Thumb sat on a rock, soothing his sore feet in the river, in no hurry to get home. The stories the shell people had told filled him with foreboding. Meanwhile, he was certain that the spirits had taken Onion’s soul down into the belly of the earth while he’d been gone. The sun was still two hands from the edge of the sky. There was plenty of time before dark. Before he reached the summer camp of the people. Before they would tell him his lover was dead. While he tried not to think of her, a dream found him.

In his dream, a great herd of mammoths tracked down from the stony northern hills through the pine forest all the way to the river. There were five and five and five and five mammoths . . . and then more, more than Thumb could have ever counted, even if he used the fingers and toes of all of the people. They were huge, almost too big to fit in the eye of his mind. They trampled trees like tall grass, dropped turds the size of boulders.

Old Owl told a story about the spirit who became a mammoth. He called the beast a furry mountain of meat. Owl had been the last to see a mammoth, years ago when he was just a boy. The rest of the people knew mammoths only from the drawings in the long cave.

An animal the size of a mountain–how could that be?

When Thumb’s herd of mammoths reached the river, they dipped their trunks into the water. In a dream moment, they drank the river dry. Turtles scrambled into the reeds for shelter. Fish flopped in the mud and died.

After her last baby had been born dead, Onion flopped on her mat like a fish.

Ruc-ruc-ruc-ruc-ruc!

The dream turned to smoke at the sound. Thumb leapt up and almost fell into the river. His feet had gone numb in the cold water and he couldn’t feel the ground beneath them. He pulled on his boots, snatched his spear, fitted it to his throwing stick.

Ruc-ruc-ruc!

The rumbling came from upriver, around the bend. Thumb had never heard anything like it. An earth sound, like the crack of a falling tree or a boulder crashing off a cliff, except it was wet and hot and alive. A sound that only an animal could make.

He crept deeper into the thicket before he started upriver. Hunting courage pounded in his chest. He strained ear and eye and nose after the quarry. He was ready to jump over the sky. It was hard to make himself go quietly but he parted branches and slid through the leaves.

Man. Come out, man.

The whisper rasped inside his head. He felt it on the tip of his nose, on the hair of his scalp, at the root of his cock and on the bottoms of his tingling feet. It had to be the whisper of a spirit. This was his luck then, whether good or bad. He had no choice. He must obey. Thumb rose up and pushed through the undergrowth toward the water. He knew that he might be about to have his soul stripped from his body. The thought did not much bother him. If Onion were really dead, he would be with her in the belly of the 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 made clouds in the cool air.

"Are you warm yet?" he said.

"My heart is," said Onion. He had his arm around her waist and they snuggled beneath a bearskin blanket. She was thin as grass. He could feel her ribs beneath his moist hands. Even when she was pregnant, she was never as big as the other women. Now her breasts were like those of a girl. Thumb had not known Onion when she was young. She had come to them from the horse people five and three summers ago, a round and beautiful woman. Since then she had given birth to three babies, all dead, and had gotten thinner and thinner. Thumb kissed her pale face. The last had almost killed her. But she was still beautiful. He could wait until she was stronger before they would lie together as lovers. That would be soon, he hoped. Her breath tickled his neck.

Bead finished whispering to Owl. The storyteller got up painfully, carrying his years like a skin filled with stones. He hobbled around to the back of the hearth and turned so that the flames were between him and the people. Firelight caught in the creases on his face. Just before he spoke, he straightened and squared his shoulders. Then his voice boomed as it had for all the summers Thumb could remember.

"This is a story of Thumb," he said, "who is the son of my sister and who walks both in the light of the sun and the darkness of the two caves. He gave his story to me so that I could give it to you. It has become a story of the people. I will tell it to you now, even though it doesn’t have an ending."

The people yipped and grunted with unease. A story without an ending was bad luck.

Actually, Thumb had told his story mostly to Bead, Owl’s lover, and Blue, who spoke for the people. Owl had listened for a while but then had dozed off, as he often did late in the day.

"We know," said Owl, "that Thumb loves Onion and Onion loves Thumb. They have slept nose to nose, belly to belly for five and three winters. She eats the meat he brings her. He eats the roots she digs for him."

"When you find time to hunt," whispered Onion.

"When you dig something besides stones." Thumb gave her a gentle nudge.

