Chapter 17

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

Ureeblay had worked hard, and now had six fat sheaves of long grasses staked out in the water of the lake. His naked bottom sat on the seventh sheaf near his covered smoking and drying rack. The growing boy effortlessly worked on weaving another grass mat while he rested on his surprisingly comfortable seat. He had been, not surprisingly, very busy since before Father Sun stretched out the rays of his invisible arms and started to raise himself over the horizon across the heights on the other side of the unseen Toolie to the Morn.

Ureeblay had placed the first tightly woven mat he finished around his filled meat racks, creating something that looked like a teepee. He knew of two clans of the Welow Swongli who lived in teepees—seven camps in all. The growing boy had studied their shelters at congregations. That was where he got the idea for covering his smoking racks.

As he worked weaving the next mat, Ureeblay thought about this cycle's congregation. He hoped he found a way back across the Toolie in time to go. The idea of finding a debt servant came to him as one reason—hah! His mother trading his wealth of bog apples was certainly another. However, he always enjoyed just meeting new people at congregation, usually boys his age. This time, he would be looking at friendships differently. Just last night under the light of Jaypai, he had actually considered finding a WIFE!

At past congregations—even just last cycle, Ureeblay reminded himself—he and his new acquaintances would play together, sometimes creating a friendship that they renewed at each congregation. Ureeblay and his solstice friends, as the once-a-cycle friendships were called, would get to know each other over the full double moon of time that congregation lasted. While hiking in the woods, or fishing, and talking almost all of the time, they found out the different ways each of the camps did some things.

Thinking back on his congregation experiences, as his hands followed the pattern of making a grass mat without his conscious direction, the growing boy knew it was easy to recognize what he and his new friends had in common—the types of games they played, the way they groused about their parents and siblings, the things they said they wanted to be when they grew up. However, he and his new friends—and old friends too—didn't really focus on how soon grown up might be.

"Climbing out onto the big, long, log I thought was stuck against the shore," Ureeblay started to mutter under his breath as he picked up another long grass blade and started working it into his weave, "and trying to make a spear cast for one of those huge sturgis fish swimming up Toolie to spawn—on a dare—sure taught me just how soon grown up can be."

He wondered what some of his solstice friends were doing right now—likely out with a hunting party right now, preparing for their manhood ceremonies. All the boys he'd gotten to know at congregations, as well as Crosof, Achinay, Kreedley, and himself, all made plans in their minds. They talked about what paths they would take to be able to provide for family. Those plans always started out with becoming a hunter. None of them once said something like, "Oh, I want to be swept to the other side of the Toolie and be hunted by Hurstmon because I am foolish."

Ureeblay chuckled out loud at that thought as he finished his second mat, which would be either a bed mat or a sleeping cover. When he was younger and at congregation, visiting a new friend, sometimes alone, sometimes with Kreedley, was how Ureeblay learned about different foods that were the specialties of different clans. All in all, he told himself, going to congregation was one of the most fun ways to learn new things he could think of ... not that his present adventure was in anyway boring. There were just so many different people and different types of people to see, watch, listen to, meet, and learn from at congregation.

"After all," his father told him once, "we are all one people—Welow Swongli—we should learn to celebrate our differences, as well as those things that bring us together and give us strength."

Ureeblay looked up from gathering more grass blades for his third mat, deciding this and the last mat would be used for sleeping—one mat to sleep on, one to get under. He watched the smoke from the frenal leaves he put on the coals of his sacred fire lifting up through the weft and woof of his weave at the top of the mat teepee. Seeing the small tendrils of fragrant smoke curling skyward was satisfying for no reason he could name.

His nearly dry breechclout was flat on an open grid of skewer-length driftwood sticks. He had bent the long sticks together and then lashed them with woven-grass cordage inside the top of a tall tripod he'd setup a few steps from his fire pit. That was the first thing he had done on returning to his camp last evening, wash his clout out in the cold lake after he'd washed his body with sand. Then he had quickly created the tripod arrangement to keep the leather above any night-raiding animals. He figured the meat would be the draw, not his clout, and he had more meat up in the tallow tree.

