by Joe Zeigler
“You should not say such things about the other girls,” she chastised him angrily. It was an anger that covered her confusion.
This accusation made no sense to her, and yet, at the same time, Micaela recognized the truth when she heard it. There is something wrong. It was not betrayal she felt, because all of her life as an orphan, she had wondered what was promised. Just because she had accepted, this didn’t mean she was stupid. She had to face the fact that this humiliation and subjugation of young girls at the Breeding was wrong. Sun did indeed work in strange ways.
“But, Micaela, you now are free to enjoy sex, so enjoy me.” Once again, Maxtla extended his rod, which had regained its former glory.
Micaela stared openly, burning every detail into her whirling mind as she deciphered exactly how it worked. “In your dreams, great hunter,” Micaela replied, and in two great steps, she was out of the wash and on her way into the future. She had had enough of men and their rods. It just…just wasn’t nice. Perhaps I’ve had enough of Sun as well. She quickly quelled that thought.
The next morning, just as Danijel had directed or suggested—it was hard to tell which and still harder not to obey him—they were moving as the Sun gave birth to another day. Micaela was not as cheerfully optimistic as she normally was. First, they would leave the river today. It departed to the east as they continued south toward the Virgins.
The Virgins, she thought and then felt worse. Perhaps she should have sex with Maxtla, and in return, he would look after her and the child she knew was coming. What are the odds? she wondered and concluded they were not very good. She brightened as she said to herself, I’ll just have to take care of us myself. It is unfortunate that the basket deal with Gedeon fell through. Something else will provide an opportunity. Sun will provide. And she shaded her eyes.
The Toll
It seemed that the farther they traveled from the river, the hotter the days and colder the nights. Micaela, Glooscap, and Uggla had transferred their loads to the travois to free their bodies to breathe during the day. The three of them used all the furs as cover when they clung together for warmth at night.
They would load the travois in the chill of the morning and make good time, propelled by the cold, until midmorning, when the heat built to an unbearable intensity that only increased in the afternoon. It was hell, and for some of the old people, it was their last stop. Iccauhyah was one of those who succumbed to the elements. After burying him with the help of two admiring young men, Şule was left to her own devices. She was surprised to find she was saddened by the loss of Iccauhyah, afraid of what may happen to her, insecure for the first time since her mother had died, and very excited about her prospects. It was a strange and confusing time for her.
***
Finally. Liùsaidh sighed. We are climbing out of the desert. There were trees. The forest was slowly becoming thicker. The last day’s push through the desert had been hard, especially on the youngest and the oldest. On the last day, two more had died from the heat and exertion.
Liùsaidh noticed Cuidightheach of the scouts approach Danijel to say something. Danijel nodded and said something to him in return. Cuidightheach then moved back along the line of the march. As the front of the long line crested the next hill, a stranger stood in the middle of the trail through the trees. He was bare-chested and appeared to be unarmed, though he had the white eagle feather of the Raiders woven into his hair. Danijel raised his arm, communicating a halt and something else. The hunters, who had not yet come into the sight of the Raider, evaporated into the trees on either side of the column.
Danijel advanced casually toward the man who so boldly blocked the way. He continued to move forward until he was within an arm’s length of the man and looking down at his tilted-up face.
Danijel said nothing.
The Raiders, after being driven out of the Highland by Gedeon and his group, had accepted the inevitable, even chosen to take advantage of it. They traversed the desert quickly and arrived at the tree line ahead of Danijel’s people. They planned to collect tribute. But now the Raider was becoming uncertain as he looked up at Danijel’s expressionless face staring down at him from a distance of fewer than two feet. Danijel was definitely and calmly in his space.
Danijel did not move or make a sound. Finally, the Raider said, “I am here to collect the toll. You cannot pass until you pay.”
Danijel continued to stare. This is certainly different, he thought. The Raiders rarely confront their victims head-on. Their style is to pick off stragglers or small hunting parties. They have always behaved like vultures, not warriors. They must be desperate.
It had now been four minutes since his hunters had vanished into the trees. Liùsaidh was amazed, as the trees were not very thick at this elevation. She expected to see the hunters moving between them. But she saw nothing, no movement in any direction, as Danijel faced down the representative of the Raiders. She knew the man was not alone. She was certain his friends were dispersed all around them, prepared to enforce his demands. She reached slowly inside her covering and gripped the handle of her club.
“You must give us two girls—virgins—plus one hundred arrowheads before you pass,” the man continued sweat beading on his face. This was not going at all as he had envisioned. He had anticipated fear, if not groveling, from these peasants. Most of these Canyon People were not even real hunters. They would not hunt larger game and instead satisfied themselves with squirrels, rabbits, and such. They would be no match for the Raiders with their warrior ways. Or so he had thought. Now, he was having doubts as Danijel continued to dominate the space. He glanced nervously about and saw no movement. He would have been relieved to see his people moving up to reinforce him. This plan for one person to block the road and make demands did not appear to be making an impression.
Micaela, who had moved up with some of the others, overheard and wondered if she would be part of the payment. No, she thought, I’m not a virgin. I’m safe from that fate. Not having freely given herself to any man, she still thought of herself as a virgin. But she knew she would never be one in a man’s eyes.
Five minutes had now passed, and Danijel, with no windup, struck the bridge of the man’s nose with his left hand, breaking it high between the eyes. Before he could react, Danijel followed with an upward thrust—the palm of his right hand hit the bottom of the man’s nose and drove the broken bone into his brain. Danijel stepped back. For a long second, the man continued to stand, his eyes wide, as if surprised to find himself dead. Then he collapsed to the ground.
Danijel looked up to see that the Raiders had shown themselves. They were arrayed in a semicircle that encompassed the lead elements of the group. All of them bore spears and appeared menacing, though temporarily confused as to their next step. It seemed that Danijel’s reaction to their demands was different from their expectations. Their demands had been rebuffed in the past but only after a lengthy negotiation. Never had their envoy been cut down with nary a word spoken. They glanced at one another, deciding if one of them should speak to this strange, tall man or if they should just attack and take what they wanted.
Then came a shout, the bellow of the noisemakers, and Danijel’s hunters, who had quietly positioned themselves in a semicircle behind the Raiders. They moved into the Raiders from behind, swinging their clubs. The Raiders, already uncertain and now taken by surprise, retreated into the center of the circle slowly formed by the women during Danijel’s five-minute silent confrontation. The Raiders ran forward, but it wasn’t an attack; it was a retreat, a rout ending in the center of the circle, where they were severely beaten by the women and again by the hunters coming up behind.
Two ran directly at Danijel with spears leveled. Danijel feinted to the left, then moved half the distance back, and the spear tips passed on either side. Pivoting, he struck the man on the right in the face with his club and continued his pivot. The club landed with a dull thud on the back of the second man’s head. Both went down, and a multitude o
f screaming women instantly set upon them. Danijel faced outward once again to meet the next attacker, only to realize they had all been struck down.
“Enough,” he shouted to those still pounding on the fallen enemy. “Don’t injure them so severely that they cannot walk out of here. We don’t want to be burdened with prisoners.”
It was the Raiders’ second defeat in less than a week, this one more humiliating than the one before.
Then Danijel’s hunters moved back into the column, and forward progress resumed; each person took a swing with a club as the column passed the Raiders. The defeated warriors scrambled away, as well as they were able. It was clear to Micaela why the hunters carried none of the baggage. They needed their hands free in case of attacks like this one. On the other hand, the women gave a good account of themselves, regardless of their load.
Bleeding the Sheep
Gedeon and Nergui were sorting out the prisoners previously held by the Raiders. They were six—four women, just girls actually, and two children. The Raiders were fond of capturing or kidnapping young girls, as their status within their tribe hinged on the number of wives they supported. The women were healthy and in good spirits after being rescued.
