The Season of Change

Nina Schuyler

 

Grok crouched down, picked up another black ant, pinched off its head, and put it in his pouch. He knew he shouldn’t complain, but another meal of bitter-tasting ants made his stomach clench. If he were chief, they wouldn’t be collecting ants and termites, acorns and onions, and beetles and bark strips and mushrooms for dinner. If he were chief, they’d all be living in the small, wind-protected, lush cove on Oyster Bay. What glorious days they were—oysters and clams, fish and crabs, the occasional black bear that meandered into the campsite, drawn by the smell of fish cooking on the spit. A whack to the back of its thick, furry neck—juicy meat for seemingly endless days.

Thank Mother of Earth the Season of Change had finally arrived, like a glorious sunny day smack in the middle of butt-numbing winter. Time to choose a new chief. Bob was vulnerable; his ratings had dropped to the mid-30s. He’d done nothing as chief but strut around, waving his big fat club, spouting whatever flittered across his puny, hominoid mind. The other day, when by some idiotic luck they killed a rabbit, Bob snatched it by the leg from the spit and ate the entire thing. When a woman grumbled about it, he licked his greasy fingers and kicked her out of the clan. “Out! Get out of my sight!” he said. Who knew where she’d gone and if she was still alive.

“Maybe you win by saying something clever,” said Rafa.

She popped an ant into her mouth. Grok nervously glanced around, hoping Bob didn’t see what his wife just did, because if he did, Grok would have to do some on-the-fly talking to get her out of her mess—which was incredibly easy. A sheer and utter mystery that Bob won last year’s contest for chief, since Grok refused to believe his fellow clan people were that stupid. It had to be the rotten deer meat that was served; everyone, absolutely everyone was out of their minds—and continued to be because Bob held one celebration after another, along with copious amounts of juju juice. Anything at all was a loud and obnoxious call for a party—Bob got a new roof on his hut, a new straw mat, a new woman, a new lame idea. But then again, maybe Bob was an absolute genius, keeping the clan so soused that no one could latch onto what was really going on.

Rafa ate another one.

“Rafa,” said Grok, his tone full of warning.

She took an acorn from her leather pouch, and with two smart pops from a rock, pristine pale flesh was born into this uncertain world.

“Or maybe something romantic,” said Rafa.

She was trying to be helpful, but seventeen days of this, her helpfulness sounded scolding and angry. In the distance, Grok heard Bob’s cackling laugh, which seemed to hunt Grok down like a sick bat with its echolocation gone wonky. Grok wasn’t leadership material, he knew that. A quiet, introspective man, often found brooding under a tree, thinking thoughts that were better left unsaid since they were too depressing. The weight of the world. Too many mornings, he woke with fog on the brain. But he couldn’t do nothing, couldn’t sit there like a lump, watching the clan go down the tubes, a victim of such idiotic, narcissistic chiefdomness. Besides, Rafa, beautiful Rafa with her broad fat back and her feet as tough as dried meat—she could walk across anything, sharp rocks, broken clamshells, hot coals glowing orange, prickly pine needles—his Rafa wanted him to be chief and it might just be the spice they needed.

“Or funny,” she said. “For sure, Bob’s going to tell a funny story like last year.”

Funny? Bob’s sophomoric story—she thought it was funny? There were times the chasm between them seemed so enormous that no bridge of love and affection could cross it. Bob’s silly story was about a young squirrel that got lost and joined a sloth of bears, a family of beavers, bees, rabbits, and mice. Each iteration got big awful laughs that egged Bob on, so he kept going, skunks, quail, raccoon, the crowd in hysterics, until the master of ceremonies hauled him off stage, which got more laughs because Bob played it up, pretending to gag and choke. He was crude, a huckster, a con artist, and last year he trounced the mild-mannered Dolop, who’d told a moving story about an ugly baby bird who grew into a stunningly magnificent swan. When Bob was announced the winner, Grok understood the story was too subtle for this crowd, which obviously missed the figurative meaning.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Rafa. “It wasn’t just me who laughed, you know.”

When his gut roiled with an oil and water mix of contradictory emotions, Grok said he was going to hunt for termites in the pinewoods. Rafa didn’t even look up or say goodbye. It had been weeks since they’d wrestled on the bear rug. Maybe if he was chief, the flints in her arms would rub together, faster and faster, and her arms would fill with him again. They’d been married five years and still no little clanny. He’d heard the gossip, the titters—what goes on in your hut, Grok? Nothing. Ha-ha-ha.

He stopped by his father’s hut. Grok’s father was an old man now, down to two teeth in front, like a beaver, one of which was shooting white hot pain up to his skull and down to his narrow feet. His dad had wrapped a cloth around his head and was holding a sack of onions under his jaw.

“What’s that supposed to do?” asked Grok, pointing to the onions.

His father looked gray-faced and gaunt. He’d lost about twenty pounds; his ribs stuck out as if he was growing a tree inside, and his cheekbones were tidy round balls. Two weeks ago, he’d thrown the bowl of mashed acorns at the wall, saying he couldn’t eat any of that crap anymore.