He hoped when he had smoke-dried his clout back at the bog-apple terrace that he hadn't damaged it. He had noticed the clout was not quite as supple now as it had been before. Once again, he chastised himself about not paying proper attention to everyday knowledge that most boys his age considered women's work. However, here he was, weaving grass matting, which some men and boys considered as woman's work. In addition, he would be doing even more "woman's" work before he returned to his people.

It was becoming all too clear to him that it was the work of a woman—his mother, and his sister—which had provided him with the majority of the comfort and prepared food he enjoyed before this adventure.

The boy hoped he remembered enough of how his mother prepared skins. He had his two sections of bison hide stretching now, and he had carefully scraped the remaining flesh and membrane from the inside of both big rectangular pieces using his hand-held utility flint. He was worried because he did not have what he needed to cure the hides – his mother called it dressing the hides.

He knew his mother normally used the brains of the animal mixed with water and some other secret ingredients as a curing agent. Other times, for reasons he'd never asked about, she used tallow and worked that into the fibers of the hide. When she used the brains mixture, she soaked the hide and then worked the runny mess into the hide, saturating the fibers. His mother, sister, and occasionally Ureeblay, would all twist the hide as tightly as possible, wringing out the liquid back into a container several times. Then his mother would repeat that whole process, sometimes two more times. He knew she wasn't satisfied until the hide was soaked completely through.

In addition, he was not going to try and remove the hair on the outside. He had watched his mother use a scraping tool to do that many times. His sire had made the scraper from the long leg bone of a Red Deer which he'd carefully split long ways. To finish the scraper his sire then polished the edges with sandstone so they would not damage the leather under the hair follicle layer. Ureeblay knew his mother used two different methods. One involved draping the hide over a good-sized, comfortably angled, bare log as a work surface. Ureeblay was now using the stretching-rack method, but would not scrape off the outer layer of hair and the underlying membrane. He recognized he would damage the hide if he tried to use that technique.

If he had the brains to make the curative mixture, once he had finished the steps of saturating the hide and wringing out the hide as best as he could, he would have to use a rounded-end stick as a prod to stretch the hide. He would need to prod every bit of the skin again and again and again, one bison hide at a time, in all directions, until the hide was completely dry. His mother taught Ureeblay to prod the hide until it was completely dry and became slightly warm to the touch.

Over the last full progression of the seasons, that had been his job. Ureeblay was good at it as long as he had someone there to talk to him and take his mind off what he had considered was utter boredom involved in the repetitive, detailed work. However, the person talking to him couldn't take his attention too far off the detailed work he was doing either.

If he could produce a halfway good, supple hide with his mostly unguided labors, he could cut and fashion himself new clothes. Yes, he told himself, he wanted to see that happen. Because, at the rate he'd been washing his present clout lately, it would become a rag before he returned to his people. It would not do for him to return to Sweet Water camp as a naked, rich young man.

Ureeblay was thinking of making himself a short, leather kilt to protect his traitorous young-man parts and his butt. He knew his stitching ability was almost beyond primitive compared to his mother's and his sister's skills. He would have to fabricate a flint burin and awl and a wooden or bone punch as well as find the proper long, somewhat flexible wooden pole and round both of the ends to use as his hide prod. He would need gut, or animal tendon to separate for sinew to use as stitching.

With those items, he decided – as well as a cured, workable hide – making a belted kilt would be within his capabilities. If he felt brave after that, he would try to make a clout and then a vest. He was certain he could also fashion a pair of simple, hide moccasins. His sire had drilled that into his thick skull, telling Ureeblay, "a hunter never knows when he might need to repair or fashion his own footwear on a hunt, and hunters only move as fast as their slowest member. And if you are the slowest member because of something you should have prevented, the faster hunters will remember."

