A Hop, Skip and a Jump (Family Law Book 4)

by Mackey Chandler

  When they got to the river it was much lower than when she’d been there with Gordon. Lee was relieved because she’d ridden across on Gordon’s shoulders before, and the crossing hadn’t seemed all that easy even for him. Now there were a couple places with bare rock under the chain where you could stop and rest and take stock before proceeding. Lee had pictured needing to cross hand over hand along the chain if the torrent was too strong. She had no idea if Badgers were very good swimmers, so it was a relief that way too.

  Talker stood regarding the chain and its anchor with some wonder. He then tested the links and massive eyelet by touch. The chain didn’t deflect visibly this near the end from a good shove. “Do you have any idea how such a huge chunk of copper was set in the rock way out in the wilderness?”

  "I didn't think to ask," Lee admitted. "One time with my folks, exploring Providence, we found a huge copper ore body. I was interested in smelting some copper and researched it a little. It wouldn't have been all that difficult to do with some charcoal or coke. I suspect they cut a hole in the rock with an undercut, heated the rock up with a fire, and set up a chimney packed to smelt copper right above it. After they cleaned the hole out, they would have broken a hole in the bottom of the chimney, to let the molten copper run right into the rock."

  "I can picture that," Talker said after awhile. "It was a lot of trouble to haul all that up here and then clean up and take the smelter down and clear everything away."

  "It was making an important point," Lee said. "The clan on the other side of the mountains over there wanted to claim past the mountains clear to their edge of the river. Red Tree claimed to the drainage divide at the top of the range. He said the other clan ceased to exist. I took that to mean Red Tree killed them all, two thousand years ago. The Mothers made clear that's how clans have always fought. The chain is useful to help ford here, but mainly it is a physical reminder the land on each side is bound in ownership. I heard Gordon invite one of them to tear the chain out and see what would happen. He said they had not forgotten how to wage war."

  "That much was obvious from the war with North America," Talker said.

  "Yeah, but this was before we went to Earth and the Moon," Lee said. "On my first visit to Red Tree, and Gordon brought me out here."

  Talker looked at her surprised. "You mean you actually heard this conversation? It happened right in front of you? Not something related to you later?"

  "Yeah, the cub that challenged him was on Red Tree land. He came around the shelter we're going to use. He and Gordon were faced off, and I was afraid they were going to settle it by arms. The young guy had a carbine and Gordon had an ax. I wasn't sure if Gordon was fast enough to take him. I shouldn't have worried. Gordon had a pistol tucked in his armpit. He could have taken him without throwing the ax."

  "So he displayed the pistol and the young fellow backed off?" Talker asked.

  "Not exactly . . . I came back from gathering firewood and followed this fellow back into camp. When things started to get really tense I drew," She demonstrated by pulling her pistol and pointing it at the sky. "I was standing behind him and I just thumbed the safety off as hard as I could." She did so now, the metallic snap of it loud, even next to the stream.

  Talkers eyes were big, his ears perked up unusually straight. "You'd have shot him?"

  "Damn right. If he tried to bring that carbine around to point at Gordon I'd have aimed low and let the recoil climb right up him on full auto," Lee said, pointing the gun out at the woods and showed how it would rise in an arch. She snapped the safety back on and holstered it.

  "I see," Talker said.

  Lee took a grip on the chain and started across. Talker decided he would do better barefooted and took his short boots off securing them in his bag. The water was never more than knee deep but splashed up their fronts waist high. After Talker wiped his fur down as much as possible and put his boots back on Lee instructed him to pick a pretty pebble from the edge of the stream, because he'd need it tomorrow, the same as Gordon had done before with her. He complied without question except a head tilt. Badgers never adopted the Human gesture of a raised eyebrow. The effect was weak on a furry face.

  When they reached the shelter Talker was tired as it was a bit of a climb after they'd walked all day, and visibly dismayed. "I thought it would at least have a door, like a little cabin."

