Relations among the men worsened. Every day there were increasingly savage and unpredictable fights, and many of the women and infants, not just Shadow, suffered punches and kicks and bites as a consequence.
One day it all came to a head.
Big Boss was sitting cross-legged on the ground with his back to a small clearing, working assiduously at a cluster of nut-palm fruit. Shadow was in shade at the edge of the clearing, half-hidden as had become her custom.
Without warning Squat stalked into the clearing. All his hair stood on end, doubling his apparent bulk. He leaped up and grabbed branches, ripping them off the trees, shaking them and throwing them down before him. He picked up rocks and hurled them this way and that. His silence was eerie, but his lips were pursed tightly together, pulling his face into a harsh frown, his eyes fixed on Big Boss.
Big Boss ignored him. He kept on plucking at the fruit in his lap. Squat, and the other men, had made such displays before, and nothing had resulted.
But now Little Boss suddenly broke from the cover of the trees. Without warning or apparent provocation, he hurled himself on Big Boss.
Big Boss roared and faced his attacker, hair bristling. But Squat screeched and joined in. The three of them dissolved into a blur of nailing fists and thrashing limbs.
All around the clearing, other men ran to see what was happening. They circled the battlers, hooting and crying — but not one of them rushed to the aid of Big Boss.
Big Boss broke away. His eyes were round and white, and blood leaked over the side of his head, where one ear had been bitten so savagely it dangled by a thread of gristle. He ran towards the nearest tree, and tried to clamber into it. But he was limping, and Squat and Little Boss easily caught him. They pulled him back and hurled him to the ground, and punched and kicked and bit him. Squat began to jump on Big Boss’s back, slamming his heels again and again into ribs and spine.
Now more of the men joined in, screaming and yelling. Though they concentrated their attentions on Big Boss, they squabbled and fought amongst themselves, vying for their places in the new order.
At last Little Boss climbed up on Big Boss’s back. He stood straight and roared. His mouth was bloody. He grabbed one of Big Boss’s arms, as if Big Boss were no more than a monkey he had caught in the forest. Little Boss twisted the arm this way and that, and Shadow heard bones snap, muscle tear.
The women and children huddled together beneath the trees, clutching each other or grooming tensely, shrinking from the aggression.
The men ran off into the forest, tense and excited, hair bristling. Big Boss lay where he had fallen, a bloody heap on the ground.
Slowly the women emerged from their sheltered places. Cautiously they fed and groomed each other and their children. None of them went near the fallen Big Boss — none save an over- inquisitive child, who was hastily retrieved by his mother.
Only Shadow stayed in her pool of shade.
The day wore away. The shadows lengthened.
Big Boss raised his head, then let it fall flat again.
Then he got one arm under his body, and pushed himself upright. The other arm dangled. His flesh was ripped open, by teeth or chipped cobbles, so that flaps hung down from patches of gleaming gristle, and his skin was split by great gouges, crusted with dirt and half-dried blood. He had lost one ear completely, and one eye was a pit of blood from which a pale fluid leaked.
He opened his mouth. Spittle and blood looped between smashed teeth, and he moaned loudly.
The women and children ignored him.
Big Boss pulled his legs beneath him. He began to crawl towards the trees, one leg dragging, one arm dangling. Twice he fell flat. Twice he got himself up again, and continued to drag himself forward. Where he had been lying, the blood had soaked into the ground, leaving the dirt purple. And where he passed, he left a trail of sticky blood and spit and snot, like some huge snail.
When he got to the base of the tree, he twisted so he got his back against the bark of the trunk, and slumped back.
He was still for a long time. The sun, intermittently obscured by cloud, slid across the sky. Shadow thought Big Boss was dead.
But then he began to move again. Using the tree as a support, he pushed himself upright. He reached up with his less damaged arm to grab a low branch. He growled with pain. He got his chest over the branch, and felt forward, gasping. For a long time he was still once more, clinging to the branch. Then he carried on, hauling himself grimly from branch to branch, higher into the tree.
At last he reached a high point. Clinging to the tapering trunk with his legs, he pulled down branches with grim determination. Surrounded by clusters of yellow fruit, he slumped flat in this nest, the last he would ever make.
The women on the ground called, their panting hoots summoning each other and their children. The women climbed into the trees, infants clinging to their mothers” backs or chests. Shadow followed, keeping her distance. Soon she could see the women in their nests, clumpy shadows high in the trees, silhouetted against the deepening pink of the sky; here and there a limb stretched out, fingers working at a pelt or stroking a face.
Shadow glanced up at Big Boss’s nest. One foot dangled in the air, toes clenching and unclenching. Until a new leader emerged, the ladder of rank was broken into chaos. The days to come would be stressful and trying for everyone.
As the last light seeped from the sky, the men returned. They swarmed around the bases of the trees. They were still squabbling, screeching and fighting. Some of them clambered up into the trees and began to harass the women and children, smashing open their nests and chasing them across the branches; the women fought back grimly.
Now two of the men started climbing into Shadow’s own tree, peering up at her, whispering and showing their white teeth. Shadow could smell the blood on their fur.
Forces worked in Shadow’s mind: a fear of the dark unknown, a fear of further punishment at the hands of the people, a chill urge to cradle the thing in her womb. At last the forces reached a new equilibrium.
