Born in a Treacherous Time Read online

  Sun descended toward the horizon as they entered a dense thicket. They stuck to a narrow lightly-used animal trail bordered by heavy-trunked trees. Cousin Chimp scuffled as he brachiated through the understory, no doubt upset by the intruders. Only once, when a brightly-colored snake slithered across her path, did Lucy hesitate. The vibrant colors always meant deadly venom and she didn’t carry the right herbs to counter the poison. Baad grumbled when her thud reverberated out of sync with Raza’s, and Cousin Chimp cried a warning.

  Finally, they broke free of the shadows and flew through waist-high grass, past trees laden with fruit, and around the termite mound where Cousin Chimp would gorge on white grubs—if Cheetah wasn’t sleeping on top of it.

  I haven’t been back here since that day…

  She flicked her eyes to the spot where her life had changed. Everything looked so calm, painted in vibrant colors scented with a heady mix of grass, water, and carrion. A family of Hipparion raised their heads but found nothing menacing so turned back to their banquet of new buds.

  As though nothing happened…

  Lucy sprinted. Her vision blurred and her head throbbed as she raced flat out, desperate to outdistance the memories. Her legs churned, arms pumped, and her feet sprang off the hard earth. Each step propelled her farther away. Her breathing heaved in rhythm with her steps. The sack around her neck smacked comfortingly against her body. Her sweat left a potent scent trail any predator could follow but Lucy didn’t care.

  “Lucy!”

  Someone far behind shouted her call sign but she only slowed when the thump in her chest outstripped her ability to breathe. She fell forward, arms outstretched, and gasped the damp air into her tortured lungs. Steps thumped louder, approaching, but she kept her eyes closed. A hand yanked her head back, forcing her to look up.

  Despite the strangeness of Raza’s language, this she did understand: Never do that again.

  Feq followed until Lucy had reached the edge of her—Feq’s—territory. Here, he must let her go. Without Feq, the Group’s few children and remaining female would die. She threw a last look at her brother’s forlorn face, drawn and tired, shoulders slumped, eyes tight with resolution. Lucy dipped her head and turned from her beleaguered past.

  Maybe the language difference made Raza ignore Lucy’s every question though she tried an endless variety of vocalizations, gestures, and grunts. Something made him jumpy, constantly, but Lucy sniffed nothing other than the fragrant scrub, a family of chimps, and the ever-present Fire Mountain. Nor did she see any shift in the distant shadows to signal danger.

  Still, his edginess made her anxious.

  What is he hiding? Why does he never relax?

  She turned toward the horizon hoping whatever connected sky to earth held firm, preventing danger from escaping and finding her. Garv credited Spider’s web with that task, said if it could capture Fly, it could connect those forces. Why it didn’t always work, Garv couldn’t explain. Herds and dust, sometimes fire, leaked through, as did Sun at the end of every day. Lucy tried to reach that place from many different directions but it moved away faster than she could run.

  Another truth Lucy knew: Only in Sun’s absence did the clouds crack and send bolts of fire to burn the ground and flash floods to storm through the canyons. Sun’s caring presence kept these at bay.

  A grunt startled her back to the monotony of the grassland. At the rear of their column, Baad rubbed his wrists, already swollen to the thickness of his arm. When she dropped back to ask if she could help, his face hardened but not before she saw the anguish in the set of his mouth and the squint of his eyes. The elders of her Group suffered too from gnarled hands. A common root, found everywhere, dulled the ache.

  Why bring a male as old and worn as Baad without that root?

  Lucy guessed he had been handsome in his youth with his commanding size, densely-haired body, and brawny chest. Now, the hair hung gray and ragged and a white line as thick as Lucy’s finger cut his face from temple to ear. In his eyes smoldered lingering anger, maybe from the shattered tooth that peeked through his parted lips.

  Was that why he didn’t try to rut with her? Or did he consider her pairmated to Raza?

  “Baad,” she bleated, mimicking the call sign Raza used. “This will help your wrist,” and handed him a root bundle from her neck sack. “Crack it open and swallow the juice.”

