A Woman of the Ice Age

by L. P. Gratacap

And then by the dear subtlety of all things great and good, with passion came also, with unhesitating foot, reverence and happiness and aspiration, and Love thus born made of Ogga a divine thing, and of Lhatto, yet unwaking, yet unknown, a woman drifting ashore in a little awkward boat from the irresolute sea, it made of her a wonder of life, full of affluent loveliness, full of assured excellence, full of peace, and Ogga, feeling all these things, knelt and touched the hand of the sleeping girl.

Lhatto awoke. The rising sun, with its steeper rays, would soon have smitten her eyelids apart. Was it not better to awake and find her eyes looking in the face of a lover? It was a benison of destiny, and, like all appointed things, seemed only a part of nature, as do the stars, the moon, the showers, the flight of birds; and to Lhatto, Ogga standing there smiling and listful, seemed a necessary recompense, a blissful completion of her dreams, a friend coming down from the unknown, and yet stamped with all the traits of familiar acquaintanceship and loyalty. With that, the operatic stage of their encounter passed, though all its shrewd and fine results remained, and Lhatto jumped from the boat and stood by Ogga, and then both seized the boat, lifted it to the rock on which they were, and carried it to the shore.

The passage to the shore, with their inconvenient load, over the separated rocks, had not been without difficulties; and in the way of caution, encouragement and direction, Ogga had spoken to Lhatto. Now he told her to stop, now to lift her end of the boat higher, again to rest it until he could more securely hold it, then anon, he asked her to wait because the harpoon or the paddle or the seal had changed their places and threatened to fall out.

Besides, though he carried the heavier end where the seal lay, he essayed to carry it all, at places where the slippery rocks made the transit harder, and then Lhatto spoke and reproached him and laughed, and held her end and tugged away from him. And so it happened that in the work they became known to each other, and when the mute canoe rested on the sandy beach between them, it was their common friend and they shook hands over it and laughed, and Ogga caught Lhatto in his arms and kissed her.

And Lhatto, yet unblemished in that dawn of time, took Ogga’s face between her hands, and pressed her own lips upon his, and there was neither shame nor surrender in the act, for both were fair and free, and in the simplicity of their hearts lived on the impulse that ruled each minute, without check of calculation or artifice, duplicity or sloth or strategy. An instant later, Lhatto fell backward to the ground. Her endurance was overcome, hunger and fatigue, the long exposure, the last efforts with the canoe, broke down her strength.

Ogga realized all this. He placed her higher up the bank, upon the thick turf, and under the shade of trees, he brought her water from a spring. He emptied his pemmican bag, he made a fire and cooked portions of the seal; and Lhatto, returning to herself, thanked him and ate; and life, restored to her by this sudden power that met her hopes and completed them, seemed more gracious and caressing and dear.

Then Lhatto told him, as they sat by the waning fire with the canoe a little way before them, the torn seal at Ogga’s feet, the spilled basket of pemmican on one side, the whispering branches overhead, and the broad rapture of the far-away ice-peaks shining about Zit, before their eyes, told him of her strange adventure; the morning spent on the shore, the sudden wicked tide—Lhatto called it “the Water God”—the dreadful icebergs, her escape, her forgetfulness, and then her waking amongst the rocks with Ogga sent to her by “the Air-Spirit—the Spirit of Zit.”

And Ogga shook his head and asked: “Where are your people?” Lhatto pointed southward to the jutting capes, and standing up, her eyes screened by her hand, told him to look well and he too might see a dark hill on the water—“It was from there, a deer’s run back in the land;” and Lhatto turned to him, who rose above her, so strong and eager, and moved by the most feminine of motives, asked—“And where are yours?”

Then Ogga motioned her to the bank again, and told her the story of his life: he had pictures in his mind of a flat grassy table where he played with other wild boys amid a great desolation of rocks, deep chasms, ragged and grisly cliffs, but on the table the air was sweet and cool, and there was a little deer that the older men had brought in to the grassy table, and Ogga loved the animal and played with it, and fought the other boys who plagued it and mocked him.

Now amongst these boys was one of his age and size, strong like him, but silent and envious. And one day as Ogga held the deer in his arms, the boy pushed against the deer and struck it with a stone, so that the deer was hurt, and they were at the edge of a little cliff on one side of the grassy tableland. Ogga became enraged and struck the intruder and they wrestled on the edge of the little cliff, and Ogga was strong, for he was coming into manhood, and he pushed the enemy over the cliff and he fell amongst the rocks and lay there moaning.