Chapter 27

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

Ureeblay headed directly toward the Morn through the dappled forest, away from the driftwood pile. Part of him wondered just how gazing at the button tree boles triggered his memories of those mysterious second-life visions that came to him the night he'd slept on the many-great-grandsire's belly plate.

As he moved silently along, he discovered the undergrowth was getting increasingly taller. Blocking his line of sight five paces ahead of him as well as farther off to his right and left, Ureeblay noticed more of Father Sun's rays reached down to the underbrush through increasingly larger gaps in the leaves overhead. Here and there, he could see a few insects in the sunbeams that angled from overhead down to illuminate the greenery a stride in front of him. He wondered where his traveling companion the wolf had gone off sniffing around on her own.

Using his nose, Ureeblay continued forward among the trees and the thickening underbrush, following the river scents on the breeze. After pushing his way between two clumps of full, leafy bushes, the young man reached the knee-high bank of the Toolie with two body-lengths of sand and gravel creating a beach between him and the band of lapping muddy water sparkling in the rays of Father Sun next to shore.

Ureeblay stepped down on the bright shore with a fine breeze blowing in from the river and looked downstream to his left. He saw only birds down along the sand and nothing else of interest. The young man's gaze followed the riverbank downstream, seeing it rise higher under the overhanging forest canopy in most places. He quickly turned and glanced upstream. Less than a sling cast away, the beach formed a sandbar extending out into the Toolie. On the other side of that, he could see the muddy water of the tributary flowing out into the deep blue water of the big river.

Looking back across the wide river directly in front of him, Ureeblay could see the muddy water extended only about a third of the way from the beach toward the center of the mighty Toolie. The young man saw waves perhaps knee-high out in the middle, but none white-crested as he'd seen in places downriver. He could make out the green forest canopy coming up from the far distant bank, which he estimated was over a travel-length away. The barrier of the forest-covered foothills rose up almost directly behind that.

At the location where he hoped to cross the river and be back in Welow Swongli territory, he figured he could climb those foothills and reach the other side in, say ... two-and-a-half days, even pulling his travel-drag. Once across those heights, he could travel to Sweet Water camp in no more that a hand-and-three days with his load of gear, supplies, and his fabulous trade goods.

As he continued to look out over the middle blue expanse of the Toolie and to the far bank, Ureeblay felt a rising mix of emotions fill him. Among those feelings was a deep core of calm contentment and security, as well as a welcome sense of home that came over him. However, it occurred to him that the response in his chest was not because the far shore represented the territory of his people.

It was the sight of the river itself.

Then, the young man noticed he felt a slight distastefulness when he looked at the muddy water closest to him. A strange thought came to him. After the vision the World Mother gave him in his second life, allowing Ureeblay to see through turtle eyes and share turtle memories, could it be that was he feeling what the great-great-great-grandsire might feel if the old turtle could see his river as Ureeblay was seeing it right now?

The hair at the back of his neck stood up below his long braid of hair and against his hunting torque and the rawhide plait holding his frozen lightning. A sense of sacred awe filled the young man at the string of events he was experiencing.

"Great-great-great-grandsire," his pleasingly deep-sounding voice came out of his mouth and actually seemed to rumble in his chest before Ureeblay even realized he was going to say something. He gripped his trusty hickory staff with both hands, and bending his head forward, he touched the staff to the sling wrapped around his forehead that kept any loose, long black hairs from getting on his face and in front of his eyes. He closed those eyes and concentrated on what to say next.

"I thank you, Great Turtle, for your long life and sacrifice, that I might find your remains at the lake of the Cavern of the Wolf ... I, mmm, I promise I will guard your shells and the memories they contain with my life as best as I am able.

"Along with the spirit wolf, I will add your image to my power totem when I claim my manhood before the people of my camp. In addition, I will not take your shells into the territory of my people, the Welow Swongli, never to return them to this great river. I will wash your remains in its blue water as often as I am able, and I hope you judge me worthy to receive more of your water wisdom and cunning."

He was aware of holding the sturdy staff in his hands, the sand and gravel beneath his moccasins, and the cool breeze moving from off the Toolie and over his body. Below that awareness, Ureeblay felt a renewed sense of confidence and purpose. Since washing ashore on this side of the great river, he'd always thought of the Toolie as a dangerous, formidable barrier keeping him from returning to his people and the happy homecoming with his mother and sister that he'd envisioned. Now he felt the Toolie was more a helpmate—in ways he'd yet to fully know and appreciate, that was certain. The young man also felt sure he would learn many ways the Toolie could benefit him, and that he would enjoy his time near, on, and even in the river.

Ureeblay opened his eyes as he rested his forehead against his hickory staff. He looked from his hands gripping the shaft down to the rounded prod end pushed into the sand and stone beach. He measured the short shadow his body cast toward the Toolie with his glance; it was early afternoon.

He knew that, as fortunate as he was to have some of Great Turtle's memories, the young man was not going to fool himself. The Toolie would not treat him any differently than before. He knew he must show the river every respect that the great water's power and its often-deadly nature required, or his bones would be scattered under the blue surface. Eventually settling into the mud of the riverbed, his remains would leave no trace along the river of his ever being here.

Now, before Father Sun started to slip below the Eve horizon, he needed to scout out at least some of this Muddy River he needed to cross. Part of him wondered if the wolf had a second life when she slept, and he turned to the Warm and started upstream along the Toolie over the sand, gravel, and stones. Certainly, Ureeblay pondered, her second life wasn't as complicated as his second life was becoming. If she were truly the spirit wolf that he thought she was, then somewhere in that furry head of hers, she would know all the answers—wouldn't she? Now she just needed to appear in his second life and show them to him.

As he moved along the sunny beach, out from the slight bank and the tree line on his right, he noted the bank was no more than a step up in height. Ahead, closer to the sandbar he was heading for, he could see the sand went right back into the trees and brush. The call of gray gulls flying upstream low over the river on his left brought his attention back to the muddy water close to shore. He didn't like it, and looked out at the blue water farther out in the huge river.

Ureeblay wished he could judge the distance across the Toolie better. The only places he'd been before this adventure where he could see a clear distance equal to that of the far bank was when he'd been out on the Great Plain. That was located to the Morn and the Warm-Morn of the gently forested hills where Sweet Water camp's territory was located. Remembering using the end of his staff held out at arms length to compare and measure the size the wolf at a distance when he saw her up the stone canyon, the young man decided he needed to be able to translate some of his observations based on that method into known numbers.

His sire had drilled into his head since he was a toddler that accuracy in everything he did was important. For a hunter it was exactly how many bison were scouted at what distance and in what direction and moving at what speed. For his mother and sister, they would need to know how many baskets they had bartered to weave and what size each basket was required to be so they could plan on how many bundles of reeds they needed to harvest to fulfill their part of the bargain. By the time he was four full cycles of the seasons old, his sire impressed on Ureeblay that only children exaggerated numbers, distance, sizes—and especially, deeds.

Ureeblay knew the approximate distance of a travel length, but he also knew different people had different notions as to how many steps or strides that was. The smaller someone was the more strides that person might say were in a travel length. Some people in Sweet Water camp seemed to use fingers of time traveled to judge that distance, no matter how many strides they might actually travel due to the terrain they were passing through. Everyone also ascribed distance to rough equivalents: a sling cast, an aimed spear cast, my longest spear cast, a rock's throw, as well as counting out the distance sometimes in paces or strides.

As he walked along the Toolie trying not to pay attention to the distasteful muddy water along the shore coming from the tributary ahead, it struck Ureeblay that men and boys described and measured distances in reference to the range of weapons; most women and girls did not.

