Free In the Beginning by John Christopher

morning the cut in his arm was sore and inflamed, and Dom wondered if the evil spirit really had returned to him. He would have liked to go and search for the plant which Va had put on the wound in his leg, but his father commanded all the hunters to go up again to the stone on the hillside, and Dom had to go with them.
    The sky was light but the sun had not yet risenabove the hill; there was a glow of gold in the blue sky behind its crest. But one could see very clearly, and he looked down beyond the hedge into the village. Animals were there: cattle in their pen and hens pecking the earth. None of the people could be seen; doubtless they were still sleeping in their tree-caves. He wondered in which cave Va was; then his father saw him standing idle and ordered him to dig.
    The sun came up and they sweated again. Down in the village people came out of their huts. They looked up at the hunters and mocked them as they had done the previous day. Dom saw women and girls there as well as men and, once more filled with anger at the thought of her running away from him, tried to pick Va out. But the distance was too great to see if she were there; the enemy’s jeers came thinly through the air.
    They dug round the sides and back of the stone as well as under the front. The work was hard, and although the hunters’ hands were tough and calloused, they grew sore. Some said it was time to try pushing the stone again, and in the end Dom’s father agreed. They put their shoulders to it, striving to make it move, but with no success.
    There was grumbling among them. Dom’s father shouted:
    â€œPush! Push hard!”
    He came and heaved against the stone himself, elbowing a hunter out of the way to do so. Then they all felt it, a tiny rocking, almost imperceptible. They heaved again and it rocked a little more. Dom’s father said:
    â€œIt is beginning to come loose. Now dig!”
    They dug and heaved and dug again. Each time they tried it moved more positively—after another hour or two they could rock it to and fro. Wiping sweat from his eyes, feeling the soreness and smart of his wounded arm, Dom looked briefly down into the village. He thought of Va with anger and a savage joy. Soon he and the other hunters would be in there, and he would show her what it meant not to obey his commands.
    On the next attempt the stone almost came out of its socket in the earth. The hunters went back to their digging with a will, because now they could all see the prospect of success, of fighting and triumph. They dug and pushed, dug and pushed.Then, pushing, Dom heard his father’s cry of exultation close by him and, putting all his strength against the stone, felt it lurch forward, tilting up and away, out of the earth which had held it.
    They all shouted together as the stone rolled down the slope, but their shouts died when its progress halted after no more than a yard or two. The hunters stared at it, discouraged.
    â€œIt has moved once,” Dom’s father said, “so it will move again. Push!”
    It moved but stopped after a few more feet. Unless they could get it to roll fast it would be useless as a means of breaking through the hedge. Near the village the slope was much less steep, almost level. No amount of straining, Dom realized, would enable them to move it down there.
    The hunters heaved and struggled. Dom felt the sting of his wound as his arm pressed against the jagged surface, but ignored it. The stone rolled again, and this time went on rolling. They saw it gathering speed as it bumped on down the slope, rocking and scattering smaller stones that lay in its path. Shouting, the hunters ran after it.
    The men of the village came running as theboulder careered downhill toward the hedge. Dom heard their cries of amazement and dismay, mingling with the hunters’ shouts of excitement. Bouncing in a cloud of dust, the stone reached the more gentle slope at the bottom and without checking, rolled