The Hunter Returns Read Online Free Page B

berry powder into flat cakes. These they put on hot stones to bake.
    The men looked disinterestedly at them. Having had meat, they wanted more. Baked cakes were acceptable to satisfy great hunger, but they were not good food. However, since their bellies were filled for the present, nobody was inclined to move. It was good to take full advantage of rest periods whenever they occurred because, soon enough, there would be none.
    Hawk busied himself making another spear. He knew the capabilities of every man in the tribe and fashioned his spears to fit the user. Wolf could throw a large shaft with a heavy head and do deadly work with it. The rest took proportionately lighter spears and Short-Leg needed the lightest of all.
    The Chief Spear-Maker selected a smooth shaft of the proper weight and balanced it in his hand. It had already been scraped smooth by one of his helpers, but there was one place that needed further scraping. Hawk worked with a rough piece of flint, the top of which had been chipped to fit his hand. Again he tested the shaft by balancing it, and this time he found it better.
    From his pouch, he chose a head, a carefully chipped piece of flint to fit the spear, and lashed it on with bison-skin thongs.
    Hawk balanced the completed spear in his hand, feeling it as a part of him. It was good, and would fly straight, but there was more yet to be done. Though Hawk knew it was good, the hunter who would use the spear must have confidence in his weapon.
    He glanced at the willow-bordered streamlet that wandered away from the spring, and carefully studied the various small birds flitting about the branches. This was one part of spear-making which only he knew thoroughly. There were different birds with different flights, and much depended on selecting the right one.
    The newly made spear in his hand, Hawk rose and walked down the hillock. At the bottom was a tar pit, and the hot sun had made it a sticky mess. He thrust a stick into the tar, and turned it until the stick was coated.
    Carrying the dripping stick, he returned to the willows and lightly coated some of their thin branches with tar. The little birds took alarm when he approached, but returned as soon as the Chief Spear-Maker went back to the fire. Three birds alighted on the tar-coated branches, and fluttered wildly as they tried to escape. Hawk waited until another bird was caught, then trotted over to his captives.
    He was conscious of the hunters’ keen interest as he approached, but nobody offered to help. This was a part of spear-making that he alone could do.
    Hawk slowed his steps as he came near the fluttering birds, and cast an expert eye over them. Two were little insect-eaters whose life depended on their ability to twist and turn; they had to be able to do so in order to catch the insects that dwelt among the willows. As a consequence, they seldom flew straight for more than a few feet.
    But the other two birds were fruit- and bud-eaters, suited to his purpose. Hawk disengaged the two birds he did not want and let them go. They bobbed erratically into the willows. He closed his hand about one of the other prisoners. Gently, not hurting it, he worked its feet out of the sticky tar. As he did so, he noticed that in thrashing about, trying to free itself, the bird had broken its tail. It couldn’t be mended, but that made no difference; it was the right kind of bird.
    Ceremoniously Hawk thrust the spear’s point at the sky, then at the earth, then at the four winds. He poised the spear in throwing position and let the bird go.
    Bending and twisting, unable to keep itself straight with its broken tail, the bird wobbled into more willows a hundred feet away. Hawk stared, dumb-founded. This was the acid test of a spear. If the bird flew straight the spear would be certain to fly straight. Always before such birds had flown in a perfectly straight line, but now no hunter would accept this spear or dare use it. Hawk walked slowly back to the fire.
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