Time Slave

15

They were near the village now. She could smell the smoke. She was frightened.

She pulled back on the tether, shaking her head, wildly. “No, please!” she said.

The leather, one end knotted about her neck, the other end in Tree’s fist, was taut between them.

“No, please,” she said.

Tree jerked the rope toward him and Brenda Hamilton stumbled forward, half strangling, and fell on her left shoulder at his feet, her wrists, tied behind her, unable to break her fall. He jerked her to her knees by the leash, at his thigh. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “Please do not take me to them,” she begged.

He jerked her to her feet and she stood again, his rope on her neck, facing him.

Then he turned and walked toward the village.

She felt the tug of the leash, and followed.

This morning, she had slept, fitfully, twisted on her side, still bound as she had been the night before, and then, at dawn, when the dew was still dark on the leaves, and there was only a half light, he had slapped her awake, and her brief dream of clean sheets, and her bedroom in her former apartment in California, vanished, and she found herself, face stinging, startled, cold, lying in wet grass, bound in the thongs of a primeval master.

He fed her as he had the night before, and then, when the warmth of the food was in her body, he used her briefly, she weakly trying to resist, knowing its futility, and then unbound her ankles from the roots, freeing his rope. She felt the rope then tied about her throat. He then released her hands from the root and the rawhide thong which, during the night, had so perfectly imprisoned her wrists. She was then led quickly to the stream, and thrust into the water, to wash herself. She shuddered, but cleaned herself. She then felt, again, her hands tied behind her back. He led her again to where he had left his pouch and spear. Gathering these, he had turned and, she following on the tether, had disappeared into the trees.

They had not walked more than half an hour before she had smelled the smoke. She knew his people were near.

She had pulled back on the tether, shaking her head wildly. “Please no!” she had begged.

She had then been briefly disciplined by the leash, taught its power to control her.

Then she had stood again, facing him, and he had turned and walked toward the village. She, terrified, miserable, obedient now to the leather collar of her leash, followed him. She had no choice.

Four times during the night had Tree used her body, once awakening her to his long, pounding thrusts.

The fourth time, in spite of her stiffness, her soreness, to her astonishment, and fear, she had sensed the beginning of a strange sensation in her body; she did not know whether it was painful or pleasurable; it was very different from anything she had felt before; she was terrified of the sensation, rudimentary and inchoate, incipient, because she sensed that she might be swept helplessly away from herself before it, that it might, if unchecked, transform her from a human person with dignity, though abused, into a degraded, uncontrollable, spasmodically responding female animal. “I must never let them take me from myself,” she told herself. “I must always retain my control. I must always keep my dignity. I must always remain an intelligent, self-restrained, dignified human being, a true human person.” But she had feared that if the sensation had not been checked, she would have, had his touch continued, been literally forced to succumb to it, that it would have reached a point where she could not have helped herself, that it would have been entirely in his hands. She had sensed then that, had he wished to do so, he could have made her an animal, that animal she feared most to be, a beautiful, helpless, responding female beast, the uncontrollable, yielding prize of a greater, a stronger beast. She had closed her eyes, and turned her head to one side, and gritted her teeth, and fought the sensation, trying to keep her body inert, trying, desperately, not to feel. Then, when she sensed that she would lose the battle, and she wanted to cry out, “Don’t stop! Please don’t stop!” he had finished with her, and had withdrawn, to roll to one side, to sleep.

“I hate you,” she whispered. “I hate you. I hate you!”

Then she had resolved to resist more mightily than ever, to yield never to such a beast, or to others like him. “I will never permit them to rob me of my dignity,” she told herself. But she was afraid, for she recalled the beginning of the strange sensation. It kept recurring to her, even as she followed him on her tether, and it made her belly and inwardness grow warm, and excited. Once he stopped and turned and regarded her. She stopped, and looked down, blushing. She had seen his eyes, and the slight flaring of his nostrils. She knew in the heart of her that this strange man, whose very life in this fierce time might depend on the sharpness of his senses, had literally smelled her desire, the secretions that acknowledged her body’s receptivity, its readiness. He had walked toward her. “No,” she had said, turning away. “Go away. Go away!” She felt his hand on her, and she shuddered. “Go away!” she cried.

He had turned from her and again taken his way through the trees, she, leashed, following.

“I will resist you!” she cried.

She was furious with him.

Now, outside the tiny village, the trail encampment, Tree, with his caught female, stopped.

He was downwind of the camp, that he might approach it sensing, rather than being sensed. If anything was amiss in the camp, in particular, if there were the odors of strange men, it would be well to know. The Weasel People were enemies of the Men. They and the Men did not sell women or salt to one another. Antelope had originally been of the Bear People. But Wolf and Runner had stolen her from the Weasel People, who had taken her, with others, in a raid. The Men and the Bear People and the Horse Hunters did not steal from one another. They would sell women, or flint or salt to one another. But Antelope was not returned to the Bear People. They had not taken her from the Weasel People. The Men had done this. Besides she was comely. The Men kept her. Antelope did not mind. The Men were fine hunters. She and her friend, Cloud, were often fed by Tree. Both of them were good females, good kickers. The white-skinned slave girl, the girl he had taken in the forest, was a cold fish. But she would learn to kick, if she would eat. Antelope was not kept as a slave. That was because she was of the Bear People, who were friends of the Men. But she was not permitted to return to the Bear People. She belonged, now, to the Men. Though not a slave, the Men kept her as they did the others, as a woman. Ugly Girl was kept as a slave, which was like being the woman of a woman; she was not of the group, or of a friendly group; she was simply slave; the white-skinned female, Tree’s catch from the forest, too, was not of the group; she, too, thus, like Ugly Girl, or a girl of the Weasel People, would be kept as a simple slave; she must take orders from anyone in the group; she would be much beaten; she would have no rights, not even the life right, that accorded to members of the group; if she did not work well, or was not pleasing, she might be killed. Tree tested the odors, and found that all was well in the camp.

He would now circle the camp and approach from upwind, that they would know his approach, and that he brought with him a female. That would give the camp time to gather, and greet him. It would please Tree’s vanity to bring her in, presenting her as a new slave to the men.

They would be much pleased to see the new acquisition.

In Tree’s opinion she was more beautiful than the other women of the camp, with the possible exception of Flower. Tree smiled to himself. He did not think this would make the life of the new slave any easier.

Tree circled about the camp, for what reason Brenda Hamilton did not understand. She thought that perhaps it was customary to enter it from a given direction. But if that were so why had he approached it from the opposite direction? It did not occur to her at that time that the difference was an important one for Tree, and other. Hunters, the direction of the wind.

Soon she heard shouts in the camp, the cries of children and women.

Then, to her surprise, Tree took her in his arms and lowered her to the ground. Then, from his pouch, he took a length of rawhide, similar to that which now so tightly confined her wrists, some eighteen inches in length, and crossed and tied her ankles, tightly. She looked up at him. He then removed his rope from her neck, and, carefully, looped it about his body.

He looked down at her.

His pouch was slung at his side, the rope was looped about his body, some four times, from the right shoulder to the left hip. His spear, hafted, the flint point bound in the shaft with rawhide, lay beside him on the grass.

His legs were long and powerful and bronzed. He wore a brief skin about his waist. His belly was fiat and hard, his chest large, his shoulders broad, his arms long and muscular. He had a large head. About his neck there was a tangle of leather and claws. His dark hair, black, jagged, was cut back from his eyes, and cut, too, roughly, at the base of his neck.

Brenda Hamilton looked up at her master.

Then, lightly, he picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder.

He bent down and picked up his spear, and turned toward the camp.

The shouting, and the cries, were much louder now.

Brenda Hamilton would not be permitted to enter the camp on her own feet, even wrists bound, and tethered.

She would be carried, trussed, over the threshold of the camp, as meat or game.

She would be thrown to its ground at the feet of the skinning poles.

She was slave.

Brenda Hamilton, bound hand and foot, was carried lightly, helplessly, into the camp, over the shoulder of Tree, the Hunter.

She became aware of men, and women and children, crowding about her.

She was aware of huts, and smells.

She was aware of two sets of poles, one set consisting of two upright poles and several small, slender poles, lashed horizontally between them, from which hung strips of drying meat; the other set consisting of two crossed poles at each end, bound together at the top, with a lateral pole set in the joinings of the end poles; from this lateral pole, on the one set of poles, there hung, upside down, hind feet stretched and bound to the pole, a small deer, its head dangling peculiarly, its throat opened. There was dried blood matted in the white fur at the bottom of its head, beneath its mouth.

Tree stopped with his prize before this latter set of poles, from which hung the deer, which had had its throat cut, that the hunters might have the blood.

Brenda Hamilton was conscious of the ease with which she was carried, that she was so slight a burden for his strength, and of his arm, bronzed and muscular, holding her on his shoulder.

Tree stood with his prize before the skinning rack, to which is brought meat, and game, and slaves.

Over his shoulder, head down, Brenda Hamilton felt the inhabitants of the encampment press about her, eager, excited, talking, curious, commenting, speculating, some feeling her body and hair. Then she felt Tree’s body stiffen. And the crowd of women, children and men, fell back, and was silent.

Someone, she knew, had approached.

She heard voices.

“Where have you been?” asked Spear.

“I have been hunting,” said Tree.

“What have you caught?” asked Spear.

“This,” said Tree.

Rudely Brenda Hamilton, bound hand and foot, was thrown to the dirt of the camp, at the foot of the skinning rack.

She lay on her side, as she had been thrown. Her shoulder hurt.

She was conscious of the feet, and knees and legs, of those about. Some of the women wore strings of shells about their left ankles. They made a sound when they moved. She wondered at how far they might be from the sea.

She would learn later that these shells had been obtained in trade, exchanged for flints at the shelters, in barter with traders who had come from the world’s edge, scions of the Far Peoples.

She heard a man’s voice, harsh, direct.

“String her on the rack, that we may look at her,” said Spear.

Brenda Hamilton felt her hands being untied, and then, by two men, she was lifted into the air, and, by two others, with rawhide thongs, was bound, wrists apart, hands over head, to the lateral pole set in the joinings of the crossed end poles. Her feet did not touch the ground. She hung suspended, in rawhide thongs. Her ankles were untied. To her left, tied upside down, bound by its spread hind legs to the same horizontal pole, hung the carcass of the bloodied deer.

