The Scorpion God: Three Short Novels by William Golding

flying.
    “Palm! Oh Palm!”
    Now she has learnt to call me that, thought Palm, she will use it every other word! She laughed at the child and blew her a kiss.
    “Palm! Palm! Palm! I’m not a forest, you know!”
    “I’ve seen them!”
    “They’re not coming back, surely? Not so soon?”
    “Oh no! You were right, Palm. Palm—they’re going farther. Ever so far! I wouldn’t have been able to see them, but—” she giggled. “They’re climbing a tree!”
    Palm laughed back.
    “All of them? For nuts? Or for a dare?”
    “I could only see one—very high up.”
    “Bird’s eggs.”
    “I thought you’d better know, Palm.”
    Palm put back her hair with one hand and patted the girl’s cheek with the other.
    “You did quite right—” She made herself remember—“Minnow. After all, that’s what you’re there for, isn’t it? Now, help me with my skirt!”
    “I wonder if it was Furious Lion? I couldn’t tell of course, at that distance. What fun he must be having!”
    She Who Names The Women was fastening her shells.
    “It’s pleasant to think of them enjoying themselves. I only hope they haven’t forgotten what they went out for! Well. I’ll come up with you and have a look. Lead the way.”
    Again the woman in labour hooted like an owl. Not too long now, thought Palm. I hope——
    Minnow stood by the boiling spring, one hand shading her eyes. Her breathing had not changed.
    “There. See the big tree, Palm, with the one bare branch at the top? Well, just where it comes out of the leaves—can’t you see him?”
    “No, I can’t,” said Palm. “But if they’ve gone as far as that, they’ll be bound for a long trip. You need not watch any more. Just come up here at sunset and spot their camp fire.”
    Minnow turned and looked shyly at her.
    “What would happen if they—well. If they found out?”
    “They won’t.”
    Palm looked down at the Lodge of the Leopard Men. It was open to the sky and so open to examination from the high point by the boiling water. The rows of leopard skulls gleamed in the sun. She smiled and the smile turned into a long peal of laughter. Minnow began to laugh too. They were sisters, and of the same age while the laugh lasted.
    Palm fell silent first.
    “We shall do nothing, of course, until the child is born. And even then, only if the child is—is named.”
    Minnow went solemn.
    “I understand.”
    Palm smiled, loving her solemnity. She leant forward and kissed her lightly on the lips so that the girl flushed and swayed back and caught her breath. Then Palm turned and began her way down, her breathing easy at the descent, her body swaying gracefully, hands out on either side. The walls of the Lodge of the Leopard Men rose up and hid the gleaming skulls. This time, she thought, I shall be careful! I shall drink hardly anything at all! But at that, as if her thoughts had pulled the thing out of the air, the image of a coconut shell full of dark liquid hung before her, vivid in every detail. She could even smell the stuff, so that she flushed and caught her breath as Minnow had done. It is in me, she thought, I am not like the others. I was born with it; and no Namer Of Women could look into me and see this, this——
    The ancient Leopard Man no longer lay sprawled against the rocks. The children slept. Palm stood in the open space where the children had been, graceful and gracious; and smiling sweetly.

II
     
     
    At the top of the naked bough that thrust up from the big tree, there was a nest of sticks. Bits of food hung in the sticks—skin, fur. A handful of red feathers fluttered at the edge. The Leopard Man who was shinning up the naked bough was hardly more covered than the bough itself except that he wore a narrow strip of hide round his waist and a close bag of it between his legs. The other Leopard Men stood round the tree in groups, looking upward over the crown of leaves and laughing. Each time Forest Fire slipped back down the bough at immediate risk