Chapter 19

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet.

In the dawn's early light, Ureeblay and the young wolf crouched silently down behind the knee-high, gravel and stone embankment of the small stream bed. The excited boy wore his spear quiver angled forward against his outer left hip, his sheathed flint knife near that on his belt over his clout, and his travel pouch slung down by his right thigh. His best spear, nocked into his spear caster, was ready in his right hand. His thumb and index finger hooked through the leather end loops and clasped the spear shaft into the carved channel down the center of the caster.

He held the spear shaft down across his lower stomach. On his left, near the wicked flint point of that spear, Ureeblay easily clasped the nocked shaft between the middle and index fingers of his left hand, which also gripped the shaft of his other fletched spear sticking up from his quiver. He didn't want the two shafts to click together and give any warning to his prey.

Away from both banks of the stream, there were fields of knee-high meadow grasses overhung by the heavy, early morning mist. The cool vapor reduced visibility to a short spear cast all around the boy who crouched with his right foot in the cold water. This tiny watercourse was a branch of the small stream that emptied into the lake.

This stream must be spring fed, as cold as the water was, part of his mind told him. That was what he had followed back into this meadow—the flow of cooler water. Ureeblay hadn't even been aware of the existence of this small, branch stream when he had surveyed the surrounding land from his high, boulder perch the day before. Now that he thought back on his actions, he chided himself in one part of his mind for standing exposed to the surrounding countryside. Silhouetted up on that high prominence, an attentive Hurstmon anywhere in the area would have seen him.

Another part of Ureeblay's mind didn't care—he'd been thrilled by the view from the boulder heights. Now, excited by the hunt, the growing boy was almost daring a Hurstmon to come and do his worst. On the other hand, the young hunter knew it would not be just one Hurstmon that would come after him—if he had been seen.

The cold water flowing over his right foot brought him back to where he was—in this small stream. This branch was located in the intermediate direction of the Warm-Eve on the other side of the boulder ridge from his camp. The stream bed meandered through the wide, flat meadows and the brush thickets that were found between the higher esker ridge and the intermittent ridge of boulders that lined this side of the lake and that backed up his camp.

This stream branch actually joined a small creek he knew about in the strip of trees and the underbrush bordering the Warm side of the lakeshore. Ureeblay had crossed that small creek with the drag before finding his beach campsite. On several occasions while walking along the beach to the Eve of his camp, he'd crossed over it again where it emptied into the lake about a third of the way down the shoreline from the Eve end of the lake. Near the mouth of that small creek was where Ureeblay had left his travel-drag when he and the young wolf began following the creek from the beach, and into the trees on this hunt.

When the colder flow of water brought his wet feet to its source—the mouth of this unknown branch stream—Ureeblay began to appreciate how other small watercourses, such as these two small streams—were joining the flow of his original traveling companion and forming up into a river. It struck the growing boy that the smaller streams were like the people of his camp, and the watercourse that was his original traveling companion was like his clan, and all the clans flowed into the grand Toolie that was his people, the Welow Swongli. He grinned at his musings as he and the amazing, honey-colored wolf crept along the new stream. Then he thought back on how he found himself following this trail of cooler water.

Last evening he and the wolf had eaten wonderful-tasting, flame-heated, smoked bison and thrice-baked bog apple while another sacred fire he'd built on the beach cooked the overturned turtle carcass near the shore. Ureeblay was certain that the more times these terrace bog apples were cooked and reheated, the better the flavor. He was again aware that eating these treats sharpened his senses and attentiveness. On several occasions growing up, he recalled hearing his mother talking with one of her friends who was the camp healer about what plants or concoction of ingredients strengthen the senses or stamina. However, he put that idea out of his mind. He had things to accomplish.

