Yuen-Mong's Revenge by Gian Bordin Page A

scavengers. Here the bushes grew that provided strong springy
rods, suitable for bows. She selected half a dozen to make sure to get at
least two good new bows. They also filled a woven container, the size of
a hat, with the tart white berries of the bushes for a dessert that evening.
Then they climbed higher into the rugged mountain chain to a point
where they had a view in both directions. While their side was lush and
green, the other side was completely barren, sloping away, broken up,
chaotic, mostly in variations of greys from almost white to almost black,
with the occasional startling discoloration in rusty reds, steely blues, and
dirty yellows, at one place dabbed into an oval like a painter’s palette. At
the far horizon, deserts gleamed in the late afternoon sun.
          "Aros is so beautiful," she exclaimed, joyously stretching her arms
into the sky. "I love it."
            "It’s very unusual," he replied.
          "You will learn to love it too, if you stay long enough." She showered
him with one of her rare, warm smiles and sensed that his heart started
beating faster.
          "It seems to me that I’ll stay here for the rest of my life."
            "We will see," she answered enigmatically.
          They found a place below an overhanging rock that offered shelter
from the early morning rain, as well as protection from the wind. The
ground was covered by fine grasses, where they could stretch out.
          She cherished the stillness, with Atun’s emotions the only intrusion,
and she felt that even those had become more subdued, steadier, calmer.
     
    * * *
     
    Yuen-mong woke him at dawn and they went back up to the ridge to
watch the sun rise out of the barren eastern landscape. She shouted a high
C, dropping down to an A, and the rock wall below them returned the
call. She repeated it several times, laughing like a young girl. Then she
called out "Atun’, singing the same notes, and said smiling "somebody
is calling you," when the echo returned.
          Her girlish behavior took him by surprise, but he answered, shouting
"who’s there’, using the same notes.
          "Yuen-mong," she replied, using the chord in reverse. She waited for
the echo and then again smiled at him. "You think I am being silly."
            "No, I don’t." He felt caught that she had read him so easily.
          "Yes, you do." She briefly touched his arm, still smiling. "Atun, it is
no use lying to me. I will always know… And it is OK to think that I am
silly. I don’t mind. There are so few occasions when I can afford to be
silly that when I do it I enjoy it fully. At the coast there are no rock walls
that answer back. The forest swallows the sound. So I always do it when
I am here. For seven years before you came, nobody ever answered back
to me."
            He felt that there was a hidden hint in what she just had said, nor did
he know how to react to her admission and was glad when she turned
back to the rock wall, singing ever more intricate chords and laughing
when the answer returned. It was contagious and he joined in. He had
never seen her so playful. He was just thinking how her eyes sparkled,
how beautiful she was when all at once she turned serious and said: "We
better go. It is a long way home."
            Once they reached the low hills extending inland from the coast,
Yuen-mong turned silent. He had the clear impression that something
was bothering her and would have liked her to tell him. By noon they
came to a small river, where she stood still for a few second, eyes closed,
the pose he now recognized as her listening to other minds.
          "Let’s take a break here where we’ve water," he suggested. He felt
very thirsty.
          "No, we cannot. You may take a quick drink, but no stopping."
            She went to the water’s edge and scooped up a handful and drank it
in small swallows. He did the same and then spotted several shiny
pebbles in