Grandmothers, Page 2

just had my small backpack. He wouldn't let me work too hard. The rest just laughed at us, they never said a thing about making a lazy lollie out of me like some would."

  Radovin relaxed and listened without commenting as Zhamavi described the long trek from the Summermeet to the White Horse band's winter camp, their old home off to the north and east. The band had been in no hurry, taking time to hunt and gather all the way back. They traveled at the peak of the season when grass seed was ripe and starting to fall, and there was plenty of that and other things to cache for winter. She had no time to feel homesick with all the work. The whole band moved here and there within their own territory for a while, digging roots, picking and drying fruit, harvesting nuts and seeds, netting migrating ducks and geese. Soon the southward flight of the sun signalled the time to hunt extra meat and cache it frozen for the cold heart of winter.

  While she talked, more listeners turned up. Jerevan came quietly into view. He smiled and signaled to someone out of sight; Havener and Karina joined him in a moment. None of them had their packs on now. Then Sabani arrived, with Anella and little Tucali. All of Zhamavi's grandchildren sat within hearing distance and kept silent except for an occasional exchange of whispers.

  Zhamavi went on reminiscing with her eyes half closed, carried away with the telling. She was apparently unaware of her growing audience.

  "It was the last big hunt before winter that I remember best. I was one of those girls who liked to play hunter. Papa never minded that, he'd laugh and say that if he didn't have any sons at least he had one good hunter. Ludo indulged me too. Well, I could have asked him for the moon and he'd have reached up to grab it for me. So I went along with my own spears, not just tagging along behind to butcher and carry. That was before we ever heard of those new-fangled bow things. My, but I'd have liked to try one of those if I had, back then.

  "We were hoping for bison, to get some extra warm hides along with the meat, but the good spirits saw fit to send us a herd of aurochs. Ludo said that with two shamans to call 'em we ought to get what we asked for. He was a terrible one with the jokes--you can see where Lovo got his sense of humor, ah?

  "Kayotar was quick with a smart word, though he had to explain some of his snappy come-backs before anyone could laugh. But that was because he came from someplace where they talked different--even thought different, he said. But he and--Vah! I'm going off the trail." She fluttered a hand, laughing at herself, and gave Radovin a rueful look. "You know all that."

  Radovin grinned and nodded. Mavi had told him some interesting tales last winter. He had never known his own father, the former shaman of the White Horse band, when the man was alive. Kayotar had died the year before Radovin first encountered him in a dream. At the time of Mavi's story, Kayotar was the band's second shaman, not yet an initiate of the highest circle but already infamous for his odd ways.

  She let her eyelids fall again and continued her narrative. "The herd was moving alongside a nearly dried-up river, grazing as they went, headed upstream. It was all dry feed, so we knew they'd be thirsty. We hid out in the bushes around a spot where the river came out of a deep cut and made a pool that never dried up. It was a good drinking-place with a well-marked trail. Couldn't have planned it better. They would head for the river even with the wind wrong.

  "Of course the cows were a bit spooky. You know how they are, with the wind behind them, not knowing for sure what's ahead. But they had to have that water they knew was there. They stayed tight together--all the better for us, when it came time to cast our spears. Some of the younger and older folk hid out a little farther back with hides to flap behind the herd when the action started. They had the most dung smeared on 'em." She chuckled a little at that.

  Radovin understood well what she was describing, although he had only recently gained some actual hunting experience. Even before, he had observed the behavior of animals, and had some uneasy encounters with large grazers. He had listened to many hunters' tales too, from the time he sat on his grandfather's lap. Hunting stories were always useful, you could pick up good tips. He nodded and listened with anticipation.

  "The bushes were on both sides of the trail, not really high enough for good cover even when the leaves were on 'em, but there were holes that we crouched down in. They dug them long ago; it was a regular place to hunt, not every year but often enough. Everything was going just fine. The herd came picking their way down toward the water. No one made a move too soon, or sneezed. Sanducar gave the signal--tchk!" she clicked her tongue, "and we jumped out, spears a-flying. The aurochs bawled and tried to run back, some leaping over those that were falling. But they panicked all over again at all the flapping and screaming behind them, turning back, running into each other.

