Then something remarkable happened. The eagles brought them some boy babies, left out on the Killing Rock. Hungry yelling babies, but not mutilated; and how were the little boys to feed them?
Not only dangerous wild animals lived in the forests, friendly ones did too. The little boys saw deer, with fawns and probably had their first lessons in parental love, watching does with their fawns. They crept close, to watch. A doe stood its ground, unafraid: there was no reason yet for any animal to fear our kind. And besides, this was a child, and needy. The boy stood fondling the does soft fur, while the fawn butted or licked his legs. Then the fawn began to suckle. And the boy, kneeling, did the same. The doe stood, and turned her head and licked the child. And so that was how began the intimacy between the children and the deer.
There was a song, We are the children of the deer, but it was never as compelling as the songs about the eagles.
When the new babies howled and screamed and the little boys knew they had to be fed, what could have been more natural than for the babes to be taken to the does, who had soon to learn to lie down, the babes beside them. And what did the does gain from this? We may speculate. It is my belief that animals are more intelligent than we ever give them credit for. After all, it was a she wolf who suckled our forefathers, Romulus and Remus. Her statue and the two babes are much loved by us. Probably the beginning of this bond was the terrible need of the babes, who were dying for lack of what the deer and the she wolf had in plenty. Need calls forth its response.
And why did the eagles take to saving the babes and bringing them over the mountain to
the lads, instead of devouring them? For one thing, the boys caught fish for the eagles, and laid them on the grass, and the great birds, having delivered their burden of screaming babies, would stand over the fish, enormous fish, and feed there, and often they came between deliveries of babes, for their meals. Or they would take a fish or part of one there were very large fish in the river up into the mountain for their nestlings.
And the second wave of Monsters, or Squirts, were not mother-deprived, but were licked and nuzzled and fed by the kindly deer, who sometimes played with the fawns as if they were fawns themselves.
The feeding babies and deer would have to lie down together. There were no vessels or containers then. Soon, though, shells from the river became utensils, and gourds. There was not nearly as much weed in the river as there was in the sea, but these boys grew into strong lads, and the seashore was not far for hardy boys. This shore was a distance from the Clefts shore, but continuous with it. The boys did not know for a long time that if they had journeyed in one direction along their beaches they had beaches, the Clefts only had smooth warm rocks they would encounter the Clefts, their persecutors.
They brought varieties of weed from the sea, and shellfish, and some sea fish, and the new babes were fed very well, as soon as they outgrew milk. And the friendly deer were offered weed, which they liked, and flesh of the fish and shellfish, but this they did not like.
But it must have been hard for the boys, keeping the babes fed, even with the aid of the deer. The eagles were always bringing more of the Monsters and these were not mutilated now. The eagles were perched on high rocks from where they could see the Clefts and their rocks, and as soon as there was a new little boy, they swooped and saved it and brought it over the mountain.
Some Squirts, we believe, were still hidden in the caves, but you cannot easily keep prisoner energetic boys, unless they are tied. Some Squirts were tied, but they made such a noise, yelling and screaming, that when they escaped, running away, guided by the great birds, the old Clefts were relieved. No more little boys were kept as pets, and the Clefts reverted to their earlier practice: any babe not snatched away by the eagles as they came out of the womb were put out on the Killing Rock and instantly carried off by the eagles.
Soon there was a community of young males, we do not know how many. The chroniclers did not go in for exactitude. And time was passing, the very first arrivals were now strong young men, and troubled with all kinds of questions about their equipment of tubes and bumps and lumps. Yes, they knew now the tube was for passing urine.
The males could not expect to live till old age, not when they were in and out of that dangerous rushing river, and the wild animals were so close in the trees. One died, of an illness, or of an accident, and the chroniclers did not specify; what they recorded was that this death raised a question they saw that they could expect to die, and then what would they do to replace themselves? The Clefts had the power of birth, but they did not.
As for the Squirts and I like that term better than the Monsters: at least it is accurate they began to be anxious about the supply of babes brought by the eagles. Suppose the eagles decided not to bring the boy babies over the mountain? Once the question had arisen it would not go away. Over there on their shore and some of the boys remembered it well the Clefts gave birth. Without the Clefts there would be no new arrivals in the eagles claws, there would be no Squirts.