Shame of Man (5 page)

By the time Hue and Rae reached the patch, the strangers were gone. But Lil and the children were there. “Bub!” Lil cried. “Sis!”

So this was that band! Somehow Bub and his spiteful sister always seemed to turn up at the worst times. Relations had been bad, because Bub kept trying to poach game in territory that wasn't his. Now they had hold of Fae, and her fate would not be kind if she weren't promptly rescued.

So they ran on after Fae and her abductors. It should be possible to catch them. Meanwhile the children were running across the valley to tell the others what was happening. Lil, wiser in the ways of things, slowly followed Hue.

The trail was easy to follow; the grass was pressed down and the ground scuffed in places. It led around a knoll to a thin forest. The trees were mostly saplings, not suitable for climbing, and there was a small stream.

Hue, always curious, looked around as he ran. Though the trees were small, it was not possible to see all the way through the forest. The irregular folds of land also hid much of the terrain from immediate view. Beyond, the enormous mountains seemed suddenly close. This was a nervous region, with too much hidden, compared to the open plain. Hue would be happy to explore it at leisure, but right now he didn't trust it at all. He liked to be able to see clearly to the horizon, in case there was a bad animal lurking.

There was a cry ahead. That was Fae again, by the stream; she was trying to get away, and Bub was hitting her with his closed hand, hurting her.

Rae reacted as if struck himself. But Hue was more cautious. It was
almost as if Bub were trying to make Fae cry out, to attract attention. There should be other members of Bub's band nearby. This could be an ambush.

He caught Rae's arm, attracting his attention. “Danger!” he said, gesturing around at the too-close scenery. Rae understood, and controlled his impulse to go immediately to the aid of his sister. They slowed, and watched, looking for signs of others in hiding. They waited, not approaching, though Fae was taking a beating. It was a difficult thing to do, but they knew how devious the enemy band members were; they could have snatched Fae deliberately, to lure other members of the band into a trap where they could be pounced on and killed. Bub could readily have raped Fae and left her before other members of her band got there; instead he was making her hurt. Yet though Hue strained to hear the breathing or motions of the ambushers, he could not; his acute hearing was not good enough in this situation.

Then Bil and Joe ran up, followed by other males of the home band. Bill, too, must have realized that there was something suspicious about this, and acted. The tired beest would keep; they could run her down after handling this attack on one of their females.

They spread out, circling the three by the stream. They had numbers, now; they could flush out ambushers.

Bub saw them. He made a cry of rage and insult, and fled up the stream. Sis followed. Fae was left alone.

Hue was the closest to her. He ran to her, and she jumped into his arms, almost like a child. He hugged her close, reassuring her. He had always been somewhat protective toward her, for she was his friend's sister, and a nice person. Now he had grown huge compared to her, and was better able to protect her.

Rae glanced at them, and ran on. He wanted to get Bub. Joe and Bil and the others also ran on. There was no ambush, but they could still get the bad pair, kill Bub, and do to Sis what Bub had meant to do to Fae. For Sis, despite her meanness, was an interesting female. They would probably have to hold her down to stop her from biting and clawing, the first few times.

Fae's embrace became more intimate. She spread her legs, offering him sex from the front. She had the smell of a woman. Hue had not had this in mind, but now that she brought it up, he realized that he was interested. He had always liked her, and had enjoyed playing with her when they both had been children. Sex was another kind of game, and the idea of doing it with a longtime friend appealed. She did not care that he wielded his club with the wrong hand.

So he bore her down to the ground and drove into her tight body, experiencing phenomenal fulfillment. She moved with him, eager to oblige and to experience, and derived the same satisfaction he did. No biting or clawing here! Then she hugged him again, possessively, and he realized that he had found his second mate.

The others returned. Bub and Sis had eluded them, knowing this odd terrain better. They were frustrated, but satisfied that they had rescued Fae and driven off the attackers. It was time to return to the interrupted hunt.

Rae paused, knowing by the smell what had happened between his friend and his sister. He saw Fae standing very close to Hue, almost touching him, happy. Then he shrugged and moved on, accepting the situation.

They moved as a group back the way they had come. Fae stayed right with Hue throughout. When they returned to the berry patch, where Bee and Lee waited, the two children stared, immediately knowing the changed relationship. Then they too shrugged; these things happened.

Joe screamed with outrage. Everyone looked. There on the far side of the valley was a band of strangers consuming the beest. They had run down the prey the home band had worn out, and killed her, while Hue and the others were rescuing Fae. Now they were hacking and tearing off the most available portions, to carry away for slow consumption elsewhere.

