West of Eden

He saw how the tagaso was dried, with the tasseled, yellow ears still on the stalks, then hung from wooden frames.

There were rats here, mice as well, who would have grown fat on this provident food supply had it not been for the donsemnilla who kept their numbers down. These sleek, long-nosed creatures, many of them with their young hanging on their mother’s backs, tiny tails wrapped about her larger one, stalked the vermin in the darkness, killed and ate them.

They stopped to watch the women who were scraping the dried kernels from the ears, then grinding them between two stones. This flour was mixed with water and heated before the fire. Herilak ate some of the cakes, still hot enough to burn his fingers, dipping them in honey and biting on the hot peppers that brought pleasureful tears to his eyes.

“This is good food,” he said.

“And always abundant. They plant it, harvest it, and store it as you have seen.”

“I have. I have also seen that as they depend on the green fields, so do the fields depend on them. They must stay in this one place forever. That is not for everyone. If I could not roll my tent and move on I do not think I would find life worth living at all.”

“They might feel the same way about you. They might miss returning to the same fire in the evening, not seeing the same fields in the morning.”

Herilak thought about this and nodded agreement. “Yes, that is possible. You are the one who sees things in a different way, Kerrick, perhaps because of all those years living with the murgu.”

He broke off when he heard someone calling Kerrick’s name. One of the Sasku women was hurrying towards them, crying out in a shrill voice. Kerrick looked worried. “The baby has been born,” he said.

He ran off and Herilak followed at a more leisurely pace. Kerrick was concerned because Armun had been so upset of late. She wept daily and all of her earlier fears had returned. The baby would be a girl and would look like her, then it would be laughed at and scorned just as she had been. Kerrick could do nothing to change her mind; only the birth itself would remove her black doubts. The women here were skilled in these things, he had been told. He sincerely hoped that they were as he clambered up the notched log to their quarters.

One look at her face told him all that he need to know. All was well at last.

“Look,” she said, unwrapping the white cloths that swaddled the infant. “Look. A boy to make his father proud. As handsome and as strong.”

Kerrick, who had no experience of infants, thought it wrinkled, bald, and red, nothing like him at all, but had the intelligence to keep his opinions to himself.

“What is his name to be?” Armun asked.

“Whatever you like for now. He will be given a hunter’s name when he is grown.”

‘Then we will name him Arnwheet, for I wish him to be as strong as that bird, as handsome and as free.”

“A good name,” Kerrick agreed. “For the Arnwheet is also a good hunter with the best eyesight. Only an Arnwheet can hang from the wind, then drop and take its prey. Arnwheet will become a great hunter when he begins life with a name like that.”

When Kerrick called down to him Herilak climbed easily up the notched log to the rooms above. He went inside and saw that Armun was nursing the baby, surrounded by a circle of admiring women. Kerrick stood proudly to one side. The women brought her food, jugs of water, whatever she needed. Herilak nodded approval.

“Look at the strength in those hands,” he said. “How they clutch, the muscles working in those mighty arms. There is a great hunter there.”

Herilak admired the luxury of the surroundings as well. The clay pots holding water and food, the woven mats and soft cloth. Kerrick took a finely carved wooden box from a ledge and held it out to him.

“Another secret that the Sasku have is here. Let me show you. With this you no longer need to drill wood or carry fire with you.”

Herilak looked on in wonder as Kerrick took a lump of dark rock from the box, then another polished stone with grooves scratched in its surface. He next took up a pinch of powdered wood. With a quick motion he struck one stone with the other — and a spark flew into the wood. He had only then to blow on it and it burst into flame. Herilak took the two lumps of rock in his hand and wondered at them.

“There is fire captured in this rock,” he said, “and the other stone releases it. The Sasku do indeed have strange and powerful secrets.”

Kerrick carefully put the box away. Herilak went to the ledge outside and marveled at all the activity below, and when Kerrick joined him he pointed and asked Kerrick to tell him about it. Herilak listened closely as he explained the spi

“And there, on those racks, those red spots are the chilies that brought tears to your eyes. They are dried then crushed. Inside the bins are the sweet roots, different kinds of squash as well. They are good when baked, and even the seeds are ground into flour. There is always food here, no one is ever hungry.”

Herilak saw his enthusiasm and happiness. “Will you remain here?” he asked.

Kerrick shrugged. “That I do not know yet. It is familiar to me, living in a place like this, for I lived for many years in the city of the Yilanè. There is no hunger and the winters are warm.”

“Your son will dig in the ground like a woman instead of following the deer.”

“He doesn’t have to. The Sasku hunt deer, with their spear-throwers they do it very well.”

Herilak said nothing more about this, but his feelings were clear in the way he held his head when he looked about him. This was all very interesting, good enough for those born here, but in no way comparable to the life of a hunter. Kerrick did not want to argue with him. He looked from Herilak to the Sasku digging in the fields and could understand them both — even as he had understood the Yilanè. Not for the first time did he feel suspended in life, neither hunter nor tiller of fields, Ter or marag. They went inside then and his eyes went to Armun holding their son and knew that he had a base now, a sammad of his own no matter how small. Armun saw this look in his face and smiled at him and he smiled back. One of the women came from the cave mouth and whispered to him.

“A mandukto is here and would talk to you.”

The mandukto stood on the ledge, wide-eyed and trembling. “It has been as Sanone said. The mastodon is born — as is your son. Sanone asks to talk with you.”

“Go to him. Say that I come with Herilak.” He turned back to the big hunter. “We will see what Sanone wants. Then we will talk to the manduktos, find out if there really is a way across the desert to the west.”

Kerrick knew where to find Sanone at this time of day, for the afternoon sun was slanting across the valley, shining into the cavern at the base of the cliff to illuminate the paintings on the rock wall there. Like Fraken, Sanone knew many things and could recite them from the rise of the sun in the morning to the darkness at night. But Sanone shared his knowledge with the other manduktos, the young ones in particular. He would chant and they would repeat what he said and learn his words. Kerrick was permitted to listen, and recognized the honor in this for only other manduktos were normally permitted to hear what was being said.

When they came close Kerrick saw that Sanone was sitting cross-legged before the great mastodon painting, looking up at it, while three of the younger manduktos sat before him, listening intently.

“We will wait here until he is done,” Kerrick said. “He is telling the others about Kadair.”

“What is that?”

“Not what, who. They do not talk of Ermanpadar here, they do not know how he shaped the Tanu from the mud of the river. They speak instead of Kadair, who in the guise of a mastodon walked the earth alone. He was so lonely that he stamped his feet on the black rock so hard that it cracked open and the first Sasku came out.”