Chapter 22

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

Ureeblay was thankful the gusting winds had stopped. Still he shivered, naked and wet, as he worked to build up the sacred fire inside the Cavern of the Wolf. The dry, young wolf was waiting for him at the mouth of the cave when he came in from the rain, happy to see him. Now she shadowed him closely as he worked to get warm.

She tried pressing her side against the back of his calves and his bare knees as he bent over to get firewood from the big pile that stayed dry in the deep nook just inside the opening of the cave, under the capstone. The small wolf brushed along his butt and the small of his back when he crouched down to feed the growing flames of the sacred fire. The first time she did it for only a moment, Ureeblay feared a repeat of his moonlit humiliation while cutting weaving grass. He thanked the spirits that the young wolf only licked the side of his face and did not attempt to stick her nose where it did not belong.

While he was looking forward to her warmth against his back tonight as he slept, right now he was busy and could do without her wagging tail whacking against him. Ureeblay was amazed at how hard that tail felt despite the honey-colored hair covering her blunt, whip-like appendage that almost seemed to have a mind of its own, in his opinion.

Outside, the rain continued to beat down on the boulder ridge and the valley of the Toolie. Ureeblay knew the storm was saturating both the heights to the Eve and those across the distant Toolie to the Morn. When he last looked around at the vista of the storm out across the canyon from under the dripping rim of his conical hat, the dark downpour softly curtained everything from view beyond the middle of the rain-swept lake. Impressed at the scope of the storm, Ureeblay had turned and stepped up into the enclosed, rain-puddled stone terrace hiding the cave.

While making the climb, the low-hanging, dark blue-black storm clouds seemed stationary every time he'd managed to look up from under his wide hat brim. Tuning-out the sound of the steady pounding on the tightly woven hat just above his ears, Ureeblay had lumbered on his wet feet over the streaming stones on his way from the soggy canyon floor. Down there, he had been cold and soaked as he'd worked naked, stashing the bundles of heavy, dripping weaving grass he rescued from the rising, rain-lashed lake.

After checking the big turtle shell at the back of the shelter on the canyon floor, his climb up the talus slope was made more difficult because the woven-grass rain-cover he'd put back on after securing his travel-drag. His rain cover hampered lifting his legs to step up on some of the wet ledges. In addition to carrying his trusty hickory staff in his right hand, the five wondrous lengths of oak roots he'd collected from the big snag were in a bundle that shifted awkwardly as he clutched them across the left side of the thick, double mats making-up his bad-weather poncho. Ureeblay discovered the stones he'd collected from the swollen stream in the meadow and stored in the inside grass pockets of his rain cover tended to thump against his thighs if he moved his legs too quickly.

Now back in the cave, the steady drumming sound of fat raindrops on rocks came from under the stone overhang and through the open gap above the sacred fireplace, as well as from the mouth of the cavern to his right. Bright, inviting flames leaped up from the crackling driftwood limbs he placed atop the pile of incandescent coals nestled in the big bed of ash inside the fire ring half. The penetrating heat from the sacred flames and coals, as well as what indirectly radiated off the stone face behind the dancing fire were all that kept his teeth from chattering now that his ordeal in the rain was over.

Ureeblay felt filled with hope that he would eventually be warm and dry again because of that comforting heat and the nice temperature of the granite beneath his bare feet as he crouched near the hot stones of the fire ring. If it weren't for her wagging tail right now, Ureeblay thought as he used a stick to poke the small log on top of the fire so it settled on the burning pile to his liking, his young traveling companion would be quite a welcome addition to his growing comfort and relief after all he had accomplished out in the storm.

With the heat from the fire was driving off his chill and starting to dry some of his skin, Ureeblay allowed his muscles to relax. He took a deep breath of relief. In among the welcoming scents of wood smoke, the dry wolf, and unfortunately, his own wet skin and hair, Ureeblay easily detected the mouthwatering aroma of his simmering turtle soup. That smell made his stomach growl. He was incredibly tired and hungry, and looking forward to eating the hot meal.

