John Norman (21 page)

One other decision Brenda Hamilton had reached before she fell asleep.

If it came to a choice between death by starvation or exposure, or at the fangs of beasts and presenting herself to a human, or humanoid, group, she would do the latter. She would take her chances with them, that they might kill her. She hoped that Herjellsen, and Gunther and William, were right, that such groups would not kill a woman. They had speculated, however, that another fate would be likely to be hers, that she would be made a slave. “Very well,” thought Brenda Hamilton, angrily “I will let them make me their slave.” She twisted, angrily. “I do not care!” she whispered to herself. “I would rather be the slave of apes, than die,” she said to herself. She lay on her. back, looking up at the brush about her. She recalled bow she had begged that, rather than be disposed of in the bush, she be sold as a slave. But that slavery would have been quite different, from that she now considered. That would have been a silken, perfumed slavery, with little to fear, perhaps, other than the master’s whip. But this other slavery would doubtless be quite different. Doubtless there might be physical labor, even burdens to carry. And what if she did not sufficiently please a brutish master? Would he simply kill her? She shuddered.

She fell asleep.

On the morning of the fourth day, it was bright, and hot, when Brenda Hamilton awakened. She had slept until well into the morning, and felt rested. She was not particularly angry at having slept longer than she had intended. She had come to two decisions, that to attempt to continue in a direct southward direction and that, as a last resort, if absolutely necessary, she would make contact with a human, or humanoid group, though she was confident that if she did this, she would be placed in bondage.

She reached up to pick some fruit from a branch.

“Yes, Gunther,” she said to herself, “you were right-I am a slave.”

She laughed, and took the fruit, and bit into it. “Does that ‘shock you, Gunther,” she asked, speaking as if he might be present, “that I would rather be the slave of apes than die?” She chewed some fruit, and swallowed it, spitting out some seeds. She felt the juice on her wrist. “You are such a prude, Gunther,” she said. She laughed. “I would have made you an excellent slave, Gunther,” she laughed, “but you missed your chance!”

She went to the stream, and drank and then noted her directions, judging from the course of the stream and where the sun had set the evening before.

She knew that now, in the beginning, at least, she was moving south.

She again began her trek.

Tree, facing upwind, observed the female. She was naked. This pleased him.

Her legs were shapely.

She was not as tall as most of the women of the group, but she was not short, either. She was taller than Cloud.

Her body seemed very white, which surprised Tree, not tanned like the women of the group.

Her breasts were ample; her hips were wide; her ass excited Tree.

He decided he wanted her.

From his pouch he removed a short length of rawhide rope, some eighteen inches in length. He looped this twice about his wrist and knotted it loosely, a knot that he might pull free with his teeth. He then, carefully, set his pouch to one side, and the long rope he carried, coiled, over his shoulder, and his spear. He then, staying downwind of the female, moved to be in a position such that she would approach him.

Brenda Hamilton picked her way carefully, for the ground, here and there, was soft.

A quarter of an hour ago there had been a light shower, muddying the ground, but now the sun had broken through the clouds. The leaves and the grass were wet and sparkling.

She picked her way carefully, for she was fastidious, and did not wish to muddy her feet.

It happened swiftly.

Brenda Hamilton scarcely saw him. It was suddenly something moving toward her.

