be. Free salt was of great value, far more than gold or diamonds would have been, but it was not essential for life, for it could be obtained in, the tissues of slain animals, in meat. Still it was a great luxury. Free salt was a trading commodity par excellence.
By nightfall the men had returned with four sacks of salt.
The group bad camped in the open that night, and, in the morning, had continued the trek, to the flint lode.
The next evening, at dusk, they had come to the flint cliffs.
Although Hamilton did not understand it, there was much anger, much fury, among the men. Clearly the flint cliffs had been worked in their absence.
Furthermore, to their outrage, in a deposit of clay thrust between two stones, was drawn a sign, the meaning of which was clear to the Men. It was the sign of the Weasel People. And it meant that they claimed the flint as their own.
Spear scratched away the sign of the Weasel People and, in its place, with his knife, cut the sign of the Men. It was an angled line, surmounted by a straight line. At the tip of the straight line, to the left, was a point. It was a representation, crude, of an arm hurling a spear.
That night guards were set.
For four days the Men worked the flint. Skins were sewn into long bags, five feet in length, a foot wide. The men, with green sticks, and picks of antler horn, and rocks, cracked and pried the flint from the cliff. When a piece of suitable weight and size was obtained it was put into a bag. Little of the flint was shaped at the lode. The amount of flint taken was a function of the number and strength of the females, who would carry it.
At the lode Brenda Hamilton bad not been fastened to Ugly Girl, but had been free, though she was set much work. She carried water in skins to. the men, and carried flint down to the sacks, and gathered wood for the night fires. She was also taught to dig roots and gather fruit and vegetables. There was no hunting done at the lode, for the men were concerned with. the flint. Dried meat was eaten, together with vegetables and fruits. Hamilton also noted that certain insects, and grubs, were eaten. She would not eat such. She was not given meat, but she fed well enough, on roots and fruits, and vegetables, of the sort which she was instructed to gather. The children also joined in such work. Hamilton was, to some extent, pleased, because she now realized how much more free with food was the land than she had realized. There were many things to eat which she had not understood heretofore as being edible. She realized she might have starved in the midst of plenty. Among other things she learned were edible was the inner bark of the white birch tree, and pine nuts and rose hips. During the first two days at the lode Hamilton had tried to remain in the vicinity of the hunter who had taken her slave, bringing him water, gathering his flint, but he had paid her little attention, and, some four times, with the stroke of a switch, wielded by either the dark-haired girl or the shorter blond girl, she had been driven from his vicinity. “I do not care,” she had said to herself. “He is nothing to me.” But she hated the dark-haired girl and the shorter, blond girl.
They did not want her near the hunter. They would beat her when she lingered near him.
The switch stung her and made her angry. She fled from it. It hurt her.
After four days at the lode the flint sacks were filled with what rock a human female could carry.
The sacks were then lifted by the beasts of burden, the females. They were slung about the neck, the weight falling to each side.
Even Short Leg carried flint. So, too, did the older children, though in lesser amounts. Of the women, only Old Woman did not carry flint. “I am too old to carry flint,” she said. The bags given to Hamilton and to Ugly Girl were especially heavy, for they were slave. Hamilton could scarcely believe that she was expected to carry it. Fox, with his switch, gestured that she lift it. She, now thonged again by the neck to Ugly Girl, struggled to lift the sack. Suddenly stung by Fox’s switch, she stood erect, feeling its weight. She almost fell. Fox’s switch tapped her in the small of the back, indicating that she should stand straight. She then felt the switch tap her under the chin, twice, indicating that she should hold up her head. She stood, a beautiful, erect slave girl, under her burden. Spear cried out, from the head of the column. The Men, carrying their weapons lightly, preceded the column. The switch struck twice, along the column. Fox strode on one side, Wolf on the other. The women, struggling under the weight of the stone stumbling, followed the men. With them, leashed by the throat behind Ugly Girl, went Brenda Hamilton. She, too, like the others, though a woman of our time, though the holder of an advanced degree from a prestigious institution of higher learning, barefoot, sweating, carried flint.
On the morning of the third day of the trek, unexpectedly, the beast had struck. Hamilton did not even see it, though she did hear the screams of the woman being dragged by the shoulder through the brush.
Spear had not permitted the men to follow. It was his belief the female would be dead before she could be reached. Further, it was dangerous, with the primitive weapons at the disposal of the men, to cope with such a beast. To attack it as one might a cave bear would be to invite the loss of three or four men, or perhaps more. Such an animal, stone-tipped spears hanging from its haunches, bleeding, maddened by the bruising of rocks, could, frenzied, attacking, with the blows of its paws and the lockings of its great jaws, destroy an entire hunting party. Such a beast must be met with guile.