“Lift your body to the men,” said Hamilton to Butterfly. “If you please them enough they may protect you sometimes from the women.”
Butterfly looked in anguish at Flower.
“Turtle is right,” said Flower. “We have no choice,” said Flower. “We are only females.” Then she looked at Hamilton. “I will please them most,” she said.
“Perhaps,” said Hamilton. “Perhaps not.”
Hamilton then closed her eyes again and leaned back against the stone. She wondered if Old Woman was dead. She had seen her thrown, tumbling and sprawling, down the slope of the cliff to the clearing below. Tears came to Hamilton’s eyes. In her own attempt to escape, Hamilton, instinctively, had fled to the cave entrance which led, by various passages, to the cave of the Men, the cave of the drawings. It was the deepest, most hidden cave in the cliffs, and she had wished to hide there. In the darkness she had taken a wrong turning. She had stumbled into another tunnel, one of several side tunnels, one in which she had soon been trapped. But Hamilton, a quarter of an hour after her capture, bruised and aching, half in shock, scarcely able to walk, wrists bound, on a leather neck tether, had been dragged into the cave of the Men, behind captors. They had found it. She watched while, with rocks, and spear points, reaching high places, they systematically defaced the walls, scraping away the glories which Drawer, years before, had placed there. Then she was dragged after them. Perhaps they wished to injure or impair the magic of the Men. Perhaps, in their hatred, they wished only to destroy what was beautiful. But when they left the antelope the bison, the lions were gone. Even the hands, reaching for what Hamilton did not know, nor even Old Woman, were scraped away.
In the cell, Hamilton wept. Had she not led the men into the cave they might not have found the drawings. Hamilton wondered if it would be better if Old Woman were dead, that she never learn what had been done in the cave of the Men, what had befallen the work of Drawer, one for whom she had once cared, one whose works, remaining behind him, she had treasured. The antelope, the bison, the wolves, the lions, were gone. Drawer was dead. And there was left only the rock.
The grille was thrust back. Hamilton, startled, looked up. The bearded fellow, he who seemed to be a leader, stood above. He shouted down, pointing. In his hand he held loops of rawhide rope. Hamilton shrank back, but he was not pointing to her.
Flower, unsteadily, frightened, rose to her feet. She looked up. A loop of the rope was dropped about her body. It tightened. She was drawn; easily, hand over hand, from the pit. When she was on her feet, standing near the top edge of the pit, the rope was removed from her body. Hamilton saw another man take her by the hair, bending her over, and pull her away. Then the bearded man was again scrutinizing them. He’ looked from one to another, intent, apparently, on recognizing one among them. He looked at Hamilton. Then he pointed. Hamilton almost fainted. But it was not she at whom he pointed. Cloud, terrified, trembling, stood up, half crouching down. Then the rope dropped about her and tightened, and she, like Flower, was drawn upward. At the top of the pit, when she was standing on the surface, the rope was removed from her body and she, too, like Flower, bent over, her hair in the hand of a captor, was dragged away. The bearded man then again regarded the women in the pit. They shrank back. Then the grille was replaced.
An hour later a leather bucket, on a rope, was lowered through the grille. It contained water. The women looked at one another. Then they fought, on their knees, hands tied behind them, biting, shouldering to thrust their face into the water. Hamilton drank first. Water spilled. She heard the laughter of girls above, and saw the red-haired girl, and the dark-haired one, watching. They called out to the prisoners, laughing, and jeering them in the speech of the Weasel People. Only Ugly Girl, who was not even of the women of the Men, did not participate in the struggle for the water. She waited and, after the others had satisfied themselves, after Butterfly, drank. The bucket, emptied, its hide collapsed, to the laughter of the two girls, was jerked upward. The women of the Men, angrily, regarded one another. Then two handfuls of roots and apples were flung to them. Again the women fought. Antelope cried out shrilly. Hamilton kicked at her viciously, then fell, and, squirming, tried to get her teeth on an apple. She had pinned it against the side of the cell when, from behind her, Squirrel bit her in the left calf and she cried out with pain, jerking, losing the fruit. Squirrel was on it, scrambling, in an instant, trying to hold it. Hamilton bit at her shoulder, shrieking. Then Antelope kicked at Hamilton and Hamilton, unable to protect herself, caught Antelope’s heel in her stomach. Hamilton reeled, unable to breathe, against the wall, and slid down its side to the floor. She lay there in misery. The thought struck her that had there been a man present there would have been no fighting. He would have eaten first, and then he would have set them the order in which they would feed. Why are we doing this, Hamilton asked herself. We are females, she thought. There is no man to impose order on us. When she could, she crawled to a piece of root and bit it, eating it. She saw that Ugly Girl, crouching teeth bared, was protecting the pregnant girl behind her. She had found her an apple and two roots, and stood between her and the others. Hamilton eyed the food. Ugly Girl snarled at her. Hamilton clenched her fists, bound behind her back. If one of the girls had had the use of her hands, she would have been undisputed queen in the cell. Ugly Girl snarled again. “I do not want her food,” said Hamilton, backing away. Hamilton sat back against the wall again. Strange, she thought, that Ugly
Girl, not even of the women of the Men, keeps the law of
Spear, that pregnant women are to be protected and fed. Hamilton did not know, of course, but that, too, was a law of the Ugly People. Ugly Girl, perhaps in her simplicity, did not distinguish in the matter of this law whether one was of the Ugly People, or of the Men, or perhaps even of the Weasel People. The pregnant woman must be protected and fed. It did not matter to Ugly Girl, in her simplicity, of what people the woman might be. That the woman was vulnerable, that she needed help, that there stirred in her belly the beauty of life meant all that needed to be meant to Ugly Girl. Ugly Girl could not speak the language of the Men; she could not even form its sounds; but she stood between the pregnant girl one of the women of the Men, and the others, her teeth bared.
“We will not take her food,” said Antelope.
“No,” said Hamilton.
The next day the grille was again thrust back. Again the bearded man loomed at the top of the pit, looking into it, again the rawhide rope looped in his right hand.
He looked from face to face. Then he pointed to one of the women.
“Stand up,” said Antelope.
“No!” cried Hamilton, shrinking back.
“Get up, you fool!” said Antelope.
Hamilton looked up. The man gestured to her, roughly. Terrified, scarcely able to stand, she rose to her feet.
She had wanted desperately to be free of the pit, its filth, its stone, its confinement, its crowding, the struggles, bound, humiliating and vicious, for a mouthful of water, a scrap of food. But now she wanted only to shrink back, to stay in its protection, to remain with the other women, even Ugly Girl. Why did they not take Antelope? She looked up, agonized. It was she, Hamilton, only Hamilton, who had been singled out.
She felt the rope drop about her.
“Perhaps they will eat her?” said Butterfly. “Perhaps Flower and Cloud have already been eaten!”