  "It's still warm at night, and should be dry until the day after tomorrow sometime. Even then, a storm should blow from the west and it'll stay dry inside. The tarp on top is doubled over, and if it got really nasty you can drop it across the front opening. This is what they call a lean-to. Some of them don't even have side walls, or a floor, so this is a fancy one. It backs up to the prevailing wind and if we build a fire in front it will be cozy," Lee promised.

  After brushing the platform off Lee put her light tarp down where they'd put their sleeping rolls. Talker stood back and watched. She put his bag on one corner to hold it down against any wind. He understood what she was doing and being closer to the other corner grabbed her pack to hold it down. Except the casual one handed grab didn't work. He had to brace himself over it and picking it up in both hands sort of waddled over to pin the corner down. He gave her another peculiar look, but didn't say anything.

  Looking at the shelter, and then the surrounding woods, Talker was visibly uncomfortable. "Once we're tucked back in there we can't see around. Something or someone could sneak up on us," Talker worried. "We'd be trapped in a pocket."

  "Not with modern surveillance electronics," Lee said, showing him the little hockey puck size sensor that was a mate to the one Gordon carried.

  "Oh, I should have realized you've done this before," Talker said, placated.

  "I'll sleep in the front too," Lee offered.

  Talker's muzzle dropped and he looked away. Lee realized he was ashamed, but didn't know why. Her puzzlement was plain.

  "I did not mean to make you repeat the basis of our friendship," Talker objected, "when you offered to sleep between my bunk and the door to ease my nightmares. That was the ultimate proof you'd befriended me even though I had to have my nose rubbed in it to see it."

  "Huh . . . Don't worry about it," Lee said to ease his guilt. "I just want something furry and warm to lean back against when the fire burns down."

  "I would be proud to be your pillow, Friend."

  Chapter 14

  The morning light came earlier on the high ground the lean-to occupied. The trees were nowhere near as dense as a few hundred meters down slope each way. Part of the reason for the location was the forest debris was thin on the rock here and it was easier to have a fire. If a camp fire got away from you on the lower ground it could burn in the deep piled debris even through a heavy downpour of rain. It made for a long devastating forest fire.

  The wind also was stronger here than down in the thick woods, and the lean-to was needed. Down in the heaviest forest you could hear the wind in the tree tops and not feel the slightest breeze. Lee got the fire started again from the embers, and started breakfast. After, she showed Talker how to make sure the fire was out.

  They left most of their things in the back of the lean-to, expecting to return, and there being little chance anybody would show up to use the shelter the same day, much less bother their stuff. If they did they could share. It could sleep four Derf.

  "It isn't that far now to the memorial I want to show you," Lee told talker. "But that's good because we'll want to spend some time there."

  He just nodded, not terribly talkative, even though she made coffee for him.

  When they arrived, Lee walked them around the monument before she invited Talker to sit on a bench with her, facing the pillar of dry set stones. Lee explained the whole story of Derf - Human contact to him and related them to the plaques showing the slain crew. "The ship took them back with them so they aren't buried here," Lee explained. "The Derf put them on large wooden pyres and would have burned them like their own if the Humans hadn't reclaimed
them." If Talker had researched the event or the memorial he didn't say or interrupt her.

  "Now that the large stones brought by pilgrims to build the memorial are sufficient the custom is to bring a pebble to add to the pavement." Lee took her own pebble out and tossed it between the bench and memorial. They weren't a thick covering still and it might be many years before they got so deep they had to be dropped outside the circle of stone benches. Of her pebble tucked in a gap between the memorial stones, under an overturned shot glass, Lee said nothing. That was private, but she looked and it was still there.

  "I've been thinking," Talker said. "The clan that Red Tree fought to retain the land on this side of the river, had lands beyond those peaks, right?"

