20
PARTISAN REVIEW
don't know how to say what happened. There was a terrible noise. We
had never heard anything like that noise, worse than the big storms that
make sounds like rocks falling off a cliff or worse than the winds that
scream around the cave in the cold time. The noise was like the beating
of a wings of a bird bigger than any bird we knew and then over the trees
came black birds but they were not birds, for how could any bird be so
big. The noise seemed to shake us inside, and bang inside our heads, and
my brothers wanted to run away into the trees but the big birds would
see them there and I made them go into the cave, at the back, for I knew
the big birds were hunting for us, they kept swooping low like eagles
over hares or rats. The big black birds were hunting us a long time, and
my brothers were screaming and crying though I tried to make them
quiet, but then one was quiet. And when the big birds had gone away, a
brother was dead. He died of fear. There were two of us now, and the
dead one was heavy. We did not know what to do. We must not take the
dead one out and push him down over the cliff because the Big Birds
might see him and know there were others near. We waited until every–
thing was quiet, and then the ordinary birds begin to talk quietly as they
do, and we dragged the dead brother out, and around the corner of the
mountain and to another cave lower than our cave and left him there.
We knew a tiger would come, or the dogs that always run together.
My brother was crying and he was shivering and shaking and when
he could talk he said it was all because of me, because I went to the
Others and now They were hunting us. I said I did not think They
would hunt us, They were our friends. But he screamed at me and ran
away from me down to where our Females are with my other Brother,
and he said he would make them go right away from their place back to
the mountains where the Old Ones brought us from long ago. I said that
the Old Ones came from those mountains because they were afraid of
being hunted there , but my brother said it would be safer there than here .
I said I would come with him to our Females but he screamed at me and
threw stones and ran away screaming and throwing stones, and shouting
he would tell our Females and their Male to
kill
me if I came.
And now I had no place with my brothers. And I was afraid to go to
the Others. But I went slowly down to Their place. I was looking all the
time everywhere for the Big Birds. I did not see them.
It
was quiet.
When I came to Their place, They came out to meet me. I could see
They were pleased. They shook Their hands at me and called in Their
soft voices. But then I saw there was something new, something not there
before. I could not at first understand and then I saw that among Them
were Those of a different sort. They were pale like grubs or worms and
they had coverings different from the ones I knew. They were telling
Them, the ones I know, what to do. They kept looking at me and
