18
PARTISAN REVIEW
this safe fire.
I worked there with Them for some days and again I became sad be–
cause of my brothers. This time I showed Them I wanted to take fire and
They helped me, putting the red fire stones into a long stick that had a
hole, and putting leaves down over the red. I carried this up the mountain
and when I got to our cave my brothers had been and gone. I tried to
find some wood and some dry leaves but then the fire stones were black
and cold.
I saw that if I wanted to keep fire alive I must gather a lot of wood
and grass but up there in the snows there is no wood and grass. And what
would my brothers say? For they had not seen the fire burning in its safe
place in the huts.
I thought a long time about the fire . I could not keep it alive unless
my brothers wanted it too. Down there there is always someone watching
the fire and bringing wood for it. And we would have to move down the
mountain to a lower place where finding wood was easy. We would have
to change everything we did, to have the safe fire .
I wandered
till
I found my brothers. There were only two now - one
had gone off to be the Male of the Females. They were eating flowers off
the tree that has a smell that if you sniff it too much you have to go down
on four legs, or sit or sleep until you can stand on two legs again. My
brothers would not look at me. They moved away when I came near
them. I gave them some of the food They had given me. My brothers
sniffed it, and tasted. They did not like it. I did not like it either when I
first had it. My brothers did not like me. I was so afraid oflosing my place
with them that I stayed and they got used to me again, and I went with
them to visit our Females and our infants, and my brother who was their
Male now let us mate with them a little. But all the time I thought of
Them, I could feel Them inside me, I longed for Them and their soft
high birds' voices and long shining hair.
I went back to Them though I was afraid to leave my brothers. I
found Them digging in the earth they had cleared of stones. I worked
with Them. Sometimes I forgot to keep a distance and was close, as if I
was one of Them, but I saw how They didn't like it and always made a
distance. I did not know why. I had never hurt Them, I had never made
any noise of warning or threat. Then one day I dropped my dung not far
from one and saw on their faces a look I understood.
It
was what I felt so
often with my brothers now and with the Females when I saw how big
and ugly and rough they are. I understood suddenly that They always
drop their dung in a special place. I found a place in the rocks and I put
my dung there. They saw me and I heard Them talk while They pointed
to me and made sounds like the Noisy Bird. They were pleased. I could
see it. I wanted to make Them pleased, I wanted to be like Them. When
