Then the Men had hurled them into a pit in the shelters, roughly circular, more than twenty feet in depth, filled with refuse, infested with the brown rat. They had been left there to die.
One night, the second night of the return to the shelters, Hamilton, with a torch, had crept to the edge of the pit.
“Gunther! William!” she called softly.
In the light, she saw William’s face, raised to her. In his left hand he held, by the left hind foot, a dead rat, more than a foot in length. It was partially eaten.
He stood ankle deep in the bones, the filth. She saw there were pools of water in the pit.
“You’re alive,” she whispered.
He had taken the necklace from his neck. It was looped in the waist of the garment he wore.
“Gunther?” she asked.
“He is alive,” said William, blinking against the light of the torch.
Hamilton fought nausea, the impulse to vomit from the stink of the pit.
Hamilton lifted the torch. At one side of the pit, not sleeping, staring into the darkness, sitting, his back against the stone, was Gunther.
“He’s dead,” whispered Hamilton, sick.
“No,” said William.
Hamilton looked down, tears in her eyes.
“I make snares with this,” said William, lifting the leather strands of the necklace of the Men. “Sometimes,” said William, “I catch them with my bare hands, by feel. Sometimes I pretend to be asleep. Sometimes I let them crawl over my arm and then, like this,” he making a sudden grasping motion, “seize them.”
“You will die in here,” said Hamilton.
“What the rats eat we can eat,” said William. “But I must feed Gunther.”
“He’s dead,” whispered Hamilton.
“No,” said William. “He is alive.” Then he added, “His body is alive.”
“What is wrong with him?” she asked.
William shrugged. “He has met defeat. He has met hunters. He has met men greater than he himself. Inside his body, this has killed him.”
Hamilton looked upon the body that had been Gunther, so mighty, so proud and fine. It now stared into the darkness. She suspected he did not even hear them speak.
“Do not worry for him,” said William. “I shall keep him alive as well as I can.”
The minds of men greater than Gunther, Hamilton suspected, might have broken under the dislocations of the last months.
“Is he insane?” asked Hamilton.
“I do not think so,” said William. “It is more like the will to live is gone.”
“Gunther was so much alive, so strong,” said Hamilton.
“He was not a hunter,” said William. “He thought himself such, but he was only a man of our own times, my dear Hamilton, a small man, greater than most, but frail, crippled, far from the mightinesses he envisioned. It is a tragedy. For such a man it would be best that he never met what he conceived himself to be, one worthy of the spear, the hunt and knife.”
“You are a kindly man, William,” said Hamilton.
William shrugged. “I respect Gunther,” he said. “I admire him. He is, for all his faults, and mine, my friend.”
“What can you do?”
“It is my intention,” said William, smiling, “to continue to live.”
“I must free you somehow,” said Hamilton.
“Do not be foolish,” said William. “They would kill you.”
“Do you care for these men?” asked Tree.
Hamilton cried out. She almost lost the torch. Tree crouched in the darkness behind her. He had followed her. He took the torch from her. He held it up. William, in the pit below, stepped back. Tree looked down at Hamilton. “Do you care for these men?” he asked.
“They are my friends,” said Hamilton.
Tree looked at her. It was strange for a man to be a friend of a woman.
Yet he did not think the concept could not be understood. Once on the height of the shelters, on the rocks, under the stars, they had lain together, looking up.
“There are fires in the sky,” had said Tree.
“Someday, perhaps,” had said Hamilton, “men will seek the fires in the sky.”
“They are far away,” said Tree. “Once, when I was little, I climbed a high mountain, to light a torch from them. I could not reach them. They are very high. They are higher, I think, than the tallest trees.”
“I think so, too,” she said, “but someday, perhaps, men will touch them.”
“Do you think so?” asked Tree, turning to look at her.
“Perhaps,” said Hamilton.
“But we would have to build a ship,” said Tree.
“Yes,” said Hamilton.
“There are seas in the sky,” said Tree, suddenly, “for rain falls from them to the land. If we took a ship to a high mountain, overlooking the sea in the sky, we could sail to the stars!”
Hamilton kissed him.
“Let us build such a ship!” cried Tree.
“About these fires,” said Hamilton, “about some of them, there are, warmed by them, lit by them, new worlds, new forests, new fields, game, places where the Men have never gone.”
“I will make a ship!” cried Tree.
“And for every fire there is another fire, and another world, and for every fire a fire beyond that, and a world beyond that.”
“I want to go there,” said Tree.
“You cannot go there, my love,” said Hamilton. “It is a long journey, my love, with many lands and skies to cross, more than you could know, and many lifetimes would it take to build even the ship, and who knows how many to complete even the first step, to place the first foot upon an island other than our own.”
“An island?” asked Tree.
“We live upon an island in a vast and endless sea,” said Hamilton gently.
“I want to see what is on the other islands,” said Tree. “I will see what is on them!”
“Not you,” said Hamilton, “not I, but others, perhaps the sons of your sons.”
“The seed of the Men?” asked Tree, slowly.
“Yes,” said Hamilton. “The sons of the Men.” Then the life had stirred within her. She felt it, a heel or knee, tiny, vital.
“I want to go,” said Tree, angrily.
“The sons,” she said. “The sons of the Men.” Then she had rested back, looking upward, looking on the stars. And Tree, too, puzzled, restless, biting his lip, watched the stars.
At the brink of the pit, holding her torch high, Tree looked down on the woman who had come, though it was forbidden her, to see the prisoners.
“I am your friend, not them,” said Tree.
“Yes, Tree,” had said Hamilton. “You are my friend. I am your friend.”
“It is Tree who is your friend,” he said, belligerently.
“They, too, are my friends,” said Hamilton, boldly. Because of the life in her she knew Tree would not strike her. Women within whom the mystery of life waxed might not be beaten.
“I will kill them,” said Tree, simply.
“No,” said Hamilton. “One does not kill the friends of one’s friend.”
“You are mine, none other’s,” said Tree. It was rare of him to speak so possessively of her. Was she not, after all, a woman of the Men, belonging, like the other females, to all with equal justice?
“Yes, Tree,” she whispered. “Though they are my friends, and you are my friend, it is to you, and you alone, that I belong.” Hamilton spoke truly.
“Do you want me to help them?” asked Tree.
“Yes,” said Hamilton.
Tree regarded Hamilton’s swollen body. “I will speak with Spear,” said Tree.
Hamilton screamed again, her head back. She felt Cloud’s hand on her arm. Then another body was beside them. She saw the head of Ugly Girl. Ugly Girl whimpered. Then Ugly Girl began to lick at the fluid on her body, cleaning her. “I want Old Woman,” whispered Hamilton. Two other women entered the shelter, blond Flower, and the virginally bodied girl, who had been taken from the Weasel People. They knelt near her. The virginally bodied girl was frightened. Then Antelope was beside her, touching her arm. “Old Woman!” said Hamilton. “I want Old Woman!” “Old Woman says there is time,” said Antelope. “She will come later.” The girls knelt about Hamilton. Hamilton was silent. The pain was gone now. There were tears on her face. She began to sweat. “Old Woman says there is time,” repeated Antelope. “She will come later.” Hamilton felt Flower kiss her. Hamilton’s fists clenched.