I take the time—Beh likes her hair clean and without tangles.
What does it matter if she’s asleep?
My own head is throbbing, and my cheek is sore and swollen from where the other man hit me. As long as I don’t touch it, it’s not too bad. If I forget and bump it with my hand, it hurts, but it is nothing like how Beh is hurt.
I sniff and feel my sore eyes begin to tear up again.
“Beh?” I push some of her hair off her forehead and look at the cut. It doesn’t bleed anymore, but it’s bright red around the edges, and her skin is bruised all around her temple and down around her eye. I touch my nose to the spot below the black and purple marks and close my eyes.
I wonder what I will do if she doesn’t wake up, and I don’t have an answer. As I lie back down next to her and pull her into my arms, my stomach growls, and suddenly I know exactly what I will do. If she doesn’t wake up, then I will just lie here with her until I don’t wake up, either.
I don’t bother to move from the furs when I wake. I hold Beh against me, checking to make sure I can still feel her heartbeat in her chest and her breath on her lips. I run the tip of my nose over hers and whisper her name-sound, but there is no response from my mate.
Remembering how she woke up every time I tried to put a baby in her while she slept, I wonder if I can wake her up that way. The air in the cave is chilly as I remove my wrap and try to enter her body, but I can’t stop the ache in my chest, and my penis doesn’t get hard, so I lie back down and pull her close to me again.
“Beh.”
I rock her body as I had back at the lake, whispering her name-sound over and over again and wishing I could hear her say mine. Choking sobs escape from my mouth as I tighten my grip on her and wonder if there is anything else I can do.
When the sun goes down, the cave is pitch black.
It’s dark.
The wind howls outside, and I wrap the furs tightly around Beh, making sure she doesn’t get cold. I have to hold her close to me because I can’t see her in the dark and cold of our tiny home.
“Ehd?”
“Beh…”
“Ehd…”
I feel the soft touch of fingers against my cheek and squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to wake from this dream. I might be a little colder than I prefer to be in my dreams, but I can hear the funny sounds my mate likes to make, so I will take the cold without complaint.
“Ehd!”
My eyelids part, and I see Beh’s beautiful face turned toward mine. Her lips are dry and cracked, and she is pale in the subdued light coming from outside the cave. I feel as if my body is covered by giant rocks as I look at her and realize I must still be dreaming. When I wake up, she will have her eyes closed and won’t say my name-sound again.
But she does. She does say my name-sound, and her eyes are still open.
“Beh?” My eyes open wider as I realize I am not dreaming this time, and her eyes are really open. She is really awake and making sounds again. “Beh!”
I cradle her against me and hold on as tightly as I can without hurting her. I sob her name-sound over and over again as I hold her, and my chest feels lighter as she raises her hand to grasp my upper arm. Pulling back a little, I look over her face—just to be sure she really is awake—and run my hands softly over her skin. As my fingers touch her parched lips, I quickly jump up to bring her some water.
Moving is difficult because I am weak from lack of food and drink. I force myself to haul the water skin over along with one of Beh’s clay cups. With my arm around her shoulders, I help her sit up a little to drink. She ends up taking too much and coughs but only for a moment. She quickly takes another drink after the coughing subsides.
I place the cup down and touch the side of her face gently. Her eyes move slowly to mine.
“Beh…” I stroke over her cheek with the pad of my thumb, and I am rewarded with her smile and strange sounds.
I love them and press my lips off to the side of her mouth so she can keep making noises.
Carefully, I lay her back against the furs and go to warm up something for her to eat. I move over to the circle of stones next to the clay dishes and the dried meat and use a short stick to poke into the fire pit to find coals.
I am met with nothing more than cold air and ashes. I drop down to my rear in front of the cold ashes as the reality of it sinks into me.
The fire is out.
There is a pounding ache all around the back of my head, which makes it hard to think, but I know exactly what I have done. I didn’t think Beh was going to wake up, and I had let the fire go out.
