CH 5 - Unlikely Allies

He lay very still and watched an ugly, rat looking creature scurry across the ground and through tufts of dark, serrated grass. Every few feet, it stopped and reared up on hind legs to test the air for any scent of threat. It moved from shadow to shadow in quick bursts, hunting for food, and unknowingly being hunted in turn.

Something stirred in Logan’s mind as he lay watching.

Soft leaves brush against my bare cheek and fill my nose with the green scent of Mesquite trees. The grass bends beneath each careful step. The compound bow is heavy in my left hand. An arrow is knocked and held loosely in my right. The bow is new and I carry it with a sense of great pride and ownership.

I am not alone. A comforting shadow trails silently in my wake with infinite patience, the master hunter watching his young pupil. Up ahead, a glimpse of brown and white moves through the brush. I stop and kneel.

A deer raises his head, somehow sensing danger despite having the breeze in my face. I raise the bow. Muscles contract against the heavy draw weight, almost too much for my young arms to manage. The snap and twang of the drawstring is sharp off my fingertips...

Logan blinked the memory away. He breathed against an unidentified ache in his chest and re-focused on the current, desperate need to eat. Ever-so-slowly, he eased into a crouch and raised his spear. His throw was good. The rat thing squealed and fell.

Back at his camp, Logan skinned the creature with his rock knife and speared the body to cook over the fire. The guts he wrapped up in the hide. Tomorrow he would use the innards as bait for the next unwary predator. Just one more hide should be enough to stitch a small bag together with his bone needle and braided leaf fiber.

There were failures as well. Blackwood branches proved too stiff and brittle for a proper bow. The latest attempt was glowing embers in his fire pit.

Like the rat, Logan paused every few minutes to listen for danger. It was never far away in this place, and the line between predator and prey was always shifting. He cooked rats and ate. He sipped nectar from plant stalks gathered after watching thirsty animals do it first. He braided thread and stitched hide. Occasionally, Logan slept.

After nearly a week, death seemed less certain. It had come as both a surprise and a profound relief to realize he knew how to hunt and survive the wild though the one who had taught him these skills remained a blank spot in his fractured memories. Thanks to the local wildlife, he had discovered plants that held water. Crude tools had been crafted. Each morning that he awoke was a victory. Every full belly was a battle won.

Logan grew lean and more animal than man. He also slowly began to forget what safety felt like. The fight to survive allowed for no such luxuries.

On day six, Logan emerged at first light to hunt, as had become his habit. Afterward, if he was successful, there might be time to gather more wood. One day, he hoped to have enough to build a crude door across his little nook in the rocks to shield his sleeping body against inevitable discovery. When he slept, Logan dreamed of it. When awake, he tried not to think about days not so long ago, filled with modern conveniences and now impossible luxuries.

Plans and musings were cut abruptly short by movement in his peripheral vision as he stepped out of his shelter. Logan spun, spear raised. Ready to fight, or flee, at a moment’s notice.

The demon girl crouched on a nearby boulder, looking at him.

She found me! Logan’s blood ran cold. His secret place and his safety were now compromised. He scanned the area for others that may be waiting to ambush him. Logan saw nothing except her, but that was more than enough. He knew how fast she was and how deadly. There would be no lucky breaks this time.

“Hello, Beauty.” He spoke gently. The name seemed right. Logan realized that he had already named her in his thoughts after their first encounter. “How did you find me?”

She tilted her head, then raised her nose into the air and sniffed loudly.

Logan cursed beneath his breath, furious at his own stupidity. He had not counted on her being able to track by scent. There was no chance of escape now. For better or worse, it would have to end, here and now.

“What do you want?” he asked.

The demon blinked at him and then reached behind her. Logan tensed and gripped his spear. She turned back to face him. In one hand, she held the corpse of some fat, little mammal. In the other, what appeared to be an actual, honest-to-god, waterskin!

Logan stared, mouth agape. “Are you ... offering me food and water?”

She blinked at him and then gently tossed both items to the ground.

He cautiously approached. One step, two steps, three ... The demon girl growled at him. Logan stopped. She opened her mouth and pointed at it.

“You want to trade? Is that it?”

Something like frustration seemed to pass across her face. She stabbed a finger at Logan’s crotch. Then she pointed at her mouth.

“Wait, what?” He scratched at his scraggly, new beard. “No way. You want to trade supplies ... for a blow job?”

She tilted her head at him.

“Supplies.” Logan pointed at the water skin. “For a blow job.” He reached down and cupped his bulge in one hand, decidedly uncomfortable at his own vulgar charades. “Yes?”

The demon licked her lips.

Logan laughed. He couldn’t help it. In his wildest dreams, he could never have imagined such a bizarre scenario. It was all too absurd. “Well ... not exactly what I was expecting, but yeah, why not? “Make love, not war” seems like a reasonable approach to diplomacy. Damn sure beats trying to kill each other, even if this whole situation is nuts, um ... no pun intended.”

He watched the demon girl leap down from the rock and retrieve her trade goods. Cautiously, Beauty moved closer, feline grace in every slow step. For the first time, they stood face to face. Logan noted that she many pounds smaller and a full head shorter than he was, but it in no way detracted from her strength and prowess, or her deadly potential. He looked into her alien, lantern eyes but could not guess what she might be thinking or feeling at that moment.

There was an electric charge in the air between them that Logan could not identify. It felt like the cold brush of danger. It also felt like the held breath of anticipation and wordless possibilities.

Logan held her gaze and stepped back into his shelter. She followed him in, every line of her lush body taught as a bowstring. Once inside, Beauty solemnly presented the trade goods to him. Logan took them in much the same fashion. It all felt strangely formal, like a peace treaty between warring nations.

They stared at each other. The tension in the air was thick enough to swim through. Logan was acutely aware that, cornered as he was in this cleft of rock, she could rip him into bloody pieces if she wanted to. It was a huge gamble, yet nothing about her body language suggested violent intentions.

No risk, no reward, Logan thought. Though, in truth, it was more prayer than a statement of fact. Either way, right or wrong, it was too late to back out now.