Before Adam (4 page)

Broken Tooth was another youngster who lived by himself. His mother lived in the caves, but two more children had come after him and he had been thrust out to shift for himself. We had witnessed the performance during the several preceding days, and it had given us no little glee. Broken Tooth did not want to go, and every time his mother left the cave he sneaked back into it. When she returned and found him there her rages were delightful. Half the horde made a practice of watching for these moments. First, from within the cave, would come her scolding and shrieking. Then we could hear sounds of the thrashing and the yelling of Broken Tooth. About this time the two younger children joined in. And finally, like the eruption of a miniature volcano, Broken Tooth would come flying out.

At the end of several days his leaving home was
accomplished
. He wailed his grief, unheeded, from the centre of the open space, for at least half an hour, and then came to live with
Lop Ear and me. Our cave was small, but with squeezing there was room for three. I have no recollection of Broken Tooth spending more than one night with us, so the accident must have happened right away.

It came in the middle of the day. In the morning we had eaten our fill of the carrots, and then, made heedless by play, we had ventured on to the big trees just beyond. I cannot understand how Lop Ear got over his habitual caution, but it must have been the play. We were having a great time playing tree tag. And such tag! We leapt ten-or fifteen-foot gaps as a matter of course. And a twenty-or twenty-five foot deliberate drop clear down to the ground was nothing to us. In fact, I am almost afraid to say the great distances we dropped. As we grew older and heavier we found we had to be more cautious in dropping, but at that age our bodies were all strings and springs and we could do anything.

Broken Tooth displayed remarkable agility in the game. He was ‘it’ less frequently than any of us, and in the course of the game he discovered one difficult ‘slip’ that neither Lop Ear nor I was able to accomplish. To be truthful, we were afraid to attempt it.

When we were ‘it’, Broken Tooth always ran out to the end of a lofty branch in a certain tree. From the end of the branch to the ground it must have been seventy feet, and nothing intervened to break a fall. But about twenty feet lower down, and fully fifteen feet out from the perpendicular, was the thick branch of another tree.

As we ran out the limb, Broken Tooth, facing us, would begin teetering. This naturally impeded our progress; but there was more in the teetering than that. He teetered with his back to the jump he was to make. Just as we nearly reached him he would let go. The teetering branch was like a
spring-board. It threw him far out, backwards, as he fell. And as he fell he turned around sideways in the air so as to face the other branch into which he was falling. This branch bent far down under the impact, and sometimes there was an ominous crackling; but it never broke, and out of the leaves was always to be seen the face of Broken Tooth grinning triumphantly up at us.

I was ‘it’ the last time Broken Tooth tried this. He had gained the end of the branch and begun his teetering, and I was creeping out after him, when suddenly there came a low warning cry from Lop Ear. I looked down and saw him in the main fork of the tree crouching close against the trunk. Instinctively I crouched down upon the thick limb. Broken Tooth stopped teetering, but the branch would not stop, and his body continued bobbing up and down with the rustling leaves.

I heard the crackle of a dry twig, and looking down saw my first Fire Man. He was creeping stealthily along on the ground and peering up into the tree. At first I thought he was a wild animal because he wore around his waist and over his shoulders a ragged piece of bearskin. And then I saw his hands and feet, and more clearly his features. He was very much like my kind, except that he was less hairy and that his feet were less like hands than ours. In fact, he and his people, as I was later to know, were far less hairy than we, though we, in turn, were equally less hairy than the Tree People.

It came to me instantly, as I looked at him. This was the terror of the north-east, of which the mystery of smoke was a token. Yet I was puzzled. Certainly he was nothing of which to be afraid. Red Eye or any of our strong men would have been more than a match for him. He was old, too, wizened with age, and the hair on his face was grey. Also, he limped badly with
one leg. There was no doubt at all that we could outrun him and out-climb him. He could never catch us, that was certain.

But he carried something in his hand that I had never seen before. It was a bow and arrow. But at that time a bow and arrow had no meaning for me. How was I to know that death lurked in that bent piece of wood? But Lop Ear knew. He had evidently seen the Fire People before and knew something of their ways. The Fire Man peered up at him and circled around the tree. And around the main trunk above the fork Lop Ear circled too, keeping always the trunk between himself and the Fire Man.