While it was true he'd heard his mother and other women use a number of travel lengths to measure long journeys, he had more often heard his mother measure distance by song lengths. The reed bed she was going to, for example, she would say was "two Gathering songs away," his mother might tell her friend and neighbor, Daysio, as she herded Ureeblay and his sister out of camp to harvest the weaving material. He'd heard the camp healer once say she'd found a patch of mushrooms, "three full My First Stitches distance to the Morn from her shelter."

He knew both of those songs were girls' teaching tunes taught to them as toddlers by their female relatives. Each song had a known tempo and a set number of lines and repeats that helped instruct girls about different types of woman's work. He realized it was helpful that girls found the songs fun to sing with their mothers, mother's sisters, sisters, and friends so the girls could memorize the information taught by the songs in a fun family setting.

He knew the boys in camp had their own versions of some of those girls' songs that would earn them a switching from their mothers if any woman in camp heard the lyrics the boys made up to the tunes.

He couldn't help it and snorted at that childish practice. Now he knew the effort of woman's work and how important that work had become to his daily wellbeing since he washed ashore on this side of the Toolie. He felt a little tingle of pride that he was the only person of the Welow Swongli ever to set foot in this territory. As Ureeblay moved quietly up the beach along the muddy water of the river, he admitted that until now, he'd never given any thought to the differences between how men and women seemed to judge distance.

When a young man became a hunter, after his first hunt the other hunters of his camp gave him a hunting name. However, the new hunter also received a counting bag from his mother. The bag was actually two pouches stitched together inside a larger bag. The back pouch was made of soft, tanned leather with a small flap, and the front pouch was made of tanned fur with a small flap. That way the new hunter could tell by feel the difference between the pouches when he put his hand inside his counting bag. There were five double hands of small, pea-sized stones in the rear pouch. The new hunter could push both of the flaps inside the respective pouches so they would be out of the way when he moved a stone from the rear pouch to the front.

While all of the Welow Swongli counted one, two, three, four, hand; one, two, three, four, hand two; one, two, three, four, hand three, and so forth, hunters and the camp healer, and a good number of the adults counted one, two, three, four, hand; one, two, three, four, stone; one, two, three, four, hand; one, two, three, four, two-stone; one, two, three, four, hand; one, two, three, four, three-stone ... Ureeblay wondered what additional methods the shaman might use to count, and then shrugged off that thought.

Ureeblay's sire told him that by counting stones, it was easier to express larger numbers to others who could count stones. The counting bag each hunter carried allowed for distractions, and a practiced hunter would still have an accurate front pouch stone count of whatever needed numbering: strides, number of herd beasts, travel-lengths—whatever. His sire began teaching Ureeblay stone counting when he started his son's sky lessons as a young boy. He told Ureeblay that the sooner he made the cadence of one, two, three, four, hand; one, two, three, four, stone as familiar and independent as his own heart beat in the back of his mind, the better a stone counter he would be in the excitement of a hunt or on a grueling scout to find game.

At first, after his sire passed into his third life under the claws of the big catamount, Ureeblay tried to turn his awareness away from the small voice inside that seemed to count the beats of his heart or the steps of his feet without his conscious guidance. Not only did the voice sound like his sire's voice, the boy didn't want to know how many stone of steps he was away from the last time he'd hugged the man and seen his smiling face here in the first life. Now, as Ureeblay neared the bright spit of the sandbar and rocks where the muddy river emptied into the Toolie, he knew that he had stopped listening to the voice lest that growing number of steps weigh him down, burying him in the grief of missing his sire.

Considering all that he'd learned so far on this unexpected manhood adventure—and that he felt his sire was watching over him from the third life—Ureeblay decided he wanted to hear his sire's voice again and turned part of his attention to reviving the little voice he'd neglected since his sire's passing.

As the thoughtful young man stepped out onto the sandbar, he asked the World Mother to spare his mother and sister the same grief over his parting from them.

