The Game of Shepherd and Dawse

by William Shepherd

  Aman’s beautiful body lay motionless and covered with blood. Her face was barely recognisable due to the number of cuts and its swollen state. Her pretty little face had been ruined. The other strange thing was the fact that Aman’s trousers had been half torn off, as though she had been relieving herself and had fallen down while doing so, but there were no hills or ditches nearby so this wasn’t believable.

  Teewok quickly pulled himself together, and before the others arrived on the scene, he managed to pull Aman’s trousers together, in order to save her modesty. Arod the healer among the group went to work straightaway. Aman’s body was completely motionless and Arod focused all his energies upon her. The rest of the group stood nervously by, while trying to come to terms with what had happened. The silence was eventually broken by Teewok as he murmured in a quiet voice, “What animal, what beast could do such a thing”?

  Arod knew that this was no animal. He had healed many wounds inflicted by animals on complacent hunters and such wounds were relatively straightforward. Aman’s case was different. Arod used all the powers he had just to keep Aman alive but while working on her, he sensed an energy about her that wasn’t altogether clean and healthy. In fact, it felt dark. Arod upped the ante and gave it everything his heart and soul could muster up and eventually, he was rewarded with a faint groan.

  “Thank you”, Arod said quietly, as he glanced skyward and thanked his spiritual guides.

  The team had prepared the sling-slack and now they were ready to go. They picked Aman up very carefully and placed her upon it. They hurried back to the village as quickly as they possibly could while still trying to be careful not to cause any additional pain to Aman. They also carried back the berries Aman had harvested.

  Back at the settlement, Aisha sensed the hunters and trackers return, so she busied herself by putting the finishing touches to the medicine bed. This was a place reserved for injured members of any hunt that had gone a little wrong. The bed was more padded than normal beds and slightly wider. Aisha lay the last of the healing herbs that Gelam and Sheena had managed to acquire from the other villagers by the pillow. Aisha was low herself on some essential ingredients because the picking season was just getting under way, but Parina had managed to rustle up a small sack of ready dried juju pips which would undoubtedly come in handy.

  Getting the bed ready had given Aisha something to focus on whilst waiting for the party to return, as she didn’t want to appear over emotional when they arrived. Aisha kept ‘seeing’ the image of her child’s battered body lying motionless on the ground, while two hideously indescribable looking creatures stood over her. Every time she tried to get rid of the image, it kept coming back. Aisha tried to convince herself it was just her worried mind playing tricks on her, but it would only be a matter of time before she realised how true this ghastly vision had been.

  While the tracker party made its way through the clearing in the woods, they noticed Soladus in the distance, leaving his house and making his way down the hill. Soladus wasn’t a young man and it would take some time for him to get there – the distance being just over a mile. Makeshaw nodded at Teewok and glanced in the old man’s direction. Teewok didn’t need to be told to give the old man a hand, as he knew instinctively what to do. As the party approached Aisha’s hut, they took the dowels from the wooden supports of the sling-slack and folded it up with Aman still inside it, to allow them to carry her through the door of the hut. Once the sling-slack was placed atop the bed, the two wooden supports were eased out of their bindings and the woodlanders laid the hide onto the healing bed. Despite Aisha's vision being spot on, it didn’t stop her from having to take a deep gulp of air when she first saw Aman laid in front of her.

  Teewok turned to go and help Soladus but he nearly fell into him, as Soladus was now no more than two meters from the door of the hut. It was a remarkable feat, as every so often Soladus would appear to be far away in the distance, but would suddenly appear right where you were standing. He nodded solemnly at Teewok's amazed face and walked into the hut, whereupon everyone immediately made way for him.

  Surprisingly he went first to Aisha and held both of her hands while he gazed calmly into the mother’s tired eyes. Aisha glanced at Aman laying on the bed as if to say “It’s Aman that needs your help, not me”.

  “I know my dear”, Soladus comforted, “the healing has already started”.

  He gave Aisha a slight nod then took up his position at the top end of the bed and placed his hands over Aman’s head. Soladus would spend the next two days healing Aman. He would take neither rest nor food; while the younger ones took it in turns to rest and eat.

  He did not speak until the end of the second day, when he finally said, “All right, that’s as much as I can do for a time. She is stable now”.

  Soladus turned to Sasha and Aisha and asked if they could help him back to his home, but Aisha felt torn - she didn’t want to leave Aman, but she also didn’t want to refuse Soladus after all he had done.

  Parina quickly picked up on this and said, “It is okay, Aisha. You go. I’ll stay here with Aman”.

  The walk to the house where Soladus lived did both Sasha and Aisha good as they were in need of some fresh air. During the walk, Soladus didn’t speak anything of Aman at all, but instead commented on how beautiful Shepherd Wood looked and how he remembered certain trees being at certain heights and what memories each one held for him. Little did they know at the time that even in these words of casual conversation, there were words of wisdom that would mean much to them both at a later time.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A HIDEOUS KNOWLEDGE COMES TO LIGHT

  “If you can’t change what you cannot accept, then accept what you cannot change.” ~ Aisha

  As they made their way into the hut, Soladus asked Sasha and Aisha to sit down while he took a seat for himself. Surprisingly perhaps, far from looking exhausted he actually appeared quite invigorated.