“No man touched us,” one of the girls, Tsetseg, explained. “We were to remain virgins and be given to the bravest men in the Fall Campaign. That’s what they called their plan to steal from the groups migrating down slope for the winter.”
A good story. This girl thinks fast, Gedeon thought. I hope they all stick to it.
One of the younger Traders was shocked. “They plan to steal? The whole tribe? Do they not follow the teaching of Sun of God?”
“Yes,” Tsetseg answered, “they are very religious. We received sermons every day when not traveling, to prepare us to become sacred mates for our future husbands. I recall some of the indoctrination they kept repeating. ‘Prepare to present yourself to your husband, tender and chaste and delicate before God, which thing is pleasing unto God.’ They believe that God demands a man take more than one wife, all of whom must be virgins. Not doing so promotes evil, prostitution, adultery, disease, lust, and deceit.”
“Sun!” the young man exclaimed. “How many wives do they lust for?”
“The number four was often mentioned,” she replied. “But that is not a rule. The rule, they assured us, is that the husband must treat all of his wives equally. If he does so, he may take as many wives as he can support.”
“That’s why they seek to capture young girls,” Nergui injected. “I imagine there is a constant shortage.”
“Don’t they know that Sun forbids adultery and stealing?”
“They do,” Gedeon continued as some of the younger men gathered around to listen. “They do not consider themselves adulterous because they have married all of them, and the marriages are sanctioned by their church. In any case, and this covers the stealing, too—they know they are doing Sun’s will—yes, and they can prove it’s God’s will because ‘if what they did was wrong, Sun would not let them do it.’ They call stealing ‘bleeding the sheep,’ and kidnapping women is ‘bringing them to God.’”
“Yes,” Tsetseg injected, “and if anyone, meaning us, rejects these practices, they will suffer damnation and never enter into Sun’s Glory.”
“That would be after being beaten senseless in this world and taken by force,” one of the other girls added as Tsetseg gave her an angry look.
Gedeon cringed, as she was coming very close to revealing the truth. Then he quietly took his leave as the conversation between the young men and the women continued. He smiled ironically, as he recalled that the young men had become much more interested after learning that the women were virgins. Well, perhaps that would solve the problem of what to do with them. He decided to keep them in camp for a week and let nature take its course. The children would not be a problem. They would be adopted or otherwise assimilated into the tribe in short order.
The older, more experienced men were gathering the Raiders’ abandoned loot. Besides arrowheads, spear tips, jewelry, baskets, skins, and clay pots, they found trade goods such as stone beads, bowstrings, chipped stone tools, white-tail-deer hides, and some corn maize. But other than the small amount of maize, there was very little food, which explained the Raiders’ desperation. Gedeon smiled—in addition to protecting their custom, this little endeavor would be very profitable in itself.
Glancing back, he saw that the initial gathering had broken up into three smaller groups, each with one of the young ladies they had freed in the center, surrounded by young men. This problem was resolving itself faster than he had anticipated. He smiled. He’d give them another half hour before ordering the return to the campsite. After all, they had to prepare for the next group of migrants, who could now arrive unmolested.
He would rather have driven the Raiders back to the east, whence they had come, and not south, where they would surely harass immigrants. But he knew that to be impossible. The Raiders might have taken an easterly heading initially, but in the end, they would have turned south or worse, north. Raiders—that was what they were. That was what they did. And they believed in their hearts that God bade them do it. And they needed food.
Gedeon would have preferred it if the Raiders were bad people. He could work with bad people who knew they were bad. With a carrot or a stick, he could modify their behavior—since they were bad and knew it, it followed that they also knew the right way to behave. They simply had to be incited to do it. Good people like these Raiders were hopeless. They believed fanatically that they were doing the right thing, and if they did it religiously and well, they would be rewarded in the afterlife. There was no dealing with such good people. They had to be driven off or killed.
Given the two bad choices, south was better.
