In the Beginning Read online

  At a point where a track led up to the hedge, there was an opening which was sealed by thorn branches backed by a large stone. The stone could be rolled away and an entrance created, but only from the inside. When the branches and the stone were in place, the wall was as stout there as it was anywhere.

  These were things which the tribe discovered bit by bit. When they stumbled on the village, an hour after they set out down the valley next morning, the hunters took it first for no more than another thicket of thorn, and would have gone on past it without looking more closely. But one of them noticed the track, the line worn bare through the grass by passing feet, and they followed it. As they got closer to the hedge they could see there was an open space within, and they could also see the tops of the huts.

  These they found very strange. They were some kind of tree, Dom thought at first, but unlike any tree he had ever seen. They were impossibly thick, for one thing, although not very high, and the broad glossy leaves lay flat across their tops. When the hunters went right up to the hedge, it was possible to see through, though indistinctly. Dom saw a man, and then another, come out of one of the things he had thought were trees, through an opening in the side.

  The rest of the hunters had seen them, too, and automatically growled in anger. Then they saw something else, and as involuntarily backed away: inside the hedge, between the tree-caves, a plume of smoke rose into the sky.

  They knew what smoke was—the herald of fire. And fire was the destroyer that every now and then, in the dry seasons, had swept across the parched grasslands, driving animals and men in flight before it. Its flaming teeth devoured the land, leaving a blackened desolation behind. All the animals feared fire, and the tribe feared it no less.

  Having retreated, the hunters came together again some twenty yards from the hedge. They were prepared to fly but needed to see which way the fire was likely to move so that they could run the other way along the valley. There was very little wind—the column of smoke stood up almost straight—so they got no help from that.

  But the column of smoke did not move, and grew no bigger. At last, led by Dom’s father, the hunters lost their fear also. They could see other men beyond the barrier of thorns. They were in there, along with the fire, and seemed to have no fear of it. Realizing this, the hunters’ alarm disappeared.

  For this clearly was the place in which the tribe who had attacked them while they were feasting lived, and they, as the event had shown, were cowards and weaklings. The hunters once more growled with anger. Dom’s father stood close to the hedge and roared his defiance. He shouted at the men inside:

  “This land is ours! We are the masters here as we were of the grasslands. You are nothing but women! You attacked us without warning but we drove you away with our killing clubs. Two you left dead when you ran from us. Come out of hiding if you are men, and we shall slaughter the rest of you. But you are not men! You are no better than monkeys, hiding behind thorns.”

  Dom could see a score or more of men now on the other side of the hedge. They shouted back at Dom’s father, but their voices were not as deep or strong. They used words that could not be understood, words as meaningless as the howls of jackals.

  But they stayed behind the protection of their hedge, and the hunters grew more and more angry. Dom’s father struck at the hedge with his club, trying to break it down: the branches of thorn splintered but did not give way. Other hunters did the same, with no better success. One, enraged, tried to force a way through using his arms and legs; but the thorns bit into his flesh and he fell back, discomfited.

  About that time the first stones were thrown. One struck a hunter on the side of his face and he yelped with pain. They saw that some of the enemy had clambered up on top of nearby huts, and from those vantage points were hurling stones across the hedge at the hunters. The stones were quite small, of a size to fit a man’s fist, but they threw them accurately. Dom’s leg was cut; the wound was not deep but the blood flowed freely.

  The hunters picked up some of the stones and threw them back, but the enemy, on top of the huts, had the advantage of height as those others had done on the hillside. And they were better throwers and had a better supply of missiles—others were passing stones up to them on the roofs while the hunters had to grub about in the grass, and as like as not be hit while doing so. After a time the hunters backed away, out of throwing range.

  They were not downcast, as they had been following the battle on the hillside, but angry. After all they had fought these men the previous day, and easily put them to flight. If they could only get at them, if they could get across the barrier of thorns, they would destroy them. And the barrier in itself was a mark of the enemy’s fear, a tribute to the might of the tribe.

  But first they must find a way of getting past the thorns. Led by Dom’s father the hunters circled the hedge. They learned that it went all the way round the village, without a break, and as they went round on the outside, the enemy kept abreast of them on the smaller circle within. Whenever one of the hunters ventured near, he was greeted by a volley of stones from the roof of the nearest hut.

  The village had been built close to the eastern slope of the valley. On that side the ground rose away from the hedge, at first gently and then steeply. Dom’s father led the hunters up the slope. Eventually they could look down over the top of the hedge and see the interior of the village.

  They had a clear view of the huts, and of many other things besides. In one corner there were cattle, thirty or forty of them, penned in by a smaller fence of thorns. There were fowls scratching in the dust, and like the cattle showing no fear of the people around them. They saw women and children as well as men. And they saw the fire. The smoke rose from a pit dug in the ground, and figures stood close by it, unconcerned. Dom saw with amazement that the figures were women, and as he watched, one of them bent forward, into the very smoke, and threw in branches of wood.