  "Yes, their lands are in the other drainage system," Lee confirmed. "It's a continental divide, since Gordon mentioned once they flow to the other ocean. Derf tend to pick natural features for boundaries, not arbitrary lines across a plain."

  "I think," Talker said, with firm certainty, "if this had been done by us, by Badgers, or by Humans, we'd have taken the land on the other side of the mountains too. Especially, if it was paid for in blood, it would have been annexed. The fact it seemed outside the natural border wouldn't have mattered. Both our species seem to be more expansionistic than Derf."

  "That's rather insightful. I very much appreciate your sharing that. I didn't think of it myself, and I think you are absolutely correct," Lee said.

  "I'll be back," Talker said, getting up. Lee didn't know what he was going to do. He might have gone to the woods again and it wouldn't have surprised her. But he walked off around the pillar and looked at each of the bas relief plaques closely. When he eventually worked his way around the whole thing again, and rejoined her, he had his pebble in his hand and tossed it from his seat towards a thinly covered patch of ground. Lee took his hand like Badgers like to do, but it was too hard to do when they were walking along on the uneven trail.

  "Perhaps you can provide another insight," Lee requested. "The Mothers are sending me back to Central, to the Moon, to speak with Lady Lewis or whatever Peer is minding the store for Heather. Perhaps I'll luck out and get to meet the Sovereign Herself." Talker had been with them meeting April at Central, so it was easier to speak with him about them. He had his own memories and insights about the people such as Gabriel and April in particular.

  "The Mothers felt slighted and perhaps a bit disrespected by conducting a war and demanding a formal end and surrender from North America," Lee explained, "only to find out that the Earth nations aren't as independent as the Mothers imagined. Nor as independent and sovereign as they presented themselves. Though my thought is they may delude themselves about that. The Mothers lay blame on Central or the person of Heather for not publicly asserting control and making it clear that the Earth nations only govern themselves within the limits of Heather's pleasure. That's what the Mothers would naturally do in a similar situation.

  "The fact they don't really want to manage them in detail or lay down a whole bunch of rules or laws doesn't actually help. It just puts them on an even lower level, not important enough to waste a great deal of attention on if they want to go off their own way. I'm guessing the Mothers see anyone North America, or any other Earth nation, deals with as peers, like they did Red Tree, as held in the same low regard. It offended them."

  "Now, there is a great deal of dishonesty here. Some of it may indeed be Central, but I suspect if you asked North America if they were sovereign and independent they'd very vocally deny being subject to Central or its allies. They don't seem inclined to test it by armed resistance, but they wish to live the lie right up to the very edge of having to do so. Indeed, they take that official position with their own people, making it a very public lie.

  "Now the Mothers wouldn't let that state of affairs prevail long at all. They'd have destroyed North America if the USNA tried to weasel out of their surrender after Gordon beat them. The Mothers told them straight out that was what they were choosing if North America refused to accept the terms of the treaty they'd repudiated before. Also, the Derf made them add teeth to the agreement in their own law, so any official ignoring it faces serious penalties.

  "Central and Home on the other hand doesn't have a history of demanding total surrender. They are much more pragmatic and less absolute than the Mothers. They mainly wanted to be left alone. Indeed, they moved from orbiting Earth to out beyond the Moon just to avoid constant small conflicts. They value the Mother Planet themselves more than how they look or their political status. They seem to value it as a store of biological complexity and cultural resources more than the idiots who live there. Otherwise why would they risk Central or Home getting tired of their constant pushing and just blanket bomb them down to fused bedrock?

  "I can see both sides and ways of thinking. I'm Human by biology but Red Tree by choice. You'd think I could understand Central, and Heather's way of thinking better, but truth is the absolutist mindset of the Mothers is very attractive to me. It requires less effort to come to decisions, but some of the decisions that view leads to are too difficult to live with. Like Heather and her peers, I'd really hate to slag North America. It just wouldn't bother the Mothers at a deep visceral level. There are millions of Humans there who I'm sure don't know their leaders are living a lie and selling it to them day by day."

