The Animal Wife Read Online Free Page A

only one lion?"
    "Because he called all night but no one answered. Because his wives do his hunting before they do their hunting. Because his meat was old. Did you hear the flies on it? There were too many to have come this morning. Last night those flies slept on that meat."
    Behind me, Father was quiet. We walked on, the day growing warm and the smell of grass rising. In time I heard the river. We were almost in camp. Now again Father spoke to me. "Kori!"
    From his voice, I knew that he was standing still. I stopped and turned to face him. "Yes, Father?"
    "Have you no better spear?"
    This question surprised me. If I had a better spear, I would have brought it. But, "No, Father," I said.
    Father stared at me, frowning. "Why won't your uncle give you a flint? Why does he waste your hunting?"
    I didn't know why, so I said nothing. Soon I began to feel uneasy, held tight by Father's eyes.
    "By the Bear!" he said at last. "Come here, Kori."
    So I did. Still staring at me, he reached into his hunting bag, pulled out a great, heavy flint, seized my hand, and brought the flint down into it so hard my palm stung. But as I clenched my fist tightly around the heavy stone, my heart filled with a fierce, glad feeling. "Father! You have given me a flint!" I said.
    "Yes, my son," said Father.
    ***
    A few days later, while Uncle Bala was cooking fish for the three of us—Father, Andriki, and me—as we lay on our backs looking at the half moon in the afternoon sky, Father said, "The longest days will soon be here, a good time to travel. Our home is far. We will leave when my wife comes. We'll take Kori."
    Oh, I was happy! I jumped to my feet, seeing in my mind's eye the wide plains, the open woods, the great Hair River, and the corpses of huge animals.
    "Sit down, Kori," said Uncle. "The fish is almost ready to eat."
    "I'm going to make my pack!"
    The men laughed. "You don't need to make your pack just yet," said Uncle. "And your mother? What of her?"
    What of her? I was old enough to decide for myself where I would go or stay. I hurried to Mother's empty grass shelter and took my winter clothes—my parka, my outer trousers, and my moccasins—from the bush where I kept them. No one saw me. My deerskin sleeping-skin, my spear, and my hunting bag (with the flint inside it) were already at Uncle Bala's fire. Before Uncle Bala's fish had quite finished cooking I had tied all my things together into a pack, and I was leaning on this pack, pulling the fishbones out of my teeth, when I heard Mother screaming on the far side of camp. Word of my plans must have reached her.
    In no time my stepfather came striding up to Uncle Bala's fire, his belt in his hand. Without greeting the men or showing any politeness, he thrashed the belt against the ground, raising a cloud of dust and ashes, and roared, "Go home, Kori!"
    Sometimes in the past I had had whippings from Mother, whippings I liked to think I hardly noticed. But never had I been punished by my stepfather. His rage was frightening. I started to my feet.
    But Father put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me down. To my stepfather he said, "Kori stays with me."
    My stepfather turned and left, looking worried. Later he came back with six of his kinsmen. They stood in a half-circle over Father and Andriki, all talking at once, insisting that Father would not take me.
    Father and Andriki stood up. I saw how, if the argument became a fight, we were greatly outnumbered. Father must have seen this too. Yet very carefully, very slowly, he rubbed his hands together as if to heat the calluses a spear makes on one's palms. He meant to hint that he wouldn't run from fighting. But his tone of voice was pleasant. "Must Kori stay here as a guest of his lineage?" he asked. "Or shall he come to the Hair River, where together with me, my brother, my half-brothers, and their sons he will own the hunting?"
    My stepfather had no answer for that. He was not my kinsman anyway, just someone who was