296,165 BCE – 296,045 BCE | Episodes 769–792

The water had risen.

For several days now, water had been pooling in the low ground to the east. Each time the one passed along the water's edge carrying a load, the feet grew wet. The coldness that came when wet feet dried — the one did not care for it.

One afternoon, light fell across the surface of the water.
Shadows stretched long and reached into it.

The one stopped.

At the far end of a shadow, something moved, small and slight.
It was a fish. The one knew this. Fish had been seen in the river before. But the river was far away. Why one should be here — that question did not arise. It was simply there.

A hand reached out.
The water was cold. The fish moved. It slipped between the fingers.
Once more. It slipped through.
Once more. Mud billowed up, and nothing could be seen.

The one crouched there and looked at the water for a time.
Waited for the mud to settle.
The fish came back.

It could not be caught by hand.

The one rose and picked up a dry branch lying on the bank.
The end was slender.
It was thrust toward the water. It missed.
Once more. It missed.

Several attempts. Then it was set aside.

That night, tending the fire, the one held the branch.
The tip was brought close to the flames. It charred. The charred tip was scraped against a stone.
The scraping made it sharp.

Scraped. Then scraped again.
The fire swayed.
The scraping stopped, and the fire was tended.

Morning came.
The branch lay on the ground.

The one picked it up. And walked toward the water.

Arrived at the water's edge.
A fish was there.

The branch was raised toward the water.

An older one from the group approached.
In voice and gesture came the question: what are you doing?
The one held out the branch. Pointed to the fish.

The older one laughed.
The meaning of that laugh, the one did not read.
The branch was not lowered.

Within the group, the one was old.

Few lived to see forty. The knees creaked. When a load was shouldered, the back went rigid. Settling to the ground to tend the fire took time. The younger ones watched this and said nothing.

The fire was tended by day and by night. The one preferred the night watch. No one else awake. The flames present. That was enough.

In the winter of the thirty-ninth year, a fracture opened inside the group.

Food was sufficient. Still sufficient. Yet someone took more than their share. Someone claimed a place not theirs to claim. The one observed this. Could not put it into words. Perhaps would not have, even given the means. Simply watched.

Beside the night fire, an older man raised his voice at a younger one. Swung his arm. The younger man did not move. The older man raised his voice again.

The one watched the fire.

The following morning, the one walked at the rear of the column, pack on back. As always.

The group had begun to move because the water had changed. Someone said there was a new water source to the east. They turned east. The path ran along the edge of a cliff.

The wind came.

Into the one's nostrils came the smell of rotted leaves and wet earth, mingled together. The grass at the one's feet stirred. The one stopped and looked down over the edge. It was deep. Stones were visible below. The sound of water rose from somewhere.

Whether someone pushed from behind—

A foot slipped.

The pack fell away.

The body rolled over the cliff's edge, struck rock, and fell.

The sound of water could still be heard. For a while.

Someone in the column cried out. Looked down over the edge. Below, something no longer moved. For a time, no one said anything. Then the column began moving again.

The pack remained at the edge of the cliff.

Running.

The grass stands tall. It strikes the face. Feet find the roots, miss them, find them again. The back of the one running ahead sways. Keep it in sight. Lose it and everything is over.

An animal cried out. To the left.

The one let out a shout. A single tone, short, twice. A signal. A voice thrown from the edge of the group toward its center. No way of knowing if it was received. Direction changes without breaking stride. Right, then further right. The grass thins. The ground hardens.

The animal vanished behind a rock.

The one running ahead stopped. Breathing ragged. Shoulders heaving. The one stopped too. Hands on knees. The taste of blood in the mouth. The tongue, perhaps, had been bitten.

A pause.

Three chasers gathered before the rock. The rock was large. No one had seen which way the animal had gone. If it had passed to the far side, it would head into the grass on the left. If it had turned right, along the cliff face. The three said nothing. Words were exchanged only with the eyes.

Two ran left.

The one chose the cliff.

Running the cliff's edge held no fear. Heights were familiar. Left foot, right foot, left foot. The sound of stone crumbling. No matter. Rounding to the far side of the rock, the one stopped.

The animal was there.

It was not large. One leg drawn back. Perhaps wounded. The one and the animal faced each other.

Wind rose from below the cliff.

The smell of the animal came with it. And something more, from further away — something like grass scorched, like the smell of an old fire. The one's nose moved. A smell from somewhere known. Where, it could not be recalled.

The animal moved. The one moved.

There was no spear. Chasers only chase. But in the one's hand was a stone. When it had been picked up, the one could not remember. It was thrown. It missed. The animal leapt. And moved beyond the cliff's edge.

A sound came. The sound of falling.

The one did not look down over the edge. Turned back. The other chasers had arrived. No one looked below. Everyone was breathing. That was the end of it.

That night, the group gathered around the fire.

The animal had not been taken. There would be no food today. Still, the fire burned. One of the elders said something. There were words in it the one could not understand. A younger person laughed. Why, the one could not tell.

