Friday, May 1, 2015

The First Alliance pt.2

... When I next opened my eyes, the sun was gone, and night was fully upon me.  I rolled over and looked around.  All of the creatures I could see were asleep, grumbling quietly to themselves.  I tested my strength and found I could stand.  I walked on unsure feet, as quietly as I could, around the camp, searching for my father.  I came instead upon the slim male, crouching low next to the fire pit, as I had seen him before.  He had a long, charred stick in his hand which he poked listlessly into the glowing embers.  His head turned as I approached, despite my tries at silence.

     He looked at me from the corner of his dark eye, then he turned back to the fire once more.  He shifted a few inches to the side, and made space for me on the dingy fur he had laid on the ground.  I made no move, and I watched him for a time.  He seemed to forget that I was there, and he acted as if maybe he had never seen me at all.  I crept forward a few steps and sat down a short way behind him.  He in turn shifted another few inches to the side, so that half of the fur mat was now unoccupied.
     I accepted the invitation, and sat down next to him in silence.  We stared into the embers.  The heat frightened me, but the small male was not afraid.  He jabbed the red, crackling heart of the pit as casually as he had offered me the meat with his soft words.  As casually as he had spared my life.
     He raised the stick slowly and pointed away toward the trees. There was a sleeping mat and a large, prone figure that heaved slowly in the darkness.  It was the large male, fast asleep.  I did not understand the thin male's intention.  He kept pointing though, and I looked harder squinting to blot out the radiant light of the fire.  I saw the large male, and I saw not far away, a smaller shadow, curled up on the ground, breathing quietly.  My father.
     "Grrut," the thin male said.  He jabbed the stick in the huge male's direction and repeated himself, "Grrut."  I looked back at him, not fully grasping these new sounds.  He lowered the stick and turned to face me.  He looked upon me with his eyes and placed his hand on his chest.  "Eeamm," he said to me, and patted his chest.  "Eeamm."  Somehow this made sense.
     "Grrut," he said again, and I looked to the large male.  "Eeamm," he said, and as I turned back to face him, I saw that he was smiling.

     I discovered the next morning that my father had immediately allied himself with the largest, most powerful male in the group.  He had allied himself with the Grrut.  Their friendship had been solidified when Grrut had given my father half of a carcass to eat his fill.  I could see what was left of the banquet all around.  I had slept on alone, while my father had feasted.
     The big male left at dawn and my father followed him away into the grass.  I was not invited to come, so I stayed behind and sat near the pit.  Eeamm had not been in the camp when i awoke, so I sat quietly and watched these creatures go about their lives.  They all looked at me with a silent distrust, but they did not make a sound or poke a stick at me, and I could not help but feel that my father must have come to some sort of understanding with this group while I was asleep.
     A female came to the pit and began digging in the earth where the coals had burned so hot the night before.  To my surprise, she pulled from the ground something wrapped in blackened leaves.  She dropped the parcel in front of me and split it open with a stone.  A wave of smells overcame and and I drooled accidentally.  Inside the leaves were a large joint of warm meat, some hot, mushy fruits and a pile of charred roots.
     I devoured the meat and picked at the fruit, but I was too full to eat any of the fragrant vegetables.  I realized afterwards that the female was watching me the whole time, and giggling to herself.  I did not care, I sensed no fear in her, and so I licked my chops and stretched out satisfied on the ground to bask in the early morning sun.
     I felt alive again, like I had not felt in days.  A full stomach and a day of rest had worked wonders on me.  The thin man returned later that morning, and he sought me out near the fire pit.  The female the fed me was with him, and by their posture I realized this was his female, or perhaps he was her male?  I spent the day in their company, and slept and ate as much as I pleased for the first time I could remember.

     My father returned with the Grrut before sunset, they came from the direction of the far off trees.  The big male had a dead animal slung over his back, and he panted and dripped his sweat when he tossed it to the ground.  They were both bloodied.  Grrut sliced a leg off the beast with his sharp stone and threw it at a female who was walking nearby.  He said something that upset her, and she hurried off to the pit where Eeamm was bringing the fire up to a roaring heat.  Grrut turned and looked at me for the first time since I had come back to camp, and I could still feel rage bubbling deep under his gaze.
     My father ignored my eager greetings, and walked past me to sit alone at the far end of the camp.  Something had changed in him.  The burned meat, the furs, he accepted it all too readily.  It almost seemed that he had made this place his home, and had given up on the home we had once tried so hard to save.
     I followed him and sat down behind him on the ground.  I wanted to start back for our pack, I wanted to show them the way back, so they too could see they unique and smelly creatures.  There was food enough for all of us here, enough to live on, and enough to thrive on.  I wanted to ask my father so many things, but his ears were deaf to me now.  He stood up and started back towards the fire, never looking at me.  He had changed, and I was alone again.

