“Some went away today, but others stayed behind. That is what they are likely to do next time, too.”
“Then next time,” the Village Mother said, “you may attack the ones that are left. There will be fewer of them, and they will not be expecting it. If you can drive them away, perhaps they will all go. They are not civilized people, as we are, who have a home that we love. They are mere wandering savages; and there are plenty of other places where they can find beasts to hunt. Perhaps they will go on once they realize they can get no advantage here.”
Listening, Va hoped what she said was right. The others would go away, but Dom would stay in the wood. She would find him there and teach him all the things he needed to know, and after that bring him to the village. She rocked on her haunches and smiled secretly, thinking of it.
• • •
Three days later the opportunity which the Village Mother had spoken of came. Early in the morning scouts reported that many of the savages were moving away down the valley. The men wanted to open the gap in the hedge at once and go out to attack the ones left behind, but the Village Mother said no. They must wait until those who had gone were too far away to hear the cries of their friends, and run back.
An hour later the men begged again to be allowed to give battle, but the Village Mother still refused. When one protested, saying that the hunters must be more than five miles away by now and well out of earshot, she said:
“There is something else. I have noticed that they drowse in the heat of the afternoon, like all hunting beasts. That will be the best time to surprise them.”
Some of the men grumbled a little, but they would not go against the counsel of the Village Mother. So they waited, while the sun rose to its zenith and began its downward path toward the western hills. Then the Village Mother gave the word, the stone and the thorn branches were pulled to one side, and the men of the village ran shouting against the enemy.
It was soon over. Those left behind in the village heard cries of triumph from familiar voices, and went out to find them victorious and the savages all chased from the clearing. But they wasted no time in rejoicing. Following the instructions of the Village Mother they at once led the cattle out to graze, and collected fodder for the days ahead.
The Village Mother said: “If they have sense they will not come back, but go elsewhere to do their killing and leave us in peace. But if they do return they will still need to go away some time to hunt. When that happens, you can beat the ones they leave as you did today. We must be patient, and in the end they will depart.”
They waited until evening to celebrate the victory. One of the cows was killed for the feast. The girls trailed chains of flowers over the beast, and the Village Mother asked pardon of the animal’s spirit and then, while girls fondled it, one of the men struck it a blow behind the ear with a stone held in a twisted rope, and it sank to its knees, not knowing it was killed.
After that the carcass, now no more than dead flesh, was cut up and roasted over the fire; and they ate it with spiced bread and drank beer made from herbs, and afterward ate fruit that the children had picked during the afternoon. Then they sang together in the quiet dusk. These were not songs of battle and victory, but songs about the good things of their life in the valley: about love and marriage, children and crops and animals, about the shifting rhythm of the seasons—winter and seed-sowing spring, summer and harvest-autumn. Songs about life itself, and about death which, coming in the fullness of age, was a good thing also.
Va sang with them and thought of Dom. The savages would go, and he would be waiting for her in the wood. She would make up a song about that and perhaps in days to come—long years ahead maybe when she was old—all the people would sing it.
• • •
Next morning, when the savages were seen on the hillside above the village, everyone laughed at first. They looked so silly up there, scrabbling away the dirt at the base of the huge boulder. The villagers called to them, asking them if they were looking for roots to eat, or would they eat earth as they had eaten dust in the battle the previous day? Only the Village Mother said nothing and looked somber.
But gradually, as the hours passed and the savages went on with their digging, the rest of the people grew more quiet. They watched in silence as the hunters clustered round the stone and heaved against it, trying to make it move. They shouted with relief when they saw that the stone did not shift, but relief turned to dismay as the savages went back again to their digging.
Va found the Village Mother sitting apart from the others. She said:
“Mother, do something. Save us.”
The old woman did not speak for a moment. Va was shocked to see that tears welled in her eyes and ran down her wrinkled cheeks. She said at last in a low voice:
“There is nothing I can do, child. They will break through the hedge. After that our only hope will lie in the courage of our menfolk. And I fear that courage may not be enough against brute strength.”
The villagers watched the savages heave on the stone again, and saw it rock and heard their enemy’s distant shouts of joy. The savages dug and rocked, dug and rocked; then the stone toppled forward and down but only went a little way. And some cried that they would be safe after all—that the stone was too irregular in shape to be rolled down the hill. They were still saying this when it began to move again, traveling faster and faster, lifting from the hillside and banging down as it hurtled toward them.
The men of the village rushed to that part of the hedge where the boulder would strike. For a moment or two it was lost to view behind the thorns, its presence marked only by the thunder of its passage and the cloud of dust thrown up behind it. But in the next instant the hedge exploded inward and the stone broke through, scattering men as though they were children’s dolls.
