John Norman (35 page)

“Turtle,” said Tree, pointing to her. Then be gestured that she should kiss the sign in the dirt.

Hamilton read his eyes, and put her head down, and kissed the sign.

She lifted her head.

“Tree,” said Tree, gesturing to himself. He looked at her. “Turtle,” said Hamilton, in the language of the Men, eyes down, referring to herself, touching her chest with her fingers.

It was thus that Brenda Hamilton was given the name Turtle among the Men.

Then she stood alone in the circle, a primeval female before her masters.

“How does she kick?” asked Spear.

“Splendidly,” said Tree.

“Good,” said Spear. Then he said, “Let the females dance for us. Then we shall retire.”

Tooth began to pound on his small hide drum; Runner began to beat his sticks together, and a melody, to the touch of Arrow Maker’s fingers, began to emerge from the long, narrow, wooden flute.

Flower was first to join Hamilton before the fire, and then Cloud and Antelope, and the younger women, and those not pregnant or nursing. Old Woman did not join them, nor did heavy Nurse. Short Leg, too, stayed kneeling to one side. Flower tore away her deerskin skirt and wrapped it about her left wrist. Hamilton, angrily, did so, too. And the others. Flower thrust her body toward Knife, and then, when he reached for her, leaped back. Hamilton, boldly, did the same with Tree. Antelope swayed before Wolf. Cloud, naked, moved slowly before Runner, who had fed her. And the women, to the drum, the beating of the sticks, the melody of the flute, danced before the men. The primeval female, Turtle, too, danced with them. She danced before all the men, but mostly before one, a lean, tall hunter, squatting, who watched her, with narrow eyes that caressed each swaying inch of her, with eyes that drove her wild with the desire to please him. For a time Hamilton, the primitive female, Turtle, one of the women of the Men, lost herself in the dance and music. She felt the dirt beneath her feet, and the movements of her body, the pounding of her breath and blood, the eyes of the men. To one side loomed the cliffs, containing the shelters, to the other loomed the dark forests, and, between them, in the light of the fire, uninhibited and organic, liberated in their sexuality, in this environment completely free to express the deepest and most profound needs of their female reality, danced the women. Hyena crept away from the fire. He was insane and sterile, and hated beauty. The men clapped and shouted. Never had Hamilton felt so female, so free. For the first time she felt she could move her body precisely as she wanted, and she did so. The agricultural revolution was, in its success, thousands of years in the future. With it would come concentrations of population, the seclusion and restrictions of women, human sacrifice, taxations, religions and laws, the victories of priesthoods and oppressive traditions, and the organization of fear and superstition for the purposes of profit; in thousands of years would come the time of the haters, the Hyenas. The time had not yet come when it would be wrong for women to dance and men to be pleased in their beauty. The seeds of Eve’s apple tree had not yet been planted.

But the agricultural revolution was essential for the development of technology, and the development of technology was essential for the opportunity to touch the stars.

No one knew how high might grow the branches of the apple tree.

No one guessed that men might return to paradise, and, once more, now ready, having once eaten, climb it.

Prometheus was tortured, but the Greek ships, carrying fire in copper bowls, colonized a world.

With a pounding Tooth’s drum was suddenly silent, and Runner stopped striking the sticks, and the flute of Arrow Maker was silent.

Flower dropped to the ground before Knife, eyes hot, breathing heavily, blood pounding, and lifted her body to him.

Hamilton, joyously and brazenly, excited, gasping, wild, her blood surging, her heart pounding, flung her body to the dirt before Tree, and lifted it, supplicating him for his touch. Cloud fell before Runner, and Antelope before Wolf.

Hamilton felt herself lifted easily in Tree’s arms. He was incredibly strong. She felt herself carried with incredible lightness. She put her arms about his neck, and kissed him.

Over her head she saw, bright and beautiful in the black, velvety night, the stars. “Turn their eyes to the stars,” had said Herjellsen. “Turn their eyes to the stars.”

She saw, too as she was carried, behind Tree, among the shadows, hunched and timid, round-shouldered, now creeping forward to the dying fire, to hunt for food, Ugly Girl.

She again kissed Tree.

He carried her to his cave.

