LITTLE FUZZY SAID, “Sunnabish!” again, in even
deeper disgust. He relighted his pipe, but after two puffs it went
out; there was nothing but ashes in it. He blew through the stem
and put it away. There was no use making a big fire here; Pappy Vic
and his friends were looking for him along the other river, the one
that came out from Yellowsand. He couldn’t even hear the
aircar-sounds anymore. And all the way he would have to go, up this
river and then down again . . .
“Jeeze-krise!”
Why hadn’t he thought of that before? No, he
wouldn’t have to do all that! He would make a raft, the way
he had been taught. Why, he had even helped teach others to do it.
Then he would go down this river until he came in sight of the
other river, and work over to the right bank. Then he would be
close to Yellowsand and along the river where they were looking for
him. As soon as he got on land again, he would make a big fire and
right away somebody would see and come for him.
He couldn’t do it here. The banks were too high, and if he
made a raft he would never be able, alone, to get it down. So he
would have to go up this river, but only till he found a good
place, with the banks low, where there was wood to make the raft
and the kind of trees that had fine, tough roots to twist into rope
to tie the raft together. And before he started to work on the raft
he would have to hunt for a while to get meat to eat while he was
working.
He scuffed dirt over the ashes he had knocked from his pipe,
picked up his axe and spear, and started off up the river. After a
while, the river turned south a little, and then it became very
wide. He stopped and looked: a big lake. That was good. There would
be low places along it and the water would be still; he could build
the raft right in the water. The sun was beginning to come out now,
not brightly, but growing steadily brighter. He was feeling very
happy; building the raft was going to be much fun.
Then he stopped short and said a number of the Big Ones’
angry-words, but even that didn’t make him feel better. In
front of him the ground dropped off in a cliff, as high as one of
the big metal houses at Wonderful Place. Beyond he could see flat
ground full of trees and bushes and tangled vines, with water
everywhere. There was small stream at the foot of the cliff, and it
spread out all over everything. This was a bad sunnabish
not-go-through place; he would have to go up the little stream to
get around it. How far up the river it went he had no idea. He
looked at his compass again, saw that the small stream went almost
due north, and started up along it.
The sun was out brightly now, and there were many big blue
places in the sky and the clouds were white instead of gray. He
walked steadily, looking about for things to eat and looking at his
compass. Finally he came to where the stream ran over stones, and
the water-everywhere place had stopped.
He crossed over and went west, looking often at his compass and
remembering which way the big river was. He heard noises ahead, and
stopped to listen, then was very happy because it was the noise of
goofers chewing at tree-bark. He went forward carefully and came
upon five of them, all chewing at trees. He picked out the plumpest
of them, drew back his arm, and threw his spear; it was not a very
good throw because it caught the goofer through the belly, just
back of the hips, from one side to the other. As he ran forward to
finish it, another, frightened, ran straight at him. He hit it
between the eyes with the axe; it died at once. He hadn’t
meant to kill two goofers, but a frightened goofer would attack a
person. Then he finished the one he had wounded with his spear and
pulled the spear out. The other goofers had all run away.
He gutted both of them, took out the livers and hearts and
kidneys, and spitted them on sticks he cut with his knife. Then he
built a fire. When he had a good bed of red coals he propped the
sticks against stones and weighed them with other stones and sat
down to watch that the meat didn’t burn. It was very
good.
He cut off the head of one goofer and made a pack of the
carcass, as he had the one he had killed the day before. The other
he skinned and cut up and wrapped the hind legs and the backmeat in
the skin and tied that to the whole one. This was going to be a
heavy load, but he thought he could manage it. He started off
again. He didn’t bother looking for good-to-eat things
anymore; he had already eaten, and he had a whole goofer and the
best meat of another. Even if he had seen a land-prawn, he
wouldn’t have bothered with it. He turned south; now he had
the sun, and didn’t need to bother getting out his
compass.
Then, in front of him, he saw a splash of blood, and then places
where the dead leaves were scuffed and more blood, and goofer-hairs
with it. Somebody had been going in the direction of the river,
dragging a dead goofer. That meant that there was a band of People
about who had split up to hunt and would meet again somewhere.
