The Kin (36 page)

By early afternoon the pit was deep enough and they started to roof it in with reeds, propping them up at the centre on twiggy branches. That took a long while. When the sun was more than halfway down the sky, and Ko was dragging an armful of cut reeds up the slope, he heard Nar call from the barrier. The crocodile had once again left its island. He dropped the reeds and was moving to safety when Chogi called to him from the pit.

“Ko, bring the reeds. Go to watch. Mana go too. Stay far from the water. Almost we finish. You see the crocodile. You shout. You run. We run. Say this to Nar.”

So the three watchers took up their posts well above the barrier, to give themselves enough of a start if the crocodile attacked again. Ko waited, tense as ever. By now he could judge almost exactly how long it would take the crocodile to cross from the island … Just a little longer …

“He is there,” called Mana, and pointed.

Ko saw it at almost the same moment, the slight churning of the still surface, ten and ten paces out, coming faster now …

“Danger!”

All three watchers shouted together. Ko was already running. The women were scrambling out of the pit, just ahead of him. He looked to the right. Mana was racing up the slope …

Where was Nar?

He glanced back. Nar was there, running too. But there was something wrong with his leg. The crocodile was already hurtling out of the water, leaping at the barrier, bursting through … It saw Nar limping ahead and turned towards him. Nar was too slow …

Suddenly his leg got better and he started to run, not up the slope but slantwise across it, straight into the crocodile's path. The crocodile was almost on him. It hummocked itself up into a final spring.

Nar flung himself violently to his left, almost at the edge of the pit. At once he was up and running on. Behind him there was a tearing crash as the crocodile landed on the half-finished roof of the pit and tumbled through.

The women yelled and rushed down the slope. As they reached the pit the crocodile reared up out of it, scrabbling with its forelegs for a grip on the rim. Zara struck full force at its head with her digging stick. Yova picked up one of the big stones they'd laid ready, raised it two-handed over her head and flung it. The stone thudded into the monster's neck. It bellowed and fell back.

But it was huge. As Ko had thought, the pit wasn't really big enough to hold it. Left to itself it could have scrambled out without difficulty, but each time it tried the women drove it back. Ko darted in when he got the chance and flung anything he could find. Then the rim gave way on one side, right under Tinu's feet, but Yova caught her by the arm and hauled her to safety. The monster started to crawl up the slope, but Moru darted forward and struck at it from the side, right in the eye.

It bellowed with pain and rolled away, slithering back into the pit with its great tail lashing uselessly around, finishing half on its side amid the mess of reeds and branches in the bottom. Chogi and Yova were already heaving up a boulder so large that the two of them could barely lift it. Judging their moment they swung it out over the edge and let it fall. It struck the crocodile on the foreleg below the shoulder. There was another bellow of pain. The crocodile thrashed violently and managed to right itself, but the leg was now clearly broken, and when it tried to clamber up the slope it couldn't get a hold and fell back while more stones rained down on it, until there were none left to throw.

Women and children stood around the pit, panting, and waited for the monster to die. It made a few more feeble efforts to climb out, but at last simply lay and twitched, and then was still.

“We kill the crocodile,” said Chogi solemnly. “We women do this.”

The men came back in the sunset, both parties together. Ko had gone up to the camp to wait for them, and from his watch place he saw them trudging wearily along the rough slope that led down to the marsh. From the way they walked he could tell that they had found no fresh Good Places.

Happily he ran to meet them and took Suth's hand.

“Do not go to the camp,” he said. “Come to the inlet. There is a thing to see.”

“What thing, Ko?” said Suth, with a tired smile.

“The women finish the pit,” guessed Var, who was one of the ones who had seen it half dug.

“No,” said Ko. “It is more, more. Come.”

Suth came, and the others followed. Ko raced ahead and shouted from the top of the slope, “The men come! The men come! I do not tell them,
The crocodile is dead!
”

The women had been sitting at the top of the clearing, waving leafy twigs to keep the insects from settling. Now they rose and waited to greet the men, then led them to the pit.

The men gazed down, astounded.

