Chapter 6

As soon as he yelled it there was an answering shout and then two women and a man came to see us too. I knew some type of fix was in when I saw the women. One of them looked almost exactly like Malta and the other one had to be the twin's mother, though she hardly looked old enough to be. The man was Charto, leader of the hunting party I'd met.

Charto was surprised by the travois too and since Malta had stopped I did too. She didn't stay stopped for more than a second before she ran to embrace her twin and her mother. I held the travois for a few seconds to let Charto give it an examination but dropped it after I figured he'd had time to get the gist. It wasn't that heavy, but hell, I didn't want to be standing around like a dumbass holding it up for the rest of the day.

Even with the men still looking over the first vechicle they'd probably ever seen they still didn't touch it. I flipped the edge of the furs back so they could see the rest of the parts and it seemed to explain everything they needed to know about it. I could see them looking at each other and nodding, as if saying "How could we be dumb enough not to figure this out." I didn't say a word though.

Malta and her family came back to me then and she introduced me to Motee and Mayta and the tea riddle was solved for me. It wasn't the last thing I had to figure out but it was a slight relief.

Malta gave Motee and Mayta an overview of the travois and probably explained how to make it. They were suitably impressed, but I could tell they had questions. One of them must have been about how it had happened that I came to be the one dragging it.

Malta picked up one of my spears which caused them some consternaiton in itselt, and then she stood by the travois donkey end. Even I was smart enough to know she wanted me to give the I can get the spear in action in plenty of time demonstration again. I picked up the travois, waited a few seonds and then dropped it and took the spear out of her hand again. They were impressed like she'd been, but I still didn't understand why. Hell, if it made Malta happy it was fine with me; she controled one hundred percent of my pussy supply. I'd even take a day job to keep her if I needed to. I'd had one before after all.

Demonstration or no, Motee and Mayta took hold of the travois poles this time and Malta started leading me onward, into the camp I assumed. I was right but Motee and Mayta had more trouble with the travois than they'd expected. They finally swallowed their pride and said something to Malta.

Of course she looked at me for an explaination of the problem. I could forgive them since this was their first rodeo at travois pulling. Anyone who has ever used one knows they are a one person vechile, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is one person always knows exactly which direction he or she is headed. I looked at Malta and just held up one finger. All of them understood what that meant and Mayta surrendered her hold once she knew Motee was latched on. Of course that cured the problem right away.

Once we were into the camp the surprises started for me. It looked almost like a small village, but all the houses were made of poles and skins. There were several small fires around and nearly every one of them had one of the skin bag cookers over it or near it. I wondered now why Malta only had one since there were so many here and they had many different sizes. I was sure I'd find out more later as I caught on to their language.

Our destination was one of the largest huts here, in fact there was only one that was larger and it was nearby. An older man was sitting on a sort of stool type arrangement near its opening and he gave me an obvious scowl when he saw me. He was pretty muscular but I could't tell how tall he was. If his height was near mine he might even outweigh me and none of the others I'd seen so far even came close. I decided not to worry about his grouchy looking ass unless he caused me trouble, but it was ovbious something was up with him because he didn't give the travois Motee was dragging a second look. I wasn't bent out of shape over it.

Malta lead me directly into the hut thingy with Mayta right behind us. Motee came in as soon as she figured out she could just drop the travois.

Inside the place was piled high with skins, preserved food of all sorts that I didn't recognize, and preserved meat that I did recognize, sorta. It made me wonder why we'd brought the meat we had. I'd envisioned Malta bringing it back to her old and frail mother or father or something.

Malta pointed out where I should sit and I did it. It was also some type of stool but I couldn't tell about its manufacture because it was covered with several furs and it was surprisingly comfortable. I don't guess that was a surprise because my ass was now accustomed to having nothing but rocks to sit on.

When Motee was inside we got around to the motea that I'd imagined was the reason for our trip. Mayta had some brewing over a small fire in the center of the hut. She gave me a wooden cup full of it and I knew right away she was as good at cooking it as Malta was. I knew a hell of a lot better than to even think she was better, even to myself.

Of course they broke out into conversation at once and I could only catch a word I could recognize every now and then and none I understood. It didn't matter though because I knew that simply hearing their language would make it easier for me to understand later. So I listened to them chew the rag.

After a while I wondered about meeting the others in the camp. It seemed I should but since I'd already killed one member I wasn't sure I wasn't redneck non-grata or something like that. Didn't matter now though, I'd either find out if I was or wasn't or maybe not find out at all.

Mayta started rumbling around in the food supply then and after a few minutes she and Motee went outside for the equivalent of rattling the pots and pans. They were gone for about ten minutes and were obviously upset when they returned. A quick conference between the three of them had Malta turning to me and trying to explain something. No matter how slowly she spoke all I could get out of it was their word I thought meant fight or battle or some such.