Spear, and the others, regarded the slave.

Brenda Hamilton saw women and children standing behind and among the men. Most of the women were bare breasted. Almost all of the women wore necklaces of leather, claws and shells.

Tree did not think Spear would order her slain. She was comely. If he did order her killed, he would fight Spear. But Spear would not want her killed. He would keep her for working and kicking.

Brenda Hamilton looked into the large, stolid face that regarded her. She looked away, terrified. The face frightened her, more than had that of her captor. The eyes, particularly, frightened her. They seemed at odds with the face, and the largeness of the man. They were narrow and shrewd, cunning, sharp. The body and the face, together seemed only large, and slow, heavily muscled, thick, heavy, particularly the jaw, but the eyes were bright, seeing, observant. The man moved his head slowly, and his body, but she sensed in this a deception, one belied by the eyes. This creature, seemingly dull, shambling, she sensed, could, if need arose, move with the swiftness of a snake, the purposiveness of a panther.

She sensed this was the leader.

She would learn later his name was Spear.

Closely behind him she saw a younger man. She saw clearly that he was the son of the other, from the narrowness of the eyes, the heaviness of the jaw, but there were two differences; the younger man’s body was more alert, more supple, less heavily muscled; but his eyes, though cruel, were simpler, more arrogant, less cunning. She sensed greater intelligence in the older one, and, too, quickness, that he might, if he wished, strike before the younger could move.

Spear’s hands felt her body, the firmness of her breasts, the curvatures of her ass.

“She is pretty,” said Spear to Tree.

She felt Spear’s hand at her delta. She closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth.

“She does not kick well,” said Tree.

Spear stepped back and regarded her. He shrugged. “She is pretty,” he said. “We will keep her.” Then he said, “She can carry flint.”

She saw Tree’s body relax.

She understood very little of what was going on.

Tree was pleased. He did not now have to fight Spear.

She did not even understand that Spear had decided that she would be, at least for the time, permitted to live.

A woman with a limp, and a scar beneath the left cheekbone began screaming.

“Kill her! Kill her!” cried Short Leg. She was first among the women of the Men, dominant among the females. She was, too, the first fed of Spear’s five women. Indeed, so high she stood with Spear that, for more than two years; none of the other hunters had used her. Some of the hunters wondered why she should stand so high with Spear. Only Spear knew. She was shrewd, and highly intelligent. She gave him many good ideas. She knew much. And, in the camp, she was an extra pair of eyes and ears for Spear. She made him more powerful.

But still she was only a female.

Spear’s left hand flew back, cuffing the screaming female back.

Brenda Hamilton saw blood leap from the face of the struck woman, who reeled back.

“Throw the sticks!” cried Short Leg. “Throw the sticks!”

“I have decided,” said Spear.

Brenda Hamilton saw hostility in the eyes of the women, as they regarded her.

“Throw the sticks!” screamed Short Leg.

Spear’s eyes met those of a small man with a twisted spine, with narrow ferret eyes, whose head was turned to one side. “Get the sticks,” he said.

Hyena sped from the group and went to one of the huts. He returned with a leather wrapper and, when he unfolded it, within it, Brenda Hamilton saw more than a dozen sticks, painted in different colors, some in rings. The colors were mostly yellows and reddish browns, the rubbings of ochers into the peeled wood.

The group fell back and, with another stick in the wrapper, a larger stick, with a feather tied to it, Hyena, to one side, drew a circle in the dirt. He then brought five rocks, and put them in the circle, too. Then with his stick, he drew lines from one rock to another. Two of the women gasped. Where before there had been only rocks there was now a star, and the rocks were its points.

Hyena gestured for silence.

He looked at Short Leg, and the women. He seemed nervous. “Throw the sticks,” said Short Leg.

He looked at the men. They did not look upon him pleasantly. He began to sweat.

He went to Brenda Hamilton and, head twisted, bent over, looked up at her.

Then he went back to the circle and picked up the sticks.

He looked at Knife.

He looked at Spear, and at Stone, and Tree, and the others.

“Throw the sticks,” said Spear.

More than ten times Hyena lifted and dropped the sticks, watching carefully, studying carefully, sometimes on his hands and knees, the way they had fallen, their angles, their relationships to one another.

Then he stood up. “The meaning is clear,” he said. “It is always the same.”

“What do the sticks say?” demanded Short Leg.

“They say Spear is right,” said Hyena.

Spear’s face did not change expression. Short Leg turned about in disgust, and left the group.

The women, other than Short Leg, seemed satisfied. The men seemed pleased.

The sticks had confirmed the decision of Spear. The female strung on the skinning pole would be permitted, at least for the time, to live.

She looked from face to face. There was the leader, narrow-eyed, heavy jawed, who was Spear; there was, near him, the one she recognized as his son; who was Knife; to one side stood a large man, heavy faced and dour, Stone; then there was a spare man, lean and large handed, Arrow Maker; and a smaller man, heavy chested, short-legged, long armed, Runner; standing together were two men, a small, quick man, grinning, furtive, who was Fox, and a larger fellow, slower witted, secretive, who would not look into her eyes, Wolf; then she almost cried out in fear, as her eyes fell upon Tooth, so ugly, so large jawed, with the extended upper right canine tooth; he approached her; “Do not be afraid,” he said to her, in the language of the Men; then he turned away, followed by two children; the small man, with the twisted back, who had thrown the sticks had taken his sticks back to the hut; before he had done this he had erased his circle and lines, and thrown the stones into the brush; he was Hyena. Then, too, there was the tall, black-haired fellow, bronzed, in the brief skins, who had taken her captive, and muchly raped her, and brought her to the camp, as his bound prize; his name, she would learn, was Tree.

She gasped.

Two women stood beside him, a shorter woman, blond, and a taller woman, dark-haired. She saw the shorter blond women slip to her knees beside him, on his right side. There, kneeling by his right thigh, she took his leg in her hands, and, softly, began putting her lips to his leg. The darker woman rubbed her body against his, and began pressing her lips to his body. Then, too, she sank to her knees beside him, docile and delicate, holding his legs, kissing at him.

Brenda Hamilton, suspended by her wrists from the pole, could scarcely believe her eyes. How shameless they were!

Yet there was something so open, so frank, so organic, so honest, so uninhibited, so ingenuously sensual and vital in their behavior that she found herself, in spite of herself, and her shock, indescribably thrilled. And then she was furious. She hated them! How shameless they were! And she knew that she, too, wanted to kneel beside him, as they did, competing for his attention.

“Get away from him,” she wanted to cry. “I am his prize, not you!”

She had never seen a man such as he.

But she said nothing. She was silent.

To her fury, Tree turned away from her and went back among the huts, followed closely by the two females, holding to him, pressing themselves against him.

“I hate him,” said Brenda Hamilton to herself.

She struggled, but could not free herself. The members of the group looked at her, curiously.

Then she hung again, quietly, wrists lashed apart over her head, helplessly.

Horror came into her eyes. She saw another face among the others. But it was not a human face. She cried out in fear, seeing Ugly Girl.

The members of the group turned to see at what she might have cried out.

Ugly Girl frightened at seeing the eyes upon her, turned away, her head low on her shoulders, her dark hair like strings, her rounded shoulders cowering, and tried to shuffle away. She was naked and squat, thick legged, long armed. No ornaments had been given to her. Brenda Hamilton saw, startled, that her ankles were fastened together, about a foot apart, by a knotted rawhide strap. One of the children, the leader of the children, a blond girl, comely, one developing, one perhaps some fourteen years of age, one Brenda Hamilton would later learn was Butterfly, reached down to. the strap on the ankles of the shambling girl and jerked back on it, throwing the girl to the dirt, and then she leaped over her and began to strike her, repeatedly, with her open hands. Four other children then, two boys and two girls, began to follow her lead. Ugly Girl rolled on the ground, covering her head and face with her arms, howling, and then, breaking away, followed, crept whimpering between the huts.

Brenda Hamilton felt sick. Never had she seen anything as repulsive as Ugly Girl.

She was horrid.

She found herself pleased that the strange girl, so horrifyingly ugly was not of the group.

She would avoid her, continually. She made her sick.

She heard again the screams of Ugly Girl, now from between the huts. Then she saw the homely fellow, with the large tooth, still followed by children, go to drive the other children away from the squat, hideous creature. She heard him cry out angrily at the children, and heard their shrieks and protests; he must, too, judging from the cries, have struck one or two of them. Soon, the blond girl, and the other children, came back to the rack. The fellow with the tooth turned away, and went to the other side of the camp. He seemed angry. The two children still followed him.

Spear turned away from the rack. He nodded with his head toward the other set of poles, from which hung strips of meat. “The meat is almost dry,” he said to Stone, and the others. “Tomorrow we will go for salt and flint, and then return to the shelters.”

The men nodded.

Brenda Hamilton saw that the younger man, who resembled the leader, could not take his eyes from her body. She hung, wrists apart, frightened, scrutinized. Then she saw a blond girl, lovely, bare-breasted, with a necklace of shells and claws, hold him by the arm, trying to pull him away. He thrust her to one side. The girl looked at Brenda Hamilton with hatred. It was Flower. Then she approached the young man and knelt before him, and with her lips, began to touch her way upward along the interior of his thigh, timidly, and then she thrust her head up, under his skins. He laughed and seized her, and dragged her from the group back between the huts, pulling her by the wrist, she, laughing, pretending to resist.

Flower, boldly, bad won his attention away from the new slave.

Brenda Hamilton shuddered.

“Old Woman,” said Spear.

Brenda Hamilton saw a hag emerge from the others. She was partly bent, white-haired. She wore skins covering her upper body as well as her lower body. There was much wrinkled skin about her eyes. The eyes, however, were sharp and bright, like those of a small bird.

She was the only one among the women who did not seem to fear the men, or show them deference.

Spear pointed to Brenda Hamilton.

“What do you think of Tree’s catch?” he asked. “Can she bring children to the men?”

