The First Alliance

This is a story I wrote several years ago, probably back in 2003 or 2004, as a submission for the Worcester State Short Fiction competition.  I rushed it though, and the final product was not fully edited, and the ending was still wishy-washy in my opinion.  That being said, I ended up wining 2nd place that year - so I always felt like I owed it to the story to go back and finish editing it for real ...

so here it is.  I dug it out of an old folder where it has been waiting patiently.  I'll try to keep the edits to a minimum- and it will definitely be in more than one 'part,' due to length   <- DO NOT PLAGIARIZE.


The First Alliance
Written by Jonathan Kelly

     The two of us crept through the tall, yellow grass, keeping our bellies low and our movements silent.  We had caught a new smell on the wind that morning.  Now our salvation lay just beyond a low ridge, only feet away.



     My father had taken me on a long hunt to scout out new game. The intense heat of the summer had thinned our normal herds, dried up our river, and food was becoming scarce.  We left during the night, to avoid the sun.  He picked a straight line, and never strayed from the trail no matter how many days had passed.  Now we were deep into unexplored wilderness, walking weeks beyond our known borders, into the unending grass.
     Those were hungry days, and nights, out there in the oppressive silence of the plains.  We shuffled on through the dry scruff of weeds, with only the sound of our own bristling footsteps to keep us company.  There was no salvation in retreat, because there was no food, no water left to go home to.  Our tribe was depending on us, on the few fit hunters left, to find something for the young ones to eat.  Anything at all.
     But the grass stretched endlessly in every direction.  We found nothing but bones, empty holes, ants, and the ever present porcupine-quill bushes that grew to our noses.
     The days pressed on, and we grew tired, and thin.  Morning and night bled together into an endless single-file march, with my father breaking a noiseless path through the high grass, and I dogging two paces behind him.
     Until one morning, we did not rise to walk.  My father had given up.  He had resigned himself to a slow death of starvation, out here, alone in the tall grass, and he refused to stand. It was as simple as that. I stood helplessly beside him, as my father lay quietly on the ground, waiting to die.  So I sat with him.
     I sat with my eyes to the ground, and touched him on his bony shoulder.  He raised his head to me dully, and just then a gust of wind came up.  There was a smell in the air, something familiar but distant.  His eyes snapped open.  We were on our feet and moving, running towards the scent and into the wind.

     My father ran me through sunset and into the night, his hunger all but forgotten.  The smell of meat was now unmistakable, but there were other odors on the air as well.  Scents that were new to me.  Something charred, and salty, and earth, and unpleasant.  But we were close, and these did not matter.
     My father halted us, then dissolved quietly into the darkness.  After a short time he returned, and led me to a set of tracks not far away.
     The prints were deep and fresh.  The creatures walked on two feet with ten toes that dug deep into the soil.  They smelled foul and made no effort to hide their passing.  We followed the path through a small valley, to the base of a low hill.  All our senses were primed, our hunger had crystalized our focus into movements as quiet a passing shadow.  We would have our kill.
     There was a sound from ahead and we dropped to the dirt.  We edged forward until we neared the crest of the hill, and there my father stopped me.  He crept forward anther two paces until just his eyes topped the rise before us.  He stared into the night, then he summoned me to his side.

     There were twenty, maybe twenty five of them sleeping in a circle around a smoking black pit.  They slept curled up on the furs of other beasts, which were laid out all over the camp.  Some alone, some together.  They were hairy, but not as much so as the tree-dwelling apes I remembered seeing as a child.  Those beasts screeched and threw fruit at me from their perches up high.  But these new creatures were bigger, even bigger than I- but not as large as my father.  They smelled disgusting- like salt and grime and rot.
     I looked to my father for direction, but he only stared at the spectacle in front of us and made no sound.  He stared intently at something.  I realized he wasn't looking at the foul smelling creatures at all, but looking past them, into the heart of the camp.  I followed his hungry eyes and understood.
     There was food by that smoking pit.  Meat and bone and skin were lying on the ground in the open, just begging to feed us.  My father started down the side of the hill, and I followed him.
     There was no cover now, the grass was all gone from this place, pulled or cut from the earth.  We stopped some thirty feet from the nearest beast and checked the air.  Something was wrong with all this.  The wisp of smoke jumped back to mind, and suddenly I remembered the last thing I had learned from my mother before she died.  Where the was smoke, there was always fire.  I quivered and dropped back a step.
     I could feel the heat from where I stood, and the tiny wisp of smoke seemed huge and looming to my senses.  The smell of burned wood and grass made my heart race, and I could not stop the image of my mother's charred, split corpse from throbbing my mind.
     My fear held me firmly in its grip, until my father turned and pierced me with his grey eyes.  He didn't care about the fire, he never had.  Even though he had waited for the flames to die down to smolder before going back to find my mother's body, the dancing orange heat had never seemed to effect him.  I could see a hunger in his eyes, fierce enough that all I could do was obey him, and continue forward.
     We moved closer into the camp.  The beasts were larger than I had thought from a distance, and their numbers were greater than I expected.  They slept in tight groups, all the small ones and the females bundled together in piles.  The big males slept alone, along the perimeter.  We closed the gap to ten feet, then five, and then we were among them, moving silently in single file through their salty ranks.
     We drew toward the center of the camp, and found carcasses strewn on the ground.  My father sunk his teeth into a ribcage that lay before us.  There was still meat on the bones, and his hunger overwhelmed his judgement.  I bent down to eat, but then a screech rose up in the camp like nothing I had ever heard before.
     It all happened so quickly.  A female jumped to her feet and screamed on and on, waking the entire camp with her frantic alarm.  They all stood up tall on their two legs, and darted around the camp.  Some females fled with the young, the rest joined the males and were upon us instantly- shouting and mumbling at us and each other, holding sticks and rock in their nimble fingers.  They assaulted us with sharp stones and jabbed us with long pikes.  We circled wildly, weaving and twisting, until finally there was a break in their line, and then we darted past them and fled into the night.