"Thumb needed to make paint for the new cave, which some call the cleft. For the red, he had to collect bloodstones from the shell people’s land. But after bearing a baby that never breathed, his lover became sick with a fever. He had a hard choice. No one ever wants such a choice. Thumb loves Onion, but because he loves the people too, he left her and went to the shell people’s land."

Quail gave a low whistle of approval. Thumb was pleased when everyone joined in. Even Owl. Even Onion. Thumb’s cheeks were warm.

"While Thumb was gone, a stranger came to us. He brought food gifts of two eels and a badger skin filled with apples, so we welcomed him. He told us his name was Singer. He was an old man, with white and gray and not much brown in his beard. He wore a headdress of the feather people and the deerskins of our people. But he didn’t say where he came from and we didn’t ask. Although we are a curious people, we are also polite."

Owl paused and waited for the laugh.

"When Singer saw Onion bundled by the fire, he told us that she was going to die. We all thought that he was right. Singer said that he could use his luck to turn hers, but that we must let him do whatever he wanted with her. We talked about what he said. It seemed strange that a man could turn his own luck or anyone else’s. But none of us could help Onion. Finally we let Blue speak for us. He told Singer to use his luck.

"Singer crushed herbs from his pouch in a wooden bowl, mixed them with water and gave them to Onion to drink. She went limp but her eyes stayed open. It was as if her soul had left her body. Then he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the river. He laid her on the bank and took off her deerskin shirt and pants. With his two hands he scooped mud onto her naked body, covering her until all we could see was her mouth and her nose. There were some of us who thought this was bad luck." Owl struck his chest with his fist. "Or at least crazy luck. But we said nothing. When Singer finished with the mud, he began to sing."

Owl paused, gathered himself. His voice quavered under and around and sometimes on the notes.

" ‘Spirits, look at this woman!

I have buried her for you.

She has learned what it is like

in the belly of the earth.

Now you won’t have to teach her.

Leave her in the world awhile.

Let her wake with her people.’ "

Onion had gone stiff as a tree stump beside him. "Are you all right?" said Thumb. She nodded and squeezed his hand. With a feeling of dread, Thumb understood that even though she seemed better, his lover was still tangled in the stranger’s luck.

The effort of singing Onion back to life, even though it was just part of the story, left Owl exhausted. He sat down abruptly and fell silent. Bead dipped a dried gourd into a water skin and scrabbled across the ledge to him. As he drank, she whispered to him. The old man’s eyes were as distant as the ice mountains. The people sat in polite silence for several moments, waiting for him to begin again. Bead’s talk grew more heated; Thumb could make out words. Lose . . . Foolish . . . Let me! Finally Owl grunted and pushed her away.

"A fly is buzzing in my ear," he said. "It asks if a woman can tell a man’s story." A few people laughed. Bead’s smile was tight. She scooted backward but did not rejoin those around the fire. Instead she crouched a few paces away from Owl and waited.

"Then Singer finished his luck song." The storyteller spoke from where he sat, which made everyone nervous. But it was better that he tell the story sitting down rather than stop. It was very bad luck to stop in the middle of a story, especially a story that had no end. "He took off his own clothes, picked Onion up and waded into the water. When the river had rinsed her of the mud, he climbed out of the river and dressed her. Then he kissed her as if she were his lover. She was asleep now, with her eyes closed. A deep sleep, yes, but not the almost-death that had squeezed her before. We could see her breathing. She didn’t wake up until the next day. By then, Singer had left us." Owl lowered his voice so that everyone had to lean forward to hear him. "Nobody saw him go. Did he melt like snow? Blow away like smoke?"

He paused, even though he knew no one would answer.

"He was gone." Owl stared into the fire. "All he left was his luck."

The people waited again.

"And this story," he muttered finally, as if speaking to himself.

Silence.

"Is that all?" said little Flamesgirl, who had just lost her baby teeth and still didn’t have her name. She had been squirming on her mother’s lap during Owl’s story. "What about Thumb? What about the big beastie?"

Flame pinched the girl’s cheek hard. Everyone knew that she talked more than her mother ought to allow.

"The mammoth, old man," Bead called to Owl, loud enough for everyone to hear. "I think you haven’t told about the mammoth."

