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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 45: Takano 98
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 297
That night, many of the tribe came by to visit Davey. Clearly he found it disconcerting to meet so many people, but it was not wholly unpleasant for him as three women made sure to get him to remember their names by talking to him for ten minutes, and thrice asking him if he remembered. Zana, who was a bit what used to be politely called ‘big boned’, and Renifer, who struck Tommy as more curious than serious, and to her very great surprise Varlax.
Soon enough he fled to his temporary nest. The next morning they gathered up twenty of the tribe, and Davey had them show him that they understood flint and steel for campfires. After that, he led them on a hike with many stopping points.
“This is a deer track. See the hoof? Now look around, see if you can find other tracks so we know which way it’s going.” Twenty minutes later they had found ten hoof prints of two different deer that were heading north parallel to the camps. Davey led them on, and then pointed out a plant.
“Plantain. Wilt it over a fire, and squeeze the juice on a bug bite.” The plant was stripped, and they moved on.
“Tansy.” He pointed out a high, tall, weed with many dead, brown flowers. “It can be used to preserve meat.”
Later, he pointed to a shallow ridge. “This is protected, and that patch of tall spiky plants that have gone to seed--smell it.” One of the men did, and wrinkled up his face.
“It’s unpleasant, not horrible. That’s black cohosh, and my granny uses it when she gets hot flashes.” There was some tittering at that. “And if you find black cohosh, you might find ginseng.” He led them to ginseng, and helped them dig some up. “This is a medicine with a lot of uses.”
He led them on for another couple hours, finally ending at the lake. Here he showed them how to find Duck Potatoes by stabbing the spear into the underwater soil near certain plants. Tubers floated up, and he told them how to cook them by burying them under the campfire. As it cooked, Varlax without her three children, Tommy, and Davey waited as Varlax cooked some fish they had caught. Davey crushed a handful of red pea-sized berries between his fingers, releasing a minty smell, and tossed them in with the fish.
It was a nice change of pace from cranberry fish, and plain baked fish, and onion grass fish, to have minty fish. Along with the tubers which were similar enough to potatoes to bring out a smile on Tommy’s face, they made a meal. Afterwards Davey said he needed to do something and without more ado got up and rapidly walked into the forest. Tommy then turned to Varlax, and said with a smile.
“Explain.”
“What?” Varlax said with false innocence and a blushing smile. She tossed back her dirty blonde hair which Tomiko noted had been combed more thoroughly than normal.
“I know I look sixteen, but I'm a bit older, and even at sixteen I could recognize when a girl was chasing a guy.”
“All right. Yes.”
“Why? I mean don’t get me wrong, he’s nice enough, but even he said he looked like a drowned rat.”
“He’s not like Hulion of the Many Muscles who I’ve seen you glancing at,” Varlax said with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth smile. It was Tommy’s turn to blush now. Varlax’s face turned serious. “Nor is he like my first husband. We were deeply in love, and then--well, you know.” Tommy nodded. Varlax’ husband had died long enough ago that no one spoke about it. “But a woman gets lonely, and I need a father for my three children.”
“There are other men, single men in the tribe, who would help you there. Maybe even Hulion.” Both women took a moment to contemplate the handsome young man.
“Hulion is not going to marry a woman with three children. Plus, while he is strong, good looking, and brave, he’s not the sharpest arrow ever to jab a fish. Worse, he doesn’t know that. He thinks he’s smart. Whereas, Davey is, well, not handsome--and very quiet unless you get him going, and he could get lost in a crowd of two, he’s also very knowledgeable. He knows a lot of things that will help my children survive to adulthood, and the whole tribe as well. And while I don’t run the Council--”
Tomiko smiled. Votes were votes, and good ideas were good ideas, and everyone on the Council had the ability to make up his or her own mind. Yet, it was clear that the Council tended to end up doing what Varlax supported most of the time. She was not the chairwoman--they had no such creature--but she was the guiding spirit.
“Hulion would think he could take over the Council if he married me. Davey, well, he knows that this would not happen.”
“But what of love?”
“I’m already fond of him. I could love him. He has a kind soul. It won’t be the passion I shared with my first husband, but he and I can make each other happy.”
A stick snapped behind them, and the two women with horrified looks spun about. Davey was standing behind them with a shocked look on his face.
“Oh!” Varlax threw up her hands to cover her now scarlet face, and ran off. Davey just said ‘um.’ Tommy wanted to scold him for listening, but if you came back, and heard people unburdening their heart about you, it might be hard to be a gentleman, particularly if such a concept did not exist in your world.
“Davey,” she said quietly, for it looked as if he were about to bolt too, and unlike Varlax, he might keep running. He blushed.
“I saw some berries, and I came back to give them to you two, and I heard.”
“And you listened.”
He swallowed.
“Yes.” He looked miserable, which Tommy found to be good. He might not know what being a gentleman was, but he had some understanding of privacy. Then he surprised her again. “What should I do, Tommy? I have two sisters, a brother, and some cousins, but me and my brother always wondered who we were to marry, or if we would marry at all.”
“And now you have three girls chasing you.”
He looked even redder in the face, and frantically nodded.
“And you don’t have the faintest clue what to do,” she said, and he nodded in desperate agreement. “Well, come sit by the fire. Mother Tommy is going to set you right. We’ll figure it out, and if you decided on Varlax, well, we can work that out too. She’s embarrassed, but she’ll get over it.” And so Davey came to sit by the fire, and the two talked over the choices and the life consequences of those choices until hours had passed.
Along the way, she asked him how he knew so much. “Oh, Grandfather had found an old library of books in a closed off room. The Bible, Tales of History 1 and 2, Edible Plants of New Jersey, Grimm’s Fairy Tales with The Dancing Princesses (which my brother and I liked because the guy got the choice of three girls) and a dozen others.” He paused, and laughed. “I’m in The Dancing Princesses. I got the choice of three girls. Dan’l is going to be sooooo jealous.”
After giving him much to think over, and pray over, she refused to make his decision for him. “It's your life, Davey. I can’t decide this for you. If I did, you would hold me responsible for whatever happened.”
He nodded, and got up, and left to ‘go think in the woods.’ “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #503: Versers Progress. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
