CRO-MAGNON (60 page)

#

The night passed in a blur of sustained effort. The three hikers had reached the top of yet another pass, where dawn was just breaking, when Blaine saw Calder’s right knee give way. It had happened twice while climbing out of the previous gorge but, the anthropologist had braced himself on the Neanderthal’s spear and struggled onward. This time, the bends-damaged joint was not up to the strain, and he pitched down onto the windswept summit.

Blaine hurried forward, unslinging the two sacks of frozen heads. She watched Ian struggle to his knees, try to stand, and fall back. Severely winded after the uphill slog, she mustered enough breath to call, “Murzo.”

Ayni, ten yards in the lead, looked around. “Are you injured?”

“
I don’t think so,” Calder said. “But I need to rest my knees again.”

Ayni gestured at the pearly glow tingeing the eastern mountaintops. “We cannot risk getting caught here in daylight. It is only a few kilometers, all downhill, to my cousin’s
qishlaq.
”

Calder grimaced. “I’m sorry but I can’t do it without rest.”

The forest ranger glanced at Blaine. “If I carry him pig-back, can you take two more packs as well as your specimens?” He gestured at the two sacks. “If not, I am afraid you must leave—”

Blaine set her mouth.
We’re not leaving the heads.
She hunched her back as Ayni slipped out of Calder’s backpack and then his own.

An hour later, the valley opened before them. Blaine, carrying Ian’s pack atop her own, with Murzo’s riding her chest and the two sagging grain sacks slung over her shoulders, could see what must be the Panj river flowing through a broad valley. She knew she was looking down on the Wakhan Corridor, the site of an ancient silk route between China and Europe and now a tongue of Afghan territory squeezed between Tajikistan and Pakistan. Beyond the Panj soared the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush, a jumbled mass of snowy peaks forming the skyline.

Even on the downhill grade, the three packs plus the two sacks of ice-and-snow packed heads brought Blaine close to exhaustion. Drawing a lungful of air, blessedly rich after the thin air of the mountains, she staggered onward.

Minutes later, they entered a small orchard of fig trees. Through the bare branches, she could see the adjoining houses of a settlement. They passed an elevated wood platform with a rickety ladder, and Blaine saw
qurut
drying atop a reed mat. Beyond a small grove of mulberry trees surrounding a stone cistern, she saw a woman in wool trousers and padded jacket tending a few goats in a rock-built enclosure by a flat-roofed house. The woman looked up, then set down her wood pail and ran toward them. She looked ten years older than Murzo, her easy strides attesting to a strong body. Ayni knelt and let Calder slide off his shoulders, and Blaine gratefully set down the sacks and began to squirm out of the three packs.

After embracing the ranger, the woman inclined her head and said, “
Asalaam aleikum,
Murzo.” She was tall and slim, with straight black hair under a bright kerchief, dark eyes with crow’s feet, and skin so pale it looked translucent.

Ayni spoke to her in a patois that Blaine thought contained a surfeit of single-syllable words. She knew this must be Wakhi, the ancient language derived from Proto-Indo-European, or so Ian had implied to Mathiessen. Listening to the lilting exchange, she marveled that Ayni’s home dialect might retain some trace of the mother tongue spoken in this part of the world many thousands of years ago.

She inspected the two sacks of frozen heads and decided the day would be cold enough not to melt the ice around them so long they were not in direct sunlight. Walking back, she climbed the shaky ladder, laid the sacks on a vacant part of the
qurut
platform where they would be safe from animals, and covered them with her and Ian’s sleeping pads.

When she returned, Ayni said: “Caitlin and Ian, please meet Simin, the daughter of my maternal grandmother’s brother.”

After mixed-language greetings, including bowing and placing of hands over hearts, Simin led them into the stone dwelling through a series of doors and rooms built like a maze—probably, Blaine thought, to block the winter wind—that contained sheep, donkeys, sacks of food, and manual agricultural tools of unclear purpose. Some of the sacks in the food room were open, and she could see dried apricots, pears and plums in one corner, and fresh apples, almonds and figs in another. A side of mutton hung from a gnarled wood hook.

They entered a sizable dirt-floored room redolent with food smells. Obviously the hub of family life, it was lighted and vented by a hole in the ceiling above a clay oven. Simin took some sacks from a corner and added to whatever was in the iron pot simmering atop the oven. Blaine saw cooking implements and more pots hanging in another corner above rush baskets heaped with clothing.

Around the edges of the room, felt-padded stone platforms held sleeping figures, which roused at the sound of strange voices. Blaine saw an old man and woman sit up, the man pockmarked beneath a mop of gray hair.

Wiping their eyes, they began to thrash about beneath their wool blankets. Through the smoky air, Blaine glimpsed the flash of a lean shank and realized they had been sleeping naked. Three boys of various ages sat up on one platform, two girls on another, and all began to dress beneath the blankets. When they emerged, clothed like their mother in western garments, Blaine could see they had the same rangy builds and clear skin. The grandparents wore multicolored robes under wool coats with long sleeves.

More introductions and greeting rituals ensued. The boys were Gulab, Behruz and Namdar; the girls, Farrin and Marjan. Blaine noticed the nearly grown Farrin sneak a sloe-eyed glance at Murzo.

The crone was Delkash. Blaine did not catch the name of the grandfather and was about to ask when Ayni said, “Simin speaks Wakhi and Tajik, but not English. Her husband, Mazdak, is working in Srinigar. I have told her that you are two scientists from
Ameriko,
that the three of us need to sleep here today and cross the river tonight. I have not told her our business, beyond the fact that the children are not to speak of us at school. It is better that she not know.”

Blaine thought, school? Ticking off the days, she was surprised to find that a week had passed since their flight to Dushanbe, and it was now Monday again.
Time flies when . . .

