WISE ONE WAS not happy. They had been in this place for four
day-times and four darktimes, and none of the others wanted to
leave. It was a good place, and he himself would have wanted to
stay if it were not that he wanted more to go on to the Big One
Place.
They had found it almost toward sundown-time on the day it had
rained by following a little moving-water up the side of the
mountain the way from which it came into a little valley that had
been wide when they had first entered it and had become narrower as
the mountain had grown steeper on either side. They had found a
good sleeping-place where a tree had fallen in a small hollow
beside a rock-ledge. Back under the ledge and the fallen tree the
ground had been dry, although it had rained hard until
sun-highest-time. They had gathered many ferns and had made a bed
big enough for all of them together, and had made a place to put
the bright-things so that they would not have to carry them when
they hunted. After the first night, with the sleeping-place made,
they played on the bank of the little moving-water until it became
dark. There were good-to-eat growing-things nearby, and hatta-zosa
among the trees below and on either side; and best of all, there
were many zatku, more than anybody could remember. Last day-time
they had found and eaten a whole hand and one finger of them,
almost a whole zatku for each of them.
They had seen flying-things several times after they had crossed
the moving-water to the sun’s right hand. Always they had
been far away, to sun-upward. They seemed to be going along over
the great-great moving-water that went from the sun’s left
hand toward the sun’s right hand. Big She and some of the
others had been afraid and had hidden, but that had been foolish,
for the flying-things were too far away for the Big Ones in them to
see. Big She said they were hunting, and would eat them all if they
found them. That was more of Big She’s foolishness. The Big
Ones were People, and People did not eat People. That was a foolish
thing even to think about. Only gotza ate their own kind. And the
Big Ones must hate gotza, for they killed them whenever they found
them. But Big She and Stonebreaker and Fruitfinder, who listened to
her, were afraid, and their foolish talk made the others afraid
too.
Stabber was not afraid of the Big Ones, though. He had talked
about how good it would be to find them and make friends with them,
but the others had all cried out about that, and there had been the
beginning of a quarrel. After that Stabber had kept quiet, except
when the two of them were alone together.
They were together now along the moving-water below the open end
of the little valley, looking for zatku and staying away from the
places where the hatta-zosa fed, so as not to frighten them away.
The others were all at the sleeping place, resting and playing;
they had hunted all morning and made a big hatta-zosa killing, and
nobody was hungry. Stonebreaker was making another knife, better
than the other one, and the rest were making telling-things with
little stones on the ground about how many hatta-zosa they had
killed and how many zatku. They would do that until near
sundown-time, and then they would go out and hunt again. That was
what they did each day.
It was nice to have a place like this, where they could rest and
play all they wanted and not have to move all the time. Stabber was
saying so now.
“Find place like this at Big One Place,” Wise One
told Stabber. “Maybe Big Ones have places like this. Go away
far in flying-things to hunt, always come back to same
place.”
“You think Big Ones live across mountain?”
He nodded. “Maybe across other mountains, across many
mountains. But Big Ones live to sun’s left hand.”
He was sure of that. He tried to think how he knew it, but that
was harder. He pointed to the sun’s right hand, to the line
of mountains across the moving-water they had crossed a hand of
days ago. Then he sat on the ground and picked up a stick and
scratched a line with it.
“Moving-water we crossed at stony place; you
remember?” Stabber, squatting beside him, did. “Goes
that way, to great-great moving-water nobody can cross. Great-great
moving-water goes to sun’s right hand. Some place, far-far to
sun’s left hand, great-great moving-water little, like this,
comes out of ground.”
Stabber agreed. All moving-waters came out of the ground
somewhere, that was an everybody-knows thing. Moving-waters became
big because other moving-waters flowed into them. He scratched
another line to show the great-great moving water.
“Must be far-far, for great-great moving-water to get so
big. Many little moving-waters come into it,” Stabber
considered.
“Yes. This place a nobody-know place. Nobody ever tell
about it. Big Ones come from some place nobody ever tell about
before. Far-far place. And flying-things come from sun’s left
hand. We know; we see.”
“Big Ones must be very wise,” Stabber said.
“Go in flying-things, make thunder-death. I think
flying-things made-things. Big Ones make like we make clubs,
cutting-stones. I think Big Ones make bright-things too.”
He nodded. That was what he thought, too.