Şule Develops
Tired of Uggla’s whining and laziness, Micaela had managed to lose him by moving up the column quickly, leaving him behind without assuming any more of his load. But now she had Şule tagging along. Since Iccauhyah’s death in the desert, Şule had attached herself to Micaela.
“I’m sorry about Iccauhyah,” Micaela said, feeling it obligatory. She didn’t know Şule other than in passing and hadn’t known Iccauhyah even that well.
“Thank you, Micaela. I miss him, though I think it’s more that I’m afraid to be alone. He wasn’t a very nice man. And he was lazy. Ha.” She laughed ironically. “I don’t have any more to carry since his passing. I was carrying it all anyway. Actually, I have less, as I’ve traded or thrown away his belongings.”
“Still,” Micaela replied, a little at a loss as to what to say.
“I was with one of the elders yesterday,” Şule said in what at first seemed a non sequitur. “He fed me.”
“He did?” Micaela said, not understanding. Şule didn’t answer, and Micaela thought it best to let it pass as they trudged on in the heat.
“And,” she continued, “he gave me gifts.”
Micaela was silent.
“Don’t be like that,” Şule said irritability. “I grew up a child of the village. Many of the men have shared me already. It’s too late to claim virginity—they all know. I may as well get something for it—and I’m in control.”
Micaela nodded and said nothing, though her resolve strengthened. It seemed odd, though. She didn’t remember Şule from other migrations. But, she was of the Jah, and they were all a little strange.
They passed through an area of large agave plants, and many of the women broke away to harvest the juice. Each had a long, hollow reed. Pushing away the fat green leaves protecting the center of the plant, they pressed the reeds into the juice cavity. First, they sucked a sample, swishing it around in their mouths to test it. The best liquid was slightly alcoholic, the fermentation process having already started in the plant. Once a plant was selected, they plunged the reed deeper and sucked out the juice, a mouthful at a time. Then they spat it into the fermentation skin. After each mouthful, they would collect their
saliva and deposit that too into the skin. This was critical to the fermentation. The saliva came quickly due to the sour taste of the thick white juice.
The agave plants grew only in a thin slice of elevation and then gave way as the sage bushes became closer together. Micaela could see small, scattered pine trees ahead. Later, the forest was thicker and the pine trees taller as they moved between the Mounds of the Virgins. She could see the Smoking Mountains ahead. Soon they would turn east, back into the desert, to skirt the largest and most active of the volcanoes, and then they would wind their way through the ruins of dozens of ancient, extinct volcanoes. Every mile or so they would pass abandoned structures built of stone, the wooden roofs rotted long ago and blown away. As they penetrated the Mountains of the Virgins, they found the advance party of hunters waiting beside a spring with a feast prepared as Danijel had promised. It was well anticipated and enjoyed by all, though they were not as boisterous as the last time. They were exhausted from the struggle with the desert.
Micaela, Liùsaidh, and some of the others slipped into the spring after eating and remained as long as they could in the cold water. Micaela wondered what had become of Şule. She had gone off with an older, but not old, man the night before and had not returned. All of her gear is still here, Micaela thought, looking around. She’ll be back.
Danijel let them linger until midmorning before they took up their baggage and followed the trail east. By that time, Şule had indeed returned and, saying nothing, organized her load for the journey. Micaela gave her credit as, without a word, she picked up some of Uggla’s load that Micaela had been carrying.
Şule’s not a bad or even immoral person, she thought. She is just trying to survive in a world with men’s rules—like the rest of us.
By the end of the day, they had crossed this small patch of desert, and in the distance, Micaela could see a large, two-story structure positioned on a hill. She knew that once they reached this landmark, the worst of the journey would be over. This abandoned trading post marked the end of their climb through the group of volcanic mountains. After that, it was flat ground to the canyon of the Cliff Dwellers, and then the rest of the journey would be easier. But for now, it was uphill and would be so for a little while longer. After the push through the desert and now with the uphill climb, the group was moving slowly.