Mammoth Boy (6 page)

They ate part of it raw, stowing the rest in a pouch to bake later.

Urrell wondered why Agaratz never cooked anything away from the home cave, however far afield they roamed. One day he asked: “Why not cook meat here?”

Agaratz was silent. The pause was so long it seemed he would not answer. Then he said, quietly, “Bad. Hunters see smoke.”

Since the bison hunters on the day he had met Agaratz, Urrell had seen no sign of humans in all their hunting trips across the savannah, or to the river. Only herds of horses and bison, far off, fattening for the migration south as winter would arrive, the time when Urrell knew his home group would migrate in parallel with the herds to the plains by the salt water to seek shellfish, crabs and flightless birds that drifted on the sea currents in vast flocks and sometimes came too near inshore in pursuit of shoals of fry, becoming stranded when the sea withdrew. Those were cold and often hungry times. Even the sea froze in places. Hunters died in the snowy wastes as they pursued game into the frozen woods where bison and horses sheltered, browsing on brushwood and bark, made alert by packs of wolves and all the members of the cat family, that preyed upon them. Some years when the cold became very great, the deer with the wide antlers were driven to the coast in search of grasses and lichens under the snow. His group lived out these months in caves beside the sea, as generations before them had, the mounds of cast-off shells from the food the women gathered at low tide proof of how long they had been coming. When hunting had been good and the fire blazed hot, old men told of monsters and huge beasts from those far-off times, creatures long since vanished. Yet deep in caves Urrell knew there were paintings of great power where these monsters lived on, secrets only a few initiates might visit.

When and whither would Agaratz migrate – along the river, perhaps?

“Agaratz, when the cold comes, where do you go?”

“Stay.”

“Stay – in the cold?”

“Yes, stay in cold.”

Urrell had heard tales of hunters dying on their own, unable to hunt enough to stay alive. Surviving the cold by the sea was hard, when the wolves, lions and panthers from the forest were famished and ate anything they caught.

“How… how can you live – in the cold, Agaratz?”

“I live. You see.”

“I see?”

“You see. You see with me.”

Urrell, so far as he had thought at all, knew his future lay with Agaratz, but had not thought of it like this. It was a reversal of all his experience to date.

“But, Agaratz, how can you hunt alone in the great cold?” His voice must have trembled at the prospect of starvation, of freezing to death, for Agaratz was firm yet consoling when he answered:

“You see. I hunt. You hunt.” There was no hint of the bullying or bragging of one of his home group’s hunters: Agaratz stated what he had done. Experience spoke; Urrell’s qualms subsided.

CHAPTER 8

“
Y
ou like to see wolves, Urrell?”

Wolves. They heard wolves most nights howling afar, responding to one another, or ‘singing’ as Agaratz called it. Nothing in Urrell’s life had led him to want to meet them. Wolves, he knew, unless ravenous, seldom attacked humans so long as one did not encroach on their territory. They warned, and one turned away.

“We go see.”

That evening Agaratz roasted two wildfowl and placed them on a shelf, out of reach of rats.

“Tomorrow we go see wolves,” he said, “take food.” Urrell wondered what he meant. Some sort of bait? Agaratz explained: “Long way. Need food.”

That night Urrell, sleeping in his burrow of branches, leaves and ferns, dreamt of wolves, of Agaratz as a wolf, of himself in a wolf ’s lair eating roast duck. When he awoke, the dreams had been so real he tried to describe them to Agaratz.

All he got was a nod and a grin.

“Take stone-thrower, pouch, spear-thrower, three spears,” said Agaratz, selecting three weapons from his store of antiquities, or ‘father’ as he called them.

These Agaratz laid on the cave floor. As Urrell watched, wondering, Agaratz took a flint flake and drew the outline of a wolf in a single easy line round the weapons, muttering over the drawing in a language unknown to Urrell and sprinkling ashes from the hearth over the three spears. The hunchback was entirely absorbed in his ceremony.

“Now wolf no harm,” he said.

It was scarcely light as they set out, not towards the river as Urrell had half expected but straight from the gulch towards the distant range of mountains that the boy fancied as ‘the land of mammoths’.

