Chapter 6

It happened the morning of day fifteen of our sojourn into the past, a week after having met Gort and Unna. By then Unna was up and about, wanting to prove her usefulness.

To my amazement I found out that the little girl was smart. I know I shouldn’t have assumed otherwise; but then again, I’d spent the last dozen years or so of my life being a soldier. I hadn’t been exposed to kids, and I had no idea about how smart they really were. I found out the error of my ways when Unna pointed out to Clara and Gabby that they should be out gathering plants to help supplement all the meat we were eating.

Unna’s statement had not only taken me by surprise, but it had taken Clara and Gabby by surprise as well. For the most part, any fetching of food had fallen on Gort and me, and while I’d gathered a few plants during our outings away from the caves, I hadn’t made a concerted effort. Now Unna was pointing out to the two women that they were shirking their roles in our little community. It was something that neither Clara nor Gabby had imagined.

The truth was that Clara saw her role as an organizer and a doctor, and that was it. She saw to it that all our excess gear had been put away until the day came that we needed it, and that the cave was kept clean, and that our bedding was aired every day. Beyond that she helped with meal preparation, but that was it. Gabby on the other hand felt her time was best spent learning the local language, and I for one felt the same. Unna didn’t get it that what the two women were doing was work. To her gathering foodstuff was the job that needed to be done. With that in mind Unna proposed that the three of them go foraging while the men did whatever men do. I ended up laughing at that. So they headed off, with Gabby carrying a pack containing some bowls and pots to put stuff in and Clara toting a survival weapon for protection. Gort and I were left behind to clean up after breakfast. We tended to our own chores. In my case that meant I was trying to finish off the bow I was making for Gort.

It was the gun shot that alerted me to trouble. It came from the direction of the ford that lay past Gort’s original cave. The moment I heard it I was on my feet and grabbing for my gear. It had been a warm morning and all I had on was my loincloth and the moccasins on my feet. I didn’t really stop for anything other than my webbing and my carbine. I was up and moving in a second. Gort was there right behind me, toting my spear instead of the one he’d had when I had first met him. It was obvious why he had it, and not the other. My spear was a lighter weapon for him to carry, even if it was longer. Gort’s wolf pup was close at his heels tagging along to help out.

We ran. We ran even faster when we heard the second shot. It didn’t take us long to cover the distance between our cave and the ford. When we got there we found Clara facing off four men who were armed with spears. Gabby was beside her with her pistol drawn, with Unna riding on her hip. From the look of it, the situation had devolved into a bit of a Mexican stand off. The women couldn’t retreat because if they did, they’d be rushed by the men, and the men, while they were still waving their spears about menacingly and jabbering about revenge; weren’t that eager to rush the women since they’d found out just what a survival weapon was good for. Clearly, Clara had shot one of the men, since he was lying on the ground a dozen feet from the ford with blood oozing out of a leg wound.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I asked loudly as I came to a halt a short distance and to the side of where the women were standing. I said this in English. I also said it to alert Clara to the fact that I was there. I had no desire to walk up on her unannounced, especially when tensions were high. I was pleased to see that, while both Clara and Gabby jumped at the sound of my voice, neither of them lowered their weapons or did they take their eyes off the four men.

“These assholes are from Gort’s village,” Clara shouted back at me. “The one I shot tried to take Unna. From all their jabbering and what Unna said, he’s the one Hagar had offered her to, just before Gort spirited her away.”

Well, that news went over like a lead balloon. My temper started to boil and I felt an urgent need to hurt somebody. Fortunately, by the time I got across the ford and to where Clara was standing, I’d gotten a handle on it. I flashed a reassuring smile to Unna and Gabby as I strode by them and then told Gabby to get Unna back across the river to where Gort was standing with my spear at the ready.

“Why are you here?” I demanded to know, switching to the local language spoken by Gort and his people. I wasn’t fluent in it as much as Gabby was, however I could definitely make myself understood. “Why have you bothered my women?”

My appearance had taken the men completely by surprise. I guess they hadn’t expected to run into a man this far from their village. I’m sure they hadn’t expected to run into any women either. It became really obvious that these guys just couldn’t do the math, as in if there are women about that you don’t expect to run into, then the chances are there are men about as well. Unfortunately, instead of light bulbs going on over these guys’ heads, all I got was baffled looks and mutterings that I really didn’t catch. I sighed and tried again.

“Why are you here?” I asked glaring angrily at the three men who were still standing.

“We hunt,” the tallest and heaviest set of the three men declared a moment later. “We saw women and came to investigate. Tagar saw Unna and want her. He owed Unna by Chief Hagar. We came with Tagar to take Unna back to village.”

I nodded my understanding as the man spoke and then I pointed over at the man who was sitting on the ground holding his bloody leg. The guy looked to be in his early twenties. He wasn’t much to look at. He was certainly fit and athletic in appearance, but he was also the shortest of the four men. He did however look pissed. He had however kept his mouth shut since I’d gotten there. I took it as a sign that he was brighter than the rest. That alone made him dangerous. I decided to see just how smart Tagar was, and how stupid the other guys were.

“So you are following Tagar’s lead in this matter,” I asked the man who’d answered my original question. “You’ve come to take Unna away and at the same time threaten my women? Why would you do that? Did Tagar promise you favour with Hagar, or has he promised you that he will share Unna with you? Are you really men, who would take a child for a mate?”

Tagar bit his tongue some more. It was clear he understood where my prodding was leading, but it was also clear that he knew if he said anything, it would only go from bad to worse. The men with him, however, did react.

The men were all in their early to middle twenties. They were average in height and build. That put them about five to six inches shorter than I was, and forty to fifty pounds lighter. They were strong, fit, and muscular; but so was I. They were dressed in just loincloths, and they were armed with spears and stone knives. Once of the men had the carcass of a small antelope draped over his shoulders. Blood stained his naked chest, but it clearly belonged to the animal.

The two men behind the one talking to me took a step back when I suggested that they wanted to have sex with Unna. From the look on their faces, they weren’t happy with that idea at all. My respect for them just went up a notch. As for the guy I was talking to, he looked a little flustered and it took him a moment or two to come back with a reply.

“Who are you?” the man asked in an attempt to change the topic. “Why are you in this valley? This is our land, not yours.”

“I’m the man who will kill anyone who comes looking for Unna,” I replied coldly, staring the man in the eye. “You may tell your chief that, and you may tell him that I will be coming for Ramie and anyone else he has hurt. If your chief wishes to live, he will not argue with me. Now go, or I will kill you as well, and then I will deliver the message myself.”

This statement didn’t go over well with the guy I was speaking to. It also didn’t go over well with Tagar who was now struggling to get to his feet. He’d recovered his spear and he was using it as a cane to help himself up.

“Help me,” Tagar grunted to the other men who were simply standing there watching him struggle to his feet.

“No,” I snapped in response, taking all of them by surprise. “Do not help Tagar. He is a dog, and is not worth helping. If you help him I will kill you and then I will kill him. If Tagar wishes to live, he must stand on his own and then walk, on his own, back to face Hagar and Hagar’s wrath.”

The two guys looked at each other and in silence they came to a mutual agreement. They both took another pace backwards and away from Tagar. They left him to get up on his own feet, by himself.

“Dogs,” Tagar spat at them through clenched teeth. “Hagar will beat you for listening to an outsider. He will make you pay for this insult. I will see to it.”

“You will die because of your big mouth,” I shouted over to Tagar, sneering as I said it. “Either I will kill you because you are too stupid to let live, or they will kill you so you do not tell Hagar anything, or Hagar will kill you because you have brought his doom down upon him. I will be coming to the village very soon! Then I will take from Hagar everything he has. If he is lucky I will make his death very quick.”

My words horrified the other men who were standing there listening to me. Tagar scowled at me, but said nothing in reply. The man closest to me looked from me to Tagar, then turned and looked back towards the other two men who had backed off another pace. I could actually see the wheels turning in his head. He was trying to figure out where he stood in this mess. He had seen Clara drop Tagar with a weapon he had no concept of what it was, or how it worked. He could see that I was carrying a similar type of weapon. This guy could actually do the math. He also knew that the other two men weren’t going to back him up in this mess. That left him Tagar and Tagar was injured. The man sighed aloud in acknowledgement that he really had no other choice but to leave me and my people alone.

“Very well,” the man stated in resignation. “We will go and deliver your message to Hagar.”

With that the man turned and he walked away, brushing by Tagar as he did and almost upending him in his passage. Tagar in turn, glared at me for a second or two. Then without uttering another word, he turned as well and started to hobble away. He didn’t hobble far. As he turned to go his free hand went for the blade stuck in the waist of his loincloth. He tried to pull it. He didn’t get far.

“Knife,” I called out the warning in the local tongue startling everyone including Tagar. It actually made the idiot hesitate. By then I was already in action.

I could have simply shot the man. My carbine was charged and the safety was off and the weapon was at the ready. I didn’t do it. Something snapped inside of me the moment I saw that the idiot was going for his knife. I had given the man the chance to leave with his life and he’d spat back the favour into my face, by trying to be smart. I didn’t know what he intended to do with that blade he was taking a grip of, but at that point I didn’t care. I decided to make his death personal.

Tagar didn’t hesitate long. Even as he realized his mistake, he also realized that he’d committed himself to an action, and that he had to follow through with it regardless of the consequences. He pulled the blade free of the sheath tucked into his loincloth and he spun about as best he could with a gimpy leg and holding onto a spear for support. He didn’t find me standing where I had been moments before. I was actually off to one side and behind him by then.

I had moved and as I moved I swung in the opposite direction to how Tagar was moving. When he came up with his blade drawn I was standing right behind him with my carbine up and the stock of the weapon level with the man’s head. As Tagar glanced about him, frantically looking for where I’d disappeared to, I butt checked him with the weapon. That sent Tagar sprawling back onto the ground. He went one way and his knife went another and the spear ended up in a third direction.