“Go away,” his father said. “If you can’t help, just go away.”

If his father lost any more weight, he wouldn’t be able to walk, so when they moved camp (when was that going to happen?) he’d have to be carried. Or left behind, as Bob had done with the old woman who broke her leg. Left at the cave in Billy Goat Valley. Bob said if anyone helped her, he’d leave them behind, too. Grok tried not to think about the sweet old woman. Meeva, her long hair coiled on top of her head like a silvery basket with treats inside. She weighed heavy on his heart, and if the clan chose him as chief, one of the first things he’d do is go back to Billy Goat Valley and find her.

Grok left his father’s hut and went along the edge of the pine woods, past the little clanny boys and girls who should be gleaning the mountain for seeds but were instead throwing pine cones at each other. Bob had yet to appoint anyone to be in charge of them, so they mostly played and hurt one another. He’d love to have a little clanny to call a son or daughter, and maybe if he won the chief spot, Rafa would wrestle him on the bear rug. He’d seen her eyeing Tom Tom, a muscular young fellow who’d gone through the man ritual, ten days alone in the wild, and he’d come back a hero, a huge mountain lion claw mark on his right arm. Tom Tom battled a mountain lion and lived to tell about it. It’s all he talked about. Walk by his hut and you heard ‘sharp claws’ and ‘teeth’ and ‘arched back.’ How many times had he heard Rafa repeat his story with awe threaded in her voice?

As he got farther from the river and closer to the patch of huckleberry bushes, his pulse picked up. He’d seen them here yesterday and dreamt of them last night, a lovely dream, so lovely, too lovely it made him suspicious, so when he woke up this morning, he doubted what he’d seen was true. He parted the bushes. Nothing. Nothing but emptiness. The depth of his disappointment surprised him as if he’d lost something vital and meaningful. The age-old feeling of not being the right fit for this world rushed in, coating his brain with sludge. He didn’t want to go back to his clan or hear any more suggestions from Rafa. He plopped down on the dirt. Some of his best creative moments had come from being alone under a tree. But there was a fine psycho-emotional line between solitude and loneliness, as fine as a crack in a piece of clay pottery.

He ruminated on this for awhile, and when he looked out again, he saw them. Not a dream at all, and he felt afraid and excited, drawn to them like a fine wind wanting to brush against the leaves. Four men, three women with delicate noses, small foreheads, long limbs like elegant antelopes or egrets, their sounds melodious like a spring song, if spring had a song. Grok felt as he did yesterday, as if he was viewing ten thousand years of evolutionary development, culminating in these new forms of human beings. He was, without being able to pinpoint exactly why, acutely aware of being in the presence of humans whose abilities were much much higher than his own. He’d named them the Beautiful Ones and hadn’t told anyone in the clan about them. Though they appeared more intelligent, they also seemed fragile, something to be hidden away in a pocket, protected, cared for, like a perfect shell found on the beach.

They were sitting on logs, not clowning around, not throwing rocks or hot coals at each other, but talking, making their song sounds, furrowing their small foreheads and eating something that smelled delicious. One of the men began drawing something in the dirt, and the others watched intently. More than anything Grok wanted to understand what the man was drawing, and he felt if he knew it, the unease, the sense of not knowing his place in the world that had been in his spirit since he was very young, would lift.

It was the old, cracking branch that gave Grok away. The group stopped talking and looked over in his direction. Grok quickly gathered a handful of huckleberries and, bowing his head in the universal subservient position, approached, his arms extended in front of him with the offering.

They circled him, opened his pouch, examined the contents, checked the material of his loincloth—bark from a birch tree, which, he knew, was lesser quality than their fine leather outfits. He bowed lower, and a woman with black glassy hair streaming down her back took the berries. She was even more beautiful up close—smooth-skinned, not a single mosquito bite on her face or arms. She handed him a wood bowl of the delicious-smelling food. A mix of seeds, greens that looked melted, and what appeared to be small squares of roasted deer meat. Meat! It had been so long. He dipped his fingers in and shoveled in mouthfuls, and though he knew he should slow down, he couldn’t get himself to stop. The sweet juices of meat, he could feel his entire body eagerly grab for it. And there, a hint of salt from the sea.

“Are there more of you?” he asked.

When they looked at him blankly, he pointed to each one and then to the space beyond them. They shrugged, gestured for him to sit. They refilled his bowl, which meant they had plenty and ate like this often, and during his second bowl, three more arrived. When they saw him, they stopped in their tracks, but he didn’t look threatening, not with a bowl on his knees and food dripping down his chin. Then he saw Kinno, whom Bob had kicked out of the clan one full moon ago.

“Easy there,” said Kinno, looking at the bowl on Grok’s lap. “You probably haven’t eaten so well in days. Eat too fast, you’ll get a stomachache.” Kinno smiled, and patted his belly, which was big and round. “Not bad, huh?”

“What’s in this?” asked Grok.

“Well, first you have to kill a deer.”

Kinno explained he was invited to join this clan, after they found him living alone, all skin and bones, trying to get by on worms. They felt sorry for him, and he was grateful, even if he was low on the totem pole—a man who carried things for whomever needed things carried.

He said more, but Grok only half-listened, still stuck on the phrase, they felt sorry for him. He thought only he had the strange and often debilitating capacity for feeling sorry for someone. Once, when he’d used that exact phrase, Rafa had looked at him, her mouth twisted one direction, her bushy eyebrows arched with bewilderment. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” she’d said.

“How many are there?” asked Grok.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe 300.”

“Three hundred!” Unbelievable. How did they get along? How did they not kill each other?

Kinno nodded slowly. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

What was their story? What did they tell themselves to bring such togetherness? Grok’s mind whirred. These people! He felt his lungs open up, and feeling light, a phrase came to him. Eyes full of wonder, I am splayed.

Kinno said he was slowly learning their language, but it took time, a certain softening of tone, not like their language with its rollercoaster of harsh clickety sounds—clack, pack, sack, picket, whickety, pickety. “More like a gentle creek, you know?”

Grok was trying not to stare at one of the women, who looked so fragile with her high cheekbones and thin wrists, delicate, like a sparrow, the kind of woman who had to be kept in a hut, out of the way of danger. In a flash, she stood, whipped out a thin stick from her leather pouch, put it in a warped one with a string stretching from one end to the other, and sent it zooming through the air like a hawk. A flurry of flying sticks followed, a hawk attack, and then the group was running, with Grok and Kinno trailing behind.

A deer lay on its side, three flying sticks in its chest, its long legs twitching, its globular black eyes enlarged with fear, and reeking of death. Did animals know they died? Grok had always thought that knowledge was what separated man from animal. When they pulled out the sticks, Grok saw they had sharp, pointy ends, triangular, thin. The deer stopped twitching—off to the Big Sky to rest in Big Mother’s arms. Dipping their fingers in the deer’s blood, they painted their arms and faces and said something soft in their language.

Kinno grinned. “More meat for us tonight, I guess.”

Kinno said in this clan, both men and women were hunters. They did crazy, wonderful things, like put water in a stone bowl, set it on the fire, and let the water bubble. Toss in dandelion greens, herbs, other things—the flavors were out of this world.

One of the men picked up the deer, slung it on his back, and that seemed to be the signal for everyone to follow. Kinno said he had to get going.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” said Grok.

“We’re heading out in two days,” said Kinno. “Winter, you know.”

Grok felt an uncomfortable anxious buzz under his skin.

“You mean?” said Kinno. He didn’t have to complete the sentence. “How many are left?”

Grok could barely get the words out. Twenty-two, a measly twenty-two. After the election, Bob had kicked out Dolop and all his supporters. He got rid of another five because he said they didn’t belong—wrong color of eyes, sparks of gold—and then a man who boasted bigger biceps than Bob. Grok was hoping for a full-blown revolt when the clan decreased to a vulnerable thirty, but not a peep from anyone. When Bob threw out a man with a limp, Grok thought for certain that was the last straw, the clan raising its voice and clubs in protest against the injustice, the cruelty, but nothing. Silence, terrible silence. Grok had trouble sleeping at night, worried they’d be attacked by another larger clan. That, coupled with the alarming concern they were still up on Red Dirt Mountain with winter poking at them with its frosty fingers. This morning, Grok had woken up with ice in his beard.

Grok bowed to each Beautiful One, a little breathlessly, letting his gaze soak in their shimmering sleek skin, their radiating intelligence, and slipped through the thicket of bushes, and then headed down to the area where the little clannies were still throwing rocks at each other.

He went to his father’s hut. His father was still sitting there, his mouth open, a bottle of juju juice by his side. His eyes were bloodshot. His lower lip sagging, a string of drool from the corner of his mouth.

“You can have everything when I die,” he said to Grok, the words garbled.

“Don’t talk like that. I can get that tooth out.”

“My straw mat, my loincloth, club, my collection of shells and shiny rocks. Your mother’s shell necklace. My sharp cutter.”

What he called his sharp cutter was a stick he’d whittled into a dull edge.

“My hat.”

He’d made a hat out of a beaver fur. He loved that hat, which sat perched on his head as if an eyeless beaver had crawled on top of his head and fallen asleep.

“Open your mouth,” said Grok.

His father obliged. Fumes of juju juice mingled with the stench of rotten flesh threatened to topple Grok. The skin around his father’s front teeth was bright red and puffy. When Grok reached toward the tooth with his bare hand, his father clamped shut his mouth before Grok could take hold of it.

“Come on,” said Grok.

His father clenched his jaw tighter. The drums beat ferociously. Grok sighed. Another celebration. Everyone would be drunk on juju juice all night. Winter nestled closer like a snake at the bottom of your blankets.

▱

In the morning, Rafa was in the circle of women, shelling the last of the acorns, gossiping. Everyone was hungover, reeking of juju juice, everyone but Grok, who’d gone to bed early, skipping the celebration, which was held because Bob sent another clan member packing. Something to do with the man giving Bob a funny look.

