Part 17 (2/2)
Having a.s.sured herself that the hurts of Ook-ootsk, dreadful though they were, were yet not mortal (our sires of Cave and Tree took a lot of killing!), A-ya stepped over to the further fire to see about rescuing the carcase of the slain elk before it should be quite burned up. As a matter of fact, there was little of it actually consumed by the fire, but it was amazingly shredded by the clawing of the blinded bear; and an odor of roasted venison steamed up from it, which seemed rather pleasant to A-ya's nostrils. Under her direction, the old men hauled the body from the fire by the hind-legs, and dragged it over to the edge of the bluff before cutting it up, for convenience in getting rid of the offal. Every one followed, to secure their due share of the t.i.t-bits, except Ook-ootsk and one old woman. This old woman sat rocking and keening beside the body of her mate whom the bear had slain; while Ook-ootsk crawled off into a neighboring hollow to look for certain healing herbs which should cleanse and astringe his wounds.
The hide of the elk was too much burnt, too ripped and torn by the claws of the bear, to be of any use except for thongs; but the old men skinned it off expertly before dividing the flesh. Though their gnarled fingers were feeble, they were amazingly clever in the use of the sharp-edged flakes of stone which served them as knives. A-ya stood by them, watching closely, to see that none of the specially dainty cuts were appropriated. These delicacies were reserved for herself and her two children, and for Grom when he should return. She had the right to them, not only because she was the mate of Grom, but because the kill was hers.
As she stood over the carcase--the fore-part of which had been superficially barbecued in the fire--the smell of the roasted flesh began to appeal to her even more strongly than at first. As she sniffed it, curiously, it began to entice her appet.i.te as nothing had ever tempted it before. She touched a well-browned, fatty morsel, and then put her fingers into her mouth. The flavor seemed to her as delightful as the smell. She cast about for a suitable morsel on which to experiment.
Now it chanced that the elk's tongue, having lain in the heart of the fire, but enclosed within the half-open jaws, had been cooked to a turn. A-ya possessed herself of this ever-coveted delicacy. It looked so queer, in its cooked state, charred black along the lower edge, that she hesitated to taste it. At last, persuaded by its fragrance, she brought herself to nibble at it.
A moment more and she was devouring it with a gusto which, had manners been greatly considered in the days when the earth was young, might have seemed unbecoming in the wife of a great chief. Never before had she eaten anything that seemed to her half so delicious. It was the food she had all her life been craving. Her two little boys, pulling at her, aroused her from her ecstasy. She gave them each a fragment, which they swallowed greedily, demanding more; and between the three of them the great lump of roast tongue quickly vanished.
The rest of the crowd meanwhile had been looking on with instinctive disapproval. The portions of the meat which the fire had cooked, or partly cooked, seemed to them spoiled. A-ya might, indeed, like the strange food; but she was different from the rest of them in so many ways! When, however, they saw her two boys follow her example, and noted their enthusiasm, several of the old men ventured to try for themselves. They were instant converts. Last of all, the old women and the children--always the most conservative in such matters, took the notion that they were losing something, and dared to essay the novel diet. One taste, as a rule, proved enough to vanquish their prejudices. In a very few minutes every shred of the carcase that could claim acquaintance with the fire had been eaten, and all were clamoring for more. Fully three-parts of the carcase remained, indeed, but it was all raw flesh. A-ya looked down upon it with disdain.
”Take it back and throw it on the fire again!” she ordered angrily.
The generous lump of steak, which she had hacked off for herself from the loin, had proved to be merely scorched on the outside, and she was disappointed. She stood fingering the raw ma.s.s with resentful aversion, while the old men and women, chattering gleefully and followed by the horde of children dragged the mangled carcase back to the fire, lifted it laboriously by all four legs, and managed to deposit it in the very midst of the flames. A shrill shout of triumph went up from the withered old throats at this achievement, and they all drew back to wait for the fire to do its wonderful work.
But A-ya was impatient, and vaguely dissatisfied as she watched that crude roasting in the process. She stood brooding, eyeing the fire and turning her lump of raw flesh over and over in her hands. The att.i.tude of body was one she had caught from Grom, when he was groping for a solution to some problem. And now it seemed as if she had caught his att.i.tude of mind as well. Into her brain, for the moment pa.s.sive and receptive, flashed an idea, she knew not whence. It was as if it had been whispered to her. She picked up a spear, jabbed its stone head firmly into the lump of meat, and thrust the meat into the edge of the fire, as far as it could go without burning the wood of the spear shaft.
It took her a very few minutes to realize that her idea was nothing less than an inspiration. Moving the morsel backwards and forwards to keep it from charring, she found that it seemed to do best over a ma.s.s of hot coals rather than in a flame; and being a thin cut, it cooked quickly. When it was done she burnt her fingers with it, and her big red mouth as well; and her two boys, for whom she had torn off shreds too hot for herself to hold, danced up and down and wept loudly with the smart of it, to be instantly consoled by the savor.
