Chapter 6

Now that John had brought so much status to the family, he was their golden boy. Before, the only ones who would talk with him were Zithrusa and Headman, and he couldn't even learn any of their names, including Headman, which is why he called him that. Zithrusa wouldn't tell him any of the families names either, it was up to each individual to form their own relationships. Now that he was everybody's darling, he was having the family introduce themselves faster than he could remember their names. Still, it was nice to be accepted, and everyone was being much friendlier now.

John made a kite from thin cotton which he had rubbed lamb fat into. It caught the wind pretty well, but there wasn't much twine available for string. The children loved the kite, and John set them to making string, and soon enough with everyone rolling plant stalks in their hands till they were raw, and twining the fibers till their fingers were sore, he had enough string to fly the kite fifty feet in the air. That was plenty on the windy steppes they were traversing now. He taught them how to fly it, and let them play.

"If you had kites made for the next gathering, there would be plenty of good barter" said Gromviditch, a gap toothed rheumy eyed elder. "You would just have to let the children play with one around the gathering, and everyone would want one. Of course, once they bought one, they would figure out how to make their own."

"The children should make the twine for flying the kites, that is needed no mater who makes the kite. The children would have good barter." Offered John. The children were already making their own tiny kites, because they didn't want to wait too long for their turn to fly John's bigger kite. John borrowed some pigment from one of the aunties, and painted a fierce scowling dragon's face on the kite, which made the children giggle and scream in mock fear when he swooped it down at them as if it was attacking. It was great fun.

Suddenly seven men appeared on the crest of a ridge, holding two of the older children by the necks, daggers bared. They shouted down "Bring us your horses to buy the lives of these children!" The children were junior scouts, who were supposed to be alert and watchful, and assist the regular scouts in keeping an eye out for bandits and thieves, leopards and wolves. John asked Butalus, the Headman, if he could take the horses up, and try to free the children. The headman agreed, and John made a show of taking off his bow and removing his quiver, and gathering the eight horses, after their riders dismounted, and leading them up the hill. When he was within range, he stopped, and demanded that they release the children. The men laughed, and told him 'nice try'. They demanded that he drop the reins ad back up, which fit into his plans quite well. John fell back, and one of the men stepped forward to grab the horses.

John gave a 'get ready' signal to the two children, and when the man approaching blocked the other men from attacking him, John threw his daggers at the heads of the men holding family's children, piercing each ones brain through the eye socket. As the men fell, John slapped the horses across their rumps and started them forward with a shrill cry. The horses bolted toward the men, further distracting them, and knocking the one who had come for them on his rear. John was running forward by now, kicking the man sitting on the ground in the chin as he came by, and up close among the remaining four, who had just been run over by a herd of horses. Well, they had been outnumbered two to one, anyway. The two children, being nomadic children and as such much more capable that the modern kind, had each taken up the knife John had left for them in the faces of their former captive, and stood back to back knives in hand to prevent themselves being re-taken.

Although John was excellent with his new throwing knives, he was also very good with any knife or axe or hatchet, so it should be no surprise that when he whipped out his eating knife, which had formerly belonged to Zithrusa, that he was accurate and deadly with it as he closed in. And then there were three. While the three focused on John, the two children who were almost of an age to be considered as adults, wanting to regain their status which was lowered by allowing themselves to be taken by an enemy, had slipped behind the remaining three, and sunk John's throwing knives which also worked quite well as hand held weapons deep into the kidneys of two of their former captors.

As anyone who has ever been knifed in the kidney might tell you, it is an experience which gives one pause. They each stood up on tippy-toe, and uttered a breathless squawk as their eyes unfocused with surprise and shock. John didn't play fair with the last one, the one who had shouted their ill-conceived demands to the family while threatening the family's children. He merely kicked him in the eggs hard enough to break them. (John was already thinking in his new language. Eggs is what they called them.)

Butalus had arrived by then, and he waved the rescued children to go fetch the horses which they did after cleaning all three of John's knives and returning them to him reverently. John looked in disgust at his eating knife. It had just stirred human brains through eyeball. He hoped there wasn't any kuru, or laughing sickness in this part of the world. He hadn't yet attended any funerals to know if they practiced any unsavory rites, but he didn't think they would. It was a long way from wherever he was to New Guinea.