Chapter 2

While some of them preparing the smilodons and the antelope, I organize the rest of the women to drag the bodies even further from the cave. Digging a grave is too much work, and the river is too far, so we put a heap of stone on each of the body. I watch the work force covertly, but as I expected the dominant feeling seems to be sorrow, even if there is spark of anger, it is soon extinguish by helplessness. I can still see the mouth of the cave from the seven cairns, so it will serve as a reminder of the power that I hold each time they leave the cave and look at the cairns.

The sun almost gone completely before they finish butchering the three carcasses. The moods of the adult are subdued, the children are far more resilient, and in fact they seem excited by the amount of meat they will eat tonight. I guess even with seven hunters they used to have, meat are still luxury foods.

Well it is true what they said about innards valued more than meat as delicacy. One of the women fearfully offers me roasted liver, heart and lung. I take the liver, it was a little bloody in the inside but you can't afford being picky. Accepting the offering will encourage their servitude.

The older children are indeed seem to be happy with the meat and the innards, the mothers feed the younger children by chewing the meat themselves first before feeding it to their child. It is not exactly hygienic but compared to malnutrition, I guess it is fine.

After we finish eating, I see some of the women are preparing to sleep, so I point at the leader's woman and make a sign for her to approach me. I guess she learned the price for disobedience this morning. She crawls toward me hesitantly and sit across me when I make a sign. Since she keep her head down and refuse to meet my eyes, I have to lift her chin softly, even that single touch make her flinch.

I touch my chest and say "Mack", for a single second I'm tempted to say me Tarzan, but common sense prevailed. I have to repeat the gesture several times before she understands.

Fearfully she point at my chest and say "Mack".

I nod and smile, point at her chest and raise my brow. She didn't understand, so I tried again, I point at her chest and put my hand palm up.

Slowly, she point at her chest and said "Tala"

There's no way I'm going to repeat this with every single one of them, so I simply point to one of the women, and raised my brow at Tala. She understands it immediately and slowly speaks the name of the woman my finger pointed at. The other women names are Lika, Likuu, Fira, Kaati, Firu, Fani, Saeri, Seff, Suki, Tula. Fira, Lika and Seff are the pregnant women. Lika and Likuu seem to be sisters just like Tala and Tula. Firu is the oldest woman and I think related to Fira. Tula, Likuu, Kaati and Suki are unmarried. When I pointed at the boys and girls, Tala only repeated two type of word, I guess their meaning is "boy" and "girl" and only adult have name.

Simply knowing their names; made a lot of the words that I heard when observing them, understandable.

I stand and put my hand on Tala's hair, "Mack own Tala" it took several second before her head nod in resignation, I repeat this gesture on everyone, and they all nod. Only after sitting again, I realize what I have done, it is funny in dark sort of way. Some people would have first introduces pottery, or archery, of wheel to this civilization if they have a chance. Not me; the first technology I introduced to the Pleistocene age is slavery. With that knowledge in my mind I fall asleep, Tala lie rigidly with her back touching my chest, but I think she eventually able to sleep.

In the middle of a night, I wake up because a whimper I heard. I realize that the source is the female in my arm, I can sense that she already awake by nightmare, but afraid to move her body and awaken me. So I slowly caress her shoulder, arm, chest, belly to her hip, repeatedly while whispering "Tala good woman, Mack own Tala". After an hour she relaxed and back to sleep.

The meat can still provide enough foods; there are things that I need to know from Tala so I don't go hunting today. I herd my entire slaves, including the children, to a spot near a creek a little further from a cave; I dig a latrine and by example order them to take shit and pee in this spot and never on the creek above this spot. After that I herd them a little above the spot to use the water to clean their body.

When we return to the cave, I notice that some of the women are discomfited by the experience, it is funny how a people that naked all day have a taboo about dumping and bathing in front of other. This reminds me that I need to understand better about their belief.

I approached Tala and played the game of what's that to increase my vocabulary. I hit the jackpot, when I point to the sky, and she says "Sky, great father".

I smile inside, so sky is their greatest deity, but I need to make sure, so I lift my brow, "great father?"

Tala nod, her expression is serious, she point at the sun "Sun, son of sky", she point at a mountain far away "Earth, daughter of sky".

I nod and point at my chest, "Mack son of Sky, brother of Sun and Earth".

Tala seems shocked to hear that, and there were several gasp from around us. Claiming as demigod will have several benefit if I can pull it off, Hell, Several oldest civilization have already proved it, the Chinese, Japanese, Egyptian, It is far more difficult convincing the common folk to commit an uprising against a demigod than a fellow human.

I can see the shock are slowly draining from her eyes, replaced by disbelief and anger, so I lift a spear horizontally with my hand, triggering my adrenaline burst, I cut the spear into several pieces with the same hand, before it even move an inch. All she can see are that my hand suddenly blur and the spear change into several pieces of wood. All the women gasp, they wouldn't have realized how the way their husband was killed, since they only saw it from a distance. Now, they are shocked, Tala is the one that first recovered, there is no longer anger in her eyes, it is replaced by awes.