The latter abruptly reversed his circling. Lop Ear, caught unawares, also hastily reversed, but did not win the protection of the trunk until after the Fire Man had twanged the bow. I saw the arrow leap up, miss Lop Ear, glance against a limb, and fall back to the ground. I danced up and down on my lofty perch with delight. It was a game! The Fire Man was throwing things at Lop Ear as we sometimes threw things at one another.

The game continued a little longer, but Lop Ear did not expose himself a second time. Then the Fire Man gave it up. I leant far out over my horizontal limb and chattered down at him. I wanted to play. I wanted to have him try to hit me with the thing. He saw me, but ignored me, turning his attention to Broken Tooth, who was still teetering slightly and involuntarily on the end of the branch.

The first arrow leapt upwards. Broken Tooth yelled with fright and pain. It had reached its mark. This put a new complexion on the matter. I no longer cared to play, but crouched trembling close to my limb. A second arrow and a third soared up, missing Broken Tooth, rustling the leaves as they passed through, arching in their flight and returning to earth.

The Fire Man stretched his bow again. He shifted his position, walking away several steps, then shifted it a second time. The bow string twanged, the arrow leapt upwards, and Broken Tooth, uttering a terrible scream, fell off the branch. I saw him as he went down, turning over and over, all arms and legs it seemed, the shaft of the arrow projecting from his chest and appearing and disappearing with each revolution of his body.

Sheer down, screaming, seventy feet he fell, smashing to the earth with an audible thud and crunch, his body rebounding slightly and settling down again. Still he lived, for he moved and squirmed, clawing with his hands and feet. I remember the Fire Man running forwards with a stone and hammering him on the head… and then I remember no more.

Always, during my childhood, at this stage of the dream, did I wake up screaming with fright – to find, often, my mother or nurse, anxious and startled, by my bedside, passing soothing hands through my hair and telling me that they were there and that there was nothing to fear.

My next dream, in the order of succession, begins always with the flight of Lop Ear and myself through the forest. The Fire Man and Broken Tooth and the tree of the tragedy are gone. Lop Ear and I, in a cautious panic, are fleeing through the trees. In my right leg is a burning pain; and from the flesh, protruding head and shaft from either side, is an arrow of the Fire Man. Not only did the pull and strain of it pain me severely, but it bothered my movements and made it impossible for me to keep up with Lop Ear.

At last I gave up, crouching in the secure fork of a tree. Lop Ear went right on. I called to him – most plaintively, I remember; and he stopped and looked back. Then he returned to me, climbing into the fork and examining the
arrow. He tried to pull it out, but one way the flesh resisted the barbed lead, and the other way it resisted the feathered shaft. Also, it hurt grievously, and I stopped him.

For some time we crouched there, Lop Ear nervous and anxious to be gone, perpetually and apprehensively peering this way and that, and myself whimpering softly and sobbing. Lop Ear was plainly in a funk, and yet his conduct in remaining by me, in spite of his fear, I take as a foreshadowing of the altruism and comradeship that have helped make man the mightiest of the animals.

Once again Lop Ear tried to drag the arrow through the flesh, and I angrily stopped him. Then he bent down and began gnawing the shaft of the arrow with his teeth. As he did so he held the arrow firmly in both hands so that it would not play about in the wound, and at the same time I held onto him. I often meditate upon this scene – the two of us, half-grown cubs, in the childhood of the race, and the one mastering his fear, beating down his selfish impulse of flight, in order to stand by and succour the other. And there rises up before me all that was there foreshadowed, and I see visions of Damon and Pythias
4
, of life-saving crews and Red Cross nurses, of martyrs and leaders of forlorn hopes, of Father Damien
5
, and of the Christ himself, and of all the men of earth, mighty of stature, whose strength may trace back to the elemental loins of Lop Ear and Big Tooth and other dim denizens of the younger world.