He'd studied the impressive Red Deer antler as he sat by his cooking fire. The dark-brown pedicle, or base of the antler where it had grown from the skull of the deer, was big around. Holding the antler at the base, the tips of Ureeblay's fingers and thumb didn't even touch. However, the width of his hand did cover up the straight main beam of the antler from the pedicle to the first tine coming off the main beam. The brow tine, as it was called, was elbow-to-wrist-long and came straight off the main beam at that point. A hand-and-a-half beyond the brow tine joint, the main beam started to curve.

Two good hand lengths up the curving main beam, the second tine, or bey tine, started. The main beam was still thick at this point and the bey tine was almost as thick. The bey went the length of his forearm and then forked into three good-sized curved tines. Farther up the curving main beam, the trey tine sprouted out almost as long as the bey tine, but that tine was thinner and forked, ending in two smaller, curved tines.

The surroyal tine coming off the main beam was a curved, short point, the length of his hand. Not far along from the surroyal joint the main beam had thinned and ended in a broad cup, called a palm because it looked like the palm of a hand. Ureeblay remembered the times his sire taught him the names of each of the antler parts and their possible uses. His sire was a very good knapper of flint, so he concentrated on the use of antler tools in some of his lessons, while always telling Ureeblay that knowledge was very important.

His sire stressed that learning the correct names of antler parts would help him communicate with other hunters and that knowledge would help him talk to those who worked antler into various tools and weapons—if he didn't make his own tools. However, Ureeblay could tell by his sire's tone of voice, even as a small boy, that he expected his son would grow up to be a skilled toolmaker as well as a knowledgeable hunter. His sire had told Ureeblay that the more knowledge he possessed of all aspects of nature, as well as the tools and processes of all the Welow Swongli, the more he could accomplish as he grew up. From the way his sire talked, Ureeblay knew now he was including skills many of his young friends considered woman's work in his sire's important knowledge.

Grinning to himself, Ureeblay had shaken off that memory and could see his sire was correct. Focusing back on the antler in the fire light, he saw there were an amazing five fine tines, at least a finger long and some longer, that grew from around the edge of the cupped palm of the antler, like tan-streaked ivory fingers.

With his mind's eye flooding with images of things he could make from parts of the antler, Ureeblay took a deep breath to get his thoughts in order. The pedicle, the brow tine, and a two-finger-length section of the main beam of the antler beyond where the brow tine joined the main beam would make a good hammer, not necessarily for flint work, but a good hammer just the same. Once he used his double-edge flint utility blade to saw deeply around the antler at the point he wanted, he could break off the main beam. If he could saw all the way though the antler, that would be best, but might take some work. Several of the tines, the growing boy knew, he could use as spear points, and Ureeblay had his eye on two of the tines from the palm, once he removed them, as other tools.

One tine he wanted as a utility punch and the other for a retouching point for his flint cutting edges. He retrieved his double-edged utility blade and three short lengths of grass. Ureeblay quickly wove a three-finger wide, forearm-long grass belt, and folded it over twice. In place of a leather-knapping grip that he didn't have, he used the woven grass to hold the utility blade so he didn't cut his fingers. Then, he started grooving the main beam of the antler at the point he would break the antler to form his hammer. Once he was happy with his progress toward freeing the hammer section he envisioned, Ureeblay decided he would work on removing the tine point for retouching the edges of his flint tools, which were in need of sharpening.

While he sawed a deepening groove around the diameter of the main beam, he pondered where he would also cut the antler to create the strikers he wanted for working flint. Better to have them ready, he told himself, than find flint and have to wait until he fashioned all the rest of the tools he'd need to make spear points and such.

He worked steadily, and in less time than he would have thought possible before he started out on this adventure, he had made good progress on girdling deeply around the main beam where he wanted to take off the antler hammer. Ureeblay was happy with his progress on freeing that tool from the antler, but it was time to remove the tine from the palm on the antler surroyal. He needed a retouching tool now; he couldn't put off sharpening his utility blade any longer. The growing boy had already turned his utility blade over to use the other cutting edge, once already.