Hamilton, the woman called Turtle, one of the women of the Men, returned to the shelters, through the snow, carrying bound in rawhide, on her left shoulder, a heavy load of wood, food for the cave fires.

She wore leggings and her feet were wrapped in hide, tied about her ankles and calves. She wore a tunic of deerskin, which fell to her knees, and, over that, a sleeveless, furred jacket, belted, which, too, fell to her knees. Her head was bare. Her hair was bound back with a string of rawhide and shells.

For five months Turtle had been a slave of the Men, and, in particular, of one called Tree. He had amused himself with others, as the whim took him, but there was no doubt that Turtle, dark-haired and lovely, was his favorite. The other males of the Men, too, often used Turtle, as it pleased them to do so, and she found many of them marvelous and strong, and it much pleased her, from time to time, to kick for them, and well. Sometimes, even when she had not wanted to kick, they had, as Tree had before them, given her no choice but to kick, and superbly. She was only a woman, and at their mercy. They would force her body, and then her will, by means of her body, to do what they wished, for they were men, and master. Spear, the leader, in particular, had been incredible. He was second in her opinion only to Tree. When he had left her she had lain on the hides, beaten with the weight and power of his thrusting, exhausted and stunned. She had then well understood how it was that such a man was the leader, and how it was that he could feed five of the vital, prehistoric females. But the heart of the lovely slave, Turtle, always, in its depth, lay only in the capture thongs of one hunter, and one hunter alone, he who had first taken her, he who had brought her slave to the camp of the Men, he who had first forced her, in a high, prison cave, to yield to him, to helplessly love him, Tree, of the Men.

She was, in a sense that the Men found hard to understand, Tree’s alone. Even when she screamed with joy in their arms, they knew they had forced only her yielding, and not her love. Only the arms of Tree, and his touch, had been strong enough to force that. Each night, after the ecstasy they had induced in her, she would creep to the side of Tree, whose cave she kept, whose skins she cleaned, at whose side she slept. And once, a week ago, Tree had not permitted Knife to use her. She had been frightened. They had almost fought. There was bad blood between the two men. She had wanted to give her body to Knife, that Tree not be endangered, but Tree, violently, had struck her and thrown her to one side of the cave. She had crouched there, terrified her mouth bleeding. Knife had drawn a stone knife. “Go!” had said Spear to Knife. Knife, angrily, had turned away. Flower had to run to him, to console him. Over his shoulder, angrily, she had looked back. “It is not the way of the Men,” said Spear to Tree, “to keep a woman to oneself.” “I do not want Knife to use her,” said Tree. “Strip,” had said Spear to frightened Turtle. She did so, immediately. “Watch,” had said Spear to Tree. Angrily Tree sat down, cross-legged. Then Spear had taken Turtle, and slowly, making her yield to him, whimpering, trying to restrain herself. At last she had writhed under him, bucking, crying out in misery. Spear remained a time with her, and then, not looking at Tree, he left her. Tears in her eyes Turtle lay on her side and held out her hand to Tree. He rose to his feet, turned away and left her. She wept. The next day Tree said to her. “Go to Knife. Strip yourself and lift your body to him.” “Yes, Tree,” had said Turtle, in the language of the Men, which she had, in the last months, learned to speak. She went to Knife and did as she was told. Mollified, Knife used her, swiftly, casually. Holding her clothing Turtle then returned to Tree. “I have done what you told me,” she said. Then she wept. “You area woman,” he said to her. “You are a woman of the Men. You belong to all of the Men. Do you understand that?” “Yes, Tree,” she had said.

“But most,” said Tree, grinning, “you belong to me!”

“Yes, Tree,” said Turtle, and ran to him. And he used her better than Spear, or Knife, or any of the others, better than they might have dreamed of using a woman.

When she lay in his arms, afterwards, she spoke to him in English, as it pleased her, though he did not know the tongue. “In my heart,” she whispered to him, “it is yours only whose slave I am, my master. I am your helpless, adoring slave. Do with me what you will. I love you, my master. I love you.”

Knife, satisfied, seldom used her thereafter, and when he did so, it was only as he might have used Antelope, or Cloud, or any of the other slaves.

