Zamimolo’s Story, 50,000 BC Page 7

  Mechalu uncovered the wrapping on Olomaru-mia’s foot. The foot had healed well and the redness had gone. It still caused her some pain, and he was convinced that she should not walk on her foot unprotected. He replaced the covering.

  “You know how to cut leather strips, do you not?” he asked.

  “Yes. Of course. What do you want?”

  “I want some thin but strong strips. I have leather in that pile that you can use. We need to head for home, and I want something to protect your feet. Your feet are soft. I will make foot coverings for both your feet. Is there much pain from your foot now?”

  “No more than I can tolerate. I can walk on it.” The thought of trekking was intimidating, but she would not hold him back.

  Mechalu looked at her standing with the sun behind her. Her energy had increased since he’d taken care to heal her foot and provide good food. She kept her hair properly combed and pulled back. The sun made it glow all about her. The sight of her overwhelmed him. He strode purposely to her and circled her in his arms, pressing her as if he might crush her. The action took her by complete surprise and her body, instead of rejecting him, responded. He kissed her passionately and then held her away from him, leaving her mind web spinning.

  “Ah, your beauty and strength took me by surprise, Olomaru-mia. I forgot myself for a moment. Because we will join, I cannot have you until we complete the ceremony at home. It gives me great joy, though, that you responded. We will have such a great life filled with passion and children. I must be much more careful.”

  Olomaru-mia was dumbfounded. She did not reply to Mechalu, turning inward to her own thoughts. What was she doing responding to this man, her abductor, the thief! She rebuked herself. She was promised to Zamimolo. Then she reminded herself of the winds of change. Is this what Wisdom had planned for her all along. Was her response to Mechalu pleasing to Wisdom? It was all too confusing. She turned away from giving time to those thoughts and went to the leather. Her hands were free now and she was able to use the flint knife to cut the leather. What differences a few days made.

  Olomaru-mia took the hard stiff leather piece and used it to back up the softer leather she’d cut for the strips. She cut carefully trying to make the strips he’d requested as parallel and straight as possible. She was grateful that Mechalu thought to make foot coverings for her. He had some good qualities. She also knew he was strong and experienced passion.

  By evening Mechalu had finished the foot coverings. Fur lined the bottom of the foot coverings. By taking flexible leather he had covered her foot and brought all the corners up to her ankle where he had threaded the leather strips through slits and tied the whole together. He had then wrapped strips around the foot covering to smooth it to fit her foot. The foot coverings would definitely protect her feet.

  “We leave in the morning,” he told her.

  Olomaru-mia was not pleased. She realized that the closer she approached his home, the closer she came to a fixed change in her life. Once she joined Mechalu, she would find herself in an irrevocable bond. She understood that Zamimolo would not find her to prevent this joining. She tried to resign herself to it, but that thread of hope would not break. She walked to the tall grass to relieve herself.

  “Stop!” Mechalu shouted. “Don’t move,” he said evenly as he ran to where she stood.

  Olomaru-mia did not move, wondering what threat existed.

  Mechalu hacked at a branch above her with an elongated blade on a wooden handle, and a snake in brilliant yellow fell to the ground in two pieces.

  “What is that?” she asked breathless.

  “It’s a poisonous snake,” he replied. “Look,” he held the two pieces up for her to examine. The snake was the length of his arm.

  “It’s beautiful,” she admitted.

  “It’s poisonous,” he said flatly. Mechalu could not find beauty in anything poisonous. “You must avoid them. Snakes can be colorful like this or match the plants on which they rest. Look to branches above you not only at the ground. Look for color and shape.” Mechalu felt an urgency to get her home to his people. Harmful snakes or other animals rarely entered the village.

  “I will do that,” she replied.

  When the first rays of light hit their sleeping place, Mechalu got up and checked his backpack. He had made a smaller one for Olomaru-mia. He checked hers also. Both contained all that they planned to take with them on this final trek.

