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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 54: Takano 101
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 17
The following three days took up the same format. During the day, Davey showed them one major thing, and a number of smaller tips. At night, he met several young ladies who came in twos and threes to visit Hulion and his friends' campfire. Davey was making a point to talk to each girl, even those who showed no sign of interest. It was polite, he figured, or so he told Tommy when he discussed the night’s contestants the next day.
When that word ‘contestants’ occurred to her, she giggled so hard, she snorted water up into her nose. They were running the pre-television version of Tribe’s Most Eligible Bachelor. This provided a fertile ground for conversations the next day, and quite a few tried to get Tommy to share either from idle curiosity or from desire to get a leg up on the other contestants. However, she enjoyed her position as Davey’s sole confidant, and she imagined what hurt look there would be in his eyes if she spilled the beans. She could not do that.
The first day he showed them how to smoke rabbit and fish. On the following day it was turning rabbit hide and fur into warm wearable furs. On the third day he showed them how to find the plants to make sewable cord so that they could take the furs and turn them into shoes, and gloves, and neckpieces, and caps.
“You must keep your feet dry, and your head covered. Most of the heat leaving your body is from the head; so says Healthy Survival Medicine.” This last was one of the books that Davey quoted on occasion. The cache of books his grandfather had found were regarded by Davey with great respect, as they should be since their knowledge had kept his grandfather alive. Using them, his family had built on that knowledge with experience, but even still the nineteen books they had were an indescribable treasure.
On the fourth day he began to sort out his choices. Many of them were easy. Just because a girl was unmarried did not mean that she had not picked a guy yet. Some of those relationships were two way, and it had been more pro forma to ask the girl to the fire than anything else. Tommy noticed that Varlax had made the cut into the final seven. So had Rennifer, who had gone from curious to interested. She also noticed that Davey was getting more sociable, which made sense.
To much speculation, he asked the Ruling Council if he could have space and trees to build a log cabin. This request was quickly granted, and it became clear that Davey was definitely going to be part of the Tribe’s future. He had melded well with Hulion’s friends so much so that when he talked to Tommy he frequently said ‘Hulion says--’. His tracking abilities and skill with the compound bow also brought more venison to the Tribe, which was also good.
One other young man tried to challenge him, and everyone learned two facts. Davey and Dan’l had wrestled or ‘jis plain-out fought near every day’ so he had a lot of experience, and living in the woods as a hunter for all one’s life made one tougher than living in the Caves for most of one’s life followed by one year in the woods. To the young challenger’s surprise, though, Davey showed him the ‘rassling trick’ he had used on him, and they became friends.
That day he taught them how to grab salt that the machines put out for the wild animals. The cubes were not the best tasting, but still Tommy took from her handful of salt a pinch, and let it melt on her tongue. Another and another, and another, until finally sickened by the taste, she drank some water. After a bit, she felt stronger, surer. Her body had needed salt. She thought that across the whole group similar scenes must be being played out.
On the morning of the fifth day Davey came to her campfire as the frost was still on the ground. He waited for her to come out and, shivering, she did. Looking up at her as he crouched by the campfire, he breathed and summoned his nerve.
“You are like the older sister I never had, even if you’re younger than me.” She thought to herself that idea of their relative ages might well be wrong. “You’ve given me a chance to--so much. And you taught me to be kind to everyone.”
“When did I do that?” she asked. They had talked and she had mentioned not hurting the girls’ feelings, but she did not remember a general suggestion to be kind.
“By how you live,” he said. Dumbfounded, and shocked, she just cried a bit. He came around the campfire, and handed her a pair of furred mittens, pretending to ignore the tears. “For my younger older sister. I’m going to go into the woods, and be back in a few days. I’m going to try to find some furs, and come back with them, and, well, I’ll ask the girl I hope will want them to tan them with me.”
She grinned. “Nice sense of the dramatic there, little brother.”
“I read it in a story in one of the Books.” He smiled back and even though he still was not good looking, she hugged him. Then he took his fire-hardened spear gifted by the Tribe, his axe, and his compound bow, and walked off into the woods with an almost empty backpack. She enjoyed her nice warm mittens for a bit, and then, shivering, went back into her nest. If only they got enough to make jackets of bunny for everyone. Children first, she reminded herself.
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 #505: Versers Advance. 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:
