In the Beginning Read Online Free PDF

angry.
    â€œWe will stay,” he said. “We will find some way of getting in there to kill them. Or if not we will wait until they come out.”
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    So the tribe remained in the valley, not far from the village. They did not, of course, stay in one place all the time—except when they had lived in the Cave they had never slept two successive nights in the same spot. At night they made their nests of grass in one of the clearings, and in the morning moved away. During the day, when there was need of meat, they went in search of game: either up or down thevalley, sometimes ranging into valleys beyond. At other times they went up to the thorn hedge, just beyond stone-throwing range, and hurled their threats at the enemy. This was the point to which they returned, however far they might have roamed during the hunt. It was a center for their wanderings, as the Cave had been.
    Running with the hunters, a couple of days after they found the village, Dom felt pain in his leg. It was in the place where the stone had cut him, and when they rested after bringing the pig to bay and killing it, he examined the wound. The cut had partially healed but its edges were red, and the flesh surrounding it hot and tender.
    That night he showed it to one of the old women, who was skilled in such matters. An evil spirit, she told him, had entered his body through the cut; probably one sent by the enemy, riding on the stone which they had thrown. There was nothing one could do about it except hope that the good spirits of the tribe’s ancestors would come to his aid and destroy the evil one.
    She shook her head doubtfully as she spoke. As they all knew, the good spirits dwelt in the Cave, andthey had left the Cave far behind. Even in the old days in the grasslands, a wound poisoned by evil spirits had caused death as often as not; either by the poison spreading through the body or when the wounded one, crippled and so no longer able to keep up with the tribe, was left to starve or be eaten by lions.
    Nevertheless she performed the appropriate ritual for him, making him stand facing north, in the direction where, so many long days distant, the Cave lay. Dom stood with legs and arms spread out, mouth open to its widest stretch, while she pleaded with the spirits, begging them to come flying over grassland and hills, to enter his body and destroy the evil spirit sent by the enemy. The tribe watched as this was done. Dom’s father’s face was heavy with fury.
    â€œThey have sent a spirit,” he said, “to hurt my son. We will kill them all!”
    That night Dom slept uneasily, his leg throbbing with hotness and pain. In the morning, although he could walk still, it was with a limp. His father looked at him closely, and said:
    â€œYou must stay here. You could not keep up withthe hunters; and anyway it is a bad thing to take an evil spirit with the tribe when we search for game. Stay here, and we will bring meat back to you.”
    Dom said to his father: “I can keep up with the women and the old ones. And the evil spirit in me will do no harm as long as I do not take part in the hunt.”
    His father stared at him hard.
    â€œYou will stay here.”
    Dom bowed his head. He watched the tribe move away along the valley, and felt lonely and frightened. No man, he knew, could live outside the tribe. His father had said they would return, and Dom believed him in this as in everything. But that did not remove the cold fear of being alone.
    They had built their nests the previous night a mile down-valley from the village. After a time Dom made his way toward it. He was not sure why he did so, except that even the presence of the enemy seemed better than nothing. He threaded his way, warily limping, through the trees and bushes. He did not go out into the open grassland that surrounded the hedge, but watched the village from behind a screen of leaves.
    Watching, he saw strange things. The