Nona blushed, possibly for the first time in years.
Gem giggled. “Be glad, beautiful Nona. My husband carries magic in his blood and that was the easiest way to pass it to you. It is too late to heal you completely but there will be some mending of the bones and your pain should lessen or disappear. Your husband needs to talk to Jara about building you something like he did for Gon so that you will be comfortable.”
I undid the thong and got two of the necklaces free. Gem held out her hand and I looped the others over her wrist.
“Nooka,” I said and I handed him one of the large claws, “This is for you. Your wisdom helped me when I felt helpless and you deserve this ger claw for what his brother did to you.”
“Nona, this is yours for putting up with this old man and loving him all these years.” She bent her head and I put one of the smaller claws on her. She looked up and smiled with tears in her eyes.
I took Gem by the elbow and led her over to the next group. Gon was propped up on his new bed and May was sitting next to him, holding his hand. Jan and Eva were holding hands, sitting on the other side of Gon’s bed. Next came Jara, sitting on a stump. Noomi was sitting on the ground at his side with her head on his lap while he gently stroked her hair. Meena and Neeta were next up.
As we were making our way over, I leaned over and spoke in Gem’s ear, “You certainly charmed the pants off Nooka and Nona, my dear.”
“Just as every girl hopes to when she meets her man’s family,” she answered.
Everyone seemed surprised when I introduced Gem as my wife but they were all happy for me although some seemed happier than others. Gem had them all in the palm of her hand within minutes.
Once Gem was part of the family, I handed out necklaces, giving each the same reason I had for allowing them to share the heart. Jan and Gon each got one of the smaller fangs, Jara got a large claw and the five women each got one of the smaller claws.
“Don’t think this means Jeff is courting you,” Gem told them, holding up her own token. “He’s not looking for any more wives. At least not right now.”
Meena and Neeta both stiffened when she started but smiled after her last sentence.
We sat facing Jara and Noomi. “How is the bed, Gon?” I asked him.
He had a big smile on his face. “Wonderful. I could use something like this when I’m healed, without the hole, of course.”
“Just make sure it is sturdy if you allow May on it with you,” my wife said. May blushed, then stuck her tongue out at her.
“You did a good job, Jara. How did you make it so it could lie flat or you could raise it?”
“That was simple enough. I just cut holes partway through the rear piece and made pointed sticks of different lengths. There are three pair so it can be flat, raised up high like it is now and raised about half as much. I made short ones for all the other parts, two on each side and two on the bottom but I used my glue on them to keep them in place.”
“Very good, my friend. Nona would be pleased if you could make one for her. I don’t know if it needs to be exactly the same or not.”
“You might wish to give her mine and make us a new one in a few days. His wound is almost healed and I expect it to be completely better by tomorrow,” May said.
“Just don’t let him do anything stupid, May,” my wife told her. “He should be healed enough to get around with help in another two days. If he doesn’t put any pressure on it, he should be healed within two weeks and the bone will be stronger than before.”
“I see that you’ve been busy since you finished the bed,” I told Jara, pointing at a pair of crude crutches at his side. “Have you figured out how to use them?”
“I used them but it isn’t as easy as you told me it would be.”
“Do they fit comfortably?”
“Yes.”
“Then you just need to get the motion down and then practice. You stand on your good foot, point the crutches toward the ground a few feet in front of you, lean forward so they touch the ground, then use them to lift your body up and swing your legs forward, standing on your good foot again. It’s better than the stick because you can just keep moving in the same direction, just changing where your weight is distributed. With the staff, you were constantly changing direction, going around in half a circle, moving the staff, starting the circle again. Once you have the actions down, you will be able to move almost as fast as running.”
“I’ll try it.”
“If you need help, I’ll be glad to work with you. You should also get started on a pair for Gon. I know he’s going to want to get off his back as soon as he can. So, I guess you won’t need Noomi to lean on anymore.”
“Not for walking but I plan on having her around to lean on for many years.”
“Are you going to announce tonight?”
Jara just grinned as Noomi shyly nodded her head.
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Congratulations,” Gem told him, then took his face in her hands and laid a big one on him. I took that as my cue and kissed Noomi.
“Atta Girl,” I told her.
The feast got underway. There were five or six women preparing the food, dishing it into bowls for several of the older children to deliver. Our group was served first by two youngsters, at the same time as Nooka. The women reminded me of the cafeteria ladies I saw at every church dinner when I was growing up. The only thing missing was the hairnets.
Ger meat is very strong with a slightly bitter aftertaste. It wasn’t something I would want everyday but then, I wouldn’t want to come across a ger every day, either. The village wasn’t starving but I heard several comments that let me know they hadn’t eaten this well two days in a row for a long time. The problem wasn’t a lack of food so much as a lack in hunting skills. It’s difficult enough to go out with a high powered rifle with a telescopic sight and down a deer. Getting close enough to wary animals to take them down with a sling and a rock is much harder.
