Instinctively, Tor knew the coming winter would not be like the one before so far away in the valley of the Po River. His memory of years before with all of the Thal Clan surrounding him, it was much colder with much more snow and preparation. Still, the old and the weak often did not make it through the months of penetrating cold, smoky and filthy indoor conditions, and running out of food. Winter was a time of disease, freezing illnesses death and discontent. Especially when clan members died like so many did in the clan of the Po the winter before.
Those thoughts weighed heavily on him but he did not tell Dupree and the others. Kept them to himself. His burden, his thoughts, turned to Tsen. He was a grazing animal and there wasn't much to graze on when the snow was very deep. And, surely wolves would come for him in the night when food for them got scarce. Tor had to come up with some plan to make sure that his steed, now rapidly growing 5 inch hair all over his body as protection against the cold, would be protected and fed during that period of prolonged weakness.
First, next to the lodge, Tor and the boys fashioned from saplings a three sided shelter tied together with an overhead roof to keep the snow and wind off. They covered its floor with straw for a soft, warmer bed with pitchforks carved from naturally shaped branches and piled high a stack of hay that was left over from winnowing seeds for food. It was dried grass, but not too dry and smelled sweet, unlike straw. An old skin was tied over the top of the pile to keep it from getting wet from rain and rotting. Tor knew that Tsen would not eat the hay as long as he could find grass beneath the snow. It would only be when he began starving that he would eat the dried grass, the hay. That way there would be enough to last until spring. He hoped.
But there was so much to remember. And from the age of 12 rotation notches Tor had concentrated on hunting crafts and skill. Making him the hunter he was, but failing to teach him all that was needed for the clan to make it through the winter. Whenever he came across a familiar plant, now dried in the autumn, he tried to remember if it was used for something in winter. He often took some to Dupree and Conie to find out.
Dupree was also struggling to become an elder--yet feeling inadequate. He strained his memory to be sure they had all they needed by way of spices, medicines and other incentives for making it through the winter. He relied on Conie to double check and tell him whether or not a particular fungus they had gathered was good to eat, made a good medicine, or even poison. Sometimes he just remembered something that was familiar. He felt that he was failing for everyone and not just himself and Conie.
They gathered pots to store water and made more from clay mud they found in a nearby stream bank that ran through clay soil. These pots were not spun, but built crudely by hand so that they had carrying capacity when hardened by the heat of fire. Getting the fire hot enough so that they could fire the pots was a challenge that kept the girls pumping a makeshift leather and horn air pump all day long until their arms were sore at night. But melted water kept inside was essential during the winter. Melting snow in their mouths like the animals did, burned them and dried their mouths out, cracked their lips. The river was frozen and free running springs were hard to find.
Every day grew darker and inside the lodge it was always darker still. They kept small fires burning to provide light and heat, but not too much to preserve their wood. First frost came. Mostly in the mornings and burned off later in the day. And then, snow fell. The first day was always fun for the children playing with it. As the big flakes fluttered down, waiting in the forest for animals to come to the arrow and/or the spear, Tor always felt warmer at first… Strange. But as a front would come through bringing with it strong winds and colder temperatures, that warm feeling disappeared quickly and a desire to return to the lodge and out of the cold wind grew strong.
Cooking the evening meal always warmed and lit their enclosure. But it was nothing like the many relatives he remembered who crowded around a large cooking area throughout the days of his youth. The sights and sounds of those days with others chatting and sometimes singing around the cooking pots and spits smelling the food being prepared ran through Tor's mind those evenings when he came home with fewer game than earlier when he could smell and hear them coming.
One advantage was that Tor did not have was to smoked meat anymore. But he had to act fast after a kill and relied on the boys to help him cut an animal up into smaller pieces before it froze solid. Tor would have to put frozen meat on the fire longer for it to cook properly. It was always a race between getting meat cooked enough so that it would be soft for failing teeth or would be so hard or raw making it unpleasant to eat even though half cooked in the fire's dying embers.
Fortunately, the girls were not too picky when it came to covering up their naked bodies in furs. And most nights, Tor was very tired from the hard work all day or stiff from freezing on a hunting stand. So sleep came easy for them all. But sometimes on warm nights, the furs became too hot for Tor or one of the girls. And then, there was a struggle to get free from what was bothering him or them.
