Great Sky Woman (14 page)

Chapter Seventeen

In the time following Fire Ant’s return, Frog Hopping came to a decision. Others, he thought, might be stronger or faster than he, but no one would work harder at his practice. As Frog grew older he was given more tasks and chores, but his primary purpose was to become a hunter, and every moment of his waking day was filled with knife-making, spear-throwing, stalking, hunting, all the men’s skills. He had tried to be good with the bow, but despite his endless efforts, that skill seemed to elude him. With the spear, though…

That was very different. The spear he loved. And it loved him in return. Point. Shaft. Butt. He learned to use them all as weapons and tools. Frog learned to find the perfect bamboo shafts and tree branches, to harvest and sharpen them swiftly and surely.

The boys played games of their own, but other games were organized by the men. The favorite was the echo game: walking in each other’s footsteps, mimicking one another’s motion, walking silently in a circle, following one another up the sides of hills or creeping through the tree branches, placing each hand and foot where a cousin had placed his before. During the echo game, they practiced breathing in rhythm with one another, that they might gain greater connection with their brother hunters. They were also taught the shallow breathing that allowed them to stay awake for days at a time while lying in the dirt covered with biting ants.

And in between, they ran and wrestled and carried rocks or one another, becoming strong.

All of this preparation was about far more than merely becoming strong. It was knowing with every sinew the strengths and weaknesses of the other hunters, so that each could anticipate the inclinations and actions of his brothers. This was what was needed to succeed in the hunt. “A man alone is vulnerable,” Uncle Snake said. “The boma together is strong. The Ibandi as a people are unconquerable.”

Frog wanted desperately to believe that, but he had seen things, knew things now that caused him to doubt too much of his world. His brothers were secure in their trust and ignorance. Frog had knowledge, and that knowledge terrified him.

Hawk Shadow had returned home after his seasons away, bringing with him a bride named Flamingo from Wind boma, a graceful beauty already heavy with child. In spite of his new responsibilities, he took time to help Frog learn.

“Like this,” he said. Hawk’s round face set in a mask of concentration. He inhaled, swung up and back, then threw the spear twice as far as Frog had ever managed. “Now you. At that fever tree.”

Frog’s own throw, which he had so recently been proud of, went only half the distance, striking nothing but dirt. Hawk Shadow laughed and walked away, leaving Frog running after the spear. Frog practiced from first light to dusk. But at the agonizing end of that day he realized that he had done more running than spear-throwing.

He spent the next days crafting five spears. This was not an easy task: he had to find the right branches, of dark spearwood that effortlessly held the sharpest killing point. After he found his hand of branches, he stripped and sharpened them, built a fire with sober care and baked the tips to hardness while singing praise to the spirits of the wood. After that, when he practiced, he could throw one after another, seeking the perfect motion. At this point he wasn’t trying to hit the tree or any specific target, just trying to throw so that each of them landed within an arm’s span. Then, after throwing all five, he ran to collect them and began the process anew.

The eyes of Fire boma’s hunters were upon him. At first those eyes were amused, but after some days he could reliably land all the spears within one arm’s span, and their mirth gentled and became approving nods.

It was time to start refining his aim.

Throw them. Fetch them. Throw them.
On and on he went, endlessly, until his aching muscles forced him to stop. In this fashion he filled any time he could steal away from other chores.

“Frog!” his cousins called. “Come play with us.” Over the days the other boys had become impressed and perhaps even a bit intimidated by his practice. Did they see? Could they see that he feared he was as different as Lizard?

Lizard.
That thought resurrected painful memories. What had happened to him, and would any of them ever know for certain?

“I have to practice,” he said.

Stepbrother Scorpion, the largest of them, grabbed his arm, twisting. They all swarmed over him, bearing him away with them. “There is more than one thing to practice!” Scorpion said. “We wrestle!”

In the burned ring surrounding every boma was crafted a wrestling circle, raked earth ringed with stones. It was there that the young men found practice, competition…and occasional anguish. During Spring Gathering the various village champions contested for honor, rank, sport and sometimes brides. Every young man was expected to participate.

The rules were simple and relatively consistent from one boma to the next. The younger wrestlers were free to contest with one another, but could not ask older, more experienced wrestlers for informal practice: such were considered challenges. But older wrestlers could “ask” younger to roll with them. Such invitations were almost never refused.

Any wrestler who habitually thrashed younger, less experienced opponents swiftly became the target of the village’s most senior wrestlers, who would teach him that there were infinite gradations to suffering. If that was not enough to dissuade him, hunt chiefs could be summoned from Great Sky, and their strong, sure hands generally resolved the matter. An additional correction was rarely required.

When Frog practiced with his brothers or one of the other hunters, he knew that they used only a portion of their strength. They were urging him to do his best, testing and encouraging.

Many times, Frog had watched spellbound as Fire Ant and Hawk Shadow wrestled with the older men. If the elders were still active hunters, they were usually better, and the brothers and other boys were encouraged to use all of their strength. But if the elders were no longer running with the herds, the younger men were expected to refrain from shaming the older men, whose days of strength and challenge were behind them.

During most practice one wrestled not just to win, but to “make pretty,” to be graceful in the midst of struggle. To win “ugly” was less than to lose “pretty.” This was something Frog strove to understand, and understand he must if he was to wear the scars.

This is how it had always been, and how it would ever be.

So they practiced with monkey rolls and baboon leaps, leopard-walking and all of the other exercises he had learned since he was a baby.

“Now,” Scorpion said, “you can drive my shoulders down, or throw me from the circle, or make me cry Father Mountain.”

Although trembling with fear and excitement, Frog’s words were bold indeed: “And what if I kill you?”

The boys stamped their feet, applauding his bravado. “Well, then, you win!”

