Chapter Nine

After a filling lunch and two more trips to the spring, Marta instructed Tarn and Shaurii to go and gather wood.

"Come Tarn, I know where lots of small wood lays."

Tarn walked with Shaurii out of the hut and off into the woods a greater distance than they normally travelled. He carried two lengths of leather straps with which to bundle the wood. When they had reached their goal and had gathered half their load, Shaurii turned to Tarn.

"Do thee favour smoked meat strips?" Tarn made a funny looking grimace that evoked a laughing giggle from Shaurii. "Nobody does. Every mother gives her family meat strips to chew on. The men eat them as trail rations when they are watching the herds and hunting. I heard mother say it forces them to hunt better."

Tarn and Shaurii laughed at the truth of the statement. He froze rock still. Shaurii noted his stance and the expression on his face that bespoke danger. She stopped laughing and stared at the movement she thought that she detected over Tarn's shoulder. Nothing moved. Whatever had drawn her eyes no longer moved. Just when she was about to dismiss the earlier disturbance as a falling branch or some such natural movement, she sighted an adolescent long-toothed snow leopard pop its head up as it crept toward them on stealthy pads. Even from a distance of one hundred feet, the cat's poisonous fangs gleamed in the sunlight. One scratch from its claws released enough venom to sicken and kill a young child, or a small goat, in less than an hour. A bite brought almost certain death. Few grown men survived the fever sickness induced by a scratch, and none survived a bite from the deadly beast.

Shaurii tugged at Tarn's sleeve, saying fearfully, "Come, we must run!"

"No. It's too far. He will catch us if we flee," Tarn decided, gauging the distance to the village, then to the young leopard.

"He will eat us if we stay!" Shaurii reasoned frightened but remained by Tarn's side gripping his sleeve.

"We can climb a tree. Father said big cats advance slowly until they enter leaping range, and most are poor climbers unless the tree is large. We have time. Slowly now, climb up the tree. Make for the smaller branches. I will follow."

"But leopards climb trees!"

"Then we will choose a slender tree to make it more difficult for him to climb and we will throw branches and beat him with sticks until someone comes looking for us, or hears our calls for help."

Tarn pushed Shaurii toward a tree whose smaller diameter trunk might work in their favour. Although it was a young snow leopard, barely into adolescence, it seemed big and fierce as it stalked them. Never previously had he viewed a snow leopard so close. Tarn felt frightened, yet strangely calm. He had survived a tidal wave, villagers who wanted to eat him, and raiders who would have enslaved him. He would survive this as well. No animal would rob him of his vengeance.

Once Shaurii sat firmly in place, Tarn passed her an armful of the thicker pieces of wood they had gathered. The long-toothed sabre leopard was forty paces away when an idea came to him. Tarn reached for the leather straps. With deft fingers, he fashioned a snare loop as his father had taught him. When he finished tying the slip-knot, he secured the second strap to the end of the first, then carefully threw the end over a branch five feet over his head and laid the open loop on the ground as far in front of him as the leather length would allow.

He turned to the tree and climbed.

Shaurii had climbed several body-lengths up into the safety of the thinner branches and watched the leopard advance.

"Hurry, Tarn. He charges!"

Tarn gained the lower branch and reached for the next when a set of venomous claws swiped at this leg. Four lethal claws ripped cleanly through his fur leggings, missing his skin by a hairsbreadth, halting his upward momentum. Recovering from the sudden loss of forward motion, he pulled his leg to safety. Meanwhile, Shaurii threw wood at the young leopard to distract it from a second attack upon Tarn. She screamed at the top of her lungs for aid from the village and waved a longer branch at the leopard. Tarn settled himself on a sturdy branch, looped the leather strap around both hands, and waited. The shortness of the straps did not allow him to reach the thinner branches.

"Tarn, do something!"

"I am doing something. Keep shouting," he said with more calmness than he felt. "Distract him from the loop on the ground."

The young snow leopard jumped up from the base of the tree and clung to the trunk with its sharp claws. Shaurii had descended from her perch where she might aid Tarn. She poked a thick branch into the leopard's face. The leopard tried to swat it away but found it impossible to hang onto the tree trunk and swat at the annoying branch at the same time. It fell to the ground and turned in a tight circle to leap once more onto the tree trunk. Tarn pulled the loop inward, attempting to place it where the leopard would land next.

He threw a piece of wood at it but failed to knock it off the trunk. It glared at him with rage-filled eyes and roared an ear-splitting scream while baring its fangs. Another poke at the leopard's eye succeeded in baiting it to swipe at the branch and again lose its precarious hold. Tarn cursed when the beast fell to the right of the loop.

"Vulcan! I'll no be entering Thy hall today, so grant me strength and cunning to live," he shouted brazenly at the leopard.