I didn’t give the man a chance. I put my moccasin clad foot onto his throat and I pressed down. Tagar didn’t die easily. He struggled and he clawed at my foot and calf but there was very little he could do about what I was doing to him. Eventually my weight and the pressure I was exerting on his throat crushed his windpipe. He died shortly after that. When Tagar stopped moving, I stepped away and then glanced over at the other men. They were all staring at me with the look of disbelief etched across their faces. It was clear that they’d never seen a man die that way before. I hated to tell them, but it probably wouldn’t be the last.

“You can take Tagar’s body back to Hagar, but you will leave his weapons here,” I told the man I’d spoken to before. “They are forfeit for his stupidity. You can tell Hagar that Tagar was a fool who chose death instead of life. You can also tell Hagar that I will be coming for him, as well. I will kill the man who would give a child to another man to mate with. Now take him and go.”

Not another word was said in response to that. The man who’d done the talking simply handed his spear to the man not carrying the antelope. Then he picked up Tagar’s limp corpse and he flung him over his shoulder and back. A moment or two later, they were off and on their way back to their village. We watched them disappear and then turned about and headed back to our cave.

The decision was made by the time we got back to the caves. There really wasn’t much to talk about. The women agreed with me that Hagar needed to be taught a lesson, and that it would probably have to be a permanent one. The kids were all for it as well. Once back to the cave we started packing.

That night I pitched my sleeping bag up on top of the overhang that jutted out over the entrance to our cave. I intended to stand watch from where the locals wouldn’t expect anyone to be watching. Before I knew it, I had everyone up there with me, including Unna. In fact after the incident that morning the little tyke was a bit clingy. I could understand that. It’s not often that people come along to kidnap you. It’s also not often when you witness someone getting their windpipe crushed. I just hoped the kids could sleep.

“We’re doing four shifts, tonight,” Clara informed me in a matter-of-fact-manner once she’d laid her own sleeping bag and air mattress down next to mine. “Gort and Unna are going to pull the first shift, I’ll pull the second, and Gabby will pull the third. That leaves the fourth shift for you to take. It’ll spread out the length of each shift and it’ll allow you to get the most sleep. That way you’ll be rested for tomorrow. We’ll keep it that way until we get to Gort’s village, and you’ve dealt with that asshole who thinks he can give children away as sex slaves.”

I smiled in response to that declaration and the fervour in Clara’s voice. The breaking up of the shifts was a good idea. The two kids could easily pull a shift together, although I’d put money on it that eventually Unna would drop off as the watch progressed. Still if Gort couldn’t hold out for the entire watch then he could wake Clara and she would take over. It would still be a good experience for the kid.

“What are you smiling at, Jake?” Clara asked when I just stood there lost in thought. “Did I say something funny?”

“Not at all, Clara,” I replied. “I was just thinking that you’re a pretty good organizer. I appreciate that about you.”

“Merci, ma beau,” Clara responded reverting back to her native French for a moment. She smiled warmly at me, looking up into my face and then suddenly she frowned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked quickly, wondering what had changed her mood.

“Tell me something, Cheri,” Clara began hesitantly. “I know you are not gay because I have seen you look at Gabby and at me when we are getting ready for bed, and I do remember that you took a good look at me when we bathed little Unna in the river. I’m sure you got a good look at my pussy just as I got a good look at what you have to offer women. So why have you not made a pass at Gabby or me? Are you afraid of something or do you just not like me because I can be bitchy at times, like the other day?”

I gulped. It was an automatic reaction. It wasn’t that I was unfamiliar with the fairer sex and I didn’t know how to talk to them, because as you remember I had a relationship with Kimberly Woo and she certainly wasn’t my first. I gulped because I was embarrassed. Yes, I had looked at the women. It was pretty hard when the three of us were sleeping next to each other most nights. I had however tried to be discrete.

“I’m sorry,” I finally muttered in reply. Lowering my eyes as I did, just like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy.”

“Don’t apologize,” Clara chided me in response, “and don’t act like a little boy. I’m not upset, and neither is Gabby. We’re pleased you were looking at us. We are only concerned that you haven’t made any advances.”

“But,” I said with a flustered look on my face, “I thought Gabby and you were lovers.”

“We are, silly, but we’re not lesbians or anything like that,” Clara corrected me, giggling with mirth as she did. “Is that the reason why you haven’t made a pass at us? You thought we were lesbians, and even though you are a very manly man, you respected us that much that you didn’t try getting into our panties. Mon dieu, I can’t wait to tell Gabrielle this little fact. She will love you even more for it.”

“Love me more?” I muttered in surprise. “What are you talking about?’

“Nothing, silly Jake,” Clara giggled back at me. “It is just an expression, though I am sure in time we might all be in love. For now though you must accept that Gabby and I are not gay. We are lovers, but we both prefer men. Our relationship is just something we do to keep the men we don’t like at bay. Jenkins wanted both of us so we made it clear that we preferred each other. We’ve done it many times over the years. It is only sex, but it is very good sex. Gabrielle has a very talented tongue. I believe you Americans have a joke about that. How does it go? Ah oui, Gabby is a very cunning linguist.”