  Baad sniffed the bulb, bit it, and slurped up the liquid. His jaw relaxed and the tension drained from his face, completely gone by the time they passed the hillock that had been on the horizon when Lucy first gave him the root.

  “How did you know this would work?” Baad motioned as he watched her face.

  Why didn’t he know was a better question. Lucy observed animals as they cared for their injuries. If Gazelle had a scrape on her flank, she bumped against a tree that wept sap so why shouldn’t Lucy rub the thick mucus on her own cut to heal it? If swallowing certain leaves rid Cousin Chimp of the white worms, why wouldn’t it do the same for Lucy? Over time, she’d collected the roots, blades, stems, bark, flowers, and other plant parts she and her Group came to rely on when sick.

  But she didn’t know enough of Baad’s words to explain this so she shrugged. “I just knew.”

  Baad remained at her side as though he wanted to talk more.

  Lucy took the opportunity. “Baad. Why did you and Raza come for me?”

  He made her repeat the question as he watched her hands, body movements, and face, and then answered, “Sahn sent us.”

  His movement for ‘sent’ was odd. One finger grazed the side of his palm and pointed toward his body—the backtrail, the opposite direction of the forward trail.

  “Sent you?”

  “Because of the deaths.”

  Memories washed across his face like molten lava down the slopes of Fire Mountain. His hand motions shouted a rage she never associated with death. Predators killed to feed their families or protect their territory, as they must. Why did that anger Baad?

  “Can you repeat that? The deaths?”

  This time, the closest she could interpret was ‘deaths without reason’ which made no sense. Death was never without reason. Though he must have noticed she didn’t understand, he moved on to a portrayal of the world she would soon live within. His location descriptions were clear. In fact, her Group also labeled places by their surroundings and what happened there—stream-where-hunters-drink, mountains-that-burn-at-night, and mound-with-trees. Locations were meaningless without those identifications. Who could find them if not for their surroundings?

  His next question surprised her.

  “Why did you come?”

  Bile welled in Lucy’s throat. She couldn’t tell him how she failed everyone in her Group or explain that she wanted a better life for the child she carried. Instead, she grunted and pretended she misunderstood.

  That night, Lucy slept fitfully, curled under a shallow overhang without the usual protection of a bramble bush barrier or a tree nest. Every time she awoke, Raza and Baad were staring into the dark night, faces tight and anxious, muscles primed.

  When Sun reappeared to begin its journey across the sky, the group set out, Lucy again between Raza and Baad. She shadowed the monotonous bounce of Raza’s head, comforted by the muted slap of her feet, the thump in her chest, and the stench of her own unwashed body. As they trotted ever onward, she became increasingly nervous. Though everything from the berries to the vegetation, animals, and baobab trees reminded her of home, this territory belonged to another group of Man-who-makes-tools. Before today, she would no sooner enter or cross it as they would hers. But Raza neither slowed nor changed direction so all she could do to respect this land-not-hers was to move through without picking a stalk of grass, eating a single berry, or swallowing any of the many grubs and insects available. Here and there, Lucy caught glimpses of the Group that called this territory theirs as they floated in the periphery of her sight. She smelled their anger and fear, heard them rustling as they wa
tched her pass, reminding her she had no right to be here. Raza and Baad didn’t seem to care or notice. Did they not control territories where they lived?

  Before she could ponder this any further, she snorted in a fragrance that made her gasp and turn. There on the crest of a berm across the savanna, outlined against the blue of the sky, stood a lone figure, hair puffed out by the hot breeze, gaze on her.

  “Garv!” Lucy mouthed before she could stop herself. He’s dead. I saw it.

  No arm waved and no voice howled the agony of separation.

  “Raza!” Baad jerked his head toward the berm.

  “Man-who-preys?” Raza asked with a rigid parallel gesture.

  Lucy’s throat tightened at the hand movement for danger.

  “Who is Man-who-preys?” Lucy labored with the call sign. “We don’t prey. We are prey.” Why did this confuse Raza?

