by Laura Taylor
CHAPTER SIX
Ten minutes after her somewhat unconventional introduction to the tribe, Dusk followed Aidan into a draughty shack. He’d promised the men they’d have plenty of time to get to know her at the evening meal – which was apparently going to be a party of sorts – then hurried her off to get her cleaned up and properly fed.
“This is the washhouse,” he told her, leading her into a building that was roughly six metres long and three metres wide. Inside, it was nothing special, corrugated iron walls and a wooden floor with thin gaps between the planks. “There’s a water tank out back and taps on the wall. It’s river water, and with the drought on, you probably shouldn’t drink it. The river’s still running, but only just, and we’ve had to dig into the riverbed to pump the water. We’re boiling our drinking water at the moment. The bucket-bath is the fashion of the day,” he went on, retrieving a metal pail from a shelf. “In winter, people heat their own water and carry it over, but in summer we tend to just use cold water. If that’s okay…?”
“Cold is fine,” Dusk agreed. Far from being a problem, it would actually be a relief from the heat. The water in the pipes was probably at least twenty-five degrees anyway.
“There are jugs and soap,” Aidan said, collecting both items from a cupboard and putting them on a shelf beside one of the taps. “We’re not desperately short of water at the moment, but at the same time, we don’t like wasting it. The drain under the floor is connected to one of the veggie gardens,” he added as an aside. “You’ve got everything you need?” He loitered near the doorway, seeming oddly nervous.
“This is a communal washhouse, isn’t it?” she asked, the finer details of the setup not escaping her. “So anyone could come wandering in at any moment?” There was no way in hell she was getting naked and wet if that was the case. Her captors had spent the last few days telling her in vivid detail what they planned to do to her once they got back to their camp, and she wasn’t going to risk a demonstration from one of the over-eager bastards who comprised her new ‘family’.
“I’m going to stand guard outside,” Aidan told her quickly. “No one will bother you. And in the longer term, we’ll work something out, put a lock on the door, or maybe build a second washhouse. We haven’t had a whole lot of planning time right here.” He paused, and his expression softened. Just for a moment, she was captivated by piercing blue eyes. “You’re not going to be raped, Dusk. I won’t allow it.”
Once again, she had a choice: she could trust Aidan to keep his word and keep the rest of the men outside, or she could tell him where to stick his bath and continue being dusty and filthy for the foreseeable future.
“Fine,” she said shortly, figuring she’d made it this far. “Go wait outside then.” She made a shooing motion with her hands, and Aidan obligingly left.
Once the door was closed, she stood about for a moment, feeling strangely lost. There were a couple of stools along one wall, and she set her new belongings down – a clean set of clothes and a towel, along with a comb and a toothbrush. Aidan had stopped at one of the cabins on the way here and produced the items from inside. It was yet another example of the village’s foresight – Aidan had told her they’d stockpiled clothing in a range of sizes, for both men and women, along with toiletries and basic, everyday items that might prove useful – the comb being a prime example. Five years on, the toothpaste and shampoo had run out long ago, but the village had learned to make their own soap, and their flock of sheep meant there was plenty of sheep fat to use as the main ingredient.
Dusk stripped off her clothes, pausing to examine the stab wound on her leg. It looked as good as could be expected. Hopefully the bleeding had cleared out any contamination, and with a few basic medical supplies, she hoped to get away without an infection. But her naked body was a cause for concern. She’d lost a surprising amount of weight recently, her hip bones sticking out, her ribs clearly visible. Hopefully, a week or two of decent meals would put a bit of weight back on.