The one watched the fire.

Within the flames, something seemed almost visible. Not a shape. More like a movement. The one narrowed their eyes. Nothing. Only fire burning.

Beside them, someone fell asleep.

That body tilted and came to rest against the one's shoulder. The one did not move. With the weight against the shoulder, they went on watching the fire. The flames shrank. Someone added wood. They rose again.

The one had fallen asleep without knowing when.

It seemed there had been something being thought, just before sleep — but when morning came, what it had been was gone.

The right cheek grew cold.

Running. The feet stopped. The back ahead vanished into the grass.

Ran toward the cold. Gripped rock and climbed. Night came. The shaking came. Something gave way below.

At dawn, looked at the mud. Looked for a long time.

Placed a hand against the right cheek.

It was this one's role to run along the outer edge of the group.

The driver does not go to the front. You shout, you wave your arms, you push the animal toward the center. Your legs do not need to be swift. Your voice only needs to be loud. And so this one ran and shouted. In the first hunt after the smoke had cleared, this one shouted until the throat felt as though it had torn.

There were three animals. One female, two young males.

When the female broke to the right, this one moved by instinct to cut around to the left. The feet pushed off the ground. But the ground shifted slightly underfoot. The edge of a crack — a thin fissure left by the earthquake. The front of the right foot found only air.

A fall, knee-first. Hands thrown out. The palms scraped raw against rock.

This one lay against the ground and steadied their breath.

The sounds of the group moved away. The voices chasing the animal, someone's brief shout, then silence again.

This one did not rise. It was not that rising was impossible. Only that, with hands still pressed to the ground, this one remained still for a time.

The surface of the rock was close to the cheek. Ash had gathered in its hollows. Among the ash, a single thin blade of grass had emerged. After the earthquake, beneath the smoke, it had come up even so.

This one looked at it. Only looked.

With the blood from the palms spreading across the rock, this one went on watching the blade of grass.

After a time, someone from the group came back. A short sound called out. This one rose and ran.

The trace of blood remained on the rock. A little ash drifted down and settled there.

Stopped at the edge of the riverbed.

The soles of the feet brush against withered grass. No sound when stepped on. It only breaks.

At the edge of the plateau across the way, there are shadows. Moving shadows. Not the shadows of one's own group. The voices are different. Too far away to hear now, but they have been heard before. Low voices, and round.

The stone in the hand was gripped again.

The one looked at the riverbed. A white stone lay there. And near it, a single thread of the water ran clear. All the rest was white with silt, but not that one place.

Knees bent, face brought close.

The smell was taken in. There was the smell of earth, and mixed with it something cold. Not rot. The smell of rotten water is known. This was not that.

Water was cupped in the palms. Brought to the mouth.

The stomach tightened. It was cold. That was all.

Standing again, the one looked at the shadows at the edge of the plateau.

No one in the one's group knows that this crossing of the riverbed is being attempted. Last night, the elder's voice rose. There was talk about the other group, it seemed. Hard to say. The sounds were heard. The meanings did not come together.

Stone still in hand, one step was taken into the riverbed.

The mud at the bottom pulled at the foot.

A second step.

At the edge of the plateau, one of the shadows turned this way.

The one stopped.

The shadow across the way also stopped.

In the middle of the riverbed lay the white stone. Between the two, there was only that.

The driver runs along the edge of the herd.

He circles around to the flank of the animal. He makes noise. He swings his arms. The sound pushed out from his throat is not language — only pressure. The animal flees in the opposite direction. Good.

The grass reaches to his thighs. With each strike of the stems against his ankles, a dry sound follows. He can see the back of the man ahead. That back bent left. The one bends left too.

He stopped just short of the hill.

The animal was gone. It had either fallen beyond the cliff, or dissolved into the grass. The man ahead let out a low groan. The sound of giving up.

The one steadied his breath and stood at the crest of the hill.

The eastern valley was visible below.

The remnants of smoke had cleared. The sky was a whitish blue, and a single thin gap in the clouds ran across it like a seam. The grass at the valley floor was beginning to recover its green. The white bones along the bank were no longer there. Wind, or animals, had seen to them.

The one looked at the valley.

Something had changed. He could not say what. There were no words for it. But something inside his body said: different. Not as it was before.

He saw smoke from another group.

To the south, from behind a low ridge, thin threads of smoke rose. Not one. Three. The intervals between them were narrow.

The one did not move.

The man ahead pointed toward the smoke. He growled. Whether in anger or in warning, the one could tell the difference. It was warning. He carried the same sound somewhere in the back of his own throat.

At dusk, they returned to the group.

The elder among the men asked about the smoke to the south. The one answered with his hands. Three. Close. The elder said nothing. The others said nothing. The space around the fire went quiet.

The one looked at the fire.

The fire did not know. It did not know about the smoke to the south, or the change in the valley, or the warning sound the man had made. It simply burned. It swayed.

That night, the one sat at the edge of the group.

