Six Bits (24 page)

Selah laid out the liver and quickly cut it into small pieces, one for each of the members of the tribe. She murmured something over it, then handed the pieces out with a reverent attitude. Having always hated even the smell of cooking liver, Billy expected at least the children to reject it, but everyone consumed their piece with evidence of great pleasure. The same held true for other internal organs, heart, lung, kidney, brain. Teba consumed her portions with relish while Billy tried to think of something else.

An older child was given the intestine to squeeze out and wash in the stream. Then, to Billy’s dismay, they ate that raw as well.

Only after eating much more than Billy ever ate at one sitting, did Teba become full. But she kept eating, stuffing herself painfully. Billy worked some sums in his head, realizing that if the hundred pound wolf contained seventy pounds of edible material and you divided that among fourteen people it would average out to five pounds each! He knew from watching eating contests on ESPN that some competitive eaters ate substantially more than that at one sitting, but he’d once tried to eat a twenty ounce steak and hadn’t even come close to finishing it.

As everyone, even the children, ate far more than Billy could believe, he realized that, with no refrigeration, this was how they stored their food.

In their body’s fat.

With a glance around, though their bodies were covered by furs, he saw in their bony faces that none of them had much body fat at the end of winter.

Nonetheless, even after stuffing themselves with more than he could really believe, there was still some of the wolf left. Selah gathered it up and took it to the back of the cave. When Billy wondered why, Teba’s thoughts made it clear to him that having it far away from them preserved it by keeping it cold during nights like they’d been having. When he wondered why they didn’t keep it even cooler by putting it outside the cave her thoughts turned incredulously to all the small scavengers that would carry it away.

Thinking about this, Teba worried that she and Gano would wind up on the outside of the tribe’s huddle that night, a cold location. She hoped that having brought the food would gain her a good position near the warmer middle, but worried that having Bant angry at her would force her to the periphery.

As Teba worried about the cold, Billy started thinking about fire again. He’d picked up from Teba’s thoughts that one of the main reasons they’d struggled this winter and lost their babies was because their fire had burned out one night early in the season.

They guarded their fires with great care because fire was so important to them and it could be so hard to get another fire if it burned out. Their last fire had come from a wildfire. Barso had been injured when he ran close to get a fire-brand. Then, one morning, despite stirring more and more desperately through the coals of the fire from the night before, they hadn’t been able to find an ember that could be blown back to life.

Sometimes you could trade with another tribe for a start of fire, but tribes were superstitious that they might lose their own fire. If they did trade a fire start, they often demanded an unreasonable price. Even what might be considered by both tribes to be a reasonable trading value could still be beyond a tribe’s resources. They had tried to trade for a fire start with the Stillwater tribe, but didn’t have anything that the Stillwaters considered valuable enough to trade for.

Billy became excited.
Fire
was a technology that didn’t require much in the way of pre-existing technology. Sure matches, or a lighter, or even a flint and steel would be great, but, in theory, all he needed was some wood and some friction. He’d given up on it this morning when he couldn’t find a dry straight piece of wood for a fire drill, but he/she was much more likely to start a fire than make a sword!

Teba wanted to stay near the middle of the tribe, the better to position herself for the sleeping huddle. It would also keep her in the tribe’s mind as the one who’d brought food.

However, Billy made Teba get up and they walked to the end of the tribe’s shallow cave where wood had been kept back in the days when the tribe had a fire. Squatting, Billy/Teba sorted through the few pieces of wood remaining. He didn’t know all that much about fires but he knew he didn’t want green wood. All this wood was deadfall and it had been dry long before the fire burned out early in the winter. Unfortunately, Billy still couldn’t find a straight piece suitable for a spindle or fire drill. Teba’s hands were calloused and, he thought, tough enough to roll a spindle between them, but he didn’t have any sticks straight enough to serve.