The light finally shined after a lot more talking and some pointed hand waving. It seemed the grumpy one next door wanted to rumble for some reason. What the hell, even if he turned out a little bigger than me I figured I could hold my own. Suddenly someone was scratching on the hut's wall and I could see two legs standing just outside.

Malta said something and Charto came inside. After a few seconds of talk he joined in trying to make me understand. I still couldn't but was gratified to see he felt embarrased and ashamed over the whole thing. I stood up and headed for the door, and once I was outside the grumpy asshole started yelling at me. Damned if that voice didn't sound familiar for some reason, but it took me a couple of minutes of listening to know that it was a little like what the dead guy had been yelling before he got dead.

I didn't know the procedure at all, and I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying, but it didn't really matter. I took off my tool belt and then my shirt and set it by the door to what I thought must be Mayta's hut. Grumpy yelled something again and I started for him, intending to settle his hash.

Malta, Motee, Mayta, and Charto were outside by now and when I headed for Grumpy, Malta showed me she had a good handle on what "No" meant becasue she yelled it at me. I stopped and came back to them. It seemed the fight would soon be on, but just duking it out in the middle of camp wasn't the proper protocol. Too bad - I was ready now.

Charto and several of the other men led Grumpy and I out to a small clearing with the rest of the camp following. Grumpy was keeping his mouth shut now and though I thought about calling him a motherfucker and a few other things I kept quiet too. Charto lead both of us to the center of the small clearing and then a guy came up carrying two spears, two clubs, and two antler handled knives.

Charto motioned to the weapons and I figured it was like any duel I'd ever heard of before where the challenged got to choose the weapons. I found out later I was wrong, but it was too late after that. I declined any weapon and just held up my fist. There was a gasp from the crowd and I only realized why when Grumpg came over and chose a spear. My asshole puckered a little then because if we started out at a distance from each other the whole deal would depend on how good I could dodge. I knew if I managed to stay alive after a cast he was toast.

Normally I had never been a very violent guy, but growing up in small town Texas meant I'd been in my share of fights. The first time I got my ass kicked by an older boy my father decided he was going to teach me something about fighting. He seemed surprised at how fast I learned and he actually paid for me to have some boxing lesson in the closest small city, Texarkana USA to be specific.

I know, I know, eastern martial arts are the popular thing now-a-days. That may be true, but boxing doesn't waste any time with a bunch of spirtual mumbo-jumbo. The empahsis of the training is on knocking the coon dog shit out of your opponent as soon as possible. In other martial arts you train mostly by going over set moves until you can do them in your sleep. Since there are so many moves it takes a hell of a lot of study.

Boxing is like that, kinda. You learn several different types of punches, but there aren't that many. You concentrate on learning to hit a punching bag over and over and it teaches you to hit a moving target that moves faster every time you hit it. You use the heavy bag to build up your strength for more powerful blows and you spar to learn what tactics work best for you against different opponents. Even if this guy was a bladk belt in some ancient way of fighting I was pretty sure he was gonna have a hard time dealing with me if he missed me with that spear. That said, I wasn't all that sure I could dodge a cast spear. If I could we could get it on later.

Grumpy's fate was sealed when Charto called us both to the center of the little clearing to start things off. As soon as he gave the signal I grabbed Grumpy's spear before he could even try to move it. I yanked it out of his hands right away, broke it over my knee, threw the pieces aside and beat his ass within an inch of his life. He didn't ever even get time to give me the first lick.

As I alternated pounding his face and his breadbasket I could hear indrawn breath and gasp from the peanut gallery. I listened closely in case Malta hollared NO but she never. After I was tired of it I kept on anyway because I didn't know the rules. I wasn't going to let him up to get another spear and try again. Finally I gave him a good one right on the end of his trashed nose and he went down. It was a knock out for sure. I just stood over him after that.

Probably I should have realized what the outcome had to be, but it didn't dawn on me. After a couple of minutes with Grouchy lying there, no doubt with a serious concussion, Malta came over and it didn't take her very long to let me know it was a fight to the death. No problem. I reached down to Grumpy, took his head in both my hands and twisted his ruined face around to look behind him. I guess this life was getting good to me because I relished the sound his neck made when the vertbrae were ripped from where they belonged. At least I was glad it didn't give me a boner.

My last trick seemed to amaze the others too, as if it were a big secret reavealed. A woman came over then and put her hand over Grumpy's chest, no doubt looking for a heartbeat. If she'd been quicker she might have even felt his last few but I knew it was over at least a minute or two before she arrived. I was surprised when she stood back up and said something to the assembled crowd and they all seemed delighted. My main though was maybe now we could eat.

About half an hour later Motee brought me a wooden bowl, similar to the ones Malta had but nearly half again larger. It was full of some stew that had many vegetables I didn't recognize but that were all delicious. Mayta was right behind her with a larger than expected cup of tea. I commenced pigging out.