CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES) (23 page)

The Mother was
like their wise one, they realized, only much more wise.  The Mother was
the Great Wise One, the one to whom they could now turn whenever they had
problems they could not solve.  She was Life-Giver, too, who caused new
life to form in the bellies of females, and in the earth after the rains.

Lett appeared,
holding a bunch of the big-breasted, wide-hipped statues.  At Kalar's
request, he had made some for the women from the other tribe.  She wanted
them to have a tangible symbol of the Mother, to help them remember.

Kalar thanked him
and stood.  "May the Mother be with you always," she said, as
she gestured to their wise one to come forward and accept the figures. 
She, in turn, handed one to each woman whose belly was round with child.

The children
scrambled up from the lake to watch the ceremony, their eyes wide with
awe.  Zena beckoned to the smallest one, a boy from the other tribe who
had just learned to walk.  He toddled over and plunked himself into her
lap.

She would miss
them, she reflected, rubbing her hands over his smooth, sun-warmed skin. 
But in another way, she was glad the time had come to leave the lake and head
back once again toward the river.  Travel always excited her - and they
could not stay much longer.  The rains this year had been sparse, and with
two tribes in residence, food was already hard to find.

The next day she
waved good-bye to the children, calling out a word that meant
next time
. 
The children repeated the word, but their faces were sad.  They cared
deeply for Zena, and for the games that challenged their imaginations. 
They loved to puzzle over everything they saw, to think of new words and
ideas.  Now they would have to do it by themselves.

The adults stood
in a cluster around the children.  Each member of the tribe held a basket,
and each woman proudly wore the sling she had made.  One of the women held
up her basket in one hand, the figure Lett had made for her in the other, and
spoke the message Kalar had taught them.  The others imitated her gesture
and repeated her words.

"Go with the
Mother," they said, and their voices were a chorus of blessing in the
still air.

Kalar turned once
and waved.  "May the Mother live always in your hearts," she
answered.  Then she moved on without looking back.  When the time
came to lead her tribe, she wanted only to look forward. 

She led them first
to a marshy area where food and water were almost always abundant, then they
slowly worked their way north and east in the direction of the river. 
They were in no hurry this time, for food was still available along much of the
route.  Often, they spent many weeks at one site.  They built a
shelter and stayed there until food became hard to find, then they moved
on.  Zena loved these prolonged stays, for they gave her a chance to teach
children in nearby tribes.  She gathered them around her, to show them her
games, while Cere taught the adults how to make baskets and Kalar spoke of the
Mother.  Both children and adults listened avidly, their faces
intent.  It was almost as if they had been waiting, Zena thought, as
plants wait for rain, for someone to teach them the new ideas and skills. 
When she tried to express this thought to Kalar, the wise woman nodded
agreement.

"It is in
this way the Mother has changed us," she said gravely.  "All now
have the desire to learn."

"You must
teach others as we have taught you,"  Kalar told the eager listeners,
and they did.  Each tribe passed on all they had learned to others they
met in their travels.  These tribes taught other tribes; each generation
taught the next, and so it went, year after year, generation after generation,
until almost all the tribes in the area had become familiar with the new
inventions, with the concept of the Mother.

When they finally
reached the river, Zena felt a pang of sadness despite her pleasure at being
once again in her favorite place.  There were no new children here to
teach, and she would miss watching their faces light up when they first
discovered new words and ideas or found answers to their questions.  In
another way, though, teaching frustrated her.  She could answer questions
for others, but no one could answer hers. 

She watched a
group of antelopes grazing in the distance.  Some of them were jumping on
the backs of other ones from behind.

"What are
they doing?"  Sima touched Zena's hand to get her attention. 

"They
mate," Zena answered,  "like the adults."

Sima nodded,
content with the explanation.  But Zena was not content.  She wanted
to know if mating gave antelopes pleasure, as Kalar and Cere told her it gave
adults pleasure.  She did not think so.  The female antelopes usually
tried to run away when the males approached them.  If the act gave them
pleasure, why did they run?  And if it gave no pleasure, why did they
bother to do it at all?