Noting the supreme success of A-ya's experiment, the spectators rushed in, dragged the carcase once more from the fire, and fell to hacking off suitable morsels, each for himself. In a few minutes every one who could get hold of a long arrow, or a spear, or a pointed stick, was busy learning to cook. Even the wailing old mourner, finding the excitement irresistible, forsook the body of her slain mate and came forward to take her share. Only the dead man, lying outstretched in the sun by the cave-door, and the crippled giant Ook-ootsk, away in the green hollow nursing his honorable wounds, had no part in the rejoicing, in this revel of the First Cooked Food. The hot meat juices, modified by the action of the fire, were almost as stimulating as alcohol in the veins of these simple livers, and the revel grew to something like an orgie as the shriveled nerves of the elders began to thrill with new life. A-ya, seeing the carcase of the elk melt away like new snow under a spring sun, gave orders to skin and cut up the body of the first bear.
But the old men were too absorbed in their feasting to pay any attention to her orders; and she herself was too exhilarated and content to make any serious effort to enforce them. Every one, old and young alike, was sucking burnt fingers and radiating greasy, happy smiles, and she felt dimly that anything like discipline would be unpopular at such a moment.
During all this excitement the main body of the tribe came straggling back along the beach from their hunting of whelks and mussels. At the foot of the bluff below the cave they found the body of the second bear, and gathered anxiously about it, clamoring over its spear-wounds and the arrows sticking in it, till Bawr and Grom, who were in the rear, came up. It was plain there had been a terrific battle at the Cave. With most of the warriors the two Chiefs dashed on and up the path, to find out how things had gone, while a handful remained behind to skin the bear and cut up the meat.
When the anxious warriors arrived before the cave, they were amazed at the hilarity which they found there--and inclined, at first, to resent it, being something to which they had no clue. What were all the old fools doing, dancing and cackling about the fire, and wasting good meat by poking it into the fire on the ends of sticks and spears and arrows?
The younger women, coming up behind the warriors, were derisive. They were always critical in their att.i.tude towards A-ya--so far as they dared to be--and now they ran forward to scold and slap their respective children for putting this disgusting burnt meat into their mouths.
To Grom and Bawr, however, A-ya explained the whole situation in a few pertinent phrases, and followed up her explanation by proffering them each a well-cooked morsel. They both smelled it doubtfully, tasted it, broke into smiles, and devoured it, smacking their bearded lips.
”Did _you_ do this, girl?” demanded Grom, beaming upon her proudly and holding out his great hairy hand for another sample. But Bawr strode forward, thrust the old men aside, hacked himself off a generous collop, stuck it on his spear-head, and thrust it into the fire.
In his impatience, Bawr kept pulling the roast out every minute or two, to taste it and see if it was done enough. His enthusiasm--and that of Grom, who was now following his example--cured the rest of the warriors of their hesitation, so effectually that in five minutes there was nothing more left of the great elk's carcase but antlers, bone and offal. Those who had got nothing fell upon the body of the bear, skinning it and hacking it in greedy haste. The young women, having satisfied convention by slapping their bewildered and protesting brats, soon yielded to curiosity and began surrept.i.tiously to nibble at the greasy cooked morsels which they had confiscated.
Then they, too, grabbed up spears and sticks for toasting-forks and came clamoring shrilly for their portions. And A-ya, standing a little apart with Grom, smiled with comprehending sarcasm at their conversion.
For the next few hours the fires were surrounded each by a seething and squabbling mob, the innermost rings engaged in toasting their collops with one hand, while with the other they tried to s.h.i.+eld their faces from the heat. As fast as those in the front rank wriggled out with their browned and juicy t.i.t-bits, others battled in to take their places; and the Tribe of the Cave Men, mindful of nothing but the gratification of this new taste, feasted away the afternoon with such unanimous and improvident rejoicing as they had never known before. At last, radiant with gravy and repletion, they flung themselves down where they would and went to sleep, Bawr and Grom, and two or three others of the older warriors, who had been wise enough to banquet without gorging themselves, thought with some misgiving of what might happen if an enemy should steal upon them at such an hour of torpor.
But no enemy approached. With the fall of the dew the moon arose over the bay, honey-colored in a violet sky, and played fantastic tricks with the s.h.i.+fting light of the fires. And from within the cave came softly the voice of A-ya, soothing a restless child.
CHAPTER XII
ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS
I
The People of the Cave were running short of arrows. The supply of young hickory sprouts, on which they had depended for their shafts, was almost exhausted. And within a two days' journey of the Caves there was nothing to be found that would quite take the place of those hickory sprouts. Neither Grom himself nor any other member of his tribe had as yet succeeded in so fixing a tip of bone or flint to a shaft of cane as not to interfere with its penetration. Some growth must be found that was tough, perfectly straight, and tapering, while at the same time so solid and hard of grain that it would take and hold a point, and heavy enough for driving power. All this was difficult to find, and Grom was convinced that it must be sought for far afield. Life had been running uneventfully for months at the Great Caves, and Grom's restless spirit was craving new knowledge, new adventure.
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