When Lop Ear had chewed off the head of the arrow, the shaft was withdrawn easily enough. I started to go on, but this time it was he that stopped me. My leg was bleeding profusely. Some of the smaller veins had doubtless been ruptured. Running out to the end of a branch, Lop Ear gathered a handful of green leaves. These he stuffed into the wound.
They accomplished the purpose, for the bleeding soon stopped. Then we went on together, back to the safety of the caves.

Well do I remember that first winter after I left home. I have long dreams of sitting shivering in the cold. Lop Ear and I sit close together, with our arms and legs about each other,
blue-faced
and with chattering teeth. It got particularly crisp along towards morning. In those chill early hours we slept little, huddling together in numb misery and waiting for the sunrise in order to get warm.

When we went outside there was a crackle of frost under foot. One morning we discovered ice on the surface of the quiet water in the eddy where was the drinking place, and there was a great how-do-you-do about it. Old Marrow Bone was the oldest member of the horde, and he had never seen anything like it before. I remember the worried, plaintive look that came into his eyes as he examined the ice. (This plaintive look always came into our eyes when we did not understand a thing, or when we felt the prod of some vague and inexpressible desire.) Red Eye, too, when he investigated the ice, looked bleak and plaintive, and stared across the river into the north-east, as though in some way he connected the Fire People with this latest happening.

But we found ice only on that one morning, and that was the coldest winter we experienced. I have no memory of other winters when it was so cold. I have often thought that that cold winter was a forerunner of the countless cold winters to come, as the ice sheet from further north crept down over the face of the land. But we never saw that ice sheet. Many generations
must have passed away before the descendants of the horde migrated south, or remained and adapted themselves to the changed conditions.

Life was hit or miss and happy-go-lucky with us. Little was ever planned, and less was executed. We ate when we were hungry, drank when we were thirsty, avoided our carnivorous enemies, took shelter in the caves at night, and for the rest just sort of played along through life. We were very curious, easily amused, and full of tricks and pranks. There was no seriousness about us, except when we were in danger or were angry, in which cases the one was quickly forgotten and the other as quickly got over.

We were inconsecutive, illogical, and inconsequential. We had no steadfastness of purpose, and it was here that the Fire People were ahead of us. They possessed all these things of which we possessed so little. Occasionally, however, especially in the realm of the emotions, we were capable of long-cherished purpose. The faithfulness of the monogamic couples I have referred to may be explained as a matter of habit; but my long desire for the Swift One cannot be so explained, any more than can be explained the undying enmity between me and Red Eye.

But it was our inconsequentiality and stupidity that especially distresses me when I look back upon that life in the long ago. Once I found a broken gourd which happened to lie right side up and which had been filled with the rain. The water was sweet, and I drank it. I even took the gourd down to the stream and filled it with more water, some of which I drank and some of which I poured over Lop Ear. And then I threw the gourd away. It never entered my head to fill the gourd with water and carry it into my cave. Yet often I was thirsty at night, especially after eating wild onions and watercress, and no one
ever dared leave the caves at night for a drink.

Another time I found a dry gourd, inside of which the seeds rattled. I had fun with it for a while. But it was a plaything, nothing more. And yet, it was not long after this that the using of gourds for storing water became the general practice of the horde. But I was not the inventor. The honour was due to old Marrow Bone, and it is fair to assume that it was the necessity of his great age that brought about the innovation.

At any rate, the first member of the horde to use gourds was Marrow Bone. He kept a supply of drinking water in his cave, which cave belonged to his son, the Hairless One, who permitted him to occupy a corner of it. We used to see Marrow Bone filling his gourd at the drinking place and carrying it carefully up to his cave. Imitation was strong in the Folk, and first one, and then another and another, procured a gourd and used it in similar fashion, until it was a general practice with all of us so to store water.

Sometimes old Marrow Bone had sick spells and was unable to leave the cave. Then it was that the Hairless One filled the gourd for him. A little later, the Hairless One deputed the task to Long Lip, his son. And after that, even when Marrow Bone was well again, Long Lip continued carrying water for him. By and by, except on unusual
occasions
, the men never carried any water at all, leaving the task to the women and larger children. Lop Ear and I were independent. We carried water only for ourselves, and we often mocked the young water carriers when they were called away from play to fill the gourds.