Old Woman smiled to herself. “It is well the way of the Men has been kept,” she said. And then she remembered Drawer. Spear had killed him, when he had gone blind. Old Woman hated Spear, but she knew, as Knife did not, and many of the others did not, that he was a great and wise leader. There were few groups who had a man so great as huge, swift, ugly Spear to lead them.

Turtle, under the load of wood, trudged through the snow toward the shelters.

She was happy. This morning the hunters had taken meat. Tonight she would be well fed, and, after the dancing and singing, she would pay for her meat, lovingly, in Tree’s arms. How far away seemed her old world, with its pollutions, its hatreds, its madnesses. How simple and deep and beautiful, and now, clear and cold, seemed this fresh, virginal world in which she, a burden-bearing slave, returned to the shelters of her masters. The snow clung to the branches, and, in the distance, rearing up at the edge of the forest, she saw the cliffs. How marvelous they seemed, with their numerous, deep, caves.

Too, some of the caves held marvels.

Once, Old Woman, when the men were away hunting, had taken her, with a torch, deep into one of the caves. Women were forbidden to go into this cave but Old Woman did not care, and Hamilton bad followed her. In the light of the torches, Hamilton, in awe, had seen, drawn on the walls and ceiling, some places which must have been reached by a now-discarded scaffolding, paintings in reds and yellows, and browns, and blacks, of huge and beautiful animals. There were bison there, and running antelope, and the aurochs, and even the mighty mammoth. They were done with an expression, and a zest, and beauty and freedom, and joy, that was almost incomprehensible to her. Here and there, too, almost in caricature, compared to the animals, were sticklike figures of men, with bows and spears. Hamilton saw that all of the animals, within their bodies, projecting from them, bore the weapons of men. She supposed that hunting magic had been done here, sympathetic magic, but, too, with it, exceeding it, was the celebration of the vigor, the strength and beauty of the beasts which the Men loved and hunted. Hamilton had stood there, in the half darkness, suddenly seeing these shapes and colors spring into existence, under Old Woman’s lifted torch. It was almost as if they were alive, moving on the walls.

“Drawer made these,” said Old Woman, simply.

“How did you dare to come to this place?” asked Hamilton.

Old Woman smiled. “Drawer brought me,” she said. “He showed me.”

“Where is Drawer?” had asked Hamilton.

“Spear killed him,” said Old Woman. “He went blind. Spear killed him.”

Hamilton was silent.

“He was old,” said Old Woman. “He was not good for much.”

“But you cared for him,” said Hamilton. “You liked Drawer?”

“Yes,” said Old Woman. “I liked Drawer.”

Hamilton lifted her head, and looked about herself, at the paintings.

Animals had made tools, and manlike things, before men, had made tools. Tools needed not be a sign of man. But where there was art then, incontrovertibly, stood man. It is not in the making of tools, but in the invention of beauty, in the gratuitous invention of art, that we have unmistakable evidence of the first presence of man. In the creation of beauty something which might before not have been human became human, and unmistakably so.

“They are beautiful,” said Hamilton.

“Drawer made them,” said Old Woman. “We must go now.”

“What are these?” asked Hamilton. She indicated a number of hands, some outlined in color, some printed in color.

“I do not know,” said Old Woman. “It is a secret of the Men.”

Hamilton wondered about them, but did not ask further, for Old Woman apparently did not know.

“Look,” said Old Woman. She picked up a fiat, rounded stone from the floor of the cave.

Hamilton looked at it, carefully. It seemed at first, to her, only a maze of lines, unintelligible scratches. Then, suddenly, she saw, among the lines, a flowing, hulking torso of a bison. Following another set of lines, superimposed, she traced out a gazellelike creature, swift, horned; then she found the lineaments of the forequarters, head and paws of a cave lion; there were two other drawings as well; one of a deer and, to her delight, shaggy and tusked, that of a hairy mammoth., The rock had been a good one. The drawer had used it, she supposed, as a sketchbook. It contained pictures which might even have been studies for some of the paintings on the wall.

Old Woman took the rock. She put it back down on the floor of the cave. “It was Drawer’s rock,” she said. “He gave it to me when be went blind. I brought it here, to be with his other paintings.”

Then Old Woman, with the torch, turned about and led the way from the large room. She stopped at the threshold into the narrow passage which had led to the room. “I liked Drawer,” she said.

“Why have you shown me these things?” asked Hamilton.