The First Jumper (first draft version)

The First Jumper 51: Southward

Otter awoke early, and went out to the cave mouth.  

It was even colder, and the wind that swept down the mountain smelled of snow.  It was early dawn.  They would need to move, and quickly.

He went back to the cavern, and gathered his spears, throwing stick, and Raccoon’s medicine bag, that Little Bear had carried for so long.  “All who are going south,” he said, “meet out in the bear cave.  We will leave right away.”

It was two hours before the full group got underway.  Seven men and thirteen women walked down the valley, accompanied by sixty children.  The seven men and twenty-one women remaining behind had well over a hundred children among them.

Each half of the tribe had a spear maker and apprentice, and a fire maker and apprentice, and a medicine man or woman and apprentice.  Many of the children on both sides were nearly ready to become adults, so neither tribe would be short of either warriors or women, as long as they could live through the current change in the weather.

Most families had stayed intact, but some had split to both tribes.  Ash, who was Tiger’s mother and still unchosen, despite having had six more children by different men in the tribe, chose to come south.  She took general charge of Willow’s children.

Maybe it would be enough, Otter thought.  Maybe the rest will be able to find enough food.

They carried with them only enough food to last the day.  They had left all their precious smoked meat behind, at Tiger’s insistence, and Otter had not argued.  If he was right, the group in the cave would need it far more than his group would.  He would rather leave it behind, than have nightmares about the tribe starving when his smoked meat might have helped them.

Otter pushed them as fast as they could go, and they managed to get all the way to the edge of the wood by nightfall.  After a night huddled around a generous fire, at which they feasted on the four rabbits killed by Otter as they walked, the new tribe began to get moving at first light.  Snow was falling as they began the descent to the warmer plains below.

When they got to the bottom, it was still cold, but Otter looked up to where the rest of his former tribe sheltered in the caves.

“They will make it, Little Bear” said Orchid, huddling to his side as she had done, ever since he had saved her from the sabertooth as a child.  Otter wondered if she even knew she called him by his father’s name, half the time.

“Maybe,” said Otter.  “But I’m afraid this winter will last much longer than previous long winters.  Maybe they will be able to survive.  Some of them, anyway.”

He looked at the crowd of children coming down, and plopping down to rest.  He smiled, and said, “At least he didn’t fuss about my bringing out all of Willow’s children.”  Then his smile went away, as he thought of Briar’s angry expression at his taking them.  She didn’t like them, but she didn’t want Otter taking them, either.  He shuddered, then shook his head, sadly, at the savagery of life on this planet.  The Tarshen people might have had a history like this, but it was long before they recorded anything.

Otter was surprised that he thought of himself as Otter, not as Gerleesh, and not as Little Bear.  His memories of Tarshen were still clear and sharp, as were his memories of life as Little Bear.  His human memories as Otter were the same as they had been before.  He was Otter, not Little Bear or Gerleesh.  Yet he was also Little Bear, and he was Gerleesh, too.

It was quite different than he had imagined it might be, either as Otter or as Little Bear/Gerleesh.  It would take him many, many years to get used to it.

When everyone was safely down, Gopher took up the rear, while Otter led the way in front, at a jog which was slow enough for all but children who could be carried could manage.

The Chief of the Little Bear tribe led his people south, under graying skies and chilling winds.  Up in the forest, where the late summer temperature was already below freezing, the snow was falling, thick and fast.

finis

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