The First Jumper (first draft version)

The First Jumper 33: Hero

Little Bear turned to the right, his last spear in his hand.  Charging at him were ten tons of infuriated mastodon, in two outraged adults.

As Little Bear froze in indecision, an arm reached across his chest and lifted him off his feet.

“Come on!” shouted Cave Lion, and suddenly Little Bear was running faster than he ever thought he could.  The trail the two of them had broken through the deep snow was the only possible way for them to go, as they dodged into the trees.

Their speed, terrified though it was, was no match for the enraged pachyderms.  The humans, however, did not have to go so widely around trees, and the mastodon had to cut wider arcs, through much deeper snow.  

Still, they cut the distance down, until the running humans were just out of reach of the mastodon as they broke into the clearing where the humans were gathered around their kill.

The two mastodon pulled up short, as they saw the array of humans with spears.  They flapped their ears and looked at the humans for a moment, then touched trunks with each other.  Finally, they turned and went back the way they came.

“What was that?” said Cave Bear.  “What did you do?” he said to Little Bear.

“He killed a mastodon,” said Cave Lion, “All by himself.”

It took an hour to drag the camel carcass back to the cave, so the women could begin cutting it up.  It took three more hours to bring the mastodon carcass back.  The adults had finally left the dead juvenile; the crew of men with spears were enough to encourage them to move on.

All of them together could barely move the beast, but they finally got it down to beside the camel.

“We cannot eat all this,” said Holly, when she saw the mastodon.  “It will go bad.”

“I know what to do,” said Apple.  “I will show you a trick my people know.”

It was two tricks.  One was to take snow, and pack it in a small room in the cave, as high as the knees.  There, they would put meat, and then pack more snow in around it.  It would keep the meat from going bad, she said, while keeping it away from animals.

The second trick was to build a fire in another small room, and put warm meat in there on sticks, cut up into strips.  The strips would dry out in the smoke, but they would not go bad.

It was difficult to get Ringtail to agree to part with enough of his precious firewood to build a second fire, but Apple persuaded him.  By that evening, two of the smaller chambers were packed with meat.  One of them had enough snow in it to keep all the meat cool, and one had a small fire in it, burning slowly and creating enough smoke to preserve the meat hanging in there.

When asked why she had never shared this magic with the tribe before, Apple said that they had never needed it badly enough to try it, before.

Between the two rooms and the large amount of meat cooked over the fire that night, the tribe would have enough to last a moon.  Little Bear was the hero that night, for he had found both of the kills, including leading the men right to the camel hidden under the snow, and he had killed the mastodon himself.

Cave Lion got much laughter telling the tribe how Little Bear had stood with his mouth open, just watching two adult mastodon charge.

Willow and Blueberry planted themselves on either side of Little Bear.  They insisted on cooking his meat for him, and were competing as to who got to serve him.  Little Bear looked over to Tiger, but Tiger was looking relaxed and content, his belly full of meat, his three wives around him.

“I wish my time had come already,” said Willow.

“I thought you weren’t ready,” said Little Bear in surprise.  He had finally guessed what she wasn’t ready for.

“I’m not,” she said, and kissed him.  “But I think maybe I will be, when the time comes.”  She kissed him again.

“I know I will be,” said Blueberry.  Her mother called her back to her.  When she got to her mother, Apple spoke in her ear.  Blueberry looked surprised, then got up and came over to Willow.

“My mother says you are to sleep with us tonight, Willow,” said Blueberry.

“Why?” said Willow.  “I’ve been sleeping with Raccoon and Little Bear since I chose him.”

“Now, Willow,” Apple called across the fire.  

Grumbling, Willow got up, gave Little Bear a small smile, then went over to where Cave Bear sat with his seven women.  She sat beside Blueberry, but as far from Apple as she could.

Grumbling a little himself, Little Bear rolled up in the furs he had.  It was quite warm, and he did not lie close to the fire.  Here in the cave, despite the freezing temperatures and deep snow outside, it never got very cold.  With a little fur, they could stay nice and warm.

Little Bear awoke in the darkness, not sure what had awakened him.  He blinked and looked around him, but there was no way to tell time in the endless dark of the cave.  The fire was low coals, with one log slowly burning.  It was not the same log that had been burning when he lay down, so he judged he had been asleep for quite a while.

He looked toward the exit, and saw a shape just disappearing into the cave of teeth.  His bladder demanded he get up anyway, so he got up and followed.  He went out to the bear cave, and saw that it was still night, but the snow had almost entirely stopped.  Bits of it was still falling, and the wind was howling.

When he went back through the cave of teeth, he saw her, standing just inside the first chamber.  He still felt bad, whenever he thought about Apple and looked at Willow or Blueberry, but he could not resist the wonderful merging that was so like the spiritual merging he had longed to have with his egg.  As he stepped in to join her, he wondered if this was unique to he and Apple, or if other humans experienced it as deeply.

When he returned to his sleeping place, the fire flared a tiny amount, and in the flicker, he caught eyes reflected from across the fire.  Ash was watching him, with a small, hard smile.  A moment later, he wondered if he had imagined it, as she appeared as asleep as the rest.

Ash was still awake when Little Bear began snoring again, and she was also still awake when Apple returned, a few minutes later.  She made sure she looked sound asleep, but she had a big smile across her face, as she finally fell asleep for real, a few minutes later.

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