We got back to Gabillou as the Autumn was beginning. It was a long mild Autumn and, as it happened we could have taken a lot longer over the journey. The snow and cold did not come until just before Midwinter. We were well supplied and had plenty of reindeer dung for the fire even if we couldn’t get the reindeer themselves. I had cut and dried a lot of peat too, expecting a much longer winter.
That winter was the first of several which got steadily milder while the summers became warmer and warmer. After two or three I began to think that our group would come back now at any time. When they didn’t come I thought they must have found a very good place to live if even the cave did not draw them back.
One morning, Atutxa must have been six by then, we were up on the tundra at our traps when I turned for some reason and saw in the distance a herd of woolly mammoths.
"Look Atutxa, mammoths!"
"Oh…oh".
We were transfixed.
"Can we go closer?"
"Yes. Come on let’s."
So we spent the rest of the day following them. We got quite close to them, they didn’t seem to think we were dangerous. They were right, we only wanted to gaze at them. There were one or two big males, as big as Mammoth but mostly they were smaller females of various sizes, and ages we supposed. The calves were kept away from us by all the adults. I wanted Ikaseraz to have been there, he would have loved to see them. Of course I told him all about them when we got back to our shelter. I thought I saw his eyes light up.
Not long after the return of the mammoths it began to seem to me that Atutxa was old enough to defend himself if left alone. Since his birth, the desire to hold Hare had sometimes been so strong that I had almost gone through the cave wall to be with him. Fear for Atutxa had always prevented me. Remembering those lions inside the cave entrance was enough. I could see them so clearly in my mind, but it was Atutxa they were attacking not Esonde’s son.
He must have been thoroughly bored and annoyed with all the instructions I kept repeating at him. We took far too much stuff up to the cave, his knife and whistle and wood, bone and antler for him to carve, charcoal sticks to draw with and a lot more beside, so that he would not be tempted to leave the cave. I pretended to be calm and cheerful as I left him and went down the enchanters’ passageway. Once I got through the wall Hare jumped into my arms and I held him and held him. Then I sat down and he sat on my lap. I stroked him and we were silent and happy. But I started to get cold because we were sitting in snow although it was summer in the world I had left.
"Get up and let me brush the snow off you." said a familiar raspy voice.
"Hello Snow Leopard."
"Hello Kizkur. Just Leopard will do in this region, those brown ones don’t like it." We looked into each other’s eyes remembering when we had last met.
"Thank you. You did so well to bring him into the world safely. And all I did was scream abuse at you, I’m sorry."
"Don’t apologise. It was to be expected. It’s happened to you often enough I imagine."
"Yes, you’re right. I hope to be more understanding next time I deliver someone, if I ever do."
"I don’t know anything about your group. But I think Crane must be with them, I haven’t seen her for a long time."
"Is Mammoth around here?"
"No. I haven’t seen him today either."
"That’s a shame I wanted to see him too. But I must go back now."
"Yes, Atutxa’s waiting, he hasn’t left the cave."
"I didn’t think he would, but I must go."
I crawled back up the passageway as fast as I could and found Atutxa waiting for me. He looked strangely wide-eyed and I grabbed hold of him.
"Are you alright? What’s happened?"
"I don’t know."
We sat down and ate some honeycomb together. I smiled at him as I chewed and he gathered words silently. He loved honey as much as Oskol had.
"You didn’t leave. I watched you stroking Hare. But I was a leopard."
His words thrilled me. Though I had seen one or two things which led me to think he would be an enchanter, that he could be so advanced at his age had not occurred to me.
"I am so happy Atutxa. You have found your spirit-guide even without being initiated. There is no need for you to be now. You are an enchanter."
"Like you, you mean?"
"Yes just like me. We can go together into the world of the spirits. Not today though, we are both tired and it is very important to be alert there. There are bad spirits who would harm us."
"Leopard is telling me that all will be fine."
"You will find it a wonderful thing never to be alone."
We walked slowly back to our shelter.
"You see that plant there? That’s called enchanters’ nightshade."
"I don’t like that. What mouldy flowers."
"It’s very dull isn’t it? But it can give you exciting dreams. Only ever take a little of it, no more than a pinch."
"There’s a lot to learn."
"I’m afraid there is. But there’s plenty of time, we’ll just do a little each day."
And that’s what we did.
Two summers later he was a big strong boy with plenty of knowledge, but our group had still not come back. That worried me. I longed for Mother and Father and they were getting older. Also all of Atutxa’s learning was theoretical, he needed some real patients. We had performed all the necessary ceremonies together in the cave and for each Midsummer we went to Lazcux. Two of the other groups had come back and most people seemed glad to be home. They had left behind some who had decided to stay in the South, mainly those who had married into southern groups. Ukitu never came.
