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  Copyright 2014 Andrew Michael Schwarz.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First Printing, 2014

  Andrew Michael Schwarz

  PO Box 383

  Renton, WA 98057

  [email protected]

 

  Huntsman Returned

  by

  Andrew Michael Schwarz

  We were children then, but also colonists. Our world was a narrow edge of greenery on the brink of nowhere.

  I was fifteen when I became chieftain.

  ***

  Our heads hung low as we returned to camp, ashamed and defeated. The younger ones gathered about us, their eyes hopeful, but all too soon the truth became apparent: we’d caught nothing of substance.

  Tingor tossed down a string of rabbits, a statement of our paltry catch. Felina, the eldest, just shook her head and turned away.

  That night I slept uneasily, dreaming of the fierce winters that lasted six months at least. Last year, food stores had run dangerously low, shrinking our waistlines and morale.

  It couldn’t happen again.

  The next morning I awoke to the sounds of our annual preparations for the oncoming season. Felina, and her most able assistant, Hegira, darted gracefully about the camp issuing orders for grain storage, meat salting and the like. It felt good to be home performing routine, if not mundane, tasks directed by Felina’s assertive hand.

  Once I’d begun my chore of tanning hide, I gathered a handful of moments to engage in what I termed my secret ritual. As I snuck off through the tall grass and sun warmed wind, I could feel the budding electrification of this base, personal pleasure.

  I was a young man on the cusp of adulthood living in a barracks and I had just returned from a hunt of ten days that afforded no privacy. My body craved release.

  The cellar was dark, quiet and removed from everything. It smelled of dried meat and dust. I opened the door and crept inside, confirming with a backward glance that I had arrived alone.

  I untied the tops of my trousers.

  “Cole!”

  I jumped, nearly out of my skin. My heart was a howlman thudding prehistoric feet on mud-softened earth.

  “Cole?” the voice crept closer, inside the cellar now.

  “Um…yeah?” My voice squeaked. Shame burned my cheeks and I was fumbling ineptly with the tie string of my pants.

  “Cole, what are you doing in here?” It was Hegira, now poised domineering at the mouth of the cellar.

  I swallowed. “Um, looking for a rake.”

  “Why do you need a rake?”

  “Well…you know.”

  “Anyways, Felina wants all the traps set. The others have already begun.”

  I finished my pointless search for the phantom tool. “Okay. I’ll be there quick.”

  “You better. And Cole?”

  “Yeah?” My voice squeaked.

  “Next time don’t lie.”

  ***

  The traps were Tingor’s invention, made from salvaged parts of our mother ship and carved tree saplings. Magnesium poles, bent into large semi-circles, were rigged to compression springs and made to resemble giant body-less jaws. The springs were stretched taut and then set, providing a couple thousand pounds of potential energy.

  Inside, on the ground, sat a huge metal plate that was rigged to the tripping mechanism. You could pile a few pounds of meat on that plate without setting it off, but twin rows of carved wooden pikes would come snapping down violently on whatever was dumb enough to take the bait and heavy enough to trip the machine, namely screechcats.

  I met up with the work party and began carving tree saplings into deadly pikes. The sun beat down until late afternoon when the chill of twilight cooled things off. By the end of the day, we’d managed to build and set one trap.

  “Aren’t we going to test it?” I asked.

  “Go ahead, step inside.”

  “Very funny.”

  Tingor shrugged. “I’m not testing shit. No time and Felina’s too impatient. Besides, I know it’ll work.”

  He was right. We had to hurry. I could already feel the edge of winter frost in the crisp autumn air. And none had any desire for a reprimand from Felina.

  We worked late that night under a full moon. By dawn we had managed to build and set a second trap.

  I plopped down next to Tingor, exhausted. “At this rate winter will be over before we’re done.”

  “And then we’ll be dead,” he chided.

  The devices were to be placed every twenty feet on the north side, where, in a month or so, the gaunt screechcats would prowl, crazed by a midwinter hunger for anything with a pulse.

