Chapter 14: And Here I Thought I Knew All There Was to Leading

Bruga was something most of the men were more interested in than the food. I advised them again that eating food as they consumed the bruga would be better than just drinking bruga alone. These men were a long way from the brightest lights in the room per se, but they did stop and remember the women had worked very hard on tonight’s feast. So the thought of a happy home, not wanting to look like an odd ball, tonight they lined up at the food table and the bruga lines to get both their food and drink. When they saw the huge bowl I brought out to get my food, the whole camp about came to a stop. I dished a large amount of macaroni & cheese then added the Chili and mixed it all together, my girls had already put a variety of meat on a large platter for me and I went to the special black keg that was very close to my table. “Is that bruga also, Alex?” Malta asked. “Yes Malta, where I come from we call bruga beer, but this drink that I am drinking is called root beer, it is different as it is very sweet like the Kool-Aid we drink. Plus it will never make you feel like how the bruga the menfolk are drinking will feel shortly. Try some, it will hurt your throat if you drink it too fast, though, just sip it slowly.” I said.

Of course they tried it, and after confirming it wouldn’t make them drunk there was now a line at the root beer stand. When word got out there was some bruga that would not make a person drunk I knew then that I needed more root beer. “What kind of bruga is this weak stuff?” a male partygoer asked.

I wasn’t given a chance to answer as the ladies answered first. “Not the kind you want, so go get in line over there and leave us to taste this new drink in peace!” I didn’t even know who the lady was that had told him to mind his own business.

“Alex, I swear it seems to never be a dull moment in this camp you have here, I have never seen a woman address a male that way before, and not get hit. The more I see, the more I am glad you’re allowing me to join this camp, as more camps need to be like this one.” Mactull said. About this time there was a disturbance near the trailer by the horse cave, a man ran to get his spear as we saw him heading back towards the trailer. I got up on a dead run to see why he needed the spear. I got there just as he was about to harm two of the cubs eating some of the meat left there for the cats to eat. As drunk as he was already, he had no idea just how much danger he was now in, as Sassy had sounded the alarm and the three female adult cats were on the way to deal with the reason the cubs were backing up very afraid. I hit the poor fool with my pistol, knocking the man out.

“Why did you hit my son?” asked a staggering man, I would later learn was named Locos.

“Because with me hitting him and knocking him out he will wake up with a headache and alive, with each of those Mama cats having a cub in danger I think your son would be dead by now! I will get the cats to move away, and you get your son and move away as quick as you can.” Cleo and Sassy and the cubs moved away, but Leo walked over to Troco and pissed on him, marking him. Leo slowly walked away Locos picked up the spear and looked as though he was thinking of throwing it at Leo. “You throw that spear and I will wound you so you can be the family dinner! Now you had better put that spear down before you get hurt, Locos. I have no problem killing you, don’t let the liquid courage flowing inside your body get you killed tonight.” I said. Leo had turned around and was now ready to pounce on both the father and the son. After the humans left the trailer the cats moved on to the trailer to eat the meat that had been left there for them on purpose.

Most people at the party didn’t see the confrontation with the cats, but the word was spreading fast not to go near the trailer as death was sure to follow if a person did. I was happy about the way the party was going, as most of the leaders were alert and taking care of their men, though I noticed it took a while for them to return from helping a man to his bed. But each had a smile on his face when he returned.

I finally asked Boso how come it takes so long to return from helping a guy to bed. “We forget you are not from around here, as you would say, I was talking to his mate while I was there assisting her mate.” Boso said. When I looked at him he motioned with his hips what he meant. He blushed in doing the motion, I blushed just as hard after picking up on the meaning. “Listen Alex, you are a straight shooter, as you say, you made it clear from the get go, I have been around you too much, I am talking and saying the strange way you talk stuff. I never thought I would talk like you do, as when you first got here we didn’t understand you at first, we had to try and see what you meant sometimes. Anyway, to answer your question, those of us who lead our groups are partaking in mating with some of our men’s mates. This is an important thing we do that lets a man know that he is a very important man to our camp. We leaders all met yesterday and felt you would most likely not want to do this. Although you should know that all of our mates wish that you would want to assure our position with you in this way. Plus they all really want to see if all the hot gossip about you is true. I believe you call it the woman’s grapevine has you set up as a legend when it comes to mating. And then when word got out about you taming the Queen, there is not a woman in this camp that will say no to you.” Boso said.