People hunting in a band would never drag a dead goofer; they would
eat it where they had killed it. He went forward along the
drag-trail, and then stopped.
“Heyo!” he shouted, as loudly as he could, then
remembered that that was a Big One word, and these People had never
seen a Big One. He had also been putting his voice in the back of
his mouth, to make talk like a Big One. “Friend!” he
shouted naturally, as he always had before he had been taught.
“You want make talk?”
There was no answer; they were too far ahead to hear. He hurried
forward, following the trail as fast as he could. After a while, he
shouted again; this time there was an answering shout. He could see
the big river through the trees ahead, and then he saw three People
beside it. He hurried to them.
They were two males and a female. They all had wooden weapons,
not the paddle-shaped prawn-killers the People in the south
carried, but heavy clubs knobbed on one end and pointed on the
other. One of the females also carried three small sticks in her
hand. On the ground was a dead goofer, the hair and skin rubbed off
the back where it had been dragged.
“Friend,” he greeted them. “You make friends,
make talk?”
“Yes, make friends,” one of the males said, and the
other asked, “Where from you come? Others with
you?”
He swung the load from his shoulders, the whole goofer and the
meat of the other, beside the goofer they had, to show that he
would share and eat with them, and untied the strings and put them
in his shoulder bag. The others looked at these things and at his
weapons intently, but said nothing about them, waiting for him to
show and explain about them. The female said, “You carry all
that? You strong.”
“Not strong; just know how,” he replied.
“Alone. Come from far-far place, sun’s left hand. Four
dark-times, fall in big river.” Then he remembered that river
was not a Fuzzy word. “Big big moving-water,” he
explained. “Catch hold of tree floating in moving-water, hold
onto. Moving-water take me far to sun’s right hand before I
can get out. Walk back to place where can cross. What place you
come from?”
One of the males pointed northward. “Come many-many
days,” he said. “Band all come together.” He held
up a hand with five fingers spread, then lowered and raised it with
three fingers extended. Eight of them. “Others hunt, some
this way, some that way. Come back here, all eat
together.”
“We call him Wise One,” the female said, pointing to
the one who had spoken. “He called Fruitfinder,” she
introduced the other male. “Me Carries-Bright-Things.”
She held out the three sticks. “Look, bright-things.
Pretty.”
On the end of each stick was a thing he knew. They were the
things that flew out when Big Ones shot with rifles. Empty
cartridges. One was the kind for the rifles the blue-clothes police
Big Ones had; Pappy Gerd had a rifle like that too. The other two
cartridges were from a rifle like one of Pappy Jack’s.
“Where you get?” he demanded, excited. “Are
Big One things. Big Ones use in long thing, point with both hands.
Pull little thing underneath, make noise like thunder. Throw little
hard thing very fast; make dead hesh-nazza. You know where Big Ones
are?”
“You know about Big Ones?” Wise One was asking just
as excitedly. “You know where Big One Place is?”
“I come from Big One Place,” he told them.
“Hoksu-Mitto, Wonderful Place. I live with Big Ones, all Big
Ones my friends.” He began naming them over, starting with
Pappy Jack. “Many Fuzzies live with Big Ones, can’t say
name for how many. Big Ones good to all Fuzzies, give nice things.
Give shoddabag, like this.” He displayed it. “Give
knife, give trowel for dig hole bury bad smells. Teach
things.” He showed the axe and spear. “Big Ones teach
how to make. I make, after get out of big moving-water. And Big
Ones give Hoksu-Fusso, Wonderful Food.”
There was shouting from up the river. The male Fuzzy who was
called Fruitfinder, examining the axe, said, “Stabber, Big
She come.” Wise One began shouting, “Make hurry fast!
Wonderful thing happen!”
Two more Fuzzies came out of the woods, dragging another dead
goofer between them—a female with a club like the others’ and
a male with a sort of spear-stick. Carries-Bright-Things and
Fruitfinder ran to help them, jabbering in excitement.
“Is somebody from Big One Place,”
Carries-Bright-Things was saying. “Is Big Ones’ Friend.
Knows what bright-things are.”
The male with the spear-stick immediately began shouting at the
female with him, “You see? Big Ones good, make friends. Here
is one who knows. Wise One right all time.”