She took her time with her bath, washed her dark hair and scrubbed her skin until it was pink. It wasn’t just the dust she was trying to get rid of. There was also the lingering disgust of her captors’ hands on her skin, though she suspected that would take longer to wash away. She dressed in her new clothes – plain shorts and a t-shirt, the clothes the tribe had gathered being practical rather than fashionable – and combed her hair. She’d cut it short after the collapse, and Kathy had trimmed it periodically for her, while Dusk had returned the favour…
A sudden urge to cry rose up at the memory of her best friend, stinging her eyes and making her throat tight. “If we’re going to go down,” Kathy had said to her repeatedly over the years, “then we may as well go down in flames!” It was a mantra Dusk had repeated to herself numerous times, a steadfast promise that neither of them would give up without a fight. But then, just three days ago, Kathy had looked her in the eye, whispered a harsh, “I’m sorry,” and thrown herself off the bridge. She’d left Dusk all alone…
Dusk pushed the wave of emotion aside. The world had made it clear that these days, grief was an idle luxury.
Aidan had provided clean socks, so she put them on, then pulled on her boots again. Her feet were tough as leather, her little group of survivors having deliberately spent time going about barefoot, just in case they didn’t have the choice one day, but until she learned the lie of the land in this new place, she felt safer wearing shoes.
Clean and more comfortable than she’d been in days, she opened the door, finding Aidan leaning against a post, arms folded. He looked around as she came out. “Feel better? How’s the leg?”
“I wouldn’t mind dressing it again,” she replied. “It’d be good to keep the dirt out until it heals a bit.”
“I’ve got a first-aid kit in my cabin. Come on, this way.”
She followed him, looking around to memorise the layout of the village a bit more as they walked. “You have a cabin all to yourself?” She hadn’t specifically counted the buildings, but there was no way there were enough for each man to have his own.
“I do. One of the perks of being the tribal chief, I guess.”
“You’re the leader here?” Well, that answered that question, at least. “But you said Torrent owned the land. Why didn’t he get to be chief? Or Whisper? You said yourself; most people here owe him their lives.”
“If Whisper had wanted the top job, he could probably have had it. But he made it clear it wasn’t for him. Being the leader doesn’t just mean you get to push people around or get the biggest house and the best food. Well, not here at least,” he amended his comment quickly. “There are certainly some slaver tribes where that would be the case. Some of it comes down to having a certain skill set, being able to fight, or hunt, or whatever. A lot of it is about getting along with people, guiding the tribe down a path that enough people are happy with to make it work. That’s where Torrent falls down – he’s said it himself, he’s not a real ‘people person’. But with the world the way it is now, it also means having to make decisions. Tough decisions. Sometimes brutal decisions. And I guess I’ve proven I’m pragmatic enough that people figure I can handle that.”
“Tough decisions? Like what?” She’d had to make plenty of difficult choices herself, but she wondered what specifically Aidan had been up against.
“Like taking you as my wife,” he replied without hesitation. “There are plenty of people here who are going to be pissed off about that, people who’ve got very good skills and who’ve put in a huge amount of effort to get this tribe to where it is today. Some of the men want children. There are plenty of them who just want sex, too, and we’ve been without women for long enough that some people are starting to get desperate.”
Dusk stopped and looked around the village again. It was relatively quiet for the time being, and she imagined everyone must be off trying to get their work done as best they could in the heat. The place was neat, organised, and peaceful… but as with most stories, th
ere was bound to be a hidden, deeper side to the tribe.
“You’re saying some of them are sleeping with each other,” she said, a statement, not a question.
“It was a well-known phenomenon in male prisons, back in the day,” Aidan said, not even trying to deny it. “And in female prisons, as well, for that matter. They’re not gay. Well, Tom is,” he corrected himself. “You’ll meet him later. But he’s the only one. The rest of them are just…”
“Lonely? Stressed? Frustrated? I get it.” It certainly wasn’t the strangest thing she’d seen people do to maintain their sanity. But something about the way Aidan had phrased the information struck her as unusual. “You’re not participating in it?” she prompted. “I mean, you and Whisper haven’t…?”
Aidan gave a harsh laugh. “Not Whisper, no. As far as I’m aware, he’s been celibate since…” He stopped suddenly, and Dusk was curious enough to urge him to continue.
