Clan by Sigmund Brouwer

Author:Sigmund Brouwer [Brouwer, Sigmund]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tundra
Published: 2020-08-04T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Atlatl woke the next morning in warm sunshine, with Cub asleep and curled against his ribs.

He first looked for Nootau. His father was as far away as possible on their hillside ledge, sitting, with his back turned to Atlatl. The rigidness to Nootau’s shoulders had not changed, and Atlatl knew his father still seethed with silent rage.

Nootau’s threat with the spear rushed back into Atlatl’s memory, and he gritted his teeth against the pain of his father’s complete rejection. He turned to look out over the valley and his pain was replaced with awe.

The evening before, when the sun set at the far edge of the valley, water had lapped at the edge of their ledge. Now the ledge was far above the water. The Great Flood was receding and now filled only the lower third of the valley. That so much water could still be moving through the valley after an entire night was far beyond anything Atlatl could have imagined. The dark water was still violently flowing, with entire trees bobbing in it.

Atlatl wondered if he would ever be able to find words to describe it. Wawetseka’s story had been truth; it had to be. What other than the wrath of an angry god could cause this much destruction?

As for the land exposed by the drop of the massive flood, it was devastated beyond belief. As far as Atlatl could see, all of the larger trees had been torn from the hills on both sides of the valley. Most of the bushes had disappeared. The grasses were covered with dark mud. The land itself was rippled where water had washed away dirt to leave behind rock.

There would be no point in descending to where the Clan had once felt secure. There was no life remaining in this valley, no game or berries to sustain any human or animal. It would be years—if the flood did not come again—before bushes and trees returned.

Atlatl turned his attention away from the broad view of the valley to the opposite side of their ledge. Yesterday, there had been water between the ledge and the hillside of the valley, making the ledge an island. Now, in both directions at roughly eye level, a horizontal line along the hills, as straight and as vivid as a knife slash, marked how high the water had risen. Below the line was mud and exposed rock. Above it, untouched by flood, were grass and flowers and trees to the top of the valley. Farther down the valley, above the flood line, Atlatl saw deer were grazing, untroubled by the disaster. Outside of this valley, game, food and berries would exist as they did before the flood. Outside of the valley was survival.

To reach this sanctuary of grass and trees meant climbing down from the ledge into the mud and broken rock, crossing a flat stretch of mud, and then a short climb upward through mud to the portion of the hills above the waterline. The mud had the slippery sheen of animal grease.

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