She bursts into tears again as she pulls at her leggings but stops before she gets them all the way on.
I don’t have any of the things like my mother used to give my sisters when they were bleeding, but I think I can figure something out. I quickly cut strips of antelope hide—one to tie around her waist, and two to go between her legs and catch the blood. I don’t have any wool or anything to put between them to help absorb, but I know some dry grass can be used until we find something better, and fold some in between the two straps of leather.
I start with the strap of leather around her waist and pull her up so she is standing. She pushes at me, but I grab her hand. Since she is using her other hand to hold her lower garment part way up her legs, she can’t push me anymore. I kick at her ankle until she spreads her legs and lets me maneuver the other pieces between her thighs. Then I wrap the ends around the strap around her middle. It seems to fit reasonably well once I get the whole contraption on her. Beh alternates between laughing and crying as she shifts around, adjusts the straps, and then hugs me.
My mate is weird.
She is also very tired and keeps crying off and on throughout the rest of the day. Thinking she might want to untangle her hair, I bring her a stick from one of the trees outside, and she cries again. I bring her a drink of water, and she cries again. I bring her some meat from the fire, and she cries again.
I give up and plop down a few feet away from her.
She looks over at me, her chin begins to quiver, and she starts crying again.
I move closer, and she wraps her arms around me. We stay inside the cave where I keep the fire going and feed her pieces of dried meat as she lays on the old fur and rubs her stomach. When the piece of leather strap and grass are filled with blood, Beh replaces it with another one. I go to the ravine to throw the dry grass away and wash the leather even though the water there has a foul odor and isn’t really any good for cleaning or drinking. I will have to go to the lake for that, but I don’t want to go too far away from Beh.
I place the somewhat washed leather up high in a tree with the hope that no predators will be attracted to the scent and steal it. I make her several more from an old hide, and she cries when I give them to her.
Thankfully, Beh feels better the second day, and she follows me to the lake to wash out the leather pieces in the clean water. After a few days, Beh stops bleeding and crying, and my head stops hurting.
There is nothing—nothing in my entire existence—that compares to waking up with my mate curled tightly against my chest. Though I had not realized it at the time, the loneliness had weighed heavily on me during my time of isolation, and now I’m beginning to wonder if I would have survived much longer on my own. I could hunt and protect myself, but the lack of companionship had been slowly destroying my will to live.
Before Beh, I hadn’t thought about the loneliness in such a way. Maybe I just ignored how I felt when I would lie awake and look out into the darkness of my cave, listening to nothing except the crackling of the fire and the wind outside. I only remember feeling empty inside.
Now that Beh is beside me, like she has been for the first part of the spring season, I feel warm and full.
Tensing my muscles, I pull her closer to me and nuzzle my nose against the top of her head. Beh sighs in her sleep but does not move as I hold her close, watch the burning coals, and doze off again with my mate’s body pressed close against mine.
The next day, we head out toward the lake again. I bring along the antelope fur so I can wash it and finish it for Beh. Along the way, I collect three rabbits, which means Beh will have good fur for mittens and foot coverings for winter, too. She still doesn’t seem impressed by the rabbits, I notice, and like the last time, she won’t even look at them when I try to show them to her.
Once we reach the lake, Beh goes immediately to the place where she found the clay before. I swallow hard, wondering if she is still upset with me, but she doesn’t appear to be angry. She seems excited to find the clay again. Before I start on the fur, I follow her to the little stream and find a nice, flat digging rock. I pull the clay together in a pile and then watch her form some of it into smooth balls. I make a couple of them for her, and she smiles at me with sparkling eyes as I work. When I’m done, Beh smiles and places her lips against my cheek. My heart begins to beat a little faster as I wait and hope she will bring her lips to my mouth as well.
She doesn’t, and after a moment, I frown and grunt to get her attention. Beh looks over at me with questioning eyes, and I reach out and place my fingers on her lips. After a moment, I remove them and press them over my own mouth.