Grok caught snippets—Kapa had snuck into one of the men’s huts, and her mate found out and now there was sobbing and fighting and screaming and sometimes boxing of ears. And Susua loved the boy who was the son of Kapa, but he was too young to wrestle her, and she didn’t know what to do; her arms ached for him. The women were enraptured with the gossip, not paying Grok any attention. As she talked, Rafa did not break her rhythm of shelling. She was the clan’s master acorn sheller.

Rafa could have had anyone, but she’d come up to Grok and laid down her weaving of grasses on top of his feet. He’d always thought her beautiful, but now, after seeing those other women, he had to refine his thinking about beauty. Rafa’s was a different kind, he told himself, a beefy, robust kind with her big round bottom, not lithe and stick-like with rippling muscles. And those other women moved as if they were gliding on air currents, as if they were an integral part of the world and knew it, not some bumbling, stumbling animal, trying to make sense of existence and their place in it. Rafa and her big teeth, her laugh that was too guttural—he stopped himself. He didn’t like what he was doing to her.

Grok went back to the edge of the pinewood and broke off thin branches from a tree. With his sharp deer leg bone, he stripped off the bark. Then he picked up a big rock, threw it against another rock, hoping a splinter would break off. No luck. Rafa had once asked him what he thought about when he sat under the trees. He’d considered her naïve, blank eyes, her lower jaw, hanging open slightly, reminding him of a clanny who was trying to understand the moon—how did it get up there?—and he’d shrugged and said, “Not much.”

He picked up the rock again, threw it down. The river was flowing. The hush of water always put him at ease. If he was still and patient, maybe he’d spot a fish. His mouth watered at the thought of fish for dinner, and then he thought of the Beautiful One’s roasted deer and lightly seasoned greens. He wanted fish, needed fish, and it was a hop and skip to the next thought that he deserved fish, but he quickly squashed that idea because what did anyone deserve? He, like everyone else, was a solitary, inconsequential bit of matter in an enormous universe. Still, over the years he’d gotten pretty good at catching fish with his bare hands. If he had a son, he’d teach him how to do it. If he had a son, he’d teach him everything.

Grok picked up a rock bigger than his head, and when he threw it down, a small chip broke off. He pressed the sharp point into his finger, felt the ping of pain, and his heart hurried up with excitement. The rock was generous, giving him one point after another. By the time he had fifteen points, the women had come down to wash vests and loincloths, and the little clanny boys and girls practiced just missing each other’s feet with a rock.

When Grok picked his rock up again, Bob came down to the river. His eyelids were sagging, his eyes streaked with little squiggly red lines. He was getting a big juju belly. “What are you up to?”

“What’s it look like?” asked Grok.

“Are you building something?”

“No, I thought I’d whack rocks for the hell of it.”

“Why?”

Grok felt a field of possibilities open in front of him, all the things he could say, leading Bob down a trail, watching him trip on nettles and thistles. That was his type of humor; though, no one else in the clan understood it.

Bob puffed out his hairy chest and stroked the vest, lovingly, and Grok imagined that’s the way he usually stroked his chest, as if he was a valuable treasure. Bob headed down to the river and went right in, not even flinching. The water was freezing, snow melting, and all the women, along with the little boys and girls, stopped what they were doing and watched Bob, the water now up to his chest. As Grok put down his rock and headed straight into the water, he knew he was being ridiculous, letting Bob get to him, but he had an overwhelming desire to put this ridiculous man in his place.

Mother of Earth! It was cold, bone-chilling. Bob was almost on the other side of the river. Grok’s teeth threatened to chatter, but he clenched them tightly so as not to give away his general state of terrible discomfort. He told himself he was fine, he was cold, that’s all, and what was cold but a state of mind? He gazed at the river, trying to distract himself by hunting for the silver shimmer of a fish. Bob was stretched out on his back on river rocks, as if it were a hot summer day and not shivering winter. On the shoreline, the women and children went back to work, no one watching Grok in the middle of the river, up to his waist. If a fish didn’t come along soon, his legs would soon be frozen, he wouldn’t be able to move, and he’d have to call for help.

“Grok!” Rafa stood on the shore. Her tone was angry, as if she’d discovered something horrible about him—again. He didn’t want her shouting at him in front of everyone. Oh, well—he’d have to give up looking for a fish.

“Uh oh,” Bob called out. He sat up. “Someone’s in trouble with the wife.”

That made the women and children stop what they were doing to watch the possible domestic drama. No one said a word, no rocks thrown, no squealing, no bickering, no gossiping, only the river rushing by and Rafa’s anger that filled the air with a hiss.

Grok came over to her, dripping wet, every inch of him bright red from the freezing water. Rafa was scowling, disappointment a series of lines on her forehead, around her mouth. “I need help moving the log,” she said. “You forgot to do it again.”

He didn’t want to have their usual argument why on Mother of Earth she needed the log moved every morning and then moved again at night, didn’t want to rehash—they were already so weak from so little to eat—the strain on their backs just so she could sit a little closer to the fire when she was cooking. He didn’t want to give Bob the pleasure of watching them fight.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll come do it now.”

