Kim Robinson: Shaman

Again he built up the fire enough that it would last till midnight, and slipped under his branch blanket with the deer bits right next to him and the patch of leg skin as his pillow, its short hair soft against the side of his face. He rested then in his spruce bed and felt how full he was, how tired. It was the feeling of a good day; but he was uneasy, too, when he thought about falling asleep with no one else to keep watch over him. Those lions were out there somewhere, and they hunted at night. They would know what the fire was if they saw it or smelled it. But he was too tired to stay up all night. Sleep kept flickering out of the fire and washing over him. He could not resist it, but only gave a last order to his inner eye, to stay open and on guard. He slipped under with a rock in his hand.

That night in his dreams the lion women were hunting him, and he woke groaning several times, feeling the dread of that. When dawn finally grayed the sky he felt like he hadn’t slept at all. He was sandy-eyed, and hungrier than ever.

There were new heavy clouds to the west, briefly pinked by sunrise, coming in on a new wind. Another storm, maybe. Third day of his wander, second storm. But he could stay by his fire through this one and work up the deerskin scraps into some clothes and kit.

So, back out into the cold. In the rocks bordering the creek he found a squarish block of flint that would serve as a source for blades and points and choppers. For a knapper he chose a big long chunk of chert. He carried these rocks back to the fire, and then went to the creek’s meadow outlet. There were trout again under the bank at the curve, so he took off his leggings and splashed in and scared them downstream, then reconstructed the upper dam. He clambered over the dam into his little fish pen and patiently scooped four fish onto the bank, growling wolfishly as each one flew up in a sploosh of water to flop out its life. Cooked trout; and this time he was going to add some meadow onions he had seen sticking out of the melting snow at the upper end of the meadow. They would accompany every bite of trout. His mouth watered, his stomach pinched. He went to the patch of meadow onions and dug up some bulbs using the deer’s leg bone, then returned to the fire and ate the four fish with the onions. He emptied the fish guts and cooked them on the embers and ate them too when they were black; they were a bit grainy, but good.

When he was done he took the rocks he had collected and found a flat bedrock to work on. Every strike of knapper against flint he performed with the utmost care; he couldn’t afford to have a smashed finger this fortnight. With that extra caution the knapping didn’t go particularly well, as he was striking small and mashing flakes off. But eventually he cleanly knapped some rough blades, and one was right enough to hold in his hand and slice the deerskin. Even uncured the skin would be strong and flexible. He wanted some of it to make a proper belt to hang his leggings and crotch strap from, because what he had for a belt and ties would soon break and the leggings fall down. Other than that the cedar bark weave was holding up pretty well. A good belt would have a fold in it too, which he could use to wrap and carry his kit in. Not that he had much of a kit.

Slowly he cut strips of skin. When he had made a good belt and replaced his cedar one with it, he tied two scrap strips together to make a necklace, then punched three holes through the strip with a sharp point of flint, so he could fit some of the deer’s teeth through the holes. This was not a good design for a necklace meant to last, but it was something he could make now with what he had. If the chance came later to make a better necklace, he would, but at least he had this one, if that chance never came. He wanted to return to his pack looking as good as he could.

The next morning he woke before dawn and considered the possibility that the lions might track him by his scent, or by blood that had dripped from the deer parts. It was also true that his grove was running out of easy firewood. It would be safer to move. The storm seemed gone for now, the western sky only lightly clouded. So he slipped out of his tuck to see if anything was drinking in the meadow where he had set his snare.

There was; a young ibex was standing in the shallows. Loon crawled to the side of the meadow opposite the snare, then jumped to his feet and shouted. The ibex leaped at the sound and charged right up the passage between bushes, hit the snare and staggered, then burst through the ropes and bolted away, leaping right up the steep rock side of the valley. She didn’t stop until she was high on the slope, pronging upward from rock to rock in leaps that only an ibex could perform. Far above she turned to look down at him, offended; shook her head, as if dismissing Loon’s plan for her; hopped in another quick prong up, and disappeared over the ridge. Rockdancer indeed.

Loon found a stone resting in his hand. There hadn’t been time to throw it. It was very hard to make a good snare without leather ropes. This one had always been a long throw.

You can only kill disappointment with a new try.

He went out to scout a new camp. He knew the area pretty well; they had crisscrossed it many times when out on the hunt. At the upper end of Lower’s Upper, its creek passed through a draw and entered a high basin called Hill In the Middle, where the creek split and ran around both sides of a rounded hill that was as tall as the basin’s ridges. The east ridge of this high canyon was an edge of the uplands, the west ridge dropped to a shallow valley rising farther west, up toward the ice caps. In terms of camping suitability, the creekbeds had the trees, but also the hunting animals. Possibly some kind of protected nook high on the valley walls would be better, or even a point on a ridge, overlooking a confluence. With a fire it would be impossible to hide, unless he were to find a perfect cave. The cliffs in the area were dotted with caves, but they were for the most part known, and used by both people and animals. Finding an unknown one did not seem too likely. And a big fire was his best defense, really. So, best perhaps to get a bit of height above a confluence; or head to the top of a drainage, the steeper the better, and camp in the highest copse of trees, as the place that would get the least passthrough.

He fed his fire with a big section of dry log, then took off at a fast pace, watching his footwork carefully. He was on the hunt, skin tingling, everything big and sharp in his eye, be it ever so far away. Up the frozen creek of Lower’s Upper, staying clear of the bramble beds to both sides of a small icy waterfall, trying as he climbed to imitate the smooth flow of the ibex who had scorned him. Help me up, sister, make me a rockdancer. The creek lay back, and a small line of trees led to a copse under the headwall, thickest around a spring, with a flat spot overlooking the spring. Lots of downed wood, not too much snow or damp. Black spruce and bush pine for the most part, both good burners if the wood was seasoned. Quickly he searched the copse and assembled on a flat rock over the spring a pile of firewood and a mass of twigs. He even set a ring of stones and the first twig stack, with a hole for his arm to reach in to place the live ember on the flat stone in the center. All very welcoming.

Then he ran back to his old site, pacing himself to what Thorn called active rest, and gathered up into the flap of his new deerskin belt all the little things he wanted to take. He built up his fire one last time, ate some meadow onions, then coaxed a glowing pine branch, burnt through but otherwise whole and entire, out of the fire onto the ground next to it. With his choprock he broke off a piece of this ember branch about twice as long as it was wide, and pinching the yellow piece between two rocks, he placed it on a handful of fresh spruce needles, then wrapped this hissing mass into a ball and put it inside a hollowed burl he had found. Shells from the great salt sea were best for carrying embers, but those were rare, and always owned by women. Women were as good with fire as men were, and better at moving a fire from camp to camp. But his mass of needles in a burl was pretty good for a fix-up; he could hold it in one hand, keep a throwing rock in the other, and carry his fire kit and the remnants of the deer in his belt flap.