  Flame leaped up, tingeing the smoke with red, but although the hunters grunted with astonishment they were no longer alarmed. If such as these had no fear of fire, if their women even could stand right beside it, it would not frighten the hunters, either. What they felt was a renewal of rage at the sight of their foes walking about casually inside the defensive wall of thorns, and of the cattle which belonged to the tribe but which for the present were out of their reach.

  A hunter picked up a stone and hurled it down in the direction of the village. Others did the same, yelling insults as they did so. The slope was strewn with stones and large boulders; Dom took one and cast it down with all the force he could muster. But although an occasional stone rattled into the thorn hedge, it only did so after first bouncing along the ground. The distance was too great and none went into the village.

  “They are cowards,” a hunter said, “but we cannot get at them. Let us go on down the valley. It does no good staying here.”

  “We will stay here,” Dom’s father said.

  The hunters looked at him. His anger was very great and the one who had spoken quailed; but it was the enemy who had made him angry.

  “We will stay,” he said. “We will find some way of getting in there to kill them. Or if not we will wait until they come out.”

  • • •

  So the tribe remained in the valley, not far from the village. They did not, of course, stay in one place all the time—except when they had lived in the Cave they had never slept two successive nights in the same spot. At night they made their nests of grass in one of the clearings, and in the morning moved away. During the day, when there was need of meat, they went in search of game: either up or down the valley, sometimes ranging into valleys beyond. At other times they went up to the thorn hedge, just beyond stone-throwing range, and hurled their threats at the enemy. This was the point to which they returned, however far they might have roamed during the hunt. It was a center for their wanderings, as the Cave had been.

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sp; Running with the hunters, a couple of days after they found the village, Dom felt pain in his leg. It was in the place where the stone had cut him, and when they rested after bringing the pig to bay and killing it, he examined the wound. The cut had partially healed but its edges were red, and the flesh surrounding it hot and tender.

  That night he showed it to one of the old women, who was skilled in such matters. An evil spirit, she told him, had entered his body through the cut; probably one sent by the enemy, riding on the stone which they had thrown. There was nothing one could do about it except hope that the good spirits of the tribe’s ancestors would come to his aid and destroy the evil one.

  She shook her head doubtfully as she spoke. As they all knew, the good spirits dwelt in the Cave, and they had left the Cave far behind. Even in the old days in the grasslands, a wound poisoned by evil spirits had caused death as often as not; either by the poison spreading through the body or when the wounded one, crippled and so no longer able to keep up with the tribe, was left to starve or be eaten by lions.

  Nevertheless she performed the appropriate ritual for him, making him stand facing north, in the direction where, so many long days distant, the Cave lay. Dom stood with legs and arms spread out, mouth open to its widest stretch, while she pleaded with the spirits, begging them to come flying over grassland and hills, to enter his body and destroy the evil spirit sent by the enemy. The tribe watched as this was done. Dom’s father’s face was heavy with fury.

  “They have sent a spirit,” he said, “to hurt my son. We will kill them all!”

  That night Dom slept uneasily, his leg throbbing with hotness and pain. In the morning, although he could walk still, it was with a limp. His father looked at him closely, and said:

  “You must stay here. You could not keep up with the hunters; and anyway it is a bad thing to take an evil spirit with the tribe when we search for game. Stay here, and we will bring meat back to you.”

  Dom said to his father: “I can keep up with the women and the old ones. And the evil spirit in me will do no harm as long as I do not take part in the hunt.”

  His father stared at him hard.

  “You will stay here.”

  Dom bowed his head. He watched the tribe move away along the valley, and felt lonely and frightened. No man, he knew, could live outside the tribe. His father had said they would return, and Dom believed him in this as in everything. But that did not remove the cold fear of being alone.

  They had built their nests the previous night a mile down-valley from the village. After a time Dom made his way toward it. He was not sure why he did so, except that even the presence of the enemy seemed better than nothing. He threaded his way, warily limping, through the trees and bushes. He did not go out into the open grassland that surrounded the hedge, but watched the village from behind a screen of leaves.

  Watching, he saw strange things. The tribe had moved off, as they always did, at the first lifting of the sun above the edge of the world, before its rays reached down into the valley itself. Now the sun stood up above the eastern slope and its light lay golden on the village. And Dom saw the hedge open as the branches of thorn were pulled away from inside. Figures came out, the figures of men driving cattle. Others also—men, women, even children.

  Dom’s anger rose, for a moment overcoming the pain in his poisoned leg. If the other hunters had been there he would have raced forward, swinging his club, weakness discounted by the strength of his hatred for the enemy. Automatically his grip tightened on the club’s hilt. But despite his fury he had the sense to remain concealed; on his own he was helpless. There was nothing he could do but watch as the cattle were grazed, fodder brought in, and women and children picked berries from the bushes, pulled plants out of the ground and dug up roots. He went on watching as the slow day passed and the sun traveled across the sky to lose itself behind the western hills. He watched as the people of the village went back in with their cattle, and the opening in the hedge was closed.