Behind it came the shrieking, howling savages. The men of the village joined battle with them, but it was hopeless from the beginning. One by one they fell under the onslaught of the great white clubs of bone which crashed and crushed them down. Others did their best to fight also—old people, women, girls and boys—but they were brushed aside. They were so strong, these savages. Even without their clubs they would have triumphed, by the strength of their arms; with the clubs they were irresistible.
Va herself tried to oppose one shouting warrior, and was beaten to the ground by a flailing blow that drove the breath from her body. By the time she managed to get to her feet again it was almost over. In a couple of places a handful of men from the village still fought on, but for the most part the savages roamed unchallenged. Where they found a man still living they smashed his skull with their clubs. Va covered her eyes, but could not stop her ears against the groans of the dying.
She went to look for the Village Mother, and found her by the spring, lying with her legs trailing in the water. Va dragged her clear and cradled her head in her lap; her face was bloody from a blow which had crushed the side of her face. She spoke mumbling words at first; then said:
“It was my fault.”
Va rocked her gently. “No, Mother.”
“My fault,” she said again. “I am Village Mother and I failed you. I failed you all.”
“There was nothing you could do,” Va said. “You could not stop them uprooting the stone, nor stop the stone breaking through the hedge. It was not your fault.”
“I thought they would go away, but it was because my hopes deceived me. I knew what I should have done. They were stronger than our men, who could not hope to stand against them. We should have fled secretly while we had the chance. I thought of it, but if we had fled we should have had to leave our huts and our cattle and hens. Most of all, we should have had to leave this place which has been our home. So I kept the people here, hoping the savages would get tired of trying, and go on.”
She coughed. Blood bubbled from her mouth and Va wiped it away. The Village Mother whispered:
“Hoping is not enough, and people are more important than cattle and huts. One can find more cattle, build more huts. One can make a new home.”
She struggled to speak but the words would not come. Va knew she was dying. She said:
“Rest, Mother.”
The one eye that could see looked at her.
“Get away, child, while you can.” Her voice was very faint. “Go through the hole the stone made in the hedge. Escape into the valley. It may be that one or two others of our people will escape also. If so it lies with you, who would have been Village Mother in due time, to guide them to some place the savages have not found. Promise this, and I will rest.”
Va said: “I promise.”
“Then go!” With an effort she raised her voice. “Go now.”
It was an order that had to be obeyed. Va eased her head down gently and slipped away, making for the place where the stone had crashed through. But when she got near she saw that it was too late—a couple of the savages stood on guard there, leaning on their blood-smeared clubs. There was no way out.
She thought of returning to the spring, but did not. The Village Mother was dying: there would be more peace in her death if she believed Va had escaped. Instead she went in search of her mother and found her in a group of women and children; but not before she had also found the bodies of her father and her brother. Her brother had been two years older than Va, a boy who laughed a lot but whose face now was twisted in the grimace of death that had come as the club smashed his skull.
Va went to her mother’s arms. She did not say anything, either about the bodies or the Village Mother. There was too much to say, and nothing any good. They held each other, quietly crying.
She heard a harsh voice nearby, the voice of one of the savages. Frightened, she turned to look.
All she saw first was the club. Sunlight flashed from it except where blood had dulled the brilliance of the surface. She wondered if the savage would kill her, too, and felt she did not mind. Death might as well come now as later.
But he spoke again and this time there was something different, something in the voice that she knew. She remembered the same voice crying after her as she ran away through the wood. It was Dom. She would not believe it and looked at the face for evidence that it was another. It could not be Dom that stood there, holding that bloody club.
Yet it was he. Staring, she recognized him more plainly; dropping her eyes she saw the scar, almost healed, of the wound she had cared for. She looked once more at the club, stained with the blood of her people, perhaps of her father and brother, and then with loathing into his face.
He raised the club and, thinking he was about to strike her with it, she cowered away. Instead he put it in his left hand and grasped her arm with his right. He was trying to make her go with him—Va held back, but he dragged her forward.
Another savage, bigger and fiercer than Dom, came up. Dom spoke to him with his hand still on Va’s arm, and the big man replied. When Dom spoke again, the other laughed, and the sound, ugly and cruel, made her shiver.
She could see something like fear in Dom’s face as well, but he answered back. Then, after they had exchanged more words, he pulled hard on Va’s arm, trying to drag her away. The big man roared in fury and struck at Dom with his fist, and Dom let go her arm to dodge the blow. It did not save him: a second powerful blow smashed against his head and he dropped without a cry.
The big savage took her arm as Dom had done, but far more brutally; his was a strength she had no hope at all of resisting. He dragged her to the door of a nearby hut and threw her in, sending her spinning to the floor. Va lay there helpless, too stunned and wretched even for tears.
• • •
Other women and girls were thrown into the hut. One, a friend of Va’s, told her they were killing the cattle, all of them, cruelly and wastefully. She had also seen them killing the older women, and any younger women and girls who got in their way. The more they killed, the more furious and savage they became. At least those in the hut were out of the way of the slaughter; whatever might happen afterward, it was the safest place at the moment.