Someone came and placed a hand on his shoulder. A young woman. She carried a child on her back. The one did not turn toward her. He was looking south, where the smoke had been.

The woman left without a word.

The one sat there until the night gave way to morning.

The cold came first.

The herds changed. They stopped using the paths that had been known. The grass grew shorter, and then the grass itself thinned. Bare rock spread wider. The ground beneath running feet became something different. The soil the soles of his feet had memorized was no longer there.

The one was a driver. He ran along the edges of the herd. He pressed into the flanks of the animals, turned them. He had done this for forty years.

But the animals diminished.

He would give chase, and what he chased would vanish. The group would coordinate their drive, and the prey would escape before being cornered. The count of kills fell. The amount eaten fell. The hours they could move fell.

The winter was severe.

The cold that had always ended did not end. The ground hardened at night and did not soften by morning. A dozen or more from the group disappeared. Some lay down to sleep and did not move again. Some went looking for water and never came back. Some were taken by other things.

The one survived.

But his belly was perpetually empty. When he ran, his head swam. Still he ran. He ran because he was a driver. If he were to be something else, he did not know where he would stand within the group.

The way others looked at him had changed.

He felt something. He had no word for felt. Only: when he drew near, others drew back. When he sat beside someone, that person rose. When food was passed, he received it later.

He did not know the reason.

He thought: my running has changed. He thought: the prey has changed. He thought: I am the same.

One night, there was a smell.

Not the smell of rot. Something else was carried in the wind. The wind came from the north. In that direction, dark rocks lay piled in the darkness. The one looked toward them. For a long time, he looked.

There was nothing.

But the smell did not leave. The wind kept coming from that place. The one stood, and took a step.

He stepped forward, and did not return.

By morning, the group noticed he was gone. No one went to look.

The one was never found among the northern rocks. Whether he kept walking in the direction the wind had come from, or whether he fell somewhere along the way, that is not known. Only that the ground was hard, and cold, and his belly was empty. A body carrying forty-four years had already reached its limit long before.

The dry season stretched on. The riverbed turned white, the water thinned to a single threadlike vein, and the mud along the banks cracked and curled upward. The tracks of grazing animals pointed north.

The one was seventeen, living at the edge of the group. Ordinarily assigned to follow the older hunters, that day the one was told to carry water instead. Cradling a leather bag, the one descended to the river.

Where the water threaded between rocks, what had once reached the knee now barely covered the ankle. Walking the riverbed, the one breathed in the smell of mud — not the smell of rot, but of something drying away.

Beyond the northern ridge, another group. Their smoke was visible sometimes. Three columns on busy days. Some days closer, some days gone entirely.

The elder of the group called the younger ones over and made gestures — toward the north, then pressing a hand to the stomach. That food was running short was clear enough. The one nodded, but could not grasp what was to be done.

A turtle shell emerged from the mud, dried out and light. The one picked it up, turned it over, and traced the pattern on the underside with a finger. There was no particular thought behind it. The hand simply moved.

The wind shifted from the south — not turning cold, but cooling while remaining dry. The grass grew shorter than before. Shorter than last year. The one knew this through the body: the grass that had brushed the waist last year now barely stirred below the stomach.

Something changed in the presence of the old ones. They usually gathered in small clusters beneath the rocks and kept their distance. But as the dry season deepened, encounters at the water's edge grew more frequent. Large bodies, wide nostrils, long arms. Each time the one passed them, the breath held. They did the same. Neither looked at the other.

At night, the one sat outside the ring of people gathered around the fire. Inside the ring were the elders and the older women, speaking in low voices with little gesture. The one caught perhaps half the words, but sensed that something was shifting — not in the stomach, but somewhere deeper in the chest.

The following year, a young man disappeared. He went upriver alone and did not come back. Those who went to search returned having found traces of blood on the rocks. The one never saw the blood, but understood from the way the men walked back.

At twenty-one, the smoke beyond the northern ridge multiplied. Five columns, six, rising in a single day. One of the elders tried to go across. Half the group stopped him. The standoff continued, and in the end the elder fell silent and said nothing more.

That night, the one sat on a flat rock near the water. The river was nearly dry. A sound came from the brush on the opposite bank — not a large animal, not the wind. The one did not move. After a while, a child of the old ones stepped out from the grass. Small and thin. The child looked across and froze.

The one froze as well.

The child did not run. The one did not move. For a long while, two shadows faced each other at the boundary of rock and grass. The river was almost gone, yet sound remained — water moving slowly across stone.

The child moved first, stepping back into the grass.

The one pressed a hand to the rock and looked toward the river. Something was reflected on the surface of the water. Sky, or self — it was impossible to say.

The morning after the rain stopped, the river had grown.

The color of the mud told how high the water was. The one stopped at the near bank. To know whether it could be crossed, a foot was pressed into the earth. Then a step forward. Knee-deep. It did not reach the waist. The crossing was made.

The stones on the far bank were wet.

This was not a search for water. The elder hunter had said to go and check the tracks. Tracks meant animals. Animals meant the group could move.

In the mud, the shape of hooves. Deep. A heavy animal. The trail of pressed grass continued to the northwest. The one traced the shape of a print with a hand. The fingertips were cold.

Turning to go back, the shallows lit up beneath.

A pause.

The light had gathered at a single point on a stone. Yellow. There was a feeling of having seen that color before. But where, nothing came.

An arm reached into the water. The stone was grasped. Lifted free.

It was heavy.

Standing on the bank, the stone was examined. One side was yellow. A fingernail dragged across it. The mark remained. It was soft.

There was no knowing what it might be used for.

Still, it was not thrown away.

It went into the leather pouch at the waist. The weight of the stone pressed against the hip. All the way back to the group, that weight continued to be felt.

In the night, there was a call from beyond the fire.

Two old men were there. Their voices were low. Their gestures were brief.

A sound came that meant: *not you*.

The one understood only half of the meaning. But the faces of the two men were clear enough. They carried no fire. Had not been permitted to carry any.

A walk through the night grass. No knowing where it led. The feet moved.

There was blood on his face.

It was not his own. A beast cornered in a crack of rock had thrashed wildly. The one had shielded his face with his arm, knocked his elbow against stone, and lost his footing. The beast escaped. A younger one who had run ahead threw rocks, but they fell short.

They gave up the chase. The sun was beginning to lean.

The one pressed his hand against dry grass and rose, turning to look back the way they had come. Beyond the hill, three threads of smoke rose into the sky. The group's fires. His stomach growled.

He wiped his face with the back of his hand. Blood and dirt smeared together and spread.

One of the others approached. An older male. Tall, with a scar running from his right shoulder down across his chest. He looked at the one and made a short sound. The sound meant: return. The one obeyed.

On the way back, they walked along the river. Marks of the flood still pressed into the grass along the bank. Broken branches stood dried and fixed in the mud. The stones had been washed white and lay exposed.

The one stopped.

There was something on a rock.

A flat stone, and atop it, another stone. Too heavy to have been moved by wind. Whether someone had placed it there, or whether it had simply fallen and come to rest that way by chance, he could not say.

From the gap between the stones, a thin root emerged.

It was white. Not the color of soil — closer to the color of light. The one crouched and looked. He brought his nose near. There was a smell. Not the smell of earth. Something sour, something that stirred the back of the tongue.

He pulled. The root was long and ran beneath the stone.

He kept pulling, and a clump came free. Round and small, its surface rough. When he brushed the soil away, the inside was white.

He bit into it.

It was hard. It took time to break apart in his mouth. But it broke.

It was not sweet. Yet something spread through him. A tongue that knew hunger recognized it as food.

He dug for another. It came.

He placed them inside the hide wrapped at his waist. He had no intention of bringing them back to the others. He meant to keep them for himself alone.

That was the first decision.

The night they returned to the group, the one sat at the edge of the fire. He gnawed at the clumps inside the hide, slowly, a little at a time. No one was watching.

An older female was nursing a child. There were three children, but one of them had often grown still.

The one looked away.

When he had eaten everything inside the hide, his stomach growled again.

The next morning, he returned to the river. He went to the same place. He searched for roots. They were there. He brought them back again.

On the third day, the older male followed him. He said nothing. He simply followed. He watched as the one dug up the roots.

The one stopped his hands.

He was being watched.

He could have offered the roots. But he did not. He slipped his hand inside the hide and concealed them.

The older male made no sound. He only watched. Then he looked toward the upper reaches of the river. Then he left.

That night, something in the air of the group shifted.

Who had found food, and where — this was always the question. To share, or to hide. Would the strongest eat first, or would the children receive it first. There were no fixed rules. It was decided by force and the feel of the moment.

The one knew about the roots in the river. The others did not.

That was all it was. And yet that night, he felt eyes on his back.

The dry season came. The river narrowed, and the riverbed grew visible. The soil along the banks cracked and turned white. Herds of grazing animals began moving south, and the group started preparing to follow.

The one's elbow wound had never fully healed. Still, the one bundled the hides and shouldered them.

Along the southward path, there were traces of the archaic ones. The remains of a fire. Scattered bones. Small bones. A child's. The elder woman of the group looked at the bones and made a sound. The others stopped. The one stopped too. Nothing was said.

The archaic ones were not far.

As the migration continued, something began to shift within the group. Two men raised their voices over the order of dividing the catch. The exchange was not long — it was short and sharp. One man lifted a stone. The other stepped back. The stone was not thrown. But everyone had seen the stone.

The one had seen it too. Something hardened inside the chest. It had no name.

Through the dry season, the group moved on — searching for water, searching for prey. One child was caught by the current midway across a river crossing. Two men jumped in. The child was saved. But one of the men who had saved the child trembled all that night without stopping. By morning he could not rise. Four days later, he could no longer walk. The group moved ahead.

