Page 33 of Caveman Alien's Heat
We leave the cave together. The morning has come fully now, pale light stretching across the ice. The Gar village is already stirring. Smoke rises from low fires near the totem pole, and hunters move between the caves, their breath fogging in the air. Conversations quiet as we emerge, eyes turning toward us with open curiosity.
Some stare at Riley as if she is a spirit. Others look at me, measuring.
Good. Let them measure. Any man must know where he stands, and I know I measure well.
Prak’ox approaches with two wooden bowls, steam rising from them. He offers one to Riley, one to me.
“You can eat,” he says. “The council meets at sunset.”
“We will be ready,” I reply.
“The council meets whether you’re ready or not, jungle man.” He studies us briefly, then nods and steps away.
The food is simple, the way I remember it from my own village. There is meat, cut small and mixed with a thick broth, piping hotas if straight from the fire. Riley blows on it and takes a careful sip, then her eyes widen.
“Okay,” she says. “That’s actually good.”
I nod. “It’s good fuel for a hunter who has to walk far on the ice, and in the cold.”
“Or in the jungle. Perhaps this is stoka meat.”
I nod as I chew. “Perhaps. I get the feeling they don’t hunt stokas that much. If they ate stoka meat every day, why arrange the tusks as if it’s a special thing?”
She nods and eats. The spoon is too big for her small mouth, so she has to tip the broth in. That little move stirs something in me, a soft, pleasant warmth. Damn this tribe and their rigid laws!
We walk as we eat, moving through the village. I take note of everything: the placement of the caves, the direction of the wind, the way the hunters store their weapons near the entrances, not inside their caves. There is discipline here, but also habit. Patterns can be used. This is mostly a peaceful tribe. They are more hunters than warriors, as I assumed. While a Borok man must be both.
“Where are the boys?” Riley asks. “Yesterday there were so many. Today, none.”
I see the looks we get from some of the men, and how they clutch their spears harder when we pass. “The tribe is afraid, I think. They don’t want the boys influenced by us if we turn out to be evil. They are keeping them inside today. What happens today is not for the young.”
“That’s silly. We’re not evil.” Riley walks close to me, her shoulder brushing my arm at times. She draws attention wherever she goes. A group of younger hunters pretend to work at scraping hides, though their eyes follow her.
“They are going to fall over if they stare harder,” she mutters.
“They are figuring out what you are, and how to deal with you,” I say. “You are like a myth come to life, and they are realizing how different a woman is from what they thought.”
“Am I really that different?” She glances up at me.
“In some ways you are very similar to what the old shaman taught us.” There is pressure in my groin from the memory of the Worship.
Riley gives me a little smirk. “You seemed to know what you were doing.”
“Our shaman was a good teacher.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Or you were a good student.”
We pass a line of racks where meat is hung to dry. Beyond them, I see tools set aside. There are nets and bone hooks, thinner furs, and leather coats not suited for this cold. My gaze lingers.
“You see something?” Riley asks quietly.
“This tribe doesn’t live on the ice all year.”
Her eyes follow mine. “You think they have seasons? This is winter, and summer is warm?”
“That is one possibility. Another is that they have another home. A warmer one.”
“Ah. Maybe they travel between villages. One here, one there. One in ice, one in grass.”
