“Tram’s father.”
Tram’s father. I remember his death, of course. “He died during a hunt.” As a child, I’d been fascinated by the burial—the spear laid in the grave, the bison horn in the dead man’s hand. A hunter’s burial.
We’ve just wedged the upright beams into place when the next question forms in my mind—why would a hunting accident almost lead to war? Before I can ask, Kesh and Roon join us, carrying hides for the covering.
“If this is for the girls, we want to help,” says Roon. He is the adventurer among us, always talking about traveling out onto the sea in a boat and what he might find if he did. When the rest of us would complain or worry about the lack of girls in our clan, Roon would develop elaborate plans for trips down the coast or west across the hills. Often he would sneak out of camp early in the morning or late at night, hoping to spot smoke rising from another clan’s fire.
He never did, but he never gave up.
“This is for the girls as well as their brother,” Pek says. “And neither of these girls is young enough for you.”
“Maybe not, but there are other girls in their clan.”
“How would you know?” I shake out a coarse bearskin and drape it over the frame of the hut. A musky scent fills my nostrils. The fissures in my palms have stopped bleeding, so I’m able to grip the edge of the hide tight while Kesh binds it to the support beam using a cord made of mammoth sinew. We stretch it taut from beam to beam, creating the bottom layer of the new hut’s roof.
“I asked them.”
Leave it to Roon to be direct. Why wonder if you can just ask?
“I hope our parents didn’t hear you,” I say. Our mother would think a question like that was too forward. Still, I’m pleased to know that my baby brother took the initiative. I doubt he would have had a moment of sleep tonight if he’d been forced to go to bed wondering. Something about knowing that there are other girls in your clan drains a bit of tension from me, as well. Between Seeri’s clear interest in Pek and your even more obvious disdain for me, I had already given up hope of finding someone from within your clan.
Of course, if all the girls in your clan are as arrogant and rude as you are, I would rather be alone forever.
When the hut is finished, our mother comes to fill it from wall to wall with fur pelts—bison, bear, elk, and mammoth for the floor; saber-toothed cat, caribou, and sealskin for blankets. You will sleep warmly tonight.
The sun is already moving into the western sky as we tie the final knots. “Go clean yourselves,” our mother says. “And put on clothing reserved for feasts. When we sit down to eat the evening meal with our guests, I hope you will no longer smell like the game we are dining on.” She smiles at me. “And be sure you speak to Mya,” she whispers as my brothers shuffle toward our family hut. “The other clearly has eyes for your brother, but Mya, like you, is the oldest. Her eyes are like yours—as dark as the night sky—but there is a sharpness to her gaze that complements the warmth in yours. You two would make a strong match, I think.”
The smile of impending success on my mother’s lips is so endearing, I can’t tell her how wrong she is. She sighs and I hear a note of contentment in her voice I haven’t heard in a long time. No, I can’t take that from her, not just yet. I simply nod and let her walk away.
FIVE
The sun has burned into the shade of gold it reserves for evenings in early summer, when it hangs low in the sky, refusing to set, stretching out hours of pale yellow light, painting long deep shadows on the ground. This is when the drums begin to send their rhythm through the ring of huts.
My brother Kesh is one of the musicians, and I catch the tone of his flute as it pierces the evening air, dancing above the beating of the drums. Not the oldest or the youngest, not the most gifted with a spear, Kesh found himself in music. He was offered a place among the musicians four years ago, when he was only eleven years old and causing constant mischief. He hid handfuls of snails, earthworms, and finally a dead vole in the music leader’s bed, until she offered him a flute in exchange for a promise to stop. She had a flute of her own that he envied, and she meticulously copied it, carving the thighbone of a wolf to just the right length and carefully drilling each hole. The day he received it was like the day he was born, and that flute has been the focus of his life ever since.
Pek and Roon left the hut long before the shadow of the kitchen tent stretched to our door, but I wait it out as long as possible. I lie down, but I can’t relax. My mother borrowed pelts from each of our beds to make up yours. The difference is slight—my bed is almost as thick and lush as it was before—but even this small change in our home unsettles me. I think of Pek’s prediction that you and Seeri will change our lives.