  “How are we going to get these done before first frost?” I asked, wiping cold sweat off my brow.

  “By not being a puss,” said a boy on the other side of Tingor.

  “Or a fat ass.” Tingor nodded to Binny, a boy who wasn’t known for the fitness of his physique.

  Binny had removed his shirt and was airing his rather jellified gut in the cool twilight temperatures.

  “You look like a freaking howlman!” Tingor called.

  Tingor’s three cronies howled mockingly.

  “Come on fat ass,” he shouted, “down on all fours!” Tingor stood up and clapped authoritatively.

  Binny blinked and reached for his shirt, but Tingor lunged and grabbed him around the waist.

  The boys cheered, a line of crooked teeth and gleeful giggles.

  “Come on, howlman, down on all fours!” Tingor pushed Binny to his hands and knees then delivered a swift kick to his rear. Binny yelped and tried to stand under Tingor’s tyranny.

  “No uh, howlman, get down! In the dirt!” Tingor shoved Binny down again, this time with the strength of an older boy. He straddled his back and howled into the air.

  The boys rolled and laughed. Nothing could have amused them more. Binny turned his face the other way, but I’d seen the wet glint in his eyes. If Tingor saw that…

  “Hey come on,” I said and stepped forward.

  “What?” Tingor stood up and shoved Binny to the ground.

  “Joke’s over.”

  “What, you a howlman lover?”

  One of Tingor’s retinue sat up. “Howlman lover!”

  Waves of laughter and jeers, but Binny came to his feet and found his shirt, his ego the only casualty.

  The game was over.

  “Howlman lover!”

  ***

  The cellar seemed emptier at night with the shadows collecting in the corners, distorting its space. One sliver of moonlight snaked through an uneven plank in the ceiling, providing the only light inside.

  My fingers loosened the knot under my belly button, but before I could engage the ritual, the cellar door moaned.

  I froze, tried to become invisible. If Hegira caught me again…but it was not Hegira who loomed at the door. An enormous shadow, like a great pool of ink, flooded the cellar. I swallowed and looked up.

  Pale skin glinted in the moonlight. Hirsute arms stretched down between crouching legs. Black hair shone iridescent and hung in clumped strands from head to shoulders. A dirty pelt hung loose between the legs. The figure stooped as tall as I stood. None of these things held my attention, but for two very bare and very large breasts. Hair coursed the legs and arms, but not the breasts. Or chest. Or face.

  The howlwoman threw back her head and yawped a mournful cry.

  I scrambled, reaching for the spear I didn’t have, then hunkered down and locked e
yes with the creature. My heart beat furiously. I wanted to scream for help, but the thought of me being in the cellar alone at night, stopped me. Stupid, perhaps, but such was my shame at ever being found out.

  The creature’s eyes flickered to the shelves of meat behind me. She was hungry and I knew that if she chose, she could rip me limb from limb. I knew too, that howlmen were, for some reason or other, more afraid of us than we were of them.

  They were not predatory creatures like the screechcats, but they were not human either, at least not the brand of humanity I was a member of. I thought of shouting to scare her off, but something in her reached to me through the moonlit darkness and I saw not a simian subspecies, but a person in need of help.

  Slowly, I backed up until my hand met with a chunk of meat. I proffered it. She made a look of curious confusion, cocking her head to one side.

  “Go on,” I said, “take it.”

  She grunted and crept closer, sniffing the air, then reached out a stout-fingered hand and snatched it away. I expected her to bite into it immediately, but intending it for later use she dropped it into a crude purse at her side. Then she looked at me through a pair of round, anthropoid eyes. I held out another piece and another.

  I offered up chunks of our food stores until the guilt of giving away our sustenance caught hold of me.

  “Go now, get out of here. If they catch you, they’ll kill you”, I said. But she did not leave. I stomped my foot and yelled, “Get!” and only then did she respond, bounding for the door, out and gone.

