Chapter 40

"You have many mates John, but not too many for you yet. You must remember most men will take additional mates if they can hunt well enough to provide meat for them. You should have as many mates as you can easily feed. You know you can feed many more mates than you have.

"Our camp has not even eaten all the meat from your first hunt yet, let alone the meat from the bear, which you killed more or less by accident. I am not even mentioning the meat that we could get to help you. Geera and I like to hunt and I know Dalia can hunt. You can still afford many more mates.

"Roweea was the mate of their leader. She will need to mate again and it will be better if she is mated to the leader here also. All of her camp is used to her position as leader's mate and it will seem more natural for them if she remains so.

"It never seems odd if a woman who was not a leader's mate suddenly becomes the mate of a leader. It is always uncomfortable when a woman who was a leader's mate loses her mate and has to mate a man who isn't the leader.

"Ask Geera or Georgo and they will tell you the same thing. It is why Gigo took Winna and Dergo took Waaya when you killed the three of them. We told everyone you had killed Gembo, Gigo killed Jabo, and Dergo killed Jenbo. That way Winna, who had been the leader's mate would be Gigo's mate and would still be a leader's mate," Dieta explained.

It all made sense to me then and as I was thinking about it I thought of something else. I asked Dieta about it at once.

"I didn't even think of it before Dieta, but now I see when I killed Gembo I was killing Winna's son. How can she keep from hating me?"

"Gembo was not Winna's son. Gembo's mother died before he became a man. Jabo had two mates before Gembo's mother died. He had mated Winna later. Winna has never had any children. Winna does not mind that you killed Gembo because Tanta, Gembo's mother, was never kind to Winna after Jabo took her as a second mate.

"Gembo was not either and was actually mean to Winna and often taunted her even before he became a man. Jabo was better to her than those two were, but not very much better. It did not bother Winna at all when she heard Jabo and Gembo were both dead."

Well that little mystery was solved almost as soon as I'd thought of it. In fact it had been solved long before. I was glad I hadn't killed Winna's son though. Of course since she had never had a son I hadn't had a chance to.

Since I felt Dieta was probably doing her best to steer me right and it was only a coincidence the direction was one she wanted me to take anyway I decided I would ask Georgo about it. I left Dieta outside prowling around the cooking fires and getting into the spirit and went to see if I could get a word with Georgo. He was coming into my cave through the connecting entrance just as I was coming in from outside. We met near the coffee pot and I got a mug but Georgo declined.

"Dieta tells me it would be better if I took the mate of the deceased leader of our new member's camp as one of my mates. She says it always causes some confusion if a former leader's mate is taken for a mate by someone other than the leader of the camp she is in. Is that your opinion also?"

"It is not opinion John, it is the way things are. It does not come up very often though since leaders are rarely killed. It is a very unusual circumstance for three different camp's leaders to be killed in so short a time.

"If Winna had been taken by Dergo as a mate instead of by Gigo it wouldn't have made as much difference since she was leaving the camp where she had been the leader's mate. Since Gigo took her though there was nothing in the least unusual.

"When Braato and Gordo killed Dergo and Gigo there would have been problems though, because Winna was coming back to live at the camp where she had been the leader's mate and she would have been mated to a man who had two former leader's mates for his mates. It would have been disturbing, especially since both of the men were held in low regard by the whole camp.

"When it became known they would both be your mates and then when it was clear you were the new leader of Gigo's camp things were more nearly normal again - even though you did cause quite a stir setting things right.

If there is nothing else troublesome about it I think you should take Roweea, the mate of your new member's former leader, as another mate. It will add to the feeling of security of all your new members and I am sure all the members of your camp will see it as the natural thing. As long as it doesn't cause you trouble in your own cave," Georgo said.

"It is exactly what Dieta told me. She also encouraged me to take Roweea as a mate."

"Your other mates will let you know if there is anything bothersome to them about it and I doubt there will be. I have known Roweea for many years and she is a good obedient woman. She is also used to hunting and not much of a gatherer or cook.

"She has many good qualities, but cooking is not among them. She is one of those I had to endure meals from and then tell they were very good. Thankfully, most of the time other women in the camp did her share of the cooking," Georgo said.

"I don't think her shortcoming with cooking will cause any troubles for me. I have more mates who want to cook now than can get a chance to do it," I told him.

"I know. Dieta and Geera are a novelty since they are good hunters, good gatherers, and good cooks. It is said Dalia is also a very good hunter and I know she is a good cook. Gembo never wanted Delia to hunt, but I think she knows how and actually likes to - she is a very good cook also," Georgo said.

"I have plenty of cooks and I need almost no hunters."

"I know you can do very well hunting and I would guess if you had to you could kill all the meat needed for this whole camp and more. I do think you should encourage all who want to hunt to do so or learn to do it if they don't know already. If something were to happen to you, after you have been here a few years, they would all go hungry if they didn't know how to hunt anymore," Georgo said, explaining his thinking.

He was right and I knew it at once. I couldn't let them become dependant on me for all the hunting. It was at least possible Argent might end his experiment and if he didn't let me stay they would all have hard times for a long while unless they kept up their hunting skills. I didn't anticipate leaving, but I didn't know I would be here forever. I doubted Argent would allow me to be killed, but it was something else I thought, but didn't know.