15 stones, p.16
15 Stones, page 16
“Don’t worry, the boys are fast,” Baer reassured her, but inside he was fuming; who had allowed the boys to be so exposed?
But the herd was fast, too, and the gap was rapidly closing. As the funnel tightened more and more, the press increased, growing tighter and denser. But instead of slowing the herd, the constriction had accelerated its forward motion to rush it through the narrows. More beasts were lost at the sides, painting the rocks crimson red. More blood was splattered upon the rock walls as the succeeding rush trampled through their remains. The dictum was very simple, the arithmetic equally sparse, run or die, run faster and maybe survive.
Ruba was running in earnest now, as fast as he could, his face contorted with the strain. Right behind was Ork, panting and a step behind him, Sosa. Behind them the open space was shrinking as the maddened herd was running for its life. The throbbing of hooves, striking the ground like approaching thunder, drove the boys on. Sosa looked back.
On the rise the observers were aghast. The herd was closing on the boys rapidly. Yaya was crying incoherently, “No, No! NO!”
“Run, boys, run!” Baer shouted but could not be heard over the roar of the herd throwing itself into the funnel, ramming their bodies into the constriction. Chaiko was frozen by a growing feeling of helplessness.
The boys were now running as fast as they could with terror in their hearts and panic in their minds. Again Sosa looked back at the line of closed pressed bodies, the ground boiling with dust under their feet and the earth trembling at their approach. Above them a cloud of dust rose into the air like some malevolent bird of prey extending its wings. Sosa stumbled but saved himself from falling. His mouth moved, babbling his terror. But in that look back, he lost a precious instant.
On the high ground Yaya was beside herself. “My poor boy, please run. Faster my son! Sosa! Please run...”
As hearts constricted with the unfolding tragedy that no one could prevent, Baer and Chaiko watched grimly on. Their hearts grew harder yet to shut out the pain.
On the ground the boys were yelling, too. “Run, Sosa, run!” Ork pleaded with his friend. Ruba, his lungs bursting with their need for air was gasping, “Run! Run! Run!” But Sosa could not run any faster and he knew that he was losing this race. He looked back and saw the flashes of eyes large with their own terror, crazed by the mad dash. The herd rushed on and could do nothing else. Run or die!
The main body of the herd had reached the narrowest section and the congestion was so great that the succeeding press climbed onto the backs of those ahead and continued running on. The herd ran now on two levels; the beasts below ran, the beasts above ran on the backs of those, and the tide of them spilled through the gap.
Sosa looked back, his thoughts strangely quiet and clear all of a sudden, like water in a mountain stream, everything magnified. Sosa would have liked to swim again, to run through fields of grass. He would have liked to laugh again by the fire and to play just one more trick on Ruba. He looked back and felt the hot breath of the herd on his neck and he fell. He tried to rise, but a tired hopelessness held onto him and he sagged and surrendered to the inevitable. He waited for the pounding hooves like hail to fall on him and grind him to bits. He was filled with sad regret.
On the hilltop Yaya yelled, “Get up! Sosa, get up!” Her hands flew to her throat and she was gasping for air. Then mercifully the dust covered the final scene, and the yell changed to a screech of anguish. She collapsed into a heap, clutched herself and keened her grief, rocking back and forth. “Oh, my poor son!” Tay, not understanding what was happening, was wailing too.
On the ground, as the dust descended, Sosa took one last breath and braced his body for the onrush of hooves. But then something jerked him to his feet, and something dragged him along. Sosa looked but could not understand what his eyes were showing him. The shape of Crow was hauling him through the dust. But the herd was nigh upon them and the pounding of their hooves had become one solid rumbling beat. Did he not know there was no escape? Sosa puzzled at the shape that was Crow.
Just then, ahead of them, another figure emerged from the dust, the new man Chandar, and as Crow dragging Sosa went by, he stabbed a spear at the nearest of the beasts, burying a good length deep into the chest. Though pierced through the heart and instantly dead, the rush of the beast carried its lifeless carcass forward, and swept Chandar along with it. Finally it stopped, and for two heartbeats the beast provided shelter from the flow. But then the bison started climbing and jumping over the fallen and they were again in peril of their lives with the full flood of beasts to either side cutting them off from safety. It seemed that in the next instant the hole would close over them forever. Crow and Chandar, holding onto Sosa by either hand, were pulling at the uncomprehending boy. It was no use, there was nowhere to go. But to stay was certain death. Crow faced the mad rush, and thought of Lana; if he had to die, he would die with a vision of her.
Then a beast came crashing down colliding into them with half a length of talon sticking out of its chest. A mist of blood-spray from its nose blew over them as it exhaled its last breath. Another bison, climbing around the carcass, also dropped lifeless with a talon buried in its chest. Crow looked behind to see Makar standing in the midst of the rush calmly drawing string and taking aim, sending a talon whistling on its way to kill yet another beast. The four carcasses piled up in front provided a barrier that forced the herd around them, and the four humans took shelter in its lee.
Baer, Chaiko and the rest on the hilltop looked on horrified as the herd overran the entire length of the funnel. Ruba and Ork were jerked to safety just ahead of the flashing hooves. Then rolling dust obscured the entire vista as the roar of thunder passed by.
It seemed a long time until the last of the herd pushed through and spread out on the other side still at a dead run, terror of the stampede still driving it on into the distance. And as the pounding of the hooves faded, the blood drummed louder in their ears as their hearts raced to hold back the unacceptable. The dust still rose above the rim of rocks and hung high in the air. The quiet grew quieter still.
Yaya was rocking back and forth, her lips forming soundless words, “Sosa, my dear Sosa.” Baer looked at her then had to look away. Tay looked at them all, her eyes begging for understanding but her face fearing it. Chaiko’s face was pinched with sorrow, but there was nothing he could do. Dead was dead.
Lana and Ido came rushing up, red with emotion. “Did you see it?” Lana asked breathlessly.
Baer frowned but did not respond. Chaiko made a sad face but also did not speak. Yaya continued rocking, her eyes hollow with the shock.
“Did you see it? Did you see it all?” Lana asked again.
“Yes, we saw it!” Baer said sharply, his eyes warning Lana to spare the feelings of the grieving mother.
Lana looked from one to the other. She looked at the dust floating above the valley floor and then at them again. Understanding suddenly flooded her face. She threw herself on her knees beside Yaya, took both her hands, and with cutting intensity said, “He’s all right. You don’t understand. Sosa is all right!”
But Yaya did not seem to understand her words; the meaning would not penetrate her grief. Lana shouted again, “Sosa is all right!”
“How?” Baer demanded.
“What happened?” Chaiko echoed.
From their closer vantage, just ahead of the dust, the girls had had a better view of the events. Lana explained, “The boys were running, but the herd was catching up and Sosa fell. He was about to be trampled but Crow, dear Crow, rushed in and pulled him from under the hooves. Then brave Chandar intervened, killed a bison, and that gave them a little more time. But the bison were pressing again. Then Makar stood in the gap, and shot and killed and killed again, a pile of beasts ... and behind them they hid. But they are all right! All of them!” Lana turned to Yaya and shook her harshly and yelled into her face, “Sosa is alive!” But the woman still did not respond.
Baer and Chaiko spun about to look, but the dust still obscured the view. Lana yelled, “Yaya! Listen, Yaya!” But it was of little use. Chaiko stepped to the woman and slapped her hard on the face, then again the other way. Her eyes cleared briefly and Lana said again, “Your son is alive! He was saved by Crow, Chandar and Makar...” Ido was nodding her head in confirmation.
“My son ... alive …?” the woman heard, but was afraid to believe. And again and again Lana had to tell her. Baer and Chaiko just nodded at her begging, questioning looks. She rose, she wanted to see, she wanted to feel her son in her arms again. But the dust still hid the valley below. The herd had vanished into the distance, still pulling a haze of dust behind it. The rumble of its charge was slowly fading to a murmur.
The dust was settling, and the air was gradually clearing. Little by little the view emerged and the carnage became visible. Everywhere dark shapes were lying on the ground, overrun by the mad stampede that had been the herd.
