“I’ll forage for firewood,” Ned said.
“I’ll forage for berries,” Jes said.
“Go with them,” Flo told Lin. “I’ll take care of Bry.” The girl looked doubtful, but obeyed. Flo sat down next to Bry and pulled him in to her to her copious bosom to share her warmth. He was shivering despite being well bundled. “We’ll get you through this somehow,” she told him, but she was afraid she lied.
She bared her huge breast and nursed Bry, as was the custom when the need was great. He was her brother, twelve years old and soon to be a man, but he needed sustenance. The youngest ones could get by on less, for a while. He smiled at her, wearily, and relaxed, reassured. Soon he was sleeping. She hugged him, aware of his burning heat; he would not sleep well, but any sleep was better than none. He was family; she had to help him all she could.
The two children, Wilda and Flint, came to join Flo, as they usually did. They were two years old and mostly weaned. Flo had nursed longer and better than Wona, having the body for it, and so both children seemed like hers now though Wilda was actually Wona’s. Wona had never evinced any great interest in sustaining her daughter; she had wanted a boy, and resented the fact that Flo had been the one to get a son.
Wona looked around, then wandered off, theoretically to forage. Flo regarded her as a loss; she seldom pulled her share if she could avoid it, and was generally a force for dissension. But there wasn’t much to be done about it; she was Sam’s wife, and Sam still doted on her. Apparently Sam could see no further than her beauty, such as it was; she was way too lean to handle a winter properly. But it was better to have her out of sight than here, Flo concluded; but for Sam, she’d have driven the woman out of the band long ago.
She reflected again on the irony of the way things had worked out. At the time Flo and Sam had gotten their mates from the same neighbor band, it had seemed that Wona was the bargain, and Dirk the loss. It was the other way around.
Lin came bounding back, her hair flouncing under the tight hair net. The girl was small for her age, but pretty, except for that hand. Sometimes Flo wished they had simply cut off the extra finger, back when the girl was a baby. But it hadn’t happened, and now it was too late. She was twelve years old, the same as Bry, and very soon, food and climate permitting, would become a beautiful if thin young woman. But the years would put some mass on her, when needed.
“Bones! Bones!” Lin cried, excited.
So they had found some bones. Scattered across the landscape there were bones, because when animals died the bones were what didn’t dissolve away. Many of their tools and weapons were made of carved bones, including some savagely barbed spears. Why did that so excite the girl?
“Bones!” Lin said again as she arrived. “All over! Big! Dry! Piles of them!”
Flo didn’t want to deflate her, but didn’t see the point. “We need food and scraps of wood for a fire,” she reminded the girl gently. “And poles for a shelter. Your brother—”
“The bones—Ned says the bones will help—they’re bringing them. I must go help haul.” And she ran away again, following the faint path she had picked out.
What good would old bones do? They would have no usable marrow. But then Flo remembered that some bones would burn, if the fire was hot enough. Not as good as wood, but better than nothing. So maybe it was worthwhile.
Then Ned and Jes came into sight, looking like two young men, hauling on something. Flo strained her gaze, trying to make it out, without disturbing Bry. It was low to the ground and very long, like a pole. Its dragging end furrowed the ground, clearly marking what had been a faint path.
Then her mouth fell open. It was a tusk! A mammoth tusk. Almost as long as two people lying end to end. What a monster!
Panting, they brought it near. “We can make a house with these,” Jes said. “There are so many!”
As a substitute for wooden poles. Now Flo saw the logic. “But that thing is curved,” she said, getting practical. “They won’t make a good point for the top.”
“We’ll tie them together anyway,” Ned said. “If we can just get enough of them here.”
Flo had a flash of inspiration. “If there are so many there—we should go there. Easier to move ourselves, than such heavy bones.”
Ned paused. “You make me feel stupid,” he said.-“Of course we should build it there.”