The one looked back. Then looked back again, and walked on.

In the third year, the drought deepened. Half the group had grown thin, and two children died. The range of foraging widened, and with it came more contact with the archaic ones. One morning, on a hilltop, the group came face to face with a band of them. No one made a sound. For a time, they simply looked at one another. The archaic ones moved first. They disappeared over the far side of the hill.

The one remained, and looked at the footprints the archaic ones had left. Then placed a foot beside them and looked at both.

The fourth year. The rains began to return. Slowly, the grass came back. Prey grew more plentiful. Three children were born. Something in the feeling of the group changed. Voices grew livelier, and at night the fires were built larger. Dancing returned. An elder, dragging one foot, danced. The one watched from outside the ring. The one did not enter the ring, but did not move away from it either.

The fifth year. The one turned forty-two. There were no mirrors. The one did not know the face. But looking at the reflection in the water, something felt different from before. Around the jaw. Beneath the eyes. It could not be named.

That night the sky was clear. No wind, and the sound of insects. The one left the fire and sat down in the darkness. Arms wrapped around the knees.

The pattern on the rock rose up in the mind. There was no reason for it.

The migration has entered its fourth day.

The elbow moves. The pain remains, but it can be bent. The bundle of hides is heavy. The skin at the shoulder has gone red.

The young male walking ahead moves quickly. The one could match that pace, but does not. It is easier to stay at the back of the group. Walking at the same speed as those carrying heavy loads, those with children — those ones.

Along the way, it stopped.

There was something underfoot. Not warm exactly, but not cold either. The sensation of something not dry within the dry earth.

It looked around. The color of the soil was different. Striped. A red band, a dark band.

It crouched. Pressed its fingers into the earth. Damp. Not deeply. But there.

The ones walking ahead did not look back.

The one rose and walked on.

That night, near the fire, the one looked at its hand. Soil still clung to the fingers. It brought them to its nose. The smell of earth, and beneath that, something like the smell of water.

It did not eat it. Only smelled.

The child sleeping beside it turned over and laid its head on the one's arm.

The one did not move. The weight of the child's head rested on its arm.

When the sky began to lighten, the elder woman of the group rose to her feet. Two claps of the hands — the signal to depart.

The one woke the child. The child groaned in displeasure but stood.

Before beginning to walk, the one looked once more toward the soil from the night before. It could no longer be seen. Still dark.

For a moment, it kept its gaze turned in that direction, where nothing was visible any longer.

Then it faced forward.

Walking at the edge of the group, it noticed movement in the grass ahead.

The old ones, someone signaled — a sharp, high, brief sound of warning.

Beyond the grass, shapes became visible. Two, perhaps three. Standing. Still.

The group drew together.

The elder woman clapped again. Three times.

The group moved forward, curving to the right, away from the grass.

The old ones did not move either. They only watched.

Passing alongside them, the one glanced sideways.

One was young — no taller than the hip. It held something in its hand. A stone, a piece of wood — too far away to tell.

That young one looked over.

The one looked back.

Neither did anything.

That was all.

The group moved on, and the grass fell away behind them. The one faced forward.

The elbow ached a little. Walking, it reached across with the other hand and rubbed the elbow.

The fever came before dawn.

The one lay in the shadow of a rock. Even pulling the hide up to the shoulders brought no warmth — not because of cold, but because the strength needed to feel cold was no longer there.

A hand moved to the side, below the ribs. Something had swollen beneath the skin. It had been there for three days. Pressing brought a dull pressure. The pressing stopped.

The voices of the others were distant. The sound of a child running, the dry crack of someone splitting wood. The one lay with eyes open, watching the surface of the rock.

The gray surface held patches of orange. They had been there for years, those same patches. Since childhood, sleeping here, they were always the first thing seen.

A younger one brought water, offering the whole leather pouch. The one took it and raised it to the lips. There was no strength to swallow. Water ran along the jaw and wet the neck. The younger one said nothing.

The following morning, the one tried to rise.

Weight was shifted onto one elbow. The arm trembled as though it might give way. The one stayed like that — elbow pressed to rock — and looked up at the sky.

The sky was high and gray. The clouds were thin, and only the outline of the sun showed through.

The pressure in the side had worsened. It surged with every breath. The one exhaled slowly. Inhaled once more. Exhaled again.

That night, the nature of the fever changed.

Numbness arrived from the feet. The toes ceased to be felt, then the knees, then the hips, each growing distant in turn. What remained was not the body itself but the memory of its weight.

The one's gaze left the patches on the rock.

It settled somewhere on the ceiling of sky — no particular place at all.

Something in the side quietly gave way.

It was not pain. The pressure was simply gone. Only that.

One breath came — deep, long.

And did not return.

The shaft of the spear was biting into his palm.

The quarry was gone. It had bolted, leaving only a cloud of dust that the wind soon scattered. The one stood there, tightening his grip on the shaft. Beside him, an older man spat on the ground and made a sound like a click of the tongue. The one understood what it meant.