She studied him, as if waiting for the fight to unfold, and when he didn’t say anything, she turned, and he followed, watching her big hips sway. The clannies resumed their playing, shouts and screams of delight. The moment hadn’t gone unnoticed by Grok. He’d had that small gathering’s attention as they waited excitedly to see marital discord in action. A greedy group, they were, hungry for extremes or ribald humor, for any sort of distraction. Rafa was probably right: if he wanted to win, he’d have to entertain the group, somehow.

When they got to the hut, the log was exactly where she wanted it. They both stood there staring. She turned to him, wide-eyed, looking as if she was at the mercy of something bigger than herself, some inexplicable force of nature, and in that moment, she looked beautiful. “How did this happen?”

“We are capable of great things,” he said, “if we put our minds to it.” He felt lofty and wise saying this, but the moment the words were out of his mouth, he knew what had happened—Bob’s yes men. They’d moved it. Bob putting the moves on Rafa.

She stared at him, her mouth agape. It wasn’t an attractive look, but he didn’t say anything because gone was her anger at him and her disappointment. He took her in his arms, and she seemed, for once, to melt into him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and he felt her heart, the steady, loud thump. She had an enormous heart, the way she could work for hours and hours.

He led her into the hut, and they lay down and after so long, after so many full moons dying, they began to wrestle on the soft, braided mat. She smiled, showing her white beautiful teeth. If he were chief, he’d teach the rest of the clan the secret to beautiful teeth, how every night Rafa used a small wood stick at the end of which she’d attached hog bristles and scrubbed her teeth and then took a separate finely pointed stick and ran it between them, methodically. She thought her best asset was her teeth, and he agreed, but it wasn’t the only best.

“I hope you win,” she murmured in his ear.

He ran his finger along her broad forehead.

“Bob has been too—”

He stiffened. “Too what?”

“Just too, too. He keeps coming around, you know? Sniffing. Like an old dog.”

They once had a nice dog, Pingo, a coyote-type creature who slept with them and growled at anything or anyone who came near them at night. Good dog, a best dog, but he was mauled by a bear. If Pingo was still with them, he’d keep Bob from sneaking around their hut.

“My arms are full of you, only you,” he said.

She stroked his cheek. He knew his hair smelled awful, like dried sweat and wood smoke—he couldn’t get himself to dunk his head in the cold river—but her eyes were soft, and she didn’t seem too disgusted.

“What about a story of possibilities?” he asked. “I was thinking—”

She frowned, pulled away, creating a solid gap of cold harsh air between them.

“People,” he said, hearing the plea in his voice, “the clan, they need a call, a beckoning to their best selves, something that urges them—”

“Entertain us.”

“But where has that gotten us?”

“Entertain us,” she barked again.

“I don’t think—”

“Not everyone is as gloomy as you, you know.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You find your fun where you can,” she said. “At least that’s what most people do.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

She glared at him.

“I mean, I have to live with myself,” he said.

In her expression, he saw she’d decided something about him, and though she probably couldn’t articulate it, it wasn’t good.

“You think you’re better than everyone else, don’t you?” she asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“You do.”

“I’m trying to help.”

“Who told you to do that?”

“That’s what a chief should do.”

“But you won’t be chief if you tell a boring story like that,” she said.

She rolled away from him, the mood shifting into something darker, angrier, the gap solidifying again. In a flash, she was gone, mumbling something about finding more ants.

▱

Grok wandered along the river, looking for seeds from the raised hummocks and grassy spots along the water. When he got back, the clan was in a frenzy. Two women, out looking for squirrels, saw people in the pinewoods. Friend or foe? What did they want? Everyone stood there, gripping their big clubs, the thick hair on their arms and backs standing straight up.
Fear flashed through Grok, a white-hot streak. “They’re friendly.”

Everyone looked at him.

“How do you know?” asked Bob, his bushy eyebrows crunching together.

He couldn’t say he’d met them, ate with them, saw Kinno—he’d be accused of some sort of wrongdoing. Treason.

“They would have attacked by now,” said Grok.

That sent the clan into a tizzy—would they have? Why? They raised their clubs in the air and one of the men called out the war cry, which sounded like a crow with a sore throat.

“We’re stronger,” said Bob.

“Everyone was partying last night,” said Grok. “They could have attacked then.”

That hushed everyone up.

“They’re probably just passing through,” said Grok. “They don’t want trouble. They’re heading down the mountain, as we should be doing.”

Bob’s big hands fisted. “That’s for me to decide,” he growled. “I’m the chief.”

Rafa came over and stood beside Grok. “Grok is going to challenge you.”

Bob tossed his head back, lifting his chest, expanding his lungs for the maximum amount of air, and let out an enormous laugh. “You?”

The rest of the clan stared at Grok, as if trying to figure out if this was true.

Grok nodded, slowly, cautiously, and he stared down at his hands. Too small, too soft, hands that didn’t seem capable.

Bob smacked his forehead. He was always working the crowd, going for slapstick, and it worked, a few laughs skittered through the crowd. “Ha! This will be great. I’ll win by a landslide!”

Someone called out: “What about those people in the woods?”