Picking out the straightest of the small dry branches, he/she placed it against one of the logs and tried twiddling it between Teba’s palms, thinking that he might be able to do it even if it wasn’t completely straight. But it didn’t spin well, and the end he/she’d placed against the log tended to skitter around under the influence of the bend as it twirled.

There was no way he/she’d generate enough heat to start a fire that way. Frustrated, he cast that stick aside and started looking through the wood some more.

The lack of a good straight stick ruled out a fire bow too, even if he’d had good string and springy wood to make a fire bow out of. One thing that made him happy, despite the lack of a piece of wood for the fire drill was a log that split in half from dry rot when he tried to turn it over. The bottom half had turned to soft punk which he could easily tear apart into shredded bits. He thought the ragged punk would readily catch on fire. Even better, the top split of it was in pretty good shape. It was firm wood, he didn’t know what kind, but he could dig a fingernail into it so he didn’t think it was a hardwood.

Billy/Teba picked through some of the small branches until he found one that seemed like it was harder than the split log. Experimentally, he/she rubbed its base on the split surface of the softer wood log, running it along the grain. After about ten passes he touched the end of the stick.

It felt pretty hot!

Though Billy couldn’t actually have a conversation with Teba’s part of their shared mind, he’d found that if he wondered about something that she should know, the answer would bubble to the surface. Now he wondered,
If we could start a fire, what would be the best way to present it to the tribe?

Her initial reaction was that, of course they
couldn’t
start a fire. When it became obvious from his thoughts that he intended to try to start a fire anyway, she very strongly hoped that he wouldn’t try to do it in front of everyone. First of all, she didn’t want him doing anything that looked crazy where everyone could see, because after this morning’s incidents, they thought she was weird enough already. Second, if, against all odds, he
was
able to start a fire, she wanted the method to be his/her secret.

After giving this some thought, Billy knelt Teba with her back to the tribe. They placed the log with its split surface up and its far end jammed up against a notch in the rock wall. Teba’s calloused knee settled onto the near end of the log to immobilize it. He/she tore off some of the punk and put it on the far end of the log. They scooped up a couple of handfuls of the leaf litter from the floor of the cave and put it nearby, as well as a couple more twigs and small sticks of old dry wood that looked like they would burn readily.

Finally, taking a deep breath, Billy/Teba started rubbing the end of the stick on the split surface of the log. Pushing it away and dragging it back, pistoning it back and forth rapidly while pressing it hard against the split log.

It made a little groove, and as a bonus piled up some little filaments of shredded wood at each end of the groove.

As she knelt, pumping the stick vigorously back and forth hard and eventually starting to get a little tired, her son Gano showed up next to her and said, “What’re you doing?”

Billy would have said, “Starting a fire,” but let Teba say, “Making something,” instead. Feelings their arms starting to ache, Billy began to wonder whether this piston motion would produce enough heat. He desperately wanted to stop and feel how hot the end of the stick was getting, but feared that he’d never have the stamina to pump it like this a second time.

A small curl of smoke appeared at the end of the groove. Billy’d just been thinking of giving up, but Teba, now more excited than Billy could have imagined, found new life in her arms and continued pistoning the stick back and forth. To her horror, she heard Bant grunt behind her, “That jiggling looks
good
.” Bant knelt behind her and started pulling at her furs.

Billy was infuriated, but Teba was transfixed by what was happening in front of her and perfectly willing to ignore what was happening behind. A small flame appeared in some of the little shavings the stick had lifted. Continuing to piston the stick back and forth with her right hand she pushed some of the punk onto the flame with her left.

The punk caught on fire!

She put the leaf litter on top of it too and more fire blossomed!

Gano shouted, “It’s a fire!”

Bant, who till then had been completely oblivious to what Teba was
actually
doing, leaned over her shoulder and saw the small flame. “Fire!” he shouted, letting her furs drop back down.

