Time Slave

22

“Hurry, Butterfly! Sew more swiftly!” scolded Hamilton. Butterfly looked up, angrily, and then bent again to the deerskin, thrusting the awl through the doubled skin, one layer at a time, and then pushing the wet sinew, lubricated with her spittle, through the small hole. With her small fingers she drew it tight, but too tight, wrinkling the skin. She looked up, in misery.

“It is too tight,” said Hamilton. “You will bunch the skin.”

“I will not have enough sinew left to finish,” wailed Butterfly.

“You did not measure it correctly,” said Hamilton.

Butterfly looked at Hamilton. About Butterfly’s throat, tied, was a necklace of shells, and claws, and loops of leather, and, threaded on the loops, with the shells and claws, were small squares of leather, five of them, bearing the sign of the Men. The young man, Hawk, had tied it there.

“Old Woman will beat me again,” wailed Butterfly, “with her switch!”

“You must learn, Butterfly,” said Hamilton.

Hamilton stood up. She was happy. She stretched. The spring air was delicious. She threw her hair back over her shoulders with her hands, and a luxurious movement of her head. She wore her brief wrap-around skirt, exposing the left thigh. Besides this she wore only her own necklace, proclaiming her, like Butterfly, as a woman of the Men. She smiled. It had been the hunter, Tree, she recalled, long ago, who had tied the necklace on her throat, in a high prison cave. She closed her eyes deliciously. She gritted her teeth against the surgency of her desire. How she, his helpless slave, loved him! How delicious it was to belong, to literally belong, will-lessly, helplessly, to a strong man, to such a magnificent brute, to a true master of women whose needs and pleasures, and smallest whims, she must gratify and serve with the full perfection of the slave girl, his to command as he pleases. She opened her eyes, happily. Brenda Hamilton, the slave girl, was happy.

Life was different than it had been among the Men. Changes had come about.

“Just hope, Butterfly,” said Hamilton, “that it will not be Hawk who will beat you.”

“Is she not old enough to kneel with the women?” had asked Hawk of Spear.

Spear had looked at Butterfly. “Kneel with the women,” he had said.

“No,” she had cried, “Please!”

But Old Woman had hobbled to her and, seizing her by the arm, drawn her among the women. They had laughed at her. She had knelt miserably among them.

Even before the snow had melted, it was clear that the boy, to whom Butterfly had been often cruel, was ready to run with the hunters. In the winter he had gained many pounds, and some five inches of height, and, even since the melting of the snow, it seemed he had grown the width of another hand. The voracity of his appetite, even among hunters, was a joke in the camp. He was large-boned. Some thought he might grow as large as Spear or Tree. The preceding summer and early fall Butterfly had still been taller and heavier than he, but, now, in the spring, to her dismay, she must lift her head, even to look into his eyes. She was angry and jealous, for he had grown larger and stronger than she, until now there was no comparison between them, and for, soon she knew, he would run with the hunters; he would be a Man. Sometimes she was frightened, because of the way in which he now regarded her; often she caught him watching her body, and how it moved; sometimes she felt naked before him.

One day, even before the last snows had melted, Spear, and the Men, had met below the base of the cliffs. Among, the Men, too, was Knife, who, in the winter, had challenged Spear to be first in the group. Spear had not killed him. Knife’s limbs, set by William, had healed straight. He now said little. He seldom, now, used one of the women, even Flower.

Spear, the left side of his face terrible with its scarring, from the ax of Knife, with the Men, had stood at the base of the cliffs. The women, and children, too, had stood with him.

