Chapter 8

When I woke I could tell it was going to be another good day for sure, because I could smell cooking going on and to me that was always a good thing. By the time I'd dressed, walked off a little, watered a bush, and come back near the fire Mayta had a cup of tea for me and not long after I sat my ass on the ground Malta brought me a bowl of stew.

Most meals were stews and that was fine. My skillet was the first utensil these women had ever seen for frying things, except ordinary rocks, and I could easily understand why they would be slow to use those. I assumed they knew how to wrap up meat and cook it in a ground pit but that seemed like a big pain in the ass to me too. With stew you just threw some food to cook into a skin bag, poured in some water, added some spices and away you go, and no one had ever accused me of being a picky eater.

Not long after we'd done eating Malta came to me and asked about where I'd found the flint I had. I pointed off down river. The next part was a little more puzzling, but she finally made me understand she wanted to know if there was more down there and if there was enough to let Charto and Charla carry some back.

Nodding for the universal yes, I went over and picked up one of the big travois. Everyone gave me an odd look and I motioned for them to get their travois too. We had them all unloaded by now and if we were going to get flint we might as well get plenty. Soon enough we were headed that way with the boys doing most of the watching for us again.

Two miles downstream we started up over the hill the stream had sawed in half. I could see Charto and the others eyeballing the opposite side and figured they knew it was the kind of place you could usually dig some flint. Hell, they had a surprise coming and they got it when we made it to the bottom of the hill and onto the spread out mini flood plain. We were almost stumbling over flint nearly right away. Apparently neither Charto nor any of his bunch had ever been down here looking around because they couldn't have missed the flint if they had.

It took me about twenty seconds to decide Charto knew a hell of a lot more about what made good flint than I did. His boys had started bringing up nodules for him to look at right away and he didn't take long to cull them or clean them off a little first and then load them up. What the hell, I hoped he'd sort mine for me too so I dropped my travois and started mocking what the boys were doing. Malta, Motee, Mayta, and Sheeta copied my act.

Soon Charto was up to his ass in flint to clean and grade and Charla was loading it onto travois as he handed her suitable specimens. We kept at it pretty steadily for about an hour and a half and then took a break. Charto was nowhere near caught up with us, but Mayta started a bag of tea and we called him away from his work to take a tea break. He talked enthusiastically during the whole break and I could only assume it was about the flint.

We spent the rest of the day fucking with rocks with only a short break for lunch. I think Charto half way wanted to spend the night, but it would have been pointless. We already had nearly as much as we could carry and so we headed back to our camp. With the loads we barely made it back by an hour before sunset.

The women seemed damned happy to be back, and even though I know they were tired they got right on supper while Charto and I built another pretty big fire so they could have more light for cooking. After the meal was done and the clean up was over, everyone went directly to bed.

After breakfast the next morning things were a little different. Malta and Charto had some sort of discussion and when it was over he pulled his large travois off about a hundred yards from camp and started going through his rocks again while Charla and the boys started going over the meteor landing zone some more.

Mayta came to me and I knew she was going to ask me something. I just hoped I could figure out what she wanted.

"You show Charto how make bow arrows lunch?" she asked, and I could barely believe she was catching onto my language so fast.

"Yes, I'll show him," I said, hoping like hell I could get it over to him.

She smiled and walked out to Charto and I assumed it was to give him the good news. I took the machete and searched for a useable sapling for the bow and some smaller ones for the arrows.

After lunch I made sure Mayta was with me to help translate and then we went to it. I showed him my bow first, pointing out things like the small grooves for the bowstrings to lie in near the tips, the arrow rest, and I made him look carefully at the arrows and how the points were secured. When I showed him my jig for making a bowstring I was sure he didn't understand, so I took the time to make myself another one and give him a demonstration while I was at it.

There was no way in hell I could tell him how to make glue and then show him what it was for, so I found the limestone bowl I'd made, put a little water in it and warmed it back up. When the gooey mess was ready I cut up one of the feathers I had left and gave him another demo. He was catching on but I knew he'd still be lost when he tried to put everything together after he had the carving done.

"Charto come back to finish?" I asked Mayta, hoping she understood I wanted him too.

She must have because they talked back and forth for a few minutes and it seemed like things were agreed.