After more hard work than it should have been, he finished cutting a girdle around the base of the little finger-sized tine of the antler palm. Putting his dull utility blade and grass knapping-grip down, he stood and stepped over to the back wall with the huge antler. He knew there was a sharp, thumb-wide fissure in the face of a boulder close to his woodpile that protruded over the sand. The crack extended up over his head.

Ureeblay gripped the main beam between the brow tine and the bey tine with both hands and stuck the little finger tine into the fissure. Lifting the palm of the antler up at an angle above his head, so the other palm tines would not hit the rock, the growing boy slowly pulled the antler back toward his chest with more and more effort. There was a loud, almost hollow-sounding Crack! The antler jerked free and Ureeblay almost lost his balance as the tine broke at the girdle cut and then dropped out of the bottom of the fissure and onto the sand.

Holding the antler in his left hand, he picked up his new retouching tine and checked the end he'd just broken off. The tine separated from the palm of the surroyal, leaving three slightly jagged ridges. Ureeblay walked past the cooking fire and rested the antler against a granite boulder at the base of the cliff, illuminated by the dancing flames. He started rubbing the fractured end of the tine against the grainy surface of the granite wall, grinding the ridges down against the rock face.

Ureeblay rubbed the tine against the granite for a while and checked the jagged ridges. Not satisfied, he started grinding again. Finally, when the ridges were smooth enough that he could put pressure on the ground end with his palm and not jab his skin, he was satisfied. With that work accomplished, Ureeblay put his new retouching tine into his travel pouch along with his dull utility blade and decided he would go check on the turtle carcass cooking on the beach fire. He would sharpen his tools when he could see better.

Under the night sky, the young wolf had sniffed around as Ureeblay used a stout wooden staff from his pile of firewood and levered what was left of the huge turtle inside its shell off the fire. There was a hissing of coals and a cloud of stinking steam billowed up when some of the cooked rotten-turtle soup sloshed out of the rear leg holes. He felt the shard of frozen lightning inside its sheath bump against his breast as he worked, holding his breath from time to time.

He felt sure he had succeeded in cooking the rest of the rotting meat from the bones of the dead animal. Using a length of firewood, he carefully poled the huge, hot shell holding the remains of the carcass over the two wood limbs of his drag, and with some difficulty, onto the entwined branches of the load bed. Then the boy stripped off his clout, and used his travel-drag to pull the dead beast and four wooden poles out into the cool, silky water of the lake. The young wolf splashed along eagerly beside him, then growled at the collection of staked-out, weaving-grass bales until Ureeblay pulled his steaming load close enough to one submerged bale to show her it was not a threat.

Employing the four hip-high staves he'd collected from his firewood pile, he started staking down the cooked turtle carcass to the bottom in the shallows by his soaking grass bundles. While he was busy doing that, the empty drag began to float away toward deeper water. The barks and splashes of the soaked young wolf got Ureeblay's attention.

In the illumination cast down by three-quarters full Weepai–the larger moon–in front of him and the light of Jaypai behind him, as well as all the Swongli up in the night sky, Ureeblay was just able to make out the tops of the almost submerged poles moving into deeper water. The growing boy at first was hesitant to go after his drag. He was not sure how deep the water was at the drag, and his imagination reminded him the lake bottom dropped off somewhere out here. However, he was sure of the amount of work he invested in building the drag, and he knew how much extra work the contraption allowed him to do.

With that, the growing boy bravely pushed further into the dark lake, aware that more and more of his tail of long black hair from the back of his scalp was streaming out behind him. Finally, in the chest-deep water, he retrieved the floating drag, feeling all his muscles slightly flex in the water as he continued to feel the sandy lake bottom against his feet and toes for any sign of the drop-off.

The wet wolf paddled circles around him and his contraption made of wood. Ureeblay was surprised the wolf followed him into water over her head, and that she knew how to move about in the water without drowning. Surprisingly, the young animal seemed to be enthusiastic about swimming.

As he pulled the drag back into shallow water, his hair started sticking to his bare, wet back. The growing boy recalled the terms used by the trader from his camp.

