The Blessing Stone by Barbara Wood Read Free Book Online Page B

while, were happy to welcome the intruder into their midst.
     
    The Family stayed by the lake, feasting on Thorn’s ducks for as long as they lasted. Thorn didn’t sit by the fire as the other males did, chipping stone tools and fashioning spears. There was a restlessness in him, and a need for attention. To Tall One he seemed like a big child, eager to make others laugh with his capers. Before their mildly curious eyes he gamboled and romped, jumped and mimed, for no apparent reason. But after a few nights of this, with Tall One being the first to understand what he was about, the Family began to grasp that there was meaning to the newcomer’s shenanigans.
    He was telling stories.
    Audiences in a future age would call him a ham, but Tall One’s family was held in thrall by his theatrics. Entertainment was unknown to them, and the recounting of past events even more alien. But as they began to understand his gestures and sounds and facial expressions, they began to see the stories emerge. They were simple tales, tiny dramas in which Thorn acted out a hunt with the people victoriously carrying a giraffe haunch back to the camp, or a near-drowning in which a child was saved, or a fierce struggle with a crocodile, resulting in death. Thorn soon had Tall One’s family laughing and slapping their thighs, or crying and wiping tears from their cheeks, or gasping in fear or grunting in wonder. Food might be scarce on this lake abandoned by other animals, and the water might be foul and brackish, killing even the resident fish, but Thorn made the humans forget their thirst and hunger as he told over and over again the comical story of how he got his name. They never tired of seeing him fall into the “thorn bush” and suffer the thorns being plucked out of his buttocks.
    And then one night he astounded them further by suddenly transforming himself into someone else.
    He got up from his place by the fire and began to shuffle around the circle in a strange manner—his left arm curled up to his chest, his left leg dragging behind. At the first they gave him puzzled looks, and then they gasped. He looked just like Scorpion! Suddenly terrified, they looked around to see if Scorpion was still there—had he somehow taken possession of Thorn’s body? But there he was, looking at the newcomer in shock. Scorpion’s left side had been growing increasingly numb, rendering his left arm and leg almost useless.
    And then, before their startled eyes, Thorn jumped into another stance, swaying his hips and pantomiming stuffing his face with food. Honey-Finder!
    Nostril shouted out in anger and fear, but some of the children were laughing. And then when Thorn tugged at his long matted hair until it stood out, and walked with small mincing steps—and everyone instantly recognized Baby—others began to laugh.
    Soon he had everyone howling with hysterics and it became a game. He would shamble along, examine a stick, and everyone would shout, “Snail!” He would scratch his back up and down on a tree and everyone would call out, “Lump!” And when he lifted a small boy onto his back, hooking the child’s arms under his chin and the boy’s legs around his waist in imitation of the putrid hide Lion wore, everyone clutched their stomachs and shrieked with laughter.
    Thorn was happy to make them laugh. This family was not unlike his own: they foraged for the same food, followed ancient paths, lived by the same structure. Females and children grouped together, the males in their own separate group, and yet all strived for the survival of the Family. The females engaged in the same grooming and child-rearing sessions while the males whittled spears and cut hand axes from stones. Anger was swift to rise and quickly died. There were the familiar jealousies and envy, friendships and enemies. Old Mother reminded him of Willow in his family, with her bandy legs and withered breasts and toothless gumming of her food. Nostril and Lump reminded him of