She had felt the ankle turn under her as she went down, but it was too late. Before she could recover, she felt herself being quickly turned over. She looked up, and it was the angry man! Oh, but he was fast! She cringed up in a ball protecting her face and head from the blow that she expected... When it didn’t come, it surprised her to see the horrified look on the angry man’s face. It was replaced for a moment by such a look of deep sorrow that Elena wanted to cry all over again. When he spoke, though, his voice was soft and deep and gentle. Starting at her head, he took her in his hands. They were firm and checking her for injuries, no matter if she wanted it or not, but they weren’t rough or mean, just not to be denied. All the while, he kept softly talking to her in that strange language. She did not know what he was saying. It might be “I’m going to kill you” she thought, but as long as he kept saying it that way, she would be happy to sit here stupidly and listen. Despite all the trauma of the day, she couldn’t help thinking to herself, “he’s inspecting you like a horse. If he, checks your teeth, whinny at him.” When he finally made it down to her left ankle, she jumped. As he slid her heavy woolen skirt up just a bit, it was already starting to swell. She groaned, “Is this where he puts me out out of my misery like a lame horse?” she thought bitterly.
Instead, he just swore softly, but without all the fire he had showed earlier. In several trips he just moved us all up a small hill to rest in the shade of a large tree. While resting, he unpacked and repacked all three packs, hauling two of them high into the tree. He marked the tree with his axe. Then handed the remaining pack to the other man. To her complete amazement, the angry man actually smiled at Elena as he not only helped her to her feet, but up on to his own back. Using some odd material to help strap her in place there. This was not what she had expected of him. He didn’t even seem angry about it. At first she thought he might have been because he would use the axe to strike a tree along the way every so often, but soon enough she realized that he was just marking his trail so he could find his way back to the things he left.
Another hour or so along the way and he actually jiggled her in the harness and whinnied like she was a little girl being entertained. It was so weird, but she couldn’t help laughing. He seemed pleased. Maybe this would not be all bad. As the day drew on, she wasn’t sure when exactly her head lay down on his shoulder, and she fell asleep.
Not so Triumphant Return
It was getting late in the afternoon when Davidson finally trudged tiredly into camp. He had sent Dr. Gupta on ahead several times as he hung back to make sure that they weren’t being followed. So between that, their accident along the way, and the little extra circuitous route he had used, it had taken most of the day before he could drag the three of them back to the little shaded grove of trees that was now looking much more like a defendable camp.
Lightweight lean-tos were arranged in such a way that they acted as a blind, screening the small reinforced palisade of wrist thick saplings that could act as a defendable retreat of last resort if they were attacked. It wasn’t horribly sturdy or spacious by anyone’s imaginings, but given the state of the locals, Davidson judged it would actually be effective enough at slowing them down long enough to give the defenders a real advantage. He thought to himself, “I have to remember to praise St. Claire and Godfreed. For just two days with no more work crew than they had, this is impressive.” The others saw him coming, and all came bounding up, but stopped and stared at their new guest with curious expressions.
Dr. Stone was the first to crudely broach the subject. “Find you a little local action Commander?” she said just a little hotly.
Davidson was pissed but before he could reply Dr. Young replied in a catty tone, “Afraid you’ve got some competition?”
He wanted to grin at the combined look of shame and anger that came over Dr. Stone’s face, but he knew he couldn’t let this get out of hand. “Enough!” he roared. He instantly regretted it when he felt the little girl startle awake on his back and tense in fear. “What is this? High School?” He unstrapped his harness and helped the girl down, catching her as she winced from the pain in her ankle and nearly fell. In a gentle voice he said, “Shh... it’s alright. I know it hurts, but it’s just a sprain. You’ll be fine in a couple of days.” Then looking at the two women who were just staring at him, “Her own father just sold her for the price of a space blanket.” His tone of disgust clear to all. “How could I not take her away from that?” He continued, his tone not relenting. “She’s been pulled from the only life she’s ever known and dragged on a long trek. She’s hurt, exhausted, and scared.” He shook his head. “She has no idea who we are or what we’re going to do to her, and she can’t understand a damn word we say, so we can’t even tell her!” his frustration was rising. “Anything in her story relatable to anyone lately?” He took a deep breath and held it for a long ten count, and no one made a sound. As he released it audibly, he looked directly at the two women. “Perhaps, you two could find enough basic human compassion in your hearts to help her take a bath. Check for vermin, her people are barely more than cavemen.” as he said the last he nearly spat. “Put her in St. Claire’s old flight suit. It’s gotta be cleaner than what she’s wearing. We can get it washed tomorrow.”