The home band charged in a mass, eager to fight the interlopers. But it took time to cross the valley, and in that time the strangers were busily eating. Finally they retreated, as they were about to be caught, leaving the carcass to the home band. But the best parts of it were gone.

Hue realized what had happened. There had been no ambush. Bub and Sis had deliberately lured Hue, Rae, and the other males away from the chase, and kept them occupied while their other band members poached the cow. It was a marvel of sneakiness. Now the home band was left with the leavings, as if they had come across carrion. It was an insult, but there was nothing to be done. At least they had a good deal of solid meat remaining. All of them came to eat, their anger fading along with their hunger.

That night Fae joined Hue in his tree, bringing him further novelty of new sex and attention. Lil did not object; it was not her nature or her place. A man could have as many mates as he could govern, and Fae had always been nice to the children. Perhaps Lil was satisfied to avoid sex for a while. They would get along.

Sex among chimpanzees is frequent and universal; each member of a band may do it on an hourly basis, and every male has access to every female with the possible exception of his mother. Females can be quite forward about it, approaching males, giving them sex, then taking food from them. The competition for procreation occurs mostly in the testicles, which grow large and produce enormous quantities of sperm, so as to displace the sperm of rivals, rather than displacing the rivals themselves. It is a way of facilitating group social relations: a male did not fight with a female with whom he shared sex. Early humans may have followed that pattern, or shifted to the harem pattern, with dominant males reserving a number of females to themselves. Monogamy was a concept whose time had probably not yet come. But perhaps within the harem, man and women were reasonably loyal to one another, once they had
made their choices, as they are today. Sex was not a matter of great concern, as long as it was among friends.

Lake Victoria probably expanded and contracted many times as the local climate shifted, causing the people living there to move back and forth more than they might have chosen. It is not surprising that some bands left it to range southeast through the neighboring geography. Hue and his friends did not realize it, but they had discovered a section of the Eastern Rift Valley, whose volcanic soil made for rich plant life, and therefore rich animal life. They left their footprints and their bones there, all the way north to the Afar Triangle. The great Rift system, including the Lake Victoria basin in its center, was the crucible that forged man. But it had not yet completed the job.I

CHAPTER 4

FIRE

By two million years ago, mankind was using stone tools. He had always used clubs, which did not survive as fossils, and stones, which have not been recognized as tools or weapons because they were not modified. He simply threw them as they were. But now
Homo habilis,
Handy Man, was pounding rocks into specialized shapes, and so was able to attract the notice of archaeologists. He was the gracile variant, competing with the robust variants of the Southern Ape for a million years.

Several significant things were occurring at this time, and they may be related. The ice ages were in progress, mankind was using the hand axe, and his
brain was expanding. So, probably, was his vocabulary. He was getting less like a two-footed animal.

B
EE and Lee were almost like twins, always close together though they weren't related. They were still children, but the next two or three years would see them become women, and then things would change. They didn't care. They were getting almost as curious about things as Hue, and loved helping him explore new places. Lil was tolerant; after all, she had her new baby, Hue's son, to keep her occupied. Hue had named him Jae.

So now the two girls raced ahead, seeking stones, while Hue followed as closely as was feasible. Then came Lil carrying Jae, and Fae. Other members of the band were foraging in other directions, not caring to go any farther toward the huge smoking mountain than they had to. So it was just Hue's family for this excursion. They would return to the band by nightfall.

The stones they sought were special: the kind that could be chipped to form sharp edges. Vik had a touch with such stone; he could pound it into a perfect hand axe. Every man in the band had his own axe, together with lesser tools, but they wanted to have more, because there was a special use for extras. The axe was the most versatile of weapons, and its use was carefully cultivated.

But fetching suitable stones could be nervous business, because the best ones were found near the smoking mountains. Those mountains were dangerous; the band people had seen and heard more than one shoot smoke and fire from its top, and often enough they dribbled burning red spittle that flowed down the sides, setting fire to everything it touched, until finally it settled and slowly cooled and solidified.

There was a scream of discovery. The two girls came running back. Bee was holding a chunk of rock. “See! See!” she cried. “Tool! Weapon!”

Hue took the rock and turned it over, inspecting it. It was indeed the type they needed, and would make a good axe. “Yes,” he agreed. “Good.”

Bee was so pleased with this success that she jumped up and down, making little squeals of delight. Hue was reminded of Fae when she was that age, before their father had been killed. Soon enough Bee would be a woman, and would find someone to mate with. She wouldn't be his little sister any more. That, oddly, made him sad.

