The Tattooed Tribes

by Bev Allen

  “As has happened so many times before,” Machin put in.

  She inclined her head. “Too many times before,” she agreed. “As for my personal role- the tribes are matriarchal and I believe as a woman I can bring more understanding and have more influence than perhaps a man can.”

  She gave each of them a clear, direct look and a smile.

  “I would very much like to have the opportunity to try.”

  Jon, who had been glancing through her impressive reports and exam results, wondered why the hell she should not have it, but something held him back from making an instant decision.

  “Thank you, Stacey,” he said. “We’ve still have candidates to see over the next week or so, but I think I can say you will be on the short list.”

  The smile this received was happy and pleasant, but he had the feeling it was not relieved, as if the owner had never had any doubt of the outcome.

  “Before you go,” he said as she stood. “I presume there will be no problem about the indenture fees?”

  “Hardly,” she replied, and he wondered if there had been a sneer there or if it had been his imagination.

  The three Master TLOs relaxed as she left.

  “Impressive.”

  “Very,” Machin agreed.

  “Bitch,” the apprentice remarked in what he thought was an unheard aside.

  “Keep your opinions to yourself,” his master growled, spoiling that illusion. “And show the next one in.”

  Blushing furiously, the boy held the door open and shouted, “Next!”

  If Stacey Wainwright had impressed the same could not be said of what followed and continued to follow her through an extremely long and boring day, and would continue for the next three.

  In the end Jon was left frustrated and anxious. The hours of interviews had produced only four possible candidates for him to choose from and Stacey Wainwright was far and away the front runner.

  He tried to work out why he was reluctant to commit to her. Was he concerned that out in the wilderness, alone, he might not be able to keep his hands off her?

  He considered this, she was young and attractive and she would be totally dependent on him to keep her safe while she learnt her trade.

  Was this the reason he had been unwilling to take a girl apprentice, because he did not trust himself to behave responsibly?

  After careful thought he decided it was ridiculous. He was not a slave to his hormones and anyway, there was something about the girl he found unappealing.

  On the other hand, what if she flung herself at him? This made him grin; somehow he did not see Stacey as the flinging type, unlike Phoebe.

  There he might have had problems with the master/apprentice divide. Phoebe certainly had every intention of reinterpreting it to suit herself.

  He needed to make his decision soon. The Guild would not wait much longer and if he did not, they would do it for him.

  However, he had a temporary reprieve; there were rumours of illegal logging in the high back country far from The Settlement. Someone was needed to investigate and put an end to it before the loggers were stopped by a war club.

  He left knowing when he returned he had to put aside his concerns and offer indenture papers to Stacey. The thought made him profoundly depressed.

  Chapter 2

  The illegal loggers proved more of a problem than first anticipated. They had a few gold prospectors along with them and it got very nasty, very quickly.

  In the end Jon was forced to ask for tribal help and there had been deaths on both sides. The loggers were locked up awaiting trial, but the prospectors would never pan another river on this world or any other.

  The time away should have allowed him to consider his choice, but he had been busy and, if he was honest, he shied away from the task.

  Finding a terse note from The Guild in his mail box reminding him a decision was required as a matter of some urgency, was an unwelcome reminder of his duty.

  As undesirable was a missive from Congressman Eric Wainwright.

  This, while not actually instructing him to apprentice Stacey, made it clear it was expected. There was also a hint of threat, nothing specific, merely a suggestion of changes to come and Jon wishing to be on the right side when they came.

  He had returned late and was dog-tired, so he threw both letters to one side to await the morning.

  Jon was an early riser; life spent mostly in the tribal lands far up river had taught him not to waste day light. Even a disturbed night full of oddly anxious dreams failed to keep him in bed much after dawn.

  He brewed strong coffee and went out onto the porch to see what the day heralded and found something littering his door step.

  A closer look showed the ‘something’ was a ‘someone’.

  “Wake up!” Jon commanded, encouraging the sleeper with the toe of his boot. He was damned if he was having every town drunk sleeping it off on his property.

  There was a groan of protest.

  “I said, up!”

  A youth unwound himself and stared up in a dazed fashion. “Okay,” he said, yawning and scratching his head. “I’m up.”

  Jon frowned at him. The dew had drenched the boy’s clothes, he shivered uncontrollably and seemed confused, but he did not seem hung over.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” demanded Jon.

  The boy scrubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked up. “Waiting for you,” he said and, despite the shivering, a grin crept out.

  Jon remembered the grin.

  “Have you been here all night?”

  “I spend most nights here,” Ian replied. “I didn’t want to miss you.”

  There were black shadows under his eyes and in the clear daylight Jon could see his clothes were filthy and his skin was stretched too tightly over his big bones. He had obviously been living rough and going hungry for some time.

  “You’re a bloody little fool!” Bending, Jon grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him indoors.

  During the following thirty minutes a violently protesting and verbally abusive boy was made to shower twice, instructed to eat a large bowl of porridge, then frogmarched to a bed and told to sleep.

  “I don’t like being told what to do!” he snarled at Jon.

  “Fine,” Jon replied. “Then you can leave right now. But, if you do as you’re told, we’ll have a talk when you wake up. And you’ll get to eat again.”

  There was a brief struggle with pride, and then reluctantly Ian lay down and was asleep before Jon left the room.

  It was several hours later when he reappeared dressed in some of Jon’s things.

  “I couldn’t find my clothes.”

  “I left those for you,” Jon replied. “Yours are in the wash.”

  Ian flushed. “I manage to wash myself most of the time, but it’s harder with clothes.”

  He was taller than Jon, who was not much above average height, a slender stripling still growing into his bones. A lot of ankle and wrist showed from his borrowed clothes, but he completely failed to fill the space Jon’s big shoulders and deep broad chest needed.