“You show us way to Big One Place?” Wise One was
asking. “Big Ones make friends with us?”
“Big Ones friends for all Fuzzies,” he said, and
then remembered that that was another Big One word. There were so
many Big One words these Fuzzies did not know. “Fuzzy what
Big Ones call all People like us. Means Fur-All-Over. Big Ones not
have fur, only on head, sometimes on face.” He decided not to
try to explain about clothes; not enough words. “Big Ones
very wise, have all kinds of made-things. Big Ones very good to all
Fuzzies.”
Three more came in. They had two zarabunnies and two
land-prawns. Everybody was excited about that, and cried,
“Look, two zatku!” Land-prawns must be very few in this
place. It took a long time to tell these new ones, and the others,
about the Big Ones and about Wonderful Place. He showed all the
things he had in the shoulder bag, and the spear and axe he had
made. Stabber seemed to think the spear was especially wonderful,
and they all thought the shoulder bag itself was the most wonderful
thing he had—“Carry many things; not have to hold in hand;
not lose,”—but there were so many wonderful things to look at
that none of them could think of any one thing long. He had been
like that when he had first come to Wonderful Place, when Wonderful
Place had been little and nobody but Pappy Jack had been there.
There was arguing among them, and he listened and thought he
understood how things had been in this band. Wise One and Stabber
had wanted to find the Big One Place and make friends with the Big
Ones, and Big She and Fruitfinder and Stonebreaker had been afraid.
Now everybody was siding with Wise One and mocking Big She, and
even she was convinced that Wise One had been right, but
didn’t want to admit it. Finally, they all squatted in a
ring, passing all his things around to look at, and he told them
about the Big Ones and Wonderful Place.
What he wanted to know was how these people had found out about
the Big Ones in the first place. It was hard to find this out.
Everybody was trying to talk at once and not telling about things
as they had happened. Finally Wise One told him, while the others
kept quiet, at least most of the time, about the thunder-death that
had killed the three gotza, and finding the tracks and where the
aircar had been set down, and the empty cartridges. That had been
Pappy Jack and Pappy Gerd; they had been to the north on a trip,
and everybody at Wonderful Place had heard about the shooting of
the three harpies. And they told about the flying thing, the
aircar. That would have been Pappy Vic’s friends or some of
Pappy George’s blue-clothes police people.
All the time, the sun was getting lower and lower toward its
sleeping-place; soon it would be making colors. Finally, about Big
Ones’ koktel-drinko time, everybody realized that they were
hungry. They began talking about eating, and there was argument
about whether to eat the land-prawns first or save them for
last.
“Eat zatku first,” Stabber advised. “Hungry
now, taste good. Save for last, not hungry, not taste so
good.”
Wise One approved that, and Big She agreed. Wise One cracked the
shells and divided the meat among everybody. That showed how scarce
land-prawns were here. In the south, nobody did that. Everybody
killed and ate land-prawns for himself; there were enough for
everybody. He told them so, and they were all amazed, and Stabber
was shouting. “Now you see! Wise One right all the time. Good
Country to sun’s left hand, plenty everything!” Even
Big She agreed; there was no more argument about anything now.
After they had eaten the zatku—he must remember to use only
Fuzzy words, till he could teach the Big One words—they were ready
to eat the hatta-zosa and the ho-todda. When they saw how he
skinned and butchered with his knife, they wanted him to prepare
all of them; all they had was one little stone knife.
“Not eat right away,” he told them. “Cook
first.”
Then he had to explain about that, and everybody was frightened,
even Wise One. They knew about fire; lightning sometimes made it,
and it was a bad thing. He remembered how frightened he had been
when he had first seen it in Pappy Jack’s viewscreen. He
decided, with all the meat they had, to make barba-koo. They
watched him dig the trench with his trowel and helped him get
sticks to put the hatta-zosa on and gather wood for the fire, but
when he went to light it they all stood back, ready to run like Big
Ones watching somebody making ready for blast.
But when the barba-koo was started, they came closer, all
exclaiming at the good smells, and when the meat was done and cool
enough to eat, everybody was crying out at how good it was. Little
Fuzzy remembered the first cooked meat he had eaten.