Lions, she had
observed, were different.  A group of them often lazed around the
lake.  She had watched the females nudge the males, over and over again,
trying to get them to mate.  The males often seemed reluctant, but the
females insisted.

"It is the
Mother's way," Kalar had told her when she had asked.  "All
animals mate, and all are different."  But that answer, too, failed
to satisfy Zena.  She wanted to know why it was the Mother's way, and why
animals were different.

The question took
on renewed urgency some months after they had returned to the river. 
Three-Legs was a full-grown female now, her leg long ago healed, and she was
becoming more and more interested in other gazelles.  Zena was sure mating
had something to do with her interest.  Twice already, she had run toward
a herd and had let a male sniff at her.  Each time, she had run back to
Zena.  But now she was approaching the herd for the third time, and she
was much less skittish than before.  Zena watched with a heavy heart as
the big male approached her once again.  This time, Three-Legs let him
mate with her; then she disappeared into the herd.

Zena turned and
ran into the trees, trying hard to suppress the sobs in her throat. If
Three-Legs wanted to be with her own kind, she could not keep her.  Kalar
had told her that over and over, and Zena knew she was right.  Three-Legs was
not Zena's; she was a gazelle, and gazelles belonged with each other. 

A solid lump of
misery settled in Zena's belly.  She felt as if part of herself had been
suddenly wrenched away, that she would never be quite whole again without
Three-Legs.

Bowing her head so
none of the others could see her contorted face, Zena trudged slowly toward the
small glen where she had been born.  She felt more peaceful here than in
any other place.  Even her questions seemed to lose their urgency when she
sat in the circle of stones, as if there were no need to search for answers, to
struggle to understand. 

Closing her eyes,
she forced herself to pay attention to the sounds of birds calling to each
other, of water splashing through the stream.  Another sound made her sit
up straight.  Something was munching right beside her.  Puzzled, she
opened her eyes.  Three-Legs was standing near her, browsing contentedly
on some low bushes.  She had come back! 

The tears Zena had
been trying to control poured from her eyes as she ran over and hugged the
little gazelle.  Three-Legs nuzzled her affectionately and went back to
her browsing, as if nothing had happened.  When Zena rose to leave,
Three-Legs followed close behind her, and she did not stray toward the herd
again.

Toward the end of
the day, heavy clouds gathered, and a jagged streak of lightning struck the
hillside where the gazelles were grazing.  Fire spurted high into the air
as the dry grasses were instantly consumed.  The rainy season was
approaching once again, and because the rains had been so sparse the year
before, the fires were unusually ferocious. 

The gazelles began
to run, their backs creating delicate arcs in the air as they leaped away from
the danger.  In minutes, the whole herd had disappeared.  Zena was
relieved.  Now she would not have to worry about losing Three-Legs, for a
while at least.

Early the next
morning, she wandered up behind the clearing toward the fires to look for
burning sticks.  Their fire had gone out during the night, and sticks were
always plentiful in places where the flames had passed already.  This
time, she left Three-Legs behind with Sima and Lupe, fearing the gazelle would
burn her feet or her delicate nose as she sought green fodder beneath the
layers of soot and blackened grass.

Zena clambered up
a steep slope to reach the level, burned area beyond.  A short,
overhanging cliff blocked her way; she pulled herself up the rocks on one side
of it.  A movement just beneath her caught her eye, and she froze.  A
lion, or more likely a leopard, could live in the dark space beneath the
overhang.  Still, she had never seen one anywhere near this place, and
there was no smell of a den.  Probably it was just a small animal of some
kind. 

Hugging her body
against the ground, she peered cautiously over the cliff.  Nothing moved
now, but she could make out a dark bundle lying on the rocky ground. Perhaps it
was an antelope, like the one they had found last time there were fires.  That
would be a wonderful discovery.  She would be able to make some more
slings, and the meat would keep them fed for days.

