CHAPTER FOURTEEN – CAT POO

It is really important to know from which direction danger might come...

“Woman hurt,” grunted Umbaga, looking sympathetically at Aurora, who was almost in tears as Juju rubbed salve (of a sort - home-made and stinking) into the few scratches on the space woman’s body. She was lying on one of the beds used for sleeping at night by the two cave people. Beds in those days were mostly straw with a furry skin thrown over them and offering nothing like the degree of comfort she was used to.

Umbaga started marvelling to himself. The clothes the woman wore showed deep signs of claws and the unmistakable pattern of tiger-feet being dragged across them, but underneath, when Juju looked (Juju was another woman so that much was all right, though Umbaga best keep clear), the injuries she had sustained were few and relatively insignificant.

So, “Woman not hurt,” corrected Umbaga. “Old Man Tiger lose power it seems!”

“It this stuff,” sniffed Juju, indicating the woman’s dress. “It strong.”

Aurora was wearing an attractive and simple tunic similar to the one she had been wearing when Umbaga had first seen her by her crippled space vessel, but this time it was in a fetching shade of sunset. He reached out and touched a fold of it and it felt both fragile and strong at the same time, and the strength seemed sufficient to ensure that a tiger’s claw would be ineffective against it.

It wasn’t that woven materials were unknown in those far-off days, for they weren’t. Juju occasionally wove a coarse kind of cloth out of fibres drawn from reeds that grew by the river bank. But the cloth she wove was rarely used for clothing, especially not in summer. There was no need: the material was uncomfortable to say the least, scratching and irritating the skin, and in the summer the family wore very little whilst in the colder weather a selection of garments roughly made from animal skins was usually sufficient to stave off the worst of the cold. So stuff like the fine and immensely strong cloth that was the basis of the space-woman’s clothing were totally unknown in those parts in those days and were sufficiwent to make Juju marvel at them.

After a while the space woman regained her composure and sat up. She had been slightly cut and bruised, but her greatest injury had been fear itself.

“You are too kind,” she murmured, knowing they wouldn’t understand her but saying it anyway.

“Kind,” nodded Juju. Of the tiny number of syllables shared by the two languages this was one, and possibly the only one, that was common to both and, eerily, shared a very similar meaning. Such coincidences must occur when you consider the breadth of language.

Aurora stared at her, open eyed. She had decided that communication with such primitive people would be impossible. For a start, the sounds they made in their own language were totally different from the sounds she and Melvin made when they were talking and the rasping that accompanied them was very different from the more lyrical qualities in the language she was used to. She had decided that primitive people possibly had primitive physiology and a vocal structure that meant the two peoples could never share a language.

“Kind,” she repeated, and smiled. Juju smiled back, made a throaty kind of noise that could easily have been some kind of giggle, and said after her a second time, “kind.”

From tiny acorns do mighty oak trees grow, suggested an old proverb, and from a single word does communication grow. And the surprising thing was it didn’t take long for Aurora and Juju to have an understanding of a handful of words that became the basis of actual conversation. It started, of course, with names. The two women learned each other’s names, Aurora and Juju, and within half an hour Juju had words for the clothes Aurora was wearing and the materials from which they had been cut.

Meanwhile, confused by what seemed a complex procedure, Umbaga sauntered off. He collected Carpa (who was truly grateful for the gift of meat and still effusive in his praise for its excellence) and after Umbaga indicated that he had no intention of taking the lame man on a long route-march the two set off in search of Old Man Tiger. It wasn’t any kind of hunt for meat but rather one for knowledge.

Umbaga needed to know where the creature was. If it was anywhere near the cliff bank into which nature had carved the caves where he and the people he called neighbours lived then he needed to scare it off. Old Man Tiger knew of the caves, of course, knew that humans inhabited them and that very young humans made a delicious meal without offering much in the way of resistance, but he was wary. These same humans could do something that he couldn’t do: they could hurl projectiles at him, and some of those projectiles were capable of causing him injuries from the sort of distance he could only dream of.

It had happened in the past, and he had been lain up while injuries healed on a couple of occasions, and he didn’t want it to happen again. So he was wary near the cliff caves. It was safer that way. An injured tiger has few friends and might die of starvation if recovery isn’t swift enough.

“Strange woman not hurt,” said Umbaga conversationally and in little more than a breathy whisper as they eased themselves through the bristly undergrowth that marked part of Old Man Tiger’s realm. Umbaga wasn’t sure where it might be but he knew that the ferocious feline had a base somewhere in this region. The trouble was, the region was huge and Old Man Tiger was careful not to mark his path by using the same one more than the once, and in addition he moved his lair quite often in order the add to the confusion. So although Umbaga could tail most creatures with relative ease he was virtually blind when it came to the paths used by Old Man Tiger.

“Strange woman lucky,” replied Carpa.

“Strange woman wear stuff,” acknowledged Umbaga, “Good stuff, not skins but good stuff!”

“Me see,” nodded Carpa sagely. “Strong stuff.”

“Hush!”

Umbaga held a hand out and sunk down into the darkness of the undergrowth, not caring for the way some of the sharper thorns left their imprint in his skin, which was tough enough to take their sharpness, though it was sometimes quite painful. Umbaga was aware that he must not leave the scent of his blood if he was accidentally punctured - but if he did that was a risk he must take because knowledge of what the big cat was up to was more important than leaving a faint trail that he might or might not. stumble upon. Sometimes decisions must be taken on the basis of the lesser of two evils.

This time he could see, quite clearly, a spiral of steam rising faintly into the air.

“Cat poo,” he whispered to Carpa, pointing, and Carpa nodded. He had seen it too, and smelt it on the air.

After a careful examination of the nearby woodland with its dangerous undergrowth Umbaga decided that Old Man Tiger had been here very recently but had already moved on. Like a spirit or a ghost he moved to where a huge pile of faeces had been half-buried by the tiger. It was still steaming, and the smell was rank.

“Old Man in hurry,” muttered Carpa.

Umbaga nodded. “And Old Man gone away,” he replied. “Come, we go to see Juju and Bibi, see they all right.”

Carpa breathed a sigh of relief. His old injuries were beginning to ache and he would be only too glad to take the weight off his feet.

“We go back,” he agreed.

Like two wraiths the two men began their return journey and they were almost back at their respective homes when they came upon the body of Melvin.

He was lying almost as still as the dead lie, and a part of him had clearly provided nourishment for some savage beast. But the moan that escaped from his lips showed that, somehow, he was still alive despite the blood that was oozing from a gash that ran down one side.

“We take!” hissed Umbaga, and between them the two cavemen carried the moaning and half-dead Melvin back towards Umbaga’s cave.

“You stay alive!” whispered Umbaga to Melvin fiercely, and the man simply moaned his meaningless reply.

© Peter Rogerson 29.10.16