16
PARTISAN REVIEW
plants in a hut. These seeds are what They grind in a hollow stone to
make the soft food. I hid in the rocks waiting for Them to come out, so
They would ask me to go with Them into a hut, but the openings into the
huts were not there, and then once the hut opened and the Female came
out with a Male, and she shook her hand at me, but the Male with her
pulled her back into the hut and the hut closed. So I saw I must come
back up here.
It has been a long bad snow-time. Very cold. We have been hungry.
We slept most of the time.
It
got so cold I was with them in a huddle,
our arms around each other and I would not let them push me away.
Soon I must have lost the smell of Them, for my brothers were glad of
my warmth with theirs. Sometimes I think they forget quickly, more
quickly than I do. This thought makes me afraid. Once when the storm
stopped for a little we went out and found a sick hare and we ate that.
There were nuts on a tree and we had a feed, but then I remembered
Them and what They do, and I pulled down branches of nuts and
dragged them to the cave . My brothers scolded me and hit me but then
they saw what I was doing was useful. If we can make beds of grass for
the winter, then why not keep nuts or grass heads? We always eat the
grass heads from our bedding when there is no other food. Several times
when the snow stopped we went out and found nuts and some berries the
birds had missed, and so we had a little food for the worst days . It was a
long long cold time. Eight moons got thin and fat and thin again, and
then I saw how far below us, below the snows, the green was back. All
that long cold time I was thinking of Them in Their warm huts and the
fires burning and how They talk, making sounds like birds or like water.
Whenever I was awake I thought of Them. Sometimes my thoughts of
Them woke me and I sat at the cave mouth wishing I was with Them,
until I got too cold and had to go back to the huddle of my brothers.
When the air was warm we four went down through the high snow
that was melting into the streams where the Females live in their place
with their Male. We found them outside their cave on a place where the
snows had gone. Each had an infant. Their Male was not there: he was
dead. He was an old male. And now my brothers and I looked angrily at
each other. We growled and scuffied together, but then each ran up
through the trees and the half-gone snow to the Females, who stood
waiting, each with her infant held close. Now that there was no Male we
did not have to wait until he had gone off or sneak in when he was
mating with one. But there were four of us and three of them. My
brothers hit each other and wrestled and I went in quickly and mated
with the one I got last time the warmth came. They saw what I was
doing and
all
three came to fight me but then one took his opportunity
and grabbed a female and then another. Soon we
all
had our turns and