  "We had a good second throw, close and confused as it was. I put a spear into a young cow and I was so happy to see her going down I never saw the bull charging at me. Ah! I'd have been a goner then and there, but Ludo wasn't far off. I heard him yell like crazy as he jumped, out of nowhere it seemed, and grabbed that bull by the horns. I just stood there with my mouth dropping open. It was one of the longest moments of my life.

  "He swung his long legs up and under the bull's neck, hanging off it like squirrel on a hazel bush. It tried to turn and shake him off at the same time, but he had it off its balance already. Mutamari, I could see the white of its eyes and the spit and blood stringing out of its mouth as it came close enough to touch with a digging stick and fell, ker-whump! right in front of me.

  "That was the end of it. The spear that was already in its chest must have been driven through its heart when it fell. It made a terrible cry and kicked, blood spraying out of its mouth and nose all over me and Ludo. I came unfrozen then and my legs went like cooked parsnips. I didn't faint, mind you;" she paused to shake a finger at Radovin, "but there I was on the ground, face to face with Ludo. Both of us were a terrible sight, all over blood.

  "'Are you all right?' I says to Ludo. My voice was a mouse-squeak. 'I'm sorry,' he says, 'I ran out of spears.'

  "The whole rest of the band came running to worry over us. They thought we were both dead, or almost, but oh, no." She paused for a chuckle that became a full-grown laugh. "Oh, they stopped with their mouths flopping open, because the two of us had started laughing like a tickled baby. I was rolling on the ground, I couldn't stop. Ludo had to be helped out from under the dead bull, he was laughing too hard to help himself. He wasn't hurt at all, just bruised a little."

  She wiped laughing tears from her eyes, and then blinked as she heard all the laughter and hand-slapping from those who had kept silent through the narrative. Radovin was already grinning and his grin went wider at the look on Zhamavi's face when she realized how many rapt listeners she had.

  "Och, when did you all creep up on us?"

  "Papa decided to stop early," Sabani said. "He's gone hunting with most of the men. They saw some red deer and thought they might get downwind easy."

  "So you're lolling here listening to old tales instead of gathering wood, ah?"

  "We can pick up plenty on the way back, Gran," Karina said.

  "Yeah, there's lotsa dead branches," Havener chipped in.

  "Come on, Gran, tell us some more," Jerevan wheedled. "I like hearing about when Grandpapa was young."

  "Oh, you've all heard it before," she said, waving a hand in deprecation.

  "Yeah, but you tell it so well," Anella said. "And...." the girl shrugged.

  "It's just like being there," Havener put in. Jerevan gave him a playful thump on the head that messed his hair, and he grinned back at his older brother.

  "That's all I'm good for any more, telling stories. Anybody can do that. Rado tells better stories than I do." Zhamavi shook her head and sighed.

  Radovin shrugged. "I can only tell what I've heard others tell. You can tell about things that you saw happen. That's like...giving us pieces of your memory, mixing one life into another, weaving all of us together. Or like using a bit of the old hucha to start a new batch, a
h?"

  Zhamavi cocked her head and gazed at him curiously. "You know, you sound so much like Kayotar. He told me once...ah, what were his words now...." She gazed upward behind her lowering eyelids and said, "'Nothing ever truly ends, or begins. Everything is connected, and you can see the whole world in the smallest grain of sand, the lives all who have ever lived in the life of one person.' That's what he said to me. It didn't mean much to me then."

  She refocused her eyes on the half-circle of young people. "I understand it now. When I look at you, I see the future. When I look inside myself, I see the past. And we are here together, sharing it, as you will some day with your grandchildren."

  Radovin nodded solemnly. "That's what grandmothers are for. And you're the only grandmother this band has." That was not quite true any more, technically, but Mavi was the only experienced grandmother, the only one with proper graying hair and a whole brood of grandchildren to love her.

  A tear rolled down her weathered cheek. Radovin began to get up. He was not the only one with an impulse to move. Tucali rushed to her grandmother and reached out to her, saying, "Don't cry, Gran-gran!" In another moment all of Zhamavi's grandchildren, and Radovin, had surrounded her in a mass hug. She did her best to include as many of them in her