In his mind, Ureeblay added another day or two to his planned stay in this location. He would not throw away his investment in the two sections of bison hide, he decided. The hide was a gift from the spirits. He would remain here until he had done his best to produce usable skins. He wanted his mother, and he realized, his sister too, to be proud of what he had accomplished while he was away. With his new, developing outlook, Ureeblay realized that just surviving this adventure would not be enough to satisfy him now.

Across the inside of the stone corral that was his campsite, rested the young wolf. She was down on her thick, grass carpet, lying on her stomach by the grisly remains of her venison haunch. The juvenile beast would look over at Ureeblay from time to time. He could feel her demon-blue eyes on his back and right side. Twice she had even whined in his direction as his hands steadily wove grasses. He took the damp blades as needed from the eighth fat sheaf of long material on the sand near his left foot. He suddenly noted with a little shock that he had only a small pile of grasses remaining from that bundle.

He could easily sense the young animal knew he was upset at her outrageous behavior the evening before. He pulled his mind's eye away from that unsettling experience with a slight shudder. At least this dawn he had found his flint knife soon after Father Sun gave the boy enough light to see. Looking down, Ureeblay realized he was weaving a second, larger meat carrier, which he would be finished with soon. He continued weaving and thought more about what he hoped to accomplish while here by the lake.

His two sections of bison hide were on his stretcher frames against the back wall of his camp near the tallow tree. This morning he had fashioned the frames with eight shellbark hickory saplings he'd harvested with his utility blade after he had located his flint knife and collected all of the grasses he'd cut last night under the light of the Swongli, Jaypai, and the weaker light of Weepai.

After cutting the saplings, he knew the edge of his utility blade would need retouched soon. He wanted antler or bone for that pressure work. However, part of the growing boy was eyeing all the stones he saw for one that spoke to his striking hand—as Rutiny, the old, master flint knapper of his camp, always told Ureeblay, that was how he found his knapping tools. If something such as that did occur, Ureeblay hoped the stone speaking to him would be hard, smooth, and round, because that was what he wanted for his hammer stone.

There were quite a few of the mature shellbark hickory trees in the grove he'd found back up the shore beyond the small creek that emptied into the lake. There were more straight young saplings in the grove he could use if needed.

By harvesting those eight, he knew he would be helping the remaining saplings to thrive, as they would now get more of the light from Father Sun. Well, so Kalcut had informed him, while telling him of building pack frames and other things on their long march to the Toolie where this adventure of his all began. Ureeblay did know on his own that in the fall there could be a good harvest of the sweet hickory nuts if someone were around to collect them. If not, there would be more saplings growing from the nuts missed by animals or birds.

He'd headed directly toward the beach through the trees with his saplings bunched against his side and held there by his left arm. Half way to the beach, he found a group of skyvines growing up around the trunks and hanging from the branches of three thorn trees. The sight of the vines excited Ureeblay, who was being very careful where he put his bare feet to avoid any thorns. He felt certain that if there were skyvines growing here, there should be other vines growing on safer trees somewhere else along the lake.

The storytellers said that Jaypai, the contrary moon, used an invisible celestial skyvine to climb his way up and across the night sky. These particular vines were young, only the thickness of two fingers, although it was hard to judge because thick, bushy, blackish-brown hairs covered the vines, so they resembled the tails of oaken skirrel. The hair added another two fingers of thickness to the vine's appearance.

Skyvine contained an oily sap that dried to pitch, and the Welow Swongli used the cooked pitch as an adhesive. Ureeblay wanted to find some vines growing on trees that didn't have dangerous thorns, so he could harvest a few.

In addition to obtaining pitch, his people also specifically cut young skyvine to wrap around the trimmed "Y" end of a stout branch to use as a torch. The bushy hairs contained some of the oily sap and ensured the vine would burst into flame the moment coals of a banked fire touched the torch. Once any of the vines ignited, they burned with a hot, bright, bluish-white flame. Torches wrapped in the vine burned for a long time, although they did put off a thin, black smoke that produced very black soot. However, the soot had its uses too.

Once Ureeblay got to the beach without stepping on a thorn, he returned directly to camp. There, he had used his remaining pigskin for rawhide lashings to bind the hickory frames together, and then to tie each hide to its frame. In the back of his mind, he planned on going on a hunt for another animal for more rawhide tomorrow just before Father Sun began his day. If the animal was the right size, Ureeblay decided, he would not only use its brains as dressing for his bison hides, but he would collect the stomach for another water carrier.

With the right amount of brains to prepare his mother's hide cure mixture as best he could without all of his mother's secret additives, he would need to weave several mats as watertight as he could and layer them. Then in his mind's eye, he saw he might use the quickly scraped hide of his kill to line a depression in the sand, over the tight mat. He could mix the brains with water in that and not worry about the dressing preparation quickly leaking away through a grass mat.

Ureeblay turned at his waist and looked over at the young wolf. She brought her head up off her front paws and made a arruhh sort of noise at him. Her ears came up.

No, the boy told himself, it didn't look as if he would get the amount of rawhide he wanted there. He wasn't sure about the amount of brains there either. Of course, Ureeblay realized that being an animal, the young wolf did not know how rude her behavior in the patch of high grasses had been. He was not sure of the finer points in how wolves conducted themselves in a pack, or what those beasts thought was proper etiquette, but what she'd done to him last night...

Wearing his slightly less supple, but dry clout, Ureeblay had climbed up a faint stone trail going up the Eve slope of a talus canyon just to the Morn of his camp. Here and there among the piled talus, a small tree or a clump of healthy, green bushes grew up from some crevice between stones. Finding his way over stone blocks and around boulders with the young wolf behind him, he made it to the top of the impressive heights created by the sun-washed ridge abutting his campsite. The last few blocks were too high for the small, honey-blonde animal to negotiate, so she did not follow him all the way to the crest of the stone ridge.

Reaching the pinnacle, he was high enough above the beach that from time to time a strong breeze moved his long tail of black hair around on his back between his bare shoulders. The grainy surface of the flat, sun-warmed granite surface he stood on felt good against the soles of his bare feet. Down below along the near-cliff face off to his right, Ureeblay could see the crown of the tallow tree he used to keep his supplies elevated and safe.

Looking all around, Ureeblay realized this high point and his camp marked the closest the curving ridge of boulders approached the lake. From the beach, there was longer stretch of sand going back along that curve to the Morn of his camp. A spear cast toward the Warm in that direction was the mouth of the steep canyon that cut up into this ridge of massive stones. Ureeblay had seen the opening to the top of the ridge from the beach through a few clumps of brush and bushes growing up from the sand in front of the canyon when he brought back a load of driftwood to his camp.

He had found an easy way up, almost a path, along the Eve slope of the canyon. The path presented only knee-high blocks and short ascending terraces, always going higher. Ureeblay did not investigate any of the interesting short side passages or gaps in the tumbledown arrangement of boulders, irregular rocks, and stones as he'd climbed along the canyon and gained his present outstanding view.

From where he stood now, in both the Morn and the Eve directions, the huge piles of stones with a scattering of lone, small trees and bushes turned back toward the esker ridge away from the lake. In only one place, further to the Morn and on the other side of the steep, rising canyon of stones, were the boulders stacked higher than his present perch, and then, not by all that much.

He did see that one of the various boulder paths going up that side of the canyon looked as if it might have been an even easier climb than the route he'd picked—if more round about. He hadn't climbed along that direction because he had seen several towering button trees in a thicket near the base of the precipice on that side of the canyon mouth. He smirked, because he could see an ascending swirl of the insubstantial, white-puffy seed bolls from the button trees lifting on an updraft into the sky above the huge stones making up the top of that part of the ridge. He disliked those clingy nuisances—they always seemed to make him sneeze.