“Lift this stone,” had said Spear to the boy. He had lifted it. No woman or child in the camp could have lifted it. “Throw this spear,” had said Spear. The boy had thrown it. It was a fine cast. No woman or child in the camp could have thrown it one third so far. Hamilton and the other women, thrilled to see it thrown. Soon, they knew, there would be a new hunter among them. There would be more meat. And he seemed a fine lad. He might make a great hunter. But Hamilton, too, was uneasy. She fingered her necklace. She was a woman of the Men. Should the boy become a hunter she, as much as the other camp females, would belong to him, as they did to the others. “Fetch the spear,” had said Spear. The boy had retrieved the spear. “Do not return to camp,” said Spear, “until it is bloodied.” The boy left the camp. Late that afternoon he had returned. Rolled on his shoulder, tied with hide rope, was a fresh skin, wet and dark. The bluish, chipped stone blade of the spear was stained with reddish brown. He had slain a young, male bear, vicious, irritable, come not more than a handful of days ago from its hibernation. He looked at Hamilton, and Cloud, and Antelope, and another woman, Feather. “There is meat at the rock,” he said, “by the stream.” Swiftly the women, Hamilton, and the three others designated, had left the camp, to fetch back the meat. They took a pole, and rawhide thongs, with them. In half an hour the women, stumbling, two on each end of the pole, the animal tied by its paws to it, returned to the camp. The kill was tied to the rack at the foot of the cliffs and Spear, with his stone dagger, at the animal’s throat, into a leather sack, drew blood. Then the men, with the blood, took the boy into the Men’s cave, back, deep in the cliffs, where the women were not permitted to follow. What they did in the Men’s cave the women did not learn, and would never be told. But when they had emerged, Spear had said, “A hunter is born.” The young man had stood among the men, tall and straight. “This is a hunter,” had said Spear, pointing to the young man “His name is Hawk. He is of the Men!” The men had cheered him. Spear pointed to the earth before the young man’s feet. Short Leg first, and then Nurse, and even Old Woman, and then the other adult females of the camp, knelt before the young man, their heads to his feet. He regarded them. Then he said, “Prepare a-feast.”

“Up, lazy women,” scolded Old Woman, getting up, even hitting Cloud and Antelope with her switch. “Prepare a feast!” The women sprang to their feet to prepare a feast. The children, with the exception of Butterfly, who were standing nearby, leaped up and down and clapped their hands. Butterfly did nothing but, apprehensively, regard the new hunter. But Hawk was now sitting with the men, talking with them. Later he did notice her, with the children. It was then that he had said to Spear, “Is she not old enough to kneel with the women?” And Butterfly had been made to kneel with the women. None of the men had fed her. It was to the new, young hunter that she went last.

“Feed me,” she asked.

He cut a large, hot piece of meat. She eyed it. Then he began to eat it. “Feed me,” she begged.

He looked at her, and she dropped her eyes. When she again regarded him, he said, “We will see if you please me.”

He then rose to his feet, taking the meat and taking, too, the rolled skin of the bear he had slain in the afternoon. He left the fire and she slipped to her feet and followed him. Beyond the edge of the fire, when he had untied the skin and thrown it, spreading it, across the damp turf and snow, she had suddenly, with a cry of misery, fled. In a few steps he had caught her and, carrying her, returned her to the fur, on which he threw her, at his feet.

Tooth called two children away from them, who had wished to watch.

“Feed me!” she wept.

“We shall see if you please me,” he said. Then he dropped to his knees beside her.

In an hour he returned to the fire. She, now naked, her head down, blond hair disheveled, followed him, and knelt behind him. About her throat, visible under her hair, knotted there by the hunter, was the necklace of loops of leather, and claws, and threaded shells; Butterfly was now of the women. Her cheeks were stained with tears. Hamilton regarded her. She thought that, in another year or two, Butterfly would be the equal of Flower. Butterfly reached her hand forth, gently, to touch the hunter. He paid her no attention. Hamilton then saw her lie on her back, eyes moist, reproachful, and lift her body to him. He threw her a piece of meat. She ate it eagerly, kneeling quite closely behind him.

To one side Hamilton saw Ugly Girl lift her body to Tooth. He fed her.

This made Hamilton happy. Then she went to Tree and on her back before him, lifted her beauty before him, arching her back. He threw her meat, it striking her body, and she scrambled up and ate it happily, kneeling behind him. Wolf fed Antelope, and Runner fed Cloud.

