He concluded that it was an intermediate fire, not big enough for brush, so probably a tribal campsite. He made careful note of its location; he would avoid that until he had no choice. When he encountered the people of this region—and the fire made it clear that they existed—he wanted to do so in a planned manner, with a good escape route planned. But he might be able to avoid such contact for some time, since they evidently didn't often hunt here. Now that he knew where they were.
Hugh resumed his quest for the river. He saw movement in the thicket. In a moment he identified it as a monkey. He could probably strike it with his axe, as it was regarding him curiously from what it thought was a safely high vantage. Monkeys, too, had not been hunted here recently. But he already had his kill, and there was something about its almost manlike aspect that made him disinclined to hurt it anyway. Monkeys were not men, yet they were not really far different from men, and the similarity bothered him a bit. Other men had regarded this qualm on his part as foolish, but it remained. He would not kill a monkey unless he had to.
He moved on, and soon saw the river, or rather the spray of water and mist it threw up at the foot of its rapids. As he come closer he felt the fringe of that spray like a light rain on his face, hands, and arms. He saw that the lay of the land was such that he would do better to cross to the other side of the river here rather than farther down where it might be deeper; there were rocky shallows here that he could navigate readily enough, with several channels running between them. He made his way down to the water.
There was motion on the near bank. Hugh stood still, his arm cocked, his eyes searching. It was a little crocodile, harmless and shy as far as he was concerned, though dangerous to smaller creatures. This was another creature he could have killed for food, if he had not already gotten his rabbit. This was truly a good hunting ground.
He used his axe to cut a sapling for a staff and made his way across the river, carefully, checking each rock before trusting his weight to it. He jumped across the surging channels after poking the landing sites with the end of his staff. It wasn't just firmness he checked for, but to make sure there were no bad snakes or bugs by them. One bad sting on a foot could be much mischief. He got soaked by the spume, at times plowing a seeming rainstorm, but that was the way of such things.
He completed his crossing, then paused to sniff the air. There was something. He searched the bank, checking every tree, sniffing repeatedly until he had it.
“Anne,” he said, facing the right tree.
She stepped out from behind it, the loveliest creature he knew. She was naked, with her dark hair swirling down around her very full bosom. “You took long enough to spot me,” she said. “If I were a man, I could have attacked you.”
“Men aren't in this region,” he replied, advancing on her. “Except farther downriver where there's a camp.”
She came to meet him, walking in the manner only she could. “Let me wash you,” she said.
He let her strip away his loin-fur and pouch and set them on the ground. Then she led him back to the nearest thick spray-channel. It was a narrow one, with the water throwing up a constant barrage of drops and splash. Sunlight slanted through the vapor, making circular rainbows.
She stepped halfway across the channel and stood with her legs spread above the surging flow, one foot on each side. “Come to me, my ardent man,” she said, smiling.
“Are you not concerned that I am wrong-handed?” he asked her, making a joke of what had become most serious. “That the spirits will strike you down for associating with me?
She answered him seriously. “I was virtually outcast myself, before you came and found me beautiful. If that was the mischief of the spirits, then I have no fear of them.” She smiled again, spreading her arms and breathing deeply, inviting him with all her body. She was more than beautiful, with her swirling hair and phenomenally full breasts and sleek body and limbs.
How could he resist? He straddled the cleft of the river, facing her, feeling the water striking his legs and crotch. He moved forward to embrace her, bending his knees just enough to get his eager member into place. Her thighs were slippery wet; he slid in readily, and climaxed immediately, while she held him close and rubbed his back with flying river water. It was as if the entire river were flowing through him and into her, providing a force and ecstasy he could hardly remember experiencing before. She kissed him, her lips smiling against his. The rapture continued after his body was spent, and he just held her and held her, loving her in the wetness of it all. What did all else matter, with her here with him like this?
Eventually she whispered in his ear. “I would like this forever, my love, but my baby soon will wake, and I must feed him before he cries.”
Of course she was right. “I will finish my exploration and join you,” he said. He rubbed a hand across her slick bottom, then drew away enough to stroke a slick breast. “But we must do this again, soon.”
“Soon,” she agreed. Then she stepped off the channel and shook herself dry as she walked, in this manner holding his attention yet longer. She recovered her own fur and donned it, took his rabbit pouch, and walked into the forest beside the river, going upstream toward their hidden camp.
“Soon,” he echoed, feeling his member hardening again already with the memory of the experience. What a way to do it! Anne must have planned it, waiting here for him. What a woman she was!
Hugh went to dress, then walked on downstream. He wanted to see whether there were any trails or other signs of human presence in this vicinity. The fire had been close enough so that this should be in the local tribe's normal hunting range, unless it was a temporary outpost for a more distant settlement. If they didn't hunt here, why didn't they? There had to be good reason. He needed to know this before he and Anne spent another night here.
He found a trail, but not human. This was hyena spoor. Hyenas were dangerous, but seldom attacked men unless really hungry. The presence of hyenas should not be enough to deter human hunters. Hugh's home tribe had driven the hyenas to the fringe of their territory. Hyenas were smart enough to know when they were overmatched, as they were by an organized human hunting party. So this simply was another evidence that the tribe did not hunt here. But not reason why. Anything bad enough to deter human hunters should also scare away hyenas. The mystery deepened.