Looking away from that height and back toward the Eve, Ureeblay saw in that direction a few stretches where the stones of this ridge disappeared below the tree canopy and brush, only to rise again further along the way. He realized the small creek that emptied into the lake up the beach from his campsite cut through one of those gaps in the ridge. He let his gaze travel all the way up the beach to the close-set, flat boulders his traveling companion, the creek, flowed through at the beginning of the lake. Fish would taste good for his supper, Ureeblay told himself, but he had so much meat now, and he didn't want to see any of it go to waste.

The boy had no idea that the retreating glacier, which had chiseled-out the wide valley of the Toolie so long ago, had dumped all the sand and gravel here in this lake basin. The glacier was responsible for this mix of rounded granite, limestone, and basalt rocks he was standing on now, as well as the high esker ridgeline he turned to face.

From his elevated perch, with the sunny vista of the lake behind him now, he studied the good-deal higher, steep earthen ridge of the esker to the Warm. That looming land feature had half a travel-length of flats stretching between it and his boulder ridge. Ureeblay could see a mix of wide irregular swaths of grain; meadows of knee-high grass; thickets of brush; and large individual, exposed stones that covered the expanse of flats. Farther toward the Eve, through a meadowland, he could follow the course of the small creek that emptied into the lake further up the beach.

He gazed along the ridgeline of the steep-sided esker to his Warm. To his right, it rose up from a plain of waving grains at least three travel lengths back to the Eve, close to the first small lake he'd encountered along his other traveling companion, the flowing watercourse he'd followed from its headwater on the downs.

As the esker ridgeline snaked on toward the Morn and the Toolie, Ureeblay saw thick, tall grasses and brush along the base of its steep slopes. Going upslope, there were purple heather patches in places and areas of thinner, tan grasses spreading up to pine and cedars breaks near and up to the crest line. Following along the esker with his eyes, Ureeblay saw there were breaks of brush and grasses along the base of the pine- and cedar-crested esker until the ridge turned out of his sight toward the Warm, a good travel-length distance to the Morn from where he stood.

Just to the Cool of the point where the esker turned from his sight, Ureeblay could make out what must be another, larger lake. The growing boy turned and brought his vision back to the Morn end of the lake below him. At that end of the lake, he noted a very large pile of driftwood that high water had deposited against the back of a cove on this side of a land spit. On the far, Cool side of the overgrown spit, was the outflow channel where his creek headed back toward the Toolie. He would build up his supplies of firewood from that long reef of wood debris, he thought to himself – leaving the piles closer to camp for later use. It would be good to scout that end of the lake as well.

Then Ureeblay let his eyes follow the outflow of his lake. He tracked glimpses of the watercourse winding through stands of trees and intervening undergrowth and brush toward the distant Toolie. With his eyes he followed the creek bed, which Ureeblay now realized was a small river, as best he could as it wended its way toward the next distant lake.

In the intermediate direction of the Cool-Morn, on the other side of the small river, were more stands of trees, but not extending as far away from the banks. Then there was an unbroken range of grain under the afternoon rays of Father Sun going up the rising land to the Cool until those waving plants gave way to grasslands on the upper crest of the long land feature.

He could just make out in the distance a small herd of large Red Deer. The sight made his heart beat a little faster. Red Deer venison was very good eating, and antlers the stags shed were the considered choice of antler used by most men who fashioned tools made from that material.

Ureeblay thought a moment and realized, other than the sliver of frozen lightning in the leather pouch around his neck, all the other materials needed to make things were around him. Wood from trees and bushes; stone and grasses; bone, fur, hide, feathers, and soft parts from animals, birds, or fish. Well, so far he hadn't seen any good nodules or pieces of flint on this side of the Toolie. He knew that precious stone had to be around somewhere. The few colorfully outfitted Hurstmon he had glimpsed too closely for his comfort had long, wicked, dark-blue flint points on their lances.

For a moment, Ureeblay closed his eyes and sent a silent thank-you to sweet World Mother for providing the fruits of Her bounty for his small needs. He realized he required only courage, plus he needed to develop the skills necessary to gather and use her riches wisely whenever those opportunities might arise. He was also beginning to become conscious that awareness of his surroundings, knowledge, planning, and purpose could only increase his opportunities to harvest the sweet bounties offered to the wise by the World Mother.

With a certainty, he now knew that all the luck he and his two friends, Crosof and Achinay had talked about before, in the long run actually had very little to do with successfully accomplishing any task a man might focus his mind on.

With a contented sigh, Ureeblay turned back to look across the lake surface twinkling in the sunshine. This lake was thrice as long as it was wide and situated between the higher ground to the Cool, and this boulder ridge and the higher esker to the Warm. Just beyond the far beach, thick brush and tall trees grew in a continuous band that stretched in both directions on that side of the water.

In the distance past that greenery, the land rose up gently and Ureeblay could see more waving, ripening grain in that direction too. There were animal paths beaten through the hip-high stalks in places, sometimes crossing each other. Possibly half-a-travel-length up the rising land where the grain transitioned into the green grassland, Ureeblay could now see a small herd of big elkan grazing near the crest of grassland blocking his view further down the valley and not that far from the slow moving herd of Red Deer.

To his right, Ureeblay heard a bark. The young wolf had managed to climb almost all the way up the boulders and big stones with him. He could see her watching him from a flat-topped boulder below him. There was the crown of the tallow tree just off to the Cool of her position. When he had gone to the tree to get a few nice slices of his smoked pork for breaking his fast, there had been no tracks in the swept sand under the tree and no night-thief had bothered his supplies hanging down from the safe branch.

After the incident while harvesting grasses last evening, Ureeblay had ignored the young wolf all during the morning. Now, the juvenile animal was moderating her enthusiasm ... well, somewhat. However, even as Ureeblay had picked up his spear quiver and caster after they finished their brief midday meal of reheated pork and bog apple, she had bound around the camp eager for whatever he had in mind.

The boy finally looked her in her blue eyes and asked her out loud if she were going to behave herself. The sound of his voice had only made the animal more attentive to his actions after that. To the growing boy, she seemed almost eager to please him after he had ignored her earlier. Something about her behavior reminded him of actions of a few girls and young women back in his camp. Ureeblay realized he'd seen that same response in them after a certain young man or other ignored the girls for a time, too.

Now the young wolf sat back on her haunches on the granite boulder, looking up in his direction with just the tip of her honey-colored tail moving. From time to time, Ureeblay saw her look off across the lake or back behind her along the rocks the two of them had climbed up from the beach below. For no good reason, he gave her a wave of his left hand and the young wolf quieted.

Ureeblay looked down across the beach at the clear water of the lake. From this height, and with Father Sun almost directly overhead, he could see down into the clear water a good distance out. Near the shore, he could see his staked-down sheaves of gathered grasses. In several places, he could see big submerged stones on the sand bottom. Through the water, he noticed the dark bodies of a good number of fish schooling around the mostly submerged bundles. That was interesting, the boy thought. He wondered what attracted the fish to the bundles—curiosity?

Looking further out into the lake beyond his staked weaving supplies, he could see the water got gradually deeper. What looked to Ureeblay to be several hands of paces beyond his stake poles, the color of the water suddenly became a deep blue, and he could no longer see the sand and gravel bottom. He did see the long bodies of a hand of very big fish. A shot of excitement hit Ureeblay's system.

A lake this size would not support so many fish that big he told himself. There would not be enough food for them to eat and get as big as they obviously were. They had to come from some other body of water where there was plentiful food.

Ever since his was a little boy, Ureeblay had enjoyed fishing. Soon after he could walk and talk, his sire had started taking him to fish in whatever creek or river their camp had been located on at the time. Because it was an activity he shared with his sire, and he enjoyed fishing as much as he enjoyed eating the results, Ureeblay had absorbed as much fishing lore and knowledge as he'd been able.