Bee ran back to rejoin Lee. Hue put the stone in his sack. This search was going well.

They continued on past mixed fields and trees. This was interesting terrain, with mountains rising right out of the forests, and many clear regions between.

Lee made an exclamation. Hue investigated. She had found a cave. It opened into the base of a steep slope. It was fairly wide at the edge, then narrowed into a dark tunnel. Hue had always been especially intrigued by caves. He approached it cautiously, sniffing the air. There was no odor of
lion or hyena, and no manure. He peered into the tunnel. His eyes adjusted, and he saw that it wound deep into the ground, like a snake, and was cool inside. He made a sound, “Hoo!” and listened as its diminishing little echoes indicated the depth of the cave. He would have liked to explore it to its end, but he distrusted its darkness, and he had stones to find. So he reluctantly turned away, and resumed the search.

But he complimented Lee on her discovery. “Cave. Good.” She clapped her hands together, thrilled.

The trees shrank into shrubs as they approached the big mountain. The hills grew oddly bare, as if recently burned. Hue would have known they were near a fire mountain, even if he hadn't been able to see its steep angry peak ahead.

Suddenly both girls went silent. They were standing on a ridge, looking down at something beyond Hue's line of sight. “What?” he called.

“Stranger,” Lee replied.

Hue hurried to join them on the ridge, because strangers could be serious business. Normally they weren't hostile, but caution was essential.

It was a woman and a little boy. She was reasonably young and attractive, but the boy had an ugly red mark on his forehead, as if he had been recently injured. Yet he seemed healthy, so it must be a scar or a spirit mark. The woman was standing quite still, as wary of the girls as they were of her.

Hue knew what to do. “Fae!” he called, without moving.

In a moment Fae hurried up. “Trouble?” she asked.

“Stranger,” he said, gesturing. “Woman. Fae talk.”

Fae nodded. The woman would flee Hue, but might talk with another woman. It was the best way to handle contacts with strangers who might not be hostile. She made her way down the slope toward the strange woman, slowly. The boy, who looked to be about four years old, moved closer to his mother, who still did not move.

Fae stopped at a suitable distance, close enough to talk, not close enough to grab. She pointed to herself. “Fae.”

The woman made a similar gesture. “Sue.” Then she touched the boy's head. “Blaze.”

Fae looked at the boy. “Hurt?”

Sue shook her head. “No.” Then she made a gesture of something coming out of her body. “Blaze born scar.”

Fae nodded. Then she gestured to Hue on
the ridge. “Hue.” She made as if to hug someone. “Hue Fae.” Then she pointed to her belly. “Baby no.”

Sue ventured more trust. “Sue lost. Stranger hurt. Flee. Home—” She made a gesture of bewilderment.

By this time Lil had caught up. Hue filled her in. “Stranger. Woman. Lost.”

Lil went down the slope toward Fae and Sue. Fae meanwhile explained: “Lil. Hue Lil. Son Jae.” And to Lil: “Sue. Son Blaze.”

“Lost,” Sue repeated. “Home?” Again she signaled confusion.

Lil looked at Fae, and the two nodded. They would try to help Sue find her home band. She was friendly, so should be helped, but they didn't want Hue to take her as another mate. Two mates, they felt, was enough for him. Of course he could overrule them.

But Hue had learned that women could be taciturn when crossed. He could discover urine or red ants in the food they brought him, and sex could become scarce. He could safely take another mate only with the concurrence of the existing mates. He would not seek to take the strange woman.

They were aware of his decision even as he made it. Women were uncannily sharp, that way. Even the stranger woman understood. She looked relieved. Had he demanded sex from her, none of them would have stopped him, but none of them would have liked the decision. Sex was normally reserved for more significant commitments, unless a person's usual mates were not around when the inclination came.

Now he descended the slope, flanked by the two girls. Sue made a ritual obeisance, bending down and presenting her rear to him, for he was a dominant male. He simply said, “No,” freeing her of the obligation, completing the ritual. Sex was also a special social commitment, as people who shared sex did not fight. The offer and turndown were lesser commitments, suggesting an amicable temporary association. “Truce.” That wasn't strictly applicable, because there was no question of combat here, but it was the way those of different bands agreed not to fight for a time.

“Truce,” Sue agreed, relaxing.

Hue questioned Sue about the identity of her band. “Erl,” she said, naming its dominant male.

