________________________________________________
_ It was in the early fall of the following year that it
happened. After his failure to get the Swift One,
Red-Eye had taken another wife; and, strange to relate,
she was still alive. Stranger still, they had a baby
several months old--Red-Eye's first child. His previous
wives had never lived long enough to bear him children.
The year had gone well for all of us. The weather had
been exceptionally mild and food plentiful. I remember
especially the turnips of that year. The nut crop was
also very heavy, and the wild plums were larger and
sweeter than usual.
In short, it was a golden year. And then it happened.
It was in the early morning, and we were surprised in
our caves. In the chill gray light we awoke from
sleep, most of us, to encounter death. The Swift One
and I were aroused by a pandemonium of screeching and
gibbering. Our cave was the highest of all on the
cliff, and we crept to the mouth and peered down. The
open space was filled with the Fire People. Their
cries and yells were added to the clamor, but they had
order and plan, while we Folk had none. Each one of us
fought and acted for himself, and no one of us knew the
extent of the calamity that was befalling us.
By the time we got to stone-throwing, the Fire People
had massed thick at the base of the cliff. Our first
volley must have mashed some heads, for when they
swerved back from the cliff three of their number were
left upon the ground. These were struggling and
floundering, and one was trying to crawl away. But we
fixed them. By this time we males were roaring with
rage, and we rained rocks upon the three men that were
down. Several of the Fire-Men returned to drag them
into safety, but our rocks drove the rescuers back.
The Fire People became enraged. Also, they became
cautious. In spite of their angry yells, they kept at
a distance and sent flights of arrows against us. This
put an end to the rock-throwing. By the time half a
dozen of us had been killed and a score injured, the
rest of us retreated inside our caves. I was not out
of range in my lofty cave, but the distance was great
enough to spoil effective shooting, and the Fire People
did not waste many arrows on me. Furthermore, I was
curious. I wanted to see. While the Swift One
remained well inside the cave, trembling with fear and
making low wailing sounds because I would not come in,
I crouched at the entrance and watched.
The fighting had now become intermittent. It was a
sort of deadlock. We were in the caves, and the
question with the Fire People was how to get us out.
They did not dare come in after us, and in general we
would not expose ourselves to their arrows.
Occasionally, when one of them drew in close to the
base of the cliff, one or another of the Folk would
smash a rock down. In return, he would be transfixed
by half a dozen arrows. This ruse worked well for some
time, but finally the Folk no longer were inveigled
into showing themselves. The deadlock was complete.
Behind the Fire People I could see the little wizened
old hunter directing it all. They obeyed him, and went
here and there at his commands. Some of them went into
the forest and returned with loads of dry wood, leaves,
and grass. All the Fire People drew in closer. While
most of them stood by with bows and arrows, ready to
shoot any of the Folk that exposed themselves, several
of the Fire-Men heaped the dry grass and wood at the
mouths of the lower tier of caves. Out of these heaps
they conjured the monster we feared--FIRE. At first,
wisps of smoke arose and curled up the cliff. Then I
could see the red-tongued flames darting in and out
through the wood like tiny snakes. The smoke grew
thicker and thicker, at times shrouding the whole face
of the cliff. But I was high up and it did not bother
me much, though it stung my eyes and I rubbed them with
my knuckles.
Old Marrow-Bone was the first to be smoked out. A
light fan of air drifted the smoke away at the time so
that I saw clearly. He broke out through the smoke,
stepping on a burning coal and screaming with the
sudden hurt of it, and essayed to climb up the cliff.
The arrows showered about him. He came to a pause on a
ledge, clutching a knob of rock for support, gasping
and sneezing and shaking his head. He swayed back and
forth. The feathered ends of a dozen arrows were
sticking out of him. He was an old man, and he did not
want to die. He swayed wider and wider, his knees
giving under him, and as he swayed he wailed most
plaintively. His hand released its grip and he lurched
outward to the fall. His old bones must have been
sadly broken. He groaned and strove feebly to rise,
but a Fire-Man rushed in upon him and brained him with
a club.
