Chapter 14

What with the extra hours of work for the women to deal with the bears, we skipped the acrobatics at bedtime. I didn't mind a bit because I wanted to be up and gone early in the morning. I didn't get any complaints from the tired women either.

Even before sunrise, Teechi and Caysha were up and moving. The others weren't far behind them and I had to get up because I was the one who instigated the early start. Teechi and Caysha made some last additions to their packs while the rest of the women cooked breakfast for everyone. I even scrounged up a backpack of my own and stuffed it full of things.

Of course I had to argue Teechi and Caysha down about carrying a pack, but I kept at it until I had. Hell, I was perfectly capable of shooting even if the backpack was strapped to my shoulders. I finally told them to let it be or I'd pull a travois.

Goodbyes were short and sweet after breakfast. Biltee, Teechi, Caysha, and I just headed out. We were to their old camp in a little less than an hour and we stopped for a short breather. Teechi and Caysha went to visit with some other women, gathering the latest gossip no doubt. Biltee stayed with me though. He said there was no one in this camp he had anything important to talk about with.

The oddest thing for quite a while happened only a few minutes after Biltee and I had been standing around. One of the assholes I remembered from the bunch Carltaga brought with him when he was searching for Carga came out of a hut. I think he was probably the last of that bunch still alive. When he saw me there talking to Biltee he took off running as fast as he could, he hadn't even taken a single spear with him.

Either the girls were through visiting or the slight commotion caused them to check on us because they were back within a minute or two.

"What happened?" Teechi asked.

"One of the assholes came out of that hut and hauled his ass when he saw me," I said, by now they knew when I said asshole I usually wasn't talking about the real physical manifestation on my body.

"It was Badonta," Biltee said.

"He must not want to join his friends just yet," Teechi said.

"Let us check the hut. He had no business in this camp, they have told him not to come back," Caysha said.

She scratched on the hide door to the hut and after a minute someone inside said something, though I couldn't hear what it was. It alarmed Teechi and Caysha though and they both rushed inside. Biltee and I knew better to go with them unless we were invited, and a couple of minutes later I was glad we hadn't.

Teechi came back out and motioned me off away from sharp ears.

Badonta crept into Cecile's hut last knight and abused her. She is only fifteen. He killed Shosha, Cecile's grandmother, first of all and threatened to kill Cecile if she didn't stay quiet," Teechi told me.

"How is the girl now?" I asked.

"She is not hurt too badly but she is very sad and doesn't know what she can do now. She is afraid to stay in this camp any longer, especially since Shosha is dead and Badonta is out there still."

"We must bury the grandmother and then take Cecile with us then. How many things does she have that we need to carry?" I asked.

"Not many, she will not need her hut if she goes with us."

"Good. I will see if Biltee will bury her grandmother while I go to kill Badonta. We will take her home before we finish our scouting trip," I said, and walked over to Biltee.

He was livid when he heard what had happened and I'm sure he wanted to go with me for Badonta's hide. I had to talk him out of it.

"Biltee, someone must stay here to bury the woman and take care of Teechi, Caysha, and Cecile. You might also need to build a travois to carry her things back to our camp. I don't think it will take me long to find Badonta," I said, and he finally agreed.

While he got busy I edged my way in the direction Badonta had left. Since he hadn't even taken a spear with him I doubted he'd gone far.

He hadn't. As I slipped around a hut I could see him hiding behind a tree, trying to watch what was going on in camp. He seemed to be eyeing the bustle around Cecile's hut right now and he didn't see me slip up to a good size tree that had a sturdy limb at a convenient height.

Concentrating on moving slowly, I used the limb as a rest for my M1 and found Badonta in the scope. I aimed for a headshot, since more of it was exposed than anything else, and I dropped him with only one shot. I walked to the body and found two new holes in his head. There was now a small one right at the top of his nose, and when I rolled him facedown I saw a much larger one on the backside of his head. It looked like most of his brain had left through it. I left him and walked back to camp.

A man I didn't know came toward me as I approached and then he spoke to me when I was near.

"I am Kalter, the new leader here. Why have you killed Badonta?" he asked.

"I killed him because he slipped into Cecile and Shosha's hut last night, slit Shosha's throat, and abused Cecile," I said, thinking that would be all of it.

"You had no business doing that in my camp?" he said, indignantly.

"In the first place it isn't your camp. The camp belongs to all the people that live in it. You are correct though, I had no business killing Badonta. That was you're business and you should have done it before he killed one of your people and abused another.

"If that's the best job you can do I don't understand why they let you be leader," I said.

"They didn't let me be leader, I took over and no one could stop me," he said.

"Oh, I see now," I said, then shot him in both knees.

When his screaming toned down to sobbing I spoke up again.

"Maybe they can stop you from being leader now. In fact I think I will. Every time I come through this camp there is some asshole to cause me trouble," I said, and then gave him a couple of holes to match Badonta's new ones and walked back to the middle of the camp.

"I am now the leader of this camp. If you don't believe me ask Kalter. We will move this camp to the one my mates and I have. Start packing your things. After Biltee and I have finished with Shosha's burial he will go back to our camp and have the others there come to help us," I said.

"What if we don't want to join your camp," someone asked.

"Then you can leave now. Step forward and tell me you are going. I should warn you that if you come to our camp you will not be disagreeable and you will not cause trouble there. You will get along or you will die. There will not be a camp here when we leave. We will burn everything we don't carry away," I said.

Two men came forward and said they were not going to join our camp and that they were going to stay here. They told me not to burn the camp.

"Are you hard of hearing?" I asked, and for a second it stumped them.

"If you stay here you will be staying with Badonta and Kalter, on the ground to wait for the carrion eaters to dispose of you. I will burn everything in this camp that is not being moved by sunset," I said.

When one of them raised a spear I thought it was just as well. It would be better to take care of this shit now. I was hoping that the other one would make a move too if he was going to, so I waited a heartbeat before shooting them.