The Animal Wife Read Online Free

him the tracks as a sign of fear? "No!" I answered.
    Andriki pointed ahead of us so that I would keep going. I looked to the west, into the sky that was filling with daylight. There ravens were circling, looking down at something. Suddenly it came to me what they were circling, and where I could take my father and Andriki to find meat. Where lions are eating, people say, ravens are the smoke of their campfire.
    Father and Andriki seemed to be waiting for me to move. Carefully I began walking toward the ravens. After we had walked a while, Andriki poked me with the tail of his spear. I looked back at him. He made the hunter's handsign for question. Watching his face to see how he would take my answer, I made the handsign for meat. His eyes widened very slightly, just enough to show surprise. I found this satisfying. On I led them, more slowly now, easing myself forward over the sparse grass, staying far away from the bushes.
    The ravens had vanished. I walked toward the place where they had been. At last, half hidden by a distant thicket of juniper, I saw them again, now sitting on the rack of red bones they had been circling. I stood still, trying to see and hear everything. The lionmight be with this carcass, perhaps in the juniper. In fact, I thought I smelled him.
    Looking carefully into the grass to be sure no other lion was hiding near us, I cleared my throat. "Uncle," I began, "we're here!"
    My words woke him! From the juniper I heard a short, sharp grunt, a startled cough. "Waugh," said the lion, as a person might say, "By the Bear!"
    We listened while the silence grew. Now the lion was also listening. Soon we heard a clap of sound, the buzz of many flies all jumping suddenly into the air. The flies had been chased off the carcass by something that moved in the bushes.
    I felt the skin crawl on the back of my neck. Wanting the lion to think of standing bravely in the open, not to think of creeping, of stealth, I steadied my voice and said loudly, "Look at us, Uncle! We won't surprise you. Be easy. We respect you. Hona!"
    Now something moved on the far side of the juniper, and slowly, showing us the side of his body, the lion walked into sight. His eyes, round and pale in his dark, scarred face, looked straight at us. "You see us, Uncle," I said, keeping in my voice a firmness and a calmness I didn't feel. "You are one. We are three. We have spears. Go now, and we won't hurt you."
    Carelessly, as if to show that he was ignoring us, as if to show that he was leaving anyway, the lion took himself to another thicket, farther away. There he threw himself down. Ough! But in the grass we saw the top of his head, his round ears. He was still watching.
    "Thank you for the horsemeat, Uncle," called Father politely. "Brother, help Kori get the meat while I keep my eyes on this lion. If he changes his mind, I want to see." So Andriki and I used our knives on the horse, then made a bundle of the meat and marrow bones with twine from my hunting bag.
    "My in-laws may be content to wait like-women, watching animals eat meat while people eat fish," said Father proudly as we were ready to leave, "but my son knows what men do."
    Glad of the praise, I didn't want to say that Father was wrong about his in-laws waiting like women, watching animals eat. They didn't have the patience. To save wear on their brittle, hard-gotten spearheads, our men often took meat from lions, especially from this lion. In fact, this particular lion had come to expect being stoned and insulted if a group of people found him alone on a carcass. By now, when he saw people, he seemed glad to get up and go away. But if I had told this to Father, he might have changed his mind about my bravery, so I smiled and said nothing.
    On the way back Father again told me to lead. This pleased me too. As we walked he called out, "You did well."
    This pleased me most of all. "Thank you, Father," I said, speaking without turning, in the hunter's way.
    "How did you know there was