Kim Robinson: Shaman

Off he ran to his new camp, pushing the pace hard this time. Every step had to be watched into its place. Overhead giant white clouds floated east on a mild breeze. It was cool in the sunlight, chill in the shade. A perfect day for moving camp.

So he was happy as he ascended Lower’s Upper to his new nest. But as he approached the flat over the spring he saw that his prepared hearth had been swept clean of the wood he had left there.

The sight froze him instantly, and in his stillness came the jolt of fear, when the most likely explanation for the change struck him fully. He slipped to the ground behind a rock as smoothly as he could, feeling more afraid heartbeat by heartbeat. Everything in the little canyon quivered in his sight. It was quiet, no squirrels in the area chittering away. Gurgle of the spring’s water sliding out of the spring. The air was flowing downcanyon, and he sniffed repeatedly, tried to sniff like a bear, tried to identify and locate by smell whatever was out there lying in wait for him. If there was anything. Actually, to have swept his fire rock clean of wood was a strange move.

Then a sniff gave him the answer he most feared, a waft of smoke and grease almost like his own smell, but different. Old ones. They smelled different than people. Thorn had forced this knowledge on him once when they had come upon a dead old one, lying in one of the shallow cliff caves downstream in the gorge. Thorn had grabbed the dead one’s bearskin cape and held the collar of it to Loon’s nose. Lunkheads always smell like this, Thorn had said, flicking him hard on the ear.

Now Loon was sweating from his face and palms. The day had suddenly become one of his nightmares: a silent still world, stuffed with dread, something unseen in it hoping to kill him. Stories about boys on their wanders being eaten by old ones had always seemed like just stories; all the men Loon knew had come back from their wanders. And if you ran into an old one, they always seemed about as harmless as any woodsman.

But woodsmen could be dangerous. And the old ones were burly people, as strong as bears or wolverines. One of Thorn’s stories told how an old one had married a bear by mistake, and neither of them had noticed; their daughter told them about it years later, not at all pleased with them.

They definitely knew how to hunt. They didn’t use spear throwers or javelins, and they only used stone for their points, never antler or bone or tusk; but their spears were stout, made for thrusting and short throws. They were experts at ambush, that was their way. When they were in pairs or trios, one would sneak around while the other watched from a blind. They hid better than any other animals, even humans.

So setting up his firewood stack had been a mistake. It would only have saved him a few moments anyway. Something to remember. If he survived.

He regarded the live ember there in his hand, still glowing in its needles and burl. It would be giving off its own smell, he realized. There’s nothing like the smell of a fire! as the saying had it.

He put the ember on the ground, the open end of the burl down, so that it would perhaps suffocate the ember. Now it could be a decoy.

He crawled back downstream as smoothly and quietly as he could. It was like hide and seek when they were kids, now horribly suffused with nightmare dread.

Where there were trees and boulders big enough to hide among, he moved up the west slope of Lower’s Upper. Lower’s Upper fell into Lower over a short cliff; the waterfall there was called Old Piss. Probably the old ones would know about the cliff, but if they didn’t, and tried to follow him directly down the creekbed, they would be briefly held up, and he might get away.

When he had traversed high enough that the trees were shorter than him even when he was crouching, he lay in a moss-filled hollow between two of the gnarled little pines and looked back down toward the copse with the spring.

There they were: three of them. Danger comes without warning. Big-headed, hairy, heavy under their fur capes. Spears at the ready, thick short things with perfect leaf blade tips of red chert: spears made to stick in mammoths. Loon shrank down as far as he could. The nightmare world had jumped into day. And just as it would have happened in his dreams, one of the three old ones suddenly pointed at Loon and skreeled like an angry hawk.

Loon leaped to his feet and dashed for the ridge above him. The three old ones croaked to each other like ravens as they clambered after him, somewhat slowed by their spears. Loon had a good jump on them, and was close enough to the ridge to reach it while they were well below. He ran south on the ridge to make them think he was going that way; if they angled to cut him off, they would hit the ridge where it was cliffed on the other side, the same cliff that made the Old Piss waterfall farther down.

But the old ones were much faster than he had thought they would be, and closed on him despite his panic speed. When they saw he had crested the ridge and would soon be out of sight, all three threw their spears, which lofted up toward him with awful quickness. People said they never threw their spears, and yet here they were! Two were going to hit below him, but one was flying right up at him, he had to jump off the other side of the ridge to dodge it, something he watched himself do, feeling amazed he was making such a leap, down the first little drop of the long cliff.

He landed and felt something twist in his left ankle, rolled to keep it from twisting worse, and at the end of the roll smacked that same ankle against a tree. The two pains merged to one, and together they made it hard to run, but he had to, so he ran down the slope into Lower Valley, each landing on the left leg a shocking burst of pain, despite which it was necessary to run on at full speed and in complete silence. He ran open-mouthed, sucking in and blowing out in a way that made no noise. It took a lot of air to run all out, and he had to set a pace he could hold for a time, but it also had to be faster than the old ones, no matter what, even if they burst a sprint. Old ones were supposed to be a slower than people, but now Loon didn’t trust anything he knew about them. They were so strong, no doubt they could run uphill as fast as people. But now Loon was heading downhill in Lower Valley, limping hugely and hoping nothing was broken in his left leg. He had always felt fast before, but not now.

By the time the old ones topped the ridge he was almost down to his old site, where his fire was still burning. They had indeed hit the ridge too far down, and were looking down the cliff at him, so now they had to backtrack up the ridge. Loon saw that and came into his camp and looked around. They could easily have come upon him here and killed him before he knew they were nearby: it had been a bad way to camp when alone. He knocked at the fire with a stick, wanting to make more smoke to mask his scent, also to disturb their sense of what was happening. Possibly they would stop to ponder why he had done this, they were said to be slow thinkers, so he took a burning branch and threw it across the creek, then three or four more in different directions, then continued pegging downcanyon, past the confluence under Old Piss, along the creek trail, feeling his muscles burning almost as much as the hurt in his ankle. He was not bleeding, not leaving a blood trail, although his right big toe had been abraded and was beginning to bleed enough to leave drops. He bared his teeth in dismay when he saw that, and paused to sit on the ground and suck the first flow of blood out of the cut, run his tongue back and forth to start the stanching, then press some creekside sand into the broken skin, after which he hopped up and away. For speed and endurance both he should have these old ones beat. They would know that too, and hopefully give up. But he had to go on to make sure. It was time to shift modes, find his second wind, pace himself for a run down Lower Valley, then up one of its slopes to east or west. Climbs to the valley’s ridges could not be made everywhere, in fact both sides of the canyon had long low cliffs right at the ridge, making it a hard valley to get out of. But he knew there was one break in the cliffs to the east, so he headed for that, hoping the old ones would continue downvalley. Once over the east ridge he would be on the high etched tableland overlooking the gorge and its canyons, and could find some kind of tuck that would keep him hidden.