was the boar. Not a sow. A full-grown boar – this big!
The boar rushed out. My heart was in my throat. And there was my brave dog coming up behind – like this! – lashing out at the boar as he rushed towards me. That wily boar suddenly twisted in his tracks. My dog was too slow. The boar had him by the throat. He let go and tossed him high into the air. I ran forward. My dog yelped when the tusk pierced him. He hit the ground and lay still. The boar charged me, head lowered. I jumped out of his way, and before he could turn I thrust my spear.
My aim was true. I caught him under the shoulder. My spear went deep.
Bakar ran to the twisting boar. He thrust his spear in below the other shoulder. Three brave dogs began to bite, tearing at the hide. The young dog ran round us, barking. The rest of us held on. We kept on holding. The boar writhed and fought. The blood from his wound ran down my spear and into the earth. The shaft slid in my hands, leaping up and down as if it were alive. The ground under our feet was slippery with blood and mud. We held on. We held fast, and slowly, very slowly, the great boar died. He thrashed and lay still, and together Bakar and I let our spears drop before the dead weight broke them.
We eased our spears out of the boar’s flesh. The dogs licked up the blood round our feet. The barbed point of Bakar’s spear was broken, snapped into three pieces by the boar’s straining muscles. Bakar shrugged and said, ‘So there’s work for tomorrow, as if I needed it.’
I went to my old dog and rolled him over. His body was limp, and there was a great wound in his stomach where the boar had gored him. The soul had gone out of his eyes. The other dogs watched, tails down.
Bakar and I put our hands into the wounds we’d made, and smeared each other with the hot blood. We cupped our hands where the blood flowed, and drank. The Boar’s spirit was with us, and our hearts were his.
I took embers from my pouch, unrolled the damp moss and blew sparks on shavings of birchbark. While I got our fire going, Bakar slit the boar down the belly-line and pulled the guts aside. He cut out the liver and heart. We cut strips, held them in the flame to seal the blood, then wolfed them down. We threw the lungs to the dogs. The hunt had made us hungry, but as soon as we ate, the life-warmth of the Boar flowed into our veins and made us strong.
Bakar knew I grieved for my dog. He helped me weave a platform out of saplings and lay the dog high off the ground where the spirits would find him. We did that as if he were a man, because I knew the soul of that brave dog would wish to be among People, just as his life with me had been.
Bakar cut another sapling and we lashed the boar to it. It had taken less than half a morning to walk uphill to the Boar’s Thicket, but it took from before midday until sunset to carry the dead boar back to River Mouth Camp. Although it was downhill, we had to rest often. We changed places, and shifted the weight from one shoulder to the other. He was as great a boar as two men alone could kill, let alone carry, but that day Bakar and I did both.
When we got back, the women had known – though how you women always seem to know these things is beyond me – to line the pit and heat stones in the fire. The dogs ran ahead, barking our success. The women came out to meet us. They noticed at once that my dog was missing. Alaia cried out, wanting to know what had happened to him. We took no notice. To tell the truth I doubt if we could have carried our load another step, but we wouldn’t show weakness in front of the women. So we marched right up to the fire without speaking, and dumped the dead boar beside it.
Alaia glanced at me once, and didn’t say another word about my dog, then or ever. Alaia is a good woman.
Bakar looked at the cooking pit and the hot stones waiting in the embers, and scowled. ‘So you thought someone would bring back meat, did you? Ah well, you’re sadly mistaken, as you see. All we’ve got is this puny bit of a pig for you. That won’t do you much good.’
‘Ah well,’ Alaia grinned back at him, ‘that’s very sad. But I think if you scrape the bottom of the cooking pit you might find some old limpets. You must be hungry for your supper, after such a disappointing day.’
‘Not so hungry as your man here. I had nothing to do but carry the pole. That was easy, because as you see all we had was this poor half-starved pig. But you should know it was your man who caught it on his spear first. Not that I’m jealous, since there’s hardly enough meat to flavour a limpet, now I get a chance to look at it. Are you going to take first cut, Amets, or are you too ashamed of this small day’s work to set your knife to it?’
I smiled. ‘I’ll conquer my shame,’ I said. ‘But admit it’s your shame too, Bakar. Because I think that little needle-prick on the other side is your work. If we can call it work. These women might have made a better job of it, but they won’t say so, because they’re too kind. Isn’t that right?’ I was addressing Alaia, but I could see Haizea giggling at her side. I was fond of her, but of course I couldn’t speak to my wife’s little sister directly. ‘You won’t shame us by pointing out what a miserable supper we’ve brought back for you, will you?’
Haizea giggled. ‘I don’t mind eating it,’ she said to Bakar. ‘But then there mightn’t be any left for you, if I eat all I want!’
So we went on, while Bakar and I laid the boar on its back. Bakar cut away the jaw while I cut the ribs apart. Alaia put the brain and kidneys to roast quickly in the ashes because everyone was hungry. I threw a hind leg to the dogs. Alaia put the hot stones at the bottom of the pit and laid the cut ribs and shoulders over them. Bakar and I hung the rest of the carcass in a tree. Alaia covered her pit with turfs so the meat would roast slowly. It soon began to smell good! One thing about being by ourselves at River Mouth Camp: we didn’t have to give any of our meat away. That night we feasted by firelight while the stars swam towards the Evening Sun Sky, until the first streaks of dawn spread across the Morning Sun Sky. There was Moon enough to eat by, and on a night of plenty, who needs more?
That was the last hunt, and the last feast, that I shared with my wife’s brother Bakar. It was a great boar who gave himself that day. See these tusks – the ones I wear round my neck – these are his. If I spread my fingers wide – see – the long tusk reaches right from my first finger to the fourth. See that mark, that’s where his skin came to. Look how worn they are – sharp as an arrowhead! Go on, you can take them if you like – go on, pass them round – I don’t wear these tusks because I’ve anything to say about my own skill. I did very little that day. I wear them so as to remember my good dog – the bravest dog I ever had. Look! See how the dogs are listening to me! They remember. They know.
Nekané said:
My son Bakar went out alone at the end of Yellow Leaf Moon. He wanted to train the young dog, so he left the other dogs behind. He had his bow and nine arrows. No spear. His spear had been broken the day Bakar and Amets killed the boar by the High Lochan. Though he’d started to make a new one, he still had to finish the barbs. That last hunt had been worth breaking a spear for! We were very happy that evening when Bakar and Amets came back to River Mouth Camp with the dead boar slung on a pole. We had the cooking pit ready, so they singed the skin at once, butchered the meat by firelight and gave it to us to cook right away.
After that it rained for three days. We cut up the rest of the boar and hung the strips of meat to dry in the shelter. Bakar and Amets cleaned the boar’s skull and wedged it into the crook of River Mouth Hazel. We all stopped what we were doing while they told the Boar how we’d eaten his meat, and now we were happy because we were his children. Then Alaia and Haizea went back to tending the fire of rotten birch logs that smoked under the drying meat. Bakar walked over Breast Hill to collect pine branches. We have to walk a long way from River