“Chogi, this is good, good,” said Tun at last. “Tonight we feast.”

By now it was getting dark, but Tun sent Nar to fetch hot embers down from the camp, and they built a small fire and lit twists of dry reed, one after another, to give them enough light to see what they were doing. With a huge effort they dragged the body out of the pit and paced out its length. From snout to tail-tip it was seven good paces.

Next they butchered off a section of the crocodile's tail, which they carried up to the camp and set to roast, while others piled rocks over the rest of the body to keep it safe.

Then they feasted. For the first time in several moons there was meat enough for everyone, and it was wonderful after days of plant stuff.

When they had eaten Tun rose and held up his hand for silence.

“Hear me,” he said. “I, Tun, speak. We men went to the sunset. We went far and far. We found bad places, Demon Places, no food, foul water, marsh water. We come back. We are hungry, we are sad. Fear is in our stomachs.

“We find the women. They say happy words to us. They kill the crocodile. To you, men, I say,
This is a deed of heroes
. Let Chogi speak. Let her make her boast.”

Everyone shouted. Chogi rose and held up her hand and waited. She didn't look any different from usual, Ko thought, though he'd never heard of a leader inviting one of the women to boast like this.

“Hear me,” she said when everyone was silent. “I, Chogi, speak. I speak for the women. I praise all the women. First I praise Tinu. She saw Ko fall into a pit. She said in her heart,
This way we kill the crocodile
. It is Tinu's thought. She is clever. Next I praise the women. I praise Yova, Zara, Dipu, Galo, Bodu, Runa, Moru, Noli, Shuja. We dug the pit. The work was hard, hard. I praise Tinu again. She made clever mats. They carried earth, much and much. I praise the children who watched for the crocodile. They watched well. They threw stones. They drove it away. I praise the boy Nar. Nar was clever. He was brave. The crocodile came from the water. We ran. We ran fast. Nar ran. He ran slow. He ran like a boy with a hurt leg. The crocodile sees him. It says in its heart,
This boy's leg is hurt. I catch him
. Nar runs to the pit. The crocodile is close, close. Nar jumps to the side. The crocodile does not see the pit. It falls in the pit.

“We women come. We fight the crocodile. We strike it with digging sticks. We hurl great rocks …”

Ko had stopped listening. He felt his heart would burst with shame and anger. He could have borne it, perhaps, if Chogi had just named and praised Nar, but why did she have to name Ko too, not for anything clever or brave he'd done, but only reminding everyone about that stupid business of falling into that hole? And she hadn't even bothered to name him for the scrap of praise she'd given him. He was just one of the children who'd kept lookout and driven the crocodile off with rocks. Ko was certain some of his rocks hadn't only scored hits—they'd actually hurt the monster, and scared it from attacking more in those first three days.
And
he'd helped in the fight round the pit … But all anyone was going to remember about his part in the adventure would be that he'd fallen into a stupid hole! And Tinu wouldn't even have been thinking about killing the crocodile if Ko hadn't asked her to …

And then, worse still, they let Nar stand up and make a separate boast of his own, and he did it well, not tongue-tied or stammering, as Ko had been when he'd accidentally driven off the lioness and saved Kern's life, but choosing good words and saying them easily.

Ko lay down to sleep still hurt, still furious. Strangely, his nightmare didn't return, but he woke in the early dawn with two fixed thoughts in his mind. Somehow he, Ko, was going to find a way across the marshes. And when he'd done that he was going to find a mate for Tinu. To prove to himself that he really meant it, when no one was looking he stole a small lump of the new salt and put it in his gourd, so that he would have it handy to give to Tinu and the man, whoever he was, when they chose each other.

Oldtale

BAGWORM

Tov journeyed west. The parrot went with him, the little grey parrot with the yellow tail feathers. All day it perched on his head and slept. The sun was behind him, and over him, and shone in his eyes, and his gourd was empty. He came to the place of Bagworm
.

Bagworm lay in the desert. He was a great worm, and his belly was a bag. It was full of water. He put his ear to the ground, and heard footsteps. He said in his heart, One comes. He finds no water. He dies. I eat him
.