He looked down for a moment, the wear and tear of this week fully exposed on his face for just a moment, but he pushed it away. “Look, people, this isn’t easy for any of us. We’re all we’ve got, and this isn’t the friendly, forgiving world we left with safety nets and support networks. There is no 911 to call, and we’re not going back to that world anytime soon if ever. Hell, the eight people you can see, are the only eight people in the world who even speak your language. So this is no time to fight. Do what you can to help each other out. It really is a matter of life and death, yours.” He took a moment to make eye contact with each of them. Once he was sure that they had actually heard him he stretched and said, “St. Claire and Godfreed, huddle up, we’ve got some things to go over before it gets dark.”
He half sat, half fell into the shade of one of the lean to’s as he watched the others getting back to business. The new girl had a bit of an awed look on her face. She just kept looking between him and the others. He knew she was trying to figure out what all of that was about, but he didn’t have the energy to explain it to her, even if he had the words. He was just happy that the two women were gentle with her as they led her off to a section of the creek that they had screened off and deepened to be used for bathing. St. Claire grinned at him as he and Godfreed came over and squatted down on their haunches. “You look like hell boss.”, he said, not letting the grin fade.
Davidson snorted. “Nothing two days of sleep wouldn’t fix.” Then he sighed. “Like that’s going to happen... Kind of what I wanted to talk to you guys about. Good job on securing this place. It’ll work well for now, but I do want to scout around a bit more and make sure this is where we really want to set up shop. When the girl got hurt, we had to leave two full packs of supplies. They’re hoisted high in a tree and will probably be ok over night but they need to be recovered tomorrow.” He shook his head. “Damn, but those people are dirt poor. Even Dr. Gupta said that he hadn’t seen anything like it on Earth except maybe some remote Amazon tribes. Even most of them had managed to get steel machetes... anyway, its good news for us. A few bone fishing spears and some clubs seem to be the only weapons. We counted maybe a dozen fighting age men in the village but the boss only seems to use about half of them as bully boys.” He looked over to Dr. Godfreed. “No bravado, any advanced fighting skills?”
Marcus snorted. “At my age, what’s the point of bravado?” Davidson just raised one eyebrow at him. Marcus realized what he had said and nodded. “Point. In my mind, I’m sometimes still an old man. This is taking some getting used to.” Then his face got serious. “Boxing growing up. Mixed martial arts phase after college for a few years but all that was what fifty years ago?”
Davidson nodded. “At least you have some fu
ndamentals. Though weapons are a whole new bag. I fought three different traditional martial arts styles over the years, and obsessively fought in a group that did the European medieval weapons combat for nearly twenty years, even made my own armor. Unfortunately, like you, that was decades ago. Still... After we get our supplies. I want to organize a trip back to the wreck, see if we can salvage enough to maybe set us up a workable forge. Then you and I can see if we can knock the rust off of our skills. What say you?” He looked at Dr. Godfreed with a small savage grin.
Marcus gave a low chuckle. “I say those bully boys will be in for a real surprise if they decide to start shit.”
John sighed, “I hate being worthless.”
Marcus looked at him with concern, but Davidson just gruffly snapped at him, “Nonsense! Why do you think you’re here? You’re here to lead the others. You think those modern women are just going to listen to us when we tell them they can’t fight? They’re going to want to prove something and are going to get themselves hurt. Same goes for the Roths and even Dr. Gupta. He’s a good man, but he’s not really psychologically built for it. All of them are far too valuable for what is between their ears to let them get hurt doing something they weren’t physically cut out for. Hell if I had another alternative, I’d bench Dr. Godfreed here, but he has experience and standing beside the village chief’s bully boys, he’s a damn giant. There wasn’t a one of them that was close to six feet. It was like even I was in fucking munchkin land! If I can make him some good armor...” as he trailed off, Godfreed was grinning and St. Claire’s despair had turned into a low chuckle.
