Crystal Gorge

“I’ve noticed that, yes,” Tlantar agreed without even a hint of a smile.

“We strongly suggest that you should be mated, Tlantar,” old Tlerik said firmly. “It doesn’t have to involve any towering love or any of that other juvenile foolishness. All you really need is a mate you can get along with fairly well. You’ll be offering her a significant elevation in rank, so I’m sure that many of the women in Asmie would be more than happy to join with you.”

“You’re starting to make it sound like some sort of business arrangement, Tlerik,” Tlantar protested.

Tlerik scratched at his cheek and looked thoughtfully out at the waving grass. “That pretty much describes it, yes. You need to have a mate, and you’re offering a higher rank in payment. Grand passion—or whatever else you might want to call it—really doesn’t play any part in this. A lot of matings start out this way, but after a while, the man and the woman discover that they’re really rather fond of each other. The nice thing about that sort of arrangement is that it’s a lot quieter than the other kind of matings. Passion can be dramatic, but it’s terribly noisy sometimes.”

Tlantar was not particularly pleased by Tlerik the elder’s suggestion. Even as a boy, all of Tlantar’s attention had been focused on the hunt. Other young men of the tribe were greatly interested in unmated young women, but Tlantar had never really had time to even think about such things. Then, too, he’d noticed that mated men were more or less obliged to go home every evening—even when the hunting was very good. As things now stood, Tlantar was free to come home or stay away, and there was nobody in the tribe who might protest.

Then the thought of those of the tribe who objected to his chieftainship came to him unbidden. For the most part, the objectors were not really very good hunters, largely because they were too indolent to spend the necessary time practicing with their spear-throwers. The more he considered his detractors, the more he became convinced that their objections grew out of their hope that they might be chosen by the men of the tribe to occupy the station of chief so they might live a life of ease and comfort that would require no effort and even less thought.

Should it happen that one of those incompetents were to become the chieftain of the tribe, it could very well be a total disaster, and Chief Tladan had spent hours beating his son over the head with “responsibility.”

Tlantar sighed and then drifted around the village of Asmie looking at the young, unmated women. It soon became quite obvious to him that old man Tlerik had forgotten how to keep his mouth shut, because it seemed that every time Tlantar turned around, there was another grossly overdressed young woman standing there fluttering her eyelashes at him.

Though he probably never would have used that exact word, Tlantar turned and fled. He’d spent much of his life hunting, but being hunted made him go cold all over.

He was several miles off to the west of Asmie when he stopped to catch his breath.

“You idiot!” a shrill voice came from the grass not ten yards away. “I’ve been tracking that hare all morning, and you just frightened him so much that he’ll probably still be running next week.”

“I’m sorry,” Tlantar apologized. “Something just happened in Asmie that upset me quite a bit. I’ll help you chase down that hare, if you’d like.”

“Forget it,” the voice came crisply out of the tall grass. “He’s at least a mile away by now.” The speaker stood up, and Tlantar immediately realized that the person who’d just scolded him was not some half-grown boy. It was a young woman instead, but she wasn’t wearing a dress. Her clothes were made of leather, and they fit her tightly enough to reveal certain attri-butes that definitely identified her as female. She wasn’t very tall, and her braided hair was pale blond.

“Are you from Asmie?” Tlantar asked her. “I’ve lived there all my life, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you there.”

“I don’t go into town very often,” the young woman replied. “There’s nothing there that interests me.”

“Are you saying that you live alone out here in the meadowland?”

“I didn’t say that at all. Where I live is none of your concern.”

“I wasn’t trying to pry or anything,” Tlantar apologized, “but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a Matan woman who lives alone and spends her time hunting before.”

“There aren’t too many of us,” she admitted, coiling up what appeared to be a sling and tucking it under her belt. “It might seem a bit strange to you, but women do know how to hunt—and to fish as well. Someday, I might even make myself a spear and have a try at a bison.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Tlantar told her. “Bison can be very dangerous if you rub them the wrong way.”

“I didn’t intend to rub them. I’m going to kill them.”

“You might want to think about that just a bit,” Tlantar advised. “I lost my father in a bison stampede a month or so ago. He was getting old, so he couldn’t run very fast anymore.”

“I’m very sorry,” she said. “I lost my father in the same way when I was about eight years old.”

“Are you saying that you’ve lived alone out here since you were only eight?”

“I didn’t come right out and say it,” she replied tartly, “but that’s pretty much the way my life’s been. I can take these meadow hares with my sling and I’ve got a nice sharp fish-spear, so I usually have plenty to eat. Why were you running just now? Is there somebody after you?”

Tlantar made a wry face. “More than one somebody,” he replied. “The tribal elders told me that I should be mated, and somehow word of that leaked out. Now every unmated young lady in Asmie has her eyes on me.”

“You’ve already found the answer to that. Just run away, and stay out in the meadow until the young ladies find somebody else to chase.”

“I wish I could do that,” Tlantar replied, “but I have certain responsibilities in Asmie. There are several lazy incompetents there who’d really like to be the chief. If one of them gets the job, the village won’t even be there after a few years.”

“This is all very interesting,” the young woman said, “but I need something for supper, and you just frightened off my hare, so it’s time for me to go hunting again.”