The young man was more than willing to overlook the fact that with each gust of wind coming in from the mouth of the cave he got a whiff of the three dead cutwings he'd tossed to the back of his firewood pile next to the cave opening. He needed to gut and skin the carcasses for their feathers and see if the wolf might want the rest. He'd never heard anyone at congregations ever mention eating the scavengers.

Yesterday, he had placed the cleaned, huge belly plate from the shell of the great-great-great-grandsire on raised stones to the far left of his fire ring half. By pushing coals and smaller wood chunks under the raised, flat shell, he was able to use the surface to fry meat strips taken from the turtle he'd killed on the beach. While butchering the turtle, he had also collected a surprising number of whitish-yellow globules of fat on the small, woven platter he brought up from the beach camp with his other supplies and gear.

In addition, in front of that raised shelf of the heated belly plate and suspended upside-down between separate raised stones, the dorsal shell of the meat-raiding turtle held his long-bubbling soup. Ureeblay knew he would have a much easier time eating his fine repast once he worked on one of the five pieces of oak he'd broken and hacked at in the deluge, to free them from the roots of the snag that had floated near the shore of the lake. He was looking forward to seeing what the bog apple he'd cut up last night and put in with the turtle meat along with the coarse sage had done to the flavor of the rich-looking soup.

Thinking of eating made the growing young man consider just how he was going to eat the soup. Those thoughts caused Ureeblay to get excited as he recalled how the tall corona of roots had ground to a halt in the rising water shortly after he'd finished pulling his laden travel-drag from out of the lake.

He was bending over at the waist, facing the rising lake, panting hard with his hands resting on his cold knees. Besides his exhaustion, Ureeblay was feeling the harsh rain beating on his bare, streaming back, shoulders, and against his hanging head while it ran off his dangling hair.

As he caught his breath in the downpour with his travel-drag and bundles of weaving grass on the soaked sand beside him, Ureeblay looked over to his left at the big, long-dead log pointing upstream and caught by its roots on the bed of the lake. The trunk was parallel to the shore. He realized that the word parallel was another word he'd learned from listening to his mother and the camp healer talking.

The wet tail of black hair hung down over his right shoulder, water now ran from the ends that weren't clinging heavily to his skin. He shook his head from time to time to get the rainwater out of his eyes as his once laboring chest and lungs began to settle down.

Through the falling rain Ureeblay could see, caught among the tall spreading corona of roots not underwater and holding the log in place, many smoothed, wet stones of different kinds and sizes—from some pieces of various-colored granite as big as or bigger than his head down to chunks of marbled green and red stones as small as maybe his thumb. By studying the roots almost absentmindedly, he realized that the bare, deformed roots had grown around the stones, trapping them in forks or embedding them against another root. Other splayed roots clearly showed the impressions and deformations left behind by smoothed rocks that were no longer there but that forced the roots to grow around or against them as the tree grew from a sapling.

He dropped his head again and felt a shudder go through his tall body, wishing he might already be up in the cave and next to the blazing, sacred fire. Ureeblay was now breathing almost normally again, listening to the rain hitting his skin, the sand, the water and filling the air with a sizzling sound. Still gathering his energy as he rested his hands on his knees Ureeblay saw through the rain drops a two-finger-wide streamlet cutting its way in the soaked sand next to his bare right foot, as the storm runoff drained toward the rising lake.

The exhausted young man was feeling the cold starting to settle into his tired legs, arms, and his chest. However, he was thankful that he was no longer struggling to win his loaded travel-drag from the slow but powerful currents in the rising water. Breathing easier, Ureeblay looked up from the wet sand between his spread feet. He happened to notice, sticking up above the rain-lashed lake surface among the wet mix of gnarled and somewhat straight roots, that there was a particular root with an empty socket that once must have held a big, round rock. It reminded him somewhat of the ladle his sire had carved for his mother to help with her cooking, but this was so much larger.