Erl. He was all right. Joe's band had met Erl's band once on the range during a hunt, and agreed to go to opposite sides of the range so as not to interfere with each other's pursuits. Each band had honored the agreement, and each remembered that the other was being true. Hue had a notion where that band was foraging, not far from here. He could look for good stones as readily in that direction as any other. He pointed the way, and they began to move.

Little Blaze, reassured, was soon running ahead with Bee and Lee, who liked having a “little brother” to watch out for. Blaze, it soon was evident, was fascinated by fire. He kept looking toward the giant mountain cone that was smoking, as if wishing to go there and climb its slope. Hue knew the feeling; he was quite curious about that mountain himself. It was the biggest of its type he had seen. But it was never possible to know when such a mountain might get angrier than usual and spew out fire and dangerous burning rocks.

Indeed, the very thought of that chance seemed to alert the mountain, for it rumbled. Hue had been near such a mountain once before when it did that. He had gotten well away in a hurry—and nothing more had come of it. But if he hadn't done so, what might the mountain have done? It was only natural to assume that mountains, like creatures, had their concerns, and some did not like intruders in their territories. But after that there was nothing, so Hue wasn't concerned.

The children found something. It was another fine stone. They were more plentiful near the fire mountain, which was why Hue had come here to search. This one had even fractured of its own accord, so that it had one fine flat face. It was almost good enough for an axe as it was, though of course Vik would improve it. Hue added it to his bag. Stone hunting with these children was turning out to be good; they scampered into nooks he would not have bothered with, and found things for him.

There was a cry from ahead. This time it was little Blaze. He came running back to his mother, frightened. What had he seen?

Lee came back, clarifying it: “Stranger. Man woman.”

Trouble, perhaps. Hue called back the children and strode ahead. This must be the stranger who had threatened Sue. If it was a man from his own band, he would explain, and there would be no more threat, because Sue was now under his protection. But if it was a foreign band—

The figures came into view. Hue stiffened. “Bub!” he cried, not at all pleased.

“Hue,” the other man retorted. He spread his arms to indicate the region. “Bub land. Flee.”

He was claiming this territory, and demanding that Hue go. But Hue knew that no band possessed this region. Bub was looking for axe stones, just as Hue was, and had no proprietary rights. So Hue challenged this. “No.”

Sis appeared. She seemed never to be far from her brother, who was perhaps also her mate. She recognized Hue and grimaced. “Kill,” she said. She always seemed to have a grudge against Hue, though he had once saved her from injury or death. It was too bad, in a way, because she was a well-formed woman he might otherwise have had an interest in.

Bub drew his axe and advanced. He held the weapon by its rounded base, with the chipped point forward. He could do real damage with that.

But Hue brought out the half-chipped stone. He hefted it, turning it sideways in his wrong hand. Bub saw that and laughed.

Then Hue threw the stone. It flew toward Bub's head. Sis cried out with alarm. Bub jumped to the side, avoiding it. But he had been caught by surprise, and had almost been struck. The ragged edge would have injured him, perhaps severely. Hue might use the wrong hand, but his aim was sure.

Hue strode forward, bringing out his second stone. It was clear that his
aim would be even better when he got closer, and that Bub would have less chance to avoid the missile. The members of Hue's own band had soon learned that there was nothing funny about his wrong-sided throwing.

Bub reconsidered. He backed away, still holding his weapon, but not throwing it. If he threw it, he would have none, while he didn't know how many Hue had. He never fought when uncertain of victory. Hue continued to advance, holding the stone.

Bub circled behind a curved slope and disappeared. Hue followed, alert for any trick. But as he rounded the curve, he saw that Bub was now far away, leaving the region to Hue.

Hue went to recover his first stone. It was undamaged. It was imperfect for throwing, but had it been finished and balanced, he could have thrown it more accurately. Vik knew how to make them good for throwing, and all of the members of his band could bring down animals with their axes, if they got close enough. That was why Hue had not been afraid of the larger man. Bub would never have gotten the chance to strike with his axe; he would have been injured or killed by the stone before he got close enough. For Hue had used only the imperfect stones; he had held his good one in reserve.

The others came up. “Stranger hurt,” Sue said, pointing where Bub had gone.

So that was the one who had frightened her, and made her run so that she had gotten lost. Bub had probably wanted to add her to his collection, after killing her son. No wonder she had fled with Blaze. Women could get very upset when their children were threatened.

They moved on. Blaze, going toward the big mountain until his mother called him back, found another nice stone. He brought it to Hue with a smile, an offering, and Hue accepted it. They were getting along well.