Ayni said, “Now, we eat real food.”

The children and oldsters took their places. Blaine noticed that Calder experienced trouble folding his legs under the low wood table, finally having to sit sideways. Simin and Farrin bustled about the oven and brought cups of strong tea laced with butter scooped from a hanging animal stomach, slabs of warm wheat-and-chickpea
non,
and bowls of stew thickened with barley and containing turnips, carrots, onions, and bits of salted fish Ayni identified as a pallid sturgeon Simin and other villagers had trapped in the river shallows last spring. He urged them to eat all they could, and they did so after Calder insisted on a generous monetary contribution.

Afterward, Blaine said, “I think Ian needs more work on his joints.”

Ayni dipped his head. “One might expect.”

She hesitated, ignoring Calder’s sudden arousal from his exhausted and satiated state. “Just so he can hike into the Hindu Kush tonight, be able to run in case Salomon finds us.”

“
Of course.” Ayni’s face was blank.

“
I know you people have your customs.” Blaine avoided looking at Calder, but glanced toward Simin, busy scraping the dishes in the corner. “Do you think your cousin would be offended if Ian and I slept on the same platform? Because of his joints?”

This time she discerned a twitch in the ranger’s mustache. “I have already told my cousin that you are man and wife.”

#

Later, Blaine awakened to the braying of a donkey. She gave a start, then realized where she was and looked about. The room was empty except for her and Ian in the double bag, plus Murzo on a facing platform. Sunlight from the central hole haloed the clay oven. It reminded her of her flashlight’s beam spotlighting the panel of ice-covered paintings during the final visit to the water-locked cave and of Calder melting the ice at the cost of singeing the four paintings. Despite the resulting lack of detail, she’d still felt a sense of doom as the wounded man and the wolf surged toward the top of the pass while the woman with her baby, chased by two armed men, struggled up the other side.

But whose doom? The fact that the family, presumably the same Cro-Magnon woman and Neanderthal man, had established a home in the cave seemed to attest to their survival.

But how could a man with a broken arm—even a Neanderthal—and an exhausted woman with a baby withstand two Cro-Magnon hunters? Closing her eyes, she dozed, leaving her subconscious to ferret what must have taken place on that frozen summit thirty thousand years ago . . .

Chapter 26

As Leya staggered onto the summit of the pass, she spotted a sturdy man charging up the far slope. His wild hair glinted yellow in the bright sunlight, and his right arm was bundled in a crude sling, He glanced up, and she looked into a pair of pale blue eyes under shelving brows.

And into hope, springing anew.

Gar! He looked even more drained than she felt, his front teeth bared in a savage rictus.

Her senses reeled. How could it be Gar?

Motion caught the corner of her eye, as down the hill she saw a low shape flitting over the snow.

Fel, who she’d presumed was dead!

Somehow, they were here to save her. Then she realized that her protector—no, more than protector—carried no spear or club. And he didn’t know about Mungo and Hodr! Exhausted, and with no weapon and a worse than useless arm, he’d be helpless against the two armed hunters.

Hope turned to ashes.

Now they’d all be killed.

And it was her fault!

She turned to glance back, her arm automatically shielding Brann. Mungo was less than three score lengths away, Hodr close behind. Both looked fatigued from their uphill dash, and now that they were assured of overtaking her, she saw them slacken pace.

As Gar approached the summit, she turned to face him. “Mungo is after me!”

“
Gar hear.” He bounded toward her. Behind him, she saw a streak of gray fur closing fast.

“
Hodr is with him,” she said. “They have javelins.”

Gar reached her, his face wreathed in sweat, great chest heaving. He grabbed her free arm, glanced downhill at the oncoming men, and shoved her toward the rapidly approaching wolf.

Stretching his good arm, he spread his fingers and shoved his palm rearward in the ancient command to group and retreat. “Leya run. Take Fell.”

“
No!” She hurried to the cairn that someone from her tribe had erected to mark the temporary boundary between the two territories, laid Brann down, and turned back.

Gar scowled. “Do what Gar say! Take Brann. Go.”

She was astonished to see that his breathing had nearly stabilized. Fel came bounding over the snow and reared up. She reeled under his big paws, felt his wet tongue lick her face, heard his low growl as he looked beyond her.

“
We’ll fight them together,” she said.

They’d be killed, she thought. But they would die, anyway. At least this way, they would go to the Land of Shadows as a family.

Mungo and Hodr jogged closer, their javelins held low. Not having spares for throwing, they had obviously decided to mount a thrusting attack.

Gar gave a nod. “Stay near Fel. Throw stones at smaller one.”

Leya laid Brann behind the cairn. Loose stones had frost-heaved around the base, and she gathered an armful. Gar had moved to his left to face the advancing Mungo.

But what could he do, she thought, with a broken arm?

Fel paced between his two friends, whining and slavering. Leya grabbed his ruff, shoved him toward Brann, and moved toward the approaching Hodr, a stone in her right hand.

Mungo and Hodr approached abreast, and Leya knew they would go for Gar first. She noted that their breathing was still rapid, unlike Gar’s, which had returned to normal. So, he had endurance on his side. But what use would that be against javelins?

As the two hunters ventured closer, spears poised, Leya spread her feet and made ready to throw. “Hodr, Mungo was going to hurt Brann. I had to protect him.”

Hodr edged nearer, his gaze centered on the snarling Fel, breath coming more evenly. She caught his eye.

“
You don’t want to do this, Hodr.”

“
He’s my
brator.
”

Leya watched Mungo take the lead, his one-eyed gaze switching from Gar to her and back, his cheek-scar stretching livid below the fluid-soaked chamois that covered his ruined left eye.

“
You’re dead, Leya.” His single eye burned with hatred. “You and your Flathead lover and your animal
baban
.”