The Caveman
Copyright© 2016 by Colin Barrett
Chapter 5
I do not know how I have come to this place, but it is surely not the place of our people. It is a place of strange things and strange ways and a strange manner of speech and nothing familiar at all.
The woman is strange, too. She is older like me, and thin; I think it may be that there is no food, or not much.
Yet she has given me rich broth, full with flavor, and more again. I remember she took none herself. Does she give me her food and go hungry? Why would she do this for one she does not know?
But one who lives with so many wondrous constructs cannot lack food, I think, else she would trade for food.
Nothing is sensible.
Is the woman alone? Where is her man? Perhaps he hunts; yet no hunter would go in snow such as I see, the game is scarce and even if it can be found it will flee when one approaches and the snow will hinder pursuit. Is it that she has no man? She is not yet so old that she cannot bear children, and she is not deformed so that men would shy from her. Her features are regular, her breasts full, her hips perhaps small but I think wide enough for giving birth.
Is she barren? Even barren women find men, though not so easily as those who may bear children.
I understand nothing of this place or the woman or anything about me.
But I am here, and here I must stay until I am healed and may go to seek my people.
I will heal quickly, I think, the woman knows of hurt and how to help. She did as must be done when ribs are broken, she felt first to find sharp edges where the bone can do harm and when she found none she bound my chest. It is a wondrous binding, I have never seen such, it is far better than the sinew and skin that I have used before on others who were hurt as I am now. I almost have comfort, though I must still move carefully.
I would help this woman who helps me if I could do so, but my hurt will not allow much. And I do not understand enough of this place to know what help I can give.
In winter such as this the women do most things at the hearth. The men fashion spears for the hunting season, when time cannot be spared for that; they sharpen bone into tools for digging and fletching and other tasks; the ones who know how knap the flint for knives and spearheads and such uses; they teach the male children what can be taught of the hunt.
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