And as it happened with Marrow-Bone, so it happened
with many of the Folk. Unable to endure the
smoke-suffocation, they rushed out to fall beneath the
arrows. Some of the women and children remained in the
caves to strangle to death, but the majority met death
outside.
When the Fire-Men had in this fashion cleared the first
tier of caves, they began making arrangements to
duplicate the operation on the second tier of caves.
It was while they were climbing up with their grass and
wood, that Red-Eye, followed by his wife, with the baby
holding to her tightly, made a successful flight up the
cliff. The Fire-Men must have concluded that in the
interval between the smoking-out operations we would
remain in our caves; so that they were unprepared, and
their arrows did not begin to fly till Red-Eye and his
wife were well up the wall. When he reached the top,
he turned about and glared down at them, roaring and
beating his chest. They arched their arrows at him,
and though he was untouched he fled on.
I watched a third tier smoked out, and a fourth. A few
of the Folk escaped up the cliff, but most of them were
shot off the face of it as they strove to climb. I
remember Long-Lip. He got as far as my ledge, crying
piteously, an arrow clear through his chest, the
feathered shaft sticking out behind, the bone head
sticking out before, shot through the back as he
climbed. He sank down on my ledge bleeding profusely
at the mouth.
It was about this time that the upper tiers seemed to
empty themselves spontaneously. Nearly all the Folk
not yet smoked out stampeded up the cliff at the same
time. This was the saving of many. The Fire People
could not shoot arrows fast enough. They filled the
air with arrows, and scores of the stricken Folk came
tumbling down; but still there were a few who reached
the top and got away.
The impulse of flight was now stronger in me than
curiosity. The arrows had ceased flying. The last of
the Folk seemed gone, though there may have been a few
still hiding in the upper caves. The Swift One and I
started to make a scramble for the cliff-top. At sight
of us a great cry went up from the Fire People. This
was not caused by me, but by the Swift One. They were
chattering excitedly and pointing her out to one
another. They did not try to shoot her. Not an arrow
was discharged. They began calling softly and
coaxingly. I stopped and looked down. She was afraid,
and whimpered and urged me on. So we went up over the
top and plunged into the trees.
This event has often caused me to wonder and speculate.
If she were really of their kind, she must have been
lost from them at a time when she was too young to
remember, else would she not have been afraid of them.
On the other hand, it may well have been that while she
was their kind she had never been lost from them; that
she had been born in the wild forest far from their
haunts, her father maybe a renegade Fire-Man, her
mother maybe one of my own kind, one of the Folk. But
who shall say? These things are beyond me, and the
Swift One knew no more about them than did I.
We lived through a day of terror. Most of the
survivors fled toward the blueberry swamp and took
refuge in the forest in that neighborhood. And all day
hunting parties of the Fire People ranged the forest,
killing us wherever they found us. It must have been a
deliberately executed plan. Increasing beyond the
limits of their own territory, they had decided on
making a conquest of ours. Sorry the conquest! We had
no chance against them. It was slaughter,
indiscriminate slaughter, for they spared none, killing
old and young, effectively ridding the land of our
presence.
It was like the end of the world to us. We fled to the
trees as a last refuge, only to be surrounded and
killed, family by family. We saw much of this during
that day, and besides, I wanted to see. The Swift One
and I never remained long in one tree, and so escaped
being surrounded. But there seemed no place to go.
The Fire-Men were everywhere, bent on their task of
extermination. Every way we turned we encountered them,
and because of this we saw much of their handiwork.
I did not see what became of my mother, but I did see
the Chatterer shot down out of the old home-tree. And
I am afraid that at the sight I did a bit of joyous
teetering. Before I leave this portion of my
narrative, I must tell of Red-Eye. He was caught with
his wife in a tree down by the blueberry swamp. The
Swift One and I stopped long enough in our flight to
see. The Fire-Men were too intent upon their work to
notice us, and, furthermore, we were well screened by
the thicket in which we crouched.
Fully a score of the hunters were under the tree,
discharging arrows into it. They always picked up
their arrows when they fell back to earth. I could not
see Red-Eye, but I could hear him howling from
somewhere in the tree.
