Stone Age Mama

Chapter Seven - Domestication is a Gamble

-Summer-

Belbet sat down next to their hut, and put her thoughts in order. Toys, perhaps. What sort of toys, though? The first things that came to mind were dolls, building blocks, and pull-toys. She considered it, and with a momentary glance over what she had in camp, those were all make-able. She grinned, going to the woodpile and picking out a bit of branch as thick as the palm of her hand.

This would make wonderful wheels for a little pull-toy, and she could probably carve the barrel of the horse she planned to make from it too. She picked up another stick since she’d need legs and a head and neck. Then, she went to the campfire, where they kept most of the spare tools. Using one of the hand axes, she marked four lines around the outside of the thick wood, marking out the thickness of the wheels. Then, she began cutting off the little rounds, trying to be careful with it.

She did manage to get the wheels cut off, only to despair upon realizing that she wasn’t going to be able to carve the holes for the axle without breaking the wheels. If only… If only she had a drill, or something. She knew she could technically do a hand-drill. That is to say, make an almost-arrow, and spin it in her palms to make a drill. But that would definitely hurt after a long while. She set aside the little wheels, and pondered the problem before her. How could she get the drill to spin without needing her to use her hands. A top! If she could find a way, she could use string to spin it, the way tops are spun. Okay, she had a theory. So, the first step was to make the drill portion. She looked around, hoping one of her family was available for this next part, because Belbet (thanks to Victoria’s inexperience) was not that great at knapping points or knives. She mostly left this to others.

Luckily, Dahnei came back from cleaning the meat, to hang it up on the branch they’d designated the ‘hang food here’ branch. She’d also remembered to collect the feathers! Belbet grinned, “Good job baby! Those feathers will be very useful later. Can you put them with the hen feathers?”

Dahnei did so, dropping them in the pile of feathers that Belbet was going to have to go through and clean sometime soon. Then, she returned to her mother’s side, looking over the small wooden rounds and the sticks her mother had spread out. “What are you making, mama?” “Well… I wanted to make a toy for your brother, something for him to play with. But in order to do so, I need to make a drill, to cut holes in the middle of these without breaking them. Do you think you can find mama a sharp point about the size of my thumb?” She asked, lifting her thumb. Dahnei considered it for a moment, and then nodded, and Belbet crowed with joy. “Wonderful! In the meantime, I’m going to make something else, okay? Let me know when you’re done.” With that on the way, Belbet moved on to pick out another branch. This one she began splitting the rounded edges off. Once she had what was essentially a square pole, she started chopping it into sort-of-square blocks. They were sharp, off-shape, full of splinters, and not ready for her baby just yet. But it was a start!

The branch she’d cut up made about eight blocks total. She sent Mohniit to find a grainy rock, something she could use to sort of sand the blocks down some. She had to send him out four times, but she made sure to keep the three he brought first, even though they weren’t what she was looking for. Putting some sand on the sandy rock, she began attempting to sand the sides and corners so that they weren’t sharp or full of splinters. It was a time consuming thing, to sand these prototype toys down for her children. But it gave her mind time to wander.

Specifically to the sky above her. She’d noticed the two moons of this world the night she’d finally broken Belbet’s fever, but she hadn’t really put any thought into what it meant, how time was to be kept here. That night, the blue moon above had been in its last quarter. It had waned entirely, becoming a new moon, and today had been it’s second day of being full, it’s blue a deeper blue than the blue of the sky around it during the day. Based on that, and the fact that she’d been here three, almost four weeks, she estimated the moon cycle of the blue moon to be similar to Victoria’s. Perhaps a tiny bit longer. She decided she’d count the days to the next full Blue Moon to figure it out. A sooty mark on the inside of some bark would be enough for her to start a tally.

The Grey Moon, however, was beyond her. In the three weeks she’d been here, it had gone from last quarter to the new moon. Which meant the grey moon was on a longer cycle, that she wasn’t sure she had the ability to keep track of yet. So for now, she’d judge time based on the Blue Moon. Ah, that reminded her, she needed to make a track sheet for the incubation of the eggs, too.