The leopard was circling back toward the tree for another leap when it stopped to stare into Tarn's green eyes. When it paused to regard the screaming man-child thing, its two hind feet were inside the snare's loop. Tarn pulled up on the leather strap with all his strength. As the leather loop closed around the leopard's hind legs, it leaped sideways, but not before leather tightened around the narrowest section of one tawny leg. It roared ferociously and twisted away, almost pulling Tarn out of the tree and to certain death. Tarn fought to hang on. He knew the leopard was much stronger than he was and would soon win this tug-of-war.

A perfectly sane solution came to him. When the cat bit at the leather strap around its hind leg, Tarn wrapped a few turns of leather around his wrist and tucked the loose end in. Grasping the leather strap with both hands, he jumped out of the tree on the opposite side of the leopard. With a lot of help from gravity, and the weight of his body plunging six feet straight down, the short fall created enough momentum to flip the leopard upside down and suspend it a foot off the ground. Tarn hung off the ground on the far side of the tree, barely out of reach from the swinging leopard's lethal claws.

In crazed, maddened fury, twisting and flipping this way and that, the leopard roared its displeasure. Although Tarn's weight was less than the leopard's, the friction between the leather and the rough tree branch bark meant it could not easily twist its way to the ground. Tarn heard Shaurii say she was coming to lend her weight to his when a spear whistled through the air to hit the cat with a fleshy thud. A second and third spear followed the first. The leopard hung dead twice over when his exhausted arms let go of the leather strap. He fell to the ground a short distance from the cat carcass with a heaving chest and tears of joy coursing down his cheeks.

Moments later the owners of the three spears came running to stand over the spear-ridden leopard carcass. One by one the two owners removed their spears. Shaurii climbed the rest of the way out of the tree and knelt beside Tarn, who crouched on his knees, chest heaving to regain his expended breath.

"Tarn, ye did it! Thee saved us!" she said jubilantly, hugging him tightly.

"We did it, sister, together," he managed to say between breaths, knowing that his wrists had been moments away from letting go in exhaustion.

"Both of ye did well and brave," said Dennen, the owner of the first spear to pierce the snow leopard's tawny chest, then to the head man he exclaimed, "Did ye glimpse the lad leap from the tree and see the cat go up ass backwards? By Vulcan, that's the newest way I've ogled in many winters of hunting snowcat!"

"Aye Den, I did," said Bhildrelf, the headman, joining him in laughter.

The second and third spears to skewer the beast belonged to Bhildrelf.

Between bouts of laughter, Dennen reported, "Ye be Connor's whelp for sure. Thee boast his stout heart and madness alike."

Tarn could not help but smile, and then laugh with the men over the image of him plunging to the ground at the same time as the surprised leopard went up. Euphoria at being alive and fear of nearly dying poured out of him. A child's sense of invincibility and innocence prevented him from understanding that only good fortune had preserved their lives. He stood erect, chest puffed out, as Marta ran onto the scene and picked up a now-crying Shaurii. With Shaurii seated comfortably on her hip, Marta walked over to Tarn surveying his ripped legging with a critical eye for wounds.

"Be thee hurt, lad?"

"No, hut-mother, not even a scratch," he answered, chin held high.

"Good." In a movement too quick to avoid, Marta clamped a strong thumb and forefinger around his ear and pinched tightly. Tarn yelped and went up on his tiptoes. Marta dragged him toward the village. "So lad, ye think it witty to play with cats and rip thy leggings. And who do ye think has to mend them whilst ye folly with thy pets with no thought for me who has nothing better to do than sew for thee? Do ye think I've endless hide to spare a clumsy lad?"

Mara's tirade evoked new howls of mirth from the men. They threw back their heads, bellowing as Marta continued a non-stop admonishment of Tarn, dragging him by the ear while he yelped fresh pain, all the way back to the village. Not once did his heels touch earth.

Once in the hut, Marta ordered him to remove his leggings and readied her sewing supplies. When he complied and had climbed into his one and only spare set, she instructed him to fetch water and not to dally with any more of his pets along the way. Grumbling wordlessly under his breath, he grabbed the bucket and went to the spring.

On his way back, a bigger boy stood in his path. When Tarn tried to go around him the boy again blocked his path.

"So ye think ye be braver than the rest," said Borach. Tarn looked at the bigger boy puzzled. "What's the matter? Be ye too scared to answer, great leopard catcher?"

Although Tarn failed to understand why the boy blocked his way, he recognized the threat in his voice. He stood in front of Borach, waiting to discover the boy's intent, uncertain how to respond.

Maddened at Tarn's stoic expression, Borach pushed him to the ground, asking, "Are ye dumb or just stupid, leopard boy?" laughing at his own wit.

Tarn had fallen to the ground heavily, but rolled over and stood up quickly. Village children materialized as they do whenever anything stimulating arose and gathered around the pair, interested in the outcome. Borach's reputation as a bully was legendary among village youth.

Now that Borach had an audience, he taunted Tarn with enthusiasm, "Are ye going to cry life ye did when ye saw thy poor momma?"

