Chapter 2

The third day was always reserved for hangovers, and almost everyone had a big old good un because almost everyone had been shitfaced the day and night before. Adding to the injury was that it seemed cleaning up any vomit that had been sprayed around the day before was done while heads were still pounding, and with those that had been forced to stand watch doing a lot of laughing at the ones that suffered and cleaned up.

I watched several of these from start to finish but I never could discover what set it off. It was almost like the two woke up one morning and just knew somehow that it was time to get hitched so they could do the nasty. As I said, I never got a hint that any nasty was done before a ceremony. This in itself was strange to me.

Back to my present state, I still felt like someone was watching me and I still knew that they couldn't be. At least nothing I had discovered here so far could be watching, since I'd already proved to myself that I knew a lot more about hiding from them than they'd ever be able to learn about sneaking up on me.

One thing that helped me immensely was their scent. The smell wasn't unpleasant at all, neither the men nor the women, but it was blatantly obvious to me. I could even tell whether I was getting close to a man, woman, boy, or girl from the smell and I could tell from at least three hundred yards. It was something that had seemed very strange at first. In fact, it wasn't just them; I seemed to have the nose of a bloodhound since coming to Margata.

Finally, after about two hours of feeling strange I did catch the scent of someone and in a few minutes I could tell that several Kwagi were approaching. I had only my bow and my Glock with me and I decided to climb a tree and watch to see what was coming.

Lying on a fairly large limb about twenty-five feet up let me see them first. It was a complete Calak on the move, and a larger one than I'd ever seen before at that. This particular area was new for me and I'd only been snooping around here a few days, but still, this was a big bunch. As they came closer I got a count; there were fifty-two adults, probably fifteen adolescents and twelve smaller children, and that didn't count the babes that were being carried.

It was obvious at once that they were moving, since major moves were the only times the men did wholesale beast of burden duties. All the men in this Calak, except the Zakat and the Matatu, were pulling travois. It seemed a little strange to me that they'd never thought of trying to capture and train a thaka to do the grunt work.

Thaka weren't as large as cattle or oxen from earth, but some of them reached the height of a donkey or a little larger, and all of them seemed to be built more robustly than any donkey I'd ever seen. I figured they would be perfect for such work. At least they'd have been better than having to drag the damned thing by hand. Oh well.

Staying still, I watched until a few more than half of them passed under or near the tree I was in. Just then the feeling hit me again, but hard this time. It was almost like one of the warning jolts I sometimes felt. I was nearly beside myself with worry when I discovered the cause. Right away the answer to the mating mystery revealed itself.

She was a redhead, which was fairly unusual anyway. Most of the females were blonde, and by a wide margin. I'd estimate that sixty percent were blonde, twenty-five percent were brunette, about ten percent had black hair and only about five percent were redheads. This one had the darkest wine red hair I'd seen on this planet, maybe on earth either.

To top it off she had dark green eyes and was beautiful, perfect. Since she was looking directly back into my eyes and smiling slightly I knew that I had finally sorted out the mechanism by which they found their mates. There was no doubt in my mind. I also knew somehow that tomorrow would be the day. I jumped off my limb.

It was shocking to the ones that saw me come down. Three of the men who witnessed my descent were so surprised that they dropped their travois. The women around them that didn't happen to see my stunt squawked and complained a little but those that had seen me stood stupefied. Soon word was moving out from about the center of the group toward each end.

Five minutes later the Zakat and Matatu walked up. The Zakat spoke right out with the normal greeting to an outsider who came alone to a Calak.

From the first I'd realized that my ability to understand the Zwangi's language had been helped along by whoever had put me here. Since then I'd listened clandestinely to plenty of them and practiced to myself often enough to feel confident I could communicate, but my learning curve had been too steep to be completely my doing. I was happy about it now though.

"Who are you stranger and why come you among us?" the Zakat asked me.

"I am Carl and I come to join you."

"Are you ready to fight then," he asked.

"I am ready."

He handed his large and fairly ornately decorated spear, a sort of ceremonial one that denoted his rank, to the Matatu as travois were being dropped and people were spreading out into a large circle to give us room for this little ditty.

As I mentioned, I'm six two and weigh nearly two fifty. This Zakat, who wouldn't even tell me his name until this was all over, looked to be every inch of six foot ten and I'm sure he wasn't even a biscuit shy of three hundred pounds. Just my luck my soon to be was traveling with the biggest mother-fucker I'd seen since I got here.

It didn't matter though, because I knew if I put up even a half assed fight he wouldn't kill me and I'd probably be allowed into his Calak. But hopefully I could do better than that. These fights didn't involve hitting the other man, with fist or anything. They were more like a sort of stand up wrestling but knockdowns and slinging around weren't uncommon.

I'd never been a big martial arts devotee but I had come across a little training, and I knew that even the little I'd had was more than he'd been exposed to. He came charging at me at once and it was duck soup to step aside and give him a shove that sped him up until he fell. There was an immediate gasp from the crowd.

He was a game big bastard though. His next trick involved running at me headlong with his arms spread so I couldn't slip out of the way this time. It was another mistake but he couldn't know it.

Since peewee football I'd been a linebacker and with my size a scholarship had me playing college ball against offensive linemen that were nearly as tall as he was and heavier by a long shot. I ran at him just as hard as he was coming at me and put my right shoulder to the center of his chest. It knocked him back on his ass and I landed on him when he hit the ground; rolling off and popping back up before the air quit whooshing out of his lungs.

Since he had no way to know I wouldn't want to be Zakat, even if I did win, he kept at it. This type of fight wasn't only for entrance to a Calak. It was also the way the leader made himself the leader. It was perfectly Kosher for me to win and then decline the office of Zakat, but he couldn't know I would, and most men that were Zakat probably wanted to remain Zakat. I was sure he did.

I had to knock his ass over eleven times in all before he realized that he could not beat me, now or probably ever. He finally gave up the ghost when he knew he was worn out.

"You have bested me, Carl. You are now Zakat," he said, giving the semi-ritual concession speech, such as it was.

"No, I am not Zakat. I am young and strong, but I am not wise. You are still Zakat. May I join your Calak?"

"Yes, Carl. I, Shaton, welcome you," he said, finishing the song and dance by telling me his name.

Good old Shaton wasn't the only one that was winded. That big bastard had been a load more than once during the dustup, and I'd been getting a little out of breath myself right at the last.

When I happened to get a glimpse of the redhead sneaking a peek at me it made everything seem worthwhile. It also showed me I'd probably just ignored the mating signs of the couples I'd watched so often, then again I'd probably never have noticed anything that subtle.

Shaton called a lunch break for now, and he couldn't have been any happier about it than I was. I could do with a bite or two to eat, and this would be the first meal since I arrived that I didn't have to fix myself. It was surprisingly good.