“Since…?”
Aidan took a deep breath. “Yeah, that’s not my story to tell.” He started walking again, and Dusk fell into step beside him. “It’s not just about having a warm body beside you,” he continued after a moment. “It’s about having something worth living for. Without women, without children, this tribe has no future. And in a world where the next storm or the next bushfire could wipe us out anyway, maintaining hope is a damn hard thing to do.
“But now we have one woman and fifty men, and that means that someone has to have a wife, and everyone else has to damn well put up with it. That’s not an easy position to be in, and it’s even harder to take that on and convince everyone it’s going to be okay in the long run.”
It was a fascinating insight into Aidan’s mind. Dusk was still a long way from happy about having to let a virtual stranger have sex with her, but it was oddly comforting to know that he wasn’t doing it because he just wanted to take the spoils for himself and leave everyone else to burn. It couldn’t be an easy job, balancing the various tensions between the tribe’s desires, her safety and the path towards a brighter future. Nor was it a sure bet for him; he had no idea what sort of woman she was, or whether he might end up regretting pairing up with her, and she felt her respect for him go up a notch.
They arrived at a cabin, not particularly large, but more than adequate for two people, and Aidan stepped inside, holding the door open for her to follow.
“Why are there no women here?” she asked as she came through the door. The cabin was neat and cosy, a fireplace in the middle of the back wall, a wooden table in the centre of the room and a double bed at one end – presumably looted after the crash, as she didn’t suppose they would have spent their money on such luxuries when a dairy cow or stock horse would have had a far greater impact on their chances of survival. “Some of the men who came at the beginning must have had families, or girlfriends. Where are they now?” Though she needed to know the answer, she was also apprehensive about what it might be.
“Dead,” Aidan said blackly. “The tribe who captured you aren’t the only raiders around these parts. In the first two years, we were attacked nine times. We hadn’t got our defences sorted then, and we were naïve enough to think staying hidden would protect us. The women all got killed or kidnapped. A fair few of the men, too. There used to be nearly a hundred of us. Now we’ve got fifty-one. Whisper taught us to fight – he used to be a martial arts instructor – but we also had to figure a lot of it out on our own. Martial arts training doesn’t cover guerrilla warfare in dense bushland. Now, we have sentries in the trees around the village, and we regularly send out scouts to patrol our territory.”
It was a grim answer, but not an unrealistic one. After the technological age had collapsed, a lot of people had started off just trying to secure enough land to grow food, enough water to keep the plants alive, and many had been caught off-guard by the sheer brutality of this new world order. Killing had become a necessary part of life, and those who hadn’t learned to embrace it had fallen victim to it instead.
“What are you up for next?” Aidan asked. “I can take you around the village a bit more, show you the veggie garden and the sheep paddocks. Or down to the river and show you where the borders of the village are. Or you could just have a nap for a while if you like. Whatever suits you. The evening’s likely to get a bit rowdy. There’ll be plenty of food and we brew our own beer, but don’t expect too much. A lot of the guys haven’t quite figured out if they’re thrilled you’re here, or totally pissed off that you’re off-limits.”
“I think I’ll have a nap,” Dusk said, eyeing the bed longingly. “It’s been a long day.” It had been a long lifetime. Aside from her physical exhaustion, she also needed some time alone to sort through her tumultuous emotions.
Aidan nodded. “I’ll be working in the main house. We tend to do indoors sorts of things when the weather gets like this. If you get lost, just ask anyone and they’ll point you in the right direction. And if anyone gives you trouble, don’t be afraid to punch them in the face. These are good men,” he added, at her look of disquiet, “but as I’ve said, they’re also desperate. It’s going to take them a couple of days to get used to this.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Aidan got back to the cabin in the late afternoon, it was empty, and he felt an unreasonable trickle of fear. Don’t be stupid, he told himself. There was no reason for Dusk to have run away already. It was far more likely she’d just woken up and gone exploring.