She cried out, and turned to flee. Her foot slipped in the mud. She began to run. She had gone no more than three or four paces when he was upon her; his shoulder struck her behind the back of the knees; her head and back snapped back and then, after a sickening instant, she momentarily conscious of his arms locked about her legs, she, her entire body, helpless, propelled by his weight and hers, snapped forward again, pitching headlong, violently, forward through the air. She landed, skidding in the grass and mud. She thought, momentarily, her back was broken. She gasped for breath. Dimly she was aware of herself, prone, her belly in the mud, his knees now on either side of her body. She tried to breathe. She felt her wrists jerked behind her and fastened together, with great tightness. She gasped, struggling for breath. She felt herself then turned on her back. “Oh!” she cried. “Oh!” She could scarcely believe the magnificence of the creature who had taken her. “No,” she cried, then, “No, please!” She struggled, but it was to no avail. He thrust apart her thighs. He thrust to her. She closed her eyes in pain. “Please!” she wept. She saw his eyes, puzzled, angry. He had never had a virgin. Always it had been the older men who bad taken them. He looked at her, partly not understanding, for the woman’ was clearly too old to be a virgin; in the group it was Spear who decided when a girl was too old to be a virgin, then ordering her to take her place with the other women, to beg meat from the hunters; this took place sometimes when a girl was as young as twelve, at other times as old as fifteen. A law had been made in the group that no hunter might take a girl until she had begun to beg meat; Spear had made this law; it was he, too, who had made the law that children and pregnant women must be fed, even if sometimes the hunters must do with less. Tree did not understand all of Spear’s laws, but he obeyed them, for he did not wish to be killed. It was good he understood that the children and the pregnant women would be fed, though, for without them there would be no group, no growing. The other law Tree did not understand so clearly, but he did not object. Old Woman, when he had asked her of this, had said that the children of girls too young to beg meat were small and weak, and often died; and, too, girls who were made to kick too early were sometimes injured, and frightened, and they might not kick so well later. Tree had shrugged. The law did not matter to him, for he was not interested in girls too young to beg meat. When they put away their bone and skin dolls, and began to look sideways at the hunters, that was time enough for them to learn to beg meat. When a girl did take her place with the women, behind the men at the cutting of the meat, it was usually Spear, or Stone, or sometimes Arrow Maker, who used them first, always one of the older men. Tree had never had a virgin.

Brenda Hamilton struggled back, pushing with her heels in the mud, backing away from him.

“No,” she said. “No.”

Tree grinned at her.

He took her by the right ankle and pulled her again to him. “No!” she cried.

Again her thighs were spread.

She cried out with pain.

When Tree had finished with her there was blood on the inside of her left thigh, smeared to the side of the knee.

She lay on her side, her wrists still tied behind her.

Tree took a bit of the blood on his finger and licked it. It tasted of blood, but there was other fluid, too. He found the taste of interest.

She looked at him with horror.

He took some more blood on his finger and held it to her lips, that she might taste. This was done in the group, that the girl, too, might know the taste of the blood of her deflowering. In the group they were eager to know the taste, for they experienced the world richly, sensuously, knowing it not only by sight and concept, but by touch, smell, feel and taste. The Bear People, Tree knew, even had a ceremony in which the girls were deflowered. The Men, though, had no ceremony for this. They did have a ceremony when the boy began to run with the hunters. He drank first blood of his first kill, the other hunters, even the great ones, waiting to drink after him.

Brenda Hamilton cried out with misery, and turned her face away.

This angered Tree, and he thrust her mouth open with his left hand and thrust the bloodied finger across her lips and tongue.

Brenda Hamilton, forced, tasted and smelled Tree’s trophy of her ravished virginity.

She looked at him, with fury.

Tree’s hand again went forth to touch her ankle. She pulled away. “Please don’t hurt me again,” she wept.

Tree reached to her and, taking her by the hair, pulled her to her feet. He led her beside him, bent over, holding her by the hair, to where he had left his pouch, and his rope and spear. There he sat her down, regarding her.

“What is your people?” he asked.

Brenda Hamilton did not understand him, for he spoke the language of the Men.

“I cannot understand you,” she said.

She did not speak the language of the Men. Tree had not expected her to be able to do so, of course, though Old Man, long before Spear had killed him, had told him that there were other groups who did speak the language of the Men. Old Man had also told him of a great trek, which had lasted, in the telling of it, for five generations, in which the Men had moved westward. In this trek different groups, from time to time, had split away, seeking a territory sufficient for hunting. This had been, however, even before Old Man’s time. Old Man had known many stories. Tree was sorry that Spear had killed him. Tree had liked Old Man, and, too, he had liked the stories he had told. He had even told of beasts, large and hairy, as large as huts, or larger, with great, long curved teeth, and of black rocks that, when lit, would burn like wood. Spear had said Old Man was a liar.