After a short interval his howling grew muffled. He
must have crawled into a hollow in the trunk. But his
wife did not win this shelter. An arrow brought her to
the ground. She was severely hurt, for she made no
effort to get away. She crouched in a sheltering way
over her baby (which clung tightly to her), and made
pleading signs and sounds to the Fire-Men. They
gathered about her and laughed at her--even as Lop-Ear
and I had laughed at the old Tree-Man. And even as we
had poked him with twigs and sticks, so did the
Fire-Men with Red-Eye's wife. They poked her with the
ends of their bows, and prodded her in the ribs. But
she was poor fun. She would not fight. Nor, for that
matter, would she get angry. She continued to crouch
over her baby and to plead. One of the Fire-Men
stepped close to her. In his hand was a club. She saw
and understood, but she made only the pleading sounds
until the blow fell.
Red-Eye, in the hollow of the trunk, was safe from
their arrows. They stood together and debated for a
while, then one of them climbed into the tree. What
happened up there I could not tell, but I heard him
yell and saw the excitement of those that remained
beneath. After several minutes his body crashed down
to the ground. He did not move. They looked at him
and raised his head, but it fell back limply when they
let go. Red-Eye had accounted for himself.
They were very angry. There was an opening into the
trunk close to the ground. They gathered wood and
grass and built a fire. The Swift One and I, our arms
around each other, waited and watched in the thicket.
Sometimes they threw upon the fire green branches with
many leaves, whereupon the smoke became very thick.
We saw them suddenly swerve back from the tree. They
were not quick enough. Red-Eye's flying body landed in
the midst of them.
He was in a frightful rage, smashing about with his
long arms right and left. He pulled the face off one
of them, literally pulled it off with those gnarly
fingers of his and those tremendous muscles. He bit
another through the neck. The Fire-Men fell back with
wild fierce yells, then rushed upon him. He managed to
get hold of a club and began crushing heads like
eggshells. He was too much for them, and they were
compelled to fall back again. This was his chance, and
he turned his back upon them and ran for it, still
howling wrathfully. A few arrows sped after him, but
he plunged into a thicket and was gone.
The Swift One and I crept quietly away, only to run
foul of another party of Fire-Men. They chased us into
the blueberry swamp, but we knew the tree-paths across
the farther morasses where they could not follow on the
ground, and so we escaped. We came out on the other
side into a narrow strip of forest that separated the
blueberry swamp from the great swamp that extended
westward. Here we met Lop-Ear. How he had escaped I
cannot imagine, unless he had not slept the preceding
night at the caves.
Here, in the strip of forest, we might have built
tree-shelters and settled down; but the Fire People
were performing their work of extermination thoroughly.
In the afternoon, Hair-Face and his wife fled out from
among the trees to the east, passed us, and were gone.
They fled silently and swiftly, with alarm in their
faces. In the direction from which they had come we
heard the cries and yells of the hunters, and the
screeching of some one of the Folk. The Fire People
had found their way across the swamp.
The Swift One, Lop-Ear, and I followed on the heels of
Hair-Face and his wife. When we came to the edge of
the great swamp, we stopped. We did not know its
paths. It was outside our territory, and it had been
always avoided by the Folk. None had ever gone into
it--at least, to return. In our minds it represented
mystery and fear, the terrible unknown. As I say, we
stopped at the edge of it. We were afraid. The cries
of the Fire-Men were drawing nearer. We looked at one
another. Hair-Face ran out on the quaking morass and
gained the firmer footing of a grass-hummock a dozen
yards away. His wife did not follow. She tried to, but
shrank back from the treacherous surface and cowered
down.
The Swift One did not wait for me, nor did she pause
till she had passed beyond Hair-Face a hundred yards
and gained a much larger hummock. By the time Lop-Ear
and I had caught up with her, the Fire-Men appeared
among the trees. Hair-Face's wife, driven by them into
panic terror, dashed after us. But she ran blindly,
without caution, and broke through the crust. We
turned and watched, and saw them shoot her with arrows
as she sank down in the mud. The arrows began falling
about us. Hair-Face had now joined us, and the four of
us plunged on, we knew not whither, deeper and deeper
into the swamp. _
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