“Among Big Ones, we be like little baby ones,” he
said. “Not wise at all. People help little baby ones, teach
them. Big Ones help us, teach us. Big Ones not let gotza,
hesh-nazza catch us, eat us. Make gotza, hesh-nazza dead with
thunder-death.”
He looked out across the valley; he could see, far away, the
ravine in the other mountain from which they had fled the
hesh-nazza. Big Ones would not have fled; they would have made the
hesh-nazza dead, and then cut it up and eaten it.
“But others, Big She, Other She, Stonebreaker,
Fruitfinder, all afraid of Big Ones,” Stabber said.
“And not want to leave this place.”
Then, he and Stabber would go alone. But he didn’t want to
leave the others; he wanted them to go along too. He looked at the
mountains to the sun’s right hand again.
“Maybe,” he said hopefully, “Hesh-nazza come
across moving-water. Then all afraid to stay; want to go
away.”
“But hesh-nazza not cross. Water too deep, too fast. And
hesh-nazza not able to go around, way we did,” Stabber
objected.
That was so. But he wished the hesh-nazza would come over to
this side. They would all want to leave, especially Big She. If he
could see it first and be able to warn them . . . Then a thought
occurred to him.
“We go back to sleeping-place, now,” he said.
“We tell the others hesh-nazza come. We tell them we see
hesh-nazza. Then they all want to go.”
“But . . . ” Stabber looked at him in bewilderment.
“But hesh-nazza not here.” He couldn’t
understand. “How we say we see hesh-nazza?”
It would be like the way he had told them about the long-ago
People stories about the wonderful country to the sun’s left
hand. It would be a not-so thing, but he would speak as though it
were so.
“You want to go to Big One Place?” he asked.
“You want some go one place, some go other place, never see
again? Then, we make others afraid to stay here. They not know we
not see hesh-nazza. You think Big She go to look? You not make
foolish-one talk!”
“Hesh-nazza not here, we tell others hesh-nazza
here?” Stabber thought about it, realizing that it would be
possible to do it. Then he nodded. “They not know. We tell
them, they think hesh-nazza here. Come.”
“Make run fast,” he said. “Hesh-nazza chase
us; we afraid.”
They dashed among the others, shouting, “Hesh-nazza!
Hesh-nazza come!” All the others, who were between the
sleeping-place and the small moving water, sprang to their feet.
They all believed the hesh-nazza was upon them.
Carries-Bright-Things ran and got the three sticks with the shining
things on them; Stonebreaker caught up the chopper and the knife he
had made and the knife on which he was working. Nobody wasted time
on argument. They all scampered up the side of the little ravine
away from the sleeping-place and the little moving water. When they
were out of the ravine, they all ran very fast, up the side of the
mountain.
“Make hurry, make hurry!” he urged. “Not stop
now. Maybe hesh-nazza come up here.”
Hesh-nazza did that. Anything they could not catch by lying
still and waiting they would try to catch by circling around. That
was an everybody-knows thing. The ones who had begun to slow made
haste again.
They all slowed down, however, as the trees ahead of them became
thinner. Finally, near the top, they stopped, and kept still to
listen. They could hear birds and small animals in the brush.
Everybody relaxed; the hesh-nazza was not close now. Wise One was
relieved too, until he remembered that there was no hesh-nazza. He
had only said there was.
They came to the edge of the mountain. It fell away in front of
them, steeper and higher than the one they had come down on the
other side of the river. Below and beyond were no more big
mountains, only small hills and ridges, and there would be many
moving-waters and woods in which to hunt. Far away, so far as to be
almost as blue as the sky and hard to see against it, a high
mountain stretched away on both hands until it was beyond seeing.
It was from this mountain, he was sure, that the great-great river
that flowed to the sun’s right hand came.
The others, even Big She, who had been complaining because they
had had to leave the nice place behind, were crying out at the
wonder of everything in front of them. Then he saw a tiny
brightness in the sky, so small that he lost it when he looked away
and had trouble finding it again. Then, directly in front, he saw
another. At first he thought it was the first one, and wondered at
how fast it had moved, even for a Big Ones’ flying thing. But
then he saw that it was another, and he could see both of them. Two
flying-things! He had never seen more than one at a time.
Now he knew that he had been right all along. The Big One Place
was to the sun’s left hand, perhaps just over those high
mountains in the distance.