By this time the sun was making colors in the west, and
everybody said it was good that the rain was over. They all wanted
to go find a sleeping-place, but he told them that this would be a
good enough place to sleep, since the rain was over and if they
kept a fire burning all the big animals would be afraid. They
believed that; they were still afraid themselves.
He got out his pipe and filled and lighted it, and after a few
puffs he passed it around. Some of them liked it, and some refused
to take a second puff. Wise One liked it, and so did Lame One and
Other She and Carries-Bright-Things, but Stabber and Stonebreaker
didn’t. They built the fire up and sat for a long time
talking.
He needed this band. With eight beside himself, they could build
a big raft, and with eight and himself to hunt they would not be
hungry. He had to be careful, though. He remembered how hard it had
been to talk the others into going to Wonderful Place after he had
found it and come back to get them to come with him. They would
make him leader instead of Wise One, but he didn’t want that.
When a new one came into a band and tried to lead it, there was
always trouble. Finally he decided what to do.
He took the whistle out of his bag and tied a string to it long
enough to go around the neck, and made sure that it was tied so
that it would not come loose. Then he rose and went to Wise
One.
“You lead this band?” he asked.
“Yes. But if you can take us to Big One Place, you
lead.”
“No. Not want. You lead. I just show how to go. Others
know you, not know me.” He took the whistle—Wise One had
learned how to blow it by now—and hung it around his neck. “I
give; you keep,” he said. “You leader; when band not
together, want to call others, you blow. When somebody lost, you
blow.”
Wise One blew piercingly on the whistle. A Big One would have
said, “Sank-oo,” for a gift like this. Fuzzies did not
say such things; everybody was good to everybody.
“You hear?” he asked. “When I make noise like
this, you come. That way, nobody get lost.” He thought for a
moment. “I lead band, but Big Ones’ Friend know better
than Wise One; he very wise Wise One. Wise One listen when he say
something. All listen when Big Ones’ Friend say anything, do
as Big Ones’ Friend say. That way, we all come to Big One
Place, to Hoksu-Mitto.”
LITTLE FUZZY SAID, “Sunnabish!” again, in even
deeper disgust. He relighted his pipe, but after two puffs it went
out; there was nothing but ashes in it. He blew through the stem
and put it away. There was no use making a big fire here; Pappy Vic
and his friends were looking for him along the other river, the one
that came out from Yellowsand. He couldn’t even hear the
aircar-sounds anymore. And all the way he would have to go, up this
river and then down again . . .
“Jeeze-krise!”
Why hadn’t he thought of that before? No, he
wouldn’t have to do all that! He would make a raft, the way
he had been taught. Why, he had even helped teach others to do it.
Then he would go down this river until he came in sight of the
other river, and work over to the right bank. Then he would be
close to Yellowsand and along the river where they were looking for
him. As soon as he got on land again, he would make a big fire and
right away somebody would see and come for him.
He couldn’t do it here. The banks were too high, and if he
made a raft he would never be able, alone, to get it down. So he
would have to go up this river, but only till he found a good
place, with the banks low, where there was wood to make the raft
and the kind of trees that had fine, tough roots to twist into rope
to tie the raft together. And before he started to work on the raft
he would have to hunt for a while to get meat to eat while he was
working.
He scuffed dirt over the ashes he had knocked from his pipe,
picked up his axe and spear, and started off up the river. After a
while, the river turned south a little, and then it became very
wide. He stopped and looked: a big lake. That was good. There would
be low places along it and the water would be still; he could build
the raft right in the water. The sun was beginning to come out now,
not brightly, but growing steadily brighter. He was feeling very
happy; building the raft was going to be much fun.
Then he stopped short and said a number of the Big Ones’
angry-words, but even that didn’t make him feel better. In
front of him the ground dropped off in a cliff, as high as one of
the big metal houses at Wonderful Place. Beyond he could see flat
ground full of trees and bushes and tangled vines, with water
everywhere. There was small stream at the foot of the cliff, and it
spread out all over everything. This was a bad sunnabish
not-go-through place; he would have to go up the little stream to
get around it. How far up the river it went he had no idea. He
looked at his compass again, saw that the small stream went almost
due north, and started up along it.