  “Aman is all right”, Soladus began, “but what I’m going to tell you will be hard for you to understand. Are you ready for me to proceed”?

  Sasha and Aisha both solemnly nodded, though they looked at each other in bewilderment.

  “Aman is with child”, Soladus said, with a knowing look on his face that said he was ready for each parent's denial of what he had just said.

  “This cannot possibly be”! Exclaimed Aisha. “Aman is only 16 summers strong”.

  It should have been at least another summer and winter before Aman sealed a bond with someone from the tribe and up until this date, she had not expressed any interest in that department.

  Sasha looked at his wife and said, “It can’t be so. What about the stones”?

  ‘The Stones’ was a little game Aman like to play with any would-be suitor. As she had no shortage of admirers, Aman had set up a challenge saying that any man who could throw a stone twice as far as she could would be the one she would choose to seal a bond with. Aman was an amazing thrower, especially for a girl, so most of the lads could hardly equal one of her throws let alone double it. Her challenge certainly kept a lot of the young men busy with their stone throwing practice.

  “I didn’t say it would be easy for you to understand, but this is the way it is”, Soladus said in a very matter of fact way.

  Both father and mother thought Soladus must have got it wrong because after all, everyone is prone to mistakes. This is what they wanted to believe, even though in their heart of hearts they knew that Soladus had never been wrong before – not that they could remember anyway.

  “The answers will come, but only with time. For now, you best get back to Aman and do what you need to do”.

  Sasha and Aisha thanked Soladus and began making the mile-long way back down to their hut while trying to make sense of it all.

  Aman’s recovery would be long and slow. Healers came from all around to do their bit and while she did indeed recover, she also lost that special little sparkle in her eye’s that had always been so evident to
anyone who looked directly into them. Aman loved looking into people’s eyes to see what was going on with that particular person, just in the same way she also loved taking in everything beautiful that nature had to offer.

  There was a lot of talk in the tribe about what had happened. Most wondered what they could do to ensure nothing like this ever happened again. Aisha was concerned too but she was more concerned about how best to help Aman, so she chose to leave the whys and wherefores to Sasha. The fact was, though, that he was none the wiser than Aisha regarding the situation.

  Every time Aisha held Aman’s hand she would see an image of two hideous beasts. One day Aisha was sitting still, trying to cope with the vision and shaking her head, not knowing what to make of it all. Then Sasha caught her eye.

  “What is it Aisha, what do you see”? Sasha asked.

  “I’ve been seeing this same vision ever since they brought Aman back”, replied Aisha. “It’s an image of two horrible looking creatures standing over her. I can’t figure it out”.

  “Well, if that’s what you see”, said Sasha quietly, “then that’s what did this to our beautiful child”.

  His words were just too much for Aisha. The thought of her child being impregnated by one of the creatures in her vision was just too much to bear. She held Aman’s hand and with tears streaming down her face, she cuddled her sleeping daughter with as much affection as a mother could possibly possess. After a few minutes, Aisha managed to compose herself while Sasha comforted her.

  “What exactly do they look like, Aisha”? Sasha hoped talking about it may in some way help Aisha come to terms with what she was seeing.

  “It’s hard to describe them, because they are not like us. I mean they are like us but there not. There is a really fat one and a really skinny one”.

  Aisha turned her head away to try and get the thought of these two beasts from her mind.

  Sasha still was none the wiser as to what these things were nor about the whole situation in general, so he decided to step out and get some fresh air. But before he could get out the door, something above the door caught his eye. He stopped, looked back at Aisha and Aman and then looked back up to what he had spotted above the door. It was an inscription.

  “That’s it”! he said, in a tone of voice that implied he’d stumbled across something really significant. “Of course! That’s it”!

  “That’s what”? Aisha questioned.

  “The scripture, Aisha! The scripture”!

  The look on Sasha’s face suggested that if he’d only worked things out a bit earlier, none of the current tragedy would have happened.

  Over the years Sasha had read many of the old scriptures that had been passed down and he had been quite successful at deciphering the enigmatic codes. But this particular scripture had puzzled him for a long time. It was Soladus who’d given Sasha this particular scripture and asked him to see what he could do with it. It appeared that Soladus himself had tried but had not had any luck.

  The message had puzzled Sasha so much that he had carved it onto a piece of wood and hung it up over the entrance to their door in hopes that one day the penny would drop. Now, so to speak, it had. But not in the way he had hoped.

  The scripture read like this:

  “Beyond the wood of the wood

  The fat thin one will dwell.

  Exactly the same but totally different

  Piece by piece, they will take the peace,

  And this man will be calledd awse”.