Had she really figured out something he had not? Flo wasn’t sure. Ned was very bright. Maybe he had simply wanted her to suggest it. “Maybe we’ll build another one here, later,” Flo said. “But for now, let’s go there.”
She lifted Bry, who stirred sleepily. “We must move, Bry,” she said. “But then we can rest. I will carry you.” She knew he would have protested, had he had the strength, but he didn’t.
Ned and Jes helped get the boy up in her arms. Then Flo marched after the two of them, following the scuffed line. She was used to carrying her own considerable weight around; she could handle his too, for a while.
The bones turned out to be in a hollow that looked as if it had once been a bend of a river. Perhaps a temporary flood during a heavy rain, that had carried the bodies along with it, then pooled here, leaving the bones when it sank away. There certainly were a lot of them; she had never seen such a white jumble. A dozen mammoths, maybe.
But first things first. She found a clear place and laid Bry down. “Can you build it here?”
“Anywhere,” Ned said. “We just need to figure out how to do it.”
“Tie the bones together,” Flo said. “Lin and I will make rope.”
But he hesitated. “These bones are big. The framework will be big. Our hides won’t cover all of it.”
So he had thought it through. He had a good notion of what to do, and had anticipated the problem. Big irregular bones could not make as efficient a house as straight wood poles, and they had no hides to spare. A house with big holes would be largely useless as shelter, because the cutting wind would keep the interior cold.
She looked again at the vast jumble of bones all around them. They were all sizes, but only the tusks were as long as good construction poles. Unless they made the house entirely of tusks—but there weren’t that many good ones. They were stuck with an inefficient big bone-pile shelter—or nothing.
“Put the hides inside,” Lin suggested.
Jes laughed. Whoever heard of such a thing? But Ned looked thoughtful. “Could we tie them in place?” he asked.
“We can sew them in place,” Flo said. “Pass threads through the stitches, then loop them over the tusk-poles. It will be clumsy, but it can be done.”
“Then it shall be done,” Ned agreed. “Lin can work with you on the hides; Jes can work with me.”
“What about Wona?” Lin asked mischievously.
“She can choose,” Jes said, grimacing. “When she shows up.” By tacit agreement they did not openly speak ill of their brother’s wife.
They got to work. Ned and Jes hauled bones into a nearby pile and separated the tusks. Lin ran to dig out their supply of twine, but realized that it wouldn’t be enough for this. But some distance away from the bones they had seen a mass of shed mammoth hair, so she went for that and carried it back. Flo drew out lengths of it and twisted them into a serviceable cord. They would need a lot.
Wona showed up. She surveyed the situation, then went to join Ned. Flo was surprised; usually the woman chose the least rigorous task to work on. But this time Wona threw herself into it and seemed really to be helping. They did need the help, because there were so many bones to move, and some of them evidently weighed more than any two people together did.
Bry stirred. Fio laid a hand on his forehead. He was still burning. “We are making a house,” she told him. “Soon it will be warm.” He sank back into his troubled sleep.
“It must be warm,” Lin breathed. She was Bry’s closest sibling, their two mothers having birthed them within days of each other, with the same father, and the two were also emotionally close. Just as Jes was
to Ned, and Flo herself to Sam. Lin was in most respects a fine girl, but she would be a wreckage if Bry died. She had been distraught when Bry had been lost, and came to life again only when they found him. There had been a time when Bry had teased her about her fingers, and she had thrown dirt in his face, but that was long past; now he was her stoutest defender. The girl was neither crying nor showing particular concern now, and that was a troublesome sign, because normally she expressed herself freely. She surely thought that to admit there was a problem would be to give it power. And, indeed, the spirits did seem to operate that way at times.
Meanwhile the construction of the house proceeded. Ned laid out the parts in an expanding pattern that resembled a giant flower, with the largest tusks in the center. Flo wasn’t sure what the point was, but knew that he had a reason. Wona continued to labor industriously, even working up enough heat to enable her to shed her outer jacket, just as Jes had; what was the matter with the woman?
