Chapter 7

Yes. I rolled my eyes. I haven’t rolled my eyes since ... forever. I believe it was David who received that one too. We trooped ... and I do mean trooped ... back to Faxon’s. David and Gloria, me and my crew, the militia, and 90 percent of the survivors of the town.

“Hero David,” chuckling as I said it ... my sergeant laughed outright. “We’re going to have to clean up our mess before we can search?”

He surprised me.

He nodded at the harbor, “We have the perfect midden.”

We did. Yes indeed, we did. We used it. It would have been a major job of work but, what with ex wives and others released from “Faxon’s Reign of Terror,” we did just fine.

Wheelbarrows appeared and willing hands to load and loot, there was soon a regular production line trekking from Faxon’s to the harbor and back. The garbage eaters were having a great time. The evidence was gone in about two hours.

Salvageable apparel was stacked for shit removal, cut repair, and the purses and money belts laid out on the great table in David’s (née Faxon’s) large home.

Scrubbed, mopped, washed and made nearly as good as new, David’s new cook stepped out of the kitchen and said:

“Here, now. I’ve got all this food for the party and someone has to eat it a’fore it goes bad.” She began to bustle about dragooning kitchen help and fetchers, carriers and sundry. The table was soon full and there were standers and verandah sitters scattered all over the house.

“Have some more,” the cook said, “There’s a plenty and then some.”

“Surely all this wasn’t planned to feed my sister and I,” David said.

“No,” said the cook. “This was for the victory feast after you were dead and your sister was gracing his bed. (Sorry about the pun.)

“Those warehousemen can plumb pack it away ... could ... used ta could pack it away. They’re dead and fed to the harbor and someone has to eat all this. You’re handy.”

“You knew?” David asked.

“The whole town knew ... all of us. You don’t peach on Adams Faxon. He was worse than his father ... and that’s going it some.”

“How long have the Faxons been running things?” I asked.

“Since before my great grand Da was born. Years and years. My family, the Cooks, have kept a secret record. I’ll fetch it.”

The record was eight sticks with notches carved in the wood. The oldest were well worn ... the notches were were almost smooth.

“The storytellers used these oldest sticks as an aid to tell the story of the town and the Faxons. When they found out about it the storytellers disappeared That’s why the beginnings of the place were lost. The Faxons didn’t want us to know our roots.”

Great grand Da ... the gaffer ... he said his great grand Da said his Great Great Grand Da was told by his grand Da that the storytellers would run a fingernail over the cuts and tell stories. Could they do that?”

“Yes,” David said. David was taking Anthropology at University, so he knew ... it was in the books. We couldn’t tell these people that ... books aren’t.

“I can tell that these sticks that are most worn have Starting and Stopping places. Places that were important to the people. I’d be willing to bet that the story was learned by rote ... memory ... and passed down to the next teller. I’ll also bet that the story had a measured beat, likely accompanied by a drum ... and it rhymed. Those were some of the tricks used by tellers to remember.”

“Do you know any stories like that?