One day that summer we were up on the tundra checking out our traps. It must have been quite early in the season I think because in one trap we had a lovely bushy fox which was still almost entirely white. A beautiful pelt which I would not trade with unless there was something very special to be had. But our attention was caught by movement to our North. It was something fairly big, but we had seen no mammoths, aurochses or bison for a few days. There had been some horses though and we guessed that it might be one of those. That seemed unlikely on reflection as it was plainly in a peat grough which was wrong for a horse. Also it was alone which couldn’t be right for any of the animals we could think of that were that size, unless it were a lone hunter such as a leopard. We needed to know what it was, but approached with caution. As we got near it gave one high-pitched scream and then was silent. That indicated that it was afraid of us which was encouraging, but it also probably meant that it was injured or stuck since it had not run away.
"It’s a baby mammoth." Atutxa called, he had run on ahead.
It was in a very bad state, stuck in the peat up to its shoulders and I was surprised it had had the energy to scream. How long it had been there there was no way of knowing, but I guessed a few days for the herd to have given up on it and moved on. But it was alive so what we had to think about was how to extricate it. Even if it died after we got it out it had to be done, we could not leave it to die terrified and with its legs trapped. There was no blood so it had been lucky so far in not attracting predators.
"You’re faster than me. Run to the shelter or the cave and get some long strips of leather and anything flat that we can use as stepping stones. We don’t want to sink into the peat ourselves." He was off at once while I stayed to deter any predators. I tried to calm its fears by muttering soothing nonsense and not looking directly at it. Its fur was wet and flat to its skin but even so it looked rather thin, poor stuff. Perhaps that was normal and it would thicken up for winter, if we could get the animal out. If it had been weaned we would stand more chance of keeping it alive.
Atutxa approached slowly, laden with stuff. He’d found a couple of quite big shelves in the cave which looked promising but were certainly awkward to carry up here. Hanging round his neck were various lengths of leather.
"There are more of these shelves but these two were all I could carry."
"They should be enough. I hope so."
We slid the shelves out towards it, one on either side, then timidly tried leaving the firm ground and putting our weight on the shelves. They held us alright, but the mammoth tried to struggle away. Its movements only sank it further but I felt relieved that it had the energy to try. There was nothing to get hold of to pull it by, its fur looked as though it would just come out by the roots and its ears would probably hurt it too much. Its neck was clear of the peat but we would throttle it if we pulled there, so it had to be the leather straps. With Atutxa one side and me the other we managed to get two straps under its abdomen by passing them to each other. I had realised we would get our arms wet and black, but bending down like that our faces and hair were soon covered too, it felt slimy and smelled of decay.
Any attempts to pull the mammoth up from there just started our shelves sinking, so we retreated to firm ground pulling the animal round so that it was parallel to the bank. We had to recover the shelves too as they were not ours. The mammoth had stopped struggling and was trembling, whether with fear or cold we didn’t know. The front end was more massive so I took the pulling strap there and Atutxa took the back one. We pulled and pulled, rested and pulled more. It started to come up but we couldn’t ever let go or the sodden peat seemed to pull it back. Before long I felt exhausted and was very surprised to realise that Atutxa was actually stronger than I was. We changed places with difficulty to give him the front end to haul out. That worked better and I was less surprised when I remembered his father’s enormous muscles, I had never seen such things.
Slowly it came out and I think it realised that we were trying to help it rather than eat it. With a foot on dry ground it was able to help by pulling itself and then at last it was out. We found it some of the grey lichen to eat, that looked more digestible than heather. Then we tried it with bilberry shoots. It ate them which meant that it was at least part-weaned. But digesting such stuff must be a long process so I gave it some honey, we always feel better for that and it seemed to do so as well.
Tired as we were our work was only beginning. It was wet, cold and very weak and only had us to help it.
We rubbed it down with heather to get some of the worst of the black wet peat off and luckily the sun was shining which would help to dry it. And us for that matter. But it had to be able to walk. It was bigger than I thought and we could not possibly carry it down to our shelter, but it couldn’t stay here either, wolves or lions would get it.
"It’s got to walk down to our shelter."
"I know."
It just lay on the ground on its side with its legs stretched out. We sat and looked at it. Hare and Leopard could think of nothing either. When we pulled and pushed at it to get it up on its feet it tried and tried but then just collapsed again. It was obviously exhausted.
"You stay with it this time. I’ll go down and get two travelling shelters. We can have one and put the other up over the mammoth, it should be big enough. We’ve got weapons, but we’ll need a fire and food and water for three. The water up here is foul."
"We can eat those lemmings from the traps."
"Good thinking. I’ll take the fox down with me and at least gut it."
We camped up there for two nights, but on the third day the little mammoth was walking well enough to be able to get down to our shelter. By this time we had found out that it was a girl and she now showed no fear of us at all. I suppose we were her new herd. It took a long time to get down even then, mammoths are not made for going steeply downhill. She seemed to trust Atutxa though and would make better progress with her trunk around his neck.
