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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 76: Takano 108
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 308
The son of Torin and his friends came by yelling in the cold air, “Tommy, Tommy, come see.” She came out, shivering in her deer tunic and mittens, to see brightly energetic faces. Permitting herself to be cajoled, she went down to the lake. It was iced over.
“See! It’s ice. We can slide on it!” And the son of Torin took several steps out onto the ice even as Tommy lunged for him. With ice cracking, and water spilling out onto the ice, he yelped and was off balance before Tommy grabbed him and yanked him back ashore.
“Thanks, I--” He did not know what would have happened, but Tommy did. He would have fallen into the water, and probably survived as he was near the edge. She explained to the children, and when asked said that the ice had to get really thick. Taking the kids with her, she went to find Torin. He was home, preparing for a hunt, and he listened gravely as she explained what had almost happened.
“How thick does it have to be to be safe to be on?”
“I don’t know, Torin--just a lot more than you’d expect. Davey would probably know. And if you fall in, in the middle, not the edge like your son almost did, well, it can be really bad.” She explained the difficulties of getting out, of freezing, and of being swept under the ice. He turned to his wife, Alena, who had been listening nearby.
“My heart, go to the other members of the Council, and bring them the Adviser’s word. Tell them I vote to bar anyone from going on the ice until we approve it. I would go myself, but--”
“Deer are getting hard to find.” Alena said softly, and nodded. She smiled at her husband and Tommy, and gave her eldest son a kiss on the forehead with a whisper in his ear before leaving to bring word of the vote.
“Is it really getting harder?”
Torin nodded.
“We have driven the deer farther away, killed many, and the rest change their patterns and behavior in ways we do not completely understand. Just last week I figured out that during really cold mornings the deer stay hidden deep in the brush, not moving, thus hard to find. Today is such a day, but I think I know where they hide, so I’m going into the bush to find them. I think they do this to keep as warm as they can.”
“If it’s hard for them to find food under the snow, they may look elsewhere.”
“Where?”
Tommy shook her head helplessly. She had never hunted a deer.
“You want to come with us?”
“I thought you had your team?”
“One of my hunters slipped on a small bit of ice and fell and injured his arm. I know you’re calm, and if I take you then I won’t have to go through the camp searching for another hunter.”
Tommy thought. She could help, and now that the ice was covering the lake her adventures with stabbing fish seemed to be over. She needed to contribute. Plus, it might be useful in a future world to know how to bowhunt. As to her former feelings about Bambi, well, they had never been that strong, but now when she saw a deer, she did not see Bambi, but instead saw and smelled venison cooking by her fire.
“I’ll need a bow and arrows. I only have my one fishstabber.”
“Son of Torin!” That seemed to be his name, or nickname. “Go get the bow and arrows from Rui.”
“Yes, father.” Son of Torin ducked out and ran off. In a few minutes, he was back, with a simple bow and seventeen arrows. Ten minutes later four more hunters showed up. The total hunting party was six.
“Tommy is new. She’s had some target practice, as everyone has, but this is her first hunt.”
“Aside from those hunts for the mountain lion,” spoke one with a phlegmy cough. Torin accepted the correction.
“Which is part of the reason we hunt in groups. Pigs, wolves, even a group of coyotes might kill a single man, but a group is far stronger. We lean on each other, Tommy.”
She heartily agreed. Every man in the group was taller and stronger and more experienced with a bow than she was.
“That said, if we get a chance for an easy shot, we’ll let Tommy take it. Get her blooded.” This met with general approval as if it were a common thing. Evidently, she was not the first person they had initiated into the life of the hunter. As soon as she walked with them, it became clear that they were some of the best hunters in the tribe. There were others who led their own groups, who individually were as good, and Hulion’s team was very good as well, but Torin really made a point of trying to keep a good group around him.
“It’s cuz his wife, Alena, she’s scared for him,” one said with a smirk, just loud enough for everyone to hear him. They were about a mile from the camps by the time someone made the first joke.
“Unlike you, Chetik: your wife wants you out of the nest,” a second man gibed back at the first.
Chetik shrugged. “Me wife and I love each other, or we’re screaming at each other. No in between. Only way to get some peace and quiet is to go hunting with these idiots.”
“High drama,” Tommy said, which confused them so she had to explain. “It’s like a story of heroes and villains. She wants to be in a story.”
“Huh--then am I the hero or villain?”
Several calls of ‘villain’ rose from the other men, but Tommy pondered.
“Both, maybe. You’re the Breaker of Altars and the Scout Who Finds Food, but it changes day by day, as the story in her head changes. I don’t know Chetik, I could be wrong. I don’t really know your wife that well.”
“It makes some sense,” Chetik allowed. Another man spoke up.
“Wimmen be crazy.”
Nobody objected to that, and Tommy felt she ought to, on behalf of the sisterhood, but being accepted as one of these hunters--well, it warmed her soul. Also, once in a while she had thought the same thing. Men could be idiots, but women were crazy.
Torin spoke for the first time. “Now that we have solved the mysteries of life, let’s hunt.” Grinning at each other, the hunting group pushed farther into the snowy woods. Snowflakes dropped out of the sky, and Torin led them deeper into brushland, looking for the elusive deer.
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 #509: Character Challenges. 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:
