The Covenant Read Online Free PDF

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 ménage.
    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 herlovely 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 you find a husband.”
    Disdainfully the girl waved her right arm, indicating the bleak settlement: “And where do you expect to find me a husband?”
    “My son Gao needs a wife.”
    “Has he spoken to Kusha? She has a baby daughter.”
    “I wasn’t really thinking of Kusha … or her daughter.”
    “No?” the girl asked softly, smiling at Gumsto in a way to make him dizzy.
    “I’ve been thinking of you,” Kharu said, adding quickly, “Now if you married Gao …”
    “Me?” the girl said in what seemed astonishment. Appealing to Gumsto, she added, “I’d never be the proper wife for Gao, would I?”
    “And why not?” Kharu demanded, rising.
    “Because I’m like you, Kharu,” the girl said quietly. “The daughterof a great hunter. And I was the wife of a hunter, not quite as good as Gumsto.” She flashed a look of power at the little man, then added, “I could never marry Gao. A man who has not yet killed his eland.”
    For this terrible dismissal she had chosen a freighted word:
eland
. The clan coexisted with