Chapter 1
Adirondacks State Park, NY, Fulton Chain of Lakes region,
Two years future from this year, March, early morning
The Clan
Dawn would break soon, Ton-ton growled, which the others heard and felt through the giant pads of their feet. The Clan lumbered west in an irregular line. Their steps stayed on or near the abandoned railroad tracks they followed. Occasionally, the girth of their bodies snapped back overgrown tree limbs or broke them outright. Late in the month that the “smooth-skins” call March, a light snow muffled their steps. A crescent moon set behind the mountains. The wind swirled the snow before settling on the ground, as if the snow itself were drifting off to sleep.
As they walked, they sang in preparation for the ritual ahead. Any trace of the nine sets of their footsteps would disappear within thirteen-seconds, as if waves washed over them at the shore, a by-product of the subsonic vibrations of singing. The word in mammoth language for this action was called Kau-um-to-nabi. Its rough meaning in smooth-skin language is alignment with the original sound, as if one could hear the sound of space itself expanding or contracting.
Hairy mammoths could run up to twenty-five miles per hour, when properly motivated but rarely choose to do so. Their pace was more of a steady, nearly silent dawdle. The largest terrestrial animal on this planet takes their time.
As the Clan skirted the edge of a bog, the distant call of a howling-black-nose stopped them. All the trunks rose to smell what they couldn’t see. That first howl still echoed off the mountain when another black-nose answered, approximately a quarter of-a-mile away. All the mammoths knew that the howling-black-nose were on both ridge-lines above them, not a cause for alarm, yet.
Coyotes, even hungry ones (and at that time of year they were all hungry) would never try to take down an adult mammoth, but if working as a team, they could separate and slaughter one vulnerable member from the Clan, a kill might sustain their entire pack for weeks.
Responding to Ton-Ton’s directive, Iron Shaggy - the youngest male member of the Clan moved up in the line to just behind Ton-Ton. Iron Shaggy, named for his coat which looked like shag-bark hickory, recently completed his fifth full winter. If the howling-black-nose attacked, he would braid his trunk onto Ton-Ton’s tail, and she would act as his battering ram and bodyguard.
Na-Trusk, the patriarch of The Clan, who always stayed within the one-mile vibrational radius of the song-cycle, maintained his distance on a higher trail. Though he only occasionally sang solo, his presence at the perimeter was vitally important. His various roles carried an aura of mystery, all of them highly valued for his protection, procreation, and the rare wisdom that came from his deep stillness.
When he reached the peak of the ridge line above Crism’s Cave he scraped the snow, ice, sticks and leaf litter from a flat slab. Then backing himself into position and pushing on the slab with one foot and all his might, he exposed a small opening from above to the cave floor a hundred feet below. A triangular shaft of light illuminated the cave walls for the first time in decades. A few snowflakes dropped into the opening, wafting their way down, in and out of the light shaft to a large green garnet slab.
First light bled into the eastern sky behind the other members of the Clan. After walking all night, they arrived at the blocked main entrance of Crism’s Cave. The snow still fell, heavier now, up to their ankles. The woods were quieter than any they could recall. The coyote pack trailed them still but way out of range. All of the Clan knew they would have to pass through howling-black-nose territory to return to Margery’s farm.
After exchanging a volley of head shakes and ear flaps, Ton-Ton and Kurn wedged their foreheads into the small spaces on either side of the enormous boulder that blocked the cave’s entrance. Ton-Ton snorted, and she and Kurn began to lever their heads and trunks to bear on wedging the boulder to the side. Their knees bent and shook, nearly buckling under the strain. The giant pads of their feet gripped pushing their toe nails, like studs into the snow. The two behemoths slipped, slid, and then re-gripped and pushed harder. Ton-Ton snorted and the other adults started to pull with their trunks or shovel with their tusks into the side of the boulder. Even Iron Shaggy and Cind-Ark, the youngest female, lodged their backsides under Ton-Ton and pushed between the massive rock and the entrance. Working together, rocking ferociously, from side to side all eight of them rolled the giant boulder aside. When it finally revealed the doorway, they panted in exhausted relief.
A blast of cooler, stale air with a hint of something dead wafted from the open mouth of the cave. The squawking protestations of a porcupine (which the hairy mammoths call A’a-A’a) startled Iron Shaggy. The little creature hobbled past him, out of the cave to search for new lodgings.
Ton-Ton shook her head once, signaling the others to wait, and went in alone. The sides of her massive body squeezed through the entryway. A three-ton hairy mammoth, seemingly swallowed by the dark.
Ton-Ton’s eyes adjusted as she crossed the threshold to a spacious rock cathedral illuminated from above by a single shaft of white light. She paused to take in the majesty of Domed Rock—the Clan’s holiest sanctuary. Two enormous tusks of brilliant white ivory, stood as silent sentinels against the back wall of the cave, their tips crossed in equipoise.
