“Forbidden mountain? Is that a real thing?”
“Yes. It’s in no-man’s land, but you can see the peak if you look north on a clear day. Apparently no tribe ever ventures there. It’s considered holy or something.”
The story went on for a long time, accompanied by the sound of the music’s keening notes. Lenna studied the faces around her, trying to judge from their expressions who might be nice and who she wanted to avoid.
It was difficult to tell. Only Rone and one of the women—who appeared to be a previous mate of Tamen—ever met her eyes.
Eventually, the story ended and some of the Kroo finally rose from their places. Lenna happened to be watching when a young woman went over to Rone—the same young woman who had made a move on him the previous night.
“That’s Sorel,” Desh said, noticing her preoccupation. “Tamen’s oldest daughter. She was the one who was almost kidnapped last year but they got back. She must have decided she wanted Rone last week, because she’s tried it on him for several days now.”
As Lenna watched, Rone shrugged the girl away and got up, glancing over at Lenna before he walked away.
“Is he not interested in sex?”
“I’m sure he is. He just doesn’t want Sorel as a mate.”
“She’s pretty.”
“Sure. I think it has more to do with the fact that she’s Tamen’s daughter, and Rone doesn’t want to be tied to Tamen that way.”
This piece of information interested Lenna, and she thought about it as she went back to the cave with the others.
She moved to the same spot she’d slept the previous night, against the wall, close to Rone’s bed. She was so caught up in her thoughts about the strange social dynamics of this tribe that she didn’t notice Ugar coming up to her.
He’d grabbed her by the shoulder before she realized he was there, and she whirled around instinctively, using a self-defense move she’d learned at ten years old, flattening her hand and using the heel of it to hit Ugar in the nose.
He choked on a pained exclamation and bent over, his eyes watering from the blow.
“Stay away from me,” Lenna said sharply, hoping he would understand her tone if not the words themselves.
She heard a noise from behind her and turned to see that Rone was laughing again. He’d laughed the other day when she’d fought off Ugar as well.
She wasn’t sure what he found so funny about her getting groped by such a creep.
While her back was turned, Ugar reached out for her again. She was getting ready to hit him once more when Rone barked out something—loud and gruff—that evidently made Ugar stop.
Ugar muttered and glared, but he turned away and slouched back to the other side of the cave.
Lenna turned to look back at Rone, who was frowning in Ugar’s direction, and she felt a wave of surprised appreciation.
She’d definitely made the right choice in sleeping near Rone. At least he didn’t treat her like an object.
He stood over his bed, staring at her for a long time, almost like he was waiting for something.
She had no idea what he might be waiting for, so eventually she just gave him a little smile and lowered herself onto the ground to sleep.
Three
For the next month, the days passed in a tedious haze of exhausting sameness.
Those on the fringes of the Kroo tribe like her and Desh were expected to work in order to keep their place. Her duties were to pick those berries, gut fish, and to clean up after meals—which was often quite a nauseating prospect since meals usually involved dead animals.
None of these duties were particularly pleasant, and they kept her busy all day. Other than talking to Desh when she could, she was alone most of the time. She always felt hungry, and she was so exhausted by the end of the days that she was asleep almost before she got into her position on the ground against the wall near Rone’s bed.
One day faded into the next, and she would have lost track of time completely if she hadn’t kept a running count in her head.
It was getting colder, though, and the berries were starting to die. She was beginning to get worried about how she would contribute to the tribe when there were no more berries to find.
She also hoped she wouldn’t catch pneumonia trying to sleep on the floor in tattered clothes and no blanket in the middle of winter. She was still wearing the torn clothes she’d arrived in—clumsily mended the best she could. In order to have animal skins like everyone else wore, she would need to have a man to give them to her.
Early one morning, she was huddled in her position in the cave, trying not to shiver, as the tribe started to get up for the day.
She didn’t want to get up. She was cold and starving and sore from how far she’d walked the day before to find the remaining berries. She looked at Rone’s bed longingly, wanting to bury herself in his pile of furs.
He must have felt her watching because he glanced back toward her as he stood up. He was just as hairy and unkempt as he’d been when she’d first seen him, and only his eyes looked intelligent.
He didn’t smile and didn’t acknowledge her. Just scratched his arms and adjusted his clothes. He had a leather cord that he wore around his waist to keep his garment in place, but it had several tight knots in it.
He frowned at it as he tried to undo the knots with his big fingers. After a minute, he gave up and tossed the cord onto his bed, looking annoyed as if it was staying knotted on purpose just to irritate him.
In a few minutes, everyone had left the cave to eat breakfast and get started on the day.
Lenna was in no hurry to do either—since the idea of that bland bread and disgusting turnip-root just made her feel even sicker than she already did. When the cave was completely empty, she went over to Rone’s bed and picked up the knotted cord.
Those knots must have been in it for months. They were so tight she couldn’t even get her fingernails in between to loosen them.