Then the funnel cleared too, and in its constriction a pile of bodies appeared in a tight cluster. Then a group of men. Far below, Crow grabbed Sosa and held him high to show him, safe and sound, to those on the hill. Yaya groaned in relief, then fainted. Baer was barely able to catch and ease her onto the ground. Lana and Ido leaned over her solicitously.
Chaiko looked around at the full view and clucked his tongue. “We wanted just two bison,” he said as he beheld nature’s irony. There were more than forty, fifty bodies discarded, in the middle, against the rock painted bright red by their blood.
Above them the first carrion birds appeared, drawn by instinct to the carnage. Soon the four-footed scavengers would also arrive, lured by the smell of gore on the wind. There was little time left to secure the meat. But there was too much, more than they could possibly handle.
“Go to Crow, Chaiko, and organize them to collect the fallen bodies,” Baer ordered. “I will get the others. The bison on the other side we will leave for the scavengers to clean up. We will take only what we can.” Then he spun about, with the girls at his heels, and went off to collect Tusk and his group, with mounting ill humor. “This was not foreseen,” he grumbled to himself. He did not like it when things did not go according to plan. He liked it less when events took such a catastrophic turn as they had here.
Chaiko found a way down through a split in the rock embankment, although he had some difficulty with his wooden leg slipping on the smoothness of the stones. Yaya and Tay struggled alongside him.
The group of young hunters was still dazed by the onrush of events. Both Crow and Chandar were trying to wipe off blood and gore they had been spattered with, and Makar stood still, overwhelmed by the suddenness of it all and his own actions. The three boys were together again, unable to believe the narrowness of their escape. Yaya ran up to Sosa, grabbed him with both hands, and shook him vigorously. Sosa was pale and strangely quiet, his eyes distended, big and round. Yaya started to scold him, then hugged him fiercely as tears of relief, anger and fright flowed down her face. Ruba and Ork stayed out of the way with guilty expressions on their faces, apprehensively expecting a berating.
Chaiko looked about. Eight animals were piled up in a heap, bodies twisted where they fell, then still more stacked on top. He examined each and noted the talons sticking out of the uppermost. There was no question that Makar had saved them. With unexpected calmness, he had shot and killed in the face of the whole herd, the piled up bodies forming the saving barrier that gave them refuge.
Baer, Tusk and Cosh arrived with the rest, disbelief etched onto their faces. All told, there were seventy-four or seventy-six casualties of the stampede. Most were crushed against the side wall of the funnel. Six, critically wounded, had to be killed to put an end to their suffering.
“We did not need this! We certainly did not plan this,” Baer grumbled, the shock of it in his voice. They had wanted to conserve the animals and now this excess of carnage! He felt sick to his stomach. They did not have enough people to prepare all this meat. Most of it would go to waste.
“The trap worked too well,” said Cosh, his nose filled with the smell of death.
“It was hard to get them started, but once started ...” Tusk shrugged his shoulders helplessly in a very uncharacteristic gesture for the big man. He looked with large eyes at the mountain of flesh piled up so near.
“We can’t prepare all this,” Chaiko indicated with a broad sweep of his hand.
“No, we shall not,” Baer declared. “Tusk, take the nearest intact bodies and start fires there, and there,” he pointed, “then let’s get started.” To Cosh he added, “Take Kray and Gill and see to the other beasts. Skin and save some of the better hides.” Cosh nodded.
Baer looked about at the beginning activity, the men straining to drag heavy carcasses onto the piles and the women digging up the grass to make places for the fires. Others were already bringing rocks to edge the firepit, still others bringing firewood. He sighed heavily. They would be here for days, skinning, butchering, and searing the meat, then transporting the load over a half-day’s distance, to smoke and store in pits ... which were not yet made. He waved Chaiko over and asked him to go back and organize efforts there: pits to build, fires to prepare, smoke racks to erect, and lines of strings for smoking meat to be strung. He assigned Stow to him but that was all he could spare.
So Chaiko, Dawn with Yael in a sling on her back, and Stow started home with a load of fresh meat each, wrapped tightly in a skin. All of them were subdued. Chaiko, who had wanted to conserve the herd, was witness to a slaughter. The deaths were not of their making; still they had set the whole thing in motion. Foreboding filled him.
Dawn was frightened by how close they had come to losing Sosa. If it could happen to him, it could happen to Yael. She could not let go of the thought, and it preyed upon her mind all the way back.
Stow did not like to be separated from Ulla and thought that Baer had forgotten that he now was mated. But he could not refuse the leader of his clan! He was worried. How was Ulla going to do without him?
In the evening they arrived back at the cave. The meat was quickly set over the fire to roast, but the people, hungry for more than food, inundated them with questions. Calla clapped her palms together in consternation, hearing about Sosa’s peril, as Sosa was her favorite. Emma had to be repeatedly reassured that Crow was all right and did not receive even a scratch in his valiant rescue.
“Seventy-five,” Kor wondered to himself, trying to visualize that many bodies, but was having trouble, for he did not have a very clear understanding of the numbers Dawn had taught them.
Chaiko tried to help. “Three bags full of stones, each with five hands of five in it.”
“Oh,” said Kor with beginning comprehension, “that is a lot of meat. Where are we going to put it all?”
“Tomorrow we will have to make some new cairns in the back of the cave,” Chaiko said in a matter-of-fact voice, as if it were an easy task.
In the glow of the setting sun, a large number of carrion birds were yet visible in the western sky, circling, awaiting their turn to land and gorge themselves until they could no longer fly. Some of them came far from the north, some from beyond the mountains, drawn by an invisible force that was attracted to death wherever it occurred.
Chaiko mumbled a wish for the spirit of the animals to depart in peace, then he remembered to be thankful on behalf of the clan that once again animals died so that the clan might live. The waste, he deeply, deeply regretted, especially in a year in which the numbers were so few. In a year that behooved the clan to hunt sparingly.
Chapter 10
All told, it took them four long days of work to prepare fourteen of the beasts. Four days of butchering, transporting and smoking the meat. The rest they had to leave for the scavengers to pick clean. The valley and the funnel were littered with bones. For four days the sky was filled with birds of prey circling, awaiting their turns and opportunity. Hyenas, wolves and foxes were fighting over the remains. Two lions came to claim their share, but the beasts were shy and soon left. A grizzly was seen dragging off a half-eaten carcass, snarling at the pack of dogs following. Smaller carnivores squabbled over the sad remains. But so was life on the plains: some days full to bursting, other days full of hunger.
The people were exhausted and did not want to get up with the rising light. Not even the Feast of First-Fires could awaken their interest. Wisely the feast was postponed to some other day. “Let the people rest,” Tanya interceded with Baer, who well remembered the hunger in the hills and was slow to relent. But finally he, too, was in agreement.
The clan spent the day lolling about the fires, sleeping, talking of idle things. Some washed and bathed, rubbing the soil of their long toil from their bodies, washing the smell of death from their hair. So much meat had never been seen. Seventy-five beasts or was it seventy-six? Some of the mangled bodies had been unrecognizable.
“When I was young,” reminisced Kor, “we once drove a whole herd of bison over the cliffs. I stood in blood up to my knees and waded in warm entrails. Then the flies came. I remember the flies,” he said, amazed that after all these years it was the flies he remembered most vividly.
Chaiko was quiet, outwardly calm as the shaman, but inside bothered by the carnage he had witnessed. “It is our fault,” he remonstrated with himself. “We set the whole thing in motion. The beasts could do nothing else.” Wolves would have been wiser, of that he was sure.
That night after the meal Baer called them all together. Some exchanged knowing looks; another inspirational talk to prolong their evening, no doubt. And Baer talked. He talked of how the boys were scouting and how the speed of the herd was overtaking them, and how Crow had snatched the fallen Sosa from death and how Chandar killed a bison and how Makar had killed beast after beast to hide behind, thus saving them all. By now everyone had heard the story, told many times with many variations. But this was the official version, to be told and retold to children and grandchildren.