The sun was out brightly now, and there were many big blue
places in the sky and the clouds were white instead of gray. He
walked steadily, looking about for things to eat and looking at his
compass. Finally he came to where the stream ran over stones, and
the water-everywhere place had stopped.
He crossed over and went west, looking often at his compass and
remembering which way the big river was. He heard noises ahead, and
stopped to listen, then was very happy because it was the noise of
goofers chewing at tree-bark. He went forward carefully and came
upon five of them, all chewing at trees. He picked out the plumpest
of them, drew back his arm, and threw his spear; it was not a very
good throw because it caught the goofer through the belly, just
back of the hips, from one side to the other. As he ran forward to
finish it, another, frightened, ran straight at him. He hit it
between the eyes with the axe; it died at once. He hadn’t
meant to kill two goofers, but a frightened goofer would attack a
person. Then he finished the one he had wounded with his spear and
pulled the spear out. The other goofers had all run away.
He gutted both of them, took out the livers and hearts and
kidneys, and spitted them on sticks he cut with his knife. Then he
built a fire. When he had a good bed of red coals he propped the
sticks against stones and weighed them with other stones and sat
down to watch that the meat didn’t burn. It was very
good.
He cut off the head of one goofer and made a pack of the
carcass, as he had the one he had killed the day before. The other
he skinned and cut up and wrapped the hind legs and the backmeat in
the skin and tied that to the whole one. This was going to be a
heavy load, but he thought he could manage it. He started off
again. He didn’t bother looking for good-to-eat things
anymore; he had already eaten, and he had a whole goofer and the
best meat of another. Even if he had seen a land-prawn, he
wouldn’t have bothered with it. He turned south; now he had
the sun, and didn’t need to bother getting out his
compass.
Then, in front of him, he saw a splash of blood, and then places
where the dead leaves were scuffed and more blood, and goofer-hairs
with it. Somebody had been going in the direction of the river,
dragging a dead goofer. That meant that there was a band of People
about who had split up to hunt and would meet again somewhere.
People hunting in a band would never drag a dead goofer; they would
eat it where they had killed it. He went forward along the
drag-trail, and then stopped.
“Heyo!” he shouted, as loudly as he could, then
remembered that that was a Big One word, and these People had never
seen a Big One. He had also been putting his voice in the back of
his mouth, to make talk like a Big One. “Friend!” he
shouted naturally, as he always had before he had been taught.
“You want make talk?”
There was no answer; they were too far ahead to hear. He hurried
forward, following the trail as fast as he could. After a while, he
shouted again; this time there was an answering shout. He could see
the big river through the trees ahead, and then he saw three People
beside it. He hurried to them.
They were two males and a female. They all had wooden weapons,
not the paddle-shaped prawn-killers the People in the south
carried, but heavy clubs knobbed on one end and pointed on the
other. One of the females also carried three small sticks in her
hand. On the ground was a dead goofer, the hair and skin rubbed off
the back where it had been dragged.
“Friend,” he greeted them. “You make friends,
make talk?”
“Yes, make friends,” one of the males said, and the
other asked, “Where from you come? Others with
you?”
He swung the load from his shoulders, the whole goofer and the
meat of the other, beside the goofer they had, to show that he
would share and eat with them, and untied the strings and put them
in his shoulder bag. The others looked at these things and at his
weapons intently, but said nothing about them, waiting for him to
show and explain about them. The female said, “You carry all
that? You strong.”
“Not strong; just know how,” he replied.
“Alone. Come from far-far place, sun’s left hand. Four
dark-times, fall in big river.” Then he remembered that river
was not a Fuzzy word. “Big big moving-water,” he
explained. “Catch hold of tree floating in moving-water, hold
onto. Moving-water take me far to sun’s right hand before I
can get out. Walk back to place where can cross. What place you
come from?”
One of the males pointed northward. “Come many-many
days,” he said. “Band all come together.” He held
up a hand with five fingers spread, then lowered and raised it with
three fingers extended. Eight of them. “Others hunt, some
this way, some that way. Come back here, all eat
together.”