The walk back was long.

The grass grew tall, brushing against his ankles with every step. The sky was white, the light without color. Sweat ran down the back of his neck and stopped somewhere along his spine. As he walked, he replayed the quarry's movements again and again. The way it had turned. The kick of its hind legs. The angle of its neck in the instant it sensed him.

Even after returning to the group's fire, the one sat apart from the others.

Meat had been brought in by another hunt. The women were dividing it. Children ran in circles; an old man prodded at a branch that would not catch. The one chewed the portion he had been given and looked out toward the distant grassland.

That night, he could not sleep.

He lay down and closed his eyes. The fire sounded far away. Someone turned over. A child cried out briefly and then was quiet. The one sat up and moved closer to the fire.

The fire crackled.

A small sound. But inside it, a knot in one of the branches had split, and from it rose something like the smell of oil. The one moved his nose toward it. Not the smell of a grassland animal, not the smell of rotting earth. Something deeper burning — something from further inside things.

He crouched there and watched the fire.

At the base of the flames, where the wood lay piled, there was a single stone that had turned red. Whether it had always been there or had shifted in the crack, he could not tell. It was a different color from the other stones. When the fire died down, it would go black again. But now it was red.

He began to reach out his hand, then stopped.

He knew heat. His body knew that to touch it was to be burned. But the hand had moved before any thought could follow, and this surprised him a little. He looked at his own hand. There were scars — old ones and new ones, layered over each other.

He lay down again.

Eyes open, he watched the smoke rise. It did not go straight up; the wind nudged it sideways, and it spread at an angle. Where it was going, the one could not see.

Sleep came. It took time in coming.

Rain had fallen before dawn.

The ground was still wet. The one sat with their back against a rock, feeling the damp earth through the soles of their feet. They were hungry. There had been no prey the day before. Nor the day before that.

Others had appeared among the group. Strangers—faces unknown. They had come down from some slope. Three or four of them. They carried clubs.

An older man bellowed. He spread his arms wide.

The one rose. Gripped the spear.

The air changed. The smell changed. The one's nose caught something—like iron, like wet earth, like the nearness of a thing. The wind came from ahead. The one stepped toward it.

There was no reason. Only the step.

The first blow landed on the shoulder.

The one fell. Rose. Fell again.

The sky was visible. The sky was overcast. The remnants of the rain clouds still moved, slowly. The one watched them. One cloud shifted its shape.

The spear lay on the ground.

The hand would not move.

The one lay still, eyes turned to the sky. The clouds went on changing shape. There was the sound of wind. Somewhere, a bird called. Once only.

A voice.

From the river.

The one set down the stone. It was a stone half-worked, its edge just beginning to sharpen. Set down all the same.

Standing, stretching out the lower back. The right arm feels heavy. Three days ago, it caught on a rock. The skin had torn away, and now the edges were beginning to harden. Beneath them, a slow, spreading heat. The one pays it no mind. Wounds are always there. Heat is always there.

The two along the riverbank are shouting. Males from the same group. The older one is larger in body. The younger one will not yield.

The one descends the slope. Not to join them. To be near. There is no understanding why.

The older male shoved the younger one in the chest. The younger stepped back. And from that step, raised his voice again.

The one stopped a short distance away.

The argument is legible. It is about a share of the kill. Yesterday, the older male had taken more. That is all it is.

Yet to the one, it did not look like all. The angle of their bodies, the direction of their feet, the quickness of their breath. Something older lay beneath the voices.

The one has no words. There is no way to give this feeling to anyone.

Standing in the shadow of a rock, watching the two.

After a time, the older male turned his back. The younger sent one more sound after him. No answer came.

The one picked up a stone. Set it down. Picked it up again.

The right arm is hot. The heat has spread slowly, all the way to the root of the shoulder. The one reached across with the left hand and touched it, as if to confirm. Touched it once. Then let go.

Night came. Bodies gathered around the fire. The one sat at the edge. There was a smell of meat over flame. The stomach called out.

The one received a share. Ate. Gnawed down to the bone.

The right arm, through all the night, burned quietly on.

Before dawn, stomach pain woke the one.

Something eaten yesterday. The one rushed outside. Relieved oneself at the edge of the rock shelf and stayed there a while. Something still moving inside. The smell of grass. The smell of wet earth.

Light fell.

Onto the earth, right there in front. Light through a break in the clouds, and for just a moment that place was bright. The one, still kneeling, looked at that spot. Looked at the earth. Touched it with a hand. It was dry. No grass. Nothing.

Stood up.

Returned to the rock shelf. Sat down beside the fire. The stomach still felt heavy.

When morning came, the elder of the group began striking stone. The work of splitting it thin. The one watched from nearby. Watched the elder's hands. The sound of stone splitting continued. Sparks flew. The one reached out a hand. The elder made a low sound. A sound meaning: do not come. The hand was withdrawn.