The bulge of her belly, still barely there, reminded her of another thing she needed to keep track of. Thanks to Belbet’s memory, she knew the child was probably two or three months along, She took a shaky breath as she carefully did not think about going through childbirth without a doctor, without drugs, and without safety measures in case it goes wrong. She did not think about the fact that childbirth was one of the most deadly things a woman could go through before modern medicine.

She ran her fingers over the edges of the block she was making, and found it soft enough for a prototype. Picking up the next, she began the process again. Mohniit picked up one of the blocks and started rubbing it against the sandy rock too. She couldn’t help a smile at him, worry blown away by his adorable helpfulness.

“Aunt?” Eefim called from his place by the fire, and when Belbet looked up from her work, he came over. Showing her the bow, he knelt down. “How did I do?” She looked it over, and tugged at the edges, before nodding. “Pretty good! It’ll work for a first time, and if it breaks, you’ll have learnt how to make it better. Now, go grab one of our longer cords, it has to be a smaller length than the bow.”

She pointed to the ends. He ran off and quickly came back with a length of chord. She took one of their flint knives, and carved the ledges that would hold the string in place, before standing. “This is how you string it. Watch carefully, because if the string breaks, you’ll have to do this again, okay?” She looped one end of the string around the bow’s end, and then stepped over the bow, so she could bend the length of it around her back thigh. Then, she looped the other end of the string there, and let go, letting the string go taut. She grinned at the strung bow she handed to her nephew. “There. Now you just have to make arrows. Go grab four long, straight sticks, and a handful of feathers.”

When he came back with these, however, she realized there was a bit of a problem. “Ah… I didn’t think about it. There’s no glue.”

Eefim raised an eyebrow at his aunt’s new word, and she sighed, “Something to stick the feathers to the shaft of the arrow. Ah, for now, I can show you how to carve them, at least.” She took the flint knife, and started carving off the bark of the arrow, and then straightening it as much as she could. She showed him how to look down the length of the arrow, to see if it was curving or anything. She showed him how it should feel, and the way to make the notch at the back of the arrow to fit against the string.

Getting up, as the sun began to set, she walked over to the closest tree, and scored off some of the bark, to try and get at the sap. She hoped that, mixed with some honey, would make for a sticky enough glue that it would set and hold the fletching. She set one of their failed bowls underneath the scratches, to collect the sap. After this, she went to the campfire, and began to prepare dinner. Her cooking was carefully watched by Dahnei, who was still working on knapping that drillpoint to a razor sharp point. Belbet made sure to explain how she was preparing the bird her daughter had caught. On a bed of wild greens, she served each person honey-seared birdmeat, along with chopped and cooked peppers, peas, and what was left of their sweet potato.

The food was greeted to happy squeals and a little happy wiggle from their youngest. Deenat couldn’t keep the smile off her own face, either, and Belbet laughed at the sight. After dinner, the group sat around the fire, Belbet and Deenat busy weaving a basket and more rope respectively, using the light of the fire to get done what could get done. Dahnei worked with Mohniit to continue sanding some of the blocks, using the one their mother made as an example. Eefim, however, got up and headed for their food-storage basket, digging through.

“What are you looking for?” Belbet asked, worried that the boy was still hungry after they’d just eaten dinner. Had he caught worms? She hoped not.

“I ran into the wolf today.” Eefim said, as if that answered everything. “Are you hurt?” Deenat snapped, immediately abandoning the rope she was making to check over her boy. Eefim huffed, pushing his mother away.“I’m fine. I threw the meat, like Aunt said. And the wolf ate it, instead of me.”

Belbet grinned, “Keep doing that, and you might make a friend. But remember, he is dangerous so long as he is hungry. Do not get too close.”“Yes, Aunt.” Eefim said, taking out another strip of sun-dried meat and storing it with the rest of his hunting kit. Belbet frowned, noticing the poor boy was quite sunburnt. Sighing, she added ‘find and domesticate aloe vera’ onto her list, along with the already added ‘weave clothing for everyone’

That night, she took a stick from the fire, and the bark she’d scraped off the aspens in the area, and made two markings. One shaped like a crescent moon, and one like a chicken. She marked two tally marks for the chicken one, and under the crescent moon one, she made one. Mohniit reached out, trying to smudge the ash out of curiosity. Belbet caught his little wrist and tutted gently. “Nope. These are not to be touched. Off limits.” She set them in one of the baskets they’d kept for storing things in.