It dawned on his tired mind that several of the smaller roots with deep indentations would make perfect spoons by only breaking them off, or better yet cutting them free and striping away what little of the darker root bark that might remain on some of them. As he continued to look over the roots and trapped stones, a jolt of excitement hit Ureeblay's middle that lifted him out of his fatigue and caused him to take his hands off his knees. The rain-soaked young man saw a smooth, oblong stone protruding from both sides of a length of a root! It was as if the spirits had grown a stout-handled stone hammer down in the ground for someone to find someday and claim!

As the fatigue lifted from his mind, Ureeblay decided that today was that day.

Straightening the rest of the way upright, he felt the hair on the back of his neck trying to stand up under the weight of the wet strands covering them. What he was seeing was truly a gift from the spirits!

Feeling determination filling his mind once again, he purposefully stepped back out into the cold water through the increasingly heavy rain until the lake surface was nearly lapping against his chilled and shriveled man parts and his bare butt. As he waded up to the snag, the graying, broken corona of wide-spreading roots Ureeblay faced was easily higher than his fingertips held straight up over his head by a half. When his sunken right foot encountered a rounded smooth, stone surface coming out of the sand, Ureeblay realized the remaining lower roots of the dead log had wedged against the exposed portion of a huge, submerged rock buried in the lake bottom.

Up close, the array of different-sized, -shaped, and -colored smooth rocks and stones still trapped by the mostly crooked roots would have easily distracted Ureeblay before this adventure of his began. Now, he was looking at the potential before him. Other than the almost completely straight, long, ankle-thick root that had spread to grow around the embedded stone, he was able to spot several of the long-dead roots that he could use to fashion different sizes of spoons.

He carefully determined his toeholds before he climbed up two steps on handy roots to his first pick, which was a three-fingers-thick fork coming off a bigger root and had several different cupped areas along its slightly twisted length that thinned to a single finger of root with a jagged break at the end.

Ureeblay had to work hard in the falling rain to snap that piece free using his right hand and his remaining upper body strength, while holding onto another root with his left hand, all while being careful of his feet and his body. There were many sharp ends and broken forks coming off the larger roots; so if he slipped, he would be fortunate not to gouge or impale some naked body part. Once the long, somewhat thin section of root in his hand broke free, he climbed back down to the submerged rock. Turning to his left, he raised his right arm back over his bare, wet shoulder and managed to whip the prized root up high through the rain and onto the wet sand of the beach close to his partially laden travel-drag. Part of his mind was happy the young wolf wasn't here, or she would certainly retrieve the stick and bring it back to him, while chewing parts of it up.

Turing back to the wet corona of oak, he again surveyed what the spirits had presented to him. Several of the roots he decided he wanted not only because of their shaped pockets—a few still embedded with smooth stones—but also because they were sticking out at badly cracked angles, which would make freeing them easier. One at a time, Ureeblay worked the three of them back and forth until he broke them off, using up what little stores of energy he had left. He tossed each one of those over onto the shore. Now he had to find a way to cut through the ankle-thick hammer root that was perhaps as long as his extended toes to his knee and stuck out to his left just above the rain-dancing surface of the cold water.

He found himself staring, almost stupidly at the rock enclosed by the oak root as the downpour continued to increase around him, now stinging his exposed skin. Ureeblay shook his head to clear his eyes of streaming water. The smooth stone was dark green, with thin, cream-colored bands going through it. One fist-sized side of the stone sticking out of the enclosing root reminded him of the smaller end of an egg, and the other side of the exposed stone had a flattish surface on the end of that fist-sized piece.

He was starting to feel the cold and his fatigue again. The young man didn't want to take the time to fetch his utility blade from his rain gear under the talus overhang back on the floor of the canyon to use in freeing this prize. With the rising lake, this incredible find could easily float away in the time it would take for him to return.

Part of Ureeblay's slowing mind realized that once he headed for the canyon, he might not have the will power it would take to return and finish this job. The exhausted young man had to admit that the closer he got to the call of shelter, food, and warmth he knew he'd find in the Cavern of the Wolf, the more likely that his waning determination and will would be too weak to bring him back to this last labor set out by the spirits, and this opportunity would be lost.