  ***

  “How many traps did you get set?” Felina asked.

  “Seventeen.” I said. “It’s going a lot faster now.”

  She nodded and I found myself falling in love with her all over again. Felina was the eldest and her age seemed extraordinary though she was a young woman of only eighteen years. She was more mature than her years dictated; we all were.

  Being the eldest gave natural rank. She was everyone’s mother-sister. She and her small hierarchy of assistants was the only law in our colony and to us, the older huntsmen, she was pure beauty.

  “I’m planning another hunt, you know,” she said.

  “I thought as much.”

  “It’s late in the season I know, but we have to risk it. Winter is coming quickly and our food stores are too low. Have you seen the cellar?”

  “No,” I said too fast. “Well...I haven’t noticed.”

  “We need a substantial catch. I believe it’s your turn in the rotation, yes?”

  “Ah...yeah, Tingor was the last one to head the hunt. Now it’s my turn,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Once you huntsmen have finished with the traps, I’ll send you out again. But this time, not just rabbits Cole. Or squirrels. They won’t see us through. I don’t want to be peeling frozen screechcat off of Tingor’s traps, even if they do work.”

  “Right.”

  “You won’t let us down, will you?” She said, the beauty of her mouth enticing another ritual. “You must do what you need to, to make your hunt a success. Nothing else matters but our survival, you understand? There is no higher law.”

  “No. Um, right. I understand.”

  “Good night Cole.”

  I watched her walk away, studying the shape of her body and the sway of her gait.

  During the following days we built and set all the traps. It was a full day’s work each day. Word of another hunt spread through the colony and ameliorated tension for everyone but the huntsmen.

  “You’re the next leader in the hunt, huh?” said Tingor.

  “Yes. Once we’ve finished with the traps, we’re heading out again.”

  “Felina thinks you can turn it around, does she?”

  “Thinks we can turn it around,” I said. “We have to.”

  “It’s a bad hunting season,” said Tingor, “but I guess you’re going to save all of us now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He hoisted a spear. “Felina thinks you’ll be the Huntsman Returned. Hope she’s right.”

  ***

  Three nights later the howlwoman appeared in the cellar again, in the same way, at the same time. We eyed each other much as we had that first night.

  I offered up more preserves, which she accepted greedily and dropped into her sack. Then I thought again that I shouldn’t be giving away our food and held out my hands so she could see they were empty. She lingered, appearing unsure what to do. She was grizzly and visceral to me, but intriguing also. I had never interacted with a howlman—or woman—before. None of us had. I wondered at the intelligence behind those large eyes. Wondered what it was like to be a howlman. Sometimes you could hear their bellows from across the canyon, but never had they come so close, at least that we knew.

  I touched my chest and said, “Me, Cole.”

  She cocked her head to one side.

  I tried again, speaking my best Howlese. “Me Cole. You?”

  She blinked and made a hard K sound in the back of her throat.

  “Ca-ole,” I said many times, but she could never articulate the vowel and finally I gave up.

  “Now what?” I said, presenting one last hunk, but she made no advance toward it. I put it back. “Then what? Hmmm? What do you want?” Several moments passed. Then she crept toward me. “Whoa, what are you doing?”

  She rested her head against my chest.

  “Oh.” Her head was huge, twice the size of mine and she smelled of musk and sweat and clay. Suddenly, I felt ridiculous. I had been slapping my chest and saying my name and she must have taken it for an invitation. Afraid at first to even touch her, I decided that I could place my hands on her cheeks, half wondering whether I should allow this interaction at all.

  And why not? Haven’t we always wondered what these prehistoric humans are all about? Haven’t we always wanted to…see them?

  “You’re so…cold.” The idea of this creature living in the wild with only a pelt and a club, it made me sad. Did she have a family? A place to go?

  I flattened my palms to either side of her face and glanced at the door again. No one lurked out there. We were alone in here, in the cellar.