At the mention of his father's funeral pyre, Tarn clenched his small fists and charged Borach with an imitation of Connor's battle-cry passing across his lips, surprising Borach, who stood flat-footed looking for adulation from the crowd. Tarn's lowered head rammed into Borach's stomach. Borach fell to the ground with the wind knocked out of him. When he regained his breath, Tarn pummelled his face and chest with small fists incapable of inflicting great injury. Borach rolled Tarn easily to his back where he flailed ineffectually at the bigger boy.

Even a child-sized battle-cry alerted the camp to the commotion, and the circle of children identified the location of the disturbance. Marta arrived shortly on the scene, within the initial group of mothers who investigated the ruckus. She waded into the circle and threw Borach off Tarn by the scruff of his neck and one ear.

"What be this childish game? Borach! Get thee away ere I twist they ear clean off and five it to thy mother to sew back on." One look at the angry matron compelled instant compliance. "Tarn. Did I no tell thee not to dally with friends! Pick up they bucked and fetch it to the hut, ere I allot thee what I promised Borach."

Complying with a nod, he accepted his bucket from another child. As he passed by the other kids, a few slapped him on the back in congratulations. Apparently, this had been a test of some sort.

"Shouldn't ye all be at thy tasks?" Marta said to those children who lingered.

By now, other mothers had arrived on the scene and were quick to echo Marta's threats and instructions. The children scattered to their huts in groups of two's and three's to avoid scolding and punishment.

Marta entered the hut shortly and set about finishing mending Tarn's leggings while Shaurii built the supper fire without speaking a word to Tarn. When Shaurii caught his eye, she smiled and winked; a secret message passed between them. Without having to be asked, Tarn scurried outside for additional fuel expecting to find an almost exhausted supply. Instead, he discovered someone had replenished the bin with the wood he and Shaurii had collected before the snow leopard had forced them to abandon their load. On his return, Marta held out his now mended leggings and began to assemble the ingredients with which to make dinner.

"Young Tarn," called Bhildrelf, "a word with thee outside."

He looked to Marta who shoed him out the door with one hand, "Get thee going, lad. Thee do not need my permission to heed our village leader's hail."

Marta followed Shaurii who dogged Tarn out of the hut to stand before the headman and Dennen. Noting the bundle the men carried, Marta acknowledged the village men with a quick nod and stayed in the background with Shaurii. Without a father to guide the lad, Denned and the headman had taken it upon themselves in this instance to be a surrogate father and to teach village custom. The headman scrutinized Tarn's muddied appearance and grinned clandestinely before clearing his throat.

"Tarn, son of Connor, thee have assisted in thy first kill. Though thy spear never slew the cat, Denned claims thy aid to string the beastie upside down assisted his killing cast. 'Tis Dennen's right to first cut, but he complains his mate is heavy under task. He bestows the privilege of first spear to thee."

Dennen and the headman together placed the skinned, bulging leopard hide stuffed with meat at his feet. The delectable organs, those of the heart, liver, kidneys, and tongue, lay prominently on top of the less delectable cuts. Remembering his father's teachings, Tarn removed the heart and held it out to Dennen.

"To the first spear does the heart belong." Dennen accepted the heart as if it was the greatest gift anyone had bestowed him. To Bhildrelf, Tarn offered the tongue, a highly desirable part of the kill. "For the second spear, accept this poor offering."

Bhildrelf accepted the meat with the same show of honour and sincerity. Tarn fidgeted in uncomfortable silence, not knowing what to say or to do next.

Marta came to his rescue.

"If ye be waiting for pointers from the lad on his new hunting style, return after we have supped, and he's completed his chores. Don't dally, Tarn. Be thee waiting for the meat to rot? Put it in the hut to be sorted and portioned and salted, or do thee need assistance to recall a son's duties?"

Clamping a hand over his left ear until he was out of reach of Marta, Tarn retied the hide closed.

"Tarn be a fast learner," laughed Dennen.

"Ay," replied Bhildrelf. "He may yet reach manhood with both ears intact," he noted, slapping his leg in rich mountain mirth.

Tarn found little humour in the headman's remark as he dragged the bulging hide toward the hut with great difficulty. Shaurii appeared at his side and together the two of them manhandled their prize through the opening watched carefully my Marta's half-stern, half-amused figure.

From inside the hut, Tarn and Shaurii heard Marta say, "Isn't it just like men to stand about jabbering whilst children and woman folk be labouring! When the hunting has finished, the real work begins."

The headman and Dennen departed with a pair of grins telling, each of them well aware of the work that awaited Tarn and Shaurii as Marta prepared the meat for cold storage, a quantity salted for trail rations and the ever-present meat strips. Following drying, salting, and freezing, long hours would be spent scraping the hide clean of skin, muscle and fat before the curing could begin. Tarn, of course, knew nothing of this as Marta entered the hut to find the pair clutching each other to muffle their giggles enjoyed at the village headman's expense.