He just stood in the hip-deep, cold lake, hearing the rain sizzle on the surface around him and blurring his vision as he looked at the stone embedded near broken end of the ankle-thick root. Part of his dulled mind noted that this root system and log reminded him of the much larger log he'd climbed out on, taunted by Crosof and Achinay, on the other side of the Toolie.

Standing naked in the rain and feeling the lake water slowly swirling around his legs, Ureeblay began to relive memories of just what had happened on the bank of the Toolie. Memories his mind had buried deep inside himself. First, his two friends had laughingly threatened to tell everyone back at Sweet Water camp that he didn't have stones hard enough even to attempt spearing one of the big sturgis fish, which they could see from the high bank swimming slowly by in water just under the surface of the magnificent Toolie near the root end of the snag.

The memories started to come back to Ureeblay now, like a slow flood gathering speed and flowing from out of the secret parts of his mind—Crosof had called him a baby, and Achinay actually yelled that he was a punny coward. Then Achinay claimed his dead sire must not have been very good at teaching Ureeblay how to fish, let alone how to use his spear caster. That was when Ureeblay had carefully made his way around the one remaining thick limb sticking up from the trunk as he ventured out on the sloping log from the high embankment.

Clamping his jaws shut with anger and determination, the boy he'd been took small steps down the rough bark toward the water. Ureeblay remembered thinking he was going to show those two who had the hardest stones.

Once he was standing against the corona of roots out over the edge of deep water, Achinay and then Crosof had started bouncing on the other end of the log up on the bank. They both were hooting at him, calling him a little boy who wasn't able to spray his man seed yet. Crosof called out that Ureeblay would never have a spirit animal for the base of his totem that way. Achinay yelled that if the shaman ever did give Ureeblay a spirit guide, it would be a limp, little worm. Then he claimed that Ureeblay didn't spray man seed yet because he really didn't want to grow up and be a man—that he really wanted to grow up to be one of the easy girls, just like Ureeblay's sister, Nayohme.

With a whimper of rage coming out of his mouth, Ureeblay clenched his fists and smacked them against the surface of the lake that was now up over his tight stones and his shrived root. As Ureeblay gritted his teeth with seething anger, he could not help but remember that he had turned around on that big log and faced the two boys he thought were his friends while taking one of his spears out of his quiver and fitting it into his own caster.

With the storm gathering power all around him, Ureeblay could plainly picture the scorn in Achinay's squinty little eyes turning first to alarm, and then going wide with fear as the plump boy reached out and started to push on the broken-off limb at that end of the log.

At least Crosof had acted shocked as he jumped back to the edge of the high bank, asking Achinay what he thought he was doing. That was right before there was a lurch, and the log under Ureeblay's feet had started slowly rolling away from the high embankment as the big snag came loose with a splash and he had to grab hold of something or fall into the deep blue water with the fish.

Now Ureeblay remembered—that was how he lost his first spear. Fortunately, he had the leather thong of his caster already wrapped around his index finger and thumb.

Standing in cold water over his man-stones, and overflowing with frustration, contempt, and outrage that was erupting from where it had hidden deep inside, Ureeblay suddenly found he was working a big, smooth piece of wedge-shaped granite back and forth between the three roots that had trapped the rock for uncounted full cycles of the seasons. The granite wedge took both of his hands to hold when it came free.

Picturing Achinay's pudgy face and stoat eyes, the growling young man raised the heavy, wet stone over his head and bashed it down with all his might on the base of the ankle-thick root, again and again and again and again! Paying no heed to the pouring rain as it washed away his tears and the spittle, Ureeblay shouted out his pain with each blow.

Now, he had the short, thick splinters on the butt end of his magnificent oak-and-stone spirit hammer down in the bed of coals, burning them off. The hand-length of wood that extended beyond the stone head with a short, sharp edge where the rest of the root broke off some time before—that Ureeblay would keep—but he would grind that surface smooth of splinters while keeping the sharp edge. Above the fire, the late evening rain still beat down outside the body-wide gap up under the extended capstone of the cave. However, the dancing flames below cast flickering lights and shadows around the boulder walls and the rock surfaces of the ceiling inside the warm Cavern of the Wolf.