Bob smiled. “Not yet.” He waved his arm in the air and did a whirly motion above his head. The signal for juju juice. “Time to celebrate! Another year! Me as chief!”

▱

In the hut, Rafa was squatting by the fire, cooking something, blue-gray smoke forming a second ceiling. Grok had put a hole in the roof, but Rafa had argued it couldn’t be too big because it would let in too much rain. He’d countered it wouldn’t matter how much rain it let in because they’d be dead from smoke inhalation. Still, she had won, against his better judgment, his better mind, his better reasoning. Why? He had a soft mushy heart that thumped along happily when she was happy.

Rafa rotated on a stick a skinned squirrel. A squirrel! He smiled and felt flush with gratitude and guilt. What was he doing yearning for the Beautiful Ones? An extraordinary woman was right in front of him, his wife, with her hands the size of his face. Sturdy, capable, strong, firm hands. He’d seen her wring the neck of a vulture. One quick twist. The things those hands could do. He hugged her. “Nice work.”

She pulled out of his embrace, shaking her head, grimacing. “Gift from Bob.”

Grok wanted to fling the squirrel into the woods. Better yet, take the squirrel, stick and all, march it over to Bob and say, “Fuck you, buddy.”

“We’ll eat it,” said Rafa.

His stomach clenched, retracted, a hard bud. “No.”

“We have to be practical.”

They needed meat. They were both physically weak, and if you were weak, you could get sick, and if you were sick, you’d get left behind when it was time to move again—which was now. Now was the time to move. And two people alone were not strong against the bear, the mountain lion, an enemy tribe.

“Are you sure?” he said.

Because if they accepted it, Bob could come by tonight and wrestle her. It would be his right. Rafa would be his.

She nodded.

He was a coward, a wimp, not the man he wanted to be because he stood there, not saying anything. Finally, he said, “This will be over soon.”

She nodded.

“I’ll be chief, and I’ll kick him out.”

She bit her lower lip.

“We’ll never have to deal with him again. I’ll send him to the Dark Valley filled with poison oak.”

With one yank, she pulled the squirrel off the stick, twisted it in half. He’d tell a shucking, knee-slapping, wet-eyed laughter story. Punch lines. Word puns. He felt dread and defeat settle into his gut. Guiltily, shamefully, full of disgrace, he devoured his half of the animal.

▱

At dawn, when Rafa and the rest of the clan were still sleeping, the snores polluting the air, Grok was still awake. All night he’d laid there on high alert for Bob prowling around their hut, imagining the things he’d do if Bob came sniffing around Rafa.

Grok slipped out of the hut and found himself heading to the huckleberry bushes. The meadow was empty, as empty as he felt inside. He felt like something had landed with a thunk on his heart. He plopped onto the ground and began drawing in the dirt with a stick. He had to beat Bob. It was an obsessive thought, and anytime he tried to think of something else, it yanked him back into its grip. How had his life narrowed to this very fine point, this small little thought, this consuming desire to win? He’d drawn a picture of Pingo, but it looked more like a moose.

When the land began to warm and steam, two Beautiful Ones came into the clearing, talking in their melodious language. The man spoke, the woman spoke, back and forth. It was like watching a better version of himself with a better version of a woman and Grok longed to be like them.

The man flicked his gaze toward Grok, then came over. Grok stood.

“Not well hidden, I guess,” said Grok.

The man smiled a generous warm smile. He had sparkling white teeth. “Hello there, hairy man.”

Did he hear right? The man had spoken in Grok’s language.

“Kinno taught me,” said the man. “Not hard at all—in fact, one of the easiest I’ve learned.”

Grok supposed he was hairier than them, but he felt slightly offended. He had the same delicate raindrop-shaped nostrils, a mouth that wasn’t overcrowded with teeth.

The man said they’d been watching Grok’s clan—the hairy, big forehead people. Not many of them. “No offense, but a bit bestial.”

Grok nodded. “They know you’re here.”

The man reached into his pocket, and, grinning, handed Grok a white egg. “Go ahead, drop it. It won’t break.”

The egg cracked, the shell spiderwebbed, but the inside didn’t come spilling out on the dirt.
“Hard-boiled,” he said. He explained the process.

The man pulled out another egg for himself. He tapped it on a rock and peeled off the shell. Inside, the perfect white of the warbler. Grok did the same. It was gelatinous, like a cooked jellyfish. Grok took a bite. Soft, chewy, delicious.

After they finished eating, the man said, “We could have killed everyone in your clan days and days ago, but we don’t like unnecessary bloodshed. It weighs too heavily on our hearts.”

“I see.” Though he wanted the words to sound neutral, they came out full of energy. What a wonderful sentiment! To speak of the heart! Most lovely of all. So long the burden to this moment.

The man confirmed what Kinno had said earlier—they were leaving in the morning. So any kind of war mumbo jumbo, if it was going to happen—and he sincerely hoped it didn’t—if the clan was planning to attack, they’d better do it tonight.

“You’re not worried?” asked Grok.

The man smiled his gorgeous smile, and the woman joined him.