“Well, damn if that don’t tear the rag off the bush. I would not really like to do that to a guy because I would not like someone playing in my playground, if you get my drift.” I said.

“Alex, you misunderstand, this is a leadership thing for leaders only. I have never said that any of the men that I have helped to their furs have ever touched my mate. All your other leaders feel the exact same way that we fight, maybe to the death, if a low status man messed with our mates. What did you say? I don’t share my mate! Now I do have a few men that we do share our mates, though our mates control when and how often the sharing happens, so there is no trouble about any of the sharing. But you Alex as the leader, and speaking for me only, I would be very glad if you would favor my mate, if for no other reason for her to get a turn at you. By the way, thanks for making it an ok thing to mate during the day. I want to say mating during the day never gets old to me, or for any other of the men around here. And to get love during the day and at night, you sir, are my hero. Any other ideas like that don’t stop to think, just do it. You sir, have one happy camp going on around here.” Boso said.

By the time he was through talking other leaders had joined us and added their own thanks, as mating during the day is one of the best ideas to come along in a long time. It was told to me that was one of the reasons they work so hard, as people tended to disappear to mate and have to work themselves back into the workflow. “The reason for all this new mating is the gossip from out of your cave. Normally we don’t pay attention to what the women are gossiping about, but after joining this camp, many a man have been yelled at or stared at for trying to hear what the women are saying to each other after leaving your cave. And all of us men have quietly volunteered to guard the women who go out to gather food. That is where we can hear the better stories. And the things those women are making us try, as well as what they are now more willing to do, now that we bathe daily. Like I said, joining this camp is the best thing to happen to us for too many reasons to name. And no, we never want a change in leaders, ever. My real rank has not changed from when I was leading a camp somewhere else. Now I am a member of a camp where no one is trying to do anything underhanded, as it is understood to the men here the camp leaders will kill anyone who tries to make trouble happen around here.” Boso went on to say, before the leader group went to help the next group of partygoers to bed.

I just smiled, as Malta came over to ask me was I upset about the tradition they didn’t tell me about before. “Alex, I know we should have told you about these leadership things. But you can call it jealousy, we as women didn’t want to share you any more than we had to. Plus we thought the women would get jealous because they couldn’t have you very often. And we also thought the men would be jealous if they saw how their women reacted to them after being with you. Alex, its maybe something a leader is expected to do, but it has ruined camps when a few women lost their minds, wanting to stay with the leader after mating with the camp leader.” Malta said.

“With the Asorians coming into camp, plus the ladies that I already had, I have enough to work with, I have no need to bother another man’s mate just because I can. I need to worry about my cave, and let others do what they feel they need to do for the benefit of the camp.” I said. I was drinking my root beer, just watching things around the camp.

I had made it my business to never drink from a glass I just left sitting around. In other words I and all of my ladies, per my instructions, never drank from a glass they left out of their sight. They laughed at me until they got the message that I was deadly serious. “Look, we have people here who are not a part of our camp that may wish to join by taking over the leadership or forcing the leader to fight. I don’t wish for trouble, but I want to be ready if trouble does come.” I said.

Challa said. “It might seem funny to you, until you find out somebody has put something in your drink and you find yourself helpless.” None of the Asorians ever laughed, and immediately understood about my concerns. After thinking about it, the rest of my cave got with the program too, as some of them knew herbs that could make you see things that were not there. They just had never heard of a camp being threatened at a feast before, not that they didn’t believe it had not happened before. But after thinking a few minutes about their current camp compared to their old camp and the many camps they had seen all their lives, the thought that some leader could, or would, plot to try and take this camp, was a much easier thing to see happening now.

The party was going on full steam when I finally decided that I wanted some music, so I moved my truck over near my table to turn on the CD player in my truck. It was a game changer, as people were trying to understand what they were hearing. Gazoo and company to the rescue, the lyrics were changed to the language most of the folks could understand. Of course it wasn’t English, but they could understand the songs as well as I could now. They of course could not tell a country music from soul music or rock music, which made playing different music easy to do. That meant listening to Randy Travis, Bruce Springsteen, Teddy Pendergrass or Al Green was all met with equal exuberance. But I will say after a few hours of listening to the different types of music, folks were beginning to like some types of music more than others. Just like in my own time. It just goes to show people are just people, if you give them enough time. It also proves that most of my feelings about human nature were also most likely true also.