  Raza dropped back and motioned, “I refer to the one called Man-who-preys—upright like us but tall and skinny.” He described the creature’s footprints with the distinctive rounded top connected to the bottom by a narrow bridge. She knew every print of every animal in her homeland. These didn’t exist.

  “No. I’ve never seen those prints.”

  He paused and watched her face. “You’re sure Mammoth slaughtered your males? Could it have been this animal?”

  “No. I was there. I would have seen this stranger.”

  Raza dropped back to talk to Baad. She tried to hear their conversation but they must have used hand motions. Who was this Man-who-preys and why did Raza think they caused the death of her Group’s males? Worse, if they followed Raza from his homeland, did that bring trouble to Feq?

  Lucy easily kept up with Raza, her hand tight around an obsidian scraper as sharp and sturdy as the one the males gripped. Her wrist cords bulged like the roots of an old baobab, familiar with and accustomed to heavy loads and strenuous work. Both males remained edgy and tense, often running beside each other and sharing urgent hand motions. After one such exchange, Raza diverted from the route they had been following since morning to one less trodden. It’s what Lucy would do if worried about being tracked by a predator or to avoid a group of Man-who-makes-tools. They maintained a quicker-than-normal pace well past the edge of her world. That suited her fine though she doubted that Man-who-preys could be more perilous than what preyed in her mind.

  Chapter Two

  They never asked if she was tired. Why would they? If she needed rest, she would stop, and they would stop.

  Lucy didn’t worry about the young one, Raza, but the longer they traveled, the more Baad strained to keep up. She heard his labored breathing, his heavy steps behind her. A few times, she glanced back, sure he had collapsed, but he never did and never lagged. When he scooted forward to talk with Raza, his fatigue washed over her but he never asked the younger male to slow down.

  They had gone too long without water when Raza finally stopped at a pond. She drank eagerly next to an Hipparion mare and her colt. Their elegant heads high, chests heaving, lustrous tawny coats glistening, they unknowingly provided a buffer between Lucy and a pack of snarling-dogs, also drinking at the water’s edge.

  This pond was more crowded than most. There must not be many options in the area. Horse-that-walks-upright hefted its stocky body against a tree trunk and with its clawed toes, tore vegetation from the upper limbs and squeezed it into its undersized mouth. The sweetest, youngest leaves were near the top and it seemed determined to reach them. After devouring everything within range, it dropped to the ground and ripped away mouthfuls of closer but more bitter stems, grunting at their dusty, rough taste. A few steps away, a short-necked Wild-beast, its horns more like Gazelle than Giraffe, splayed its squatty legs and dipped its muzzle into the coolness. Behind it, in the reeds that flanked the pond, Mammoth yanked up chunks of grass while a brother pulled leaves from a neighboring tree and dropped them by her squealing calf.

  “Crocodylus.” Lucy indicated the distinctive claw marks and sweeping tail marking the reptile’s entry into the water. It took only a moment to find the bulging eyes that interrupted the smoothness of the water’s surface. When Lucy was a child, Crocodylus snatched a youngster, thrashed his hapless body through the water, and then rolled with it into the murky black depths. All that remained were pink and white bubbles.

  They raced on in the windless air and the baking Sun, past sag ponds plopped amidst crinkled plateaus and through scree beds at the base of volcanic hills. The further they traveled from her memories, the better Lucy felt. They skirted boulders and bounded over outthrow scattered haphazardly over the flatlands. The tough soles of her feet protected her from the grit and detritus and insulated her from the hot ground. Dense hair shielded her shoulders and skin from Sun and her protruding brow shaded her eyes. As they ran, she snagged handfuls of succulents and packed them into her neck sack.

  Without warning, a bank of dark clouds formed overhead and a gale blew out of nowhere, bringing with it a monstrous wall of dust and dirt that stampeded toward them. She glanced around for shelter but found none. The storm already stretched higher than the loftiest trees of her homeland and extended as far as she could see in both directions. It roared like a charging Mammoth and billowed like Fire Mountain when it spit smoke. One moment, it licked at Sun’s base; the next it enveloped the brilliant orb in a gloomy forbidding maelstrom that blotted out everything.

  “Raza!” She called but got no answer.

  She bulled her way forward but could no longer tell if she headed toward Raza or away. A hare smacked into her as it tumbled ears over tail, knocking her face first to the jagged ground. When she couldn’t push back to her feet, she started to crawl. Pain shot through her knees and her palms shredded but she kept going.

  There! A bush! She grabbed it and clung, head tucked against her chest, eyes closed against the grit, mouth filled with flying insects and the acrid flavor of fear, relentlessly surrounded by the cacophonous beat of the wind, sure at any moment the flimsy plant would be uprooted but it gamely hung on to the dry cracked earth. The air was thick with so much silt, she held her breath until she couldn’t anymore and then cupped a hand over her mouth. She panted shallowly and listened for some sign of Raza or Baad but heard nothing other than the howling storm.

  “Raza!” The wind blew her voice back at her. Sand and pebbles stung her cheeks leaving a stench in her nostrils. Something slashed by within a hand’s width of her head and she screamed, becoming more frantic the longer she didn’t see Raza or Baad.

  Out of nowhere, Raza snatched her hand and dragged her forward. All she could see was fingers around her wrist, the rest of Raza lost in the thick shroud of swirling dust. After what seemed like forever, he placed her hand on a rough surface and she wrapped her arms around the tree trunk. The ground shook and dirt spiraled into tiny twisters that slapped her arms and legs. There she huddled, face buried in her chest, fighting to find something to breathe other than dust. Her ears rang from the storm’s constant roar, much like the time she stood under a waterfall.

  As quickly as it began, the rumbling faded, the air cleared, and the wall of dirt roared over the edge of the earth. Baad clutched the opposite side of the same tree while Raza trotted to the bluff of a nearby berm. There he stood, motionless, staring over the crest while she and Baad brushed grime and muck from their fur and reveled in the joy of clean air.

  To her surprise, Night Sun was already a hand’s width into the dark sky. Quickly, she collected what thistle bushes she could find and surrounded the tree with a barrier the thickness of an adult’s height. Baad crawled inside and fell asleep immediately but Raza stayed on the crest of the berm, his dark grey form limned against the sky.

  Baad snored serenely but Lucy couldn’t sleep. Night Sun curved overhead as though an edge had been sliced away with a stone chopper. Each day it lost some of its size. Soon, it would vanish, preparing to rebuild itself slowly, a piece at a time. Why did it hide like that and how did it always reappear, full an
d round? Garv said Night Sun protected them—which made sense. When Night Sun smiled, most predators slept.

  She hoped Night Sun would visit her new home.

  She remembered the day Garv taught her about the lights that traveled with Night Sun. She needed honey to heal cuts. Garv found a hive and beat on it until the bees burst out and then he fled, the bees after him. With the hive empty, Lucy scooped out handfuls of honey. Some she set aside but the rest, she and Garv devoured when he returned, stuffing themselves until they couldn’t lick another finger.

  Then they sat, sated, enclosed in the forest’s verdure, gazing up at the rich green above them. Each layer of leaves obscured the next darker one which in turn hid those above until the canopy blurred into a black-green haziness so dense only the rare shaft of light penetrated—except one spot where Night Sun and its twinkling lights managed to shine through. She thought they were wildfires that had scorched the black night but why then did they never grow or burn themselves out like every other fire? When she asked Garv, he fell silent for a moment as he often did when thinking, and then told her the holes were entry points to an unknown world but didn’t know if it would be better or worse than where they were now. What he did know was that the lights moved around in Night Sun’s sky and that movement told when the rain would come, the animals leave, and the fruit blossom.

  He had just begun to teach her how to read them when he died.

  The next day, Raza, Baad, and Lucy set out as soon as Sun awoke and kept going until Sun reached the opposite side of the sky.

  “We rest now. Tomorrow, we cross Impassable-rift,” Raza motioned.

  Again, Baad fell asleep immediately but Lucy joined Raza on a hill that overlooked the Rift. They sat in silence, listening to the chorus of night sounds.