Swimming.

Ureeblay watched the wolf swim and remembered the trading tales told around the evening fire about the young trader's trip to Lake Wyzaal, where the members of that clan did not drown when they threw themselves into deep water, because they somehow knew how to swim in the water. Ureeblay, watching the young swimming wolf and pulling the floating drag, got back into the shallower water near the bundles of weaving grass and the partially staked-down carcass of the great-great-grandsire of all the crested-back snapping turtles. There the boy used one of his long stakes to keep his drag from floating away again while he finished securing the cooked turtle carcass to the lakebed, using only three staves angled down over the submerged, crested-back snapping turtle.

The boy and wolf returned to the shore with three grass bundles on the drag. Ureeblay then put out the remains of the sacred beach fire by shoveling it over with wide bladefuls of sand, using the Red Deer shoulder bone he'd left for that purpose by his dry clout.

The boy returned to his camp with his drag load of wet grasses, the shoulder blade shovel, and wearing his dry breechclout while the juvenile female wolf headed out to roam the night after several vigorous shakes of her body. Ureeblay checked the bison meat he was smoking on his new racks under the woven-grass teepee. He added more frenal leaves and two damp, hardwood sections of broken tree limb to the coals.

Back by his cooking fire, he had spent a good while separating and then spinning hanks of bison hair between his palms and the tops of his thighs. Ureeblay decided he would make each resulting section of slightly matted, rough yarn just over his body-length long. As part of his mind concentrated on producing the tight yarn, another part was free to ponder cutting up the antler to his best advantage.

Then he wondered what was his mother doing right now, and did she fear he might not return? He felt anger slowing building up in his gut—if Crosof and Achinay had said anything to make his mother and his sister think he was dead, they would pay. Achinay, especially, liked to relate the more gruesome aspects of any tragedy—if he was on hand to see it or not. He always made sure his version was bloodier, noisier, smellier, and with more suffering and woe, than what had actually happened.

The few times Ureeblay had been with Achinay where something ghastly did happen—when little Toko fell from the high bank to the river rocks below and broke his arm, for instance—the story he heard coming from Achinay's lips was like nothing he remembered witnessing. If Toko's mother hadn't already carried the crying little boy to the healer before she heard of Achinay's version of events, she would think the rocks along the river had dashed out her youngest child's brains, and every bone in his body had snapped like dry sticks on impact.

Ureeblay took a deep breath to calm down as he maintained his even pace, twirling the strands of bison hair between his palms and the tops of his thighs. He hoped he finished the yarn he wanted before the skin on the tops of his legs became chapped. When his sister or mother did something like this, they put big piece of leather on their legs or made sure to be wearing a long skirt or buckskin leggings. Thinking about how his mother made cordage, Ureeblay remembered to make the length of each piece of yarn longer by a third, as braiding would shorten the resulting plaited cord.

Once Ureeblay had worked through two-thirds of his supply of bison hair, the skin on his legs felt chapped, he'd finished three-hands-and-three of the longer yarn lengths. Using driftwood sticks as crude spindles, the growing boy improve the tightness of his yarn by further twisting the cord as he wrapped it around a stick. His mother had stone weighted spindles, and Ureeblay now understood a weighted spindle produce more consistent cord than his product using just a bare stick.

He put most of the unused hair back into the grass envelop that he'd woven to carry berries. The rest of it he stuffed back into his pouch. Then he used three stick spindles of his improved yarn at a time to plait three-strand cordage. He created five body-lengths of the plaited cordage as his cooking fire burned lower into the coals and the night wore on. To finish his handwork for the night, Ureeblay knotted each end of all five of his new braided cords and decided that he would put the remaining three spindles of yarn into the envelop holding the rest of his bulk bison hair. He was sure he would find uses for the yarn; possibly a small net to hold the sling stone instead of a leather pouch.