  “You’re so cold,” I said again, this time a whisper. I was acutely aware and had been growing more and more aware of her breasts pressing up against me, against my thighs and my crotch. And while they were not the most shapely of features, they were not, as I might have expected, apish.

  Were she to straighten, those same breasts would fill my vision. My mind delivered up this image. I glanced at the door. Nothing. No one. Empty and alone.

  If she were to sit up…her…

  I swallowed. I had begun to shiver. “W-why don’t you s-sit up?” I flushed at the idea of her doing that.

  This request was lost on her, though, I knew. “Then come here.” I pulled her shoulders closer, trying to square them to me and then I pressed my hips firmly into her. Gotta get warm, I forced the thought. Gotta make us both so warm. Isn’t that what they do? Savages? Isn’t it…

  I felt small, like a child with her great arms slung around my waist.

  “Don’t m-move,” I whispered. “M-make you w-warm.”

  I let my fingers slip across her cheek, to her closed lips. I pressed…

  Then I pushed her back, sudden anger crashing in.

  “Get out!” I pushed her again. “I said get out!” I slapped her face so hard it stung my hand. Alarmed at my own outburst I backed away fearing I might strike her again. Then I yelled, “Now get!”

  That evening I lay awake in my bed and wondered what I had done. Nothing, I told myself, I did absolutely nothing.

  ***

  When the howlwoman came again I was waiting for her. “Me, Cole.”

  I let her rest her head on my chest just like before.

  “You’re cold,” I whispered feeling stupid for saying it, knowing full that it was an excuse to touch, rather than any genuine concern. I felt her breas
ts between my legs.

  With one eye on the cellar door, I opened the flanks of my coat to her and pushed down the waist of my pants so that I could feel her smooth, naked breasts against my body. Then I leaned into her. “Sshh. Gonna make us warm now.”

  Reason screamed in my head. I ignored it. I had planned this.

  I grabbed her soiled hair and ran my fingers down her cheek to lips that opened for me. I pressed them inside her mouth, on her tongue.

  It wasn’t enough.

  I pushed the waist of my trousers to my knees, then ankles. “Stay still,” I whispered. My heart was thudding inside, blood pounding in my ears. “Come here.”

  Frantic moments flew by as I rubbed myself on her, shamefully working my hand at the same time. Isn’t that what they do? Savages?

  Door hinges groaned. I sucked in air as my heart froze.

  Then exhaled relief. It was the wind and nothing more, but the spell had broken. Sudden shame flooded my reason, the heavy pall of humiliation. “No.” I yanked up my pants, fumbled with the tie-string. “Get out!” I said through clenched teeth, pointing at the door. Then I forced her back and, like before, she did not respond so I slapped her.

  “That’s enough. I did it for you because you’re cold. No other reason. Disgusting howlwoman! Now get and don’t ever come back!”

  ***

  “When will you return?” asked a younger one, Gora, a five-year-old netsman. He was asking me, but meant everyone in the hunting party.

  “Before the screechcats prowl for food,” I said.

  “And the howlmen?”

  “Them too, now go and mend your nets.”

  Gora, relieved, promptly sat upon the cold dirt and continued his work.

  I had decided to lead the party into the eastern vale. In the past it had proved the most fruitful hunting grounds, but by the fifth day we had still only managed to snare small game. We were all tense and had no inclination of returning without a substantial kill.

  I pushed the party onward and by late morning of the sixth day, cold dew dampening our feet, we spotted a manifestly large woopa, so named for the sound the creature makes when it calls for its mate. We had killed woopa before, small and injured ones. Babies I suppose, but never had we seen one of this size.

  “It’s huge, we’ll eat woopa steak for two winters!”

  We watched it though the trees. The beast was entrenched in a mud hole.

  “Wait till it goes deeper in,” I whispered to Tingor.

  “I’ll wait until its flanks are soiled, then spear for its neck-vein. Bring the others with the net. Eight thrusts and the beast is dead!” whispered Tingor. “You have my word.”