There was a profusion of fruits and vegetables and the women had outdone themselves. I thought there was variety the night before with the bara but there was three or four times as much tonight.
After everyone was stuffed, Nooka stood and walked over to me, motioning for both of us to stand.
“My friends,” he said “quite a few of you know my friend Jeff personally and all of you have heard of him. Jeff is the man who came to our village yesterday, saved Gon here from a certain death and killed the ger that tore up Gon’s leg, killed three of our young warriors and, by killing the ger that attacked them, provided us with tonight’s feast and enough to also feed us tomorrow. He has asked to say some words to all of us.”
The crowd started banging the ground with their fists.
Nooka sat down next to Jara as I addressed the crowd.
“I feel privileged to call many of you my friends and I hope to be able to do the same with many more of you in the future. Nooka is the one person here who knows the most about me but there are many things he doesn’t know. Many have asked if I am a god, but I assure you I am not. You point out that I saved Gon from a journey to the underworld, and while that is true, it is not because I am a god, it is because I know things that others don’t.
“Jara here knows how to work with wood and I know that most of you got wooden toys from him when you were younger. When I wanted something so that Gon didn’t have to lie on the ground and be treated like an infant while he was recovering from his attack, I explained what I needed and Jara was able to make what I could not. Does that make Jara a god? No, it just makes Jara someone who knows how to do something that I don’t.
“You know my name is Jeff, but very few of you know who this beautiful woman is.” I held out my hand and helped Gem up. “This is my wife, Gem, and she is growing our child.”
I was surprised at the ovation that caused. More fists banging the ground with hoots and whistles this time.
After it settled down, I continued.
“I came here yesterday and nobod
y knew me. Gem came here today, also unknown to you. I was born in a land far away from here, on a world that travels around one of the stars in the sky, just as your world travels around your sun. It was a world much different from this one and the people had many wonderful things that would seem like miracles to you, just as your sling would seem to someone who had never seen one.
“I lived to an age half again as old as Nooka. I had a very full life but had been dying for several years because my heart was weak. I was going to die in several minutes when a man I’d never seen before appeared in front of me. One moment there was nothing, the next he was there in front of me, talking to me, as I am to you now.
“He told me a story of another world, a world where they could fix my heart and make me whole and then they could go even further. They could make me young again and I could live another lifetime, as long or even longer than my first. All I had to do was go to another world and help the people of that world survive better.
“I agreed to his terms and the next thing I remember is waking up two weeks later, young and virile, much the same as you see me today. A couple of minutes after I woke up, Gem came into my room. She was from a different world than mine, a world so different that there was nothing around it, no sky, no sun, no stars, not even air to breathe. Her world had marvelous inventions that would let you speak any language to anybody or teach you how to do something as you slept or could make food and drink out of nothing that tasted better than food you just killed and cooked yourself. They could also send a person anywhere, farther than the eye can see and even places no eye could ever see, as fast as you can think it. That is how the man came to be in my home, how I came to be in Gem’s world and how Gem and I came to be here.
“I spent three weeks learning many things, both about Gem’s world and this world. During the day, Gem would teach me of her world and we would discuss my world. One of the inventions by Gem’s people was the ability to place something in a person’s body, smaller than the smallest grain of sand that sends out a signal, like my talking is a signal. This signal is quiet and it can go to all those places they can send a person to and everyone in any of those places who has a different grain of sand in his body can ‘hear’ that person. This is different from hearing with the ears, though. It’s hearing with the mind. It hears everything the person hears, smells what he smells, tastes, sees and feels all that he does. Not just feels with the fingers but feels the sadness or the joy, the anger or the love inside him. I didn’t know it but I had one of those grains of sand in me and Gem had the other one, so that everything that happened to me happened to her as well, in her mind. Gem has been living my life with me for one third of my life.
“Now, you may wonder why either of us would want to be on this world when both our worlds have such wonderful things. Imagine, being able to just touch something with your fingers and have a perfectly cooked meal appear in front of you. Or anything else you want. Do you want a token like this fang around my neck or a new ger pelt for your floor? A new blade to cut with or a sling to hunt with? Yes, any of these things were possible, along with many more that I can’t even describe to you. Gem’s people had this. And they could almost bring people back from the dead. They had little machines, like tiny insects that they put in a person’s blood to fix any disease, make him younger and stronger. I had some of those in my blood and was able to pass some on to both Gon and Nona. Gon’s skin is almost healed and Nona’s pain is better than it’s been since she fell months ago. They can even take a man’s seed and a woman’s egg and make a baby so there is no need for a man and a woman to make love.
“The people from Gem’s world don’t need anyone to get anything they want. They don’t need to have sex to continue the race. They don’t need each other for anything. So they don’t have anything to do with each other. In fact, the simple act of lying on a lover’s lap, like Noomi is with Jara, is abhorrent to Gem’s people. The don’t make love, they don’t even talk to each other. If they have to communicate with each other, they do it by sending pictures and sound through the air, like yelling across the stream to someone you can’t see on the far side.