“We call him Wise One,” the female said, pointing to
the one who had spoken. “He called Fruitfinder,” she
introduced the other male. “Me Carries-Bright-Things.”
She held out the three sticks. “Look, bright-things.
Pretty.”
On the end of each stick was a thing he knew. They were the
things that flew out when Big Ones shot with rifles. Empty
cartridges. One was the kind for the rifles the blue-clothes police
Big Ones had; Pappy Gerd had a rifle like that too. The other two
cartridges were from a rifle like one of Pappy Jack’s.
“Where you get?” he demanded, excited. “Are
Big One things. Big Ones use in long thing, point with both hands.
Pull little thing underneath, make noise like thunder. Throw little
hard thing very fast; make dead hesh-nazza. You know where Big Ones
are?”
“You know about Big Ones?” Wise One was asking just
as excitedly. “You know where Big One Place is?”
“I come from Big One Place,” he told them.
“Hoksu-Mitto, Wonderful Place. I live with Big Ones, all Big
Ones my friends.” He began naming them over, starting with
Pappy Jack. “Many Fuzzies live with Big Ones, can’t say
name for how many. Big Ones good to all Fuzzies, give nice things.
Give shoddabag, like this.” He displayed it. “Give
knife, give trowel for dig hole bury bad smells. Teach
things.” He showed the axe and spear. “Big Ones teach
how to make. I make, after get out of big moving-water. And Big
Ones give Hoksu-Fusso, Wonderful Food.”
There was shouting from up the river. The male Fuzzy who was
called Fruitfinder, examining the axe, said, “Stabber, Big
She come.” Wise One began shouting, “Make hurry fast!
Wonderful thing happen!”
Two more Fuzzies came out of the woods, dragging another dead
goofer between them—a female with a club like the others’ and
a male with a sort of spear-stick. Carries-Bright-Things and
Fruitfinder ran to help them, jabbering in excitement.
“Is somebody from Big One Place,”
Carries-Bright-Things was saying. “Is Big Ones’ Friend.
Knows what bright-things are.”
The male with the spear-stick immediately began shouting at the
female with him, “You see? Big Ones good, make friends. Here
is one who knows. Wise One right all time.”
“You show us way to Big One Place?” Wise One was
asking. “Big Ones make friends with us?”
“Big Ones friends for all Fuzzies,” he said, and
then remembered that that was another Big One word. There were so
many Big One words these Fuzzies did not know. “Fuzzy what
Big Ones call all People like us. Means Fur-All-Over. Big Ones not
have fur, only on head, sometimes on face.” He decided not to
try to explain about clothes; not enough words. “Big Ones
very wise, have all kinds of made-things. Big Ones very good to all
Fuzzies.”
Three more came in. They had two zarabunnies and two
land-prawns. Everybody was excited about that, and cried,
“Look, two zatku!” Land-prawns must be very few in this
place. It took a long time to tell these new ones, and the others,
about the Big Ones and about Wonderful Place. He showed all the
things he had in the shoulder bag, and the spear and axe he had
made. Stabber seemed to think the spear was especially wonderful,
and they all thought the shoulder bag itself was the most wonderful
thing he had—“Carry many things; not have to hold in hand;
not lose,”—but there were so many wonderful things to look at
that none of them could think of any one thing long. He had been
like that when he had first come to Wonderful Place, when Wonderful
Place had been little and nobody but Pappy Jack had been there.
There was arguing among them, and he listened and thought he
understood how things had been in this band. Wise One and Stabber
had wanted to find the Big One Place and make friends with the Big
Ones, and Big She and Fruitfinder and Stonebreaker had been afraid.
Now everybody was siding with Wise One and mocking Big She, and
even she was convinced that Wise One had been right, but
didn’t want to admit it. Finally, they all squatted in a
ring, passing all his things around to look at, and he told them
about the Big Ones and Wonderful Place.
What he wanted to know was how these people had found out about
the Big Ones in the first place. It was hard to find this out.