The first place he decided to check was the fire circle – he didn’t expect to find her there, but he might find someone who’d seen where she’d gone. But as luck would have it, when he came up the path she was right there, sitting beside Stick and Tom, and the little stutter of relief his heart did was both reassuring and irritating. He’d known this woman for only a couple of hours and he had no reason to be feeling so damn protective of her already.
She was wearing jeans now, and he was glad he’d thought to give her a couple of different things to wear. A stiff southerly wind had blown up an hour or so ago, and the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in thirty minutes. It looked like the night was going to be pleasantly cool – a welcome change to the last few nights, when it hadn’t dropped below a sweltering thirty degrees Celsius.
As he came closer, he saw she was chewing the last remaining meat off a joint of rabbit. Her short, dark hair was tousled, her dark eyes landing on him as he approached. There was a long, pale scar on her wrist that he hadn’t noticed before, and he wondered how she’d got it. “Hey. How’s it going?” he asked, taking a seat beside her.
“I was hungry,” she said, around a mouthful of food. “Stick said I could have this.” The challenge in her voice was obvious.
“I did,” Stick confirmed. “She was hungry, and…” He trailed off, and Aidan fought not to smile. As far as Stick was concerned, that would have been reason enough. The young man was generous to a fault, and always eager to try and make other people happy.
“No problem,” Aidan replied genially. “We’re not short of food. We don’t always have a great variety,” he added, “but there’s no need to go hungry.”
Dusk nodded, ripping another mouthful off the bone with her teeth. Aidan noticed there were also two pear cores sitting beside her. She must have had a regular supply of food up until fairly recently, he reflected. She was lean – leaner than could really be called healthy – but if she’d been starving for a significant time, she wouldn’t have been able to eat as much as she was without her stomach rebelling and quite probably making her vomit.
But there was something else beside the pear cores; a sheet of paper with a detailed sketch on it, and he peered over to see that Tom had drawn a picture of a hamburger for her.
“I see you’ve discovered our resident artist,” he said with a smile. Tom grinned shyly, tossed a lock of brown hair out of his eyes and promptly sat on his slender hands. Paper was a scarce commodity now that there were no factories making any more of it, and each hand-drawn picture was a uniqu
e and precious gift. He wasn’t sure if Dusk quite appreciated the value of the drawing yet, but she’d learn the subtleties of the tribe’s culture soon enough.
“Tom said he draws things for people when they miss stuff in the old world,” Dusk explained, though Aidan was well aware of his talents. “It was… I don’t know… you go for weeks or months without thinking about it all, and then suddenly you see something bright yellow, and your brain does a little backflip, and I’m thinking ‘Shit, it’s been four whole years since a McDonald’s even existed’.”
“It was a pleasure to draw it for you,” Tom said, and Aidan imagined it must be true. Most of the requests he got these days were for pictures of scantily clad women, which the men promptly secreted away for use in their ‘private time’.
“See, this is what we should have more of,” Dusk said, her tone taking on a sharper edge. “Friendly young men, interesting conversation, and no one trying to stick their hand down my shirt.”
Aidan burst out laughing at that, not just at her words, but because Stick had suddenly turned bright red. He was too young and inexperienced to even consider trying to make a move on Dusk, and as far as Aidan was aware, he hadn’t tried anything with any other men, either. Rather, he was content to take care of his own needs in private.
But he was also good friends with Tom – an interesting friendship, since Tom was in his late thirties and far more sedate than Stick’s exuberant nature. But then again, Tom hadn’t exactly had it easy. He was the only truly homosexual man in the tribe, and as such, he was almost guaranteed a lonely future without much hope for a long-term partner. But at the same time, given the current state of things, he’d also been on the receiving end of any number of lewd invitations, with most of the men expecting him to take them up on their offers for no other reason than his sexual orientation.