The old woman’s hands were on Brenda Hamilton’s hips. Brenda felt her thumbs, pressing into her flesh, feeling her body, measuring it. “Yes,” said Old Woman, “she has good hips, wide hips. She can bring to the Men many children.”

“Good,” said Spear. His own woman, his first woman, Short Leg, had had only one child, and that had been delivered stillborn. Life in these times was precarious, and a good breeder, one who could bring many children to the group, was highly prized. Without such breeders groups died.

Brenda Hamilton felt the old woman’s hands on her breasts.

She looked away, miserable.

Spear looked at Old Woman.

“When the time comes,” said Old Woman, “she will not need Nurse.”

Spear nodded. That was good. Some of the women in the group did not have enough milk, and there was already much work for Nurse.

It was important for a female, if possible, to give suck to her own young.

“It is too bad,” said Spear, “that she does not kick well.”

The old woman turned to Brenda Hamilton. “Is it true, my pretty,” she asked, in the language of the Men, “that you do not kick well?”

Brenda Hamilton looked at her blankly. Her shoulder hurt, where she had been thrown to the dirt by Tree. And, too, her wrists hurt from the thongs. She could scarcely move her fingers.

Old Woman repeated her question in the language of the Bear People, which she had never forgotten. Many years ago she had been purchased from the Bear People by Drawer, who had become Old Man, whom Spear had killed when he had gone blind. Old Woman had been fond of Old Man.

“You must learn to kick well, my pretty,” cooed the old woman, kindly, to Brenda Hamilton.

Brenda Hamilton struggled, trying to escape the old woman’s hands. But she could not do so. With her left arm, the old woman held her still, and, with one finger, not entering her, very gently, on the side, tested her.

Brenda Hamilton hung miserably on the pole.

“Well?” asked Spear.

Old Woman removed her hands from Brenda Hamilton, and turned to face Spear.

“Her body is alive,” said Old Woman. “I do not understand why she would not kick well.”

Then she turned again to Brenda Hamilton, puzzled.

Brenda Hamilton looked at the other women standing about Never had she seen such women. They seemed vital, sensual, alive, half animal. Their femaleness seemed one with their person, as much as a smell or a pigmentation. How different the men and women seemed, the men hard, strong, tall, the women so much smaller, so lusciously curved, so vital, so shamelessly female.

These, of course, were women from before the agricultural revolution, before a man became bound to a strip of soil, and became obsessed with the ownership of his land, the authenticity of his paternity, the reliability and legitimacy of inheritances. These were times before a man owned, privately, his land, and his children and his women. The economic system was not yet such that, before effective birth-control procedures, it was desirable to inculcate frigidity in females, a property useful in the perpetuation and support of patriarchal monogamy. The cultural conditioning processes, abetted by religions, whose role was to support the institutions of the time, had not yet been turned to this end.

Brenda Hamilton, looking on the women of the Men, realized that they had not been taught to be ashamed of their bodies and needs.

They are like animals, she thought. Brenda Hamilton, though enlightened, though informed, though historically aware, was yet a creature of her own times and conditionings, of a world in which her attitudes and feelings had, without her knowing it, been shaped by centuries of misery,. un – happiness and mental disease, thought to be essential in guaranteeing societal stability, thought to be the only alternative to chaos, the jungle and terror. Fear and superstition, often by men whose gifts for life were imperfect or defective, and hated or feared life, poured like corroding acids into the minds of the young, had been a culture’s guarantee that men would fear to leave their fields, that they would keep the laws, that they would pay the priests and the kings, that the hunters would not return.

But the women, and the men, on whom Brenda Hamilton looked, had not felt this oppressive weight.

They were free of it, simply free of it.

They still owned the world, and the mountains, and hunted the animals, and went where Spear decided they would go.

They were as free as leopards and lions, as once men were, as once men might be again, among new continents, among new mountains, once more being first, now among the stars.

“Her body is alive,” said Old Woman, looking up into the face of Brenda Hamilton. “I do not understand why she would not kick well.”

Brenda Hamilton looked away from her.

“You must learn to kick well, my pretty,” said the old woman to her. “You must learn to kick well for the men.”

Brenda Hamilton turned to her, miserable, looking down into her face.

The old woman looked up at her, and cackled. “You will learn to kick well, my pretty,” she said, “if you would eat.”

Then she turned away.

Spear looked at her. Then he said to the men, “Let us go to the men’s hut.”

The men turned and went between the huts, leaving the women and children at the rack.

Spear was the last of the men to leave.

Before he left he faced Brenda Hamilton. “You are a slave,” he told her. She looked at him, blankly. Then he said to the women and children about, “Teach her that she is a slave.” Then he, too, walked away, following the men, between the huts.

The women and children pressed closely about her, poking at her, smelling her, feeling her body.

“Please untie me,” begged Brenda Hamilton.

One of the women struck her, sharply, across the mouth.

Brenda Hamilton hung, wrists apart, hands now numb, from the pole, her feet some six inches from the ground.

She tasted blood in her mouth, where the blow had dashed her lower lip against her teeth.

She closed her eyes.

Suddenly, from behind her, she heard the hiss of a switch and she cried out in pain, the supple, peeled branch unexpectedly, deeply, lashing into the small of her back, on the left side; she twisted in the thongs, agonized, to look behind her, and another switch, swiftly, cut across her belly; she cried out in misery, writhing in the thongs; first on one side and then the other, and in front and back, and the length of her body, the women and the children, chanting, circling her, leaping in and out, struck her.

Brenda Hamilton saw the ugly girl, the stupid, horrid one, crouching, naked between the huts, watching her.

Then the switch fell again, and again.

Then she saw, limping from between the huts, the woman with the scar, who had screamed something before, and had later, after the sticks had been thrown, left the group. She demanded a switch from one of the other women. It was immediately given to her. And then the others fell back. Short Leg looked at Brenda Hamilton. Then she lashed her with the switch, making her cry out with pain. She lashed her methodically and well, with care and strength, and then Brenda Hamilton, broken, blubbering, wept in the thongs. “Please stop,” she wept. “Don’t hurt me,” she wept. The older woman with the scar, Short Leg, held her face to hers, by the hair. Brenda Hamilton could not meet her eyes, but looked away.

She knew that she feared this woman terribly, that she was dominant over her.

Short Leg, angrily, threw away the switch, and limped away.

Hamilton saw another woman pick up the switch, a darkhaired woman, one of the two women who had left with the hunter who had captured her. It was Antelope. Behind her was the shorter woman, blond, thick-ankled, who had accompanied them, Cloud.

Antelope strode to her and struck her five times, and then gave the switch to Cloud, who, too, lashed her five times. Antelope smiled at her over her shoulder, as she walked away. She had the hip swing of a woman who has been muchly pleasured by a man.

A little later the young, blond girl, who had left with the other hunter, Flower, strolled to the rack, and she, too, smiling, lashed Brenda Hamilton.

“I don’t want him!” wept Brenda Hamilton. “Don’t beat me! He’s yours! He’s yours!”

Flower threw away the switch and strolled from the rack.

Then the old woman was among the other women and the children.

She pushed them away, and they, weary now, from striking, and taunting and chanting, left the pole.

Brenda Hamilton hung, beaten, alone. Her body was a welter of lash marks.

To her left hung the deer, hind feet apart, tied upside down, with its cut throat.

The sun passed the noon meridian and none paid more attention to her. She watched the shadows of the poles then creep across the ground.

Her hair was half across her face. In the early afternoon she fell unconscious.

She awakened in the late afternoon, when the shadows were long.

She saw most of the men sitting cross-legged, watching her. Among them, though, were not the hunter who had captured her, nor the small man who had thrown the sticks. Too, the small, quick man, Fox, was not among them. He was to her left, beginning to skin the deer. He began at the bound foot to his left, cutting around the leg with a small stone knife, and then made a deep vertical incision down the animal’s body. In a few minutes he had freed the skin from the meat.

The men watched impassively.

When he had jerked the skin free and thrown it to one side, to the grass, he looked at Brenda Hamilton, who regarded him, numbly.

Then, to her horror, with his knife he reached up to her bound wrist, that on his left and laid the knife against it.

“No!” she screamed. “No! No!”

The quick man, with a wide grin, took the knife away, and the other men, all of them with but one exception, the heavy-jawed, dour man she would learn was Stone, roared with laughter. And across even his face there was the trace of a smile.

She blushed, so completely had she been fooled. She was still shuddering, when she was lifted in the thongs, untied from the pole, and carried to a place on the grass.

She was sat on the grass, naked, the men about her.

The one who was their leader handed her a broken gourd, filled with water.

Gratefully she drank.

She was then handed small bits of meat, dried. She ate them.

She saw some of the women now-untying the skinned deer from the pole. Others were preparing a large, rectangular fire in a clearing between the huts. Poles would be set up; it would be gutted and roasted. Another woman had picked up the skin, and was taking it away with her.

Her body felt miserable, from the beating. She could scarcely move her hands; she could not feel her fingers. Her wrists bore deep, circular red marks, where the thongs had bitten into them.

She was given more water, more pieces of meat. She drank, and ate.

The men sat about, watching her.

She felt less frightened with them than with the women.

She knew that, to them, she was an object of curiosity, of interest, of pleasure. To the women she sensed she was only another woman, a rival, competitor. Moreover, she had recognized, with a woman’s swiftness and awareness, that she was among the most delicious of the females in the camp. She had seen only one she had felt was her superior in beauty, the young, blond girl, whom she would learn was Flower. It was not without reason that the new slave feared the other women in the camp. She hoped the men would protect her from them. She sat now among them, naked, shielded from the women. She could see that they were pleased that she had been brought to the camp, that they were pleased that she was theirs.

She felt some strength coming back to her body. She looked about herself, at the men.

Suddenly she realized that they would have nothing to do until the women prepared the meat.

She leaped to her feet, but one of the men, the dour-faced, heavy fellow, Stone, seized her ankle, and she was hurled to the grass, again among them.

Spear pointed to a hide spread on the grass, that she should take her place upon it.

The men were watching her.

“Please, no,” she said.

Spear pointed again to the hide on the grass.

She crept to it, and sat upon it.

“No,” she whispered, “please, no.”

She saw them inching toward her. She tried to move back on the hide.

