Born in a Treacherous Time Read online

  Finally, when it became clear he would neither welcome her nor push her away, she motioned, “Why do you call it Impassable-rift?”

  “We easily traversed it long ago but over time, the canyon walls steepened, became more jagged, and the floor deepened. Some from our Group crossed it but didn’t return. I have never even attempted it but Baad has and unlike others, always returned.”

  Ah. That explains why Baad joined this trip, Lucy thought to herself.

  “After Baad’s last trip, he swore to never again cross what he came to call the Impassable-rift—and he didn’t until Sahn insisted the benefit outweighed the risk. No one argues with the Primary-mother.” He shrugged as though this was obvious even to a stranger.

  “Once we’re across, I will show you quarry-where-stones-grow-for-tools and lake-where-children-play. You will meet Dik-dik and its cousin Gazelle, Long-tooth Cat and its shorter-toothed cousin, Mammoth, and Oryx. You already know Snarling-dog who stalks by day and Hyaena-cat who hunts at night.”

  Raza’s gestures were eloquent, his face expressive as he described the world he clearly respected and one she would soon face. Lucy understood ‘quarry’, ‘lake’, and ‘stone’—these defined her environment, too—and actions such as ‘stalks by day’ and ‘forage for roots’, but not those that dealt with his unique environ like ‘lake-seen-by-Sahn’ though she hid her confusion behind a passive, intent expression.

  Raza paused, as though to collect his thoughts. She liked how he often stopped to think before talking, just as Garv had done. It made her want to trust him.

  Finally, he simply concluded, “You will like it.”

  “How do you know?” she motioned with awkward, rigid gestures.

  “Sahn-that-sees-all tells me.” A kindness and affection imbued Raza’s motions for the female he called Sahn.

  “You often mention this Sahn. Tell me about her.”

  Although Lucy flawlessly reproduced his hand movement for the call sign ‘Sahn’, Raza responded with a quizzical tilt of his head.

  “They say she has been to your land. Do you not know her?”

  Stories swirled through her Group of those who crossed the Rift and never came back. Could Sahn be one of those?

  When Lucy didn’t answer, Raza left and she massaged her breasts with the juice from the same root bundle she gave Baad for his wrists. To her side, Spider worked on an intricate web.

  “Go, Spider! Spin your web where sky meets earth. Let nothing slip through that will threaten us,” Lucy whispered.

  All of a sudden, Baad yipped and Night-dog howled. Lucy jumped up, wound her abundant hair into a rough knot at the base of her skull, and prepared to join Baad.

  “Stay!” Raza commanded with a downward chop of his hand and then he and Baad were gone, swallowed by the darkness. Lucy drooped her head. He thought she would be afraid but she hadn’t felt fear in as long as she could remember.

  In his absence, she would construct a neck sack for him to carry his cutters and choppers. She preferred the stomach or bladder of Gazelle slathered in mud to tamp down the odor but that would have to wait until they found carrion. For now, a large leaf would do.

  She smoothed the blade and perforated the top with her cutter to create evenly-spaced openings. Then she selected a Giraffe tendon from her collection, long enough to encircle Raza’s wide neck. Fibrous stems would also work or the inner bark of some trees, or even certain flexible grass stalks. With deft fingers, she separated a shred as she would section a stringy shoot, ran it expertly from hand to hand to make it pliable, and strung it through the holes in the blade.

  Much later, Raza and Baad returned. Baad went back to sleep but Raza squatted by Lucy, surprised to see her still awake. Despite finding no danger, the moisture over his upper lip and the tension in his eyes told her he worried.

  “I am used to not getting much sleep, Raza. Like you. I will be fine tomorrow.”

  She hung the new neck sack around his neck and then rolled back on her haunches as he tipped his head trying to see it, between the nipples of his chest.

  “Put your cutter in it. Your hands will be free, like mine,” Lucy motioned.

  He nodded and said nothing. Lucy curled up, surprised how much better she felt with Raza’s safe return, and fell asleep. In her dream, she strode forward, confident, a chopper in one hand and Gazelle’s haunch over her shoulder. A twig snapped and she turned…

  Chapter Three

  When they set out that morning, Baad scowled at the leaf sack hanging from Raza’s neck and then ignored it. Before the dew dried on the grass, they had reached Raza’s Impassable-rift. Craggy walls plummeted to a distant basin, colored in layers, brown-red becoming obsidian-black in the width of a finger. Here and there, scorched rubble stood out like scars, the healed remains of some violent battle.

  There, tucked into a shady nook, Eagle nested with its chicks. The colors of their feathers, beaks, and even claws blended into the background. A smudge of movement signaled a rodent family as it scampered to shelter. Warm air, perfumed with juniper and sage enveloped Lucy. Insects hummed and one lazy raptor circled above. The Rift in Lucy’s homeland, the one she deftly crossed as a child, was but a scratch in Earth’s skin compared to this boundless chasm.

  Lucy raised her eyes to the flat land that spread on the opposite side. In place of verdant rainforests flowed an endless field of golden forbs sprinkled with massive boulders, and spotted with intermittent gentle berms. Even from this distance, the grass rippled where Long-tooth Cat passed. Mounds of talus encircled Fire Mountain. Its cousins lined the horizon, some so tall their peaks penetrated the swirling whiteness of the clouds, others just a glow of red with fiery rivers that slithered down their distant slopes. When Lucy traveled in her old territory, these behemoths, visible from anywhere, always guided her home.

  She tried to swallow but her throat wouldn’t let anything down. She wanted to tell Raza she’d changed her mind, that she feared for the safety of the child she carried, but she knew, whatever bad decisions she’d made in the past, leaving with Raza was the right one. To keep her hands from shaking, she dug her nails into the skin of her arm until the shock of what she saw paled against the misery of what she felt.

  After a sniff she hoped Raza didn’t hear, she caught site of a plant she hadn’t found in a long time and grinned.

  “Bitter-leaf!” Old One used Lucy’s last on an injured child. Its uses were varied and the results always effective so everywhere she went, she searched but hadn’t found any since leaving her homeland. Until now. Glad for the distraction, she stuffed as much as she could into her neck sack, already bulging with herbs for her new life. The aromatic Cat-ear, chewed to a sticky pulp would reduce swelling; Blood-weed’s absorbent blades for her bleeding time; and the Maniese blooms for vomiting.

  Satisfied, she sat under a leafy acacia to wait on Raza.

  “Are you ready?” Baad leaned over her. Startled, Lucy shook herself awake. Baad continued, “We leave.”

  One after another, they walked, step-by-step, a hand’s breadth from Impassable-rift’s edge. Raza stopped occasionally to study it but never seemed satisfied. He must have left cairns on the trip over but why make them so difficult to find unless he was hiding from someone.

  Who did Raza hide from? She clenched her cutter and ground her teeth to bite back the anger that threatened her good intentions. Why fail to warn her if she and her child were at risk?

  Sun’s rays shone directly in her face by the time Raza found his markers and they began the descent. Raza took the lead followed by Lucy and then Baad. The damp hot air reflected off the rock wall, almost suffocating Lucy. Sweat poured from her body making her handholds squishy and loose and causing her feet to slip. Something slithered over her back and ants crawled into her mouth. Her breaths were labored as though saturated with Fire Mountain’s ash-heavy air.

  A caw shattered Lucy’s lethargy. There, Eagle floated overhead in lazy circles, calling to his family.

  He wa
s hunting.

  To Eagle, they would appear to be tasty morsels, defenseless as they clung precariously to the almost-vertical face. Any moment, the powerful raptor could knock them to the valley floor and tear their flesh from bone, and take the meat to its hungry eaglets.

  “Raza, we must hurry!” She shouted but that only made him huff in irritation. Lucy bit back her own annoyance. Surely, he had climbed worse. She had. Did his damaged hand and knee make him slow? Another caw and still Raza maintained the same sluggish pace.

  “Raza!” She shouted his call sign just as Eagle screeched a harsh kloo-ee kloo-ee, tightened its ellipse, and dove. As it hurtled past the rim of the Rift, Lucy tore a rock loose and flung it with all her strength. It hit the raptor’s chest with an audible thump at the same moment that Baad shrieked. Eagle squalled and withdrew to assess the damage.

  Lucy twisted toward Baad who hung one-handed, feet flailing as he bounced off the jagged cliff. Lucy slipped sideways, trying to position herself underneath his body.

  “Baad! Step on my shoulder!”

  Before he could, he lost his tentative hold. He tumbled past her, eyes bulging, fear gushing from his body. Lucy wrapped her fingers around a chunky bridge and snatched his wrist as he flew by, then leaned into the wall and crooked her elbow to absorb his fall.

  “Raza!” She screamed as her hold loosened. “Move over!” Meaning, slip beneath Baad to provide him a foothold.

  She panted, willing her body to hang on even as numbness washed up her arm and into her shoulder. Then came the pain, as though the arm clinging to Baad was being torn from her body. Baad flailed, unable to find anything to grip. Just when she thought she could take no more, the strain eased. Raza, face a taut mask, muscles roped, hands grappling unsteadily at rocky outcrops, somehow managed to position himself beneath his partner and then force his shoulder below Baad’s foot.

  “Baad,” and Raza signaled with his chin at a ledge to Lucy’s side. Baad swung his foot, snagged the projection with a toe, and pulled himself over. As his weight shifted, Eagle dove again. Raza flung a melon-sized rock that struck its wing and sent it spiraling away in search of easier prey. The Group rested, fingers and toes gripping, sweaty bodies flattened against the hot cliff wall, too tired to speak, and then continued downward.

  The lower they moved, the faster Sun fell. By the time Lucy’s feet hit the valley floor, Sun was hidden behind the steep walls where only dull grey light could reach them. Baad collapsed next to Lucy, chest heaving, breath coming in ragged gasps, and muzzle dripping.

  “You are strong.”

  Lucy shrugged. With no males left in her Group, she had carried many carcasses. Baad weighed no more than Oryx.

  Baad motioned haltingly, “I would be dead… if not … for you,” and left, shoulders hunched.

  Raza tapped her shoulder. “Rest before we continue,” he motioned with a smile, and trudged to the meager but satisfactory streamlet that flowed through the center of the valley. He buried his face in the water and inhaled long contented slurps.

  Lucy closed her eyes as a scent wafted past her. Snarling-dog. She stiffened and scanned the distant ledges and brush-dense slopes, finally finding his scat, tucked under a bush but old and with no trace of pups. Relieved, she trotted over to the stream, drank her fill, and waited for Raza to speak.

  In a mixture of hand and fascial gestures, he motioned, “The Group adopted Baad and his sister Sahn—my Mother and the Group’s Primary-mother—when wild-beasts trampled Baad’s Mother and Father. Baad taught me to track and knap cutters. If not for him, Fire Mountain would have taken more than part of my finger.”

  Raza massaged the smooth stump. Lucy still found it difficult to understand his gestures but each time they talked, it got easier.

  “The Group would suffer without him.” He scuffed at a pebble. “Sahn was right to send me for you.”

  Saying nothing more, he pointed to the sky, indicating they would leave when Sun reached that point in the sky—about a hand and another past Sun’s current spot—and then he and Baad left to explore the valley. Lucy went the opposite direction in search of travel food and healing plants.

  The bed of Impassable-rift had looked deceptively flat from above but proved to be crisscrossed by huge cracks, some so deep and broad she had to detour rather than risk jumping. A small patch of a plant that cooled fevers became her first find. With her chert digger, she chipped away until the roots released and then loaded them in her neck sack. Next, she found some good-sized leaves, soaked them in the stream, folded them over, and tucked them into her sack next to her herbs. She would chew these when she could find no water.

  Raza sounded her call sign. He wanted to leave.

  They jogged through debris collected at the base of the Rift’s walls ranging in size from massive upright chunks taller than Lucy to tiny gravelly pieces that rolled underfoot making running difficult. They continued until Raza found a sleeping area with a cliff to their back and far enough from the stream to avoid thirsty animals—if there were any down here.

  The night air was warm and comforting. Without the distraction of vision, she sensed everything around her—boulders that blocked the breeze; the gentle pulsating chorus of ticking, zizzing, and humming, the pitch telling her the location of each creature; the lack of any aroma attached to animal dens or homes; and the swish of Snake finding a sleeping hole for the night. The air moving off the Rift carried strong, dusty scents she couldn’t identify but she breathed a quiet sigh of happiness to still see Night Sun and its sprinkled lights. Feq would be watching the same sky. Did he wonder about her?

  She shook off the memories and left in search of herbs to heal her sore body. Raza made no move to stop her. As she walked, hot plumes of steam like that from Fire Mountain’s anger shot into the air. Strange colored stones speckled the ground. One tasted like ash, another salty. The abundance of boulders and fissures forced her to weave through the terrain.

  What caused these?

  Even Fire Mountain at its angriest didn’t birth such boulders—and why fracture the ground so brutally?

  She kept to the edge of the streamlet, sure it would lead to edible vegetation—which it did, a rich patch of berries bursting from an outcrop of rocks hidden behind a copse of trees. After gulping down a handful, she set about gathering more for Raza and Baad when a noise stopped her. It took only a moment to identify it as an animal in distress. That usually meant a predator which meant food.

  The sound came from the other side of a boulder. She quietly approached and then flattened herself against the rough side of the massive stone. Chest-high grass separated her from a clearing where she heard another groan, this one accompanied by the unmistakable whiff of blood. When she parted the grass, a pig lay in a puddle of red midway across the clearing. One dull eye found Lucy and then moved to a long narrow stick protruding from its chest. Every time it drew a breath, bright red blood pumped from the wound. Frothy pink bubbles billowed from its snout and its hind leg shook. Lucy shuddered at the agony Pig must be in but could do nothing until she confirmed that the hunter who brought it down wasn’t around.

  Moving only her slitted eyes, she scrutinized the basin, the scrubby bush, and the tiny stream bed. Nothing concerned her but the hair on her neck bristled.

  One final breath rattled in and out of Pig’s destroyed lungs. Lucy flared her nostrils and listened for the one who would claim this kill but still smelled nothing that shouldn’t be there.

  Why did the hunter leave the pig?

  Was he frightened away or did he have another bigger kill and couldn’t take both?

  Finally comfortable she was alone, Lucy shucked the animal over her shoulder using the stick in Pig’s chest for leverage and moved under an overhang as she scanned the chasm one last time. When she glanced up the chasm’s wall, she gulped. A figure stood silhouetted, tall and erect with wide muscular shoulders and sturdy legs. He grasped a long stick in one hand, like the one through Pig’s chest, as his head swiveled b
ack and forth across the valley floor. His musky odor, a mixture of scat and carrion, made her rub her nose and step deep into the shade of a tree.

  “Why do you hide?”

  Lucy jerked. “Raza,” she whispered.

  The snap of Raza’s head told Lucy she spoke his call sign properly.

  She motioned, “At the top of the precipice. Do you see it?” But the creature had vanished. “It was a male with a vaulted head and long neck searching for something down here,” she motioned, hoping Raza could interpret her hand motions.

  Raza swept back and forth over the bluff as tension rippled through his face and chest. “Next time, come get me,” he ordered, and then noticed the animal she carried. He jerked back as though stuck by porcupine’s quill. “You—you use this stick?”

  Lucy shook her head. No. “Someone else. Maybe the male up there,” and she jutted her chin toward the top of the cliff.

  Raza paled. They hurried back to camp. Without taking time to eat, he left with Baad, following the blood trail back to where Pig died. Lucy was too hungry to wait for their return and tore chunks of meat from the carcass. Finished eating, she hung the remainder of Pig in a nearby tree where Raza and Baad would easily find it upon their return and then blocked off her sleeping area with thorn bushes. Inside the barrier, she added a pile of hand-sized rocks. Predators would start with the carcass. If they wanted live meat, the thorns would deter them long enough she could frighten them off with rocks.

  She woke once when Hyaena-dog called his brothers and a final time when Raza and Baad yelped as they stumbled over the barrier and stabbed themselves with the thistles.

  Sun awoke, spreading its light over the graben valley. The strip of sky between the steep walls blossomed with fluffy clouds in a field of iridescent blue. The Group ate as much of Pig as possible knowing they couldn’t carry it up the cliff wall.

  She motioned to Raza, “Did you find the predator?”