Va listened to her dully. She supposed that what she said was true, but it did not seem to matter. The rest of their people had been murdered, along with the innocent cattle, and obviously they would be murdered eventually. Death might as well come now as later.
But she stayed in the hut because despair and misery robbed her of any urge to move. She lay huddled on a bridal mat, woven in brightly colored strands of cloth, and remembered the wedding for which it had been made and how she and the other girls had helped in the weaving. The woman to whom it had been given was not in the hut; most likely she lay dead somewhere outside. There would be no more mats, no more celebration of weddings, no more of anything. All was ended.
A figure appeared in the doorway: a savage, she saw, and though she had thought she was resigned to being killed felt her stomach contract with new terror. Then she realized it was Dom again, and turned her head to the wall. He called her name, and she did not answer. She heard him moving cautiously about the hut. A hand reached down and moved her head, though not roughly. In the dimness of the hut, Dom’s face looked into hers.
He spoke. His tone was urgent—wanting something—but the words in his savage tongue had no meaning. Va stared and did not answer. When he spoke again she shook her head and once more tried to turn away.
Then, haltingly, he used the words she had taught him when they played the naming game in the wood.
“Va . . . Dom . . . water . . . flowers . . . fruit. . . .” His face was twisted, trying to convey meaning. “Dom—Va . . . run!”
She guessed what he wanted. He would help her to get away from the big man; they would escape together. A day ago it might have been what she would have wanted, too—perhaps more than anything else. But that was before the stone crashed through the hedge and the savages came after it, shrieking and killing, killing. . . . Dom still held his club, and even in the shadowy light of the hut she could see the marks on it.
He pulled at her hand, and Va shook her head. The village was destroyed, all her people dead or about to die. She might as well die with them.
Dom tugged at her, but less roughly than he had done out in the open, and he kept his voice low. Probably he did not want to attract the attention of the big man and be knocked down again—she saw there was a swelling under his eyes. She said, allowing the loathing to come into her voice:
“I will not go with you. I hate you, who have helped slaughter my people. If you try to make me go I will scream, and the big man will come and strike you. Perhaps this time he will be angry enough to kill you. I would be glad of that.”
Although he did not understand her words, she knew he could tell what her feelings were. He spoke in his own tongue, his voice urgent.
“Go away,” Va said. “You and your kind have destroyed everything. You are a savage, like the others. The Village Mother was right when she said I should have left you to die. Now she is dead herself.”
Tears stung her eyes. She remembered the Village Mother lying in her arms by the spring, and how she had blamed herself for not telling the people to flee while there was time. Her voice echoed in Va’s head:
“Get away, child . . . escape into the valley. . . .”
Others might have managed to escape before the savages set a guard over the gap in the hedge. Once clear she might be able to run away from Dom and find them. It had been the last command the Village Mother had given her: to guide them to some place the savages had not found. She had promised her she would do that.
Va looked at Dom. She said:
“All right—I will come with you.”
He could tell the change in her tone. He tugged at her arm again, and this time Va got to her feet and followed him.
7
WHEN DOM REC
OVERED HIS SENSES and got unsteadily to his feet, there was no sign of either his father or Va. The killing was still going on, and he could see the hunters in among the cattle, felling them with their clubs. There would be far more meat than the tribe could eat, and most of it would rot. They went on with the clubbing because the cattle simply stood there to be killed, lowing but unable to escape, not really even trying to get away. And also because of the lust which was in the hunters’ blood by now, driving them on to further slaughter.
Dom might have felt it in his own blood if he had not been so shaken by what had happened. The blow had been staggering in itself. He had been cuffed often enough as a boy and sometimes knocked down, but this was the first time he had felt the full force of his father’s strength. He understood the reason for it: he was no longer a boy but a hunter, and a hunter who offended the chief could not hope to escape with a slap as a boy would.
If he offended again his punishment would be more severe still. His father had wanted a son, but only a son who obeyed him. Any rebellion would provoke his anger even more than a rebellion by one of the other hunters. But to knuckle under meant losing Va; his father had taken her for himself and would never give her back. Dom rubbed his aching face. It was futile to think of fighting him. He was the strongest man in the tribe, Dom the youngest and weakest of the hunters.
On the other hand he could not contemplate giving Va up. If only they had stayed in the wood together. . . .
He looked and saw his father’s huge figure among the cattle, flailing with his club. But where was Va? He heard the moaning of women from inside a nearby tree-cave, and peering in saw girls huddled together. He called “Va” and got no answer, but went in anyway and made them show their faces. One was Va. He spoke to her, telling her that they must go away together, back to the wood. She did not answer: even when he used the words she had taught him, she looked away. She did not speak until he tried to draw her out of the hut, and then her voice was filled with hatred.