Og—Son of Fire

by Irving Crump

Og’s thought was not completed. As he stood there by the big rock a heavy club whizzed through the air, crashed against the boulder just over his head and rebounded with a sharp crack. Instinctively Og ducked and scuttled behind the stone, looking up with startled eyes into the direction whence the club had come.

A loud chattering gibberish of sounds greeted his curiosity and at the same time Og beheld in the lower branches of the trees over his head three big forms, that stormed at him a perfect tirade. They were the tree people.

Og looked at them and uttered a grunt of contempt. Then he came out from behind the boulder, and searching out a throwing stone he hurled it up at them with whistling swiftness. It hit the biggest of the ape-like men a resounding thump in the chest and with a squeal of rage and pain the big form, followed by his companions, scrambled up the tree, and made off through the forest, swinging from limb to limb but making a terrible din at their going. Og heard their cries, and vaguely understood them. They were showering imprecations upon him and threatening dire things in tree folk talk. Og cried his defiance back at them for he held them in contempt, as cowards. They were the tree people; the tribes of the woods whom his people centuries before had vanquished and driven out wherever they came in contact with them.

Og looked upon them as beneath the hairy people in every way. True, they were strong, but they did not know their strength. They were not flesh eaters and so they were not really dangerous. And they were great cowards too, except when they traveled in hordes.

Og chuckled softly to himself as he thought of how he had served these three and driven them away, and after he had seen them out of sight he turned back toward the boulder where he had left the wolf cubs and his fire, dismissing them from his mind entirely.

But hardly had he come within sight of his camp fire again, when he heard far off a hollow booming as of many sticks being beaten on hollow logs. Og stopped and listened and understood. It was the war noise of the tree people and he smiled grimly. He knew what had happened. Somewhere there was a tribe of tree people. Why they were so far north he could not understand for their dwelling place was south of the domains of the hairy people. They were somewhere in the great sequoia forest now, however, and the three he had seen and beaten off with stones had probably been detached from the drove. Doubtless they had hurried back to the main group and communicated the fact to all that one of their number had been injured by a hairy boy. That had made them all angry. So angry that they beat their chests in rage. That was the hollow booming sound. Og knew that they were beating their chests to try and work up their courage to the point of attacking him. He knew that this was the way of the tree people. They always grew terribly enraged but they were such great cowards that they dared not attack even one single hairy man, though they always tried to work up their own courage by beating their chests and making terrible faces and raising hideous yells. But nothing usually came of their effort.

Og went to his camp fire, the booming noise still sounding through the forest. It lasted much longer than the hairy boy had expected and after a time he gave ear to it again and a slightly worried look came into his brown eyes. Was the sound drawing nearer? The hairy boy peered off among the giant trees. He could see forms moving among them. He could hear branches swishing and leaves rustling and always the booming sound persisted. Was the horde coming to attack him? For a moment Og was troubled. But the traditions of his people soon banished this. Never had the tree people had the courage to attack even a single hairy man. They raved and shrieked frightful names and made hideous faces and a great pretense at war, yet one hairy man, with a stone hammer or handful of throwing stones, could drive them off.

Og smiled. Here was he not only armed with stone hammer and backed by two valiant allies in the form of wolf cubs, but he had at his command a great new powerful weapon—fire; a weapon that had driven off The Mountain That Walked and held the wolf pack at bay. Why should he fear the tree people though the forest was full of them? He grunted contemptuously and set about skinning the dead wolves, heedless of the forms in the trees all about him—great sinister forms that swung from branch to branch or leaped from tree to tree, watching him the while and making hideous grinning faces at him. But there was one among them—one huge ponderous beast with tremendously long arms and a deep chest and a face that was well nigh hideous with battle scars—who swung closer to the lonesome camp beside the boulder than any other. He was the leader of the horde and a brute to be reckoned with. His great strength alone gave him more courage than any of the others. Indeed, he had more courage than any other tree man had ever had, and he somehow imparted his courage to others of his clan. This tree tribe was different in spirit from the horde that the hairy men had coped with in the past and doubtless they would have attacked Og on sight had their big leader led them. But he hesitated, not because of the boy or his hammer or the wolf cubs that snarled up at him, but because of a strange thing with red and orange tongues that snapped and crackled beside the boy and sent wisps of blue fog up among the trees that got into his nose and made him cough and gag. The fire was the thing that held him back. It struck fear to his usually strong heart and made him hesitate. So long as the fire burned there he had not the courage to lead his band to attack.

Secure in his belief that all tree people were cowards and dared not attack him, and this security made doubly certain by the fact that the horde swarmed about in the trees above him, yet not one dared to come down to the ground, Og worked on skinning and tearing the meat from the dead wolves. He was longer at his task than he had thought he would be. Twilight came on ere he finished. And by that time he was very hungry despite the fact that all during the time he was skinning and cutting up the wolves he had been licking the blood from his fingers or dividing with the wolf cubs succulent scraps of flesh that appealed to him. From the pile of meat he had wrapped in one of the wolf skins he selected a choice chunk or two, and scraping live coals from the fire he put them over the heat to broil.

Darkness had settled down in the sequoia forest by the time he had eaten; the heavy ominous darkness of a starless and moonless night that always struck terror to the hearts of the hairy men. Despite the comfort and cheer of the fire and the companionship of the wolf cubs Og felt the vague mysteries of the blackness that caused his people to huddle into the farthest corners of their caves and wait for the coming of dawn. He felt uneasy and dreadfully lonely and the vague forms that he could see swinging about in the trees above him, chattering or beating their chests or glaring down at him, did not add to his comfort at all.