Everybody was trying to talk at once and not telling about things
as they had happened. Finally Wise One told him, while the others
kept quiet, at least most of the time, about the thunder-death that
had killed the three gotza, and finding the tracks and where the
aircar had been set down, and the empty cartridges. That had been
Pappy Jack and Pappy Gerd; they had been to the north on a trip,
and everybody at Wonderful Place had heard about the shooting of
the three harpies. And they told about the flying thing, the
aircar. That would have been Pappy Vic’s friends or some of
Pappy George’s blue-clothes police people.
All the time, the sun was getting lower and lower toward its
sleeping-place; soon it would be making colors. Finally, about Big
Ones’ koktel-drinko time, everybody realized that they were
hungry. They began talking about eating, and there was argument
about whether to eat the land-prawns first or save them for
last.
“Eat zatku first,” Stabber advised. “Hungry
now, taste good. Save for last, not hungry, not taste so
good.”
Wise One approved that, and Big She agreed. Wise One cracked the
shells and divided the meat among everybody. That showed how scarce
land-prawns were here. In the south, nobody did that. Everybody
killed and ate land-prawns for himself; there were enough for
everybody. He told them so, and they were all amazed, and Stabber
was shouting. “Now you see! Wise One right all the time. Good
Country to sun’s left hand, plenty everything!” Even
Big She agreed; there was no more argument about anything now.
After they had eaten the zatku—he must remember to use only
Fuzzy words, till he could teach the Big One words—they were ready
to eat the hatta-zosa and the ho-todda. When they saw how he
skinned and butchered with his knife, they wanted him to prepare
all of them; all they had was one little stone knife.
“Not eat right away,” he told them. “Cook
first.”
Then he had to explain about that, and everybody was frightened,
even Wise One. They knew about fire; lightning sometimes made it,
and it was a bad thing. He remembered how frightened he had been
when he had first seen it in Pappy Jack’s viewscreen. He
decided, with all the meat they had, to make barba-koo. They
watched him dig the trench with his trowel and helped him get
sticks to put the hatta-zosa on and gather wood for the fire, but
when he went to light it they all stood back, ready to run like Big
Ones watching somebody making ready for blast.
But when the barba-koo was started, they came closer, all
exclaiming at the good smells, and when the meat was done and cool
enough to eat, everybody was crying out at how good it was. Little
Fuzzy remembered the first cooked meat he had eaten.
By this time the sun was making colors in the west, and
everybody said it was good that the rain was over. They all wanted
to go find a sleeping-place, but he told them that this would be a
good enough place to sleep, since the rain was over and if they
kept a fire burning all the big animals would be afraid. They
believed that; they were still afraid themselves.
He got out his pipe and filled and lighted it, and after a few
puffs he passed it around. Some of them liked it, and some refused
to take a second puff. Wise One liked it, and so did Lame One and
Other She and Carries-Bright-Things, but Stabber and Stonebreaker
didn’t. They built the fire up and sat for a long time
talking.
He needed this band. With eight beside himself, they could build
a big raft, and with eight and himself to hunt they would not be
hungry. He had to be careful, though. He remembered how hard it had
been to talk the others into going to Wonderful Place after he had
found it and come back to get them to come with him. They would
make him leader instead of Wise One, but he didn’t want that.
When a new one came into a band and tried to lead it, there was
always trouble. Finally he decided what to do.
He took the whistle out of his bag and tied a string to it long
enough to go around the neck, and made sure that it was tied so
that it would not come loose. Then he rose and went to Wise
One.
“You lead this band?” he asked.
“Yes. But if you can take us to Big One Place, you
lead.”
“No. Not want. You lead. I just show how to go. Others
know you, not know me.” He took the whistle—Wise One had
learned how to blow it by now—and hung it around his neck. “I
give; you keep,” he said. “You leader; when band not
together, want to call others, you blow. When somebody lost, you
blow.”
Wise One blew piercingly on the whistle. A Big One would have
said, “Sank-oo,” for a gift like this. Fuzzies did not
say such things; everybody was good to everybody.
“You hear?” he asked. “When I make noise like
this, you come. That way, nobody get lost.” He thought for a
moment. “I lead band, but Big Ones’ Friend know better
than Wise One; he very wise Wise One. Wise One listen when he say
something. All listen when Big Ones’ Friend say anything, do
as Big Ones’ Friend say. That way, we all come to Big One
Place, to Hoksu-Mitto.”