Looking across the mouth of the Muddy River, Ureeblay once again knew he needed a better way to estimate distance. The tributary's width was almost the length of his last stepped-off best-distance spear cast.

The final time Ureeblay received a lesson from his sire in using his spear caster, he found that he could loft a long-distance cast that went a double hand of stones plus three stones of his sire's long strides. Ureeblay had grown taller since then, his arms were longer, and he was much stronger. However, he still used his old longest cast as one measure of distance. Here, the muddy water was perhaps a few hands of strides less than that, say, a double hand of stones using his long stride as the measure. That was still a good distance across the uninviting muddy water.

His sire had once cast a spear two stones of stones plus four stones of his long strides in distance—a mighty cast in deed. However, as a hunter, his father had a stone-carved butterfly weight in the center of his beautifully curved spear caster. It was taboo for youngsters to use a weighted caster. Everyone knew it was easier to cast a spear with more force and accuracy using a weighted caster. Only after mastering their childhood spear casters and then becoming a hunter, was an individual allowed to make a caster with a center weight.

"Master the difficult; surpass the easy," his sire always chided him. Ureeblay had a better appreciation of that saying now.

When his sire became a hunter as a young man, he created a stunningly beautiful caster with a sharp downward curve in the center. When he nocked a spear at the rear tip, his projectile rested on a hand-length of straight, channeled wood at the rear of the curved caster as well as resting on a channeled section at the front, where he gripped the throwing device. He also wound his finger and his thumb in the plaited leather cord attached through the front butt of the caster.

The artfully carved, flattish stone weight anchored at the bottom of the center curve didn't hinder the resting spear or its release. Besides the weight adding force, distance, and accuracy to his sire's spear casts, the wide butterfly wings sticking out on both sides of the caster changed the zip sound created by launching a spear from an un-weighted caster to a soft wooph.

Perhaps he would go out into the fire meadowland tomorrow, he pondered as he looked across the mouth of the Muddy River. He could push his hickory staff into the ground as his pitch point and launch three of his newest spears, using his strongest effort. That way, he could step off the best distance of the three and gain a better grasp of his new abilities with his un-weighted caster.

He could also look back from his longest cast and measure the appearance of his hickory staff sticking up in the air at his pitch point. He would know the count of his strides; and by extending his arm, holding up his thumb and sighting on the staff, he could compare the height of his staff to his thumbnail. In the future, he could use that as a comparison for judging distances.

Satisfied with that as a project for tomorrow, Ureeblay looked up Muddy River and studied the course of the tributary as it cut through the forest toward the Eve. There were no rocks sticking up out of the surface, or other dangers that he could see. The muddy water looked quite deep. From the sand at his feet, he picked up a big rock he could just lift with his left hand. With an underhand toss, Ureeblay lobbed the stone a body-length into the flowing water.

The stone made a satisfying glub as it shot spray up into the air above the rough, muddy surface, letting him know the water where the rock hit was deep. Looking back up the course of the light-brownish flow, Ureeblay followed the tributary with his gaze until a right hand bend to the Cool hid the rest of Muddy River from view.

The underbrush next to the high cutback bank was thick, almost impenetrable in places. Because of that, Ureeblay hiked upriver more than a double hand of strides back into the woods from the head-high drop down to the small shingle of beach. When he found breaks in the thickets, he would approach the bank and inspect the river and the forest on the far side for anything out of the ordinary.

The wolf found him soon after he started to follow the tributary upstream from the sandbar running out into the Toolie. She was excited and jumping around, her tongue flapping out of her mouth. She quickly found a stick and brought it to Ureeblay, he tossed it back into the trees and his furry traveling companion charged through the underbrush in the general direction of the tossed piece of wood.

He'd gone upstream a short way when he heard the honey-colored animal crashing through the brush behind him. The stick in her mouth wasn't the stick he'd launched into the woods. This was thicker and shorter. He was tempted to throw the stick out into the muddy water, but he couldn't see into the river and didn't want her shaking off her body near him once she found a way back up the riverbank. Ureeblay found a clear line back between the trees away from the river and heaved the stick as hard as he could.