What the hell had the idiot done to this thing to get it so knotted?
For no good reason, she felt a swell of determination to unknot the cord. She sat down on the ground and focused more closely, working a knot until she finally managed to loosen and then untie it. It took her more than a half-hour to get all of the knots out, but she smiled in satisfaction as she smoothed out the leather cord and laid it back on Rone’s bed.
She had no idea why she’d done it. He certainly hadn’t done a lot for her over the last month—except stare at her, laugh at her, and make her feel safe by his presence.
Maybe that was enough.
She was leaving the cave, knowing she needed to get busy cleaning up after breakfast or someone would get mad at her.
Rone was coming back in as she reached the cave entrance.
Desh had been teaching her the tribe’s language for the last month, but she still could only understand a few words in each sentence.
It wasn’t a well-developed language like the ones she was used to. It was primarily made up of nouns and verbs, with no articles, few prepositions or abstract words, and very slippery usage of direct and indirect objects.
Rone frowned and grunted something like, “Meal…late.”
Evidently he was giving her a little lecture about missing breakfast when she’d been working on unknotting his damned cord.
“Sorry.” She’d learned that word early on. She felt like she used it all the time—since she couldn’t risk anyone in this tribe getting mad at her.
She knew for sure she would have died without them.
Rone was still glaring, but he handed her a piece of flat bread. She’d watched it being made and knew it was made out of some sort of grain, but it didn’t taste nearly as good as wheat.
She blinked in surprise at the bread in his hand. He’d actually saved her some food.
When she didn’t move, he thrust it at her again. “Take bread!”
She took it, staring down at it in astonishment. No one but Desh had been nice to her si
nce she’d arrived on this planet. She didn’t even know the word for “thank you.”
Instead, she said, “Glad. Glad bread.”
Rone was still frowning, but he gave her a nod before he walked farther into the cave.
Lenna couldn’t help but pause and watch from a distance as he reached his bed. She saw him stop, staring down at what must be the cord she’d unknotted.
He picked it up slowly, stroking a finger down the leather and then raising it to his face. It looked like he was sniffing it, smelling it.
When she saw him start to look back toward her, she hurried out of the cave, eating the bread quickly before she started to work for the day.
She was glad she’d spent the time unknotting his cord.
It had been nice of him to save her the bread.
***
That evening, she was curling up on the floor again in her normal place, hugging her arms across her belly in an attempt to stay warm.
The cave was never quiet at night. It was one large room with a lot of people in it, so there were always the sounds of talking, of snoring, of sex.
The sex seemed to consist mostly of men taking women from behind, as far as she could tell in the dark. The men did all the grunting. It never lasted very long. Lenna wondered if the women even knew what an orgasm was.
She gasped and sat up when she was suddenly aware of a man standing above her.
Realizing it was Rone, she sighed in relief. She had no idea what he was doing, but at least he wasn’t going to attack her.
She blinked a few times until she could see that he was offering her a blanket made of a soft animal skin.
Her lips parted as she stared up at him.
“Cord good,” he grunted. “Blanket.”
Even missing words as she did, she understood what he was saying. He was thanking her for working on unknotting his cord, and her reward was the blanket.
She accepted the blanket with a smile, wrapping it around her gratefully.
Rone was peering at her with narrowed eyes.
“Glad,” she said, using the word she’d used that morning, since she’d asked Desh earlier and he’d told her there didn’t seem to be a word in their language that meant thank you. “Glad blanket.” She smiled at him again.
The habitual frown on his face softened. He didn’t smile, but for once he didn’t look grumpy. He looked vaguely astonished, as if he didn’t know what was going on.
She didn’t know what was going on either, but she was very happy about the blanket. It was rough and smelled like Rone, but it was warm, which was the only thing that mattered.
It still felt like Rone was watching her in the dark as she tried to go to sleep, far more comfortable than she’d been the night before.
***
The next morning, Rone gave her a bowl of stew.
It wasn’t a very good stew, since it was made with the last remnants of the deer-like animal they’d killed the previous week. But since she’d had nothing but bread, berries, and turnip-roots for more than a month, she couldn’t remember ever enjoying anything more.
Rone stood and watched her as she ate it, as if he suspected she wouldn’t know what to do with it.
He was the strangest man she’d ever met, but at least he seemed to understand gratitude.
When she finished the bowl and he was still standing in front of her, she said, “Glad. Glad stew.”
Rone nodded at her and then waited, as if he were expecting her to do something else.
She had no idea what she was supposed to do.
What the hell was he always waiting for?
After a minute, Rone scowled at her and walked away, and Lenna was left more confused than ever.
Since the meat was pretty much gone now, the alpha men left that morning to go on another hunting party. Lenna really hoped they’d kill an animal quickly so Rone would return to the cave soon. She was familiar with the Kroo now, and most of them left her alone. But a couple of the men still creeped her out, including Ugar, who was the worst of them all.