Sometimes the two girls began tickling one another in raucous laughter and mock fight. But there were others, when sometimes their prattle before sleeping turned to the loss of their mothers and friends. And they cried themselves to sleep. Times when Tor would leave them and go off to sleep elsewhere in the lodge to his own thoughts of the terrible death of his father and his missing mother, especially when he would curl up where they had always slept before.
Using simple sticks driven in the ground when they arrived, Dupree kept track of the day's sunlight extent when it was sunny and there were no obstructions like the shade of trees blocking or clouds. It became easier as all of the leaves blew off the trees and the sunlight came through every day to be marked. His clan celebrated a fall festival every year when the salmon run was over and they invited bride exchanges from nearby related clans. New births would come in the spring.
Similarly, Tor remembered that whenever their raiding party arrived home for winter, not always on the same day or even the same week, there was a big celebration and they always hunted the day before they arrived to bring fresh meat along with the spoils of brides and trade that they had gathered in the summer-long raid south.
All the clans in the North knew two things: the gods of the wild had to be honored and given sustenance through the barren winter months and it was deadly for a clan to marry a sister or for a clan leader to have children with his children. This was folk knowledge passed down by word-of-mouth between clans and from the elders of clans to the children.
Some clans that practiced those heinous deeds and defied the gods became filled with clansmen of untrustworthy, vile behavior. Vile disfigurement to their bodies. Every clan had to guard against that happening. And this new clan made up of Tor and the bare remnants of the Danis needed to establish ways to appease the gods and avoid the thirst of winter that led to evil birth of children in the spring.
So when the sun, moon and the stars were just right and frost was on the trees, Dupree and Conie brought out the best of everything they had stored for winter and a great celebration was had lasting all day with nothing but eating, drinking and relaxing, singing songs and incantations to the gods, as well as presenting small gifts of icons and amulets made from the forest that would soon be covered with snow and barren. Unfortunately, the drink that made men do crazy and stupid things was not available. Fortunately, too. Tor went to bed that night with a sore stomach from overeating but without the crazy, wild behavior he had observed among the men in years past.
For a few days after the river froze, it remained free of snow. The children took some of that in the warm afternoon to go out on the ice and slide, laughing and jostling one another as they did. Dupree had fashioned, from antler bones and leather, rails that he tied tightly to his feet and then went out on the new ice and was soon moving up and down the river like the flight of waterfowl.
Tor was amazed watching him. Quickly he came back after being almost out of sight. Dupree offered them to Tor to try. "Here, Tor, you see how the kids are sliding on their fur boots. Move one leg first and then hold it outward while you move the other leg forward, and so on. Before long, you will have momentum and skate easily."
"Okay," Tor smiled brightly, "I will give them a try. It looks magical the way you fly across the ice. I can't wait to try it, too… Skate."
Tor didn't know this word, "skate." But like everything else, he learned easily by watching someone do it. But in this case, at first all he did was fall down. Sometimes, quite hard and painfully. These antler skates had little grip on the ice and it took great skill to keep balanced. His ankles hurt, healing right lower leg became strained and his ribs sore, so he had to stop.
The days grew shorter and the nights colder. The storms stronger and they reached the peak of winter. Always faster than it went away. But easier because everything was often warmed by the falling new snow and then once that layer of snow protected the lodge and everything was covered in pristine white, the wind would often come up bringing searing cold that required them to spend whole days inside the lodge waiting for the gods in the trees painfully howling out for the wind, snow and cold to stop.
It always became sunny when the storm was over, but there was a bitter, penetrating cold that they dared not leave their bare skin to for fear of it going numb, turning red, and then black, and then falling off to never be young, soft and beautiful again. Sometimes leaving nasty scars and sometimes, when it involved toes or fingers turning black, fell off or even caused death. Most of the time though while being warmed from numbness just caused searing or stinging of the bite of the many gods in the form of invisible ants.
Soon, the animals that left tracks nearby were all caught in snares, or thankfully, slain by arrows of Tor and the boys, finished off with knives of obsidian or spears. The land around the lodge became completely barren and lifeless except for its occupants and their tracks. Even water was hard to come by without fire using up their gathered wood to melt snow. Dupree, reading the sun signs, signaled that it was near; the shortest day of the year.