Now he needed some rendered animal fat. He would lightly grease the cords before creating his new weapons—two slings. Once he finally decided what he would use as the pouches to hold the sling stone in each weapon, he would use one cord, folded into two equal lengths, to fashion a short sling for close to intermediate ranges. He would use the greater parts of two of his new cords to make a long sling for distance throwing. He had always wanted a long distance sling. By creating slings of two lengths, he would have two long cords and two shorter remaining lengths left over. He might use those in securing the cross piece for wood handles at the front of his drag, with enough cord for the simple shoulder harness if he did not come up with enough rawhide to bind the handle on the drag.

Happy with his progress, and even though it was quite late, the boy went out on the beach to the Eve. He headed away from the buried remains of the beach fire that had been under the huge shell, planning to study the Seven Sentinels. Once facing the correct direction on the sand under the sparkling night sky and the waxing crescent that was the silver-white face of Weepai, with Jaypai's brighter slice of shining light almost to the top of his starry climb, the boy made certain of the relationships of the Seven Sentinels to the other reference Swongli he could see. Using those observations and the mental techniques his sire had drilled into his head starting from the time he could talk, Ureeblay was satisfied. He now had a new appreciation of the distances he needed to travel to position himself for a return crossing of the Toolie—somehow.

From his observations, he had calculated it would take him two or three days of travel, once he reached the banks of the Toolie to gain the point where he had washed ashore. Pulling his travel-drag behind him for that distance would most likely double the time. He would be fortunate to average three travel-lengths a day, having to pick out a route he could get through with the drag. It would be another hand plus one or two days of travel farther upstream to reach the approximate point where his adventure had begun on the other side of the wide Toolie, pulling his gear on the travel-drag. He knew he would have to find a way across at least one small river that emptied into the Toolie, too. There might be more.

With those observations accomplished, he felt his growing resolve to succeed, with the travel-drag carrying all the supplies the spirits had placed in his path to manhood. He walked back to his low, sacred cook fire in camp and secured for the night his equipment and supplies up in the tallow tree near the back wall. Shortly after that, the young wolf returned to camp and tried to claim one of his new sleeping mats as her own. Ureeblay had warned her away as he took off his clout for sleep. Then the growing boy used one of the thick grass mats to cover over his sleeping wallow in the sand against the granite wall before he pulled his second new mat over his body. As he drifted into his second life in his dreams, his second self was aware of the young wolf. She had curled up on his cover mat, against his back near the warm granite wall behind him.

While Ureeblay slept, Tanjeara as well as his sister, Nayohme, visited his second life of dreams. In his dream, he was somewhat surprised to realize that he and the young women were in the walled sleeping area of what his second life memories told him was his own second-life shelter. He noticed the outer walls of the shelter were made of big, tight-fitting stones! Amazing, the stones at the tops of the two walls on the short sides of the room were like steps going up to the center of each wall, so the centers were higher than each end.

There were evenly spaced logs resting on the steps and spanning across the long section of his shelter with a thick layer of reeds angled down over the logs and secured with thick, woven-grass straps in places. There were red coals on a raised hearth across from his soft, deep sleeping furs. The smoke from the fire rose up and out a hole at the top center of what Ureeblay realized was the higher end wall.

Even in his second life where everyday images and relationships could visit him, but upside down or reversed it seemed to his waking self, the idea of a rectangular living space was at odds with the circular, conical shape the boy experienced in the shelters of his people and his own family.

Now, the two young women visiting him—for his second life knowledge told him that the World Mother had blessed Tanjeara with womanhood during his adventures—were friendly with each other as they joined him in his sleeping furs. They both took their time in sharing with him the physical pleasures that were one of the World Mother's blessings to adults of the clans. In his second life, the three of them shared long, wonderful, and repeated experiences in many variations, and the sleeping boy had found his climax thrice without awakening. After sharing their second life pleasures together, as the three of them cuddled, his sister showed him the trick to weaving near-waterproof mats as she rested back against his left side under the soft, bison robe covers.

