Chapter 1

Gazing out over the steep, green valley, Taima tried to focus on the elk he knew were hiding in the trees just downhill from the rock upon which he was lying. The wind would not betray his scent. After remaining still for so long, the birds wouldn't mark his presence either. Still, concentration didn't come easy.

After weeks of procrastination, Taima had finally gathered enough courage to approach a young maid. The period of winnowing had begun, when the weak and deformed, upon reaching the age of first majority, were sent out from the tribe into the wilderness. If they survived the winnowing, it was a blessing from the gods and they would be welcomed back at the next winnowing. If they didn't, the gods had decided that as well.

Taima wasn't' worried about being winnowed. He wasn't the strongest like Nagur, but he was strong. He wasn't the best hunter like Gidede, but he was good enough, adding food to the larder most of the week. He could repeat the words the shaman taught at the mouth of the sacred cave. His father wasn't the highest of ranks but he ranked and was respected. Besides, Taima was the eldest child and the only son.

The winnowing was also the time when men of first majority asked women of first majority for bed rights. In his tribe, the man took the woman to be his wife but she had the say over the bed. Before going out to hunt this morning, he had formally asked Fivalee, second daughter of the goat master, the third ranking member of the tribe for her bed rights.

She was the second daughter, which meant she would inherit little from her father. Only the first daughter was considered a pass into the inner council of the tribe. Fivalee's older sister had the face of the moose as far as Taima was concerned; she took after her father. Fivalee was beautiful though with a round face and hazel eyes that seemed to dance in firelight. She was tall and shapely, but, best of all, she didn't have moose lips.

Taima had already canvassed his male competition and Targur, Gidede, and three others had no particular interest in Fivalee. She offered no immediate prestige, no weighty dowry, and, much to his confusion, no moose lips. Maybe she was a slight stretch because of his father's middling rank, but Taima and his mother didn't think so.

The glade next to the trees held the favorite plants of the elk. He could see the silkweed and brown nettle waving in the slight breeze, calling to the elk with their delicate flavors. The fresh shoots of the tougher wild grasses were also sticking up high in the wind and the elk always ate those. Still, the large beasts appeared to be otherwise occupied.

The shadow of his own head caught Taima's attention. The sun was moving towards the second half of the day, when the elk stopped feeding until the late afternoon. The morning was gone and Taima had nothing to show for it.

He debated climbing down to the stream at the bottom of the valley and spearing a few fish, but he was feeling a bit lazy, or anxious. Surely Fivalee had discussed Taima's offer with her parents by this time and she would have an answer.

When he had asked her this morning, her eyes had gone wide with surprise. She had given him a slight smile and she recited the formal words of acknowledgement. She hadn't turned him down flat. Of course she was going to say yes, wasn't she? Her long black hair that went halfway down her back flashed through his mind.

He sat up and scratched his belly. A black squirrel in a nearby tree immediately chastised him for sitting in his territory. The squirrel's alarm caused a slight commotion as birds and rodents scurried or flew into hiding.

"Annoying little shit," Taima called after the squirrel. He slid his bow over his shoulder and picked up his spear. The spear was actually his father's and had a metal head. Metal was a worthy find for the tribe and often the chief organized expeditions into the steep crags in the east to find the metal artifacts of the ancients. His father was on just such a trip which is why Taima had the spear. His father was due back any day for the great feast at the end of the winnowing.

A deer haunch was still smoking over the cooking fire at home, but fresh elk would have been a welcome feast for a young man about to get a wife. Sometimes things just don't seem to happen the way he would have wanted.

The village was over the ridge and down in the valley on the other side. This mountain range was long and steep with ridges across the top and gentle slopes only at the bottom. The ridges didn't rise much further than the tree line and there were many accessible trails over the ridges for three of the four seasons. As Taima climbed out of the hardwood forests into the evergreens, he breathed in the scents of pine needles under his feet. Brown bears also liked these mountainsides and Taima kept a quiet gait through the underbrush.

Pausing at the top of the pass, Taima gazed upon his village which was spread along the banks of Tippigiyoga River. The river was deep, and, even from this height, Taima could see that the current was swift. The river served as a barrier on their east, not that they had much to fear from that direction. The mountains further east were impassable and their deep crevasses were the haunts of madmen and evil spirits. To the east was the Wilderness as they called it.

Looking west, Taima followed the softer ridgeline of the next mountain. He couldn't see beyond but he knew there were two more valleys in their territory before the boundaries with their western neighbors who were sometimes allies and sometimes enemies depending on the occasion.

Back in the village, white smoke was rising from the cooking huts. Each clan within the tribe maintained a cooking hut and storage bins. They had small plots on which they grew grains, beans and vegetables. They hunted and harvested wild plants to add to their diets. They kept goats and sheep, though mostly for their milk and wool.

The shaman had read something new in the sacred books about using the scrapings from the inside of a pig's stomach to make a new food out of milk that kept well. Taima had spent three days trying to track down a wild pig. He returned a day late with two tiny piglets while Gidede wore a crown of ivy for his sow. He would have been better off returning empty-handed than having to endure the ribbing he got for snaring piglets. The goat master took them and gave them to his youngest as pets.

The afternoon sun felt good on his face as he hiked down the mountain. Taima spied some nut grass and he stopped to dig out the bulbs at their roots with his knife. Rubbing the last of the dirt off of the white, fleshy bulbs, he chewed the onion-like roots as he continued down the game trail.

Drawing near the riverbank, he sought out the rocks that were set just so on the short stone flat that ended at eastern shore of the river. Reaching underneath the rocks he pulled out the thick rope, which was hidden under the water and was anchored to the far bank. Taima slapped the rope across the water to call the waterkeeper.