He followed the hyena path, knowing that any of the big creatures near enough to smell him or hear him would move away. A wounded or sick man they might gang up on and attack, but he was neither. A group of them could overcome a single man like him, but they didn't know that. And any who did attack a human being were apt to find themselves relentlessly hunted until all were dead or fled from their territory. They wouldn't know that Hugh was out of his territory and therefore vulnerable. So he acted with boldness, knowing that the animals would respect that. But when he rejoined Anne, he would warn her. If she left the baby in a place a hyena could reach . . .
Then he heard something that made him pause. It sounded like the cry of a baby. Perhaps he had imagined it, because he had been thinking about his own baby.
The sound came again, and this time he was sure. It was the thin wail of a newborn human infant. But there was no soothing murmur of the mother's voice. It wasn't his own baby Chip; Anne would never leave him in a place like this, and he knew his own son's cry. This was another baby, and by the sound of it, alone.
What could a baby be doing by a hyena trail?
Hugh moved on, doubly alert for human presence, but could detect none. No sound, no smell, no traces. Just the baby.
There was light ahead. He left the trail and moved silently toward the light, for that was where the sounds were coming from. He made his way carefully through the thickening foliage near the light. He peered beyond it.
The forest opened into a glade. In the center of the glade was a cleared face of stone. On the stone lay a tiny baby swathed in a worn dirty fur wrapping. There was the faint smell of the crushed herb used to keep flie
s and mosquitos off. That was all.
Perplexed, Hugh studied the fringe of the glade. He saw a path entering the forest on the far side. That could have been where the mother had walked, bringing the baby. But she had to know that it wasn't safe here. Where had she gone?
Then he got a faint whiff of old carrion. Something had died here, some time ago. It could be the remnant of one of the hyena's kills. He sniffed, locating it. He saw a small bone. A human bone.
Then he knew. This was the tribe's abandoning ground. Where unwanted babies were left to die. That explained why hunters avoided this region. They did not like to think about what was here. People had spirits, and babies had them too, and the spirits did not look kindly on those who killed their bodies. So women would come here, leave their babies, and hurry away, and no one else would come at all. The rejection extended to the entire region, because it was not known how far spirits ranged. Any hunters who came too close could be attacked by the spirits and suffer injury. It would be made to seem that the injury was accidental, for the spirits arranged other causes for their malice, but no one was fooled. Bad fortune was sure to come to those who exposed themselves to it by coming here.
And Hugh had walked right into it. Now the spirits would be after him. Indeed, they might already be gathering, planning his accident. They would attack Anne, too, and Chip. No, not Chip, because he was a baby himself, one of them. But he would die when Hugh and Anne died. Spirits didn't necessarily distinguish between the living folk; they struck at any people who tarried in their domain. Maybe their urge for vengeance was so strong that they didn't care about individual guilt; any living person was considered culpable. Maybe his wrong-handedness made it worse. Could Bub have been right about that? If so, he and his family were doomed.
But there might be a way to fool them. Hugh was a hunter, but they might take him for a mother if he picked up this abandoned baby. If they killed or hurt the mother of a baby, so that the baby was left without a protector and died, they would be guilty of what they punished others for. So they normally didn't go after mothers with babies. So he had been wrong to assume that Anne would be attacked; she should be protected by her baby. Hugh needed protection too.
He entered the glade and picked up the baby, using both hands. It was female and seemed healthy. He wrapped the hide blanket about her more closely, put the bundle in the crook of his arm, and hurried back down the hyena trail. He would rejoin Anne, and they would flee this region before nightfall, getting clear of the spirits. Protected by their babies.
But when he came to their camp, where Anne had just finished nursing Chip, it didn't happen that way. Anne looked up and instantly recognized the nature of his bundle. “Where did you get that baby?” she demanded, amazed, as she set Chip down.
“This is the place of abandonment,” he explained. “They are left out for the hyenas. We have to—”
“A girl,” she said, taking the baby from his rigidly folded arm. “What are we going to do with a baby girl?”
“Protection,” he said. “The spirits won't attack us if she's with us. We can flee this region now.”
She looked sharply at him. “And what then?”
He was blank. “Then?”
“Once we get free of this region, what about this baby?”
He hadn't thought of that. “Maybe leave her somewhere else, and move swiftly away from there.”
“And the tribe who left this baby—what of them?”
“We'll have to go away from them, because they won't like our interference here.”
“Back up the river, the way we came?”
“No, we can't go back. To the side, perhaps.”
“Where there is no river. No water. No easy path to follow.”
She was right. This was a worse situation than he had realized. “But we can't stay here,” he argued.
“With the baby, maybe we can. She will protect us here, as long as she lives.”
“But she won't live long. She was abandoned.”
“Unless we make her live.”
“But we can't—” Then he understood her meaning. “But can you save her?”
Anne shrugged. “I have two breasts.” She brought the baby to one of them.