  Olomaru-mia started to put on the foot coverings Mechalu had made, but he hurried over to put them on her. First, however, he wanted to check the site of the foot injury. He decided to wash it again and reapply the honey and herbs. Satisfied that the wound was healing well, he wrapped the foot. He placed the fur insert against the sole of her foot. Then he added the foot covering. He tied the strips around the foot covering well, but not too tightly. He went to his cache of leather and put a few extra pieces in his backpack.

  Olomaru-mia had put fruit on the servers. To the fruit Mechalu had added some roasted peccary meat. Olomaru-mia had seen the animal when Mechalu brought it to camp. It reminded her of the boars she’d occasionally eaten before they traveled to this new land. She could not detect a difference in the taste of boar and peccary. The two ate without talking.

  Olomaru-mia broke the silence. “Are you going to tie my hands and put that rope around my neck?”

  “Do you plan to obey me?” Mechalu asked instead of answering.

  “Yes,” she admitted convincingly.

  “Then, no, I will not tie you up.”

  Olomaru-mia was grateful for the choice. She hated being tied. It was uncomfortable, but worse—it was demeaning. She realized it depended on her. Either she was a captive in which case she would be tied, or she was Mechalu’s future wife in which case she was free. For her to try to escape was futile. She’d only die in the forests. She’d choose freedom from the ropes.

  They shrugged on their backpacks and headed out. Olomaru-mia was surprised that they began to climb another mountain. She was also beginning to understand that Mechalu understood the forest and its pathways very well. She followed dutifully carefully staying right behind him.

  As they gained elevation, the clouds settled on the mountain gently, as if they were birds lowering themselves on egg-filled nests. Olomaru-mia realized they were walking inside clouds. The blurriness that the clouds created added a different note of scenic beauty to the eyes of Olomaru-mia. It drew from her a sense of respect, a quiet of step that otherwise might not be there.

  Later in the day they reached the seashore. Mechalu had a temporary camp in the trees not far from the beach. They went to the shore and laid down their burdens. Each began to do the work that would be required for them to eat. Mechalu had gone down the beach while Olomaru-mia gathered wood for a fire and laid out implements that might be useful if they intended to cook anything. Mechalu did not think to share his plans, but rather he would wander off and return with food of some type.

  Olomaru-mia walked down to the water’s edge. She stood looking back at the mountain they’d crossed. It wasn’t the tallest they’d been across, but it was a mountain. She looked at the clouds that drifted almost imperceptibly from north to south across the neck of the mountain as if it wore a fluffy white rabbit skin about its neck and shoulders for warmth in the evening. Above the mountain moving not fast but quicker than the lower clouds, there were darker clouds moving from south to north. She wondered at the wind blowing in opposite directions at different speeds and, shading her eyes, she looked at the sky, thinking of Wisdom and the winds of change. Between the clouds she could see the setting sun’s rays. The beauty of the place did not escape her. The turquoise water, the very light colored sand contrasting with the palm trees at the shore and forest with every green color and shape possible beyond, trimmed by white clouds and darker ones, and the sun’s rays as it began to descend was breathtaking to her. She fought the sense of assurance that all would be well with a sense of duty to what had been. She knew she had to
let go of the past, but she continued to carry it as a burden.

  Mechalu arrived with a number of crabs without pinchers. He had removed them. He pulled out the cooking bag and Olomaru-mia immediately fashioned the place where the bag would hang near the stones they would drop in the bag for boiling.

  “What are those things?” she asked.

  “Crabs,” he replied. “See here. These are the claws. I remove them so nobody gets hurt. Have you ever eaten crab?”

  “No.” She looked at him and the crabs. The crabs looked hard. She touched one and it was very hard.

  “How do you eat it?” she asked.

  “First, you need to know how to cook it. See this red color?” He showed her a leaf. You cook the crab until it turns red like this. I’ll crack them for you, show you what to eat, and how to remove the meat. It is a wonderful food. Go to the sea, find the light green sea plant at the edge of the water, and bring some up to go with the crabs. It is not like leaves on a tree but rather like this.” Using a crab claw, he drew a clumpy looking blob with curly outer edges in the sand. “We’ll add it to the bag just before we eat.”