Ureeblay had partially curtained-off the passageway to the cave mouth. He used the two sections of bison hide again secured to the stretching frames as vertical panels. In addition, two of his utility mats he'd hung from a very long sapling. After regaining his strength and eating a thin hand of the best-tasting smoked pork he ever put into his hungry mouth, he had braved the storm under his conical hat and rain cover. He searched among the available saplings and harvested an almost three-body-length sapling from the sodden grove of mixed trees to the Eve of the canyon mouth where the boulder cliff turned toward the lake and his old, soaked campsite on the beach.

Now, he told himself, he had made the cavern as snug as he intended to make it on this trip. Fortunately, there were still no signs of water leaking into this fine shelter that his honey-colored traveling companion had shown him—at least none that he could see as he looked around. Ureeblay sat naked and mostly dry except for his long hair, enjoying the warm granite close to the fire ring. His black mane was finger-combed out and down on both sides of his chest to dry in the heat of the fire.

With the rawhide plait holding his sliver of frozen lightning in its sheath back around his neck, the young man felt a restful peacefulness within his chest and heart. Ureeblay had never remembered experiencing this feeling before—or more likely, he decided, now that he was aware of the feeling, he could enjoy it. Especially after having recovered from his day filled with excitement, exertion, and discovery.

Gazing at the butt of his hammer as the glowing splinters burned down, Ureeblay felt filled with the certainty that he now would find a way to cross the Toolie and make his way home to his mother and sister. He also knew that he would learn to swim by watching the wolf and he would make water his helper, if not his friend; that he would become the first terrace bog-apple trader of the Welow Swongli; that he would learn how to do the things he'd taken for granted as a child; and that he would find not only a wife, but a mate to join his next adventure on this side of the big river.

Now that he clearly remembered exactly how this amazing manhood adventure of his actually began, Ureeblay was also totally certain that Achinay would answer for those slanderous words about his sister. Just how that would happen, the young man decided as he judged that the burning splinters on his spirit hammer were nearly ready to grind against the rough surface of the half-chevron of stone to his right—well, Ureeblay would leave the method of Achinay's punishment to those same spirits. However, Achinay was dead to him as a friend for intentionally pushing the snag free of the riverbank.

Ureeblay realized he could not be upset about going on this unplanned manhood journey of his. However, if he had fallen into the Toolie and then drown ... well. As it was, he would make sure Achinay would pay for any worry and heartache his mother and sister were feeling until he returned to show them he was alive. Yes, Ureeblay told himself; and the nature of that payment he would decide along the way.

That fee might even take Achinay the rest of his life to repay, however short that might be.

Until further thoughts on the matter asserted themselves, Ureeblay decided he was not going to focus on what had already happened at the expense of the enjoying his present traveling company, or his surroundings, or his food.

Ureeblay grabbed his spirit hammer by the stone head resting on the fire ring and repositioned the butt back from the edge of the coals with his right hand, thinking it wasn't quite ready to grind down. Then he went back to fishing a piece of turtle meat out of the thick soup bubbling in the turtle-shell pot to his left, and using his very own, oak-root spoon. Satisfied with the thick chunk he retrieved, he put it down on the rock floor near his right knee.

The young wolf on her belly next to him leaned her head forward and sniffed the morsel. When she seemed to gauge the meat was cool enough, she licked it once before gobbling it down. She didn't seem to favor the chunks of meat over the chunks of bog apple he'd given her. Ureeblay had to admit; long simmering turtle soup flavored with bog apple and coarse sage was easily the best way to serve the amphibian. If he only had some salt.

In addition to discovering how well bog apple spiced-up turtle soup, this first spoon he was eating with worked better than any other spoon he'd ever used or saw before. At least, that was Ureeblay's opinion, even if he kept it to himself. After setting up the passageway curtains, he had retrieved his rain cover from where he'd hung it over his drying racks near his big stack of firewood close to the cavern opening. Removing all of his sling stones, the fine hammer stones for working his flint, and his grass-wrapped utility edges along with his antler-tine retouching point from the inside pockets, Ureeblay had quickly sawed the ready-made spoon from near the finger-thick end of the first root he'd freed from the spirit-sent snag. That done, he had removed the sharp end beyond the bowl of the spoon and applied the cut ends to the rough granite of the chevron until he was happy with the results.