With a sudden cry, as of animals, they leaped upon her, she screaming, and thrust her shoulders back to the hide. She felt her ankles being jerked apart, widely, the hands and mouths of them eager and hot all about her body, holding her, caressing her, licking at her, biting at her, pinioning her.

The first to claim her was Spear, for he was the leader.

Brenda Hamilton thrust her fingers in her mouth. They were still sore from the blow of Old Woman’s stick. She did not know whether or not they might be broken. She had tried to take a piece of meat. Screaming, striking her again and again with the stick, beating her on the back, Old Woman had driven her away from the roasting meat. Then Hamilton had fallen, stumbling, her ankles fastened, one to the other, with about a foot of play, like those of Ugly Girl, with rawhide. Spear had done this, when the men had finished with her, then turning her loose. Hamilton had fallen to the ground, helpless under the blows of Old Woman’s stick. And then two other women, too, attacked her, striking at her with their hands, kicking her with their feet. Even a child hit her. Hamilton had knelt down, head down, her hands over her head, crying out in misery. Then Old Woman had said something, and the blows had stopped. And Hamilton had crawled, abused, from the light of the fire. She had learned that she could not take meat. She was a female. But she had seen Old Woman take meat, and the large, heavy-breasted woman, too, take meat. She had learned now that they were special, and that she was not. She was only another female. Old Woman, in the cooking, was assisted by two other women, but, like the other women of the Men, they, too, were not permitted to feed themselves. The meat, like the women, belonged to the hunters. It was theirs to dispense. The only exception to this practice was that taken, usually in the course of the cooking, by Old Woman and Nurse. Old Woman did much what she wanted, and few interfered. Nurse, too, was privileged. Without Nurse some of the young might die. Nurse and Old Woman were not thought of by the Men, perhaps strangely, as being of the women. They were women, but somehow not the same, not in the same way of the women.

Brenda Hamilton knelt outside the circle of the firelight. The smell of the roasted deer was redolent in the air, with the smell of ashes and fat, and bodies.

“They are fools,” thought Brenda Hamilton. “Anyone could untie the knots on my ankles. When I wish to do so, I will, and run off.”

A few feet from her, crouching in the darkness, round shouldered, head set forward on her shoulders, eyes peering at the roasting deer, was the squat, clumsily bodied girl, with the blank, vacant eyes, the slack jaw, the hair down her curved back like strings.

Brenda shuddered, repulsed, and edged to one side, to be farther from her.

She was terribly hungry, for she had had little during the day, only the fruit and meat which her captor had given her, she bound, in the half darkness of the morning, and the bits of meat given to her by Spear before the men had put her to their pleasure. And that meat, both that of the morning and that given her by Spear, had been insufficient, and had been terribly dry, almost like cubes of leather.

She could see the fat dripping from the roasting carcass of the deer into the fire, sizzling and flaming.

She moved her fingers. She was pleased to see that Old Woman’s stick had not broken them.

This afternoon, after the men had finished with her, some more than once, she had lain on her stomach, dry eyed, miserable, on the hide that had been the bed of her masters’ pleasure, for better than an hour. She had scarcely been aware, lying on the hide, that, when the men had finished, Spear had tethered her ankles, fastening on them that knotted rawhide shackle; she had known it had been done; her ankles had been handled roughly; but it had seemed almost as if it might be happening to someone else; dully only, she had comprehended that her slim ankles were now bound in leather restraints; had the men not taken much pleasure from her; was this her only reward; she hoped that they did not think of her as they did the ugly girl; but that she, and the ugly girl, were identically shackled, told her much; that whatever status in the camp might be that of the ugly girl, that that status, too, was hers.

I am a slave, she had said to herself, lying on the hide, her ankles shackled in leather, I am a slave!

After an hour she had risen stiffly to her feet, and looked about herself.

She had been forgotten. The slave was no longer of interest to those of the camp.

She smiled to herself, ironically. Your conjecture, Professor Herjellsen, she said to herself, was correct. Your experiment is eminently successful. Unfortunately you do not know how successful it was, nor how accurate your speculations were regarding my probable fate.

Naked, hobbled, her body switched and much abused, a woman of our world, and our time, Brenda Hamilton, intelligent, sophisticated, sensitive, looked about herself, finding herself the slave of savages in a primeval camp.

But she stood erect, her head up.

I am alive she told herself. I am alive.

She moved her body, slowly. It hurt her to do so. She had been suspended, for hours, from the pole, her entire weight on tightly knotted wrist thongs, and she had been, at length, and viciously, as she had hung helplessly, switched by the women and children. And her body, too, was stiff and sore, from the attacks of her captor yesterday, and during the night, and this morning, and from the rude, prolonged attentions of her other masters this afternoon.

But I am alive, she told herself. I am alive!

She breathed in the fragrant air of the woods, of the trees and grass.

She smelled the roasting meat, the mingled odors of the camp.

She heard the cries of children, naked, running about. One was pursuing the others, and then, when he would touch one, that one would turn about and, in his turn, pursue the others, or any one of them, until he managed to touch one, and that one would then take his place.

It is tag, thought Brenda Hamilton. They are playing tag!

She saw one of the men drawn into the game, the large fellow with the prognathous jaw, and the fearsomely extended, atavistic canine tooth on the upper right side. With the children he seemed playful and gentle, even foolish. But she recalled he had used her as brutally as had the others, and not long ago. He was almost instantly “it,” and, though he was doubtless a swift, and dexterous, hunter, he seemed clumsily unable to touch the children, who, sometimes, would even run quite closely to him, taunting him, and then dart away swiftly when he leaped toward them.

Brenda Hamilton turned away, looking about the camp. She noted the number of huts, and their construction. When she tried to look inside one, a woman had screamed at her and raised her fist, and Brenda Hamilton had, stumbling, turned away. One of the huts, one of the two with a rectangular pit, and the side poles laid and tied about a horizontal pole, had sewn hides stretched across the openings at either end, that none might look within. Though Brenda Hamilton did not know it that was the Men’s hut. No female might enter it, not even Old Woman or Nurse. Even to look inside, if one were female, was to risk a severe switching. It was a mysterious place to the women. Sometimes the men met within to make medicine, but generally it was only a place to talk, a place to be where women might not come. One other hut, a smaller round one, which lay at the outside edge of the camp, separated from the others, also had hide across its opening. Brenda Hamilton would learn later that it was the Bleeding Hut, to which women, caught in flux, were banished by Old Woman, driven there if necessary with a stick. Old Woman, Brenda Hamilton would learn, could drive even Short Leg to the Bleeding Hut. In the hut, it was Old Woman who brought them water and food. As Old Woman had grown older her senses were not as keen as earlier, and she could not smell the bleeders as readily. It was dark, and lonely and hot in the Bleeding Hut. Many of the women, to fool Old Woman, stanched their flow with a tiny roll of hide, sneaking away and cleaning and washing themselves once or twice a day. Old Woman, as she had grown older, was less zealous in her policing of the females. The Bleeding Hut was often empty. Last to be sent to it, howling and protesting, had been the girl, Butterfly, who cut the meat for the older children. She had been within it only a day.

At the outside of the camp, outside of its perimeter, a line scratched in the dirt with a stick, was the midden, where bones and waste were thrown. Brenda Hamilton looked at it for some time but she saw no signs of brownish rats, similar to that which Herjellsen had had caged in the translation cubicle in Rhodesia. Such rodents, she did not know, did not follow men in their marches, but remained at the greater middens, near the shelters. Only if the men failed to return, and the edible waste at the greater middens became exhausted, would the rodents again follow the men, picking up their trail, following it, reappearing at the new middens, at the new shelters, wherever they might be.

She turned about, and, following the interior perimeter of the camp, circled the huts. In a little way, also outside the perimeter, was a waste ditch, a narrow trench, some two feet deep, some nine feet long. The dirt dug from the trench lay at its edges. The camp had two such ditches, one for the Men, the other, on the other side of the camp, for the women and children. When waste was deposited in the ditch, a small amount of the dirt from the edges of the ditch was thrown into the ditch, to cover the waste and eliminate the odor of spoor. When the ditch was filled a new ditch was dug by the women, with sticks and the flattishly curved hip bones of antelope. This trick had been learned by many of the primeval peoples. It had been learned from the great, predatory cats, who bury their wastes, thus concealing evidence of their presence in the vicinity from quarry, which might take flight, terrified by the odor of the predator. Certain human groups who had not adopted this, or a similar custom, had perished of disease. Unknown to the Men this custom, borrowed from the great cats, had, particularly in camps of long standing, sanitation values which far outweighed the concealments of scent. Another practice with indirect hygienic value was the washing of the body. Among the Men, and among their properties, their women and children, this was done with some frequency. It was done primarily that animals, either game or predators, be less easily apprised of the presence of the Men. It, like the covering of wastes was, too, in its way, an attempt at concealment. Too, it was done, particularly by the women, for cosmetic purposes. They were far more pleasing to themselves, and to the Men, when their bodies were washed free of acrid, fetid and stale odors, leaving their natural scents, exciting, sexually provocative fresh and stimulating. The great associated advantage of washing, of course, was unknown to them, the sanitary advantage, the ridding of the body of sometimes dangerous, exodermically lodged bacterial cultures. The greatest sanitary protection of the various peoples, of course, was their isolation from one another. In these times a disease that might have later swept across continents, felling its millions destroyed or decimated only a handful of victims. Indeed, we may surmise that many noxious mutations of bacteria or viruses did arise in these times, as in later times, but that having done what damage they could they either burned themselves out, dying themselves in dying bodies, or perished, leaving behind them only the immune, the survivors. Under such circumstances it is not unlikely that many a typhus, many a cholera, perished, unnoted in medical annals, never to reappear. Microscopic organisms, like their macroscopic brethren, too, may know extinction. Of starvation virulences and plagues, like men, may die.

That small hunting group, that band, calling itself the Men, was, from the standpoint of modern medical science, incredibly healthy. None of that band had ever had a disease. No child of that band had had a disease, no man of it, no woman of it. None of them had suffered from so much as a common cold. Subjected at times to exposures which would have induced pneumonia and death in other organisms they survived. There was no mystery in this. It was simply that, among them, disease did not exist. Disease requires its organisms. The organisms were not present. One cannot be eaten by a tiger if where one lives there are no tigers.