Grok told him tonight he was competing for chief. He couldn’t restrain himself. “I bet your clan has a brilliant story.”

The man’s face widened and softened at the same time, as if the story floated from his memory and into his mind and blossomed into a stunning bouquet of fragrant flowers.

“I’d love to hear it,” said Grok, his throat dry.

The man didn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes watering. “Sorry,” he said. “It always gets me choked up.” When he’d recovered himself, he told Grok his clan’s story, and Grok’s eyes teared up, too, as his whole being rose up, became taller, better, more magnificent, all the sediment of his worst parts—jealousy, anger, selfishness dripping off him like swamp water. A great story, a moving story, a tear-jerking, heart-rattling, transformative story, a story that moved and shaped and lifted you up and out of your skin. Could he do something like this? Didn’t his clan deserve this? Need this? To give them a gentle—well, not so gentle—shove along the evolutionary ladder?

“Wow,” said Grok. “Thank you.”

“You must sing in the desolation,” said the man.

Grok nodded, only half understanding.

“Or everything good is forgotten,” said the man.

“Yes,” said Grok, and every cell in his body was striving so hard to understand what the Beautiful One said because it sounded wise and true and profound and highly evolved. This man, this woman in front of him, what they represented felt almost within reach, but not quite, and it pained Grok, as if he were only half formed, half here, half man.

▱

When he got back to his hut, Rafa was inside, weaving together dried grasses. “I’m making a softer bed,” she said. “My hip. It’s hurting.”

He nodded, still thinking about the Beautiful Ones.

She looked at him tentatively, and he knew she wanted to ask him if he’d come up with anything, anything at all. Then he knew something else—while he was gone, Bob had wrestled her.
He hung his head. “Oh, no, I’m so sorry.”

He took her in his arms and pulled her close. He expected her to rest her head on his shoulder, maybe even sob, but she stiffened and stepped out of his embrace. She said she had to get back to work. Now that Bob had wrestled her, she had to do Bob’s bidding. Grok saw a pile of shelled acorns, the pale flesh of the nuts glimmering. Rafa must have followed his gaze because she said, “He wants a barrelful by noon.”

Grok was going to apologize again, but her face was blank, and he could tell she was resigned to her new role. Still he said he was sorry.

“Why don’t you go out and find some food?” she asked, an edge to her voice.

She was right. Since Bob was going to devour the last stash of their acorns. No more acorn mush for them.

“Plus, you’re too antsy,” she said. “Go take a walk, at least. Clear your head.”

The Season of Change was in two hours.

▱

The bonfire made everyone’s face rosy-cheeked, as if the clan was healthy, not wasting away, turning to bones with loose baggy skin in the increasingly cold mountains. Grok waited off to the side, trying not to rock back and forth on his heels, his nervous habit. The juju juice was flowing, and Grok couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe their minds would expand with a little inebriation. They’d hear the truth, his wisdom; they’d rise to the occasion, and their ears would be wide open for his story. But then again, too much of the stuff, their minds would contract, and they’d become idiotic, silly.

The drums started in, a steady pounding. He spotted Rafa and was startled to see how happy she looked—smiling, laughing, she’d always been a hard drinker. And—what the hell? Bob was right beside her, and he gave her a big kiss right on the cheek and then pinched her butt, and Rafa squealed, gave him a clumsy push away, which only ignited something in Bob because now he was bear-hugging her, rubbing his face in her mess of hair.

Grok felt someone beside him. He turned. The shaman was staring at him with solemn eyes. “You’re going to be fine,” he said, his voice full of the weight of knowledge.

Was he saying Grok would win? Grok wanted to jump up and down in excitement. Fine, he’d be fine! The clan would be fine! He swallowed, forcing his tight throat to open again because he had words, valuable words, and the clan needed to hear them.

“You better start in,” said the shaman, “before they get soused.”

He strode up to the fire, his posture straight, like the Beautiful Ones, and the clan’s people quieted as if mesmerized and surrounded him in a horseshoe configuration. Someone called out for him to step up on the stump so the people in the back could see.

Grok stepped up, and now he was taller, taller than everyone, and when he looked out he could see the stretch of forest and the mountains illuminated with snow and beyond that, he imagined the sea and the stars and the valleys and grass and the entire universe.

“Clansmen and clanswomen,” he said, his voice was rich and rolling and coming deep from his belly. He would get them out of the mountains. They’d leave tomorrow. Head to the sea, where the fish were bountiful and the weather was mild. He’d build the clan up again, make them strong. He’d send Bob away, far away. Maybe into a cave with a boulder blocking its wide mouth. “This is the time to remember who we are and what we can become. We are bound together not just by history or our long years together or the shared memories of hardship, joy, the rain slanted in our faces, the mosquitoes on a hot night, the celebration after a successful hunt.”

A couple people coughed. Someone laughed. He couldn’t see Rafa because of the bright flames of the fire.

“We are bound together by what makes us exceptional, and that’s our belief in our clan and that if you work hard, give to the clan and the clan gives back to you, we will all succeed. Together we are strong. Separate, we are diminished.” He considered making this more dramatic—separate, we perish, but then he remembered his audience, which probably didn’t know the meaning of the word perish.