Tree was not disappointed that the woman could not speak the language of the Men. He was glad.

It meant one could do with her what one wished, completely. One, of course, did much what one wished with the women of the group, using them, and beating them, and such, but one was not supposed to kill them. They, though women, were of the group, its followers, and breeders and workers. Tree looked at the helpless, desirable, bound body of his catch. She was not of the group. If one of the hunters wished, she might even be killed.

She did not speak the language of the Men. Tree was glad.

She would learn, of course, to speak the language of the

Men, and learn it quickly. The women would see to that. She must understand the orders that would be given to her.

Tree looked at his catch. She was just that, totally sightless.

“You will belong to the Men,” he told her.

Hamilton looked at him blankly.

Tree wondered if she could speak in the Hand Sign, that used by the Horse Hunters and the Bear People. Only Fox, in his group, was fully conversant with Hand Sign, but Tree knew the Hand Sign for the Men, and knew, too, how to ask for another’s group, or people, and how to make the more general question sign. He also knew the hand sign for the Horse Hunters and the Bear People, and for salt and flint. That was the extent of his vocabulary. But Fox could speak fluently in Hand Sign.

Tree took his long rope, and with one end of it, lashed together Brenda Hamilton’s ankles.

He then untied her hands.

She sat and faced him, her hands free, her ankles crossed and tied together.

Tree pointed to her, and then held up his left hand, palm facing to the right, and then placed his right index finger upright with the upright fingers of his left hand, one among others. “To what people do you belong?” he had asked in Hand Sign.

She shook her head, she understood nothing.

Tree frowned and touched his left hand to his head, as though puzzled. Then he held his right hand forth, palm to the left, thumb folded in, four fingers pointing down toward the earth. “Are your people the Horse Hunters?” he had asked.

She shook her head, trying to indicate that she understood nothing.

Tree was patient. He knew, of course, that females, even in the Horse Hunters and Bear People, were not generally taught Hand Sign, being women, but he was sure they would know at least how to respond to certain simple signs. They would know, certainly, the sign for their own group.

But this woman was apparently completely ignorant of Hand Sign.

Tree touched his head and frowned, and then lowered and raised his hand in a cupped fashion, as though he might be scooping something from the water. “Are you of the Bear People?” he asked. He then moved his hands, as though striking flint, the sign for flint. No recognition came into her eyes. He then licked his upper lip, in the sign for salt. She did not respond. He then pointed to himself and raised his right fist, as though it might hold a spear. “I am of the Men,” he had told her.

She shook her head. “I do not understand anything,” she said.

Tree took her ankles and turned them, throwing her to her stomach. Then he knelt across her body and, again, tied her hands behind her back.

When he had done so, she turned, and struggled to a sitting position, and again regarded him, her captor.

He removed the rope from her ankles, tied one end of it about her neck, and tied the other end about a tree and over a branch some five feet from the ground. He regarded her, his captive.

She looked upon him. Never before in her life had she seen such a male. He made even Gunther seem a lesser man. Her imagination had not even dreamed that such a man could exist. The men she had known earlier, even Gunther, had been no intimation that there might be such males as these. Such men, she thought, could not exist in her time. In her time there was no place; there could be no place, for such men as these.

Before him she felt, as never she had in her own time, even before Gunther, a complete female. Never before had she understood the import of two sexes, as she did now. It suddenly seemed to her, as it had never before, radically and explosively significant that there were two sexes. And how overjoyed she was that she was one of them. But, in fear, and still feeling pain, she drew back from him, for he had hurt her.

And, too, she was a woman of another time. Such a man terrified her.

And suddenly she understood that the cost of civilization, and the ascendancy of women, was the crippling of such men, or their destruction.