In a time Brenda Hamilton had circled the camp, discovering even, on its other side, the second waste ditch. She would learn later that that was the ditch for the women and children, and slaves. She noted at this time only that it was not as well dug, as long or deep, or sharp sided, as the other. There was a reason for this. The women who dug the Men’s ditch knew they would be beaten if the Men were not pleased with it. Accordingly, they dug it well. It is one thing to be switched by a woman; it is quite another, ankles tied together, to be switched by a man. But the women who dug the woman’s ditch were not subjected to the same discipline. The Men did not care much about the woman’s ditch, except that the wastes deposited in it, too, be carefully covered, to conceal the scent of the spoor. Too, the women did not take much pride in their own ditch. They knew that they were only women.

Brenda Hamilton turned about, and again faced the center of the camp.

The ugly fellow, with the extended canine tooth, was, sitting cross-legged, arms wide, sweeping, regaling the children with a story. They sat clustered about him, listening, sometimes crying out, sometimes clapping their hands with pleasure.

Two women, elsewhere, were scraping a skin. Another pair, working together, was removing, unlacing, another skin from a drying frame of peeled, notched, green-wood poles. Green wood was used that the skin, in drying and growing taut, would be less likely to tear loose from the lacings or snap the wood. The green wood provided a constant tension, keeping the hide taut, and yet was sufficiently resilient to preclude damage to the skin or the destruction of the frame.

One of the men, Wolf, was cutting an odd piece of hide into thin strips which he would later braid into a flexible rope.

Two of the women were giving suck to infants.

Spear was talking to Stone.

Brenda saw that the skinning rack and the meat-drying rack had been dismantled. She also recalled that the women had been unlacing a hide from a drying frame.

If she had been able to read these signs she would have understood that tomorrow, at dawn, the camp was to be broken.

One man, carefully, was feathering an arrow. He used a resinous substance, which he chewed soft, for glue, and, for twine, strands of human hair, woven into a strong thread. Another man, squatting, long-armed heavy-chested, powerful-legged, watched him. It was a skill Runner would like to acquire, the delicacy of the feathering, the placement of the feathers, that the shaft, guided, might fly true. All the Men knew how to do this, but it seemed that the best arrows were always those made by Arrow Maker. What all knew how to do, Arrow Maker, somehow, did better. He would sometimes reject an arrow with which the others could find no fault, until they had loosed it from the bow. Sometimes Arrow Maker would tap the wood and listen to it; sometimes be would balance it on a finger and see how it rested. The shafts which inclined downward slightly were usually chosen, unless a larger arrowhead were to be used. The shaft, the point, the feathers, must all be matched. Each arrow was a work of art, calling for judgment and skill. Sometimes Arrow Maker named his arrows. He had his favorites. Sometimes, as he worked, he talked with the wood, explaining to it what he was doing, and what was to be expected of it. And, as the Men said, the wood must often have listened for Arrow Maker’s arrows were almost always the best. He knew, it was said, the language of the wood. He was a good craftsman, and the wood would listen to him.

Knife, whom Hamilton knew only by sight, as the son of the leader, slept. Fox, too, whom Hamilton knew as the fellow who had pretended to put the knife to her body, when she had hung on the rack, slept.

Most of the women sat or knelt together, some yards from the fire. They were closely grouped, almost huddled. Some groomed one another. Others talked. Two played Shell, a guessing game in which a tiny shell is held in one hand, and the other player guesses in which hand it is held. Score was kept with pebbles, placed to one side. One woman was cutting hide with a tiny piece of sharp flint. Another, carefully, was piecing together two pieces of hide, folding their edges within one another and puncturing through the folds with a bone awl, then threading sinew through the holes. She pulled the sinew tight with her teeth and fingers, taking its tip first, as it was thrust through from beneath, in her teeth and then when she had pulled it through, in her fingers, then turning the hide for the reverse stitch. One pregnant woman was being groomed by two other women, who would sometimes rub their bodies against hers.

Hamilton regarded the group of females. A single net might have been thrown over them all.

How different they are from the men, she thought.

Short Leg, whom Hamilton knew only as the leader of the women, she to whom they all deferred, stood up, angrily, and regarded her. Hamilton saw the scarred face, the crooked shoulder, the result of the shorter leg. Their eyes met. Hamilton averted her eyes, quickly. Short Leg terrified her. It was not simply that Short Leg was powerful, and free, and Hamilton was slave, or that Short Leg had, earlier, beaten her viciously; it was deeper and more terrifying than that; it was the recognition on the part of one female that she is hated and despised by another, who is quite capable of killing her and is, in every way, totally dominant over her. Hamilton did not fear the men, who seemed so rough and fierce, a thousandth as much as she feared Short Leg. Hamilton was certain she could please the men. They wanted her body. She need only, with them, she knew, work hard and be perfectly obedient. With them, she knew, her femaleness, and its desirability, would protect her. But she knew she could not please Short Leg and the other women with such ease. They did not want her; they did not want her body. To them she was a competitor, a rival, in some sense a threat. She recalled that it had been the scarred woman who had demanded the throwing of the sticks, and that something, concerning her, had been decided, or confirmed, in the throwing of the sticks. The preferences of the men had been clear; the preference of the scarred woman, and certain of the others, opposing preferences, had also been clear. But the men had won the throwing of the sticks. And, Hamilton realized, she was still alive. Suddenly she realized that the scarred woman had wanted her dead. Hamilton felt sick. Suddenly she saw Short Leg before her. Quickly Hamilton fell to her knees, and put her head to the ground.

Then Short Leg had turned away, and returned to the women. She was, now, no longer looking at Hamilton.

Hamilton, red-eyed, angry, stood up.

She knew that she must if she remained in the camp, try to please Short Leg. If she did not, she knew, she would suffer greatly; indeed, she might even be killed. She sensed Short Leg had power in the camp, even with the men. Even the leader, the heavy-jawed, narrow-eyed man, had listened when she had spoken. He had not complied with her wishes, but he had listened. She sensed that the men seldom listened to the women. That the leader had listened to the scarred woman was evidence of her power. Hamilton shuddered.

But when she had groveled before Short Leg, kneeling and putting her head to the ground, Short Leg had not struck her, or even spoken to her. She had only turned away, and returned to the women.

Hamilton was much relieved. She still feared Short Leg, and terribly. But Short Leg had not harmed her. Hamilton sensed that she would be unlikely to kill her, particularly if given no provocation. Hamilton would be zealous to see that Short Leg was given no provocation. She would try to be completely pleasing to her, ingratiating, obedient, servile, and give her no cause for anger. Already she had, in kneeling and putting her head to the ground, acknowledged Short

Leg’s complete and absolute dominance over her. And Short Leg had turned away, satisfied.

This made Hamilton feel strong. She now felt she might, if she were careful, control Short Leg.

If she posed no threat to Short Leg, she might be safe.

Hamilton’s face clouded with anger.

Too, Short Leg might be pleased at her absolute power over such a beautiful woman. Short Leg might be pleased with the beautiful new slave’s deference to her. Would it not make Short Leg seem even more impressive and formidable among the men, to see the new slave, their prize, so small and helpless before her, so desperate to please her.

“I hate her,” said Hamilton to herself. “I hate her!”

But then she smiled. There were others in the camp beside Short Leg. Doubtless Short Leg could not do precisely as she wished. Doubtless she might not, simply, destroy her, even if she wished. There were, after all, men in the camp. The men would not want her killed. Hamilton laughed to herself. The power of the men, if she were careful, would protect her. The men would be her champions, protecting her from the women. She realized, of course, swallowing hard, she might have to be pleasing to the men. “Well,” she said to herself, defiantly, “I can please a man, if I must, as well as any other woman.” She was angry. “It is my intention to survive,” she told herself.-But she told herself that she would not really have to please men to survive, only submit to them. The use of her beauty, even she inert, not responding, would be more than enough for them. “I am beautiful,” she said to herself. “That is sufficient.”

She looked about herself.

She smelled the meat cooking.

To one side, some yards away, before a but, the small, twisted man, who had thrown the sticks, was kneeling in the dirt arranging small shells in geometric patterns, muttering to himself. He was the only one of the Men who had not used Hamilton.

She watched him for a time, he picking up and laying down shells, forming patterns, intent, muttering.

Idly she wondered if he were insane.

She saw the short blond woman, Cloud, emerge from one of the huts, brushing back her hair from her face. The taller woman, Antelope, had been with the other women, being groomed.

Brenda Hamilton slowly approached the hut from which the short, blond woman had emerged.

Her heart was beating rapidly.

She took short steps, the rawhide shackle confining her movements, and pretended to be looking at the sky. As she passed the hut she would, casually, inadvertently, glance inside. She was angry with the short, blond woman, but she was gone now, and so, too, was the dark-haired woman.

Suddenly her legs, backward, flew out from under her, jerked back by the rawhide strap, and she pitched forward into the dirt. She heard a squeal of laughter.

The young blond girl, Butterfly, stood over her.

Brenda Hamilton, the slave, on her side, kept her head down, and did not dare to rise.

She remembered Ugly Girl.

She hoped she would not be switched.

With a laugh, Butterfly turned about and, stepping over Hamilton, left her.

Angrily Hamilton got to her feet. She was relieved, however, that she had not been beaten.

The animosity, she suddenly realized, which the group felt for the ugly girl, doubtless in part a function of repulsion and fear, they did not feel for her. She, slave though she might be, was, if not of their group, of their kind. The ugly girl was not. Hamilton was pleased that there was one less than she in the camp. Hamilton was pleased that she was better than the ugly girl, for she, at least, was human. The ugly girl, it was clear, was not.

From where she stood, Brenda Hamilton could see the deer roasting on a long spit. It made her hungry. She was angry at the young blond girl who had tripped her.

Then, looking about, she approached the hut from which the short blond woman, Cloud, had emerged.

She looked within.

Inside, he was sleeping.

He had not taken her with the rest of the men, on the hide between the huts.

“You beast,” she said, “I hate you.”