     We stopped a mile from the camp, and lay down behind a rock to sleep while we could. They did not pursue us.  Dawn broke the next day and we were forced to make a decision.  We had found food, but only my father had eaten, and only a mouthful.  There was no chance of making it home as we were- tired and hungry- our spirits broken.  We needed these creatures, we needed their food.  All we could do was to go back, and try again.
     We watched them all morning from where they could not see us.  Some of the males came and went, carrying their stick and rocks with them.  Some females left to forage, some stayed with the children, feeding them milk and bits of meat or dry fruit.  They kept these treasures hidden under their sleeping furs, carefully stowed in holes and wrapped in skins or leaves.  The children played as children do, howling and running, then falling and crying.
     All I could see in my father's eyes was his desire to run down one of the young, and devour it before the helpless eyes of the females.  But these beasts were different, there was no weak spot to attack.  They were vigilant, both males and females would take turns sweeping a watchful eye over the distant grass.  We had put them on their guard.
     They made more noise than I thought was possible.  They always were chattering and mumbling to one another, no ape grunts but thick and calculated sounds.  I never spoke, not unless it was imperative.  I had no use for such complicated sounds, none of us did- my tribe communicated with gesture and posture and feeling, and we never needed words to say what we meant.  But these animals seemed to lack that inborn understanding of intent, of our ability to speak without words.  I had always taken this for granted.
     My father sent me to walk where the creatures could see me, while he waited behind to watch and gauge their reactions.  I emerged from the high scrub and stood on the line where the grassed stopped and their camp began.  I waited.
     A big male caught sight of me and yelled, but I did not flee.  We needed to test their defenses, if my father and I were to get back inside the camp.
     Other males came running and stood beside the big one.  They all shouted and waved their sticks in the air.  The noise did not frighten me but the sticks did.  One of them hurled a rock towards me, but it fell far short and still I did not move.  Suddenly there was a noise behind me in the tall grass, and I darted away to the side only just in time to see a stick stab into the earth, where I had just been.
     A smaller, thinner male slipped out of the brush and pulled his stick from the ground.  He didn't shout like the rest, he didn't make any sound at all.  He had dark, intense eyes, and he looked at me with them while the other males howled in the distance.  We stared at each other, and as we did I saw myself in those strange, deep eyes. I saw a hunter.
     He had missed me deliberately, I realized, he was close enough for the kill, but he had let me live.  If he had wanted to, I would have been their next meal.  He smiled.
     I slid back into the dry, yellow grass and became invisible again.

     One meeting was not enough for my father, or for me.  His stomach groaned with each shift of his body, and my limbs ached with strangling hunger.  My father was indifferent to my encounter, he had watched from a distance, but was too fatigued to be concerned. Their reactions had not provided any new insights. He closed his eyes to rest for the night's hunt.
     Before the sun went down, I ventured out again, and stood where I had stood before, where they all could see me.  This time there were still shouts, but no rocks, and most of the village- even the children- crowded just a little closer, to get a look at me.  A huge male came from within the crowd, I had not seen him there the first time, but I could tell by his stance that he was in charge.  He bellowed in a deep voice and the others stopped their yelling, and mumbled to each other in muted tones.  He advanced and pounded once on his chest.
   "Grrut!" he said at me, then hit his chest again.  The stink of his breath was unbelievable, and sweat rained from his arms each time he pounded his hairy breast.  "Grrut!"  I stood still and waited.  He advanced another step and called loudered, "Grrut!"
     He saw no fear in me, and it made him furious.  He screamed and picked up a stone to throw at me, but a soft and firm voice issued from somewhere behind him, and he stopped.  The rage had gone from his eyes, and he turned to a small, thin male sitting on the ground far away from the crowd.  He was poking something in the smoking pit, and not even looking in our direction.
     The big male shouted at him instead of me, and beat his chest again.  "Grrut!" he cried ferociously.  The sitting male rose slowly, then turned to face him, and the crowd.  He said nothing, but the big male seemed to lose something in his stature as the smaller male looked upon him, and spoke in calm words.  The big one turned back and looked upon me with rage, but he dropped his stone and trudged away into the grass, towards the only trees sitting on the far horizon.  I left in the opposite direction, heading back to my father, and to the sheltered place we had found behind the stone.