Before midday, a young female came out of the rock shelf carrying a child. She stood in the light. The child narrowed its eyes. Eyes that did not yet know the strength of light. The one watched for a little while. Then went somewhere else.

In the evening, the one was called to the work of driving prey. A minor role. Not one of the runners. One of those who make noise to press the beast inward. Running through the grass. The feel of earth passing up through the soles of the feet. Earth grown damp. Different from the morning.

The beast fled. Nothing was caught.

When the one returned to the group, others were dividing dried meat. The one received a share. Ate. No stomach pain.

Night came.

The one lay down beside the fire. Smoke moved upward. Before the eyes closed, the one thought back to the morning light. Not quite thought back — more that some part of the body was still in that place. The hand that had touched the earth still held the feeling of dryness.

The eyes closed.

Waking before dawn.

No reason for it. No sound. No one among the group had stirred. The eyes simply opened. The ceiling of the rock shelf was dark above.

Rising, the knee made a sound.

Walking the path toward the watering place. The feet stopped just before the detour around the fissure. Light was resting on the stone at the fissure's edge.

The one stepped off the path and went to it.

Looked at the stone. It was not wet. There was no night dew. It was simply white.

Crouching, touching it with one finger. Cold. A stone like any other stone.

Standing again, looking across to the other side.

The fissure was a stride wide. Jumpable. It had never been jumped. What lay on the far side had never been considered.

The one looked across for a while.

There was grass. There were rocks. In the morning light, the tracks of an animal. The same things as on this side.

No jump was made.

The way continued to the watering place.

That day's hunt found the one at the back. Assigned as a driver — the work of pushing the animal from the front, running ahead of any throw. The one was not fast. Among the drivers, one of the slower ones.

But that day the movement was different from other days.

The moment the animal turned, the others in the group moved right. The one alone moved left.

The animal fled left.

It came straight toward the one. Within throwing distance.

It was taken.

On the way back, the fissure appeared again.

This time there was no stopping.

Only a sideways glance. Across to the other side. The light was gone.

Walking, the one looked down at a hand. Blood on it. Already beginning to dry. The fingers curled. Straightened.

That night, before returning to the rock shelf, the one drew too close to the elder of the group. Close enough for shoulders to touch, moving to show how the taken animal should be carried.

The elder went still.

Eyes met.

The one stepped back.

The elder said nothing. Only the gaze remained, resting on the one.

The one woke before dawn.

There was no reason. No pain in the stomach. No sound. The eyes simply opened.

The others were still sleeping. Pressed together beneath a rock, wrapped in hides. The sound of breathing could be heard. One breath, then another.

The one stood.

Walked east across the grassland. The cold of stone against the soles of the feet. Dew had settled on the grass, and the shins grew wet.

The place of the fissure was known by smell.

Before drawing close, the one stopped. The smell was different. Different from yesterday. Something that seemed to come from beneath the earth, a heaviness that lingered at the back of the nose.

One step, then another.

The one stood at the edge. The bottom could not be seen. Today the cold air did not rise. In its place, something like warm breath came up.

The one crouched.

Picked up a stone from the edge. Let it fall.

No sound was heard.

The one stood and looked at the sky. Still dark. Stars remained. The far eastern edge had just begun, faintly, to grow light.

The one stood there for a time. Did not move. Breathed in the smell, breathed it out.

There was no thought that something was near. There were no words for that.

Only the feet would not move.

When the sky began to lighten, the one turned and went back. Returned to where the others were. Sat down beside the sleeping ones and drew the knees close.

No one woke. The one said nothing.

The smell was still there, deep in the nose.

The stone split.

In two. Clean.

The one looked at the broken face. White. Flat. Traced it with the pad of a finger. Rough at first, then smooth. The edge of the split was sharp. The skin caught and opened a little. Blood came. Licked it.

That was the whole of the day's work.

Splitting stones. The large ones handed over. The small ones discarded. There was a place for discarding them — the hollow on the far side. Yesterday, too. The day before as well.

In the evening, there was a gathering. Four males, two females. The others did not come.

Something has happened, the one felt. The large male at the center of the gathering was facing south. Held that direction. Made no sound.

The one stood at the edge. Always at the edge.

The large male said something. A short sound. The others nodded. The one nodded too. The meaning was unclear. But the one nodded.

Night came.

The one sat a little apart from the fire. Drew the knees up. Looked at the sky.

There was a smell. Not the smell of earth. Something that came from farther away. From the south. Like water, but not water. Something like that.

The one raised the nose. Inhaled again.

The same direction. The same direction the large male had been watching.

The one stood. Began to move back toward the fire. The feet stopped.

Looked south. Dark. Nothing visible. But the smell was still there.

Sat again. This time facing south, knees drawn up.

Until the sky grew light, the one remained there.

Morning came, and the group moved.

North.

The one fell in at the rear. No belongings. Nothing to carry.

Walking, picked up a stone. Small. It fit inside the hand. Not white. The edges were rounded.

Kept it anyway.