It was he who had captured her. It was he who had brought her, slave, to this camp. It was he who had taken her virginity, she recalled angrily, and within moments of seizing and binding her. And, too, she recalled, how he had tied her down at the wrists, and had spread her legs, securing them, and had, at his leisure, taken her, again and again during the night, and again at dawn. She was furious. How casually, bow arrogantly, he had used her for his pleasure.

Then he had brought her to the camp as a slave.

On the hide she had learned that she belonged to all the men, as, too she suspected, so did the women.

But she thought of one as more her master than any other, and she now looked upon him, sleeping, lying on his side, his head on his arm.

“I hate you,” she said, “you beast.”

Then she turned about and looked up at the clouds, and the sky. She drew a deep breath. She inhaled the odors of the camp, the smoke, the smell of fat and the meat.

She looked about the camp, and at its inhabitants.

They were people, clearly, of her race, and of her kind. Yet here they were clearly savages as much or more so as any isolated, deprived or benighted group in any jungle or mountain remoteness of her own time, and these people were not remnants of competitively unsuccessful groups, driven to, or fleeing to, wildernesses, unable to withstand the onslaughts of harsher, stronger groups. These men, she understood, were as strong, or stronger, as formidable, or more formidable, than any other human groups of their time. Indeed, their hunting terrain, she suspected, might be extensive and rich in game. It was probably no accident that they hunted the forests they did. She regarded them. They were larger and stronger, and better looking, generally, than modern men, and, too, she suspected they were, human by human, more natively profound, more quickly witted, more intelligent than their later counterparts, the results of large, indiscriminately mated gene pools, and an environment in which the harsh strictures of nature, due to an advanced technology, were largely inoperative. In these times she realized that foolish or stupid men might not live; in her times she realized that such might thrive, and be encouraged to multiply themselves, providing useful and exploitable populations for their more clever brethren. Here there was little place for the foolish, the ignorant, the gullible and the weak; there were no votes to be cast, no products to buy, no institutions to support no uniforms to wear, no rifles to bear; if these men fought, or killed, they would do so because it was their own will, and they saw the reason; they would decide themselves if they would trek, or fight, or kill. They did not thrash in traps constructed by ambitious men; they did not salivate on signal, at the will of psychologists, the employees of invisible potentates.

They were people clearly, of her race, and of her kind, but they were very different.

Their technology was one of stone.

“They are at the beginning,” said Brenda Hamilton to herself.

In a way, this was true, but the Men, whose property she was, stood not at the beginning, but far along an ancient journey, a trek of life forms. There had been manlike things for thousands of years before them, and before such things, other successions and journeys, and even the tarsiers, and the tiny shrews, whose viciousnesses and tempers are so like our own, lay late along this journey. It was a journey that extended back to distant, turbulent seas, whose saline ratios we carry still in our blood, and to growths and movements scarcely to be distinguished from simple chemical exchanges, the rhythms and affinities of oxygen, and nitrogen and hydrogen, and, crucially, the instabilities and complexities of carbons. It was a journey that had seen worlds and climates wax and wane, which had witnessed stones boiling like mud and the endless, falling rains; it had witnessed the first stirrings in the slime; it had noted the track of the trilobite; it would remember the grandeur of the fern forest and would not forget the tread of the stegosaurus; and sometime, somewhere along this journey, a hominid creature had discovered what a noise might mean; and what a frightening illumination that might have been for a small, dark brain; and it may have lifted its teeth and eyes to the stars, for the first time, snarling, challenging, but frightened, wondering at the reality, the mystery, which had spawned it; and in that tiny, dark brain the reality, the mystery, itself, may first have wondered at its own nature; in that snarling hominid, frightened, reality may have first asked itself, “What am I?”

And so the Men were not truly at the beginning, but were, truly, only yesterday. The beginning which was theirs, for they were a beginning, however, was the human beginning, the truly human beginning, for the Men, and other groups like them, were among the first of the truly human groups.

Brenda Hamilton, a woman of our time, the slave girl of savages, naked, her ankles linked by a rawhide thong, stood erect in the primeval camp. She looked up at the sky, and then again at the huts, and at the men and women. She smelled the fragrant air, the meat roasting on its spit. Incredibly, and she did not understand the emotion, she felt a surge of joy. Although she did not comprehend how it might be true, she knew that she was happy to be where she was, that she did not wish it otherwise. “I am at the beginning,” she told herself. “I am at the beginning of human beings.”

Herjellsen had told her, she recalled, “Turn their eyes to the stars.”

She laughed. She was only a slave. She knew that she would be expected to work, and work hard, and serve the pleasures of her masters.

But, incomprehensibly, she was not unhappy. She did not wish to be other than where she was.

“I am at the beginning,” she told herself. “I am at the beginning of human beings.”

“Turn their eyes to the stars,” Herjellsen had said.

She laughed.

She could not turn their eyes to the stars.

She was only a slave.

Hamilton cried out with humiliation and pain as the switch struck her, unexpectedly, below the small of the back. And then another switch, too, struck her.

She fell to her knees, her head down, covering her head with her hands, as she had seen the ugly girl do, earlier in the day.

Again and again the switches fell, two of them.

Hamilton tried to crawl away, but she was held by the hair. Then the switches stopped.

She looked up, through tears, to see the two women, the dark-haired woman, and the shorter blond woman, who had accompanied her captor earlier in the day.

They stood between her and the entrance of the hut in which he who had captured her slept. They were angry, and raised their switches. They motioned her away.

She had been caught dallying in the vicinity of the hut. of the handsome hunter.

Hamilton, with difficulty, rose to her feet.

They took a quick step toward her, and Hamilton, trying to move away, but confined by the thong tying her ankles, fell. They were on her, striking her again.

Hamilton crawled from their blows and, when they had stopped hitting her, she rose again to her feet, and moved away. But as she did so, on some impulse she did not fully understand, but could not resist, looked at them, over her shoulder, and smiled, the smile of a female who well understands the motivations of other females, but is aware of the power of her beauty, and does not care for their wishes. Her smile said to them, “I am beautiful, and if be wants me, he will have me, and you will have nothing to say about the matter.” She felt an incredible female thrill as she did this, an emotion so deep and primitive she would not have known she could feel it, the elation and pride of the competitor female, but then, almost instantly, she regretted her action for, like she-leopards they were on her again with the switches. Brenda Hamilton howled for mercy before they stopped beating her. She fled, crawling, before them, driven on her hands and knees from the hut of the handsome hunter. When they stopped beating her, she stopped crawling, and head down, concealing it, smiled. Her body hurt and muchly, laced by stinging stripes, but she knew she had, as a female, inspired fear and hatred in the two women. It had been their intent, clearly, to drive her from the hunter. She told herself they had misjudged her motives. Then she asked herself why she had been lingering in the vicinity of his hut, and bad crept to it, to look in upon him, for she had no interest in him, and, indeed, hated him, for what he had done to her. He had abused her and it was he, too, who had brought her to the camp as a slave. “I hate him,” said Brenda Hamilton to herself. “But he is rather handsome,” she said to herself. And, too, she remembered the beginning of the strange sensation, which he had, in the darkness of the night, when she had lain bound at his mercy, begun to induce in her, that sensation which she had, with closed eyes and gritted teeth, fought, but to which she had known she must shortly yield, when he had finished with her, withdrawn and rolled to one side, to sleep. She had lain there bound in the darkness, miserable, hearing the sounds of his breathing. “I hate you,” she had whispered. “I hate you. I hate you!” And she had resolved to resist more mightily than ever, and never to yield to him, or such a beast as him, but forever, proudly, to keep the integrity of her personness, her independent selfhood, her dignity. Never would she permit such a beast to transform her into a beautiful, helpless, spasmodic, yielding female animal, only a surrendering prize, his conquest. She was, after all, a full and complete human being. She would at all costs protect her self-respect. They would never make her yield. Never! But never, too, had she forgotten the sensation.

Slowly, painfully, Brenda Hamilton rose to her feet.

She was, somehow, rather proud of herself.

Then she stood very straight, very beautifully, very proudly, almost disdainfully, for she saw him, standing before his hut. She was thrilled, but did not show it, seeing the strength, the leanness, the bronzedness of his body, so tall, so lithe and yet mighty. Never in her life had she seen such a man. She wondered how much of her beating he had witnessed. Doubtless the blows and her cries had aroused him.

He was eating a yellowish fruit, biting into it with his strong, white teeth, looking at her. She did not care what he thought but she hoped he had not seen her howling and being beaten. That would have been embarrassing. He grinned at her, his mouth filled with the white meat of the fruit. She turned away, disdainfully, and tossed her head.

She made her way between the huts, away from him.

“If he wants me,” she said to herself, “he may have me, for he is a man. And I may not resist him, for I am a woman.”

She stopped some yards from the group of women, to which the dark-haired woman, and the shorter, blond woman, had now joined themselves.

Several of them looked at her with hatred.

Brenda Hamilton turned away.

“Those women with switches have misjudged my motives,” she said to herself. “They may have him if they wish. I have no interest in him. He is only a beast, a savage. I do not even find him attractive. He bores me.”

But Hamilton, in the heart of her, not nicely perhaps, was quite pleased with the jealousy she had induced in the two other women. Clearly, they regarded her beauty as a serious threat, that they would not even let her linger near his hut, and this Hamilton found exquisitely flattering, even though she was not, she told herself, in the least interested in the hunter. “Perhaps I could smile at him sometimes,” she said to herself, “if only to drive them wild. That might be amusing. But, of course, I do not wish to be switched again.” Then she grew angry. “Who are they to say whom he picks for his pleasure?” she asked. But she did not wish to be switched. That hurt. She felt a violent surge of hatred for the two other women.

“I cannot help it,” she said to herself, “if he simply takes me and rapes me. They must surely understand that. That is not my fault. It is nothing I can help.”

Then she smiled to herself. “I am beautiful,” she thought, “and I cannot help it if he desires me, and that he, being a beast, will simply take what he desires. That is not my fault. It is nothing I can help. Surely they must understand that.”

Brenda Hamilton then understood the adversary relationship in which the unusually beautiful woman stands to other women, that they hate her, and that such a woman then, alienated from other women, has no choice but to turn to men, and is pleased to do so, for among them she finds herself exquisitely prized.

She looked back at the closely grouped women.

“I do not wish to huddle with the women,” said Brenda Hamilton to herself. “I would find the company of the men more congenial.”

“The women,” thought Brenda Hamilton to herself, “are my enemies.” And then she thought, soberly, “And the men are my masters.”

Brenda Hamilton thought of the tall, lean, mighty hunter. She smiled to herself. “If one must have a master,” she said to herself, “it might as well be one such as he.” And she regretted that she was not his alone, but, apparently, the common property of all the males, as, too, she gathered in effect, were the other women. We are all slaves, she thought, all of us. “In this time women are held in common, all of them as slaves of the men.” She thought of the men she had seen. “How dominant they are,” she thought, “how unassuming, how arrogant, how masculine, simply keeping their females as slaves.” She was scandalized, horrified, but, too, somehow, indescribably thrilled. Men were stronger, and could do what they wished. And here, in this primitive camp, she realized, shuddering, they did. “If. I were a man,” thought Brenda Hamilton, scandalizing herself, “I, too, would keep women as servants and slaves. Such weak, desirable, pretty things! I would be a fool not to do so!” And then she recalled that she herself was such a thing, desirable, weak and lovely, and would, accordingly, by men such as these be kept, like other women, as a slave.

Hamilton asked herself if she feared the switches more than she desired the hunter. “I am not afraid of the switches,” she said. “Too, if I am pleasing, the men will not let them switch me. Let them, then, dare to switch me, when the men are about. They would then be beaten!” Hamilton smiled to herself. “I will survive here,” she said to herself. “I need only please my masters.”

Hamilton stood straight.

She put back her head and, hands at the back of her neck, shook out her hair, long and dark, over her back.

She saw the old woman, with a stick, poking at the meat, it hot and dripping, roasting on the spit.

Two other women, under her supervision, bad been turning the spit. The heavy, large-breasted woman stood nearby.

With her stick the old woman, poking and tearing, ripped free a chunk of hot meat. It was torn from between the animal’s ribs. It emerged, hot, half-cooked, thrust on the stick.

The old woman and the heavy-breasted woman, the meat between them, began to bite at it, tearing it away from the stick. The other two women, who had been turning the spit, stood to one side, watching them.

Hamilton approached the fire.

She became suddenly aware of how hungry she was. All day, she had had only a bit of meat and fruit, near dawn, and, later in the day, before the men had raped her, their new slave, on the hide, some tiny pieces of meat.

She was ravenous.

She noted that, hanging loose, dangling by a thread of meat, torn almost free by the old woman’s stick, there was a handful of meat, popping and hot with fat. There would be no difficulty in taking it, for it was hanging there, like fruit, ready for the seizing. The fire pit was rectangular and narrow, and Hamilton need only reach over the flames and pull it free.

The old woman and the heavy-breasted woman had now torn the meat from the stick. Each now had her own piece. The old woman, her eyes closed, was sucking on fat from the meat. The heavy-breasted woman was thrusting her piece of meat into her mouth, ripping at it, moving her head in doing so. Hamilton saw juice running at the side of her mouth.

Hamilton went to the side of the fire, to the meat.

The two women who had been turning the spit took no note of her, they conversing.

Old Woman opened her eyes, looking at Hamilton.

Hamilton smiled at her.

Old Woman did not smile, but watched her, carefully.

Hamilton thought her fingers were broken, so savagely had the old woman’s stick struck them!

Hamilton screamed with pain, and twisted, and, stumbling, fighting to keep her balance, fled, driven, from the meat, she crying out, the old woman screaming, the stick lashing her, hot on her back, and then, her ankles caught up by the rawhide shackle, sprawling, she fell to the ground.

“Please!” she cried.

The old woman’s stick was merciless. Hamilton, kneeling, head down, hands covering her head, wept with misery.

The two other women, those who had been turning the spit, leaped to her, striking her with their hands, kicking her with their feet. Even a child ran to her, striking at her.

Then the old woman said something, sharply, and the blows had stopped.

Hamilton, abused, crawled from the light of the fire.

She now knelt outside the ring of the firelight, in the falling dusk. She sucked her fingers, and then, carefully, painfully, moved them. They had not been broken.

She had learned that she could not take meat. She was a female.

Her back was sore from the beating of the stick. Her ankles were chafed by the rawhide shackle.

But she had seen Old Woman take meat, and the large, heavy-breasted woman, too. She had learned now that they were special, and that she was not. She was only another female. Even the two women who assisted the old woman, she had noted now, did not take meat. They, too, were not permitted to feed themselves. The meat, like the women, Brenda now understood, belonged to the hunters. It was theirs to dispense. The only exceptions were apparently the old woman and the heavy-breasted woman. They were privileged. Hamilton would learn that Old Woman did much what she wanted, and that Nurse, too, did much as she pleased. Nurse and Old Woman, Hamilton conjectured, though women, were somehow not in the same way as she, and the others, of the women. Those two were special. The others, and she, were not.

Hamilton was furious, kneeling outside the circle of the firelight.

She moved her ankles.

“They are fools,” she thought. “Anyone could untie the knots on my ankles. When I wish to do so, I will, and run off.”

A few feet from her, crouching in the darkness, round shouldered, head set forward on her shoulders, eyes peering at the cooking deer, was the squat, clumsily bodied girl, she with the blank, vacant eyes, the slack jaw, the hair down her curved back like strings.

Hamilton shuddered, repulsed. She edged to one side, to be farther from her.

Hamilton was terribly hungry.

She smelled the roasted deer. She could see the fat dripping from the roasted carcass of the deer, dropping into the fire, sizzling and flaming.

She moved her fingers again. She was pleased that Old Woman’s stick had not broken them.

The old woman said something to the two women who had been cooking the meat, turning the spit.

Those two women then, under the supervision of the old woman, now, one at each end, lifted the green-wood spit on which, impaled, hung the roasted carcass. They lifted it from the fire slowly, heavily, and sat it down on a large, fiat, gray rock, on which it would be cut. The green-wood spit was left in the meat.

All day Hamilton had had only a bit of meat and fruit, near dawn, and, later in the day, some tiny pieces of meat.

She was ravenous.

“Feed me, you beasts,” she said to herself, “I’m starving.”

The old woman cried out a single word, loudly, shrilly. Immediately the women, who had been clustered together, got to their feet and came forward. The children, too, came forward. They all stood in a circle, about the flat rock on which the meat lay. With her stick the old woman pushed back some children, and one of the women. The women and children now stood in an open circle about the meat, it forming the center of the circle. Then the women parted and, between them, tall and mighty, the masters, strode the men. “How small and weak women are beside them, the uncompromising beasts,” thought Brenda Hamilton. First among the men came Spear, with his narrow eyes, his easy movements. Hamilton noted that there was gray in the shaggy dark hair at his temples. Behind him, first, came the one she knew must be his son, for he had the same cruel features, the same shape and heaviness of jaw. Then came the others, among them the tall, handsome hunter who had taken her, who had made her a slave. “How incredibly handsome and strong he is,” she thought, in spite of herself, “what a magnificent male!”

Her hunter, with. the others, squatted down about the meat. He was between her and the meat; too, there were others between them. Brenda stood up, so that she could see better. The women then, to her interest, separated from the children. The children went to one side, foremost among them the young, blond girl, who had tripped her and, earlier, the ugly girl. The women, Brenda noticed, aligned themselves about, and behind, various hunters. She was sure that this was not a random dispersal, but that there was an order involved. She saw the two women, the taller, dark-haired girl, and the shorter, blond girl, kneeling closely behind her hunter. They were too close to him! The blond girl put her lips to his shoulder. Hamilton was furious.

Spear’s flint knife, some eight inches long, the handle wrapped in leather, taken from a rawhide belt, thrust down into the hot meat.

It was the first time, of course, that Hamilton had witnessed a feeding.

She was startled at much of what she saw. The first piece of meat Spear lifted to the sky and the directions, and then threw into the fire, that it might be destroyed.

There were many meanings in this, and various groups did this differently. There seemed nothing in this of childish magic, like the throwing of the sticks. In its way it seemed simple and profound. It was a gift to the power, and showed both the gratitude and generosity of the Men. Part of what they bad been given they would give back, for they were the Men. The power was in the trees and the water, and in the wind and the budding flower, the curling leaf, the stone the tiny branch, in the swiftness of the fish, in the flight of the bird, the stealthy padding of the lion’s paw, and in the Men; it was in all things. In Spear’s act there was little of superstition, but little, too, of reverence. It was rather a celebration, and acknowledgment, of the aimless, random grandeur of the power. The power, as conceived of by the Men, had no greater love for them, nor should it, than for the blade of grass or the beasts they slew for food. No more than the rain and the sun could the power be placated, for it was the power. It gave not only life but it destroyed it as well; meaninglessly it bestowed all things, misery and joy, and life and death; with equanimity it looked on the recurrent cycles of growth and decay; it delivered men into the hands of age and blindness and antelope into the hands of the hunter; Spear had heard it in the scream of the murderess and in the cry of the newborn child; he did not prostrate himself before it, nor did he reverence it; but, in his way, he acknowledged it, and, perhaps, did it honor, for, without the power, there was nothing. Men, in these days, were not so foolish or arrogant as to create deities in their own image; they were too close to the power, in its terribleness, too close to the reality, for such invention to be taken seriously; only too obviously was the power not a manlike thing; only a fool could think so, one who did not sense the nature, the pervasiveness, the mightiness, the amorality, of the power; but, without the power there would be nothing; without the power there would not be the grass, or the antelope or the men; without the power there would be nothing; but Spear, and the others, did not grovel before the power, for they were men; they were grateful when the hunt went well, and part of the kill they would return to the power; this showed gratitude, but too, in its generosity, that they returned a portion of this gift, it showed the mightiness of the hearts of the men; not even the cave lion would be so proud, so arrogant, that it would dare to exchange gifts with the power; Spear, and the others, did not love the power, nor did they reverence it, but they acknowledged it, and, in their way, honored it. They would not worship it, of course, for the power was not so trivial or petty, so childish, that it either required, or demanded, worship; it would simply have been pointless to worship it, for it was not that sort of thing; and, had the power been a man, if it were not psychotic, worship would have simply embarrassed it; and so Spear, on behalf of himself, and the others, not reverencing and not worshiping, but acknowledging, and, in his way, honoring, did, with a good heart, lift unto the power meat, and then burned it.