I glance over my shoulder at Beh, still lying on the furs but at least with open eyes. I can see her fairly well from the light coming in the cave’s entrance, and she smiles at me when our eyes meet. She must not realize what’s happened.
Taking the risk, I move my hands through the ash, trying to find any bit of heat in the pile, but there is none. It is only cold and dusty. Some of the ash billows into the air and makes me sneeze.
When the fire burned my home and tribe, I had taken part of it with me and kept at least a spark of it alive through the first season I was alone. As the days grew colder, I forgot to bank it one night and woke to a cold campsite. Though I had made fire before, it had always been with the help of others to keep pressure on the stick and blow at the tinder if enough heat was created to light a bit of wool or hair to get the fire started.
I had no one to help me, and it had been three days of trying before I managed to get another fire started. Beh can’t wait that long. She is awake now, but she is still injured. I need to be able to care for her, and to do so, I will need fire. I don’t think Beh is well enough to help me.
I take a deep breath, fighting the desire to go lie back in the bed and succumb to the weakness I feel and the leftover despair of thinking Beh would not wake up. I can’t let myself give up now, though, just because I feel weak and tired. I have to help Beh, even if it will be hard to get another fire started. I also can’t take three days to make it happen. The cave is cold, and my mate needs warmth and food to get better.
Lining up some of the kindling Beh collected with the hide on a stick, I find a long, straight branch that should work well to make fire. I stumble outside to the cache of firewood and find a dry piece of outer bark that is fairly flat. I also strip off strands of inner bark from one of the logs. Running my fingers through my hair, I pull out several strands and bunch them up with the shavings from the log. Together, they should make good tinder if I do manage to produce a spark.
When, not if.
I failed my mate when I let the fire die, and I have to make it right, now. I have to make a fire for Beh. I won’t fail her again.
I get everything I need together and go check on Beh. I bring her water and dried meat along with one of her cups full of acorns. I quickly break them open with a stone and place my lips against her forehead before I go back to my fire-building materials. I can hear Beh making her sounds, and I look back over my shoulder at her, listening closely.
I love her sounds.
Placing the shavings to one side of the flat piece of bark, I use my flint knife to carve out a small depression in the center of it. Once it is the right size to firmly hold the straight stick, I place the end of it in the hole and raise myself up on my knees. I hold the stick between my palms and take a deep breath. My hands begin to rub back and forth rapidly, setting a quick rhythm as I push down on the stick to create more pressure along with the friction.
Beh continues to make sounds, and I feel my heart quicken just to know she is there behind me in the furs, awake and okay again. She still needs care –I know that. I also know I will never, ever fail her again. I will not leave her alone for even a moment, and I definitely will not allow our fire to go out again.
As if to remind me of the reason, a cold wind blows through the mouth of the cave.
When my hands reach the bottom of the stick, I quickly move them back to the top again, trying to keep the pressure on the end of the stick against the bark. The stick rotates as fast as my palms can move, and I try not to let myself slow down as my knees begin to ache against the stone cave floor and the muscles in my arms fatigue. I’m weakened by lack of nourishment and a little dizzy, but I keep going.
I glance toward the fur and see Beh’s eyes are closed. In a panic, I drop the fire-starting stick and rush to her side. Groggily, her eyes open, and I hold her tightly against my chest for a moment as I feel my cheeks moisten with tears of relief. I feel her hand against my face, and the tips of her fingers rub the tears from my cheek.
I feel a strange combination of both light and heavy in my chest. I am grateful that Beh is still all right, but I also know I will have to start all over again on the fire. My arms and knees already ache, but I can’t afford to rest. I can’t take days to get another fire going.
I eat a few of the acorns and chew on dried meat to give myself some strength. Beh tries to sit up but looks so tired. She runs her hand through my hair as I place my forehead against her shoulder for a minute. With a long sigh, I move back to the fire-making tools to begin again. I use an old fur on the ground as a little padding for my knees.