No more had been heard of William and Gunther. Tree had, knowing Hamilton would have wished it so, returned their bullets to them. They had gone. There had been no meat for them in the camp of the Men. For more than two weeks following their departure, Tree, in his jealousy, had made her serve him exquisitely well, scarcely permitting her out of his sight. The first two nights, when not using her, he had kept her bound, hand and foot. During the first two days, he had kept her in close ankle shackles, as had been done with her when she had first been only a captive stranger in the camp, not even necklaced.

She glanced at Tooth and Ugly Girl. He held her in his left arm and fed her with his right hand, bits of meat. Huge, homely Tooth, with the prognathous jaw, the extended canine, the lover and teacher of children, cared for the simple, doglike thing in his arm. She held him, and put her head against him. Then she looked up at him, the large eyes wide, soft, moist. She licked him softly with her tongue, and lifted her head again to him, to see if he would rebuff her. He gave her another tiny piece of meat. She could not aspire, of course; to wear the necklace, for she was only of the Ugly People. Hamilton supposed Tooth was fond of her body. It was short, and squat, and round-shouldered, but, from the point of view of Tooth, Hamilton supposed, it cuddled well, and the breasts were not displeasing. Even Tree, Hamilton recalled, occasionally ordered her to cuddle to him, drawing up her legs; it pleased her, too, when commanded, to do so, feeling his strength, his protection, making herself a small, helpless love kitten in his mighty arms. But the face of Ugly Girl seemed so repulsive to Hamilton. How could Tooth stand to gaze upon it? It was broad; the neck was short; the hair was stringy; the eyes were so large, so wide, so simple, so empty. Hamilton wondered how Tooth saw Ugly Girl. Did he see her as she did? Or did he see, or sense, something else in her? How could he stand to look upon her? Hamilton chewed on the meat which Tree had given her. Tooth looked down into the eyes of Ugly Girl. They were soft, wide, moist. He kissed her. Her ‘face, to Hamilton, startled, in that moment, had seemed somehow different than before. She did not understand what it was that she had seen. Ugly Girl now had her head against Tooth’s shoulder. When she lifted her head from his shoulder there were tears in her eyes. Hamilton shrugged; the Ugly People were animals; yet Hamilton was pleased that Tooth should be kind to Ugly Girl. It was she whom the Men had used to steal bullets from Gunther and William.

“Feed me, Master,” wheedled Hamilton, putting her chin on Tree’s right shoulder.

He passed her back a piece of meat, with his right hand, over his right shoulder, not looking at her.

“Here is a piece of sinew,” said Hamilton to the miserable Butterfly, “which I have been saving. It is long enough. Now sew well. Next time measure more carefully.”

“Thank you, Turtle,” said Butterfly, gratefully. She knelt, bending over her sewing.

The brief skin which Butterfly wore about her hips was tanned from a hide, that of a deer, which Hawk had slain. Her first task, after pleasing Hawk, had been the preparation of the bearskin which he had brought back to camp with him. Turtle and Cloud had helped her with it.

It had been evident, from the first, that Hawk had a special interest in slender Butterfly. It was almost always she whom he called upon to serve him. He insisted on exact and total obedience from her, as Tree did from Hamilton. Hamilton could see that the girl, to uphold her self-respect, pretended to resent this, and hotly, but was secretly, as could be seen from her smiles and expressions, much pleased. Hamilton supposed that Butterfly, an intelligent, arrogant, spoiled, vital girl could only respect a man who was her total master. Hamilton, in living among the Men, had, for the first time, begun to understand the ratios of dominance and submission, endemic in the animal kingdom. She saw it in wildlife about her, and among the Men. Had Hawk been crippled by a subsequent psychological conditioning or caught in the meshes of social restraints, Butterfly would have constantly, protected by his imprinted conflicts, his self-alienation, and reinforced by a world invented to exclude hunters, fought him for dominance and, instinctually yearning for his authority to be imposed upon her, she genetically a hunter’s woman challenged him continually, both to his misery and hers. But Hawk was not weak. He could not have been weak, unless there had been a defect in his brain. His world had not been built to make him weak. Weakness is not a useful property of hunters. It reduces their effectiveness. Weakness and gullibility are virtues only in an agricultural world, or a technological one, where, in a complicated network of interrelationships, it is important to keep men bound to the soil, or to their machines or desks. Weakness in a hunter would work against the survival of the group. But this did not mean that Butterfly would not, from time to time, if only to call herself to his attention, or to reassure herself of his mastery and strength, challenge him. It only meant that her subordination, on such occasions, to her pleasure and satisfaction, would be again taught to her, promptly and effectively. Yesterday, Hamilton recalled, when Butterfly had spoken back to Hawk, he had, laughing, taken her by the hair into the woods. There he had switched her a few times and, finishing her discipline, thrown her over a log. She had followed him back to camp, red-faced, but pleased.