“So what do you want me to do?” John asked.
Davidson grinned. “You, my boy, are management. The Roth brothers are devious little bastards and we all know it, so play to their strengths. Put them in charge of force multipliers and area denial systems.” That got a low chuckle from Godfreed and an appreciative grin from St. Clarie. Davidson continued, “The girls won’t be happy with a purely support role, and we’ll hear about it. Normally I wouldn’t care and tell them to deal with it, but unless I miss my guess, they’d do something stupid trying to prove me wrong if we don’t give them something fairly active. If we can get some crossbows made up and teach them to cover each other as the other is loading, they can be useful and still not too likely to get hurt. Especially if I can eventually get them some basic armor and we can put them in a fixed position.” Both men nodded, understanding the wisdom of that one. “Dr. Gupta would be an amazing corpsman. Man has balls of steel. He may not have the temperament to fight, but when things started getting tense this morning he was cool as any man I’ve seen. Let’s just pray we never need his services. That leaves you and our newest acquisition. You need to be an observer. You watch for what the rest of us are too busy to see and keep us from getting surprised. She’s on logistics. Running bandages or crossbow bolts, what have you as needed.” He sighed as he came to an end. “It might be quite a while before we’re to a point where we can flesh all of that out. After all, there is a ton of other building that needs to happen along the way but you understand the direction?” Both men nodded. “Any input?”
John shook his head. “Nah boss. We’ll get it figured out.” Marcus just nodded.
“Good, then if the women are done with the creek, I’m going to drag myself over and try to drown myself in peace.”
Return Triumphant and Victorious
Family of strangers
After his own bath, he returned to the fire to find the girl sitting by it. She really was quite attractive once the dirt and the tear stains, the sweat, and smell of the fishing village had been washed away. Her blond hair that fell to the middle of her back hung in a wet, tangled mess. He sat down behind her, fished in his pocket, and came up with his comb. He began to carefully comb through her hair. As he reached the first snags she tried to twist away but he just firmly put a hand on one shoulder and rather gruffly ordered “Sit”. She did, but he felt her tense up. Partly to put her at ease and partly to wander through his own memories. He began talking to her in a calming and gentle voice. “My daughter didn’t enjoy sitting to have the tangles combed out when she was little either. We used to have to take an hour to get through them all. Sit and watch old A-Team reruns while we did it. Your hair looks like it might be a bit longer than one episode. Of course she’s all grown now, with a daughter of her own.” He just continued on. She relaxed and when he was done her hair was all combed out and other than the slightly over sized flight suit she did like like any other young lady from back home.
He decided it was time to sleep. He lay down in the lean-to and pulled her in next to him. She struggled, but subsided when he barked, “Sleep time now” at her.
Georgia and Evita who had been laying in the lean to opposite him watching the entire scene rather intensely stood up to object as he forced her into his bed. Davidson was tired, though, and he really wasn’t in the mood for this. “Relax! I’m not raping the poor child! I just want to make sure she doesn’t get up in the middle of the night and sneak back to her village, telling them all where we’re sleeping. I’d rather not wake up in the morning with my throat slit, thank you very much!”
Both women sheepishly looked at each other and then back at him. With muttered apologies, they settled in themselves to get some sleep. Davidson let out a long sigh. Why could nothing ever be easy? Feeling the girl beside him lying there so tensely, he combed his fingers through her hair softly and whispered in her ear. “It’s ok, no one is mad at you. No one is going to hurt you. You’re safe. Get some sleep. You’ve earned it.” With that he pulled her in close to himself, and he to tried to relax and soon drifted off to sleep.