Why — that was unclear.

Three days later.

They reached a place with no river. Flat land. Low grass. Wind moved through it.

The one set the rounded stone on the ground.

Looked at it.

Picked it up. Set it down again.

A voice sounded in the distance. A voice calling to gather. The one stood, leaving the stone where it lay.

But after three steps, turned back. Picked up the stone. Held it.

Then walked toward the gathering.

In the gathering, the large male was speaking. He was saying something about another group being nearby. The one could not follow all of it, but understood the fear. From the low register of the voice.

The one listened, holding the stone.

That night, brought the stone close to the face. Too dark to see clearly. But the shape was known through the fingers. Round. No marks.

Closed the eyes.

The next day, the large male came.

Pointed at the one's belongings. Said nothing. Looked at the belongings. Then looked at the stone.

The one held the stone out.

The large male did not take it. Looked at the one.

Then left.

The one drew the stone back. Held it near the chest.

Something has changed, the one felt. What exactly was unclear. But something had changed.

Over the course of five years, the one's place within the group had shifted, little by little.

Not just splitting stones, but choosing them. Which to split, which to leave. Someone had begun leaving that choice to the one.

The one liked this. Liked the time spent simply looking at stones.

Autumn, age forty-two.

Something changed in the gatherings.

When the one drew near, voices stopped. More than once.

The one noticed. Noticed, and went still.

Held the stone.

The large male came. Spoke. A short sound.

The one listened.

Looked at the ground.

Set the stone down.

The one began to walk away from the gathering. Alone.

No one called out.

Walked south. Toward the direction where the smell lived in memory. The smell like water but not water. The direction once known by the nose.

The grass grew sparse. The ground hardened.

The one kept walking.

Walked on into the night.

The feet stopped at the edge of a cliff.

There had been no warning. The dark gave nothing away. A foot found only air.

The body tilted.

Stone sounded. Far below.

The one's body came to rest somewhere beyond that.

In the morning, he did not wake on the grass.

More precisely, he woke. But his body did not answer.

He tried to lift his arm. It would not lift. He tried again. His fingers moved, slightly. That was all.

He could see the sky. It was white. Not clouds — the light itself was white. He had seen this kind of sky hundreds of times. Before the morning hunt, before going to the water, before splitting stone. He would look at the sky, and then he would rise.

Today, his body did not rise.

His throat was dry. His tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. Someone passed nearby. He heard the sound of feet through the grass. The sound moved away.

He tried to make a sound. Nothing came.

There was something heavy at the bottom of his belly. Not illness. No fever. Only heaviness. As though he had fallen asleep with a stone inside him. It had been that way yesterday, and three days before. He had been eating less. His legs went numb. The younger ones split the stone in his place.

He watched them. The way they struck was wrong, he thought. The sound was wrong, he thought. But no sound came from him.

Around midday, the wind shifted.

It was a cold wind moving through a crack in the rock. Carried within it were the smell of rotting grass and the smell of water. The smell of somewhere far away.

He turned his face toward it.

Only his neck moved.

Toward evening, a young female brought water. She tilted the vessel near his mouth. The water touched his lips. He could not drink. What spilled ran down beneath his ear. It was cold.

The young female said nothing. She stayed a while, holding the vessel. Then she moved away.

He was breathing in the smell of the grass. The smell of the earth. The earth he had always walked on. The green smell of grass crushed underfoot. His nose remembered it.

Night came.

He heard the sound of fire. Someone in the group laughed. There were children's voices. The voices grew distant. Then closer. Then distant again.

His breathing had grown shallow, without his knowing when.

The grass pressed down beneath the weight of his body. The feeling in his back was fading. The tips of his fingers were cold. The cold reached his elbows. Then his knees.

Stars were in the sky.

He watched them.

He did not know what he was looking at. There was only light. The light did not move. His eyes, quietly, let the light go.

In the middle of the night, the fire grew small.

A branch was added. The fire returned. That was all — and yet something loosened inside the chest.

Sleep would not come. The breathing of the sleeping adults could be heard. One of the children turned over in sleep. That child had been feverish until yesterday. Tonight, a little cooler. The face was studied. The chest was moving. Good. Why good — that was unclear. Only: good.

Thought turned to the shadow. The thing seen to the east earlier that day. It had stood on two legs. But something was different. The way it moved was different. It made no sound. It had simply looked over here.

One of the adults threw a stone. The shadow disappeared.

But still, the direction of the east stayed on the mind. For no clear reason, it stayed there.

A smell came. Over the scent of something charred, something else was mixed in. The smell of a living creature. Not close. But not far either.

The wind came. From the east.

The one stood. Took one step out beyond the fire. Darkness. Standing still until the eyes could find their way.

Nothing to see.

And yet the smell continued.

A return to the fire. Sitting beside it. A stone picked up. Held in the hand. The right size to rest in a palm. One edge slightly sharp.

Neither thrown toward anything, nor held in sleep — simply held.

Night became morning.