Her hands wove the fresh-cut shoots of Willow and Alder without conscious direction

from her mind.

It was a task she'd done hundreds of times, bending and lacing the thin, pliable lengths

of wood over and under, over and under, over and under.

At regular intervals, she stopped and picked up a piece of cordage, stripped Willow bark,

and tied it to hold the shoots in place.

When the wood aged and dried, she would have a sturdy fish trap, ready to drop down into

the river that slowly oozed past the camp.

The last rays of daylight flashed off the water, the sun dropping down behind the forested

hills to the west.

All around her, people chatted and sang as they worked.

Some wove fish traps or baskets.

One was repairing a net made from woven fibers, a tool for fishing in a nearby lake.

Others chipped small pieces of razor-sharp flint into workable tools, the business ends

of axes, arrowheads, scrapers, and a dozen other useful things.

Still, others shaped antler and bone into harpoons, or used birch tar to affix detachable

spearheads to the shafts.

Sphere used a flint knife to carve the haunches off a recently killed deer, spitting them

over a fire one by one to cook.

A young man, just entering adulthood, grimaced as an older man wearing a deer skull mask

with the antler still attached, pricked the skin just below the youth cellboat with a bone

needle to create a tattoo.

...