  Long ago, Sasha had guessed that the first line simply meant the area beyond the trees of the forest, but it was only now that the remainder of the message was becoming clear.

  “These creatures, the ones you keep seeing, Aisha. Do they have the same features as us”? Sasha asked.

  “Yes, Sasha, they do. Can you also see them yet”?

  “Not in the same way that you do, my dear, but I am starting to get the picture”. Sasha crossed the room and sat down next to Aisha.

  “I believe I've solved the riddle, Aisha, the scripture that Soladus once gave me. The fourth line always puzzled me greatly. It was the play on the words: ‘piece by piece they will take the peace’ that got me. But what confused me the most was the word, ‘d – awes’, but now I can see that it’s a beast called Dawse”!

  Sasha’s joy at finally working out the scripture's meaning quickly faded when he realised that if only he had worked it out sooner, he could have perhaps prevented what had happened to Aman. Quick to see Sasha’s pain, Aisha gently touched her hand to his cheek to comfort him.

  “Don’t be harsh with yourself, dear”, Aisha said. “You know what the scriptures are like. They tell us everything and they tell us nothing at the same time. Even if you had worked it out, you couldn’t have done anything with the information. That's always the way. Let’s concentrate on moving forward with what we have now”.

  Sasha knew Aisha was right and, if nothing else, it was nice to see Aisha growing stronger, even under these painful circumstances.

  That evening, the elders in Shepherd Wood attended a meeting, accompanied by the elders of neighbouring tribes who were fit to travel. The elders knew how powerful it was when a group of like-minded souls gathered together and this was a time that called for great strength. Those of the elders who weren't fit enough to make it on foot would communicate with the others by telepathy.

  The big question was, ‘What do we do now’? Some asked if they should hunt and kill the beasts. Others wanted to erect a barrier and never again step outside its bounds. Yet others considered moving away from the area. Everyone seemed to have a legitimate reason for their argument, but it was the eldest of the elders, Soladus, who broke up the minor squabbles with what sounded like an outbreak of common sense.

  “Would you please indulge me for just a moment, my friends”?

  Calm descended as they waited for Soladus to continue. “As we know, our lives have changed and unfortunately, they have changed forever. We, who are privileged to have such knowledge, have suspected it in our hearts for some time. We also know that nothing lasts forever, not even the peace of Shepherd Wood. However...” Soladus paused to look slowly and carefully around the room, making solid eye contact with each of the men who had argued most for the various solutions to their current situation.

  “However”, he continued, “in Shepherd Wood we do not hunt and kill, or run and hide, and we do not copy such behaviour. We can however send out a party of volunteers to track down these creatures to see who and what we are dealing with. In the meantime, we will erect a defensive barrier around our homes”.

  Soladus took a breath and then went on. “Changes will have to be made, but there is nothing new with that. We have all been changing since the day we were born”. The words struck a chord with everyone present. Soladus engendered a huge amount of respect from the elders, and it was in times of trouble that the reason for this respect became clear. Within just a few wise words, Soladus had restored confidence to the community. Now, they in turn would pass on a measure of calm to the other villagers and, thus, regain some sort of equilibrium. Clearly, the first thing to do was to track down the place from which these Dawse beasts had come. If there were two of them in the area, there had to be more of them nearby. “And to find out the next part, my little friend”, Joe said with a smile as he closed the book, “you’re going to have to wait until next week”.

  Charlie looked at the clock to see if there would be any chance of bargaining with Joe to read just a few pages more but it was five past eight and Angela would be there soon. Charlie's heart sank a bit, knowing he would have to wait to find out what happened next.

  When Angela picked him up Charlie eagerly told her all about the next part of the story and where it had ended. Angela asked him lots of questions about the story which was good as this helped Charlie remember all of the details.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE HOME HELP

  “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”~ Sally Sour
r />   SALLY SOUR

  Home Help came in the form of one Miss Sally Sour. It was only a voluntary position, but Sally took the role very seriously - almost too seriously. She never missed an opportunity to tell anyone (who would listen) about what a wonderful job she was doing for all of the ‘decrepit old people’ she tended to. She also never missed an opportunity to spill the most personal details about her clients' infirmities. It was true to say she was a top gossip.

  Much like her personality, Sally was not an overly attractive woman. Among the many things Sally's mother drilled into her as a child was that only deceitful people wore makeup and only in order to disguise who they really were. So, like her mother, Sally never wore any either. She had dark brown, naturally straggly hair. That is, until Angela had moved into the road with her gorgeous and soft, naturally blonde hair. Sally suddenly decided her mop needed a revamp and dyed it blonde – in her mind to one-up Angela. Though instead of doing it properly and paying a proper hairdresser, Sally used a cheap off-the-shelf product and ended up with more of a brassy greenish yellow than blonde. It looked awful, but no one told her of course. To Sally, it was one little luxury she could afford for herself.