"I shall call her Tlez." he said at one point on the way down.
"Woolly. That’s nice." She did look woollier now that she was dry.
So Tlez she was and you couldn’t wish for a nicer animal to have about. And a constant supply of fire-dung too. She could only manage soft leaves at first, but I pounded anything more fibrous in the pestle and mortar and she was happy with that. Anything we were eating she wanted some, except meat which I think she disliked the smell of. Her trunk was into everything investigating. I had to put the sacred objects away to avoid sacrilege.
She was soon too big for our shelter and we put her in Sinotsu’s for a while. But she outgrew that too and we thought that she was so big by then that she could defend herself outside and from then on she was an outdoors animal. She never went far though, her herding instinct probably.
It wasn’t long before Atutxa started to ride her. She helped him up and down with her trunk. They had a wonderful time, running everywhere. At the river she would throw water over him from her trunk which they both thought a great game. He was always brushing her coat, she was probably the smartest mammoth in the world. I thought of Oskol running about with Wolf. Poor Wolf must have died of old age by now though.
She was even bigger by the following summer though not full grown and it was from high up on her neck that Atutxa saw people coming up from the South. I had been disappointed waiting for our group so many years that I didn’t want to hope, but of course I did anyway. I only stopped to arm myself and then we set out to meet them. Tlez’s tusks were quite big enough to scare anyone off if it was strangers. Atutxa dismounted to make himself less of a target and we walked one on either side of her.
The details are vague now. I was in tears as soon as I saw it was them. Mother was out in front, but even through tears I could see from her face that something was wrong. I checked behind her and saw Father and Oskol. So I knew it was Eraminpe before she spoke. What hurt most at the time was that she had been dead for over a year and I had not known. We hugged each other and wept. Then Father and Oskol came up and I clung to them.
What an introduction for Atutxa. I must have told them he was my son somehow. They welcomed him to the family as warmly as I had known they would.
It’s confused in my memory now. But I remember that we could not hold the ceremony for Eraminpe’s skull in my parent’s shelter that first evening because everyone wanted the ceremony of return to take place immediately in the cave. They had time to tell me some of the details though. She had married a son of Esonde and had been happy for a while, but then he had died of the recurring fever that Sinotsu had told me of in spirit-world. When he died she was pregnant and then both she and the baby died during childbirth. It made me feel so hollow inside that such a carefree lovely girl was gone.
Mother and Father looked old as I had known they would, but Oskol looked such a strong and handsome man, I had not expected that, and he looked so like Father. The big shock though was Sinotsu’s appearance. He should have been big and strong by then, he was twenty or about I thought but he looked nearer forty. He was quite tall but so thin you could see his bones, and his eyes had sunk into his face. His hair was thin and straggly and he hadn’t plaited it. Worse, he was hunched and walked like an old man. I ran to greet him and though he looked at me he said nothing, just walked slowly to his shelter and went in.
Father said that he had been ill but it seemed to be something worse, that he rarely spoke and if he did it was to warn people of an evil spirit that was going to kill him.
"So many died and he couldn’t save them. He says a spirit lammergeier wants to kill us all, but especially him. No enchanters that we met in the south had ever heard of this spirit, but he said that they could not see it."
He did not come up to the cave for the return ceremony, that worried me more than anything else. Atutxa and I managed between us but I had expected help from Sinotsu.
The next day I saw nothing of him as I spent all day with my family in Mother and Father’s shelter. They had made Eraminpe’s skull beautiful. I was sure Father had done it though it was not something that I could ask. While I made all the preparations for Min’s ceremony Father told me and Atutxa about their life in the south. Mother and Oskol broke in sometimes with additional things they had thought of.
They had been fairly lucky on the journey. There were no deaths. They came to a fine place and thought themselves to have been well guided by the spirits. It was a large area with nobody living in it and the Elders agreed, with no gainsayers, that they would settle there. The climate was mild which pleased everyone after the painful cold they had all been through. It was watery country with vast reedbeds and quite outside their experience, but there was very abundant food with water birds and fish so they thought all was well. The reeds were doubly useful, as roofs for their shelters and they could be woolded together to make rafts both for getting about and for fishing. Sinotsu performed all the necessary ceremonies and said that his spirit-guide was particularly at home there, so they thought they had found an ideal place. But slowly they noticed that more and more people were getting ill with the recurring fever and Sinotsu could find no spirit to help him. But nobody wanted to move on, nor could they have easily moved because the fens and marshes stretched for uncounted miles.
They rarely saw anybody, but one year a group of traders came. They told them that the place was called Kamag and many people had tried to live there because food was so good and easy, but all had been driven away in the end by the recurring fever. None of those groups had been able to find any spirits which could drive that away. Our group had stayed on but they failed to thrive. There were more and more deaths and after the Chief Elder died of the fever they decided to return.