Moments later the entire tribe had gathered around exclaiming excitedly. Selah, who’d managed the tribe’s fires in the past, knelt next to Teba and tenderly helped her build it up with small sticks and a couple of small dry logs. She turned to the crowd around them and shouted joyously, “Get wood!”

The tribe scattered into the twilight surrounding the cave.

Billy felt pleased.

Teba,
far
beyond pleased, was practically ecstatic.

Selah gazed at the small flame with reverence. She turned to Teba and said, “Can you watch over this fire, carefully feeding it small pieces of wood, while I prepare our fire pit?”

Teba moved to the side of her small fire so that she could watch Selah prepare the fire pit. Other members of the tribe started arriving back with arms full of deadfall which they began to stack where wood had always been kept. They immediately went out for more, excitedly chattering as they did so. Teba realized with some awe that even the
men
were getting wood, something they’d always considered beneath them in the old days.

Billy focused on Selah who almost ceremoniously cleaned out the small depression surrounded by a row of rocks near the middle of their sheltering overhang. Once it had been cleaned to her satisfaction, she spent a minute or two waving her hands over it in a fashion clearly ceremonial. Billy thought she might be supplicating some kind of gods or spirits. Next she came over and very carefully selected a few little sticks. She took them back and laid them in the center of the fire pit so that they formed a small grid. She returned for some punk, twigs and a few leaves that went on top of the grid. Next she got some small sticks and propped them over the grid in the shape of a little pyre. Finally she built a teepee of small logs over the rest of her materials.

After a little more ceremonial hand-waving, Selah returned to Teba and, speaking in what seemed like a very formal fashion for such a primitive society, she gravely said, “Teba, may I take a torch from your fire to start a fire for the tribe?”

Teba sat up straighter, raising her head proudly, and replied, “Yes, you may.”

Rather than picking up a burning piece of wood from Teba’s fire as Billy had expected, Selah picked up one of the pieces of wood from the old woodpile that was about an inch in diameter. She held it against the rock wall of the cave and, picking up a rock, pounded the end of the piece of firewood until it was split and brushy looking. She held this blossom of broken wood in the flames of Teba’s little fire until it was burning well.

Chanting, Selah stood with the burning firebrand held horizontally. She watched it for a moment or two, tipping the burning end downward so that the flame tried to climb onto the rest of the stick. Then, as everyone in the cave watched with fervent anticipation, she walked slowly to the fire pit and knelt worshipfully before the stack of wood she’d prepared. Lowering the firebrand she carefully placed it against the punk underneath her teepee of wood.

Billy had the impression that everyone held their breath.

A few minutes later flames were rising from the kindling, up through her little pyre and into the teepee of small logs.

One of the men threw his head back and began ululating joyfully.

The rest of the tribe joined him and a moment later, Teba threw her head back and began howling herself.

Dark had fallen outside the cave. For months, the cold had been painful and dangerous, especially at night. Though, on this evening, the air was as cold as it had ever been, the heat from the fire made Teba think of it as brisk rather than dreadful.

Instead of huddling together, shivering and praying for the dawn, the tribe sat around the fire with full stomachs, telling tales, laughing, dancing, and expressing their joy at being warm. Billy hadn’t experienced a night with the tribe before, but he knew from Teba’s memories and reactions that Teba’s fire had improved the life of their tribe
immensely
.

Even better, from Teba’s viewpoint, members of the tribe came to personally
thank
her for the fire. To Billy’s surprise, none of them asked
how
Teba had started the fire. He had the impression that many of them thought Teba had witnessed a miracle occurring and knelt down to watch it happen, rather than considering that Teba might willfully have caused such a miracle to transpire.

Even though Teba’s tribespeople didn’t seem to consider it possible that Teba actually started the fire, they nonetheless expressed their gratitude to her, perhaps attributing the fire to her karma, or prayers, or luck, or something else. While Billy would have felt more satisfied to have the tribesmen understand that Billy/Teba actually
created
the fire, Teba was perfectly happy to have the fire attributed to her in any fashion.