Owl grunted. "Old man." He struggled to his feet. "She calls me old man." He shook his head in disbelief. "But when I was young, just five and four summers old, I saw a mammoth. Maybe the last one. I will never forget it. Such a fearsome creature . . . a nose like a great snake and tusks that curved to the clouds. It was covered with shaggy brown fur. When it roared, birds fell out of the sky. It was so huge that the earth shook when it walked . . . and its foot, one foot could crush three men . . . because it was bigger than the trees, I saw it . . . a furry mountain of meat. . . . What?"

As Owl was speaking, Blue rose and approached him. "I would like to finish this story, Owl." Blue touched his arm; he looked very embarrassed. Thumb was embarrassed too. "Will you let me?"

Owl puffed himself up. "Are you the storyteller now?"

"Thumb saw a mammoth today," said Blue gently. "Remember?"

Owl snorted and then glanced over at Bead. Her head was down, as if she were counting her toes. Owl’s jaw muscles worked but he made no sound. Blue waited. Then Owl said, "Tell them whatever you want." He turned away, brushed past Bead and stalked into the darkness. Thumb could hear him climb the path to the top of the cliff. A few heartbeats later, Bead went after him.

"He has seen many summers," said Blue, "They have filled him up, I think. Still, it is luck to have him with us."

Then Blue reported to the people what had happened between Thumb and the mammoth. His words didn’t sing like Owl’s did and his voice never touched the moon, but the story was finished. Afterward there was not much discussion of what had happened that day. A sadness had fallen on the people like a cold rain. The mothers huddled briefly, no doubt talking about whether it was time to change storytellers. Most of the people lay down on their sleeping mats, glad to let the day pass into story.

Onion curled next to Thumb under their bearskin. They were so excited to see each other that they couldn’t get to sleep. They talked in lovers’ whispers, so as not to disturb the others.

"Owl was right to tie the luck of the mammoth to the stranger’s luck," said Thumb, "even if he did forget what he was trying to say. I feel like I’m still bound to it." He sifted her hair through his hands. "And you to this Singer?"

"Maybe. I don’t know." She shifted around to face him. "I’m sorry, but I don’t remember much about him. They told me what he did but I heard the story as if it had happened to someone else. All I know is that I am better now. And that you’re here with me."

"What do you remember?"

"I remember my baby was dead. It was a boy," she said.

"I know. I was with you." Thumb rested his hand on her hip. "But then I had to leave."

"After that all I remember are faces and lots of talk that I couldn’t quite understand. And just a bit of a dream." Onion stroked his cheek, as if to assure herself that he was still there. "I was in a cave. I had no lamp and it was dark but I could see a tiny light, far off, like a star and the light called my name. I think it might have been Singer. I tried to crawl toward the light but my arms and legs wouldn’t move. Then I heard a wind sound, but it wasn’t wind. It was the cave, breathing." She shivered. "That’s all."

"It was the long cave," said Thumb, although he didn’t believe this, "and it was me, looking for you."

Someone was playing a bone flute. Probably Oak, who usually had trouble sleeping. The notes were soft and drowsy and a little downcast. It was a song of leaves dropping from trees and birds flying south, a song of the end of summer.

The next morning, Blue asked Thumb and Oak to walk with him to the river for a hunting council. Although Oak was Thumb’s half-brother, they had never been close. Oak was younger than Thumb. Their mother had died giving birth to him and their luck had been tangled ever since. But with Quick and the others tracking the reindeer herd, Oak was the best hunter in camp.

He was a simple man, better with his hands than his head. He could throw a spear farther than any of the people, but he could scarcely tell a story straight through. He had no lover and so was always restless. The mothers said that he would leave the valley some day.

The three men carried water skins down the path to the river. Since Blue had called the council, Oak and Thumb waited for him to begin it. At the river, instead of filling his skin, he hung it on a branch. The others did the same and then the three sat facing each other.

"So, do we hunt it?" said Blue.

Oak snorted in disgust. "The question answers itself."

"We could," said Thumb, "if it’s just an animal."

"What else would it be?"

"A spirit."

Blue frowned. "You think it is?"

"My thoughts are thick as mud," said Thumb. "I heard a voice in my head. But as soon as I saw the beast, I knew that we could kill it." He shrugged. "You can’t kill a spirit."