The flames grew smaller, and Grok saw in front of him a row of glazed-over eyes, mouths open in dumbness. His father was holding his jaw, and he seemed to be shaking his head, no, no, no, or maybe it was the grip of pain.

“Together, nothing is insurmountable,” said Grok, forging ahead.

He spotted Rafa, who was laughing, her head tossed back, Bob nuzzling her neck. After she’d told him that Bob wrestled her, she’d sworn her arms were not full of Bob—but it didn’t look that way to Grok.

“Together, we can ensure everyone has enough to eat,” he said.

The shaman looked like he’d fallen asleep.

“We are strong when we are one people,” he said. “When we aren’t pointing fingers or yelling or fighting or scrabbling or stealing. We are strong when we hand the leg of roasted rabbit to another man or woman. We are strong when we set aside our petty individual desires and think of the greater good.” And the longer he spoke, the more his voice enveloped him, until he didn’t think of himself at all; he was the voice of all, the Clan with a capital C, and the vision of all they could do together, many-limbed and many-legged, and he made promises, such extraordinary promises, remember the skinny man with the big head of hair? Yumbum? He was out there—they’d find him again, and also Meeva and Dolop, and they’d fish and eat, and they’d have big bowl-like contraptions that skimmed along the surface of the water like a water bug, and they’d spot the fish and grab them with their nets. They’d have sticks that flew like hawks and poked into the big beasts, and they’d have a smorgasbord of deer and moose and bear.

As Grok came to the most important part, the drums began to beat loudly, beating out Grok’s voice, until he sounded like small drops of water in a thunderstorm, but he was so enthralled with his vision of the beautiful future, he didn’t notice because it was a wonderful vision, a generous one, one step forward on the evolutionary ladder, and soon they’d have smaller foreheads and more delicate features and would be unrecognizable from the Beautiful Ones, and maybe they’d join them, mingle and mate and become even stronger.

When Grok came back to earth, the clan was scattered, half at the juju refill area, others dancing to the drums, shrieking, rattling their necklaces of dried acorns and shells.

Bob bounded up and pounded Grok’s back with his big paw. “Move aside. Let me show you how the real men do it!”

▱

It was dawn, and the clan was still drunk and dancing. Frivolity and silliness raced through the frigid air.

The shaman ducked into Grok’s hut. All night he had listened to the drums and laughter, Bob’s resounding, triumphant, obnoxious voice. He looked over at Rafa’s side of the mat—cold, no dent from her big body.

“At least you tried,” said the shaman. “You can tell yourself that.”

Grok nodded, letting the consoling words sink in, but he found they pooled on the surface of his skin.

“I thought you said I’d be fine,” said Grok.

The shaman didn’t say anything. He handed Grok a bag of acorns and left.

Grok packed his bag, went to his father’s hut to say goodbye. Bob had told him to leave before dawn—or else. His father was passed out—too much drinking and dancing. He used to be a wild party man, and it looked like last night he revived his old self.

Grok got out his new tool—two sticks he’d crossed three-fourths of the way from their ends to form a claw. He wadded up his father’s fur blanket, shoved it into his mouth, then took his tool, clamped it on the decaying tooth and yanked it out. His father shot out of bed and smacked Grok in the eye. “Goddamn you!” said his father. “Get out!”

Grok headed to the pinewoods, hoping the Beautiful Ones were still there because if they weren’t—that was a bleak end to the story. If only he’d found a way to tell the clan what could be, if only—

He passed by the river reflecting the clouds and soon the stars. When he thought of what might come next for him, his frontal cortex sparked and crackled—it was as if the trees had parted in the dense forest and he’d come upon a wide open meadow because he could see all the way to tall buildings, like a vertical labyrinth letting in little light, and thousands of people, more refined than the Beautiful Ones, jostling for territory on the long stretch of sidewalk, and horns propelling cars and trucks and vans, copper, steel, marble, fast clicking trains, airplanes razor-cutting the sky. The word ‘astonishing,’ rolled around in his brain, and then shellfire erupted all around him, dirty gray explosions, men flying in the sky, landing thump in a field, bloated fish, floating belly up, and oily waters, dead whales washed ashore, and indestructible buildings collapsing, and Grok jammed his hands on either side of his throbbing head—flies humming around bodies of dead children, thin limbs, cries searing his ears, and the slow de-evolution of a horse decomposing, skin pulled taut, ribs, dry mouth heaving. No trees or bluebirds or spilling of songs. The earth rolled loose, and crows shouted out of the far bank.

Then it stopped. Grok stood there, his head pounding. As time ticked by, whatever that was began fading from his memory, and for once he was grateful that his brain was too puny for whatever he just saw—what the hell was that?—and in a flash it was lost for time eternal.

 

Nina Schuyler’s new book, How to Write Stunning Sentences, published by Fiction Advocate, is out Fall 2018. Her novel “The Translator” won the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award for General Fiction and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Writing Prize. Her first novel, “The Painting,” was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. She teaches creative writing at the University of San Francisco.