After retrieving different sticks, the same piece twice, over the space of six tosses while the two traveled about a third of distance to the curve in the river, the young wolf grew tired of the game and was gone. Since the wolf felt safe enough to want to play, Ureeblay figured there weren't any threats about; at least, he hoped that was the case. He kept his vigil as he moved under the leafy boughs, his moccasins quiet on the loam and dead leaves on the forest floor. There were no signs of floodwater here as there'd been on the lower woodland where he's set up camp.

The thick underbrush near the cutback bank continued as he hiked upstream. Sometimes he could see the river, sometimes only the muddy water near the far shore, occasionally there would be a break in the covering brush and he'd see clearly from this side to the other. The last time he fought his way through the bushes and brambles to look up and down the river from the height of the bank, he could see the start of the first swath of storm-downed trees where the river curved toward the Cool Eve, hiding the rest of the river from his gaze.

Ureeblay finally reached the wide path of destruction, quickly becoming frustrated at working his way though the downed trunks, the broken, thick crowns of limbs, and thick clumps of foliage sticking up into the air from all the wrecked, tangled trees. On the other hand, Ureeblay would be able to harvest any number of good-sized logs for the mat he wanted to build with much less initial effort. The problem, he realized, would be getting the logs to the river through the surrounding mess so he could try out his idea. The mat would support him, the wolf and his travel-drag—or not. If the mat floated everything as he imagined, getting the contraption to go where he wanted it to go would be the next problem to solve.

Perhaps there were enough fallen trees right along the river bank, he thought as he found himself faced with a huge trunk that hadn't blown completely over. The crown of the tree was gone, but there were still enough of the limbs remaining all the way up to the splintered break to make for an easy climb. He would be four body lengths off the ground near the top. That would give him a good view in every direction.

Ureeblay grabbed hold of a limb, pulling himself up on top of the trunk. Then he started up the angled tree, remembering what happened the last time he did something like this. At least this trunk wasn't sticking out over the Toolie. On reaching the last limb at the top of the broken tree, he was high enough off the debris-covered ground that he had a good view all around. He could see that the meander in the course of the river created a huge thumb of land. To save time, the young man decided he would cut across the neck of land, instead going so much farther by following the riverbank.

He climbed back down the trunk thinking about how a number of these fallen trees would provide the logs needed to build the log mat he wanted to test. Ureeblay found he was looking forward to fashioning a few axe heads out of the chert he had, instead of using the better quality flint nodules he collected. With all the toppled trees, he certainly wouldn't use up as many axe heads as he'd originally figured he'd need to cut the logs he wanted to tie together into a sufficiently large mat.

Satisfied with his look around from the top of the angled trunk, now he knew the direction he wanted to take. After climbing back down to the ground, the young man made his way across a sunny patch in the fallen timbers, aiming his course across the neck of land. He still had to slither under downed trees, climb up on more fallen trunks, and push his way around upright limbs and through boughs of thick leaves as he scrambled among the wreckage in this part of the forest. Finally, through a fallen crown mashing down a thicket of brush, Ureeblay could see a glimpse of bright, muddy water. As he got closer to the drop down to the river, he could see several fallen trees—some with roots sticking up—down on the small beach, with their trunks, limbs, and leaves out in the water.

As Ureeblay quietly picked his way toward the high bank's edge, he heard a splash. Looking down, he saw ripples spreading out next to the upriver side of a big, dead, broken off trunk in the water, a few mangled limbs were still attached and sticking out parallel to the shore. Excitement flushed through his body as he walked around the high stump of the bark-bare tree perched a few steps back from the bank rim. Was it a big fish—or several fish? Was it something good tasting he could catch for his cook fire once he returned to camp?