Zena went
closer.  The creature on the ground stirred and made a moaning noise. She
jumped in surprise.  The sound was not that of an animal; it was the sound
of another like herself.  She ran over, fearing that a member of the tribe
had been hurt. But it was a stranger, a young male a little larger than
herself. 

She bent over
him.  His eyelids fluttered open, revealing eyes of a pale, nut-brown
color.  Yellow flecks were sprinkled on the pupils, as if bits of sunlight
had caught there.  Zena stared at them, entranced.  She had never
seen eyes like that before.

The young male
uttered a stream of words she could not understand.  Most of the tribes
they encountered had words very much like theirs, but the young male seemed to
have entirely different ones.  She watched closely as he spoke, as if her
eyes might grasp what her ears were unable to comprehend. 

The torrent of
words dried up abruptly as he realized she did not understand.  Fear came
into his eyes then, and a terrible sorrow.  He tried to lurch to his feet,
but he fell back again, overcome by dizziness.

"I help
you," Zena said.  She pointed to herself, and then to him.  The
boy did not answer, but watched her warily as she leaned close to examine
him.  A big bump on the back of his head explained his dizziness. 
There were scorched places on his hands and feet, as if he had run through fire
and fallen into it as well, and one wrist was swollen and discolored.

"Wait!" 
Zena commanded, as she rose to her feet.  She would have to get help; she
could never manage to carry him by herself. 

The fear in his
yellow-flecked eyes increased as they heard steps on the hillside.  Zena
called out, hoping it was one of the others, and heard Bran answer.  He
came quickly, alerted by the anxiety in Zena's voice.  The boy tried
desperately to get to his feet when Bran bent over him, but the concern in the
older man's face was so obvious that he relaxed again.  Together, Zena and
Bran helped him to stand and walk slowly into the clearing.

The others came
running, calling excitedly to each other.  Kalar said nothing, but
gestured to Zena and Bran to bring the stranger to her.  She examined him
closely.

"His wrist
may be broken," Zena told her,  "and his head is hurt.  He
fell, I think.  I found him under the cliff."

Kalar
nodded.  "Get the herbs for burns, and for swelling," she
instructed Zena.

The young male
watched curiously as they bound his swollen wrist between two straight sticks,
as the old wise one had taught them.  Kalar did not think it was broken,
but the splints would keep the wrist from bending.  After that, they
prepared some poultices.  One went on the boy's head, others on his feet
and hands, still another was bound around his wrist.  Sima and the two
boys began to giggle.  The stranger looked funny with all those
bandages.  And his eyes were so odd!

He looked up at
them and grinned, but the expression did not last.  Pain quickly clouded
his face again.  Zena did not think the pain came from his wounds. 
It seemed instead to come from his thoughts.

Cere appeared in
front of him with a melon and some pieces of meat from a small pig Bran and
Agar had caught the night before.  He nodded to her, thanking her with his
gesture, and began to eat voraciously.  He was famished, Zena
realized.  The questions she could not ask battered at her.  Where
had he come from, and what had happened to him?  Why was he alone? 
He was taller than she was, but she did not think he was much older, and that
was too young to be alone.

She tried to think
how she could ask what had happened to the others in his tribe, but finally she
gave up and simply looked at him questioningly as she gestured toward the
hillside and the fire above it.

The pain in his
face increased.  He passed his hand across his eyes wearily, and his whole
body seemed to slump.  Words tumbled from him, but Zena understood
nothing.  She shook her head in frustration.  He stopped speaking and
began to show her with his body what had happened.  He pointed to himself,
then made figures in the air with his hand for others.  Pulling himself to
his feet, he ran a few steps in one direction, pushing the others the opposite
way.  He gestured wildly toward the fire, and his hands surged in the air,
representing the flames and the heat.  Fear enveloped his face, then a
terrible sadness.  He pointed to Zena, then to Cere, and tears began to
run down his cheeks.  Finally, he slumped to the ground, gesturing with
one arm, to show he had fallen.