Chapter 33

By the time we were within five hundred or so yards of the Calak I knew something was wrong, and I signaled for a halt.

"I can smell sickness at the Calak, and I think it is from wounded men. I even think I could smell that some of them are dead, newly dead," I said.

"Can you be sure it isn't some disease?" Shaton asked.

"No, I can't be sure, but I don't think that's what it is. Maybe I should go ahead and check to be sure. I will signal you with two quick shots if it seems safe for you to come ahead. If it is more than two, wait for me here for at least an hour, and then return to the others if I don't come back in that time."

They agreed and I went ahead. I found much distress in the Calak when I got there. They were so distracted they weren't even amazed by me riding up on a cashda. I dismounted and hobbled Red about a hundred yards from their camp and then walked in.

It was a smaller Calak than ours; actually it was more like the normal size, probably twenty-five adults, and maybe five or six children of various ages. The alarming thing was I could see several dead bodies and a few more men lying on the ground, obviously injured. As I approached, three women came to meet me.

"My name is Carl. My Calak is moving through not far from here. I came to see if you were having problems and to ask if you needed help. We have two healing women," I said.

"How did you even know we were here?" the obvious leader of the three asked.

"Are you the leader's mate?" I asked her.

"I was. He was killed in the night. I ask again how you knew we were here?"

"I am Meseeka. My sense of smell is very acute. I could smell your Calak from where I was riding, and when we came to introduce ourselves I could smell injury and death," I said.

The other two women gasped when I told them, but the leader's widow only asked another question.

"You said we, are there other's with you?" she asked.

"Yes. My mates, our Zakat, and a friend stayed back and let me come to make sure it wasn't disease that I sensed," I said.

"Oh. That was wise of them, and yes, if you can help we would appreciate it. My name is Mayta, this is Shalene and this is Geeta," she said, pointing to the other two women.

"Do not be alarmed, but I am going to make two loud noises to signal the others to come here," I said, and after they nodded understanding I pulled the Glock and fired two shots into the ground.

They still flinched at the noise and the others in the camp were all looking our way now, but none of them approached. Shaton and the rest of my group rode up shortly and everyone except Nita stopped and hobbled their mounts near Red to walk the rest of the way. Nita rode right up to me, handing me her reins and taking her medical bag from where it was tied to her saddle before she dismounted.

"Can you send someone back to the others to ask Darita to come also," she asked me.

"Yes, do what you can and I'll send for her and the rest of the medicine," I said, and she headed to what was obviously the Calak's own healing woman, who was bent over attending to an injured man.

When the others reached me Shaton and Denac said they would go back for Darita, while Shaeta, Jekaycey, Katia, and even Lanita went on to the camp to help.

"Can you tell me what happened?" I asked Mayta.

"Yes. A group of six loners came yesterday and wanted to join our Calak. We told them that there were only two unmated women here and that we felt no more than two of them should join us. The largest of them wanted to fight to see if he would be accepted and so it was done. Zakat defeated him, but we did accept him into our Calak; however, he did not want to join us after he was defeated and they all left.

"I thought it was very odd that he had been accepted but then didn't want to join, but it didn't seem to matter. It did matter though. Last night they all crept into our camp. They made some noises outside, pulling at the hut where we store our hides. It woke Zakat and he went out to see if it might be a wolf or something else trying to steal meat.

"As best we can tell, three of them were waiting outside the hut, and they attacked Zakat with clubs and knives as he came outside. He shouted and the other men woke and came out to help him.

"Our men were able to drive them off, killing four of them and wounding the other two, but they killed Zakat and another man, and wounded five more. Natalia, our healing woman says two of our men will probably die from sickness of their wounds," Mayta said.

"That is awful. Our Zakat was wounded badly a few weeks ago and it was also by a band of loners, or by their leader at least. They were holding women captive, women from a Calak they attacked in the night also. They had killed all the men, and some of them even killed all the male children," I said.

"We heard of that, from a younger male that was wounded in the attack. He found his way to us and we have been trying to help him recover, but he still has a fever that Natalia cannot seem to cure," Mayta said.

"Maybe Darita and Nita can help him too. Our Zakat had a bad infection also, but they were able to cure it. They will probably be busy for now, but will look at him when they are done with the wounded here," I said.

Denac and Shaton came riding back up then, with Darita, Caloe, Caltort, and Shata in tow. They all dismounted near Red, except Darita, who rode on to me, leaving me her mount to deal with.

Caloe was the first of the others to reach us, and I introduced her to Mayta, and the others and let her take over the conversation while I went to see if I could help Nita and Darita with their work.

Almost right away I saw why Natalia had thought at least one of the men wouldn't make it. He was sliced across his abdomen from one side to the other, just above his navel. The other one had an even longer wound down and across his back. Without serious disinfection and stitches both of them would probably die of infection. Just then I thought of something in my steamer trunk that hadn't crossed my mind since I joined Shaton's Calak, soap.

I had two unopened bars of Ivory and one partially used one. They weren't disinfectant soap or anything like that, but I knew they would go a long way toward cleaning the wounds, if the men could stand it. I called Nita to me and explained. She thought it was worth a try.

I hobbled the horses Nita and Darita had ridden up and took Red's hobbles off and mounted. I knew there'd be a lot of fumbling around looking for my soap, since the trunk was on a travois now, instead of its cart, but there was no help for it. Right at the last I asked Caloe who was in charge of our group.

"I didn't tell anyone anything, I just came along. Shata, perhaps you should go back and get them settled in for a short stay," she said, and Shata agreed so Denac took the hobbles off the horse she'd ridden here.

It didn't take Shata and I long to get back. She took over and let everyone know we'd be staying here at least for tonight. Chalti helped me get my trunk off the travois and I found the soap and my soft bristle hairbrush almost right away. I also grabbed the eight-quart saucepan that I hadn't used in quite a while.

Nita was waiting for me when I got back, and I took a few minutes to explain what she needed to do with the soap. I felt stupid for not using it on Shaton when he was wounded; then again, I hadn't had it with me then either. She looked a little dubious. So I explained that it was going to hurt like hell to the men, but that it would be worth it to save their lives, even if they didn't think so while they were being treated. I suggested that she have them bite on something leather while she was working.

Damned if that hadn't been prophetic. They did use a folded piece of leather to keep from screaming and from the way they bit down on it and the way the muscles in their necks and back corded up it was plain that they needed it.

I watched the whole thing, on both of them. I wanted to make sure that Nita scrubbed hard enough without overdoing it. I needn't have worried; she did it exactly as I would have. They both ended up with a nice pink foam over their cuts.

There had been a slight delay after we boiled the brush in the saucepan so we could boil some more water for rinsing and let it cool. Here and now there just wasn't a good way to cool boiled water, and we had to go through the whole thing twice.

Stitching them up was another amazing torture for the two. Of course the needles had to be boiled also, and I worried about what we'd do when the little bit of sterile suture I had was used up, but that was a worry for another day.

Of course the other men had assorted big gashes that needed to be dealt with too, and it required the same amount of boiling the brush and the water for each iteration. It was nearly dark before Nita, Darita, and Natalia finished with all the patients.