The First Jumper (first draft version)

The First Jumper 38: The Chief

Then everyone repeated the key phrase, and balance was restored, although they were still unsettled.  Each remembered things Cave Bear had done as tribe leader, or kindness he had shown, or his prowess in hunting and war.  Many were weeping as they spoke.

Tiger finished, with “He was a strong father.”

“I remember Cave Bear,” the rest said.

When a long enough silence had stood above the fire to honor Cave Bear, Raccoon stood and held more leaves.  Apple caught his eye, and nodded.  He threw the leaves on the fire, and Apple started the remembrance for Violet.  “She was more gentle with children than any mother I knew.  I wish some of hers had lived.”

“I remember Violet.”

On they went, remembering Violet and then Chestnut.

Tiger was almost unable to speak for Violet.  She had been as much his mother as Ash had been, if not more.  Chestnut was nearly the same.  So much loss in one day, and it is all Little Bear’s fault!  If he had let Cave Bear die with dignity, Violet and Chestnut would be alive right now, he thought.

What he said was, “I remember that I could hear her smile in her voice, lighting up even the long dark.”

“I remember Violet.”

After the silence for Chestnut, Tiger stood.  He looked slowly around at the entire tribe, and they could see he was wearing the Cave Bear teeth that had been his father’s.  

Then he spoke to Ash and Apple.  “Whom do you choose?”

Ash should have spoken first, as the senior wife, but Apple spoke up instantly, and said,  “I choose Little Bear.”  She got up, holding Otter by the hand, and walked over to where Little Bear sat with her daughter Blueberry and Aspen, and sat down.  

Ash did not say anything, but her face was tight and flushed.  Apple’s last act as co-wife had been to throw her an open insult.

Blueberry looked unhappy, but she also did not object.  She was pretty sure her mother had managed to sneak away with Little Bear, not just once but many times in the long dark, and she was even more sure Cave Bear had not been the father of Otter.  Still, she did love Otter, too, and part of that was because he reminded her so much of Little Bear.

When Apple was settled, Ash stood, and said, “I am unchosen.”  The tribe stirred at that, but no one objected.  An unchosen woman was the wife of no man.  She could choose a man later, if he would accept her, but she did not have to.  Unchosen women tended to bring strife, because while they had no husband, they still tended to have babies.  In times of famine, they and their children starved first.

Tiger clenched his jaw, but all he said was, “Ash is unchosen.”  Tiger hoped the respect in which Ash had been held as Cave Bear’s wife would protect her from the usual fate of the unchosen.  The most frequent end to an unchosen woman was to be driven out of the tribe by the other women.  If she made herself a nuisance and another tribe was handy, she might be sold without choice rights to another tribe, where the Chief could use her if he wanted himself, or hand her over to whomever he wanted to reward.

Instead of sitting down where she had been, Ash walked around the fire to where Ox was sitting near Dire Wolf.  With a significant smile at Apple, Ash sat down beside the young warrior, who was the only man in the tribe without any wife at all.

Ox, who was, unlike his father Dire Wolf, very shy, smiled at her, uncertainly.

Tiger looked around at the tribe again.  He looked particularly long at both Dire Wolf and Little Bear.  Both looked back at him, but neither looked to challenge him.