30
Hamilton turned her head to one side. Her eyes were frightened. She bit her lip. “Old Woman!” she cried. “Old Woman!”
“Antelope will fetch her,” said Cloud. “Do not cry out.”
Hamilton struggled to her feet, bent over. “Lie down,” said Cloud.
She felt wet. The interior of her right thigh, her right leg, her right shin, were soaked with water. There seemed so much. She had awakened. “Tree,” she had cried. “Tree!” Then she had cried with pain. He had taken the scent, and, getting to his feet, had left her. He would sleep elsewhere. She had cried for a woman. “Please, Cloud! Old Womanl Flowerl Antelope!”
“Lie down,” said Antelope.
Hamilton’s fists turned white with pain. She cried out. “Do not make noise,” said Antelope. “You will disturb the men.”
Antelope lowered Hamilton to a sitting position. Her head was up. She could feel the water about her. She tore away, grimacing with the movement, the brief skirt and threw it from her.
“Old Woman!” screamed Hamilton.
Old Woman had not been killed in the raid of the Weasel People. When she had been led away, Hamilton had not known if she were alive or dead. Struck unconscious in the fall, Old Woman had lain at the foot of the shelters. She now hobbled about with a heavy stick, favoring the leg which had been broken, the pain of which had cost her her consciousness for hours, and had, inadvertently, saved her life from the Weasel People. They, like many predators, found inert objects of little interest. Left for dead, she had been found, several hours later, when the Men had returned.
“Old Woman!” screamed Hamilton.
“Antelope will fetch her,” said Cloud. “Lie down.”
Hamilton, suddenly in the grip of the reflex, screamed. “Be quiet,” scolded Cloud. “Do not awaken the men!”
Hamilton eased herself to her left thigh, lying on the stone. There was no pain now. Her eyes were wide in the darkness. She felt the stone, granular, against her body. She felt the dampness on her left thigh, where she lay in the wetness.
With her own hair, which was now fully grown again, Cloud wiped her forehead.
“Your hair is very beautiful,” said Cloud. It was seldom that Cloud paid compliments. Hamilton did not respond to her. But Hamilton was grateful.
Hamilton lay in silence. She must try not to arouse the men. “Old Woman will come soon,” said Cloud.
Hamilton, lying in the darkness, legs drawn up, frightened, waited.
Four months ago, when the men had fought a cave bear, contesting a deep shelter with it, with torches and spears, hunting it deep in its own lair, Knife had, suddenly, withdrawn. The bear, freed of the prodding spear, had leaped forward, striking Spear. The great claws had raked, like hooks of steel across the face of Spear, taking his left eye from his head, and blinding, with a long, hot furrow of red, his right eye. Spear, his face and head covered with blood, had fallen backward, the bear biting at him. Tree, from the side, on the bear’s exposed flank, had driven his stone-headed spear to the heart and the great animal, a thousand pounds of fury, thrashing, snapping the shaft of the spear, had rolled to the side of the shelter, biting at the rock, and died. “Why did you fall back?” demanded Tree of Knife. If the Men did not stand together, they would die. Each must depend on the other. He who saves himself slays his brother. But Knife had not been afraid. Knife was not a coward. He looked at the bloodied head of Spear, pulling the large man’s hands away from his face. Knife had grinned. “Spear is blind,” said Knife. “I am first among the Men.”
Hamilton screamed, her head back. It was like nothing she had felt or imagined.
When, at the end of the preceding summer, Hamilton and the others had been retaken by their men, Gunther and William, stripped and bound, had been brought back, too, to the shelters. Their clothing, weapons and other accouterments had been destroyed, cast in a river. Spear, and the others, not knowing the power of them, such strange artifacts, would take no chances. Even Gunther’s wrist watch, which Cloud had liked, was destroyed. Perhaps such objects had some strange affinity with their owners; perhaps they were loyal to them; perhaps they would betray or injure others, or strangers? They would be destroyed. Gunther and William, thus, hands tied behind their backs, ropes on their necks, herded by women, came naked to the camp of the men. They did not know what would be done with them. The leader of the Weasel People, his jaw torn from his face by Tree, his legs and arms broken, had been left behind for the leopards.
“I want Old Woman!” wept Hamilton. “Please! Please! I want Old Woman!”
“She will come,” said Cloud.
With the men to the camp had come, too, the captive females, taken from the Weasel People, some of whom had been girls of the Dirt People. Hamilton, herself, with pleasure, had tied the wrists of the nude red-haired girl behind her back. She had knotted the coffle rope, too, tightly, about her throat; she had similarly secured the nude virginally bodied girl of the Dirt People. “You will learn what it is to be the girls of the Men,” Hamilton told them in triumph. She turned away. Already Fox had his hands on the waist of the red-haired girl; already Spear, grinning, stood before the virginally bodied girl; she shrank back, bound; she pulled back against the coffle rope; it stopped her; she, by her right arm, above the elbow, and her left ankle, was lowered to the ground. Before even the Men quitted the destroyed camp of the Weasel People, the newly captured women, tied in coffle, in the dirt, were well taught the domination of their new masters; but Tree did not busy himself with the new slave flesh; rather, four times, pounding, scarcely moments between them, he struck Hamilton with his force; it had been long since he had held a female body and he was not kind with her; the slave, Brenda Hamilton, clung to her master, her head back, her eyes closed, beaten by his body and will; so swiftly, so ruthlessly did he satisfy himself with her, that no common pleasure was permitted her; she held to him, as though for her life; struck again and again she gasped, and knew no simple pleasure, but that she was helpless again in his arms, that she again was held by him and that she belonged to him; she looked at him, adoringly; his will and might had again been impressed upon her; she pitied women who had never known such men; then, when Tree had again looked upon her as Turtle, and not simply a thing to beat and abuse for his pleasure, he alerted himself to her responses, it pleasing him to pleasure her, and, subtly and at length, reduced her to submissive splendor. She was, at the last, carried from the camp of the Weasel People in Tree’s arms, on the trail of the Men and their loot and captives. Behind them the camp lay shattered; behind them lay the fires, broken, sticks about, weapons snapped, dying ashes; behind them lay the coming of darkness, and the wailing of a man, broken jawed, broken limbed, who would wait for the leopards.
She had not felt the pain now for more than five minutes. She recalled gentler times with Tree, among flowers.
“Tree!” she cried out.
“Be quiet,” said Cloud. “Do not disturb the men.” Tree had left her, to go sleep elsewhere when it had begun.
William and Gunther had been brought, bound, and naked, to the camp of the Men. The women had thrown Gunther on his back over a rock, several of them holding him. Cloud, with a shell, had bent to cut his manhood from him.
“Please,” had wept Hamilton. “Do not hurt him!”
Spear had looked at Tree, who had nodded. “Stop,” had said Spear.
Half in shock Gunther and William had then been put in the brief skirts of the women of the Men, necklaces tied about their throats.
The women had much laughed. The children had struck them with sticks.