Oak touched Thumb’s knee. "How many men would it take, brother?"

"Five and five, at least. It was feeding, so I’m not sure how fast it charges. More would be better. It’ll be dangerous."

"So we had better wait for Quick to come back," said Blue.

Oak made a sour face. "And let it wander off ? Blue, this is a mammoth. Think of what people will say of the ones who bring it down. You want to give those stories to the shell people? The horse people?"

Blue shook his head. "Men may die unless we hunt at full strength."

"You could die on the way back to camp if you trip over a stone. I’m not afraid."

"I’m not afraid, either. I’m just not stupid."

Thumb’s attention drifted. Their argument was like the chitter of magpies. There was something that he needed to understand about the mammoth. Something that he couldn’t talk or think his way to, something that hid underneath words. He began to clear the ground in front of him, pulling grass, sweeping away rotted leaves.

"We’ve got Horn and Quail and Bright and Rabbit," said Oak. "And you two, if you both agree,""Bright is still a boy."

"He has his name."

"He was born the summer before Onion came to us!"

Thumb fluffed the exposed dirt and then began to work with his drawing thumb. The lines were swift and sure. Round head, sloping back, trunk, long tusks.

"What is it?" Oak’s voice came from a great distance.

Thumb opened himself and a dream found him.

"Quiet!" said Blue. Thumb could barely hear him over the blood pounding in his ears.

In his dream, the mammoth was already dead. It was lying on its side in a clearing. Flies buzzed the wounds on its neck. Two spears stuck out of its broad chest. The blood was dry.

Thumb was alone with the mammoth. There were no other hunters, no one to thank the mammoth for giving its life to the people and to speed its soul. He knelt beside the mammoth and put his hand on its flank. "I thank you, great one, for the sacrifice you have made. Your death is as precious to us as your life was to you. We needed you and so we killed you. We will use your flesh and bones to make our lives better. Someday when the spirits come to take us from our bodies, we will see you again in the belly of the earth." Then he got up, his nose full of the stink of the mammoth. It was already beginning to rot.

He walked around it once, then walked around it in the opposite direction. In his dream, Thumb was uneasy. It was bad luck to waste any kill, and this was a mammoth. Where was everyone?

An elm tree stirred at the edge of the clearing. In a dream moment, its roots gathered into two legs and its branches became the arms of a man. Leaves grew into long gray hair and a beard. The tree man was wearing a deerskin shirt and leggings. He did not speak but held out open hands to show he meant no harm. Thumb thought this might be the stranger who had saved Onion.

Man, I am. It was the voice Thumb had heard by the river.Singer approached the mammoth. He touched one of the dark eyes and the lid closed. He whispered to the mammoth and its trunk twitched. When he shouted, the sound staggered Thumb and he fell backward.

The mammoth shivered, rolled over, and got to its knees. Thumb let out a strangled cry of joy and surprise and fear. No animal had ever come back from the dead. The mammoth stood and shook the spears out of its side. Thumb’s eyes burned.

Singer loomed over Thumb and started kicking at the ground. He bent to uproot grass, clear leaves. The mammoth trumpeted and lumbered into the forest as Singer squatted. He began to draw in the dirt.

The lines were swift and sure. Round head, sloping back, trunk, long tusks.

"Thumb, are you all right?" Oak was trying to sit him up.

"You shouldn’t touch him," said Blue, but he didn’t interfere.

Thumb’s ears still rang with Singer’s shout. He tried to focus on Blue and Oak. They shimmered like they were under water.

"He’s crying," said Oak. "Brother, what’s wrong?"

Thumb wiped at the wetness under his eye and touched the fingertip to his tongue. In the taste of his tears he saw mammoths flickering on the walls of the long cave. The vision shook him. It was dream knowledge, but the dream was over. The spirits must be very close. They had come to push him to his luck.

Thumb struggled up and pulled his water skin from the tree. "No more talking." He dipped the skin into the current and let it fill. "I’m going to the long cave." He slung it over his shoulder and started toward the camp at a trot. "I’ll know what we should do when I get back."

Owl liked to call the cleft the new cave, but then he liked to stretch words. Actually it was a place where two huge rocks had fallen against one another, and it was mostly open to the sky. All the paintings and marks on the walls of the cleft had been made either by Thumb, or his teacher, Looker, or Looker’s teacher Thorn. They had painted reindeer and red deer and ibex and horses and bison and the secret names of spirits.