She slid out of her nest. As silently as she could, enduring the feeble kicking of the child in her womb, she clambered from the branches of her tree into the next, and then the next.
She slipped, alone, into the arboreal dark. Soon the sounds of the squabbling, roosting people were far behind her.
Fire:
Here is Fire. Here are his legs walking. Here he is, keeping his hands closed together, cupping the hot embers and the ash.
The sun is hot. The light is in his eyes. His eyes hurt him. His head hurts him.
He remembers why. He is lying on the ground. His eyes see bits of light. Stone’s feet swinging at his head and belly and chest. Once again Stone has driven him away from Dig.
Fire wants not to be here. But it is Fire who holds the embers, not his hands. Fire must be here to make his hands hold the hot embers.
The sky grows dark. The air grows cold. Fire looks up. The sky is covered over by cloud.
Something falls before Fire. It is a flake. It is white and soft. There are many flakes, falling slowly, all around him.
A flake settles on his chest. Another on his shoulders. His skin cannot feel them. More flakes settle around him, on the floor. His feet make footprints in the thickening grey cover. He stops. He looks back at the prints. He laughs. He steps backwards into the prints he has made. He steps forward into the prints.
The ground is growing grey. The people are grey. The trees are grey. Some of the people are afraid. Their fingers wipe grey from their eyes and scalps. The children with no names whimper. Their faces hide in their mothers” bellies.
Fire is not afraid. The grey is ash. Fire sees himself in the morning light. He sees his hands sweeping through ash, gathering embers. Now everything is ash. His head tips back. Ash falls into his mouth. His tongue tastes it. Fire is happy in this ash world. His legs run, and his mouth gibbers and hoots.
But now his head is wet.
His legs stop running. He lifts his head. He sees big fat raindrops fall from the sky, slowly sliding towards his face. They hit his mouth and his cheeks and his nose and his eyes. His eyes sting.
The rain makes little pits in the ash. His toes explore the pits. The wet ash turns to grey mud.
The other people trudge around him. Their hair is flat. The mud sticks to their feet in great heavy cakes. The rain turns the ash on their bodies to grey streaks.
The people reach a bank of trees. They stand there, baffled.
Stone steps forward. His great nostrils flare. “River river river!” he cries. His legs march him into the trees. His arms push aside the foliage with great cracks and snaps.
Fire’s legs carry him hurrying after Stone, into the forest.
The forest is green and dark and moist. Leaves and twigs clutch at Fire. His eyes look around fearfully, for Elf-folk, or worse. He sees nothing but people, like muddy shadows sliding through the bank of trees. He hears nothing but the crush of foliage by feet and hands, the soft breathing of the people.
Fire pushes out of the other side of the bank of trees.
The ground slopes down. There is rock here, purple-red, sticking out of the grass. Fire’s feet carry him carefully over the slippery rocks.
He reaches water. The water is brown, and slides slowly past his feet. It is the river.
The people come down to the bank. Their hands splash water on their faces, washing away mud.
Fire does not touch the water. Fire’s hands still hold the embers. Fire stands tall, and his eyes watch the river. To his left the river has scooped holes out from under the bank. A great lip of grass dangles towards the water. Fire sees that there is a gravel beach below the undercut, and deep dark openings behind it, caves.
“Fire Fire!” he cries. “Fire Fire!”
Fire walks towards the caves, cupping the embers. Grass and Wood, the women, follow him. They build a pile of the branches they have carried. They find the driest moss they can.
Inside the cave, Fire lowers his embers reverently into the moss. It smokes, but soon a flame is there, licking at the moss. Fire blows on it carefully.
When the fire is rising, Emma and Sally and Maxie come into the cave. Things cling to their backs, things of blue skin. Emma and Sally make the clinging things slide to the floor. They come to the fire and hold up their hands to its warmth. Sally rubs Maxie’s wet hair.
Fire grins. Emma grins back.
The flames are bright. Fire has a shadow. It stretches into the back of the cave, across a bumpy, mottled floor of rock. Fire follows his shadow. It grows longer, leading deeper into the dark.
There are animals at the back of the cave. Fire’s eyes open wide. Fire’s legs prepare to run.
His nose cannot smell animals. His nose smells people. He makes his legs walk forward.
The animals are sprawled flat against the wall. He makes his hand touch an animal. The fur is ragged and loose. He grabs it and pulls. The skin of the animal comes away from the wall.
There is no animal. There is only the skin of the animal. It was stretched out over branches. He pushes. The whole frame falls over with a clatter.
Behind the fallen frame he sees spears. He picks up a spear. Its tip is a different colour from the wood. His finger touches the tip. The tip is stone. It is an axe. No matter how hard he pulls, the stone wants to cling to its spear.
He drops the spear. He walks back along the cave, towards the light of the fire, the grey daylight.
People are gathered around the fire. Some children are sleeping. One woman sits in another’s lap, gently cupping her breasts. A man and a woman are coupling noisily.
Emma and Sally and Maxie sit against a wall. Their eyes gaze at the fire, or out into the greyness beyond.
The people are not here, though their bodies are here. Emma and Sally and Maxie are here. They are always here.
Fire’s body, warm and dry, wants to couple with Dig. His member stiffens quickly. He looks for Dig.
