The Story of Ab: A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man

by Stanley Waterloo

"I ran because I was scared. One of them must be dead before this time. I am glad I am alive myself," Lightfoot gasped. Then the girl covered her face with her hands as she recalled Ab's face, distorted by passion and murderous hate, and Oak's equally maddened look as, before the onrush, he had grasped her so firmly that the marks of his fingers remained blue upon her arms and slender waist and neck.

Then Lightfoot, slow to regain her composure, told tremblingly the story of all that had occurred, finding comfort in the unaffrighted look upon the face, as well as in the reassuring talk, of her easy-going, unimaginative and cheerful and faithful companion. She remained as a guest at the cave overnight and the next forenoon, when she took her way for home, she was accompanied by Moonface. Gradually, as the hours passed, Lightfoot regained something of her usual frame of mind and a little of her ordinary manner of careless light-heartedness, but when home had been reached and the girls had rested and eaten and she heard Moonface telling anew for her the story of the flight in the wood, while her father, Hilltop, and her two strapping brothers listened with interest, but with no degree of excitement, she felt again the wild alarm and horror and uncertainty which had affected her when first she fled from what was to her so dreadful. She crept away from the cave door near which the others sat enjoying the balmy midsummer afternoon, beckoning to one of her brothers to follow her, as the big fellow did unquestioningly, for Lightfoot had been, almost from young girlhood, the dominant force in the family, even the strong father, though it was contrary to the spirit of the time, admiring and yielding to his one daughter without much comment. The great, hulking youth, well armed and ready for any adventure, joined her, nothing both, and the two disappeared, like shadows, in the depths of the forest.

Lightfoot had been the housekeeper in the cave of Hilltop, the cave of the greatest hunter of the region, young despite the years which had encompassed him, and father of two boys who were fine specimens of the better men of the time. They were splendid whelps, and this slim thing, whom they had cared for as she grew, dominated them easily, though the age was not one of vast family affection, while chivalry, of course, did not exist. Hilltop's wife had died two years before, and Lightfoot, with unconscious force, had taken her mother's place. There was none other with woman's ways to help the men in the rock-guarded home on the windy hill. Hilltop had not been altogether unthinking all this time. He had often looked upon his daughter's friend, the jolly, swart and well-fed Moonface, and had much approved of her, but, today, as he listened to her story, he did not pay such attention as was demanded by the interest of the theme. An occasional death, though it were the killing of one cave man by another, was not a matter of huge importance. He was not inflamed in any way by what he heard, but as he looked and listened to the comfortable young person who was speaking, the idea, hastened it may be by some loving and domestic instinct, grew slowly in his brain that she might make for him as excellent a mate as any other of the "good matches" to be found in the immediately surrounding country. He was a most directly reasoning person, this Hilltop, best of hunters and generally respected on the forest ridges. After the thought once dawned upon him, it grew and grew, and an idea fairly developed in Hilltop's mind meant action. His fifty-five years of age had hardly cooled and had certainly not nearly approached to freezing the blood in his outstanding veins. He had a suit to make, and make at once. That he might have no interruption he bade Stone-Arm, his remaining son, who sat on a rock near by, and who had listened, open-mouthed, to the recital of Moonface, to seek his brother and Lightfoot in the forest path. There might be beasts abroad and two men were better than one, said this crafty father-hunter-lover.

The boy, clever tracker as a red Indian or Australian trailer, soon found the path his brother and Lightfoot had taken and joined them. As he listened to what they were saying he was glad he had been sent to follow them. They were hastening toward the valley. The trees were beginning to cast long shadows when the three came to where the more abrupt hillside reached the slope and where the torn ground, broken limbs and twigs and deep-indented footprints in the soil gave glaring evidence to the eye of yesterday's struggle. But, aside from all this, there was something else. There was a carpet of yellowish-brown leaves, at the edge of the circle of fray, where a man had fallen. On the clean stretch of evenly rain-packed leaves there were spots from which the scarlet had but lately faded into crimson. There was a place where the surface was disturbed and sunken a little. All three knew that a man had died there.

The two young men and their sister stood together uttering no word. The men were amazed. The woman half comprehended all. She did not hesitate a moment. Guided by a sure instinct, Lightfoot reached, without thought or conscious search, the spot of unnatural earth which reared itself so near to them, the spot where was fresh stone-covered soil and where a man was buried. The pile of stones, newly heaped upon the moist earth, told their story.

Someone was buried there, but whom? Was it Oak or Ab?

"Shall I dig?" said Stone-Arm, making ready for the task, while Branch, his elder brother, prepared for work as well.

"No! No!" cried Lightfoot. "He is buried deep and the stones are over him. It will be night soon and the wolves and hyenas would be here before we could get away. Let it be. Someone is there, but the one who killed him has buried him. He will come back!" The two boys were silent, and Lightfoot led the way toward home. When the three reached the cave of Hilltop the sun was setting. Something had happened at the cave, but there arises at this point no stern demand for going into details. Hilltop, brave man, was no laggard in wooing, and Moonface was not a nervous young person. When the other members of the household reached the cave Moonface was already installed as mistress. There would be no reprisals from an injured family. The girl had lived with her ancient father, whom she had half-supported and who would, possibly, be transplanted to Hilltop's cave for such pottering life as he was still capable of during the rest of his existence. The new régime was fairly established.

The arrangement suited Lightfoot well enough. This astounding stepmother had been her humble but faithful friend. Lightfoot was a ruling woman spirit wherever she was, and she knew it, though she bowed at all times to the rule of strength as the only law. Nevertheless she knew how to get her own way. With Moonface, everything was easy for her and she found it rather pleasant than otherwise to find the other young woman made suddenly a permanent resident of the cave in which she had been born and had lived all her life. As the two girls met, and the situation was curtly announced by Hilltop, their faces were worth the seeing. There was alarm and hopefulness upon the countenance of Moonface, sudden astonishment and indignation, and then reflection, upon the face of Lightfoot. After a few moments of thought both girls laughed cheerfully.

The story of the newly found grave made but little impression upon the group and Lightfoot, the only one of the household who thought much about it, thought silently. To her the single question was: "Who lay there?" There was nothing strange to the others of the family in the thought that one man should have killed another, and no one attached blame to or proposed punishment of the slayer. Sometimes after such a happening, the cave man who had slain another might have a rock rolled suddenly upon him from a height, or in passing a thicket have the flint head of a spear driven through him, but this was only the deed, perhaps, of an enraged father or brother, not in any sense a matter of course in the way of justice, and even such attempt at reprisal was not the rule.