THE KILLER 

People come to Gohlb-peke from all trails on the Longest Day and these days more and more of them turn to Ku. During this season stories of the prophet are very popular and the tellers do a wonderful job of taking in a crowd. They tell exciting stories, and you can come back to hear it again and you will never tire because they tell a different story each time.  Now, we all are guilty now and then of dragging things out for a few more groats, but know that I have the truth. I was there when the prophet came among the people, and I was there when he was slain. Now the people are dead and the prophet lives. His name is everywhere, as are some of his words, along with much more that he never said. 

To tell you about the one who killed Ku’s prophet, I have to tell you about the first Killer. You may know him by other tales, but you cannot be guaranteed the truth of what you have heard. He was one of those First People who we must all mimic, whether we know it or not. We are their shadows cast down long ages, doing as they did, perhaps a little dimmer as we go. We know the First mainly by the Hunter, the Keeper, and the Toolmaker, but there were many others about whom we speak less. The Killer was called Cohb, and he is the only one among the First who we call by name. He brought killing into the world and for that he cannot return to the nameless and maybe walks this world still without a friend or a fire.

Here is what I know about Cohb. He was a man for some years and he had a beautiful ash spear that his father had given him. The father was full of praise for the son, who returned each evening from the hunt with a horse slung over his shoulder like a brace of hares. The father’s spear-gifts meant nothing to him though. The father was weak, hardly ever the spear that brought down the bear. Besides, he had the sickness of jealousy, perhaps even a devil. He was not jealous on account of his wife who he bedded without joy. He was jealous of his little brother, Ayul, for the tender affections of their mother. Cohb wanted the mother, and his wife was no mother. She was a wife who, as the spear-brothers would say, “slapped the tit from the husband’s mouth.”

Her scorn only fueled Cohb’s envy. The two had nothing in common but the mother. Ayul was not much younger, but he was small. He was not weak either, but the mother treated him like a robin’s egg. He did not hunt, of course and he did not thicken his hands to work flint. The mother had wanted to teach him to pipe, and it was as if he already knew how and only needed to be given the instrument. He had a whole world of music inside that could not have been dreamed up. He went piping off in the morning and came piping back in the evening, sometimes having forgotten to even bring chips for the fire. No one put scorn upon him though, because the piping was something magical. Everyone down to the roughest hunter loved the boy. The boy’s only enemy was his brother, who kept his hatred concealed. This was difficult when Ayul was piping in the tree while the women and girls sang. He hated him all the more because the music was beautiful. 

One day Cohb came back from the hunt and Ayul was not piping, but who knows if he noticed that or not since he was bleary from being on the chase a whole night and most of a day without sleep or food. He came for the larder that he kept so well stocked but he did not make it there. He saw the mother holding a dripping honeycomb, a thing that should be divided and shared with all sons, drizzling dazzling gold over the brother’s mouth and his front teeth sunk just barely into the comb. So completely did his rage take him, he felt they had been frozen there waiting for him. So he took the beautiful ash spear and he rammed it into his brother and after a fit of wet coughing the lazy golden threads muddled with warm crimson.

He let go of the spear, walked whooping into the center of the ring camp, the call for all to come in and hear. The mother screamed and did not stop and soon attracted many others who wailed in anguished horror at the worst thing anyone had ever done. 

Cohb told them, “I killed my brother. Mother loved him best and brought him the dripping honeycomb, so I killed him with my spear.”

The shocked crowd parted for him, and then for his wife who came screaming behind him. She jumped on his back and he flung her down. She followed at a distance and he threw rocks. He went into the wilderness, and would have done so alone but could not prevent his wife from joining him. She could have stayed with the clan but she would have been nearly as outcast as he was.

When I tell this story someone always asks, why did he kill his brother? But he told us, he did it because his mother combed the brother’s hair and gave him the dripping honeycomb. He had the beautiful ash spear but not the honey. If it seems mad to kill a brother for that reason, there is no good reason to kill a brother, or any of the people. When I came to this place of Gohlb-peke, where people linger season after season and scratch up the groats and mingle with all manner of people they don’t know from the bear in his cave, I was shocked to see killings left and right. It makes me believe that with more and more movement of people against each other there is more killing, in the way flint throws sparks.

Now if I meander in the telling, remember some groats will get me back on the path. 

Eye upon you, and you, dear sister.

No- I see him, let him leave. He has manure between his ears. He doesn’t remember anything. He doesn’t remember where he shit to not step in it. He is gone, and so much the better. We can continue.