Then from his other side, Tanjeara informed him that the great-great-great-grandsire snapping turtle had burrowed into the sand under the woodpile so Ureeblay could find his body after the ancient turtle passed into his third life. She told him that the huge crested-back snapping turtle had returned to the sand where he had first broken shell and where he had dug his way out of the sandy clutch pit under the twinkling lights of the Swongli overhead. Tangeara told Ureeblay the smells of the ancient turtle's birth lake and his birth sand had been in his last, satisfied breath as he had died.

Tanjeara whispered into Ureeblay's upturned, second-life ear that she knew it was the turtle's last wish for One-of-Those-Coming—Ureeblay—to watch over and protect the turtle's top and bottom shells once the dorsal and ventral sections parted. She told Ureeblay that the great-great-great-grandsire's parted shells would also watch over him, protecting him and what was his. Tanjeara said the great-great-great-grandsire had been the chief among all the crested-back snapping turtles of the Toolie for twice as long as many of the remaining turtles had shell-rings. She whispered into his upturned ear that the great-great-great-grandsire's equally long memories, cunning, and knowledge of the river still resided in his shells. If Ureeblay listened to the shells and watched over them, he would benefit from all the water knowledge and cunning stored therein.

Tanjeara announced that the great-great-great-grandsire offered his shells, as the foundation of Ureeblay's unfolding, new, first-life world.

Then his sister told him that on his waking, he was to start in the stream from the beach and to follow the coolest water. She told him that by doing so, he would harvest what he would need to cure the spirit gift of the bison hides; he would find what he would need to help protect him and his; and, she told him, the sky would open before him like looking over a summer meadow. Nayohme told Ureeblay that she was proud of him, but she was sad that she would not see him again until he returned to his people.

She told him he was not to spurn or turn away any other young woman who would come to him in the river of his dreams. After all, she reminded Ureeblay; his mother had taught him manners and expected him to use them every day with all those he might meet.

Ureeblay awakened before dawn, agitated about enjoying second-life pleasures with his own sister. He realized he was upset not so much that Nayohme was his sibling, as from time to time a brother and sister would mate in some clan of the Welow Swongli. What he resented was that he had enjoyed the pleasurable second-life gifts with someone who in his first life was always telling him what to do, what he'd done wrong, and always telling him—if their mother discovered what he was up to—how she would be disappointed with him.

Still curled on his side between his woven mats and cushioned in his sleeping wallow he took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. In spite of his agitation, the images, sensations, tastes, sounds, and the smells of all the wondrous delights shared between his two dream girls and his sleeping self filled his mind.

Then, he began remembering the things Tanjeara and then his sister, Nayohme, had revealed to him after sharing their pleasures with him in his second life as he slept. Now he found all they had shared with him was as vivid as if it had happened while he was wide-awake. He took another deep breath and detected the tang of his spend messing his skin and his bottom mat, and found he was grinning, thinking of Kalcut's youngest daughter.

Levering his torso up under his top mat and resting back on his arms, Ureeblay pondered all that Tanjeara had told him of the great snapping turtle. A shiver went up his bare back. Recalling in some amazement the rest of his second-life experiences with both young women, he knew he would use the technique his sister had shown him concerning weaving waterproof grass mats.

He now realized when he was younger, trying to copy Nayohme's hand movements as she weaved grasses, that his sister was actually folding over a thin edge along both sides of each long grass blade with her fingertips. She did so with such practiced ease that he could not make out exactly what she was doing other than running the edges of each grass blade between her fingers. He doubted she would have told him what she was doing if he had humbled himself and asked her at the time. In fact, he knew if he'd been truly humble and asked, she would have taken advantage of that opportunity and teased him.

Ureeblay did question some of the other things she'd told him. However, he decided he would heed the directions she gave him about following the cold water back from the beach. For was not all the knowledge that both Tanjeara and Nayohme shared with him part of the World Mother's blessing as she opened his dreams to Her mysteries, just as the two young women had opened their bodies and blessed him in the second-life?