  In the evening the tribe returned and Dom ate the meat they brought him. He told his father what he had seen, and his father listened with anger even greater than his own had been.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “when they come out we will be waiting for them. Tomorrow there will be a great killing.”

  So next morning the tribe did not go away but stayed close to the village. They watched from behind the screen of leaves, waiting for the hedge to open. Nothing happened. The hedge stayed as it was, and the enemy stayed behind it.

  For more than an hour the tribe watched and waited. Then, impatient, the hunters went out into the clearing and hurled insults at the enemy. But the enemy paid no attention, except to throw stones if a hunter ventured within reach. In the end, still angry but with their throats dry from shouting, they gave up.

  Dom’s father said: “They are cowards. They only come out when we are away hunting.”

  “Perhaps they did not come out at all,” said the old woman who had made the ritual of calling the good spirits to Dom’s aid.

  “Dom saw them.”

  “Evil spirits poison the mind as well as the body,” the old woman said. “I have known wounded hunters who saw things that were not there. I remember one who shrieked that lions were clawing at him, though there was no lion near as all could see.”

  Dom’s father looked at him. Dom said:

  “It was not the evil spirit. I saw them come out through the hedge—many of them and their beasts also.”

  “They did not come out today,” Dom’s father said.

  He looked at the old woman and then at Dom. After that he turned to the hunters.

  “Tomorrow we hunt.”

  • • •

  Dom’s sleep was still more troubled. In a dream he followed an antelope which, at the moment his club was raised to strike, turned into a lion that grew bigger and bigger, towering up into the sky, and at last leaped on him. Its claws raked his leg and he awoke crying out and felt the pain still there—the pain of his poisoned wound. After that he could not sleep, but lay shivering in the chill of the night.

  The tribe had made their nests in the opposite direction of the valley from the village, and perhaps twice as far away as on the previous night. Again they left Dom behind when they went off in the morning, telling him they would bring him back meat. He felt the loneliness and fear again, but in a different way; because now the poison seemed to be in his head. His brow ached and his thoughts were wild and would not fit together properly, and when he stood up there was a weakness in his legs quite apart from the throbbing pain. He lay down again in the grass and watched the tribe go away to the north. The spirits of their ancestors had not come to help him: that was clear. It had not really been a thing to hope for. The Cave was so far off that even if they had been willing to leave it, they could never find their way here.

  He thought about going to watch the village again, to see if the enemy came out, but he felt too tired to move. And perhaps it was true what the old woman had suggested: that the evil spirit in him had told him lies and none of it had happened. He looked up at the sky past an arch of leaves, and saw the blue and green and the gold of the sun spin ­dizzily . . . or maybe it was not the sky but the earth spinning underneath him.

  For a time he slept. What wakened him was not just the pain in his leg, but also thirst, tightening and searing his throat. He must have water. He rose unsteadily to his feet, almost fell again, but managed somehow to limp his way along.

  He knew there was a pool in the direction which the tribe had taken, and he went that way. It seemed farther off than it ought to have been, even allowing for his slow and unsteady progress, with halts now and then to rest, clinging to a bush or the trunk of a tree. Then in his hazy vision he saw a particular oddly shaped rock and knew what had happened: the spirit had twisted his mind and led him the wrong way. He was not going in the direction of the pool, but south to
ward the village.

  He could turn back, but the effort seemed too great. And it did not matter, anyway. This was a land of streams, not like the grasslands where water holes were as much as a day’s march apart. Here in the valley one was bound to find water soon. So Dom staggered on. Once he fell, and lay there for a long time until thirst grew stronger than pain or weariness, and he rose again and stumbled forward.

  The stream which he found at last was small and shallow, no more than a rivulet trickling over ­pebbles. Dom dropped and lay beside it, sucking water up into his mouth. It was cool on his skin and cool inside him, quenching the burning dryness. He drank until his belly was swollen with water, rested for a while, then drank again.

  His head still ached and thoughts were disjointed and wild in his head, but gradually something penetrated through the dizziness into his ­consciousness—that he was lying out in the open, without either cover or protection. He would be easy prey to a marauding lion, or to the men from the village if they came this way. He could not be very far from the village, and he knew he was too weak to defend himself even if there were only one of them.

  Yet he did not want to leave the stream—thirst grew in him again as he thought of this. He looked up and saw that it flowed downhill, out of a wood. There would be cover there, and relief from the burning sun. Awkwardly Dom got to his feet, and staggered up the slope.

  Leaves first freckled and then hid the sun, and he moved into a cool darkness of green. He thought of dropping where he stood, of lying and sleeping beside the singing stream, but instinct commanded him to go farther in, for greater safety. His feet splashed through the water and small branches whipped stingingly against his face.