There easily were two larger spoons he could have by cutting them out of the crooked, seasoned root. The even bigger, empty sockets on the other three roots he'd worked free of the snag would produce equally bigger spoons and ladles, the two larger roots still had a few interestingly colored stones imbedded in them; two of the smoothed stones were about the size of his fist and just as colorful as the others and very tightly embedded into the roots.

Ureeblay blew over the turtle soup in the bowl of his slightly crooked, oak-root spoon before putting it into his rejoicing mouth. He closed his eyes as he chewed the rich chunks of well-cooked meat and creamy, spicy bog apple before swallowing them along with the thick, fatty, coarse-sage flavored broth.

If he just had some salt, he found himself thinking again as he smacked his lips. Well, he still had quite a few days for adventure left to go on this side of the Toolie he figured, so maybe he would find some salt. He knew of several plants that would add a salty flavor to cooked food. A few were flavorful on their own. However, it was possible he might just find a salt deposit, or a salt lick. He just had to be mindful of such things.

After all, he reminded himself as he felt the tip of the wolf's moving tail brush against his skin on the small of his back, stranger things had happened.

As he alternated eating spoonfuls of soup with feeding the wolf bits of turtle meat or chunks of bog apple, Ureeblay decided that tomorrow, among other chores, he would work on creating the smaller of the two slings he intended to make. The storm outside had not abated one bit and there was a nagging fear in the back of his mind about just how high the level of the lake would rise. Of course, he was certain that he and the wolf were safe high up here on the Morn slope of the canyon. Both of them could go farther along the trail to the crest of the ridge without much of a problem from what he'd seen coming and going from the cave.

If the floodwater rose up as high as the reef of driftwood down at the Morn end of the lake again, Ureeblay figured the mouth of the canyon might just be awash. If that did happen, he and the wolf could find a way down to the wide meadows on the other side of this boulder ridge if need be, but he was determined to make sure his remaining firewood, the huge turtle shell, his bundles of weaving grass, and last but not least, his trusty travel-drag were safe down on the canyon floor.

As Ureeblay chewed a piece of cooked bog apple, he was thinking he would just empty the remaining contents of the big shell into the growing runoff stream on the floor of the canyon and then use the handfuls of sand to scrub it clean. With the amount of fat he'd set aside while butchering the smaller turtle, as well as what he could render from the remains of the babbit still wrapped in his third utility mat, he would have more than enough to treat the bison hair cordage of his slings.

Perhaps he wouldn't grease either sling until he tried the final weapons and make the decision at that point. Greased hair cordage picked up dirt and grit, and grit would break individual hairs in the cordage. The thought struck him that he still needed to find a way to hold a length of intestine open without burning his fingers as he poured rendered fat into the casing. However, with just a little campfire work, he would have more than enough spoons and ladles to skim fat off the top of a soup of simmering fatty meat and bones.

As he slowly continued to eat and occasionally give the wolf a piece of turtle meat or piece of bog apple, he knew he could do nothing about possible floodwater from the storm, or the gunk in the great-great-great grandfather's dorsal shell until morning gave him enough of Father Sun's light to see what was happening to the level of the lake.

From his survey of the surrounding landscape from the top of the boulder ridge, Ureeblay knew that besides the wide fields and meadows, there were groves of trees, and swaths of actual woods on the plain between this boulder ridge and the towering esker to the Warm. If it continued to rain after tomorrow, he would don his excellent rain cover and conical hat and go exploring over there. Since he'd found an ash grove on this side of the ridge, there could very well be ash trees growing somewhere on the esker side, he just needed to find a grove of them to harvest his spear shafts. Perhaps he could discover some skyvines too, he thought as he gave the wolf another piece of turtle meat.