“It is alive,” said Old Woman. “And it is beautiful.”
Hamilton, weeping, reached for the child, and, as the women fumbled to take from her the gag of fur and leather, held its bloodied, dirty body to her own between her breasts. “I love you,” she wept to it. “I love you. I love you.”
“Give it to Nurse,” said Old Woman. “We must clean it, and cut the cord.”
Old Woman bent to the cord with a sharpened shell and bit of string. Ugly Girl and Nurse, with their tongues, licked the infant, cleaning it.
“You must not cry,” said Old Woman to the bawling life. “You will disturb the men.”
Then she put back her head and laughed.
“He may cry if he wishes,” said Antelope, laughing.
“Yes,” said Cloud.
They held up the child before Hamilton. She smiled. “He is of the Men,” she said.
Then she took him, and, in the torchlight, noted that on his neck, beneath the left ear, there was a tiny mark. It was not unlike a tree.
She held the child to her. “I love you,” she said to it. “I love you.” The pain was gone. She held the child to her, loving it. “I love you,” she wept. “I love you. I love you. I love you!”
31
“Cricket! Cricket!” called Hamilton.
She returned to the camp at the foot of the shelters. With Antelope and Ugly Girl she had gone to the river hank. She had gathered berries. Ugly Girl, climbing the sloping dirt bank, in places almost sheer, over the river, had thrust her hand into hollowed, tunnel nests, taking eggs, from the brownish, sharp-billed birds who nested there. Antelope, over her shoulder, like Hamilton, carried a sack, filled with berries and tiny fruit.
The children of the camp ran to them, putting their hands into the sacks. “No, No!” scolded Antelope, but not stopping them. They leaped about Antelope and Hamilton.
“Cricket!” called Hamilton. “Cricket!” She had selected some large, juicy berries, which she had hidden in a corner of the sack, at the bottom, for Cricket.
The child, Cricket, truly, had as yet no name ‘among the Men. He had not yet gone to the Men’s cave. They called him, sometimes, Turtle’s son, and sometimes, Cricket, for that was the name that Tooth had called him by when he had taken his first steps. “Cricket!” called Hamilton.
“That is enough!” laughed Antelope. Ugly Girl had already taken the eggs to Old Woman. On the way, she had, turning her head, bit one open and, spitting out the end of the shell, sucked out the white and yolk. Antelope bent down to give one of the berries to Pod, a small child, reaching up, Short Leg’s son, no more than two years of age, a few months younger, no more, than Hamilton’s son.
“Cricket!” called Hamilton. Then she asked Cloud, “Have you seen Cricket?”
Shortly after Spear had been blinded, he had been abandoned by Short Leg. Refusing to care for him, she had left him in the shelters, until one of the men would kill him. But none of the men had killed him. She had tried to attach herself to Knife, but Knife wanted none of her, for she was older than he wanted, and his choice was the girl, Flower, who had then been high woman in the camp. But Spear had again become first among the Men. None of the men had killed him. And Old Woman, when ordered to take him hunting on the cliffs, had merely done so. Spear had killed Drawer. But Old Woman did not leave him to die, or fall, among the cliffs. She had brought him back to the fire. Tree had asked her who was first among the men. “Spear-Spear is first,” had said Old Woman. “Spear is first,” had said the other men. Knife had turned away.
“Why did you not leave Spear on the cliffs?” asked Cloud. “Why did you not kill him?”
“Because among the Men,” said Old Woman, “he is first.”
Cloud, nor Antelope, nor the others, had questioned her further..
“Give me meat,” had said the blind, scarred Spear, huge and terrible, at the fire, and it had been done. Spear was again first.
“Spear,” said Old Woman to Hamilton, when they were alone, though Hamilton had not spoken to her, “is a great man. Spear is a wise and great man.”
Hamilton had looked at her.
“The Men,” she said, “need Spear.”
“He killed Drawer,” said Hamilton.
Old Woman nodded. Then she said, “Spear is needed by the men.”
When Spear had again become first, Short Leg had returned to kneel beside him, but he, terrible, one eye torn away, the other blinded, staring out, his face ridged and white with rivers of scarring, with one hand, gestured her from the fire behind which he sat. “I will die,” she had whimpered. Then she cried, “Feel my belly. I carry life!”
“I will not feed you,” said Spear.
Then she cried, “It is your law, that I be fed!”
“I will not feed you,” said Spear.
“I will feed her,” had said Stone. Short Leg had once been Spear’s woman. Since Spear and Stone had been children they had known one another. Stone had been with Spear many years ago, when Spear, for pelts, had purchased Short Leg from the Bear People. In Short Leg’s body was life. Law was to be kept. Stone remembered Spear, from long ago. He remembered Short Leg. She had had flowers in her hair. “I will feed you,” he said, his voice without emotion.
And so Short Leg was fed by Stone, but he did not make her kick, nor use her.
Hamilton’s son was born some months before that of Short Leg. When Hamilton’s son was born Spear had had the infant brought to him. He had lifted it up, over the fire. “A child is born to the Men,” he had said. Then he had given it back to the women. Little attention would be paid to it from that time on by men, except for gentle, loving Tooth, the ugly giant, with the extended canine. When the child could run with the men, when it could throw, when it could kill and take meat, then the men would take it unto themselves, removing it from the children and the women, and by training and counsel, make it wise in lore and skills, make it one of themselves, one of the Men.
But when the child of Short Leg was born, though it was doubtless Spear’s own, he would not take it in his arms, nor lift it in his arms, warming it at the fire, sharing its light against the cold and darkness with the child.