WISE ONE WAS not happy. They had been in this place for four
day-times and four darktimes, and none of the others wanted to
leave. It was a good place, and he himself would have wanted to
stay if it were not that he wanted more to go on to the Big One
Place.
They had found it almost toward sundown-time on the day it had
rained by following a little moving-water up the side of the
mountain the way from which it came into a little valley that had
been wide when they had first entered it and had become narrower as
the mountain had grown steeper on either side. They had found a
good sleeping-place where a tree had fallen in a small hollow
beside a rock-ledge. Back under the ledge and the fallen tree the
ground had been dry, although it had rained hard until
sun-highest-time. They had gathered many ferns and had made a bed
big enough for all of them together, and had made a place to put
the bright-things so that they would not have to carry them when
they hunted. After the first night, with the sleeping-place made,
they played on the bank of the little moving-water until it became
dark. There were good-to-eat growing-things nearby, and hatta-zosa
among the trees below and on either side; and best of all, there
were many zatku, more than anybody could remember. Last day-time
they had found and eaten a whole hand and one finger of them,
almost a whole zatku for each of them.
They had seen flying-things several times after they had crossed
the moving-water to the sun’s right hand. Always they had
been far away, to sun-upward. They seemed to be going along over
the great-great moving-water that went from the sun’s left
hand toward the sun’s right hand. Big She and some of the
others had been afraid and had hidden, but that had been foolish,
for the flying-things were too far away for the Big Ones in them to
see. Big She said they were hunting, and would eat them all if they
found them. That was more of Big She’s foolishness. The Big
Ones were People, and People did not eat People. That was a foolish
thing even to think about. Only gotza ate their own kind. And the
Big Ones must hate gotza, for they killed them whenever they found
them. But Big She and Stonebreaker and Fruitfinder, who listened to
her, were afraid, and their foolish talk made the others afraid
too.
Stabber was not afraid of the Big Ones, though. He had talked
about how good it would be to find them and make friends with them,
but the others had all cried out about that, and there had been the
beginning of a quarrel. After that Stabber had kept quiet, except
when the two of them were alone together.
They were together now along the moving-water below the open end
of the little valley, looking for zatku and staying away from the
places where the hatta-zosa fed, so as not to frighten them away.
The others were all at the sleeping place, resting and playing;
they had hunted all morning and made a big hatta-zosa killing, and
nobody was hungry. Stonebreaker was making another knife, better
than the other one, and the rest were making telling-things with
little stones on the ground about how many hatta-zosa they had
killed and how many zatku. They would do that until near
sundown-time, and then they would go out and hunt again. That was
what they did each day.
It was nice to have a place like this, where they could rest and
play all they wanted and not have to move all the time. Stabber was
saying so now.
“Find place like this at Big One Place,” Wise One
told Stabber. “Maybe Big Ones have places like this. Go away
far in flying-things to hunt, always come back to same
place.”
“You think Big Ones live across mountain?”
He nodded. “Maybe across other mountains, across many
mountains. But Big Ones live to sun’s left hand.”
He was sure of that. He tried to think how he knew it, but that
was harder. He pointed to the sun’s right hand, to the line
of mountains across the moving-water they had crossed a hand of
days ago. Then he sat on the ground and picked up a stick and
scratched a line with it.
“Moving-water we crossed at stony place; you
remember?” Stabber, squatting beside him, did. “Goes
that way, to great-great moving-water nobody can cross. Great-great
moving-water goes to sun’s right hand. Some place, far-far to
sun’s left hand, great-great moving-water little, like this,
comes out of ground.”
Stabber agreed. All moving-waters came out of the ground
somewhere, that was an everybody-knows thing. Moving-waters became
big because other moving-waters flowed into them. He scratched
another line to show the great-great moving water.
“Must be far-far, for great-great moving-water to get so
big. Many little moving-waters come into it,” Stabber
considered.
“Yes. This place a nobody-know place. Nobody ever tell
about it. Big Ones come from some place nobody ever tell about
before. Far-far place. And flying-things come from sun’s left
hand. We know; we see.”
“Big Ones must be very wise,” Stabber said.
“Go in flying-things, make thunder-death. I think
flying-things made-things. Big Ones make like we make clubs,
cutting-stones. I think Big Ones make bright-things too.”
He nodded. That was what he thought, too.