“Since I gave you the sinew,” said Hamilton to Butterfly, “you must, when the men return tonight, give me your share of the dried sugar berries, if Old Woman lets us have them.” These were almost the last of the berries, dried and hard, but sweet when chewed, left over from the preceding fall.

“No!” said Butterfly.

“Give me back the sinew!” laughed Hamilton.

“No!” said Butterfly. “I will give you the sugar berries! I will, Turtle!”

“Very well,” said Hamilton. She looked down at Butterfly. “For whom are you making that garment?” she asked.

“For Hawk,” said Butterfly, angrily. “He makes me work so hard!”

“Men are all beasts,” said Hamilton.

“Yes,” said Butterfly. “They are! They are!”

Hamilton looked away from Butterfly, happy. She breathed in the delicious spring air.

The men were hunting. They would return by nightfall. There was now no man in the camp, with the exception of Hyena, who seldom ran with the hunters. He was in his cave, arranging stones in patterns, about the skull of an aurochs. He spent much time doing this, and such things. Hamilton hoped that the men’s hunt would be successful. She was hungry. They had been gone now for two days. She had missed Tree last night. She saw Antelope returning to camp with water. Cloud was with her. Cloud no longer wore Gunther’s watch, taken from him when he had been driven from the camp. She kept it among her belongings.

Hamilton made her way up the face of the cliff. She made the ascent less circuitously than she would have the preceding fall. She did not take the sloping path used by Old Woman, that used, too, by those who carried burdens, but scrambled upward, foot by foot, toward the second tier of caves, to the first broad ledges. Some forty feet from the ground, on – a broad ledge, she looked out across the woods. The sky was very blue, with white clouds. The first leafage, delicate, very green, was on the trees and bushes. This past winter there had been only one visitor other than Gunther and William, a trader from the Bear People. He had brought shells from the Coast People, for which he had traded skins, and, for them, received salt from the Men. He had stayed for ten days. He had been known. Gunther and William had arrived some four weeks later. Hamilton was looking forward to the summer camp, in which the Men moved sometimes marches away, for new hunting, in which huts were built. It had been to a summer camp that Tree had first brought Hamilton. And from the camp they had gone to fetch flint and salt before returning to the shelters. The women did not know the location of the salt. Hamilton recalled how bard she had worked at the flint lode. But she was anxious to see it again. Flint, and salt, were necessary. She recalled how Spear h4 scratched out the sign of the Weasel People at the flint lode and drawn over it the sign of the Men, the arm and the spear. She wore that same sign on the five leather squares of her necklace, among the leather, the claws, the threaded shells. The flint belonged to the Men, and so, too, she thought, smiling, did the women of the Men, no less claimed, no less owned. She saw Flower below, at the foot of the cliffs. Flower, too, of course, wore the necklace of the Men. It was a pleasant day, shortly past noon. From where she knelt she could see the children playing.

“Lazy Girl,” said Old Woman, emerging from the cave behind her. “Chew this hide for Runner.” She threw a hide scraped, beside Hamilton. What flesh and dryness remained in it would be chewed away, bitten and licked by the mouth of a woman; the acid in her saliva, moistening the hide, Hamilton knew, too, was important. “Let Cloud do it!” protested Hamilton.

“I will switch you,” said Old Woman.

“No,” said Hamilton. “I will do it!” Quickly Hamilton picked up the hide and began to chew it, beginning at one edge.