  Olomaru-mia had no trouble finding the seaweed Mechalu described. She brought it back and by then it was time to add it to the bag. The crabs were almost red. Mechalu reached both the top and bottom shells from the back, using pressure to pull the top of the shell from the bottom with his fingers. He showed her the yellow material in the center, which she could eat if she liked it, and the gray fingers atop the crab’s body to avoid. He used his knife to split the hard structures on either side of the crab to get at the crab’s meat. Mechalu cracked open the claw, pressing his knife against the shell on one side, just splitting the shell, not going all the way through, and then on the other so that the meat came out whole. He placed some claw meat on one leaf and some on another, handing one to Olomaru-mia. She delighted in the taste of the crab and the seaweed. She learned fast to open the crabs and to get at the meat. Having no knife of her own to open the claws, she had so share Mechalu’s. Both ate their fill using a twig to pull out the few hard-to-reach pieces of crabmeat. Mechalu had no need to ask what she thought of it. She had meticulously picked every piece of meat from the shells. The sky was filling with stars and the fire was pleasantly warm. Olomaru-mia remembered the cold of their former home. She considered this a much more convenient way to live.

  “How is your foot?” Mechalu asked, stretched out on a piece of leather, his head propped on his hand from a bent arm.

  “It is almost well. The foot coverings were a very good help. My foot hurt only a little. Thank you.”

  Mechalu nodded. “That’s good.” Mechalu was pleased with himself. “Tomorrow we walk along the shore. You won’t need foot coverings there. We will look for boats. If we see boats, we will step into the trees and hide until I can determine who sails. You must be quiet. Understand?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “You will remain silent?”

  “I will.”

  “Good. I will not need to stuff your mouth with leather. Some people from the far south try to capture others. They travel by boat. They make captives do their work. We must take care not to cross their paths.”

  Olomaru-mia mused at the incongruity of his concern about capture while she sat there captured. She certainly didn’t wish to be captured to be used as a slave. She knew about slaves. When one of her People was too difficult to live with, either they would be traded as slaves to boatmen or be killed. Most preferred death. It did not sound as if Mechalu intended to use her as a slave but rather have her as a wife. Still, she reasoned, he had captured her. At least she knew him. He treated her well. She didn’t want to be captured by anyone else.

  The sky which had been gray for days was clear. Mechalu had made a quick sleeping place for the night in the limbs of a tree by lacing broken dead branches among the living tree branches. He circled the trunk of the tree, careful to cover the bark with his urine. He laid a skin over the branches. They climbed up the trunk and lay there in the branches with leaves and stars above them. Olomaru-mia had never thought to sleep in a tree. The gentle movement from the wind rocked her and calmed her weary soul. To suspend thought and worry for a time to gaze upon something as beautiful as the night sky gave her peace, something she had not felt for quite a while.

  Mechalu gently pulled her to him and hugged her dispassionately. He felt her body melt against his. They had come a long way together; they had a long way to go. She had ceased to fight him. He believed that he was finally winning her. They drifted off to sleep.

  Dawn brought crashing noises through the forest. It seemed that an elephant was chasing something at the edge of the forest. It bellowed and birds and monkeys screamed. Only the bugs seemed to quiet themselves. The elephant was moving to the north, so the two of them climbed from the tree, took their things, and made their way to the beach. They headed south as quickly as possible. They could see broken trees to their right in a swath created by the elephant. They had no desire to be near that big animal while it was being so fearsome.

  As they walked, Mechalu took Olomaru-mia’s hand and she did not withdraw it. He looked to the water and no boats were visible. His ears, always attuned to the sounds of the forest, told him that after the incident with the elephant, at least no people were in the forest. All had returned to normal. Normal included the ground sloth that was at the edge of the forest, eating leaves from the top of a tree. Mechalu pointed it out to Olomaru-mia who wanted to flee to the water.

