Hamilton said, “He said, give us our arrows. We will go.” She then translated Spear’s reply. “You will be put in skirts and made the slaves of women,” she said.
Angrily Gunther slipped into the pack straps. He glared at Hamilton. “I shall not forget this,” said he, “Traitress.”
“I did nothing,” said Hamilton.
His eyes burned upon her.
“I would not have had the courage to steal from you,” she said.
“Who then?” asked he. “Who?
Brenda saw Spear, for the first time, throw a piece of meat to Ugly Girl.
“Ugly Girl,” whispered Hamilton, stunned. “Ugly Girl.”
Knife was lying in the darkness, in the cold, away from the fire.
As William lifted his pack, he looked at Spear, and then at Hamilton. His eyes were troubled. He gestured with his head back to Knife. “I can set his bones,” he said.
“He can make Knife heal straight,” said Brenda.
Spear squinted at the fallen Knife. “Do so,” he said to William, in the language of the Men.
Brenda nodded. William put down his pack.
Cloud prodded Gunther with a switch. He turned about, fiercely. But he saw, with her, Stone and Wolf.
“Go,” said Spear to him.
“I shall wait for you beyond the camp,” said Gunther to William.
Cloud struck him with the switch and, angrily, he turned away. Butterfly, the girl, too, followed him, striking him with a switch. And then the other women, and the children, leaped about him pushing and jeering. He was conducted from the camp. Men too, followed him, Among the children only the boy to whom Butterfly had been cruel did not follow. He watched.
Hamilton knelt before the bloody Spear. She put her head to the ground in submission. “Do not let them kill him beyond the firelight,” she begged.
“Are you his woman?” asked Spear.
“No!” cried Hamilton. “I belong only to you, and the Men! I am yours!”
“Then be silent,” he said.
Agonized, Hamilton withdrew. She looked at Tree. He got up, lightly. “I will not let them kill him,” he said. Then he disappeared in the darkness. In a short time Cloud, followed by Wolf, returned. About her upper left arm she wore Gunther’s wrist watch, as an armlet. Then the others returned. Lastly, Tree came back.
“They did not kill him?” she asked.
He looked at her, angrily. She was suddenly terrified. She realized how much she feared this magnificent man.
William rose from the side of Knife, whose leg and arm he had set and bound, using spear wood and leather. Arrow Maker, intently, had observed.
Flower came to William. He took her briefly in his arms and kissed her. Then not speaking further, he walked from the camp, beyond the perimeter of firelight, following the direction in which Gunther had been conducted. She looked after him. “Flower,” called Knife. “Flower.” But Flower went and knelt behind Spear.
Brenda went to the edge of the firelight, looking out into the darkness. She became aware of Ugly Girl, standing near her. She turned, shuddering, and looked down into the wide, simple eyes. Ugly Girl put out her hand, very gently, touching her arm. “Go away,” said Hamilton. “You are a monster.”
When Hamilton returned to the side of the fire, Tree looked up at her.
“Did they kill him?” asked Hamilton. “Is he still alive?”
Tree looked at her as she had never seen him look before. It frightened her. Then he stood up and seized her by the left arm, dragging her along beside him, and, angrily, threw her ahead of him into the darkness of a small cave. There, brutally, he beat her and raped her. When he had done with her, he said to her, angrily in the darkness, “He is still alive.” Then she felt him binding her wrists behind her back. Then she felt her ankles being crossed and being tied tightly together. She then lay at his side, bound. Suddenly she laughed with pleasure. “You are jealous!” she cried. She squirmed, but could not free herself. She laughed, deliciously, delighted to the quick with this evidence of the depth, the intensity, of his wanting of her. He would give her no chance to follow Gunther and William. She would not be able to run away and pursue them. She knew she would spend the night bound, and, doubtless. the next day would wear leather ankle shackles. She was pleased that Tree knew her limitations as a tracker. If she were natively of the Men’s women, she might have been kept a week in such confinements. She snuggled up to Tree. “No, Master,” she said, “I shall not run off to follow Gunther. You will see to that.” She smiled to herself. A man of her own times might have asked her to choose between himself and another, and freed her to follow her own wishes. The Hunter, wanting her, kept her. It was he who would choose, not her. It was she who would obey. Then in the language of the Men she spoke to Tree, softly, breathlessly, in the darkness. “It is only you whose slave I am,” she whispered. “It is only you whom I love. I love you, my Master. I love you. I love you
She heard, to her indescribable pleasure, Tree’s great laugh in the darkness, and then she felt him untying her ankles, and then, as she suffused with warmth, he thrust them apart, widely. “I love you,” she whispered, and then threw back her head, and cried out with pleasure.
Toward morning, Brenda in his arms, her wrists tied behind her back, her ankles still untied, Tree said, “I gave them back their arrows. Ugly Girl gave them to me, for them. She did not wish them to die. Do not be afraid for them.”
Brenda then understood the meaning of Ugly Girl’s touch that preceding evening, that she was trying to tell her that she had had returned to Gunther and William the means of their survival.
“Thank you,” said Hamilton.
“Whose slave are you?” asked Tree.
“Only yours,” said Hamilton, “-Master.”
He then used his slave again, quickly, without much thought. He then tied together her ankles. Before going to sleep, he wrapped a robe of fur about them, that of a giant cave bear he had slain the preceding spring. Hamilton pressed her bound body against his, and kissed him, but he did not know this, for he was asleep.
22
“Hurry, Butterfly! Sew more swiftly!” scolded Hamilton. Butterfly looked up, angrily, and then bent again to the deerskin, thrusting the awl through the doubled skin, one layer at a time, and then pushing the wet sinew, lubricated with her spittle, through the small hole. With her small fingers she drew it tight, but too tight, wrinkling the skin. She looked up, in misery.
“It is too tight,” said Hamilton. “You will bunch the skin.”
“I will not have enough sinew left to finish,” wailed Butterfly.
“You did not measure it correctly,” said Hamilton.
Butterfly looked at Hamilton. About Butterfly’s throat, tied, was a necklace of shells, and claws, and loops of leather, and, threaded on the loops, with the shells and claws, were small squares of leather, five of them, bearing the sign of the Men. The young man, Hawk, had tied it there.
“Old Woman will beat me again,” wailed Butterfly, “with her switch!”
“You must learn, Butterfly,” said Hamilton.
Hamilton stood up. She was happy. She stretched. The spring air was delicious. She threw her hair back over her shoulders with her hands, and a luxurious movement of her head. She wore her brief wrap-around skirt, exposing the left thigh. Besides this she wore only her own necklace, proclaiming her, like Butterfly, as a woman of the Men. She smiled. It had been the hunter, Tree, she recalled, long ago, who had tied the necklace on her throat, in a high prison cave. She closed her eyes deliciously. She gritted her teeth against the surgency of her desire. How she, his helpless slave, loved him! How delicious it was to belong, to literally belong, will-lessly, helplessly, to a strong man, to such a magnificent brute, to a true master of women whose needs and pleasures, and smallest whims, she must gratify and serve with the full perfection of the slave girl, his to command as he pleases. She opened her eyes, happily. Brenda Hamilton, the slave girl, was happy.