“You are a lazy girl,” said Old Woman. “You should be traded to the Coast People. Their girls are good for nothing.”

Old Woman cackled with satisfaction, and left.

Hamilton chewed on the hide.

She saw Flower below. Why had Flower not been given the hide? Flower did not work well when the men were not present and Old Woman could not see her.

“Flower,” thought Hamilton, “is a lazy girl. If anyone should be traded to the Coast People, it should be Flower.” If Flower were traded, Hamilton thought to herself, she, Hamilton, would be the most beautiful woman in the camp, except perhaps in a year or two, when Butterfly was older. Hamilton thought of herself as being the camp beauty. The thought did not displease her. Then she laughed at herself. How strange it all was. She recalled her own time, her own world, her former identity and self, her education, her degree, her proficiencies, former friends, former surroundings. Now she smiled. Now she was only Turtle, a slave of primeval hunters, and of one in particular, a primeval woman kneeling on a stone ledge before a cave, chewing hide for a master, waiting for the return of hunters.

“I am happy,” said Brenda Hamilton to herself. “I am truly happy!”

It was then that, from the ledge, she saw him, at first only a shaggy pelt of hair, the tip of a stone-bladed spear in the brush, more than fifty yards away, across the clearing at the foot of the cliff.

She knelt on the ledge, speechless, frightened, confused.

Then she saw others.

She leaped to her feet, screaming.

At the same time, moving swiftly, crouched over, carrying spears and clubs, they emerged from the brush about the clearing.

They wore headbands.

She saw Flower stand as though frozen. In an instant one of them was upon her, striking her with a club to his feet.

She heard Antelope scream. Old Woman came running from the cave. The children, crying out, shrieking, scattered. Men struck at them with spears. Hamilton saw one of the men kneeling over Flower, jerking her hands behind her back and tying them. She saw Antelope in the arms of another man, squirming. Then she was thrown to her belly, to be bound. Other men swept around the clearing. Some began to climb. Numb, half in shock, not comprehending, Hamilton stood watching. “Run!” cried Old Woman. Hamilton saw the face of a man appear suddenly above the ledge to her left. Then his arm was over, and half his body. “Run!” screamed Old Woman. Hamilton suddenly felt the stinging cut of the old woman’s switch. Frantically Hamilton began to scramble up the cliff. Gasping, fingernails scratching in the crevices, miserable, Hamilton climbed. She heard Old Woman’s switch below strike the man. He cried out with rage. She turned, looking over her shoulder, hearing Old Woman’s scream, then seeing her dropping, hitting, rolling and dropping, turning, down the steep slope, sprawling to the clearing below, and the face of the man below.

She climbed another foot. She heard his cry to her, ordering her to return to the ledge. Desperately she sought a new handhold. He cried out again. She found it, and moved higher on the cliff. She had seen Tree climb the cliff here, and others, even some of the boys. A rock struck her, hard, on the left side, above the small of her back. She slipped, but caught herself. Then she heard the man begin to follow her. Then there was another, too, with him. She reached a small ledge, and, breathing wildly, with two hands, grasped a heavy stone. With difficulty she raised it over her head and, moaning, flung it downward. It struck the first climber a glancing blow on the side of his head. He lost his hold, scrambling and scratching against the side of the cliff, and, skidding, and then dropping, fell back to the broad ledge, twenty feet below. The second climber reached over the ledge on which she stood and grasped her ankle. She shook free and began again to climb. He ordered her back. He was swift behind her. He leaped for her but she was too high for him. For minutes Hamilton climbed. At first he did not climb after her but stood on the ledge, shouting at her. Twice he threw rocks. One struck her on the left leg, behind the knee, hurting her. The other struck near her face on the left side, nearly causing her to lose her hold, but again, she did not fall. She heard men shouting below. She sensed that some were looking for a new ascent an easier one, to head her off. Then she heard the man below, not wanting to risk losing her, perhaps wanting to be the one to take her, begin to climb. On a tiny ledge she turned. He was still following her. Far below she could see men in the clearing. At the feet of one, bound hand and foot, lay Flower. Between the feet of another, similarly secured, lying on her side, lay Antelope. The butt of his great spear, upright in the dirt, in his imperious grasp, that of her taker, lay near her face. She saw Old Woman lying at the foot of the cliff. Another man was dragging Butterfly by the hair, bent over, down the sloping path leading up to the first level of caves. In his free hand he held a bag of salt. She saw one child, bleeding, lying in the clearing. From the brush one man emerged, pulling a young, pregnant female by the wrist. He tied her hands behind her back and made her kneel. With a rope he tied her by the neck to Flower’s bound ankles. She saw two more women of the Men being prodded to the center of the clearing, shoved stumbling before the spear butts of captors.