Before long, my shoulders burn with the pain of overuse; sweat drips from my forehead, and I still do not have a fire. Beh moves up slowly, making soft noises as she approaches me, but I try not to look or allow myself to get distracted again.
I need this fire. Beh needs it. I have to provide for her.
The thoughts keep me focused through the pain in my muscles. My palms push the stick toward the bark over and over again, continuing the friction to increase the heat. My eyes twinge as sweat runs into them, but I keep going—never slowing down, never stopping. After what feels like days, I can see the tiniest bit of smoke right at the edge of the little hole where the stick meets the bark.
It is then Beh makes a loud, sharp sound, and the stick flies out of my hand.
With a cry, I grab for the bit of hair and bark, but it is too late—the pressure lost, the heat diffused. I feel my shoulders slump forward as the exhaustion comes over me, and my eyes slowly turn to my mate, whose sounds startled me.
“Beh!” I cry as I look into her smiling face and wonder if her head doesn’t work right anymore. She has to understand the importance of fire, and she has to know I will have to start over again now.
She holds out her hand and makes more noise, smiling and waving her other hand toward the back of the cave. When I look to her palm, I see the little round thing that came off of the funny leggings she was wearing when I first found her. It’s not very shiny anymore because it’s covered in dust. It must have been lost in the dirt on the floor of the cave.
I narrow my eyes in confusion. She is excited because she found the little round thing, and this excitement is enough to warrant startling me? Does she not realize our fire is out? I want to grab her and shake her in frustration, but I realize she might still be sick.
She makes more noise and then laughs.
My mate is very, very strange, and sometimes it’s extremely frustrating.
I slump to the floor, tired and sore with a blister on my palm. I grip my hair with my hands and pull at it a bit. I bring my knees up to my chest to drop my head down on them. Beh continues with her noises, and though I want to be annoyed by them, I am not. She’s still making noises, which means she is awake and all right.
But for how long?
As if in answer, a gust of wind finds its way from the entrance to blow against my sweat-covered skin, chilling me quickly. I need to get a fur to cover the entrance, which would help with warmth in the small cave. Still, we need fire more than anything to provide us with heat, a place to cook, and also a way of warding off any predators that may seek shelter for winter in our cave.
“Ehd!”
I open my eyes to look up at her. She points to me, then to the round thing, and then to the fire-stick, bark, and tinder. She is making noises faster now, holding the little round thing up and pointing at my waist. I tilt my head and lay it on top of my knees as I watch her animated display. When she points at my lower body again, I wonder if she wants me to put a baby in her now.
It might keep us warm, so she does have a point.
I get up and move closer to her, placing my hand on the side of her face and running my nose over hers. I run my hand over her shoulder and down her arm, stopping at her wrist. I wrap my fingers around it and start pulling her back toward the furs.
“No, Ehd.”
Beh’s sound doesn’t seem angry, but I still cringe and take a step back from her. When I look to her, she is holding up the round thing and reaching for my waist. In the fold of my wrap is my flint knife, which she takes out and holds up next to the round thing. She makes more noise and moves closer to the fire-starting materials.
I start to sit back down, but she grabs my hand and brings me next to her. The noises continue as she points at the fire-starting things, the flint knife, and the round thing over and over again. She makes eye contact with me and says my name-sound.
“Beh,” I respond.
She sighs and shakes her head rapidly. With another deep breath, she positions her hands—one holding the round thing and the other my knife—right over the top of the flat piece of bark and the tinder lying on top of it. She rubs the little round thing over my knife, and a small dark scratch appears over the surface.
I grunt and grab it away from her. She makes a lot more noise, but when she reaches for it, I will not give it back. I need that knife; it’s my best one. I don’t want it marked up or broken by the little round thing. With a huff, she gets up and goes to the back of the cave, picks up another piece of flint—the axe I use for chopping wood—and returns to the fire area. Her eyes meet mine with a glare, and her jaw is tense. She raises her eyebrows when I narrow my eyes, but I make no move to stop her this time.