Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure by Allan Richard Shickman

Author:Allan Richard Shickman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780979035708
Publisher: Earthshaker Books

When Zan was first taken captive he was immediately bound, his arms cruelly tied to a pole behind his back. He was put in the charge of a youth named Naz. Zan grew to hate this fellow more than he had ever hated anyone in his life. Naz was tall, muscular, and almost a grown man. He had hair of a strange yellow color like dried grass, which spilled in softer growth down his cheeks. His deeply set blue eyes were his most handsome feature, but they maintained that cruel squint which lets in what it wants to see and keeps out the rest. He looked on Zan with a steely glance. Zan was smaller than him, appeared to be unable to speak, and seemed mentally afflicted too. Right away Naz conceived a supercilious contempt for Zan-Gah. He prodded him with unnecessary roughness, and when he discovered Zan’s scars he could only ask with scorn whether the girls had scratched him. Rather than replying, Zan bent abjectly and rolled his eyes, letting his tongue escape from his mouth as if there were something seriously wrong with him. Words of scorn had hardly come to Naz’s lips when he received from Zan-Gah a swift kick in the groin which left him moaning on the ground. Zan resumed his pretense of foolishness and the other men laughed uproariously, a couple of them giving Naz an additional kick in the backside, while the girls present tittered. Naz was a good-looking young man (as he well knew), and used to female admiration. Ordinarily they would laugh at his every word, and laughed now too. Naz could not forget his humiliation, and in future days never missed an opportunity to afflict the stranger boy in his keeping.

Zan was put to work within a hut that was used by the women, while Naz kept guard outside. Because Zan made no attempt to escape, and seemed dull of mind, the strictness of his guard soon was relaxed. Naz was bored with his assignment, either taking his displeasure out on Zan or ignoring his duty altogether. Yet Zan postponed flight because he knew that there was much to be learned from his enemies. In the watch of the women if not of Naz, he was considered to be safely in keep, working on their chores. He was made to build and attend fires, to grind and boil seeds or shell nuts, and to otherwise prepare food. He cleaned and roasted game, and softened the skins by chewing them. Any unpleasant task was apt to be given to him.

As with his own people, there was a distinct line between the work of men and women, and as with his own, there was deep shame in crossing the well-established separation. Zan had always held the labor of women in high respect, necessary and gratefully received by everybody; yet his tribesmen would no sooner do it themselves than seek to bear a child, which was the special gift of women. Among

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