Hamilton was miserable. She did not see how she could climb further.

She heard the man below her, now making his way upward. He shouted angrily at her. He gestured that she should come down.

Again, moaning, Hamilton climbed. She slipped, cried out, and again climbed. She now clung to the cliff a yard below its summit, but could not reach the summit. She was more than eighty feet above the nearest outjutting ledge below her at this point, the height of an eight-story building. She did not dare to turn and look back to the valley, which lay some two hundred feet, the equivalent of some twenty stories, below. She wept, and put her cheek against the granite of the cliff. Never before had she tried to scale the cliff on this face. She realized, sickeningly, she had not chosen an ascent which was proper for her. She had seen Tree climb the cliff at this point, but he was powerful and long of limb. The boys, she now remembered, had been to her left. She could not retrace her steps without falling into the hands of her pursuer. He laughed below her, seeing her predicament. She cried out with misery and, suddenly, as she felt the wind moving against her on the cliff, was frightened of falling. She heard the man moving closer to her. She looked down. He had taken a thong from his waist and put it in his teeth. In a moment she knew he would reach up and tie it on her ankle, and she would be caught. There was a sound above her. She heard a clicking noise, a tongue click, and a smacking of lips and hiss. Ugly Girl reached over the cliff, extending her arm and hand down to Hamilton. “No!” cried Hamilton, frightened. Then she reached for Ugly Girl’s hand and, seizing her on the wrist with her other hand, swung out over the cliff. Hamilton screamed with misery. The man below cried out with rage. Then, inch by inch, Ugly Girl, with her squat, powerful body, the strong arm, drew Hamilton to the summit of the cliff. Gratefully Hamilton scrambled over it. She looked about herself. She saw Nurse and another woman of the Men two hundred yards away. They had made the ascent by the side, and were now, running and scrambling, making their way down a side path to the brush and trees far below. She saw the woman with Nurse abruptly, suddenly, change her direction, and take a new descent path. Ugly Girl pulled on Hamilton’s arm, hurrying her. Hamilton shook free of her touch, shuddering, but ran beside her. Nurse and the other woman of the Men had disappeared. Hamilton and Ugly Girl sped across the roof of the mountain of stone in which were the shelters. There was some brush and twisted plants on its summit, where, over years, dust had gathered and seeds had fallen. She heard a cry behind her, the man pursuing her having gained the height of the cliff. Suddenly they saw two men appear before them, some two hundred yards away, emerging over the rocks. Hamilton moaned. She turned back, and then back again. They were approaching swiftly. She did not know which way to run. Then, crying out, she felt the hand of the man behind her in her hair. She was painfully thrown to her knees on the stone. She tried to reach his hand in her hair. Ugly Girl darted away. The other men neared. She tried to struggle. He, his hand tight in her hair, wrenched her head viciously back and forth and she, screaming, half blinded with pain, knelt with absolute quiet, a captive female; she now feared only, his hand so tight in her hair, that she might move in the slightest, thus again causing herself that excruciating pain. She had been taken. She saw Ugly Girl stop, and look about herself, wildly. Hamilton lifted her hand to Ugly Girl, tears in her eyes. The two other men were now within fifty yards. Ugly Girl suddenly turned back and, to the astonishment of the man who held her, threw herself upon him like an animal, scratching at his eyes biting at his throat. He fended her away from himself with his right arm, releasing Hamilton, who, crying out, scrambled away. She heard Ugly Girl cry out with misery. Turning back Hamilton saw that the man had thrown Ugly Girl to his feet by her hair. He kicked her. Ugly Girl whimpered and reached out to Hamilton. Hamilton turned away, fleeing. She heard the other two men behind her; she heard the cry of another man from somewhere; she fled. Now she was on the side path, which she knew well, each hold and step; she darted, leaping and scrambling, from one ledge to another, and then she was out of sight of the men above her; she darted into one of the caves on the second level, slipping into its darkness. “Turtle?” said a voice. It was Cloud, huddling in the darkness, trembling. “Yes,” whispered Hamilton. Then, on her hands and knees, she, from this cave, crawled down a crooked, sloping passage into an adjoining cave. “That is the way to the Men’s cave,” wept Cloud. “You may not go there!” Scarcely had Hamilton entered the small, crooked, sloping passage then she heard men, three of them, entering the cave she had left. She heard, behind her, Cloud’s scream, and the sound of blows. Hamilton emerged into the next cave. She screamed. A monster, it seemed, reared up before her, something with a twisted human body and the head of an aurochs’ skull. It shook a rattle at her wildly. It was Hyena. She fled past him into the darkness. She heard men entering the cave from the ledge outside, from the sunlight, and another, calling out angrily, emerging from the small passage, who had followed her into it. She heard Hyena’s rattle. Then she heard men brush past him. She fled deeper into the passage, feeling the sides of the passage.