  "It seems to me, that if you can see both sides, the Mothers did well in picking you to take their complaint to Heather," Talker said. "Even though as a Badger I'd be hard put by our cultural restraints to send anyone so young on such an important mission."

  "The same for Humans," Lee agreed. "But the Mothers gave me their chop and a mandate. To their minds Central is dealing with them. I'm just doing what they directed and the tool is never as important as the task. I hope Heather will understand that. I know April would, because I saw researching her that the Earthies couldn't see beyond her age. If anything, all they could see was a little girl not a political power who controlled an array of orbital weapons."

  "I'm not hearing clearly what the Mothers want you to do," Talker said.

  "Neither am I," Lee admitted. "I'd never say it to them, but like the Earth Humans, the North Americans, and Central, the Mothers are not being completely honest in their public position. Like North America, the Mothers want to be seen as peers of Central. They're not, but I don't feel free to say that to their face. As long as they can destroy North America they figure that makes them equal. Talk about subtle! At least April admitted that's a very blunt tool. They know they can destroy North America too, but they realize they can't administer North America. There simply aren't enough of them to do the job. The idea of doing that is too alien for the Mothers to have even contemplated it.

  "Nobody in this story wants to be totally blunt and honest about their own status, even to themselves. It's frustrating. I don't have the cultural conditioning to play these games well. I was isolated from people, Human people that is, until half grown. When I tried to play the tourist on Earth even that was beyond my ability to do without creating a huge mess and conflict, war even! The same when I came to Red Tree. Within a half hour I was offering to go at it with the First Mother, pistols blazing if she didn't treat me with more respect."

  Talker didn't have anything to say immediately, but after a pause Lee's face brightened.

  "At least with you Badgers I didn't start a fight over dinner. I got along with you and Par Goy, and I absolutely adore your daughter Tish."

  "You fail to mention the most amazing of all. You totally won over Amiable. He is a terrible cynic and crusty old farmer. It is unusual for him not to express any reservations," Talker said.

  "Oh, he's an old sweetie," Lee insisted. "He wouldn't be so hard on you if he didn't just adore you. He just acts so stern to keep his self-respect."

  Talker just rolled his eyes, and fell silent for awhile looking down at the ground.

  "We Badgers on the other hand," he said, obviously going back to the larger question Le
e had propounded, "have no illusion we are peers of the Humans or their allies, which is how we see the Derf even if they don't see themselves the same way. The Derf are adapting Human technology and even customs far more than is leaking the other way. Again, numbers matter and there are simply a lot of Humans."

  "Too damn many," Lee asserted, which was a very odd thing for a Human to say. She'd have been surprised to find out how many of her fellow Humans agreed.

  "We Badgers can still maintain an illusion of peerage, perhaps even a small margin of superiority over the Bills. They just never seem terribly serious. The Cats and the Sasquatch both have their own technologies and culture, but like the Derf and Hinth are overwhelmed in numbers by Humans, they are engulfed by the Badgers and Bills. We don't have any aboriginal races that don't want any close contact, and we'd just as soon not have ever met the Biters.

  "The Biters seem emotionally unable to regard anyone as their peers, even their internal factions and tribes. I fear in time it will get ugly between them and us. They may even stupidly generate conflict with the Humans if you keep coming to our part of the sky. If we don't reduce them to their planets and stop them star faring the Humans might. I fear you will have less patience with them than you've shown with each other. We're just glad you didn't come as conquerors, taking what you want instead of trading for it. The Human sphere doesn't have any serious competition, certainly not a tiresome irritant like the Biters."

  "We may in the Centaurs," Lee reminded him. "They worry me."

  "Bahhh!" Talker said, using the human exclamation correctly, but clumsily. "I heard Gordon lamenting the waste of two missiles to destroy their great ship, instead of one. You complain it was too expensive to vaporize them entirely," Talker complained. He had a point.