Agaratz moved at a faster clip than usual, as though a great distance lay ahead, Urrell trotting along behind, his excitement slowly subsiding as the rhythm of the journey took over. Agaratz was more alert than usual, so Urrell kept a lookout too. By mid-morning their cliffs had sunk below the grass line. Huge herds of bison, seas of shaggy shapes, grazed slowly southwards. Ponies scattered at the sight of the two humans, galloping off only to stop and turn as if to see whether they were being pursued by such a puny pair. Deer loped away. Overhead vultures wheeled in ever-smaller circles as they descended on a distant carcass.

By the time the sun had passed its zenith the grasslands were beginning to break up into gullies and ravines. “Wolves soon,” said Agaratz. He pulled one of the cold fowls from the pouch and tore it into two rough halves, one for Urrell, one for himself, which they squatted to eat, their weapons on the ground by them, their eyes watchful.

Nothing disturbed their meal except marmosets popping up to stare at such unexpected visitors to their domain. When they had eaten, Agaratz descended into the ravine ahead, along a way he seemed to know, Urrell following. Across the bottom and up the other side to the top, where Agaratz beckoned Urrell to move with stealth. Over the rim of the next ravine Agaratz pointed at a burrow in the opposite bank, the earth worn at the entrance.

The secret place, the smell of weeds.

“Wolfs,” said Agaratz. He touched Urrell on the arm, sensing his fear.

The burrow remained blank. Agaratz began to make whimpering sounds. Soon a snout and pricked ears appeared at the burrow entrance and a she-wolf emerged, sniffing the air and locating the direction of the sounds. Urrell saw her dugs in milk. Her cubs would be in the den, her mate and the pack not far, ready to defend. Agaratz’s whimpering changed to a low call and the she-wolf, ears pricked, loped down the bank, across the bottom and up to where Agaratz and Urrell were crouched. Urrell moved to flee but Agaratz’s grip held him back.

“Stay. You see.”

The she-wolf came right up to Agaratz, licked his hand and rolled on her back. She showed every sign of pleasure at seeing him and answered his snuffling sounds with snuffles of her own. She turned and went back down the incline towards her burrow. Agaratz slithered down after her. At the bottom he looked and saw Urrell still on the ridge.

“Come, Urrell. Come, safe.”

Against all instinct, he did so, his trust in Agaratz overcoming all he had ever heard about not approaching female wolves, bears, lions and other animals with young. The trust was borne out when the she-wolf, at the entrance to the burrow, with whimpering sounds of her own, coaxed out her litter. They appeared, one after the other, biggest first, shy of the visitors, cowering near the entrance.

“Wolfs, eh?” said Agaratz.

“How do you do this, Agaratz, you speak to a she-wolf with cubs?”

“This wolf, my wolf.”

“Your wolf?”

“Yes. I keep when small.”

She approached Agaratz and when close dropped to a creeping stance, crawling towards him, submissive and friendly in answer to his cajoling sounds.

Shyer, drawn between following their mother and fear of the unknown, the cubs lagged behind, the smallest hanging back farthest. Their mother was three paces from Agaratz when she flattened her ears and looked away up the ravine. Their eyes followed hers. Standing, tail upright, was a big male wolf, slightly ahead of his pack. Urrell knew straightaway he was the pack leader and the father of the cubs. His hand tightened on his spear. If the wolves attacked to defend their pack’s cubs, he and Agaratz would be overwhelmed. He glanced up the ravine side: it would be too steep to scramble up with wolves in pursuit. He looked to see what Agaratz meant to do and saw only unconcern. What he was about to witness would raise both his boyish respect of and his devotion to Agaratz higher than ever.

Agaratz fixed his eyes on those of the lead wolf and began to call it in a low, coaxing bark, at the same time crouching wolf-like, bending forward and mimicking the stiff, prancing manner of a dog-wolf approaching a rival. The big wolf responded in kind, prancing forward aslant on the balls of his feet, tail erect, till man and wolf were level, flank to flank. They circled. Urrell stood still, breath held: any sudden movement and they would both be torn apart. The pack, too, held back. Meanwhile, the she-wolf, crouching where she had been near Agaratz, kept up a snuffling sound directed at the two. Her cubs had scampered back into their burrow.

Weaponless, Agaratz circled the dog-wolf as the dog-wolf circled him and such was his mimickry of wolf behaviour that beneath the jerkin and breeches Urrell momentarily saw a wolf in human skin. He blinked his eyes. It was Agaratz again. He had a strange feeling that Agaratz was performing for his benefit, the stray boy, his sole witness.