A pile of enormous bones rested on a flat slab of green garnet in the center of Crism’s cave. Mammoth mythology had it that the Great Spirit made this cave at the beginning of time so that they would always be safe to honor their ancestors.
Her trunk working like a broom, Ton-Ton brushed aside a few small stones and then loudly hoovered out of her trunk to blow the accumulated dust off the ivory colored skull of Crism-the-White.
Crism-the-White, the anointed one, the foretold one, the albino wooly mammoth who, 10,000 years ago, taught the ancestors of the Clan the secret song-cycle of shadow-making.
All night, as the Clan walked to this cave, they sang parts of the song-cycle in a register so low no smooth-skin could hear it. At least two of them always sang for the others. The subsonic vibrations shook twelve cranial nerves inside the atlas vertebra of any smooth-skin within a one-mile radius. Their singing blocked any and all sensory perceptions of smooth-skins, making the Clan imperceptible. Crism's discovery and teaching of the song-cycle, the power it gave the Clan to hide in the shadows, had allowed them to survive into the 2020s.
Ton-Ton heralded her arrival with a trumpet blast. The echo extended for minutes, until even the mammoths couldn’t hear it. With one massive foot hoisted in the air, she listened to the innuendo of silence until Hinton, the second eldest female, rumbled into Domed Rock, taking her place in the center of the stone platform. From Hinton’s swollen cheeks dropped a few dozen black walnuts still in their shells. Ton-Ton nestled them with the end of her curled trunk. She crushed them under the giant pad of her fore-foot on the garnet slab.
Six other members of the Clan entered in a formal procession trunk-to-tail. They made an evenly spaced half circle around the stone platform. Ton-Ton and Hinton surveyed from atop the green garnet altar. Kurn rumbled her lowest tone. Following this signal, the others stopped, s-curled their trunks in salute to Ton-Ton and Hinton. Na-Trusk peered down on this ritual from his perch, through the small opening high above them and outside the cave
Then Ton-Ton the matriarch's trunk rolled the skull of Crism-the-White in black walnut oil. With the prehensile “finger” of her trunk, and the most sophisticated olfactory system on the planet she examined every cavity and corner of the skull, lingering slightly longer in the eye sockets and holes for the tusks. She devoured that unique smell of antiquity, bleached by timed darkness, drenched in wisdom, hoping to absorb some faint trace of Crism-the-White’s revered penetrating enlightenment. As she held the skull, Ton-Ton’s temporal glands streamed, and her breath stuttered out in short bursts.
Encircling the skull with her trunk, she hoisted it up high so the others could witness. Then, standing only on her two back feet, she reared up and blared. She hung suspended in the air with her two fore-feet reaching in counter-balance. Her scream reverberated off the walls of the cave and vibrated even the stone platform on which she stood. The Clan shuffled quickly from side to side, occasionally bouncing off of one another while still remaining sensitive enough not to knock over the smaller members—like Iron Shaggy.
Ton-Ton had survived sixty-two winters. Now that she and the others had connected to their shared past, her attention turned. Her obligation, and the reason for this rare trip: to pass the leadership of their clan to the next lineage holder, the next matriarch. The night before this journey the spirit of Crism-the-White sent a direct transmission in Ton-Ton’s dream. As two mammoths held the bass notes that made them imperceptible, she improvised the directive from her dream. Beginning with the lines: Thus have I heard from Crism-the-White. After Ton-Ton’s passage into forever-time, whomever she chose now would be the new matriarch.
Ton-Ton, still carrying the skull, swept past her two younger sisters Hinton and Kurn and placed the skull on the ground directly before Devalar—her niece. Significantly younger than the other two, but a wise choice nonetheless Devalar screamed her assent. All of the mammoths present went down onto the front knees. Hinton and Kurn tilted their heads and rhythmically flapped their ears to acknowledge that the best decision had been made.
Devalar would make a good matriarch. The largest female, almost as big as Na-Trusk, she held all the promise of a clear-headed, strong and fearless leader. She sang the song-cycle well and demonstrated her skill as it’s most respected improviser.
Devalar cradled, sniffed and fondled the bleached bone skull of Crism-the-White. She rose up on her two back-feet and wailed, accepting responsibility for leadership of the Clan when Ton-Ton passed. The entire clan’s collective ear flaps, signaling loyalty and agreement, looked like gigantic fluttering bats in the cave.
Devalar passed the enormous skull along to the next in the circle. As each member of the Clan held the skull, they lifted one leg in the air, paused, then trumpeted.
By the end of this ceremony, they all knew their parts in the newest installment of the great song-cycle.