Then they started assembling it. Ned heaved the point of one giant tusk up to waist height, which wasn’t hard because this was the light end, and the curve of the thing allowed it to rest its center on the ground. Jes hauled another tusk up similarly. They walked toward each other, swinging their two points around, until they crossed like two enormous spears. Then Wona took a length of cord and wound it around the tusks where they crossed, tying them together. Flo couldn’t hear their dialogue, but knew that Ned was giving instructions, so that their acts were coordinated.
They laid down the tied tusks, which now formed a huge semicircle. They picked up two more, and bound them together similarly. Then two more, smaller ones. Flo still couldn’t fathom the purpose.
They took yet smaller tusks and used the points to dig in the ground in several places around the edge of the circle. What was the point of that?
Then they heaved the first set up again, this time all the way, until they were holding it up so that it formed an arch higher than any of them could reach. The two base ends of it were set in two of the holes in the ground they had made. Aha; now she saw it. Anchorages, just as they normally did with wooden poles. They got the arch steady, and two of them let go, leaving Jes holding it up. The arch weighed several times what she did, but she was able to keep it balanced. The other two rolled mammoth skulls to the two bases of it, bracing it in place, and wedged smaller bones around, until Jes was able to let it go. There it stood, like a rainbow made of ivory.
Now they hauled up the second arch, which was slightly smaller than the first. They got it standing crosswise, its bases in two more holes, so that its highest point was under the highest point of the first one. They braced it similarly, until it too stood by itself.
The third arch was the easiest, angled against the other two, passing under both. They braced it until it stood.
Then they rolled a larger skull to a point in the center, under all three arches. Wona stood on it and reached up with cord. But she wasn’t tall enough to reach the intersection, even with that added height. Neither were Ned or Jes. Finally Ned got down, and Wona climbed onto his shoulders, her heavy hide skirt falling around the back of his head. Jes helped him get to his feet with that burden.
Now Wona could reach high enough to loop the cord around the three intersecting arches, without otherwise touching any of them. She made one loop and tied it; then Jes handed her more cord, and she made a second loop, and then a third. She pulled them all snug. The three arches were bound together.
There was a dialogue Flo wished she could hear. Ned seemed to be telling Wona to do something, and both Wona and Jes were demurring. That was unusual; Jes and Wona seldom agreed on anything. But Ned finally convinced them.
Lin was watching too, and she had sharper ears. “He told Wona to hang from the tusks!” the girl exclaimed. “But if she does that, she’ll pull the whole works down on their heads! She’s not that light.”
Indeed Wona wasn’t. She was entirely too slender for a grown woman, but she was adult, and weighed more than Lin or Bry. What was Ned thinking of?
What happened next astonished them both. Wona took hold of the bound central axis of tusks and held on. Ned dropped down and got out from under, leaving her hanging there. Then he pushed her, so that her body swung back and forth. Her scream was audible across the whole bone yard. Her feet kicked and her breasts stood out as she inhaled for another scream.
And the structure did not come tumbling down. It swayed just a bit, but held firm. What made it so strong?
“She’s yelling to him to get her down,” Lin said, beginning to enjoy the show.
“Why doesn’t she just let go?” Flo asked. “It’s not that far a drop to the ground.”
“She wants Ned to get her down. She says he put her up there. Maybe it’s a test of wills.”
A test of wills? Between Ned and Wona? But the two had nothing to do with each other. They might as well have been in different bands. Flo couldn’t understand any kind of contest between them. The useless woman and the brilliant stripling. They had no common ground.
Finally Ned came close, ducking his head as the woman swung toward him, her body turning as she lifted her feet high to avoid kneeing him in the head. Trying to dodge her, he dropped to the ground. Jes and Lin laughed together at the mishap, probably equally delighted by the man’s fall and the woman’s predicament. Ned looked up, and Flo saw him gape as if dizzy, before he got back to his feet. Flo knew what had happened; he had inadvertently seen right up under the woman’s skirt, when her legs were spread wide, a stunning view for a young man. Then he called instructions, and she straightened out her body, and Ned did what he had first intended: he caught Wona around her swinging hips and held her so she could let go of the tusks. She grabbed his head and slid down his front, pressing her bosom hard into his face as it passed.