Charto, Dukto, Baleye, and I spent the afternoon fishing. It seemed to me like they were planning to head home tomorrow so I wanted to help them out with the technique as much as I could. I even made them a dozen more hooks after we quit and the women started cooking. We had a big meal for supper and demolished all the fish we'd caught during the afternoon lessons. Afterward we found our furs and my women and I did some pre-sleep exercise.

Sure enough, the others left as soon as we'd all eaten. Mayta said my goodbyes for me while I smiled, nodded my head, and later waved as they left. I was about to start going through my own new rocks when I got a strange urge to head back to the place I'd been put when I arrived here. I tried to ignore it, but thirty more minutes showed me it was useless.

Making my women understand we had to go took another hour. Lack of sufficient words in common to make them understand why was a big part of the trouble, but knowing that I didn't understand why myself was the main hang up.

Once they understood I had to go they got with the program. We didn't pack any travois for the trip, mainly because I didn't know what we were after and if we needed them when we got where we were going we could always make more. Most of their time was spent making sure there wouldn't be anything lying around to attract unwanted guests while we were gone. They secured everything edible in the cache and then built small fires on anything that might smell like something to eat.

We left a little before noon. All of them had big backpacks loaded with food and such. They wouldn't let me take one and insisted I go with my bow and arrows ready for business.

We moved out a hell of a lot faster than I'd traveled on my first trip up here, but when we got to the spot, three days later, I felt very suspicious.

When the place came into site there was a seventies model four wheel drive pickup sitting there hooked to a long enclosed horse trailer and I'll swear the dust hadn't settled from its landing yet. They were dumbfounded and stopped in place. I walked straight to it.

There were two redheads inside and they looked dazed. Almost as if they'd just been in a crash. I guess that made sense since it was the way I'd arrived, but without my truck. They still had theirs, including the enclosed trailer hooked to the back of it. When I knocked on the driver's door the girl behind the wheel turned her head to look right at me.

She was a lightly freckled, green-eyed beauty and I guessed she might be sixteen, if that. Glancing at her companion I knew at once they were twins - young, redheaded, green eyed, big tittied twins. Things were looking up. The driver rolled down her window then.

"Where are we mister?" she asked, and her voice made her sound a little older than I'd first thought.

"You probably won't believe me, but I don't know exactly. Were you just in a wreck?"

"We thought we were, but the truck doesn't look bent up or anything. We were driving back east on I-30 when some fool in one of those UPS vans cut over in front of us and the last thing I remember was a damned explosion. The flash was the last thing I saw before we showed up here, and then you were knocking on the door."

"That's about what happened to me, but my truck didn't come along," I said.

"And you don't know where we are?"

"No, but I know for sure we aren't in Texas."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, first thing there's no Mesquite, and besides, I've been here a few months already."

"You've been here a few months and you're still hanging around in the same spot? Why haven't you tried to find out where you are?" the passenger asked, giving me a suspicious look.

"I know it sounds weird, but I have looked around. I've been up that creek probably thirty miles or more. I just headed down this way three days ago. I got a feeling I needed to come back."

"That don't make a lot of sense, mister. We just got here," the driver said.

"Who do you think you're telling? I already told you I've been here for months. All I had when I woke up from a car crash in downtown Plano was a tool belt and my half-machete. The first week or so all I had to eat was fish I caught with a bent nail and a little twine I had with me."

"Kathy, how in the hell can we get back if we don't even know where we are?" the passenger asked the driver.

"I don't know Katie, but Bill is gonna kill us if we're late," the driver said.

"The best thing any of us can hope for is Bill showing up, whoever he is," I said.

"He's our brother, and he sent us to Dallas to pick up all that stuff in his tack trailer. He needs it for an auction he was going to tonight," Kathy said.

"I don't mean to darken your day, but you ain't gonna make it home today, and maybe not ever. Maybe you'd better get out and meet my family."

The girls had come up pretty close by now and I don't even want to think about what the two redheads might be thinking. They were both staring wide eyed and open mouthed.

Of course my girls weren't doing much better. Between the pickup, trailer, and the two new redheads in the pickup they didn't know which way to look. Finally Katie and Kathy opened their doors and got out. This action was another shocker for Mayta and the crew, but they didn't panic.

"You talk them good?" Mayta asked, after she got a handle on things.

"Yes. They talk my talk."

"Come from where you come?"

"Close," I said.

"What name?"

"This is Kathy and this is Katie," I said, pointing to them as I did.