Then she was alone in the absolute darkness.

She moaned. She ran. She struck her left thigh on a projection of rock. She fell on the stone. She struggled to her feet. She heard pursuit. She fled deeper into the passage.

Then she stopped. No longer did she hear sounds from behind her.

She crouched down. She waited, frightened. She crouched in the pitch blackness breathing heavily, terrified.

There was no sound behind her.

She went further in the tunnel, slowly, carefully, silently. Then again she stopped, crouched down, waited.

Again there was no sound from behind her. The pounding of her heart seemed loud. She did not move.

Perhaps the men were searching elsewhere. There were many caves in the cliffs. There were other females to thong. There were bags of salt to find. There was fur to locate, and flint to be sacked and carried off. Surely not all the women would be caught. There was no pursuit. She waited, scarcely breathing now. Perhaps the intruders had gone. Perhaps they wished only to strike with swiftness and, swiftly, be gone. Perhaps they had taken enough fur, and flint and salt, and women, to satisfy them. Perhaps even now they were on their way back to their own camp.

She gradually became sure of this as the minutes passed. I am safe, she thought.

Then, from far down the passage behind her, she heard a sound, and, to her misery, saw the flicker of torches.

She, moaning, leaped to her feet and ran deeper in the passage. Then suddenly she stopped, terrified. She knew that there was, at a place in this passage, a drop to the left of some fifty feet. She recalled it when Old Woman, with her torch, had shown her the passage months ago. Occasionally in the shelters there were such crevices and pits. One pit, in another shelter, was used for refuse. It was more than twenty feet deep, and had sheer sides. She hugged the right side of the passage. Her foot dislodged a small pebble and she heard it drop away from her to the left. It made a clear sound as it struck the stone, in two places below. She almost cried out with anguish. She heard a shout from behind her, reverberating in the twisting passage. Looking over her shoulder she saw the flicker of torches, four of them. She moved, back against the stone, past the crevice. She then sped on. Her thigh felt wet and she knew it was bleeding, from where she had struck it on the projection of stone.

Suddenly her left foot splashed in cold water. She cried out in misery, startled. She stopped, and felt about herself in the darkness. She heard the dripping of water. She scraped her right forearm on the stone. There were other passages, she knew, some hundred yards beyond the crevice, passages other than that leading to the cave of the hands, the animal paintings, which had once been shown to her by Old Woman. She sank to her knees, moaning, disoriented. She shuddered. She realized she did not know where she was. She was lost.

From somewhere behind her, seemingly from far away, she heard shouts.

She crouched very still, hoping that her pursuers would choose other tunnels, would give up the chase.