But no mammoths. The mammoths were in the long cave.

The long cave was a mystery. Nobody knew who had put their dreams on its walls. Nobody knew how big it was. Owl told a story about the time old Thorn had found a tunnel that led from the long cave to the belly of the earth. The keeper had blocked it with stones to keep the dead from coming back to life. The women told stories about souls without bodies, who wandered the earth, forever alone, but none of the people had ever seen one. Thumb had looked many times for Thorn’s tunnel. He had never found it. But even though he knew the long cave better than any of the people, there were still parts of it that he had yet to see. He had never quite gotten the courage to lower himself into the well in the Lodge of Mother Mammoth. And he was too wide in the shoulders to wriggle through the narrows past the abandoned bear nests.

"I don’t care," said Onion. "I’m coming with you."

Two mothers who were chipping new stone scrapers covered smiles with their hands.

Thumb wrapped a lump of boar fat in a maple leaf and bound it with braided grass. "But I don’t want you to." He put it with his lamp.

Onion didn’t bother to answer. She was already packing food for the trip, a handful of hazelnuts, a parsnip, salsify root, and a dried fish.

"You’re not strong enough." Thumb didn’t like to quarrel in front of other people.

Onion liked nothing better, especially since his shyness gave her an advantage. "I’m strong enough to sit and tend fire." She stooped to tie the sinew laces of her boots. "And that’s all I’ll do if I stay here."

Thumb made his best argument. "It’s too far." The long cave was a good day’s hike from the river. Its mouth was set into the stony ridge that divided the river valley from the lands of the horse people. "Besides, I might be gone all night. Maybe longer." Thumb continued to wrap leaves around pale chunks of fat for the lamp. "I don’t know where the dreams will take me."

When he glanced up, Onion was standing with her hips cocked to support the bulging skin she had slung over her shoulder. She smiled at him and he shrugged. He knew that smile. The argument was over.

It was not yet midday when they started out. They talked at first. He told her about his trip to the country of the shell people. They were telling stories about a new people who had come down from the ice mountains. The shell people had not yet seen these strangers themselves, but had heard about them from their distant neighbors, the sky people. The newcomers were said to have four arms. Dogs followed them and obeyed their orders.

"Then we’ll call them the dog people," said Onion.

"That wouldn’t be very polite." Dogs were scavengers, like crows and rats. The only thing they were good for was eating, and they were often too stringy for that.

"Then call them the ice people." Onion laughed. "Maybe they melt in the summer and their dogs drink them."

Thumb was pleased to see Onion keep good pace and good conversation. She was definitely getting better.

Onion told him that the mothers had decided to ask Owl’s son Bone to become the storyteller, even though he was still learning stories. He had only begun training with his father four summers ago but he had a big voice and an easy laugh. His words didn’t always light the stars, but he was still young and he would have Owl to teach him.

As they climbed farther away from the river, they dropped into hunting order. Game was scarce near the summer camp, but here they might surprise a hare or a squirrel or even a deer. Thumb moved ahead, stepping quietly, spear at the ready. Onion trailed behind, picking mushrooms and stopping to roll logs over in search of grubs and salamanders.

That night they lay together as lovers. Afterward Thumb wept for their dead baby boy.

The sun was three hands from the dawn edge of the sky when they reached the cave the next day. Onion gathered tinder and kindling while Thumb pulled dead branches from trees and dragged them into a pile. The people visited the long cave regularly and had built a good hearth just inside the entrance. Thumb watched Onion take the smoldering coal she had brought from the hearthfire and set it on the tinder.

"I thank the first mother for this fire," she said. "She makes the warmth of the world." She blew on the coal until it smoked and the tinder caught fire.

When the pile of firewood reached Thumb’s waist, he went out to gather birch bark. He peeled what he could and cut the rest with his chert knife. He was careful not to cut a complete circle of bark, which would girdle a tree and kill it. Thumb folded the bark again and again into a wad and then wedged it into the cleft of a green stick. When he had made three of these birch torches he returned to the cave. He was surprised to find Bead, Owl’s lover, sitting at the fire next to Onion. She was rocking back and forth, as if in mourning.