The covenant - James A. Michener [8]
Normally, the son of a leader acquired his father's skills, but with Gao this had not happened, and Gumsto suspected that the deficiency was his: I should not have allowed him to drift into peculiar ways.
He remembered his son's behavior at their first big hunt together; when other lads were hacking up the carcass, Gao was preoccupied with cutting off the tips of the horns, and Gumsto realized then that there might be trouble ahead.
'You're collecting them to hold colors?' he asked.
'Yes. I need seven.'
'Gao, our clan has always had some man like you, showing us the spirits of the animals we seek. Every band has, and we treasure the work they do. But this should come after you've learned to track and kill, not before.'
Wherever the San people had traveled during the preceding two thousand years, they had left behind on rocks and in caves a record of their passage: great leaping animals crossing the sky with brave men pursuing them, and much of the good luck the San hunters had enjoyed stemmed from their careful attention to the spirits of the animals.
But before prayers, before obeisance to the animal spirits, before anything else on earth, the band must eat, and for a lad of sixteen to be delinquent in the skills of obtaining food was worrisome.
And then a shameful thought crept up on Gumsto: If Gao turns out to be a proficient hunter, he will be entitled to Naoka. As long as he remains the way he is, I face no trouble from that quarter. That exquisite woman was reserved for a real man, a master-hunter, and he himself was the only one available.
So when the meager portions of meat were distributed, he asked his wife airily, 'Have you talked with the widow Kusha about her daughter?'
'Why should I?' Kharu growled. 'Because Gao needs a wife.'
'Let him find one.' Kharu was the daughter of a famous hunter and took nonsense from no one. 'What's he to do?'
Kharu had had enough. Rushing at her husband, she shouted for all to hear, 'It's your job, worthless! You haven't taught him to hunt. And no man can claim a wife till he's killed his antelope.'
Gumsto weighed carefully what to say next. He was not truly frightened of his tough old wife, but he was attentive, and he was not sure how he ought to broach this delicate matter of moving Naoka into his menage.
How beautiful she was! A tall girl, almost four feet nine, she was exquisite as she lay in the dust, her white teeth showing against her lovely brown complexion. To see her flawless skin close to Kharu's innumerable wrinkles was to witness a miracle, and it was impossible to believe that this golden girl could ever become like that old crone. Naoka was precious, a resonant human being at the apex of her attractiveness, with the voice of a whispering antelope and the litheness of a gazelle. Desperately Gumsto wanted her.
'I was thinking of Naoka,' he said carefully.
'Fine girl,' Kharu said. 'Gao could marry her if he knew how to hunt.'
'I wasn't thinking of Gao.'
He was not allowed to finish his line of reasoning, for Kharu shouted across the narrow space, 'Naoka! Come here!'
Idly, and with the provocative lassitude of a young girl who knows herself to be desirable, Naoka rolled from the hip on which she had been resting, adjusted her bracelets, looked to where Kharu waited, rose slowly, and delicately brushed the dust from her body, taking special care with her breasts, which glowed in the sun. Picking her way carefully, she stepped the few feet into Kharu's quarters.
'Good wishes,' she said as if completing a journey of miles.
'Are you still grieving?' Kharu asked.
'No.' The girl spoke with lovely intonation, each word suggesting others that might have been said. 'No, Kharu, dearest friend, I'm just living.' And she squatted on her haunches, knees and thighs tightly flexed, her bottom just off the ground.
'That's a poor life, Naoka dear. That's why I called.'
'Why?' Her face was a placid mask of innocence.
'Because I want to help