as outrider, sentry, and bodyguard in favor of those as veldtwife, mother, and ward. Dragging her acacia stave behind her like a broken rudder, she carried little Mary on her hip. A weapon in one hand, a baby in the other. If she was confused by the disparate allegiances embodied by these symbols, her heart—at least for now—was with the women. Nor did the women harass or cold-shoulder her for joining them.
Once the Minids had all become aware of her, Mary focused their occasional attention without provoking their hostility. I had expected angry faces, angry gestures, maybe even an assault. Instead, the habilines took turns examining the child, whom they seemed to delight in sniffing and gently poking. Helen allowed the Minids their inspections. If Mary were to survive, they must satisfy their curiosity about the kidnapped child and accept her as one of their own. Without once whimpering or struggling to get away, Mary clung to Helen with wide, terrified eyes, fatalistically enduring her ordeal.
During our march the child overcame some of her fear of the Minids, and on one occasion, when we stopped to rest, she toddled away to join Bonzo, Duchess, and Pebbles, who appeared to be experimentally tormenting a pair of coprid beetles left over from yesterday’s encounter with the chalicotheres. The children did not prevent Mary from taking up with them. In fact, they allowed her to participate in the dismemberment of one of the insects, and both Helen and I looked on dotingly. After that, Mary, for all intents and purposes, was a habiline.
By noon we were in more or less open country, full-fledged savannah, but the mountain—still, I decided, about fifteen miles away—sometimes appeared to retreat from our approach.
A brake on our progress, the children continued to tumble about like puppies and to lolligag over any bit of desiccated matter in the grass. Mary was one of them now, and Helen sometimes edged out of the center of our column as if to renounce motherhood for sentry duty. She hurried back to Mary, though, each time the child showed signs of fatigue or crankiness. Her dedication to our daughter made me pensive and a little resentful. I had liked Helen as a comrade as well as a lover.
Late that afternoon Ham separated from the group and ran gimpily ahead of us to a depression in the grass. He circled this small concavity (which, but for Ham’s strange behavior, I would not have looked at twice), then halted and cautiously circled it in the other direction. He hooted for reinforcements. When the other habiline men arrived, me among them, he lurched forward and yanked a large wedge of sod from the hollowed-out place in the savannah.
A high, perilous hissing sound ensued. I supposed that Ham had uncovered a snake, maybe one of those egg snakes whose ceaselessly coiling bodies and cobralike hoods make your blood turn to ice. But their behavior is all empty bluff, and Babington had taught me not to fear them.
What Ham had found, though, was not an egg snake or a bona fide cobra. Not at all. He had uncovered a litter of cheetah kittens. I counted four of them, elegant little felines with masks for faces and jewels for eyes. In their immature, silver-blue coats, they pressed against one another spitting out their fear and indignation. Their outrage was humorous. Mother was off hunting somewhere, but she would be back soon and we had better scram before she caught us poking around in their crib. Who did we think we were, anyway?
Even after several months in the Pleistocene I was surprised when I found out.
Roosevelt and Fred clubbed three of the kittens to death, showering blood and gray matter all over the grass. The fourth kitten tried to run, but Alfie booted it in the butt and fell upon it with his knee, cracking its ribs and pinning it to the ground. He killed it by biting through its neck. When he next looked up at me, blood was running from his mouth and there was a tuft of beautiful, wintry fur caught in his beard.
* * *
I retreated with Mary to the edge of the Minid gathering. As if the child were a magic shield or an inflatable life jacket, I clutched her to me for the comfort she afforded. Together, neither of us quite comprehending the other’s dismay, we watched the eaters eat.
As soon as every gut had taken on a load of kitten loin, torpor descended.