Her family settled around her, Belbet felt the weight of the night cozy down around them. She barely remembered to ask Eefim to bring the chicken in with them. That should keep the fox from killing their last one. The low fire crackled in their fireplace, and her children curled against her side as she laid down. She had just finished tying a rope to the chicken’s foot, anchoring it to one of the load-bearing poles of their home. Across the way, she saw Deenat wrap her arms around her son, pulling him in to pillow his head on her arm. The eleven-year-old sighed and closed his eyes.

A soft song came to Belbet’s mind, something Victoria had heard on the radio, and she hummed it out, the tune soft and meandering, barely remembered. But it took them all into sleep.

Morning came with a startled shout from outside the hut, waking Belbet from a solid sleep. She cast a bleary glance around to see who all was there, and sure enough, her daughter was missing. Shoving up and out of the beds (so generously called), Belbet and Deenat both scrambled to get out of the door, Eefim close behind with his bow. Dahnei stood just before the campfire, pointing out into the woods.

“Mama! Mama, I saw it! The wolf!”

Belbet immediately turned her eyes to the woods, frowning. “Where? When?”

“Not long ago. It was… It was licking the plate rocks.” The little girl’s voice tilted in a confused question.

Belbet frowned, staring out after the creature as if she might see its pelt in the early-morning grey of the woods. “...It’s hungry. And it seems to have realized we have food.”

“Should we hunt it? I don’t want it hunting our children.” Deenat muttered, staring balefully out at the woods too.

“No,” Belbet stated. She knew, because Victoria knew, that wolves could be domesticated, could be the most faithful of friends. “We should keep feeding it.”

“What? Why!” Deenat demanded.

“Because if it is not hungry, it won’t hunt us. And, if it realizes we have food, it will stay around, and the foxes will stay away from our chickens.” Belbet explained.

“Sister, that is very dangerous. If it gets hungry, it could hurt us.” Deenat frowned, the second time she’d disagreed with her sister’s strange ideas.

“Yes, it could. But it could also help us.” Belbet smiled, patting her sister’s shoulder as she turned back towards their hut. “It’s a gamble. But if I’m right, we gain a fearsome and faithful protector for our babies.”

Belbet huffed as she flopped back into the space she’d occupied, her sleepy son rolling over and curling up against her belly. Sleep came back easily, and when she woke again, it was bright outside. The sizzling of food woke her and her son at the same time, and she carried him out to see what his sister had made for breakfast. Dahnei did not fail, having de-scaled and cooked some fish, along with some basil seasoned berries that Belbet wasn’t a fan of, but ate dutifully. She praised her daughter’s cooking and was warmed by the encouraged smile her daughter gave back.

Before breakfast was even finished, Eefim brought Belbet the bowl filled with sticky sap, which she combined with a scoop of honey. Then, she showed him how to cut the feathers into fletching. The fletching she attached with this sticky substance, leaving that to dry with a stick propping it up. Eefim went about scraping the hides he’d brought back as he usually did in the morning, so Belbet went to check on her grate while she waited for the fletching to dry. Poking it proved it had hardened overnight, so she grinned and set it atop the circle she’d made yesterday. Adding a little extra clay around the sides, so the smoke couldn’t escape, she started a fire underneath the grate and in the almost-circle, planning to cure the clay with it. As she tended the fire, the chicken came over, apparently untied sometime that morning, and started pecking the ground nearby her feet.

She sighed, stepping away from her fire and towards the garden. It needed tending, and her small golden orb was feeling heavy. Another morning spent breathing energy in and out of her fingers as she weeded and worked the earth around the planted food, and Belbet felt even better than the day before. This was definitely going to be a habit.

An echo of the startled cry from this morning had her whipping her head around to find her scared daughter. Only for Belbet to find her staring out at the woods again, pointing. Belbet snapped toward that direction as well, but instead of a wolf, she spotted-

Was that a Man?