“Nooka is a very wise man. When I first met him earlier today and assured him I was not a god, as many thought, telling him that I have knowledge others don’t, just as I’ve told you, he asked me a very smart question. He asked me, ‘Do you come to my village to share your knowledge or to take our village away from us?’
“I tell you now that we are here to make your lives as good as they can be. We just finished feasting on a beast that killed three of your own and almost killed another. Even if Gon hadn’t died, he would have ended up like Jara, unable to walk unassisted or like Nooka, his leg cut off and the stump burned in the fire so he didn’t bleed to death. He now lies on a bed made by Jara, Jara now walks with the aid of crutches; both things I told Jara how to make. The bed Gon lies on is soft and strong because I showed some women how to treat a skin better than anyone here knew.
“When I met with Gem earlier today and gave her my token and made her my wife, we talked about what would make us happy. We could have gone to my world or hers or any other world. Instead, we chose to come to this world. This world is like a piece of wood that Jara can make an animal into for one of the children. By itself, it’s good for pounding in the ground hitting something with or floating in the water. None of these are bad things but that same piece of wood could be so much more. I held a miniature buf he made in my hands yesterday, something so realistic that it would have run off into the fields, had I been able to breathe life into it. Yet it was just a stick of wood, so short a time before I held it in my hands. Jan has a bear he treasures, made from a similar piece of wood and I’m sure that many of you have your own animals. The point I’m trying to make is that this world, your world, has so much potential, just like that chunk of wood. If men are left to their own to mold a world, there will be some who are greedy and others who are lazy. Gem and I have seen what happens when these people are allowed to decide what happens. We don’t know all the answers but we know many of them.
“Like a parent helping a child so he doesn’t put his hand in the fire but he knows how to gather fruits and which vegetables are good to eat and how to work with his friends and neighbors to track a buf and kill it, Gem and I want to work with all of you to make this world better. We know things you don’t but that doesn’t make us gods. You know things your children don’t. Nobody will be forced into anything but you can be sure we’ll tell you why we think doing something would be good.
“What do we get from this? Hopefully, we get friends, people who love and respect us while we love and respect them in turn. We get to see this world become a better place. As parents, you know there is no better feeling than to see your child grow up strong and able to do things that will make his life and his children’s lives better.
“Nooka told me today that a new child is from the village and is accepted without question. But travelers are not, whether they come from another village or another world, and they need to be accepted by all in the village before they can stay.
“Gem and I ask all of you, please allow us to stay.”
There was more hooting and hollering and banging, much louder than before. Jugs of grog were passed around and Gem and I both got bowls of it.
God! That was some vile stuff. Think of all the gross ways you’ve heard liquor described and this was worse than any of them. Both Gem and I sipped ours, then put it down.
When everyone had quashed his thirst, Nooka stood up.
“If there is anyone who does not want Jeff and Gem to stay, they need to speak up now.”
It was quiet for a minute, then he raised his hands. “I am happy to welcome Jeff and Gem to our village.”
That started the noise again and another round was distributed. Once more, when things had settled down, Nooka stood and held his hands up for silence.
“We have more announcements. The first is from my childhood friend
Jara.”
Noomi helped Jara stand up with his new crutches, then stood next to him with her arm around his waist.
“First of all, we welcome Jeff and Gem to our village. In one day, he has completely changed my life. Before I met him, I was a bitter old cripple who felt unloved. Now I realize that I’m not a useless castaway and I have the means to support myself and help others as well.”
He banged one of his crutches on the ground and that started the noise all over again.
Once it was quiet again, he said, “I have another announcement to make that is only possible because of Jeff. Noomi and I wish to announce our joining. We declare ourselves man and wife.”
That started another round of cheering and applause and the obligatory drink. Jara and Noomi took advantage of it by kissing each other.
When it was quiet, Noomi said, “We thank you all for your good wishes. We are now going to leave you to go to our tent.”
The noise started up again and the jugs got passed around.
Nooka stood up again when it was over. “Jeff and Gem, there is something you don’t know. After you last talked to me, I sent some youngsters around to all the villagers and had them ask each of them if they wanted you to live with us. I didn’t know about Gem, then, of course, but I did know that there was a woman somewhere who had left a hole in your heart. From what I had already seen of you, I knew you would figure out some way to have her with you. I didn’t think you would accomplish it so quickly, but then, you haven’t done anything slowly since you appeared here yesterday.”
That got a laugh from the crowd.
“My runners came back and not one person in the village was opposed to having you live with us; it was just the opposite. I sent my runners out again and they brought back a lot of villagers and we put together a present for you. If you will follow me, we’d like to give it to you.”
Gem took my hand and we followed Nooka. It looked like he was leading us to his home. The rest of the crowd came behind us. I noticed that several people picked up Nona’s bed of furs while a large man gently picked her up and carried her like a baby. The man could easily be mistaken for a blacksmith, something I’d have to think about.
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