Kindness of Strangers
Elena had been living among these strange people for a few weeks now. They really were so different from the people of the village. They all worked on things all day long, but no one had even built a proper house yet. The only proper building that had been made was a small covered space where the man who had bought her. She had learned that his name was either Eli or Davidson; it was confusing because most people called him Davidson, but when they talked, he had pointed to himself and said Eli. And he always answered her when she called out Eli. He wasn’t the only one who seemed to have more than one name, depending on who they were talking to. She was learning a few words of their language, but it was just so confusing.
They were such a strange contradiction. They knew so much, and yet about the simple things they seemed to be fools. When her time came last week, Eli sent her to be with the other women. This was common, even in the village women would live apart during this time. He seemed to think that they would teach her, but while these girls were older and should have been dealing with this for longer, they seemed to watch what she was doing with great interest, as if it was all new. Except if you thought that they were just fools, they built the magic throwing machine that could throw a dart farther than a man could run in a dozen heart beats in the space of one and throw it hard enough to kill the wild goat with just one hit!
Eli even gave her a metal sewing needle and a metal cover for her thumb that let her push it through even the thickest leather. Even if it got stuck, he made her these magic metal fingers so she could just grab it and pull it right through. Then just gave them to her. To her! An orphan and a slave! Who does that?
Sure, things were really scary at first. When he took her to his bed and the two women got mad, she was afraid that they were his wives and would be jealous and beat her. She had also never been with a man before and she knew that he wasn’t always gentle if he was angry, but he didn’t take her as was his right. Nor had he any night since. After he’s given her these gifts and been so nice to her, she kind of wished that he would, so that maybe he wouldn’t tire of her and send her away, but she didn’t understand them enough to know how to approach him. She wouldn’t want to anger him.
No one would want to, she thought with a shudder. His wrath was bad enough, but the giant with the
skin like the night who does his bidding was terrifying. Both of them fully encased in their metal skins. They were invincible. Maybe some of the magicians that legend says serve the great kings on the mainland could stand against them. But she wouldn’t want to risk it. Yet even the giant is nice to her. He smiles kindly at her, and even though his voice rumbles like the thunder, it is kind toward her and just tickles her ears.
Eli has been working on a project for two days now. He pointed to her like he meant it for her, but he woudn’’t show her. She couldn’t help wondering what it was. She really wished she were smarter so she could understand what they were saying.
Sending a Message to the Chief
Eli had managed to make a saw in his crude forge. With it he had even created actual serviceable planks. From there it wasn’t too difficult to rough out a pair of crude wheels and an axle for a reasonable hand cart. He wouldn’t trust it for anything excessive, but a couple hundred pounds of grain could now be shipped back a lot easier than those damn improvised back packs. What he wouldn’t give for even a damn little donkey. It would make all of this so much easier.
He had also been able to hammer out a couple of crude butcher knives, and one halfway decent scythe that should make the coming grain harvest a lot easier. He really wanted to focus on getting grain and as much rope as they could get on this trip. He probably should have spent more time focused on making trade goods, but the kart really was a necessity and as he looked down at the pile of jewelry, he couldn’t help but grin. Sending the right message to the Chief was important too. When he was a young and poor Airman, he had taken up the hobby of making jewelry from common hardware. He’d seen it on a YouTube video and he had all the basic skills from making his armor, so this was an easy way to impress the girls. The pile he had before him wasn’t as fancy as the stuff he’d made in his youth, after all he didn’t have access to all the power tools and polishing pastes and what have you but there were eight little rings all neatly filed down from the retaining nuts he had liberated from the bolts holding their seats in place back on the crash, and each one had a tiny faceted “diamond” from a glass cabinet window back in the galley. If only he had some polishing paste, he could have made them really look good, but he thought they would probably look good enough for his audience. Of course the pièce de résistance! A small stainless steel bar that had once been part of a three-ring binder had been hammered into a rather pretty little circlet, with three little copper roses made from some pennies he had in his pocket hammered out riveted in place. He was actually quite proud of the little circlet. For no more tools than he had, he could probably have gotten twenty bucks for it back home at some renaissance festival. He chuckled at himself for such thoughts. They were a long way from such frivolous things now.
World Wright Incorporated (World Wright Inc. Book 1) Page 4