Lin laughed again. “He played a trick on her. But she got back at him!”
Flo did not laugh. She had a sudden dark suspicion. Wona, however useless she might be generally, remained exactly the kind of narrow-waisted, plush-bottomed, firm-breasted creature young men liked to get hold of—and Ned was a young man. He would naturally not have any notions about his elder brother’s wife, and of course he knew Wona’s shrewish, idle nature. But young men did not necessarily think with their heads; their interest followed the direction of their penises, and those organs could readily be roused by the proximity of almost any appealing female form. Legends were rife with lovely nymphs whose only seeming purpose was to oblige the lust of whatever men were nearby. Wona had just come to work with Ned, helping him accomplish his purpose. She had enclosed his head with her thighs, and then shown him her bottom and rubbed his face with her breasts. Of course she was clothed in her hide vest and leggings, as all of them were; still, such contact would have its effect. Was she making a play for him?
Flo pondered that as the others resumed work on the bone house. Why would Wona do such a thing? She had never been keen on joining their band; her own band had wanted to get rid of her, and only after she married Sam had it gradually become clear why. Wona simply was no asset to any band, because of her indifferent attitude. She did not pull her weight. But she was cunning enough to know exactly whom she had to please, in order to get away with it. She pleased Sam. But Sam, like Dirk, was away from the band much of the time, because hunting big game was no sometime thing. They might have to track a given herd for several days before finding a vulnerable animal, and then pursue that animal for several days more. The meat and hide were invaluable when they came, but the price of them was the absence of the hunters much of the time. Flo could live with it, and it had seemed that Wona could—but now it looked as if the woman craved a bit of entertainment on the side. That was extremely bad medicine.
So Flo hoped that her suspicion was wrong. Certainly she would say nothing about it. Because if it was right, they would have one awful problem. Better just to believe what the others evidently did, that Wona had for once made herself useful when there was a difficult job
to be done, and had suffered a small mishap when testing the stability of the structure, and not intentionally vamped anyone. That was definitely the best interpretation.
Lin took the new cord they had made and went to join the others. Flo stayed with Bry and the children, and worked on more cord. The house was taking shape now, and Ned’s design was impressive. The huge tusks served as the framework, and they were piling skulls and pelvises around the base, and weaving the long leg bones between the tusks. It was like a giant basket turned over, with bones instead of reeds. Individually the bones were nothing much, and in small groups they fell apart, but when the design was large enough, they could be woven into a durable structure. A basket of bones!
Finally Flo could remain apart no longer. She picked Bry up and carried him to the new house, calling to the children to follow. She set him on the lee of the structure, shielded somewhat from the continuing wind, and joined in the weaving of bones. This was after all her specialty, though she had never before thought to weave a house.
The work went well, with all of them participating, but there was no way to complete it by nightfall. Jes had to stop to prepare some of their packed dried meat, and Ned had to make a fire by the house’s entrance. Lin had to take a hide bucket to the river they had spied in the distance, for water to drink. That left Flo and Wona to tie the hides up inside the house. Fortunately most of them were already linked together; they had simply folded them in large segments after taking down the last shelter. So all they needed to do was use the extra cord to loop around the tusk and bone supports, to hold the mat of hides up. It was weird, having the hides inside the supports instead of outside, but it worked in its fashion. The bones broke up the wind, so that only eddy swirls got through, and the hides stopped most of those.
The fire started to warm the sheltered interior. The smoke blew off to the side, so that little of it got inside. The house was working. Flo brought Bry inside. At last he was out of the wind and in a halfway warm place. Now he could mend—if the spirits allowed it.