They put the small one in my arms and everyone goes quiet, like a hunt.
I have held meat this heavy. A hare, a fat fish. But meat does not grip. This one grips. Small fingers close on my thumb with no thought, the way a vine takes a tree, and I understand: it does not know me, it only knows falling is death, and it has chosen my hand as the thing that will not drop it.
It smells warm. It smells like the top of the fire, the good part, the part you lean toward on a cold night. Its head is soft. Too soft. A thumb-press would end it. This is the first thing I think, and it shames me, but I am a man who has learned where things break, and I cannot stop the counting.
So I hold the head careful. I hold it like the last coal you carry between camps, cupped, breathed on, guarded from wind.
It makes a sound. Not a cry, not yet, a small blind rooting, the mouth turning, looking for the mother it can smell and cannot see. It is hungry already. First breath and already hungry. I know this animal. I have been this animal.
The tribe watches my face and not the small one. They want to see if the big man goes soft.
I go soft. I am not sorry.
This one is too weak to walk, too weak to run, too weak to do anything but hold my thumb and demand the world feed it. And the whole cave has bent toward it. Every spear in here would break for this.
Weakest thing in the camp. Strongest thing in the camp.
Same thing.