Many days were required to prepare for the coming winter solstice. The time that marked the long period of deprivation leading to the warmth and renewal of spring. To make it through, the gods had to be fed according to ancient rituals. They had to show the gods that they had enough food to make it all the way to spring.
The lodge was decorated with bows from spruce, balsam and fir. Nuts and acorns. Color was added by red berries of the holly. Amulets and icons were carved for the gods. Dupree remembered some children's games and carved them from wood for the girls and boys delight. A great feast was prepared and everyone over ate in order to please the gods. Afterward, they sat around the fire, and told stories, sung songs and practiced rituals that both Tor and Dupree remembered.
The days after were long, dark and cold inside. They were careful not to burn too much wood and to go out in the warm sun on days there was sun so they would not get too weak or pale from inactivity. The children, especially, grew tired of the same games, the same food, and being locked up in the dark of the lodge for days at a time. It was worse for Tor, Dupree and Conie. There was so much time think about those they had lost. When Tor told stories of his youth and travel, he concealed his pain as best he could, but he would have nightmares that scared the girls afterward that night when he cried out in his sleep.
Tor expected the worst and waited for it to happen. But he didn't tell anyone. Remembering the time he spent the winter on the Po River. And the pestilence came. And the times it came in his youth after Solstice because the gods were not pleased with their harvest and offerings. He remembered getting so hot or chilled and dizzy. Sweating profusely and racked with pain. Sometimes not being able to hold down his food for a week or more at a time.
But worse. The babies got so sick they often died. And especially the old. They didn't get as sick or as often as the younger people, but when they did, they often died. By spring when the ice went out, their bodies were all piled on a raft and sent downriver to be devoured by the gods of the sea. Like the annual return of summer plenty, new babies would fill the place these elders and weak babies had gone to. A never-ending cycle that had happened too soon for their two clans.
Tor had been following his morning bathing ritual until the river iced over. He could break through the ice and sometimes did, if he saw fish swimming underneath, but there was no getting back in the water to bathe until spring. Water melted from snow and ice was too precious for drinking and food making to bathe with. He began to stink and knew it. Didn't understand how the girls, who still smelled baby sweet, could stand him. But they seemed to like him even more on the coldest nights for his warmth.
Deep in the winter came a new kind of wailing that exceeded the wind in the trees--wolves! Near spring they began to hear them every night. They had run out of catching easy food and were beginning to starve and look for food that they usually had by clans from the dead that would pile up nearby. After all, when live meat was unavailable, they became scavengers and even ate their own young to keep the pack from dying. And they were relentless in their hunts.
The howling grew nearer every night, until the restlessness of Tsen and his worried whinnying and foot stomping could be heard inside the lodge and Tor and the boys would have to leave the relative warmth inside to stand guard outside as the chilling howling grew within site of a torch flickering in furtive eyes.
On those nights, according to Tor instructions. They remained quiet until one brave wolf stuck in too close and then they were to unleash their arrows. Killing only one wolf and acquiring its beautiful full winter coat, as well as its delicious meat, usually frightened the pack enough so they would stay away. But this winter was especially harsh for them and they came back twice. Tor was sure that Tsen was very grateful for not having to fight them off. Those two hides were given two each of the boys for their for their bravery and hunting skill.
Gradually, by Dupree's careful recording every day at sunset, the days grew longer and warmer. Tor would take Tsen for exercise rides to warm him up and to see if they could find fresh grass buried under the snow. He had gradually been eating away at the pile of hay until it started to look like a mushroom. Every once in a while, a rat or mouse would scurry out from under the hay he was stripping away. The children delighted chasing those down for a fresh snack after roasting them on the evening fire.
The discontent was mostly mental, thoughts of loss from sickness and death like what had happened to Cloe, dear Cloe. But when the sound of water dripping from the trees and running into the lodge through leaks in the roof and walls reached his ears, and the signs of spring were in the air, it subsided. No one had gotten sick or died. Neither Dupree or Tor could understand why there had been such good fortune. But they were grateful to the gods for it being that way and had a special ceremony in the spring for being healthy, warm and strong all winter.
Tor was counting the days when the ice would go out and he would be able to take a morning swim with the children again.
Copyright 2020 © Ronald W. Hull
12/27/20
