“I thought, Now she will have prestige. She will stop being envious.” He looked at us. “I do not like being on bad terms with anyone—except other men, of course. And even then I don’t want a serious quarrel. Everything will be fine, as far as I’m concerned, as long as they back down.”

Ara made the gesture of agreement. Behind me Tzoon grunted.

Inzara went on. “No man ever sees the ceremonies in front of a clan tower—not unless he is very old and has gone through the second change and chosen to return to the village. But now and then, men go to look at a tower—usually after the ceremonies are over and the tower has been abandoned. Most of the time, the tower had been damaged in one way or another, and the holy masks are gone. They are always destroyed after the big dance. I thought, I want to see this tower—our sister’s tower—when it is new. I talked to my brothers. They decided to come with me. We rode south ahead of the herd.”

“We lost nothing,” said Ara. “In the summer, in the north, it doesn’t really matter what kind of territory a man has. Some areas are more comfortable than others. This summer, for example, I had a stretch of river full of fish and an outcropping of rock where berry vines grew. A good territory! I enjoyed it, especially the berries. They were as big as the end of my thumb and juicy. But it wasn’t really difficult to ride away and leave everything to that fat fool Oopai. I knew he would sneak in the moment I was gone.”

“No matter,” said Tzoon. “When the herd reaches the Winter Land, we will be there. Then Oopai can remember his berries. We will be the ones who are close to the village.”

Ara made the gesture of agreement.

“In any case,” said Inzara. “We rode to the Lake of Bugs and Stones. We found our sister and we came after you.”

Ara repeated the gesture of agreement. For a moment or two there was silence. What was next? What were they going to do? I glanced at the two brothers in front of me. Their faces—dark and furry—told me nothing. I twisted around and looked at Tzoon. He frowned and scratched his forehead—a wide, low expanse, covered with fur. The ridges above his eyes were prominent. His eyes were deep-set, his nose was flat, and his cheekbones were broad. An almost perfect Neanderthal. I had seen people like him in dioramas in museums. No. I was wrong. His jaw wasn’t as heavy as the jaws of those museum people; and his forehead—though it was low—did not recede. From the look of it, he had a lot of forebrain. Whatever that might mean in his species.

He grunted and made the gesture that meant “so be it.” After that he walked past us, away from the river.

Ara got up and stretched. A moment later Inzara stood.

We got up, all four of us.

“What now?” asked Derek.

“We got the explanation we wanted,” Inzara said. “We don’t mind being around each other, but you make us uneasy. We will go. East of here, we saw tracks. A flock of shuwahara.Tzoon is a fine archer, and Ara isn’t bad. We will kill an animal—a young one, fat and tender—and roast it.”

“Good,” said Tzoon.

Ara said, “We will eat and then ride south and wait in the land of winter for the herd to arrive.”

They got their animals and led them onto the trail, mounted and settled themselves in their saddles. Like Nia, they slouched, looking relaxed and comfortable. They gathered their reins, turned their animals, and rode away. At first they were close together. But after a short while Tzoon turned off the trail, riding into the grove. I lost sight of him. A minute or two later Ara turned his animal into the grove and—like his brother—was gone from view. Inzara rode on alone. The trail curved. He rode around the curve and was gone.

Derek exhaled. “Thank the Holy Unity or the wheel of fate or whatever is responsible. I hate to admit it, but that trio frightened me.”

“Why?” asked the oracle. “They weren’t crazy. Only crazy men fight when there is nothing to be won—no territory and no women.”

Nia made the gesture of agreement. “They are big men. Those ones rarely go crazy. They know their own strength. They have the best of everything, and they know they are able to hold on to what they have. It is the young men in the hills who go crazy from frustration. Or the old men who have lost their territories.”

“I forgot,” a voice said.

I jumped. So did everyone else. We turned, all of us.

A bowhorn came out of the grove. The rider wore blue. Ara. The curious brother. He reined his animal and looked down at us.

“Yes?” said Derek. “What is it?”

“You two. The ones without hair. What are you?”

“People,” I said. “We come from a long distance away. In our land all the people are more or less like us.”

“With no hair?”

“Only on the head. And there are a few patches in other places.”

“Where?”

“Under the arms and between our legs,” I said.

“Aiya! You must get cold in the winter.”

“We wear more clothes than you do,” I said. “In the summer we take off almost everything, and we are probably more comfortable than you are.”

Nia made the gesture of disagreement. “In the summer you have no protection against the bugs that sting or bite.”

I thought for a moment. “We have ointments with aromas the bugs don’t like. We smear them on us, and the bugs stay away.”

“It sounds messy,” Ara told me. “Fur would have been better. And handsomer, too. Whatever spirit made you wasn’t thinking about what she was doing.”

“That often happens,” the oracle said. “The spirits are very powerful, but they aren’t always smart.”

Ara made the gesture of agreement. “You are right about that. Look at the Trickster. He thinks he is so clever. He runs around setting traps and telling lies. And what happens? He falls into his own traps half the time, and his lies get so complicated that he can’t keep track of them. That isn’t clever. It’s stupid-smart.” He paused. “What is the name of your people?”

“Humans,” I said.

He repeated the word. “What does it mean?”

“People.”

Ara frowned. “But what kind of people? What do you carry when you travel? What is your gift?”

Derek said, “At times we call ourselves Homo sapiens,which means the People of Wisdom.”

“Aiya! That is a gift indeed! Do you have any with you? Tell me something wise.”

Derek was silent for a moment. Then he looked pleased. He had come up with something. “If I tell you something wise, then you will have a gift from me. But I won’t have anything from you. So I will have given you something for nothing, which is hardly wise.”

“Ah,” said Ara. He scratched his forehead. “You prove yourself wise by telling me nothing. Is that what you are trying to say?”

Derek made the gesture of agreement.

Ara made the gesture that meant “no.” “Your answer is not wise. It is stupid-smart. You think the way the Trickster does. He worries about being cheated. He wastes his time looking for tricks and lies when there are none. ‘Those branches by the trail hide a trap,’ he says. ‘A deep hole or a noose tied to a sapling. I’m no fool. I will go through the field.’ And he leaves the safe way, trodden by people, and goes off to tangle himself in briers or to fall in a bog. If that is the best you can offer, I do not think your people are the People of Wisdom.”

I looked at Derek. His face was red. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He wasn’t going to argue with Ara. I could understand that. Ara was very large and not especially polite. Inzara was the one who liked to get along with people. Ara didn’t seem to care.

“Most of the time,” I said, “we call ourselves after the land we live in. Derek is an Angelino, because his people live near a place called Los Angeles. I am Hawaiian. I come from an island called Hawaii.”

That wasn’t exactly true. I was from the island of Kauai. But I didn’t know the word for a collection of islands. Herd? Flock? Heap? Arrangement? Gathering? Lacking the word, I could not say I was from the Hawaiian Islands.