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blood. The tune now winding with me lay notes over the stone like mica flakes that would do till light came.
    Stubbed my toe.
    Hopped, cursed, then started walking again alone with the lonely, lovely sounds.
    “Hey-“
    “-Lobey, is-“
    “-is that you?” Young voices came from behind stone.
    “Yes! Of course it’s me! “ I turned to the wall and put my hands against the rock.
    “We snuck back-“
    “- to watch and Lo Hawk-“
    “- he told us to go down into the cave and find you-“
    “-cause he thought you might be lost.”
    I pushed my machete back into my scabbard. “Fine. Because I am.”
    “Where are you?”
    “Right here on the other side of this- “ I was feeling around the stones again, above my head this time. My fingers came on an opening. It was nearly three feet wide. “Hold on!” I hoisted myself up, clambered onto the rim, and saw faint light at the end of a four-foot tunnel. I had to crawl through because there wasn’t room to stand.
    At the other end I stuck my head out and looked down at the upturned faces of the Bloi triplets. They were standing in a patch of light from the roof.
    2-Bloi rubbed his nose with the back of his fist and sniffed.
    “Oh,” 1 - Bloi said. “You were up there.”
    “More or less.” I jumped down beside them.
    “Damn! “ 3-Bloi said. “What happened to you?” I was speckled with bull’s eye, scratched, bruised, and limping.
    “Come on,” I said. “Which way is out?”
    We were only around the corner from the great cave-in. We joined Lo Hawk on the surface.
    He stood (remember, he had a cracked rib that nobody was going to find out about till the next day) against a tree with his arms folded. He raised his eyebrows to ask me the question he was waiting with.
    “Yeah,” I said. “I killed it. Big deal.” I was sort of tired.
    Lo Hawk shooed the kids ahead of us back to the village. As we tromped through the long weeds, suddenly we heard stems crash down among themselves .
    I almost sat down right there.
    It was only a boar. His ear could have brushed my elbow. That’s all.
    “Come on.” Lo Hawk grinned, raising his crossbow.
    We didn’t say anything else until after we had caught and killed the pig. Lo Hawk’s powered shaft stunned it, but I had to hack it nearly in half before it would admit it was dead. After el toro ? Easy. Bloody to the shoulders, we trudged back finally, through the thorns, the hot evening.
    The head of the boar weighed fifty pounds. Lo Hawk lugged it on his back. We’d cut off all four hams, knotted them together, and I carried two on each shoulder, which was another two hundred and seventy pounds. The only way we could have gotten the whole thing back was to have had Easy along. We’d nearly reached the village when he said, “La Dire noticed that business with Friza and the animals. She’s seen other things about you and others in the village.”
    “Huh? Me?” I asked. “What about me?”
    “About you, Friza, and Dorik the kage-keeper.”
    “But that’s silly.” I’d been walking behind him. Now I drew abreast. He glanced across the tusk. “You were all born the same year.”
    “But we’re all-different.”
    Lo Hawk squinted ahead, then looked down. Then he looked at the river. He didn’t look at me.
    “I can’t do anything like the animals or the pebble.” “You can do other things. Le Dorik can do still others.” He still wasn’t looking at me. The sun was lowering behind copper crested hills. The river was brown. He was silent. As clouds ran the sky, I dropped behind again, placed the meat beside me, and fell on my knees to wash in the silted water.
    Back at the village I told Carol if she’d dress the hams she could have half my share. “Sure,” but she was dawdling over a bird’s nest she’d found. “In a minute.” “And hurry up, huh?”
    “All right. All right. Where are you in such a rush to?” “Look, I will polish the tusks for you and make a spearhead for the kid or something if