He spewed his water onto the ground and crept away. Tov saw the water and ran towards it. Bagworm sucked with his mouth, and the water returned to his belly and was gone
.

Again Tov saw water, and ran, and the water was not there. He said in his heart, This is magic stuff. But I am Tov
.

A third time he saw water, but he did not run. He said, “Wake, little parrot. Fly high. See the water. Soon it goes. Follow it.”

The parrot flew high. Then Tov ran. Bagworm heard him and sucked with his mouth and drew the water to him. The parrot followed
.

Now Tov went softly, following the parrot, until he came to the place where Bagworm lay. Tov came on him from behind, and leaped into the air, and landed on the great fatness of his belly, so that the water all spewed out
.

Then Tov caught Bagworm by the throat and crammed his mouth with earth. With the butt of his digging stick he rammed it firm. Now Bagworm could not suck the water into himself
.

Tov drank, and filled his gourd. He saw creatures in the water, whose name is fish. They are people food. He took them, and journeyed west
.

At nightfall he camped, and ate fish until his belly was full. The parrot did not eat. Fish are not parrot food
.

Tov said, “Little parrot, I am weary. All day you slept on my head. Now keep watch while I sleep.”

Tov slept. The parrot perched on a rock at his feet. In the dark she became Falu. She was hungry, and ate the fish, spitting out the bones. Then she kept watch
.

Tov woke. By the light of the stars he saw Falu, where she sat on the rock at his feet. He called, “Gata?”

Falu answered, “It is not Gata. She is far and far. Tov, you dream. Now sleep.”

Tov slept. When it was day, he woke and saw the
parrot, where it perched on the rock at his feet. Beside the rock he saw the bones of fish
.

He said in his heart, I do not dream these bones. This parrot is clever, clever. But I am Tov
.

CHAPTER SIX

The next morning, with great difficulty, the men cut the head off the crocodile, and set it on a pole beside the camp, to show what the women had done. Now that the monster was dead, they could safely harvest far more of the inlet, wading into the water if they needed to reach parts of the dense thickets that grew along the shoreline. And there was enough crocodile meat for several days, though it started to go bad almost at once in the steamy heat. But their stomachs were strong, and even when it truly stank they ate it without falling ill.

The extra food meant that they could now stay until Noli's baby was born, so they decided to wait.

Soon Ko was very restless. If he got the chance, he would sneak off down to the shoreline, looking for places where the mud seemed drier and firmer than elsewhere. Once he ventured out a few paces onto a dried mudbank, but then it got softer, and he remembered how suddenly Net had fallen through and just barely been dragged out, so, shuddering with fear, he edged his way back to safety.

But he found other patches where flattened tangles of reeds had fallen across the mud, and here the stems seemed to spread his weight so that he could walk with confidence. These patches didn't lead anywhere, of course, but suppose he cut a whole lot of reeds and laid them down as he went …

He was thinking about that one evening when he remembered the mats that Tinu had woven to carry the earth away when the women were digging the crocodile trap. The next day he went and found several of them still by the pit, not too battered. At his next chance he took them along to the main marsh and tried them out. They didn't feel safe only one layer thick, so he laid them down double, making a good, firm path three mats long, and carefully crawled onto it.

When he reached the end he realized that he could now drag the first pair of mats round and lay them down in front of him, and so move one mat farther. And again. And again.

He was ten and more paces out onto the mud before he lost his nerve, and turned round and worked his way back until he could stand, quivering with relief, on solid ground and wipe the worst of the mud off his arms and legs.

I walk in the marsh
, he thought as he sneaked back to join the others.
I
,
Ko, find the way. But it is slow, slow
.

Suth noticed his return.

“Ko, where do you go?” he asked.

“Suth, it is secret,” Ko answered.

Suth smiled. Ko guessed what he was thinking—
Boy stuff. Boys are full of their small secrets
. But this wasn't a small secret. It was big, big. Ko decided he wasn't going to tell anyone about it until he had actually reached the first island, a little west of the inlet.