Patreon or PayPal Me keeps this site and its author alive. Thank you. |
Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 85: Takano 111
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 27
Tommy heard some of the kids who came by to help themselves to her breakfast mention that some of the adults were mad at Tommy’s suggestion to stick with bucks instead of hunting any deer, including does and fawns. Tommy just gritted her teeth, and did her best not to show aggravation to the children who were openly studying her. She did not want to start a conflict in the tribe, and she could just see the children going to some other adult with ‘oh, Tommy was so mad, she was ready to wrap that rope around someone’s neck.’ Instead, Tommy forced a bright smile, and asked what the children were doing after they finished breakfast.
“Oh, this is my second breakfast,” one said, before his little accomplice next to him kicked him in the ankle. The panicked and guilty looks made her shake her head, but it was hard to be mad at the kids, despite them mooching off her breakfast. Their ringleader, son of Torin, spoke up quickly, trying to change the topic, as if she would forget.
“Davey said to find what he called ‘rose hips’. Lotsa veetmen sea, he said.” Lots of Vitamin C, she mentally translated. She nodded.
“He’s right. You can also make tea out of them. So shoo. You took my breakfast, bring me back tea.” She chased them off with them giggling as she flapped her arms at them, and after they had run off, she caught her breath. She was not the only one getting a bit thin in the face or running short of gasoline in the tank. Some of the parents were looking like her as well. No doubt they were giving most or all of their food to the children.
It was time for desperate measures. She took her metal pot kit, and hiked out into the woods to the spots where she had seen some large ant hills. Quickly she realized that with the frozen ground this was not going to work. Still, she had noted several fallen trees that she had marked off as ‘hers’ with a graffiti symbol of her overlapping double ‘T’. The fanciest one had an entry below the emblem that was open. Going to them, she used her hatchet with cold, stiff fingers, being extra cautious because she was having a hard time holding the tool, and chopped into the trunks of each. Ruthlessly she chopped through her graffiti icon. When it came to Art or Food, she chose Food. Down in the center of them she found large clumps of unmoving ants. Putting these into the pot, she squished them all. She got more, and in an hour had her half-quart pot stuffed full of protein. Tomorrow she would visit some rocks she had picked out that she hoped would have beetles beneath them.
Feeling horrible, she boiled the ants, killing any not already dead, because she did not want another chance of one crawling up her esophagus. On the other hand, she wanted every tiny bit of protein so she eschewed the safest method of decapitation. The distributor of venison came by, and told her that the leaders had quashed any talk of blaming her. Gladly he kept the venison, and she ate ant soup, a lemonade-y thing, for supper. The next morning she had it again for breakfast; it was faintly nasty but she got it down.
Lunch was rose hip tea, followed by a very quick freezing-cold shower. Keeping clean was important to survival, Davey had said. Back at the nest she made sure she was dry. The hunt for beetles went well. They were much larger. She had enough to share with the venison guy, which was good because he said that that day’s hunt had produced nothing. She ate beetles for supper, and had to gag to force them down. Ants were better. Over the next week, she got better at finding ants in trees, and beetles under rocks. She got to know which beetles upset the stomach, and which tasted horrible but were healthy, and the various types that while she would never call them good were not bad. The kids came by, and after some extremely hesitant looks, son of Torin came through, and bravely ate a beetle.
“I’m still alive, can I have another one, Tommy?” In that moment, she found she loved them, not just son of Torin, or the kids, but all of them. Following his example, the kids started eating them, with many winces and strange faces, some on purpose, some as they ate something that tasted strange.
Meanwhile, Davey kept pulling ideas out of the wealth of his knowledge, and even speculation. He told them one day two weeks later to eat a certain herb. Luckily, there was only enough for four people, but they all spent that night with hideous cramps and vomiting, with Tomiko praying over them in the bathroom. The pains came and went with her prayers for relief from the pain delivering the sickly ones before the pain came back again. Finally morning came, and the four recovered.
Exhausted, Tommy went home to see her campfire lit, and then a terrible looking Davey lying by her fire, trying to keep warm. He woke as she called his name, even though she did not want to. She was dreadfully tired, and worn down, but Davey needed her. He sat up and she made some of the last of the rose hip tea to warm him.
They had learned to eat and drink first before talking, so he did so. Then he spoke, his eyes haunted.
“Tommy, I nearly killed four people. I thought that was Green Haze, but it was Painbolt Crampey. They look the same.” He paused.
“An honest mistake,” she assured him.
“No, you didn’t let me finish.” She could see he was dreadfully thin as well. Not just lack of food but responsibility was wearing him down. “They look the same, sort of. I was carefully taught the difference. My father would have a fit if he knew what I did. I just glanced at them, and said it was fine.”
He bowed his head, and she saw tears drip down his face under his hair. She reevaluated. Davey was truly hurting. The nostrums of modern psychiatry, of assurances that it was okay, of how he had not meant to do it, of how people understood, could not reach him. Instead, she reached for a truer remedy.
“You were careless.”
He looked up, and nodded. “I’m tired, and I’m desperate. I’m not sure how we get through the winter. Just a bit more, and we could make it, but we might have to spend the last two weeks with almost no food--especially if the herds don’t come back. It might be better if I died. Least that way, they can eat my body, like in that old story.”
Tomiko felt a chill. Davey was contemplating things that should not be thought. It might lead him down a very dark path. But first, she needed to deal with his guilt.
“Is that enough?” she asked him, and he shook his head.
“I was careless. I nearly killed four people.” She did not remind him that he undoubtedly had saved more than four so far.
“You’re a Christian, right?”
“Well, yes, but what’s that to do with this?”
“You feel guilty because you feel you sinned by being careless, but Christ went to the Cross for that. Just tell God you failed again. I mean, surely this is not the first time you failed?”
“No,” he said uncertainly, but his face had the light of hope restored to it in part. He bowed his head, and muttered quietly. Then he looked up, and although there was pain and regret in his face, the killing guilt was gone.
“We’ve been reading in the Bible about when you do wrong to another, you go to them, and ask forgiveness.” He nodded, stood, swayed, and sat back down. After a minute, he stood more slowly, and walked away. She later heard that he had come crying for forgiveness, and after they had tried to tell him it was not needed, the four and their families had all granted it.
That night after her skimpy supper of beetles she went to find him. He smiled to see her, with still remembered pain. She nodded to go outside his log cabin and, shivering, they both did.
“Davey,” she said when they were both alone, “not only do we all love you, but do not give into despair. You’re not allowed to do that.”
He nodded affirmatively. “It is in the Bible isn’t it? I won’t. I was in a--well, I wasn’t making sense, I hurt so much. That’s what Varlax told me after I told her what you and I had said. She pointed out that even if they ate me, my skills were still more valuable, and that she’d cry so hard she’d lose any benefit of the meal. And then, well--” She thought he blushed in the cold night.
“Right, Davey. You have a wife, a big sister, three wonderful kids, and a whole tribe, plus your family back home. We need you here.”
He looked straight at her.
“I got it. No more despair, come what may.”
The next morning the herds came back in abundance.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