Ugar hadn’t gone with the hunting party this time, so Lenna was on edge.
It was too cold now for berries, so Lenna had less work to do than she’d done before. She watched the other women, trying to figure out something else she could do to earn her keep. Most of what the women did involved taking care of their men, which wasn’t any help for Lenna—who had no man.
That afternoon, she watched the women as they cleaned the animal skin blankets on their men’s beds. They took them outside and then shook them off. Then they scraped them with what looked like large pine cones. Then they hung them outside on branches to air out in the sun and wind.
Remembering how grateful Rone had been when she’d unknotted his cord, Lenna decided there was no reason why she shouldn’t clean his bed.
He had piles of furs on it—more than any other man but Tamen—but she lugged them all outside, taking them one by one to shake off, scrape off, and then air out in the sun.
By the state of the blankets, she wondered if they’d ever been cleaned before.
The man was really a mess. No wonder he smelled so bad.
The job took all afternoon and into the first part of the evening. It was almost dark when she was spreading the furs back out on his bed, pleased with the results of her hard work.
She wondered what Rone would do when he returned to find his nice, clean bed.
She was so busy spreading out the blankets she didn’t hear anyone come up behind her.
She squealed when strong arms grabbed her and lifted her to her feet. Whirling around, she saw the man who had grabbed her was Rone. He was scowling at her and barking out something that included the words, “Rone bed.”
She’d learned from Desh that their language didn’t include personal pronouns, so they always referred to themselves in the third person.
“Clean,” she gasped, afraid he’d thought she was claiming his bed for her own. “Lenna clean Rone bed. Clean. Clean.” She gestured toward the blankets urgently.
His scowl turned into his normal suspicious frown, and he looked from her to the bed and then back again.
Then he crouched down and picked up one of the furs, sniffing it the way he had the cord.
“Clean,” she said one more time.
He stared at his bed for a long time, gently stroking the blankets. Finally, he looked back up at her.
“Good?” she asked, after a long moment of just staring at each other.
Rone nodded slowly. “Good.”
He stood up, standing very close to her, watching her in that way he had that morning, in that way she didn’t understand.
Like he was waiting for something.
She stared back at him, suddenly hit with a wave of attraction that was beyond her comprehension.
The man was dirty, smelly, covered with hair, and totally rude. She shouldn’t be attracted to him. At all. In any way.
But her body responded to his proximity, to the strength she could see in his arms, his shoulders, his chest. To the intelligence, the humanness she saw in his eyes.
For a moment, she had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him.
Then she swallowed and looked away, telling herself to get a grip. It had been a hard month for her. She probably would have responded in the same way to anyone paying her some attention.
Rone was scowling again when she looked back at him.
She had no idea why he always got so annoyed with her.
Searching for something to say that she had the vocabulary for, she finally said, “Hunt good?”
Rone nodded soberly, putting a hand on her back to push her toward the entrance of the cave. “Hunt good.”
***
The hunting party had returned with an animal twice as large as those deer they’d killed before. Its carcass looked like a wildebeest—a very large one—and the excitement in the camp at this hunting success was plain to see.
The Kroo were already building a
bonfire and gutting the animal when Rone and Lenna joined the others.
Since food obviously took priority over her, Rone went to join the others, and Lenna sat down next to Desh on the outskirts.
“They only kill one of these maybe once a year,” Desh said, looking around at the excitement of everyone surrounding them. “It will feed the tribe for at least two weeks. That’s why everyone is so happy.”
Rone wasn’t looking happy. He was frowning deeply as he was cutting meat off the body of the animal.
He looked like he wanted tear something apart.
Desh must have followed her eyes. “I told you before,” he said matter-of-factly. “Women make the initial advances in this tribe.”
Lenna’s shoulders stiffened in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, a man isn’t supposed to act until a woman has made the initial advance. That’s how they know the woman is receptive. If a man acts before the woman has made herself available, it’s a sign that he’s weak.”
“That disgusting Ugar gropes me any chance he gets.”
“And everyone in this tribe knows him to be weak and a coward. Rone is neither of those things.”
Lenna thought about this, turning her eyes back to Rone. He’d been watching her, but he looked away when their eyes met.
Desh gave an ironic laugh. “He’s waiting for you to let him know you’re interested. He can’t make a move until you do.”
“I thought you said he’s never chosen a mate.”
‘He hasn’t before. But what do you want to bet he does if you give him even the smallest sign you’d be receptive?”
Ridiculously, Lenna’s heart started to race in excitement. She really shouldn’t be so excited that this grumpy caveman was interested in her, but she was.
She really was.
She sat in silence as the meal was being prepared. Because the animal was so big, they made their normal big pot of stew, but they also roasted some of the meat on skewers.
It smelled delicious, and Lenna couldn’t help but be pleased when Rone brought her over a big piece of roasted meat.
She smiled at him as she accepted it, and he gave her that same sober, watchful look.