Progress was slow with us. We played through life, even the adults, much in the same way that children play, and we played as none of the other animals played. What little we learnt was usually in the course of play, and was due to our curiosity
and keenness of appreciation. For that matter, the one big invention of the horde, during the time I lived with it, was the use of gourds. At first we stored only water in the gourds – in imitation of old Marrow Bone.

But one day someone of the women – I do not know which one – filled a gourd with blackberries and carried it to her cave. In no time all the women were carrying berries and nuts and roots in the gourds. The idea, once started, had to go on. Another evolution of the carrying receptacle was due to the women. Without doubt, some woman’s gourd was too small, or else she had forgotten her gourd; but be that as it may, she bent two great leaves together, pinning the seams with twigs, and carried home a bigger quantity of berries than could have been contained in the largest gourd.

So far we got, and no farther, in the transportation of supplies during the years I lived with the Folk. It never entered anybody’s head to weave a basket out of willow withies. Sometimes the men and women tied tough vines about the bundles of ferns and branches that they carried to the caves to sleep upon. Possibly in ten or twenty generations we might have worked up to the weaving of baskets. And of this, one thing is sure: if once we wove withies into baskets, the next and inevitable step would have been the weaving of cloth. Clothes would have followed, and with covering our nakedness would have come modesty.

Thus was momentum gained in the younger world. But we were without this momentum. We were just getting started, and we could not go far in a single generation. We were without weapons, without fire, and in the raw beginnings of speech. The device of writing lay so far in the future that I am appalled when I think of it.

Even I was once on the verge of a great discovery. To show
you how fortuitous was development in those days let me state that had it not been for the gluttony of Lop Ear I might have brought about the domestication of the dog. And this was something that the Fire People who lived to the north-east had not yet achieved. They were without dogs; this I knew from observation. But let me tell you how Lop Ear’s gluttony possibly set back our social development many generations.

Well to the west of our caves was a great swamp, but to the south lay a stretch of low, rocky hills. These were little frequented for two reasons. First of all, there was no food there of the kind we ate; and next, those rocky hills were filled with the lairs of carnivorous beasts. But Lop Ear and I strayed over to the hills one day. We would not have strayed had we not been teasing a tiger. Please do not laugh. It was old Sabre Tooth himself. We were perfectly safe. We chanced upon him in the forest, early in the morning, and from the safety of the branches overhead we chattered down at him our dislike and hatred. And from branch to branch, and from tree to tree, we followed overhead, making an infernal row and warning all the forest dwellers that old Sabre Tooth was coming.

We spoilt his hunting for him, anyway. And we made him good and angry. He snarled at us and lashed his tail, and sometimes he paused and stared up at us quietly for a long time, as if debating in his mind some way by which he could get hold of us. But we only laughed and pelted him with twigs and the ends of branches.

This tiger-baiting was common sport among the Folk. Sometimes half the horde would follow from overhead a tiger or lion that had ventured out in the daytime. It was our revenge; for more than one member of the horde, caught unexpectedly, had gone the way of the tiger’s belly or the lion’s. Also, by such ordeals of helplessness and shame, we
taught the hunting animals to some extent to keep out of our territory. And then it was funny. It was a great game.

And so Lop Ear and I had chased Sabre Tooth across three miles of forest. Towards the last he put his tail between his legs and fled from our gibing like a beaten cur. We did our best to keep up with him; but when we reached the edge of the forest he was no more than a streak in the distance.

I don’t know what prompted us, unless it was curiosity; but after playing around awhile, Lop Ear and I ventured across the open ground to the edge of the rocky hills. We did not go far. Possibly at no time were we more than a hundred yards from the trees. Coming around a sharp corner of rock (we went very carefully, because we did not know what we might encounter), we came upon three puppies playing in the sun.