But the noises came closer. Then, again, as though from afar this time, she saw the dim flicker of torches.

She struggled to her feet. Gasping, weeping, she put forth her hands, her fingers, and felt the stone sides of the tunnel. Irrationally, heedlessly, she sped forward. The torches, the noises, were behind her. Then suddenly, crying out, she plunged forward; she seized at nothingness; sprawling, knees and hands scraped, she struck stone some two feet below; she lay there sobbing; then, crawling, weeping, holding her hand before her, she moved deeper into the tunnel; she crawled for some four to five minutes; she could hear the sound of pursuit from behind, louder now; then to her misery she felt solid stone before her. In the darkness groping, frantically, she tried to discover an opening. Wildly she stood up. She felt about the sides, and before her, and over her head, and at her feet. There was no opening. She had fled into a blind tunnel. She sank to her knees in the darkness at the wall of stone; she leaned against it, putting the side of her face against the cool, granular surface which prevented her further advance.

She rose to her feet and put her back against the wall of stone, putting her hands back, feeling it with the palms of her hands.

She watched the torches growing closer, heard the sounds of the men. She saw them then, far down the tunnel, stepping down from the ledge from which she had fallen, then approaching. There were four torches, six men, primitive hunters. She pressed back against the wall, in terror, watching them approach. They came closer. Then the first of them lifted his torch, and she was illuminated. Her hair was wild; her eyes were deep, frantic, filled with fear; she wore the brief, wrap-around skirt of deerskin, exposing the left thigh; about her neck was knotted the several loops of the necklace of shells, of claws and leather. She faced them, a bare-breasted, cornered, primitive woman. But, too, she was Brenda Hamilton, a woman of our time, at the mercy of primitive hunters. Inwardly she moaned. Had she hoped to elude them? They could follow her even in the twisting darkness of the caves; had she been calm they could have followed her, by the simple woman smell she could not help but leave; but she had been running, terrified, broken out in the sweat, the unmistakable secretions, of driven feminine quarry; she had been game to them; the chase was now ended; the snare was readied; they had followed their girl quarry, their woman fugitive, easily; the outcome had never been in doubt; behind her, marking her trail, belying her passage, like a traitor’s signal, perfidious, treacherous, had hung the perfume, stimulatory to hunters, excitatory to predatory males, of her terror; the female fear-smell. She, caught, had had no chance. The others, too, lifted their torches. They regarded her, she could see, with pleasure, with anticipation. Their leader, a heavily bearded fellow, lifted his hand. In it, coiled, were several narrow loops of leather thongs. He grinned. Then he handed his torch to another man and approached her. In his hand were the thongs. She could not take her eyes from them. He held them up before her. She felt almost hypnotized. She could not take her eyes from them. In his hand were the thongs with which to bind her. She felt her shoulder blades, the deliciousness of her ass, press back against the stone.

Then there was another torch, from behind the men.

“Gunther!” cried Hamilton.

“Where are the hunters?” asked Gunther.

“They are gone,” said Hamilton.

“These are the Weasel People,” said Gunther, indicating with his head the men about.

“Oh, no,” whispered Hamilton.

“Blood enemies of the Men,” said Gunther. He smiled. “And you are a woman of the Men.”

“Protect me, Gunther,” whispered Hamilton.

Gunther stood there, the men of the Weasel People parting to admit him. His torch was in his left hand. Across his back was strapped his rifle. In his right hand, reddish in the light of the torch, was the drawn Luger. She saw, on his left wrist, the watch which, months before, Cloud had brought back from the darkness, when he and William had been driven from the camp.

“Save me, Gunther!” cried Hamilton.

He regarded her. Then he turned away, carrying the torch, and made his way back down the passage.

“Gunther!” screamed Hamilton. “Don’t leave me!”

Then she saw again only the thongs in the hand of the primitive leader, the savage. These were the thongs of the Weasel People. The Weasel People were the blood enemies of the Men, and she was a woman of the Men. She pressed back. At her back was the wall of stone. The leader reached for her. She screamed. The others crowded about.