     The night came, and my father, was too fatigued to move.  There were no option left for me, either I bring back food, or we both would die.  Alone, and far away from anything close home, I sat and waited for the moon to rise.
     I walked to slowly back toward the camp, trying not to rush myself, and I noticed a curious effect all around me.  The moon was full, and as it shined down from the cloudless sky it turned the dusty grass and luminous and rolling blue.  When I was very young my father and mother had taken me to a place where the water went on as far as the eye could see, water not fit to drink, but vast nonetheless.  I remember wondering what lay beyond that water, beyond the far line of the horizon.  My parents had no answers for me.
     As I walked through the grass that memory lived with me, and I felt then I was floating across a silent, dark body of water, carrying me forward on its pale, rippling surface.  I was drifting along the horizon, skirting the line where dark sky and distant waves met, and would part reveal a far unknown land.

     I came upon the camp and my silent thoughts were ended.  The creatured stirred restlessly, shifting and grumbling amongst the scattered furs.  My path was clear.  I called out a single time to the clan, and waited by the lip of the tall grass where I had stood before.  They jumped to their feet and the mutters stopped.
     By the pit, a figure stirred and poked at something.  Sparked danced into the air, and fire licked up from the black hole in the ground.  The leaping flames made my heart jump, but there was no turning back, no running from the heat now.  The figure jabbed again and the fire climbed higher into the dark air.  The creatures began to sit down slowly, one by one, upon the ground- all their eyes were turned to me.  The one who stirred the fire rose to his feet and motioned to the a large figure on the far side of the pit.  "Grrut," he said, and the big male came to his side.
     They walked towards me, the big one flanking the smaller one, but I stood my ground.  They stopped a few yards ahead of me, and the small one squatted down and put his hand out to me.  "Eeamm," he said softly, and the look in his eyes was a gentle one.  He turned his hand so his palm faced the sky and said again softly "Eeamm."  I heard a slick from the big, standing male, and I saw his bottom jaw shift hard against the top.
     From his hidden hand, the squatting man produced a slab of meat on the bone.  It was steaming in the night air, and it dripped with hot, sumptuous juices.  He laid it on the ground and backed away slightly.  "Eeamm," he said again in a whisper, and the he stood and started back slowly towards the pit.  The big one followed after a moment, and I snatched up the meat quickly and darted away into the grass.
     I don't know what happened, or why, but I raced throught he grassy sea back towards my father, with a piece of charred, but irresistible-smelling meat in my clutches.  It took all I had to keep running, to not stop and devour the feast there on the spot.  I could never do that thought, to eat while my father died of hunger could not be done.
     I came upon my father, and dropped the meat before him.  His glassy eyes came into focus and he snatched up the meat greedily, tearing of chunks of flesh and swallowing with abandon.  I looked at him with pleading eyes, but he did not see me, or if he did, he did not care.  I stood and watched as he gorged on the food and licked clean the bone.  I hung my head and exhaustion overcame me.  As I drifted off to sleep, the last noises I heard were those of my father crunching the marrow from my prize, and making satisfied little noises to himself in the dark.

     My father woke me as the sun came up, and he walked in an impatient circle around me until I stretched and shook the sleep from my senses.  He started off immediately towards the camp, and I had no choice but to follow.  My legs were shaking, and the morning sun seemed to bright to bare.  His meal had done little to satisfy my father's hunger though, and my groans of hunger and exhaustion went unheeded.  There was no gratitude at all for the food I had delivered, for the life I had saved, and it seemed my father had all but forgotten the victory I had won in the night.
     Still I followed, though my eyes squinted and my joints shook.  We came upon the camp and my father strode boldly forward, walking right in amongst the sleeping creatures.  He called to them in his deep voice, and seemed surprised when they began to scream in fear upon waking and discovering him.  "Eeamm!" they all screamed.
     The thin male and the giant ran up from within the crowd, and they stopped to face my father and I.  The creatures stood in a wide circle around us, some holding sticks and rocks, other looking at the confrontation with uncertainty.  The heat of the morning and the light were becoming unbearable, and the world began to drift in circles before my eyes as I tired to focus on the crowd.  The faces all around me were blurred and I felt my balance go.  The ground was cold and then silence.

     I awoke to the thin man crouching over me - he held a hollow gourd container with an open top.  He poured cool water into my mouth.  My tongue was swollen and cracked, and the cold water stung for a moment, then was wonderful.  He put the bowl on the ground beside me and I drank my fill.  I could not stand, nor turn over, and I stared straight ahead at the vertical horizon.
     The thin male returned and I could smell the meat he brought.  He pulled off tiny pieces and fed them to me as I lay helpless as an infant upon the ground.  I wanted my father and in my confusion I struggled in vain to look around for him.  The thin man laid a hand on my brown and whispered his soft words to me, and my fear left me.  He offered me more food, and I ate what I could, but I could feel the darkness creeping back into the edges of my vision and soon sleep took me again.

... cont in part 2