     We spent two weeks in their company, now welcome guests by their fire and in their camp.  I had grown fat and healthy again, from all the seared meats- it seemed there was never a shortage of food here because every day hunters returned with more, and foragers came with fruit and nuts.  My father spent his time hunting with the Grrut, always walking away to the same distant trees, always leaving me behind.  I grew restless when I didn't hunt, so early one morning I stole after the two as they departed camp.
     I watched from a distance, staying low and staying downwind.  They came up to the small cluster of trees and stopped.  Grrut stood near the base of a tree and looked up into the branches, so did my father.  There were apes in the trees, I saw, sitting up high amongst the leaves and chattering to another.  Grrut picked up a stone from the ground, tested the weight in his hand, and then hurled it up into the tree.  It flew wide of the branches and the apes screeched at him, so he picked up another and tried again.  The second time, the stone struck one of the apes squarely in the chest, with a hollow thud, and it fell clucking to the ground.
     Grrut called to my father, and in a blur he was upon the long-armed little beast.  I watched as he tore the animal savagely apart, not going for the quick kill, but ripping first into the ground and gut of the animal.  Grrut laughed, and when he had finished, so did my father.
     I had never seen my father, the hunter, taking such pleasure in brutality before.  He had always been even-tempered, and had only killed when he needed to eat.  But something was different now.  He was different.  Maybe he had been spoiled by the rich meat, or maybe it was something more.  I slipped away from the bloody scene and headed back to the fire pit, feeling lost.

     When Grrut returned with my father in tow, they made for the fire at the center of the camp.  Eeamm's female was tending the flames, and Grrut threw the dead ape at her feet.  He said something to her and laughed, then turned and walked away.  To my surprise, the female sprang to her feet, grabbed the carcass from the ground and threw it at the departing Grrut.  It slapped wet against his balding head, and he whirled around to seize her by the throat.
     My father was at his side, glaring hungrily at the female who squirmed in Grrut's unyielding grip.  She squealed and struggled, but the huge male only grabbed her with two hands instead of one, throttling her slim neck until his knuckles went white.  Something hissed through the air, and then Grrut stumbled forward and slacked his grip, a confused expression spreading over his features.
     A long spear had pierced his shoulder, and the bloody point was sticking through the front of his chest just under the collar bone.  He screamed and flailed his two two hand sin vain for the pike's shaft, which stood jutting out his back.
     Then Eeamm was there, standing behind the larger man, and he grabbed the back of the spear with both hands.  He seemed much larger than before, there was a rage in his dark eyes which made me cower from the scene.  The small male twisted the spear and pushed his pierced opponent forward, pinning him to the ground on his face.
     My father sprung at him but Eeamm turned to meet his charge.  One of his agile legs thrust forward and kicked my father in the chest as he jumped forward.  My father went toppling forward into the small man, sending both of them flying into a scrum on the ground.  A few quick movements and Eeamm was standing above my father, with a sharp stone to his throat.  The rage was gone from his eyes, and the fight was over.
     He pulled the spear free from the man, and the ground, and nimbly hopped over the prone Grrut to his collapsed wife.  Eeamm picked her up in his arms and carried her away to the edge of the camp, speaking to her softly through his tears.  Grrut sat up and said nothing, but only stared after the small man.  He stood, clutching his bleeding shoulder, then called to my father.  They left the camp heading for the trees, and I followed them into the night.

     I stalked them and watched from a distance.  I watched as Grrut showed my father how to approach an ape if it slept on the ground... watched as he showed him to attack the throat of the little furry creature to quiet its cries... then slowly let it suffocate in a choking silence.  My father obeyed, taking great pleasure in the bloody leasson.  Then I watched them do it again. And again. And again. Until every tiny ape unlucky enough to pick the ground that night over the trees, was dead.

     Late that night, the camp was quiet and the fire had died to a low smolder.  All the families slept together that night, and the few adults that did not sleep kept a half-hearted watch on the darkness around them.  They did not see Grrut and my father as they moved around the edge of the camp, silent as hungry shadows.
     I had seen what they intended, I had learned what Grrut had taught to my father, away by the trees.  They moved straight for Eeamm and his female, who slept soundly by each other's side. Grrut was a coward, and he had taught my father to do what he could never do himself.  He sent my father, the servant, into the camp while he waited away in the grass.
     My father drew close, eyes wide to take in the moonlight and breath steady.  He crept forward, his mind full of the carnage that was to come, full of hunger and blood lust.  He disgusted me, he had abandoned our family, our home, and me, to be a beast.  That was all he was to me now, no longer a hunter, but only a killer.  He expected two quick deaths and a long night of raucous gorging.
     Instead, he found only me.
     I had made my choice, and I stood between the killer and his prey, a silent hunter, waiting in the darkness to defend his family.  My father was gone, the world had changed and the creature I saw growling before me in the moonlight was now nothing more than a threat to Eeamm, to his wife- and a threat to me.  So I would end it, I would become the hunter my father could no longer be, and I would make him remember what set us apart from the animals.

--- The End

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