Suddenly, the tension broke, the big dog trotted over to his bitch, ignoring both Agaratz and Urrell, nuzzling her in greeting. At this signal the pack followed and milled around. Soon the cubs came out again, the smallest last, and began cavorting with elder siblings in the pack. Urrell stood there, unbelieving, his eyes going from wolf to wolf as they moved about ignoring this human in their midst.

When the dog-wolf had broken off the confrontation, Agaratz had straightened up, his attention elsewhere. Urrell noticed the pallor, the vacant look in the eyes, usually agleam with malice, fun and meaning. He shook, or was it a tremor that ran through his body – either as far as Urrell could tell – then he moved towards the she-wolf which was rolling in submission before her mate. The pallor vanished and Agaratz became himself again before the boy’s troubled gaze.

“You want wolf, Urrell?”

CHAPTER 9

T
he question was so unexpected that Urrell, still afraid to move, could find no answer. When he tried, he yammered uncontrollably, unable to use his throat, and instead of words broke into paroxysms of tears that surprised him almost as much as they seemed to surprise Agaratz. He stood there, a little boy again, in an alien place, wolves all around. Dimly he knew that what he had witnessed lay beyond any experience he, his band or even Old Mother had ever known.

Just as dimly he sensed that to enter into such experience needed the companionship of a wolf.

“Yes, I would like a wolf.”

Agaratz nodded. “Come.”

He led Urrell – pulled him – from the spot where he was rooted and drew him, without the least concern, through the wolves to the cubs and squatted with them. He made the comfort sounds of a she-wolf to her young. They sat on their behinds and looked at Agaratz expectantly. Here he took from his pouch the second roast wildfowl, which he began to tear apart and feed in tidbits to the cubs. Delicately each in turn accepted the treat, taking the shreds of meat from his fingers and gulping them. Last to receive her share was the smallest, the shyest cub, a she, woollier than the rest, the litter’s runt. Agaratz picked her up and as she squirmed he rubbed noses with her till she quietened.

“You take, Urrell.”

Urrell did, awkwardly, an eye askance at the parents. But they went on with their bonding behaviour, the female on her back wriggling on the ground, her mate standing astride her. None of the other wolves showed any concern.

“Now we go.” Agaratz seemed keen to leave. On his way he picked up his own and Urrell’s weapons, and followed by Urrell encumbered with his cub, now contentedly cuddled in his arms, they scrambled up the ravine side. Once at the top, they turned to look at the wolves a last time, and Agaratz again surprised Urrell: he threw his head back and howled as a wolf howls in a long ululation, beautiful to hear, and was answered by other wolves and far-off packs along the horizon.

The dog-wolf looked up and replied in song, chorussed by his pack, heads raised and their eyes on the two humans outlined on the rim of the ravine. When the call sank away, Agaratz turned and led off at a brisk clip to the grasslands, towards their distant cliff home, Urrell trotting behind him bearing his furry burden asleep in his arms.

Twice during their journey Agaratz stopped to call the wolves and each time they answered from the direction of the ravine. The third time, within view of the cliffs, as dusk fell, his call went unanswered. They were beyond earshot of the pack.

Urrell’s contentment with his newfound companion knew no end. He had once kept an injured squirrel as a pet; sometimes girls nursed and played with fledglings till they flew. But to own a wolfling! His gratitude and wonder at Agaratz’s ability to go and fetch one so simply grew greater yet.

Once in the cave, the fire lit and meat roasting, his new charge’s playfulness was revealed in full. It chased twigs, played with pinecones, soon learnt not to fear the fire, and adopted Urrell as its leader. That first night and thereafter it cuddled up with him as they snuggled into the leaves and dry grass of the bedding in the recess. He wondered what to call it. Agaratz would know.

Those late weeks of summer were the boy’s happiest yet. His wolf cub followed him everywhere, grew fast, losing its puppyish down and taking on the sleek lines of her kind. She mimicked Urrell’s behaviour when out hunting and foraging, learning to obey commands and signs.

Agaratz watched the relationship with his amused look, those fleeting grins, as fast to flit across his face as the wistfulness that Urrell had learnt not to question

“Soon, big cold come,” Agaratz said one morning when the autumn air felt chill.

“Why not go, like others, like bison and horses, to the lowlands, Agaratz?”