  “Calm yourself,” Mechalu said quietly, holding her hands tightly, “As long as you don’t aggravate the giant, it won’t bother you. It’s just eating the leaves it likes above all others.” The sloth stood on its feet and used its tail for support. It was easily four times the height of Mechalu.

  They passed the ground sloth, and it paid no attention to them. Olomaru-mia was dumbfounded. She kept looking back to see whether it followed. It didn’t.

  Mechalu went from walking with her hand-in-hand to walking with his arm around her, above her short backpack, and his hand on her shoulder. Again, she did not pull away. He pointed out various trees, telling her which ones bore edible fruit, which were good for wood fires, which bore nuts. She tried to learn all the new information. Sometimes it felt overwhelming. He showed her parrots, snakes, and monkeys that she had not seen. He showed her how to see the forest and understand what it had to tell as well as show. He told her to listen. The forest was relatively quiet. He told her it was a time of resting. No snakes were threatening monkeys or birds; big animals were not prowling nearby. They did not trouble the forest animals, because they walked along the shore, far enough from the forest to be viewed as safe. No people were in the forest. Somewhere in the walk, Olomaru-mia gently put her hand on Mechalu’s back at the side of his backpack. He avoided showing any reaction at all, but his joy was great.

  “We will eat crab again?” Olomaru-mia asked him.

  “You liked it enough to choose it two nights in a row?”

  “I didn’t get my fill yet,” she replied smiling a genuine smile.

  “This evening, I’ll show you how to find and catch them. We’ll hunt together for crabs and end this day with a feast.”

  Olomaru-mia looked up at him and smiled again.

  Deep from the forest the sound of a cat’s growl and shriek rolled outward to their ears.

  Olomaru-mia stopped dead in her tracks. “What was that?” she asked, frightened.

  “Big-tooth cat,” Mechalu replied. It has probably threatened another animal to stay away from its kill.

  “You can understand that from its sound?”

  “This is thick forest. You have to learn what the sounds mean to live here. It’s not a mystery. You just have to learn to hear.”

  “You’ve made me see that my eyes don’t know how to see this place, and my ears don’t know how to hear it. What else is there I must learn to survive here?”

  “Olomaru-mia, do what I tell you. O
bey me. I love you. So, look first to me. Then, when I tell you about the way to understand the sounds you just heard, store that information carefully, so the next time you’ll understand. As you learn to use your eyes and ears, you’ll find it easier to know what you see and hear. Did you live in open spaces in your old land?”

  “No, we lived in forests, but the animals were not as plentiful and they mostly stayed in the valleys. We never saw the animals I’ve seen here.”

  It was Mechalu’s turn to be surprised. “You never saw a sloth until today?”

  “No.”

  “What about elephants?”

  “We had elephants, but they didn’t look like these. Do bears live here?”

  “We have only one bear. It’s black. Its head when on all legs is higher than our tallest man’s head. Fortunately, bears don’t live near where we live. They live much farther south. I have seen some when I was younger.”

  “The animals here don’t seem to frighten you, but to me it’s a place where you can become overpowered by beasts at every turn. This land seems so unsafe.”

  They stood at the water’s edge. They faced each other and Mechalu put his arms gently around her. “That’s why you need a husband, Olomaru-mia. I know this place and how to protect us and the children we’ll have. I know how to use the amazing numbers and variety of food in this place to see that we never hunger. This is a great land. Do not fear it—just depend on me and my people to assure your safety. Learn what’s safe and what isn’t. It won’t take you long. Then, do what’s expected of you to keep the balance of work even.

  “I am not lazy, Mechalu.”

  “I am certain your words are true. You are wonderful, Olomaru-mia.”

  While they hugged, Olomaru-mia felt a stabbing pain in her belly. To be listening to those words, to feel comfortable in the presence of her abductor still caused her pangs of guilt. She also reckoned that if Wisdom would cause the winds of change to bring her life to this, she should continue to yield to it. Her conflict hadn’t resolved, but it had become easier to face when it arose. She tried to tell the guilt it was time for it to leave, but that didn’t really work.