They did not see us, and we watched them for some time. They were wild dogs. In the rock wall was a horizontal fissure – evidently the lair where their mother had left them, and where they should have remained had they been obedient. But the growing life that in Lop Ear and me had impelled us to venture away from the forest, had driven the puppies out of the cave to frolic. I know how their mother would have punished them had she caught them.

But it was Lop Ear and I who caught them. He looked at me, and then we made a dash for it. The puppies knew no place to run except into the lair, and we headed them off. One rushed between my legs. I squatted and grabbed him. He sank his sharp little teeth into my arm, and I dropped him in the suddenness of the hurt and surprise. The next moment he had scurried inside.

Lop Ear, struggling with the second puppy, scowled at me and intimated by a variety of sounds the different kinds of a fool and a bungler that I was. This made me ashamed and
spurred me to valour. I grabbed the remaining puppy by the tail. He got his teeth into me once, and then I got him by the nape of the neck. Lop Ear and I sat down, and held the puppies up, and looked at them, and laughed.

They were snarling and yelping and crying. Lop Ear started suddenly. He thought he had heard something. We looked at each other in fear, realising the danger of our position. The one thing that made animals raging demons was tampering with their young. And these puppies that made such a racket belonged to the wild dogs. Well we knew them, running in packs, the terror of the grass-eating animals. We had watched them following the herds of cattle and bison and dragging down the calves, the aged, and the sick. We had been chased by them ourselves, more than once. I had seen one of the Folk, a woman, run down by them and caught just as she reached the shelter of the woods. Had she not been tired out by the run, she might have made it into a tree. She tried, and slipped, and fell back. They made short work of her.

We did not stare at each other longer than a moment. Keeping tight hold of our prizes, we ran for the woods. Once in the security of a tall tree, we held up the puppies and laughed again. You see, we had to have our laugh out, no matter what happened.

And then began one of the hardest tasks I ever attempted. We started to carry the puppies to our cave. Instead of using our hands for climbing, most of the time they were occupied with holding our squirming captives. Once we tried to walk on the ground, but were treed by a miserable hyena who followed along underneath. He was a wise hyena.

Lop Ear got an idea. He remembered how we tied up bundles of leaves to carry home for beds. Breaking off some tough vines, he tied his puppy’s legs together, and then, with
another piece of vine passed around his neck, slung the puppy on his back. This left him with hands and feet free to climb. He was jubilant, and did not wait for me to finish tying my puppy’s legs, but started on. There was one difficulty,
however
. The puppy wouldn’t stay slung on Lop Ear’s back. It swung around to the side and then on in front. Its teeth were not tied, and the next thing it did was to sink its teeth into Lop Ear’s soft and unprotected stomach. He let out a scream, nearly fell, and clutched a branch violently with both hands to save himself. The vine around his neck broke, and the puppy, its four legs still tied, dropped to the ground. The hyena proceeded to dine.

Lop Ear was disgusted and angry. He abused the hyena, and then went off alone through the trees. I had no reason that I knew for wanting to carry the puppy to the cave, except that I
wanted
to; and I stayed by my task. I made the work a great deal easier by elaborating on Lop Ear’s idea. Not only did I tie the puppy’s legs, but I thrust a stick through his jaws and tied them together securely.

At last I got the puppy home. I imagine I had more pertinacity than the average Folk, or else I should not have succeeded. They laughed at me when they saw me lugging the puppy up to my high little cave, but I did not mind. Success crowned my efforts, and there was the puppy. He was a plaything such as none of the Folk possessed. He learnt rapidly. When I played with him and he bit me, I boxed his ears, and then he did not try again to bite for a long time.

I was quite taken up with him. He was something new, and it was a characteristic of the Folk to like new things. When I saw that he refused fruit and vegetables, I caught birds for him and squirrels and young rabbits. (We Folk were meat eaters, as well as vegetarians, and we were adept at catching small game.)
The puppy ate the meat and thrived. As well as I can estimate, I must have had him over a week. And then, coming back to the cave one day with a nestful of young-hatched pheasants, I found Lop Ear had killed the puppy and was just beginning to eat him. I sprang for Lop Ear – the cave was small – and we went at it tooth and nail.