The Deer (Violet)

Yesterday they finally allowed us to go hunting. Heading out in small groups, some young women worked together and brought down a baby aurochs, others wanted to have their own kills and brought back rabbits, birds and other small kills.

I wanted something bigger though, but didn't want to hunt with someone else.

So taking my spear shooter, a weapon brought to my people by a traveller who told us stories about a people far inland that lived with horses and wolves and hunted with spear shooters, I slipped away from the others and head into the trees.

And almost immediately found impressions in the ground that could only be made by one animal.

A deer.

So I followed them, eventually cornered it at a cliff face.

And using my spear shooter, shot it, my thin spear going right through its heart.

And then I walked closer, shot another spear into its trembling side.

Until it was still.

And then I picked it up, noticing that its leg was hurt, and took it back to the summer meeting.

I enjoyed the looks I got when I arrived back.

The adults who nodded their heads with respect at my kill.

The children who stared open mouthed.

The young men who nudged each other and watched my every step.

But best of all was the reaction of the other young women.

They were jealous.

No one else had managed to bring down such a large animal on their own.

I could almost see them cringing as they thought about their kills.

Some of the young women got nasty though.

'She didn't kill that deer,' one said.

'I bet she found it already dead,' another said.

And a third young woman? 'Or someone killed it for her. Oooh, was it one of the young men? Have you been fraternising with the young men Violet? You are going to be in so much trouble.'

I snorted and shook my head, ignored them and entered the tent of the young women.

Where someone immediately ran into me, making the deer fly from my shoulders.

'What?' I looked around, shocked and confused about what is happening.

'You're a thief,' Tulip shouted at me, pushing me backward.

'No I'm not,' I defended myself. 'Why would you say I'm a thief?'

'You stole my kill.'

'Your kill?' I glanced at the deer lying on the ground. 'How was it your deer?'

'I saw it first.'

'Maybe so, but I killed it.'

'Yeah, after I did all the hard work.'

'What?'

'You tracked it hey?'

'Yes I did.'

'And did you never wonder how it was so easy to catch up with it?'

'I…' I frowned. 'I trapped it by a cliff.

She laughed. 'A cliff? You trapped a deer by a cliff? Why didn't it just climb up it?'

'I…' Thinking about it, why didn't it just climb up? There was a way. A human would have struggled to get up it, but a deer is agile. Unless…

She nodded. 'Yeah, it didn't climb up because it was injured.

I remembered then that its leg was hurt.

'Its leg,' I gasped.

'Yeah, its leg. I found it, injured it but it managed to run with its hurt leg. It disappeared through the trees, and when I went to follow it, that's when I saw you.'

'Why didn't you tell me it was yours? I would have looked somewhere else.'

She snorted. 'Yeah right. Violet, look elsewhere. I don't think so. Anyway, I did follow it, or at least I thought I did but I followed the wrong tracks. Ones that it had already made.'

'Well that's not my fault.'

'Maybe not, but it's still mine. I hurt it first.'

'And I killed it.'

She crossed her arms in front of her. 'It's mine.'

'No, it is not.'

'I made first cut.'

'And I made the last and most important.'

She pushed me again then, and tried to grab my hair. 'Give me my deer.'

'No,' I shouted. 'It is my deer, my kill.'

'No it isn't,' she tried to scratch my face with her fingernails.

'Girls, girls,' a woman said. 'Young women, what is going on?'

I looked at the older woman running toward us.

'She stole my kill,' Tulip said.

'No I didn't. She hurt it, but then lost it. I killed it.'

'Only because you were lucky to find an animal who was already injured,' she said. 'Injured by me. The deer is mine.'

'No, it is not.'

Tulip kicked a leg out at me. I stepped back out of her way, but that allowed her to scoot forward and grab the deer.

'Leave it alone,' I said, grabbing one of its legs.

'Never,' she responded, and tried to yank it away from me. 'The deer's mine.'

'No it isn't,' I insist. 'I killed it.'

'That is enough,' the woman said. She stepped closer to us. 'Put the deer down.'

'But it's mine,' Tulip said.

'No it is not.'

'Put the deer down,' the woman repeated.

That was when I let go of the deer's leg, but Tulip didn't. With one more yank, and me letting go, she ended up on her bottom on the ground with the still bleeding deer in her lap.

She pushed it off and jumped up.

Her tunic was covered in blood.

And her face, reddened with anger, shock and exercise, was a pretty similar colour.

'The deer is mine,' she hissed.

'Come along with me,' the woman said, grabbing her arm. She looked at me. 'You too.'

'What about the deer?' Tulip said.

'The deer will be fine.'

'But…'

'Just come on.' The woman dragged her out of the tent, and I follow them. We headed toward the centre of the summer meeting, to just pass the clearing.

To the leaders' tent.

She pushed us in.

Told them the problem, and they gave a solution.

Tulip was to have half of the deer and as she was first to hurt it, she would be allowed to choose what she wanted.

I wasn't happy, especially when she said what parts she wanted, and what she was going to leave me with, but I wasn't about to argue against the leaders.

She was smug when she left the leaders' tent. Strode off toward the young women's tent with the woman, and me trailing behind.

But then she stopped and stared at me.

'What?' I asked. 'What now?'

'You took my kill.'

I sighed. 'Whatever Tulip,' I responded. 'I'm not interested. You've managed to get half of my kill, just shut up now.'

She pulled her mouth into a vicious smile. 'You stole my kill, but you won't steal my intended. I've seen the way you look at him. Well he's mine, and you can keep your dirty eyes away from him.'

'I…'

I didn't really know how to respond to that. I had been looking at her intended.

'Just keep away from him,' she said.

So now it's the next day, and she has half of the deer.

And I have half too.

And the competition is on.

Yesterday we hunted, today we cook.

We cook for the leaders.

Who will choose a dish they like the best.

And award the cook, the young woman who made it, a prize.

She will be made the Queen of the summer meeting, given her very own tent, and at the end ceremony, she will be given much that she'll need for her married life.

And her intended will lead the very last hunt of the summer meeting.