“Yes, Master,” she said in English, shyly, well understanding him. Obediently she tied the knot in the fashion of the younger women. She lifted her lips to him, and kissed him. “You beast,” she whispered. Now, at a single tug, she could be stripped. “You make your slave feel very vulnerable, Master,” she whispered to him. She kissed him again, excited. Then she darted away, and turned to face him. She then, in her movements, well displayed her legs. They were marvelous. Tree regarded them as the best legs of any female in the camp, except perhaps those of Flower or Butter fly. “The slave thanks her master for her beautiful gown,” said Brenda Hamilton. She then, looking demurely down, her left index finger beneath her chin, holding with her right hand the deerskin from her right thigh, curtsied to him.
Tree had never seen such a movement. It made him laugh.
“Come here,” said he, in the language of the Men, gesturing to her.
Brenda Hamilton quickly sped to her master. She knew that he, like any powerful male brute of these times, must be obeyed swiftly and well by his females. Too, unaccountably perhaps, she found herself eager to be promptly obedient to him.
From his pouch he drew forth a long tangle of claws, shells and thongs.
He untangled it and held it out, up before his face, smiling.
It was an ornament, a necklace, of the sort that the females of the Men often wore about their neck.
Brenda Hamilton put forth her hand, but she did not touch it. “It is beautiful, Master,” she whispered.
“See,” said Tree, in the language of the Men, pointing to a small rectangle of leather, about an inch square, one of five, threaded into the thongs, with the claws and shells. Brenda Hamilton looked. On it she saw, drawn, scratched into the leather and pigmented in red, the sign of the Men. The same sign, identically, appeared on the other four rectangles. Tree turned her about and then, standing quite closely behind her, wrapped the necklace, in four loops, snugly, about her neck. He then tied it behind the back of her neck, tightly. She knew it identified her, by means of the rectangles, as a woman of the Men. She put back her head, to touch the hunter. She wondered if this sort of thing were the origin of the necklace, that it served in the beginning not simply as an ornament but as, in its way, an identifying slave collar. Tree turned her roughly about. Eagerly her lips met his, those of her master.
She felt his hand reach to her hip.
An hour later, in his arms, pushing back his hair at his neck, kissing him, Brenda Hamilton saw again the tiny, strange mark on his neck. She had seen this before. It intrigued her. It was a birthmark. It was like a tiny bluish stem, with branches reaching upward. It was from this mark that her hunter had had his name, “Tree.”
She kissed the tiny mark.
He smiled and pointed to the mark, and to himself. “I am Tree,” he said, in the language of the Men. “Tree.”
She kissed him beneath the chin. “I am Brenda,” she said. She kissed him again. “Your slave’s name is Brenda, Master, unless you wish to give her another name. Then the other name would be hers, and not Brenda.”
“Brenda?” he asked, picking the name from her words.
She knelt beside him, and pointed to herself. “I am Brenda,” she said. “Brenda.”
“Brenda,” he said. She smiled.
The word “Brenda,” of course, in the language of the Men, had no meaning. Tree, or Spear, or one of the other men, could eventually give her a name in the language of the Men. In the meantime the noise “Brenda” would do. It provided a means by which, when she was wished, the beautiful slave could be summoned.
Tree rose to his feet. He indicated that the beauty should clothe herself.
Hamilton wrapped the brief skirt about her and tied it over the left hip, tying it as she knew her master desired, that it might be loosened with a single pull.
She stood across from him, some eight feet from him, on the floor of the high cave. She was barefoot. She wore a brief skirt of tanned deerskin. She was bare-breasted. Her hair was long, loose and dark. About her neck, twisted and looped, four times, was a necklace of claws, shells and thongs, and, threaded among them, part of the necklace itself, the small squares of leather, bearing on them, clearly, the sign of the Men. Brenda Hamilton stood proudly, a primeval female, one of the women, facing a primeval man, one of the Men, one of her masters.
“Come, female,” said Tree, turning about and going to the ledge.
He grasped the knotted rope.
Brenda Hamilton came, too, to the ledge, and put her arms about his neck.
In an instant she was swinging, clinging to him, over a drop of more than one hundred and seventy-five feet. But she was not afraid. Quickly, seeming hardly impeded by her weight, he climbed up the knotted rope. He drew the rope up after him, freed it from a small, stunted tree, and looped it over his shoulder. Then, scrambling and climbing, moving from ledge to ledge, he gained the height of the cliff. To Hamilton the view was breathtaking, the sight of the fields and forests, and two rivers, extending to the horizon. Then, rapidly, she followed him.. He was moving across the top of the cliff, one of a series of such, and, then, making his way downwards, in a roundabout fashion. In some places steps had been chipped from the stone. In other places a branch of a small tree provided a handhold. Taken with care the descent was not dangerous.
Brenda Hamilton smelled meat cooking.
The slave, hungry, no longer fearful, delightedly, followed her master.
18
Tree, kneeling beside the roasted carcass, cut with the edge of his stone knife through the hot meat, fat streaking and bubbling at the edge of the flint blade, severing a huge, steaming chunk.
Antelope and Cloud knelt behind him. Then another woman thrust herself in front of. them, kneeling behind the hunter.
Cloud, with a cry of anger, seized Brenda Hamilton by the hair and pulled her back. Like a tigress, screaming with fury, Hamilton turned on her, striking her with her fists across the face. Cloud stumbled back, startled, scrambling, and Hamilton followed her, striking her twice again, and kicking her. Then Cloud whimpered, and fell back, astonishment in her eyes, and tears, and fear. Hamilton took a step toward her and, crying out, Cloud, on her hands and knees, scrambled away. Then, seeing Hamilton did not pursue her, she crept away, shrinking back, driven from the side of the hunter.
Hamilton felt the swift, hissing slash of a switch on her back, and turned, wildly, in fury, to see Antelope, her hand again raised. Hamilton’s back stung. But Antelope did not have time to strike again for Hamilton had leapt on her, and the two females rolled, screaming, scratching, biting, pulling hair, clawing, over and over, among the bodies, even to the edge of the fire. The men and women, and children, separated, to let the females fight. Then, panting, bleeding, hair awry, scratched, bitten the two females, now naked, rose to their feet and circled one another. Then with a scream of rage Hamilton leaped on Antelope, and had her hands, both hands, in the other’s hair. She jerked Antelope back and forth, and swung her about, while Antelope, screaming in pain, tried vainly to free Hamilton’s hands from her dark hair. And then Hamilton threw her by the hair to her feet on her back and seized up the switch, and began to lash at her, and Antelope rolled to her stomach, weeping, head twisted, Hamilton’s left hand still fastened in her hair, Antelope’s hands futilely on Hamilton’s wrist. Hamilton, with the switch, again and again, struck Antelope’s extended, exposed body, and then Antelope, weeping, struggled to her knees and put her head down, her hands over her head. Twenty more times Hamilton struck her and then, by the hair, she hurled her to her feet. Then Hamilton stood over Antelope, her hand no longer in her hair, but the switch raised.