Toward the end of the night the normal foolishness began showing itself when large quantities of alcohol were being consumed. My army of leaders knew who their most likely troublemakers would be, and were quick to defuse the situations. While sometimes more than one leader was needed to ease the trouble. My job was to assist the visitors who could not handle their bruga. Needless to say, I had no interest in messing around with either a too happy drunk or an unhappy drunk. I dealt with all drunks the same way, if I could get the drunk to go sleep it off I put them to sleep quickly, a few times a friend or two of a drunk also joined in the forceful sleeping action. A few partygoers were naturally upset about my methods, I simply said. “I warned everyone hours ago that I wasn’t going to tolerate foolishness. Now a few hours later here we are, but none of you that are still standing and well into your cups are making so much noise about how I treated your people. My leaders standing here will tell you they handled their own people, I never had to get involved. But I am the leader of this whole camp, and am responsible for the safety of everyone here including all of you folks who are complaining about my methods.” I said.

That little statement made more than a few be quiet, as they were thinking about what I had just said. Remember bruga always slows a person’s thinking down. I left the rest of them mumbling under their breath as I walked away to go sit at my table with a new glass of root beer. I was getting tired, so I put the truck away, and made sure all the doors were locked to all the caves but my own. I knew to protect the cats from the public, not the public from the cats. I looked in on the horses while I was in the horse cave. Naturally I had to pass out some apples during the visit. I may have started the apple treats but Malla had ruined this crew, I hope that Gazoo never stopped filling the cooler where the apples were kept, or those horses would have something to say about the empty cooler.

I hope all the drama from the party was over for the night. There were just a few die hard power drinkers left still going strong. Most of the few heavy duty drinkers not already in their furs were in fact passed out on the ground where they lost consciousness. Gazoo’s friends made some very potent bruga. I was told I was welcome to make the bruga from now on, one said, as it was very good. Well it was great, right up to the moment it knocked the consumer out for the night. My team of leaders said they enjoyed themselves even though they didn’t drink much bruga tonight. In fact, with all the extra pussy they were able to enjoy tonight they all told me they never needed to drink too much bruga again. The benefits they got made them want to know when the next feast might happen, plus they would have no headache in the morning. These men had learned that a little bruga would go a long ways, from now on. I explained that if you drank one glass slowly after they visited a woman and checked on the other men who were drinking. And then to make that one glass last until you visit another woman. And most importantly, to make sure to eat a big meal before they began drinking the bruga. Mactull was on his way to get some sleep. “I had a great time, I really like this camp, and I will talk to you tomorrow about if you will still let me join this camp.” Mactull said.

The next morning was interesting, as all the drinkers both male and female were looking like they were awake but still had no real clue who they were, or where they were, or what they were supposed to be doing this morning. My leaders came over to me. “Alex, we would like to say we are sorry about speaking out about your bruga. You were indeed right, your bruga is not like any bruga I ever had before, and I have never seen people dragging around like these poor souls this morning. It is funny to watch them still staggering around this morning.” Boso said.

“If you get them started drinking water it will help them to feel better by later today.” I said. Of course you have those great minds that believe that the hair of the dog will make the hangover go away. I had to move the bruga because I wanted these people to rest up so they could begin to think about heading home. Because I really believe in my heart that most of these people won’t want to head home. Malta had managed to get some unmated women from all of the camps who came to visit. We also took all of the widows and children for our camp we were told about, because we could. We have two cases of plates, and spoons and forks to go with the plates, the camps would be able feed 60 people at a time. Plus they were allowed to bathe and keep the soap they used to bathe with. My ladies showed the various camps how to wash their clothes while they were bathing. They put their clothes wherever they could to dry them. This wasn’t a hardship to my camp, as most of the heavy drinkers were in no shape to leave today anyway. We brought some more meat to cook and add to the leftovers to feed everyone today and tomorrow as they were leaving.