Spear’s flint knife, some eight inches long, the handle wrapped in leather, taken from a rawhide belt, thrust down into the hot meat.

It was the first time, of course, that Hamilton had witnessed a feeding.

Piece by great chunk was ripped and pulled from the roasted carcass and thrown to the hunters who, squatting down, with both hands, began to feed on it, tearing it apart with their teeth and fingers.

Spear cut a huge chunk away and threw it to Tooth, the hunter with the prognathous jaw, the atavistically extended canine on the upper right side of his mouth. The children clustered around him.

Then Spear cut pieces of meat for those females who were pregnant, their bellies heavy with child beneath the skins, their breasts already swelling with milk. There were four such females, slow, and awkward, who took the meat and began to chew on it.

The man with the large tooth cut small pieces of meat for each of the tiny children, those walking, those less than some five years of age. The small ones would be guaranteed food, and the pregnant females. It was the law. Spear had made it. The man with the large tooth then gave the rest of that chunk of meat to the young, blond girl, she who was some fourteen years of age, and she it was who would distribute it among the older children. She took the first piece herself, and ate it, they watching, eyes wide, waiting for her favor. Some of them whimpered, and put out their hands, and she struck them away. Others pointed to their mouths. One boy, Hamilton noticed, did not beg, but stood with the children, sullen, angry. He, too, might have been some twelve or fourteen years of age, but whereas the blond girl was lusciously, incipiently a female, he was only still a boy. He was not yet old enough to run with the hunters. He did not have the great leap of growth yet that would bring his body to the pitch at which he might follow the pace of the older men, in their long hunts, hanging behind them, learning the smells and signs of the forest. He was two inches shorter than the girl, and less heavy. He was still slight, still a boy. But Hamilton saw that he was proud, defiant. The girl, arrogantly, threw the meat to the other children, giving more or less as the child was or was not one of her favorites. Much of the meat she ate herself. The younger children leaped and cried, and she would throw them a piece of meat. The boy cried out angrily, demanding food. She paid him no attention. She ignored his outstretched hand. Then, angrily, he tried to snatch a piece of meat and she struck him, screaming, and drove him from the meat, hitting him, kicking at him. He fell to the ground. She kicked him and turned away from him. She returned to the meat and, pulling it apart, ate some herself, and threw other pieces to the children. One piece, dark with gristle, she threw to the dirt before the boy, and stood up, head high, wiping her hands on her thighs.

Hamilton saw that there were five women behind the leader, and first among them was the lame, scarred woman, who had so terrified her.

The leader, over his shoulder, handed back meat to the lame woman, who took it, eating some, distributing other portions to the other women. Behind each hunter there knelt one or more women, waiting to be fed. After a time the hunters, growing heavy with food, grease on their hands and bodies, juice at their mouths, began to hand meat back to the women. Some of the women, from time to time, would whimper, and point to their mouths, indicating their hunger. Most of the women seemed to have hunters who fed them. The young man who was the son of the leader gave meat to,, the older blond girl, who was muchly beautiful, and clung much to him, she whom Hamilton would learn was Flower. Her own hunter, to her anger, was feeding the dark-haired woman and the shorter blond woman. Sometimes he would hand them meat, sometimes he would hold it in his hand, or mouth, and make them take it in their teeth. He did not so much as look at Hamilton. “I am hungry,” she thought. “I am hungry.”

She saw that two of the women were nursing infants. They, like the others, knelt behind men, begging their food. Hamilton saw two other women, to her irritation, lying on their backs, holding out their hands to hunters, lifting their bodies to them. “Filthy bitches,” thought Hamilton. “Prostitutes! Whores!” She was furious that they would offer their bodies to the hunters’ pleasure, merely to be fed. “Whores!” thought Hamilton. Then Hamilton saw, too, that now one of the mothers, her infant in the arms of another, was lying before a hunter, lifting her body. Hamilton turned away. “I hate men,” she thought. “I hate them.”

She saw meat thrown to the women who lifted their bodies. Other women, still hungry, now lifted their bodies to the men. Some others crawled to them, and kissed them, about the ankles. Many had meat thrust in their mouths.

Hamilton turned away, disgusted. “They are slaves, the females are slaves,” she thought.

But the high females, like the lame woman, and those others, behind the leader, seemed to feed well. Their importance, their prestige, Hamilton thought, is a function of the males with whom they associate themselves. If one would be a high female, one must well please a high male. But the lame, scarred woman was not truly attractive, and yet she knelt behind the leader himself, behind his left shoulder. In some important way, Hamilton thought, she must serve him well. She shuddered as she thought what must be the menace, the power, of the lame, scarred woman.

She saw the young blond girl, Butterfly, walking among the group. She saw the leader’s eyes, narrow, watching her.

She did not think it would be long before the young blond girl would be told to take a new place in the feeding, among the women.

She saw the boy gnawing on the gristly meat he had been thrown.

Almost unaware of it, Hamilton discovered she had edged closer to her hunter.

Different hunters now were cutting into the meat, feeding themselves, and the women about them. The first pieces of meat had been cut by the leader, and distributed by him, for he was the leader, he was the one who gave meat.

The old woman and the nurse, too, were pulling at the meat, as though they might be hunters.

Hamilton saw the old woman take some meat and give it to one of the nursing mothers.

She also saw the heavy-bodied man, with the extended canine tooth, give a tiny piece of meat to a toddling child, who put it in his mouth and ran to his mother.

Hamilton edged closer to her hunter.

Then he faced her.

“I’m very hungry,” said Hamilton. “I know you cannot understand what I’m saying, but I trust that my need, and my condition, are sufficiently obvious. I would appreciate receiving some food.”

He turned away from her, eating.

“Please,” said Hamilton.

He paid her no attention.

She rose to her feet, and, hunter by hunter, asked to be given meat. Most looked up at her, and then looked away. She was not a woman they had elected to feed. She saw the women exchanging glances, and smiling. “Please,” said Hamilton. “Please!” She was becoming more desperate. She did not ask meat from the leader. She was too terrified of the lame, scarred woman behind him. Sometimes when she approached a hunter, the other women behind him would motion her away, angrily. But most to her consternation was the fact that the hunters did not seem much interested in her. Suddenly Hamilton was frightened. Was she not beautiful? Should they not be eager to please her? Her heart sank. She suddenly understood that she stood in a competitive situation, she against other females, even to be fed. “No!” she wept to herself. But the men had used her. But now they did not seem interested in her. “Oh, no,” she said, sinking to her knees, “oh, no, no.” She had not sufficiently pleased them. What could she do to please them? What must she do? “No, no,” she wept to herself.

Anxiously she returned, ankles thonged, to behind the tall, lean hunter, he who had brought her captive, slave, to this camp.

She knelt behind him. “Please,” she begged him. “Feed me!”

The dark-haired girl, and the blond girl, chewing, looked at her.

There was no interest in their eyes.

“Feed me!” wept Hamilton.

The hunter did not look at her.

Hamilton felt her wrists being drawn behind her back. She looked over her shoulder. It was the leader. She felt her wrists tied together, tightly, with a rawhide thong. He then untied the rawhide from her ankles and, crossing her ankles, used it to secure them. He then lifted her lightly and carried her from the fire. Before one of the small, round huts, he paused, and then, easily, threw her within. She landed in the hut pit, on her shoulder, a foot below the surface of the surrounding soil, in the dirt, in the darkness. She struggled. She could not free herself. She could not rise to her feet. For more than two hours she lay on the sunken floor of the hut, in its pit, bound. She wept, she struggled. Her body was hungry, and ached from the beatings she had been given.

Outside the hut she could hear a pounding on sticks and something like singing, and laughter.

She did not know but tomorrow, at dawn, the people would go for salt, and then to the flint, and then, when ready, return to the shelters.

When the camp was quiet Brenda Hamilton heard something coming, slowly, shuffling, animallike, toward the hut. In the darkness, she struggled to sit up. It was coming closer. Brenda shrank back against the side of the hut pit, pushing back against it.

A head appeared in the entrance to the hut.

“Stay away!” screamed Hamilton, suddenly terrified, knowing she was helpless, and could not defend herself.

The creature entered the hut, stepping down, its head low on its rounded shoulders.

“Stay away from me!” screamed Hamilton. “You’re not human! You’re hideous! Stay away!”

Ugly Girl, her ankles in their leather shackles, but otherwise free, peered down, in the darkness, looking at Hamilton.

She thrust her wide, round head toward Hamilton. Hamilton felt the greasy, stringlike hair on her shoulder.

“No! No! No!” cried Hamilton. “Help! Help!” She tried to turn away, trapped against the side of the hut pit.

The creature looked at her, quizzically.

“Stay away from me!” screamed Hamilton. “You’re a monster! You’re repulsive! You are hideous! Keep away! Keep away!”

Ugly Girl backed away, squatting down.

“You. haven’t the intelligence of a dog!” screamed Hamilton. “Keep away from me!”

Ugly Girl made no noise, squatting in the darkness, near Hamilton.

“Stay away!” hissed Hamilton. “Stay away!”

Ugly Girl did not move for some time but then, slowly, neared Hamilton. “Stay away!” screamed Hamilton.

Ugly Girl, steadily, not listening to Hamilton, disregarding her cries, her movements, thrust her mouth against Hamilton’s. Hamilton tried to twist her mouth away, terrified, hysterical, almost retching, but Ugly Girl persisted, forcing her mouth to Hamilton’s. Suddenly Hamilton realized that there was something in her mouth.

It was meat.

Hamilton suddenly took it and chewed it, and swallowed it. Ugly Girl pulled back her head.

There was a long silence.

“Thank you,” said Hamilton.

Ugly Girl’s hand reached out, tenderly, and touched Hamilton’s cheek, and then she went to the other side of the hut and lay down.

In a few moments Hamilton heard the breathing of her sleep.

During the night, at times, Ugly Girl whimpered, and twisted.

“How hideous she is,” thought Hamilton. “How hideous.”