Frog put his head down and charged…. all the way out of the circle. The others laughed. He bounced up and charged again. Over and over again he was thrown out, but no matter how tired and sore he became, he never quit. Then Scorpion pinned him to the dirt and began twisting his arm until he was sure his shoulder socket would rupture. He screamed, “Father Mountain!” and the contest was over.

The boys cried out for the best of the young hunters: Frog’s elder brothers Hawk Shadow and Fire Ant. One at a time the brothers entered the circle, and their strength and skill swiftly drove the younger ones into the dust.

To the side, boma father Break Spear was quietly watching every move.

Frog was fascinated by a twisting move that sent Fire Ant’s opponent flying out of the circle. He had the next idea. “Now the two of you!” he cried. “Wrestle each other! Let’s see it!”

His brothers grinned at each other. Some of the others in the boma stopped their work and drifted over. Fire Ant shook out his left leg, a flicker of unease floating across his face. Was the leg still bothering him? Hadn’t it healed yet?

Whatever discomfort he experienced, Fire Ant hid it behind a face of stone. “You taste dust today, brother.”

“One of us will cry Father Mountain today,” Hawk Shadow said. “It will not be me.”

Frog’s brothers took their places on opposite sides of the circle and began to stalk each other.

The two collided in the center of the circle, each of them so well balanced and so well matched that, in straining together, their muscles leapt out in stark relief.

A flicker of pain crossed Ant’s face. The injured leg again?

There was a fluid blur of limbs, a shout and a drop to one knee, and Fire Ant flew through the air. Hawk Shadow was the winner! Never had Hawk won so easily. Even now, a year after his injuries, Fire Ant was still diminished. Frog sensed that never again might Ant be Hawk Shadow’s equal.

Hawk Shadow pounced, twisting his brother’s arm. “Say Father Mountain!”

Fire Ant struggled, and twisted, and was unable to free himself. “Father Mountain! Father Mountain!”

A gigantic hand fell on Hawk Shadow’s shoulder, lifting him off his vanquished brother.

It was the mighty Break Spear himself, breathing deep and slow and strong, vast belly jiggling, his eyes alight with mischief.

“Come, wrestle me.” The hunt chief was squat and muscular, seeming to Frog to be as wide as he was tall. He was a gristly boulder of a man, his black eyes sheltered beneath shelves of bony ridge.

This was one of the most important moments in Hawk’s life. It was a great honor indeed for the boma father to offer a younger hunter the right of challenge.

Next to Break Spear’s massive form, Hawk Shadow’s smooth, muscular body seemed almost girlish. Now it was his turn to shrink back. He was a handsbreadth taller than the hunt chief, but that made little difference. There was something…
quiet
about the broader man. This quality Frog had seen in some of the elders, a familiarity, a certainty born of experience. He had wrestled countless matches and knew every clever twisting move.

Hawk Shadow took a position on the far side of the circle, spreading his legs and planting his feet firmly.

Word spread swiftly through the boma, and the folk gathered to see what was about to happen between Fire boma’s greatest hunter and its most promising young man. Hands of them gathered around. In a way that all understood, Father Mountain and Great Mother had granted the family a glimpse of seasons to come.

Three of the boma’s old hunters hobbled happily to the wrestling circle, dragging their hollow-log drums with them. They planted themselves and began to stroke them vigorously, providing rhythm.

Hawk Shadow and Break Spear wore only twists of skins tied with knotted cord covering their genitals, but even if they hadn’t, that tender target would have been taboo in a practice match. Mortal combat was, of course, different.

The drums throbbed with a beat that would have compelled dead bones to dance. Frog swayed and jumped, excited.

For the first time, Hawk Shadow stood in the challenge circle with the boma father.

There was no distinct call to begin, but the men surrounding the circle stamped their feet against the ground. Frog felt his pulse vibrating in his rump.

The two combatants responded to it, stepping to the beat, slowly walking the circle. As they tested each other, one gradual sliding step at a time, Hawk spiraled within reach of Break Spear.

Lines of sweat streaked furrows along their dusty skin and streamed from their hairlines. Hawk Shadow shook his head and flicked the salty droplets aside, never taking his eyes from his opponent. He raised his right hand to wipe the perspiration, and in that instant of diminished vision, Break Spear charged him. They were so close together that there was almost nothing Hawk Shadow could do.

Almost.

He sprang to the left side, planting his right leg in Break Spear’s path. That trip might have worked with most, but Break Spear hopped nimbly over the obstacle, simultaneously uttering a trilling shriek that would have frozen Frog dead in place.

Hawk Shadow threw himself to the dirt, tumbling as Break Spear came after him. Hawk performed a perfect baboon roll, jumping to his feet in time to meet Break Spear’s charge. The impact almost threw him out of the circle, but Hawk dug in his heels to resist.

In fact, as he tensed he not only stopped Break Spear’s charge but pushed him back. Then the broader man stooped just before Hawk Shadow jumped in with another push, and Hawk Shadow sailed over Break Spear’s shoulders.

Every man and boy around the circle groaned with empathetic pain. Hawk Shadow crunched into the ground,
whuff
ed air and rolled away—but Break Spear hadn’t leapt in to continue the attack. Instead, he retreated a step and watched the younger man as he staggered to his feet, shook his head and prepared to continue.

The two fighters crashed in the center of the ring, slapping with open-handed buffets that tore skin and snapped heads to the side. Hawk Shadow charged in, suffering a mighty wallop along the way, slamming in his shoulder and grasping Break Spear around the waist, right hand gripping left wrist at the small of Spear’s back. Grunting, he actually levered the heavier man from the ground. Break Spear linked his fists and clubbed Hawk Shadow’s right shoulder.