"James Patrick Kelly - Luck" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

earth.
I am, man.

Thumb was not surprised to see a mammoth standing on the opposite bank. It must have sent the dream
and whispered to him in a spirit voice. The surprise was what he felt as he gazed into its round, black
eyes. This was no monster that could break trees and drain rivers. It wasn't much taller than he was. Yes,
the trunk snaked like a nightmare and the tusks were long and curved and dangerous, but as Thumb took
its measure, his confidence surged. The people had no weapon that could wound a mountain or strike at
a spirit. But this was an animal that men might dare to hunt and bring down. Thumb let a laugh bubble out
of his chest.

"I am Thumb," he shouted across the river at it, "keeper of the caves!" Then he danced, five hops on the
spongy bank. He finished by striking the butt of his spear against an alder.

The mammoth raised its trunk and trumpeted in reply. The piercing cry sent a shiver through Thumb. But
he was not cowed. He had heard the death scream of a bison and a cave bear's roar.

This is the valley of the people." He struck the alder again.

At that moment, something at the far edge of his vision jumped. A blur that might have been a deer, or a
man in deerskin, plunged into the woods. Was it the spirit? Then why had it run away from him? The
mammoth didn't seem to care. It turned away from Thumb, curled its trunk around a willow branch,
stripped it from the tree and stuffed it into its mouth. Thumb studied the mammoth as it ate, knowing that
he would have to report everything he saw to Owl, the storyteller, and Blue, who spoke for the people.
Besides, someday he might paint it on the wall of the cleft, if such was his luck.

It had to be the hairiest animal he had ever seen. The coarse fur was the color of bloodstone. It had
thinned along the slope of the backbone but was matted and thick at the flanks. When the mammoth
brushed against a low hanging branch, a swarm of flies buzzed out of its mangy coat. Thumb decided that
it must be a full-grown animal because of the size of its tusks. The tip of the left one was broken off. The
top of its skull was a round bump, like half of an onion.

Suddenly Thumb went very still. He knew why the mammoth had appeared to him, of all people. It was a
sign. A turn of luck.

"Is that it, great one?" he said. "Is that why you called me?"

The mammoth dipped its trunk into the river, sucked up water and then squirted it into its mouth. Thumb
could see the tongue, gray in the middle, pink on the sides. Then he turned and ran hard for home. For
the first time since the thin moon rose, he thought he might see his lover again.

The people made their main summer camp near the top of a low cliff overlooking the river. A rock
outcrop sheltered the ledge where they chipped their knives and cooked their meals and laid their mats.
When rain came, they ducked into a long lean-to covered with bison hides. The main hearth was at the
center of the ledge. In the summer camp, the smoke of their fires could become sky and not sting the
eyes and settle in the chest as it did in the winter lodge.

Five and five and five and three of the people gathered close around the hearth that night. Ash and Quick
and Spear and Robin and Moon and Bone were away, trading chert with the horse people and waiting
with them for the arrival of the reindeer herd. It was the Moon of the Falling Leaves. Thumb's breath