Hugh realized it was possible. Chip had grown well on her full breasts, and was almost ready to start other foods. He would not need all her milk. There might be enough for the foundling girl. He watched the baby starting to nurse. He knew that sometimes babies couldn't survive with other mothers, but sometimes they could.
So perhaps the problem of the spirits had been forestalled, for now. But not the problem of getting past what could be a hostile foreign tribe—with one of its abandoned babies. What protected them from the spirits might put them into worse jeopardy with the tribe. Unless they could get beyond its territory without being discovered.
“Maybe if we travel at night, and hide by day—”
“No. We need to hunt and forage. I must eat well, and rest well, to keep up with two. We can't travel and hide.”
“But what are we to do?” he asked plaintively, horrified by this disaster.
“We will stay here,” she said firmly.
“But—”
“Who is going to bother us?” she asked.
And he realized that if the spirits let them be, so would the tribesmen. They could stay right here, for a time.
Except for one thing. “If the spirits discover my—” He paused, hesitating to say it, lest the spirits be listening. But his glance flocked to his left side.
“Surely they know already,” she said. “Didn't they see you hunting? Maybe they consider you their friend.”
Hugh was astonished. What she said made sense. The spirits would have seen him hunting, and they had left him alone. Perhaps they had even led him to the baby, testing him. When he had taken it instead of leaving it, the spirits could have known that he was their friend. And if that was the way of it, yes, he would be their friend.
“Make a fire,” she said. “This baby needs more warmth than I can give her.”
“But that will signal our presence to the tribe,” he protested.
“So?”
And it wouldn't matter, because the tribesmen would not risk the wrath of the spirits. They would think it was a ghost fire, intended to lure them in for punishment. How neatly Anne had figured it!
He gathered tinder and brought out his little spark stones. In due course he had a fire. Anne sat beside it with a baby held on each arm, letting them nurse on either side as they wished. “Shall we call her Mina?” she asked.
Hugh was not ready to argue anything with her at this point. “Yes.” He set up the rabbit for roasting.
So it was as the evening progressed. Mina did well enough, seeming to have no trouble with Anne's milk, and Anne knew very well how to care for a baby. Gaining confidence in the protection of the spirits, who were now perhaps their friends instead of their enemies, Hugh went about the business of making a competent shelter for the night.
As darkness closed, they entered a fairly tight hut, with the fire banked at the entrance, giving off just enough smoke to discourage insects and predators. They lay on a bed of fir boughs with the two babies between them, covered by warm fur blankets. The soft boughs were over sand that would absorb the babies’ urine, keeping them reasonably dry. It was Mina's fortune that Anne was a practiced mother, well able to care for an extra baby, if her milk held out.
Hugh slept, secure in the knowledge that the spirits would protect them all from the tribesmen, and the babies would protect the adults from the spirits, and Anne would take care of the babies. Daytime might be a different challenge, but the night was secure.
His dreams were scattered and not really comprehensible. In some he seemed to be furred like an animal; in others he mated with strange women and hardly noticed. His hands did not seem to matter; he used one or the other without preference. Sometimes he walked with his hands as well as his feet, turning his fingers under, and in the c
ontext of the dream this seemed natural. Sometimes he swung up into the trees with a facility that would have amazed him had he been awake. The dream did not care; it was just there. Whenever a thread of a coherent episode occurred, it broke off and something else formed. It was as if his wandering consciousness was not concerned whether he understood or remembered; the fragments were sufficient to themselves. Yet he tried to understand and to remember, suspecting that there was some vast importance that he was not quite grasping.
He walked through the forest. He heard something. He paused, orienting on it. Was it predator, prey, or acquaintance?
It was a huge gorilla, stomping toward Hugh's home. It growled and swung its monstrous hairy arms, and Hugh had to flee. Then all of his people were fleeing up a steep slope, women and children too. The apes had displaced them, and they had to find new territory.
They crested the slope, and it was a mountain, with steam issuing from vents. He had a little sister whom he protected, but at the moment he could not remember her name. They found more good trees on the other side, and moved into them. Life became much as it had been before, except that they foraged more frequently on the ground.
Then a foreign man came and took his mother. Hugh and his sister fled again, along with their friends. It was another exodus. They formed a band of their own. They fought someone. There were no trees, so they had to go on their feet all the time. They grabbed sticks and rocks to fight with.
There was the cry of a baby. Hugh remembered he had mated and there was a baby. But his mate took care of it.
He was walking again. A rabbit bounded away. He chased it, but it became large, a beest, and they were all chasing it for an interminable time. Finally it led them into a new, strange valley. Someone else got the beest, but Hugh found a new mate, and clasped her and penetrated her with sudden surprising joy.
He saw smoke. Was it a human campsite? He hefted his axe, which he had learned to throw, but discovered that it was useless. The smoke was from a mountain vomiting, spewing out monstrous roiling clouds, glowing rocks, and a red river that burned everything it touched. He and the others had to flee it and hide in a cave until the mountain's rage abated. He was with his new mate, but then he was mating with someone else, a woman he didn't like, and his own mate was mating with a man he didn't like. Somehow this enabled them to escape the fire mountain, and when they did escape it, they separated.