“Among Big Ones, we be like little baby ones,” he
said. “Not wise at all. People help little baby ones, teach
them. Big Ones help us, teach us. Big Ones not let gotza,
hesh-nazza catch us, eat us. Make gotza, hesh-nazza dead with
thunder-death.”
He looked out across the valley; he could see, far away, the
ravine in the other mountain from which they had fled the
hesh-nazza. Big Ones would not have fled; they would have made the
hesh-nazza dead, and then cut it up and eaten it.
“But others, Big She, Other She, Stonebreaker,
Fruitfinder, all afraid of Big Ones,” Stabber said.
“And not want to leave this place.”
Then, he and Stabber would go alone. But he didn’t want to
leave the others; he wanted them to go along too. He looked at the
mountains to the sun’s right hand again.
“Maybe,” he said hopefully, “Hesh-nazza come
across moving-water. Then all afraid to stay; want to go
away.”
“But hesh-nazza not cross. Water too deep, too fast. And
hesh-nazza not able to go around, way we did,” Stabber
objected.
That was so. But he wished the hesh-nazza would come over to
this side. They would all want to leave, especially Big She. If he
could see it first and be able to warn them . . . Then a thought
occurred to him.
“We go back to sleeping-place, now,” he said.
“We tell the others hesh-nazza come. We tell them we see
hesh-nazza. Then they all want to go.”
“But . . . ” Stabber looked at him in bewilderment.
“But hesh-nazza not here.” He couldn’t
understand. “How we say we see hesh-nazza?”
It would be like the way he had told them about the long-ago
People stories about the wonderful country to the sun’s left
hand. It would be a not-so thing, but he would speak as though it
were so.
“You want to go to Big One Place?” he asked.
“You want some go one place, some go other place, never see
again? Then, we make others afraid to stay here. They not know we
not see hesh-nazza. You think Big She go to look? You not make
foolish-one talk!”
“Hesh-nazza not here, we tell others hesh-nazza
here?” Stabber thought about it, realizing that it would be
possible to do it. Then he nodded. “They not know. We tell
them, they think hesh-nazza here. Come.”
“Make run fast,” he said. “Hesh-nazza chase
us; we afraid.”
They dashed among the others, shouting, “Hesh-nazza!
Hesh-nazza come!” All the others, who were between the
sleeping-place and the small moving water, sprang to their feet.
They all believed the hesh-nazza was upon them.
Carries-Bright-Things ran and got the three sticks with the shining
things on them; Stonebreaker caught up the chopper and the knife he
had made and the knife on which he was working. Nobody wasted time
on argument. They all scampered up the side of the little ravine
away from the sleeping-place and the little moving water. When they
were out of the ravine, they all ran very fast, up the side of the
mountain.
“Make hurry, make hurry!” he urged. “Not stop
now. Maybe hesh-nazza come up here.”
Hesh-nazza did that. Anything they could not catch by lying
still and waiting they would try to catch by circling around. That
was an everybody-knows thing. The ones who had begun to slow made
haste again.
They all slowed down, however, as the trees ahead of them became
thinner. Finally, near the top, they stopped, and kept still to
listen. They could hear birds and small animals in the brush.
Everybody relaxed; the hesh-nazza was not close now. Wise One was
relieved too, until he remembered that there was no hesh-nazza. He
had only said there was.
They came to the edge of the mountain. It fell away in front of
them, steeper and higher than the one they had come down on the
other side of the river. Below and beyond were no more big
mountains, only small hills and ridges, and there would be many
moving-waters and woods in which to hunt. Far away, so far as to be
almost as blue as the sky and hard to see against it, a high
mountain stretched away on both hands until it was beyond seeing.
It was from this mountain, he was sure, that the great-great river
that flowed to the sun’s right hand came.
The others, even Big She, who had been complaining because they
had had to leave the nice place behind, were crying out at the
wonder of everything in front of them. Then he saw a tiny
brightness in the sky, so small that he lost it when he looked away
and had trouble finding it again. Then, directly in front, he saw
another. At first he thought it was the first one, and wondered at
how fast it had moved, even for a Big Ones’ flying thing. But
then he saw that it was another, and he could see both of them. Two
flying-things! He had never seen more than one at a time.
Now he knew that he had been right all along. The Big One Place
was to the sun’s left hand, perhaps just over those high
mountains in the distance.