From his left, out over the water, a wide pumping span of silent bluish-gray wings caught his attention. A long-necked bird with its tall legs together and pointed straight back from its body, flapped along just above the center of Muddy River. There was another splash by the trunk, as Ureeblay looked back beside the downed trunk he saw a good patch of water disturbed about two body lengths out from the shingle beach, drawing his attention.

The angle of Father Sun's rays cause the whole area of muddy water around the drown limbs coming off the trunk to shimmer and sparkle up into his eyes, so he wouldn't have been able to see whatever was under the surface even if the water were clear. He leaned forward to get a better look as he stood a moccasin-length back from the edge of the bank, resting the butt of his hickory staff by his right foot. Bringing his left hand up to try and shade his vision, the young man moved his head from side to side, hoping to see whatever was causing the ripples.

Without warning, the high cutback of the bank broke away beneath his feet.

Time slowed tremendously for Ureeblay as he flung his arms out, flapping them like bird wings. He gripped his hickory staff tighter in his right hand as if it would save him from the fall. He felt his body dropping away, both feet shooting out in front of his hips. The young man had the presence of mind to grab his quiver holding his spears and caster with his left hand and jerk it from near his left hip, over on top of his lap. Landing on the quiver might damage the spears or cause the edge of a wickedly sharp flint point to punch through the rawhide quiver underneath his butt.

Sand and gravel dropped around him from the crumbled rim as he fell. The heels of his moccasins hit the short beach and skid halfway to the water's edge out in front of him. Ureeblay's kilt- and clout-covered bottom thumped onto the shingle a stride out from the cutback. As the handle butt collided with the bank debris behind his hips, the head of his spirit hammer against his left shoulder flexed in its rawhide cup on the harness, pushing for a finger length along the back of his vest.

Remembering to breathe, the young man put his left hand down in the sand by his hip as a few small pieces of gravel bounced down on the shoulders of his vest and his raised right arm. That hand was still gripping the middle of his upright hickory staff sticking up from the shingle a few hands away from his travel pouch on his thigh.

A sparkling golden-red dragonfly lifted off the bare trunk in the water to his left, hovered for a moment on the blur of its four delicate wings, and then flew off to his right. The sound of the river in front of him, the woods behind him, and the insects about him seemed to return his awareness.

Looking down at his bare legs and then moving his toes, the shocked young man was more surprised than shaken up. Ureeblay realized he was not hurt as another sloshing burst of ripples brought his attention to the muddy surface between the downed tree trunk and a forked limb in the water.

Whatever was just under the water must be big, part of him decided. Another part of him commented that his mother could whack his bottom harder than the impact from his fall. Thinking about how difficult it would be for her to bend his new, taller and still growing body over to deliver a quick punishment caused him to chuckle from down in his chest as he let the relief of surviving the fall wash over him.

A tanned, dainty hand—a right hand—splashed up out of the muddy water, causing him to swallow his near laughter as he noticed the long, tanned fingers gripping a big three-bar mussel!

Then he caught sight of another hand gripping the limb near the fork at the surface further out from the trunk in the water. He figured the person under the water was using that grip to anchor them to the tree or perhaps help keep them from floating up to the surface.

Suddenly thunderstruck to speechlessness, the young man watched the hand holding the big greenish-brown clamshell move toward the other hand clutching the limb. Near the fingers of the left hand, the shocked young man saw the rim of what must be a basket. The open basket was down in the water, the rim tied between the forks extending along the lapping muddy surface.

He noticed a three-finger-wide black band of intricate lines tattooed around the right wrist of the seeking hand. It found the edge of the basket and the big mussel dropped into the water covering the container. Both hands went back under. The surface rippled, sending some of the sparkling sunlight into Ureeblay's wide-open eyes, just as he'd encountered up on the riverbank before it collapsed.

Part of his mind noted that the fingernails on the tips of the dainty hands, now both underwater, had been well trimmed, and—