  Ian gazed longingly at the plate of sandwiches waiting on the table.

  “Help yourself,” Jon told him and allowed him to munch his way through two before speaking again. “What were you doing on my front door step?”

  Ian paused in the middle of a third sandwich to give him a quick grin.

  “I told you, waiting for you to get back,” he replied before reapplying himself to food.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been saving. I’ve got two hundred and seventy three bucks and I know I can find the rest.”

  Jon was not stupid. He had been reasonably sure this would be a plea for further consideration the moment he realised who cluttered his porch. It was not the first time he had been followed home by a disappointed candidate, but the money intrigued him.

  “Where did you find it?” he asked. It was a considerable sum.

  “Worked
for it,” Ian replied.

  “Doing what?”

  “This and that.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Nothing dishonest,” Ian said. “Mainly supplying some of the restaurants with wild food, mushrooms, greens, you know the sort of thing.”

  “Poison anyone?” Jon asked.

  “No!” Ian said indignantly. “I told you; I’ve been camping and living in the woods since I was a small kid. At least, I have when they let me.”

  He slowly finished his fourth sandwich; then looked at Jon.

  “Is it enough?” he asked. “I’ll find the rest, I promise. I really, really want to be a TLO.”

  A vision of Stacey Wainwright rose in Jon’s mind, controlled, sleek and rich.

  “No,” he said. “It’s not enough.”

  “I’ll get the rest,” Ian said. “If you could just give me a few more weeks ...”

  “I can’t,” Jon replied. “I have to decide in the next couple of days. If I agreed to take you ... and it’s a big if ... is there no way your parents could help you?”

  “That bastard!” Ian snarled. “I hate him.”

  It was a juvenile reaction and Jon at last took a long, careful look at his guest. The gauntness had fooled him, so had the height, but as he studied the face it occurred to him it had probably never seen a razor. He also began to wonder exactly why Ian had been living rough; it seemed an unnecessary gesture.

  “How old are you?”

  A wary expression appeared. “I told you before.”

  “Remind me.”

  “Nearly eighteen.”

  “How nearly?”

  There was the grin again, the one that bothered Jon.

  “A couple of years.”

  “You’re not even sixteen!” Jon exclaimed.

  “I am sixteen, but I’ve not been for long,” Ian admitted.

  For a second Jon was going to show him the door, but it crossed his mind any lad who could keep himself by supplying wild food might possibly be an ideal TLO.

  “Did you make all that money by supplying restaurants?”

  “Yes,” Ian replied quickly.

  Too quickly.

  He fidgeted in the silence that followed.

  “Okay,” he said. “I did blag a few meals along the way and I did a bit of dealing.”

  “Blagged?”

  “Ordered, ate, but couldn’t pay,” Ian admitted. “But I always offered to work it off.”

  “How did that play?”

  “Okay, most of the time. I got roughed up once or twice.”

  Jon could see the faint shadow of an old black eye.

  “And the dealing?”

  “Just a few bits here and there.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing much.”

  Jon gave him a stern look and Ian’s eyes fell before it, but he would not be drawn.

  “Do your parents know where you are?” Jon asked, trying a change of tack.

  “No, and they don’t care.”

  “I’m calling them,” Jon said and rose to his feet. “What’s your father’s name?” He began looking for numbers.

  “No! You can’t call them.”

  “I think you’ll find I can.”

  “You can’t, because you won’t find them under Davis,” Ian said.

  Jon turned back to him.

  “My name isn’t Ian Davis. It’s Lucien Devlin.”

  “Out!” Jon made to take him by the arm and haul him towards the door.

  “Please no!” Lucien begged. “I didn’t want to lie to you, but they don’t understand. I can’t go back; they’ll send me to my grandparents. I can’t leave this world, it’s my home and I love it.”

  Youth and the weeks of hardship and raw emotion got the better of him. He turned his head away trying to control himself, but the shaking of his shoulders and the odd body wracking shudder gave the game away.

  Jon watched him for a short while; then gave one heaving shoulder a comforting squeeze.

  “Okay, son,” he said. “Let’s see if we can sort this mess out.”

  Once he was calm Lucien began to speak of his restlessness and dissatisfaction with Settlement life, and a little about his on-going clashes with authority figures both at home and school.

  “All I’ve ever wanted to be is a TLO, but my father kept telling me I’d grow out of it, and I never have. When the apprenticeship was announced I decided to apply. I thought if I went home and told him I’d got it, he would come round and help me.”

  “But you didn’t get it,” Jon pointed out.

  “I would’ve done, if I’d had the money,” Lucien protested.

  “Maybe,” Jon agreed. “But maybe not.”

  Lucien looked a bit stunned by this. “I thought ... anyway, I went home and told him he had to give me the money.”

  “And then?”

  “He laughed at me,” Lucien said, the wobble back in his voice. “Then he just ignored me.”

  His face took on a bleak expression.

  “I tried not to lose my temper, but I might have said a few things and there was a bit of a row. I ended up telling him I wasn’t staying around to be ordered about like a small child. And he said I could go any time I liked. So I went.”

  “Didn’t your mother have anything to say?”

  “Not really. She did cry a lot.”

  “Do you often row with him?” Jon asked.

  “Yes. Well, no, not really. I do a bit of shouting, but he … he’s just mean.”

  “What is he mean about?”

  “The stuff I bring home from the woods to study, but mainly its school!” the boy said with a decided smirk. “I’d get suspended … a lot!”

  He read the disapproval on Jon’s face.

  “It’s never for anything bad,” he assured him. “At least the fool of a Head thinks so, but it isn’t really. I just can’t take being cooped up in a classroom all day every day, so I take off occasionally. I like being outside and fending for myself.”

  “But this is in term time,” Jon guessed.

  The big grin was back. “Yeah,” he replied. “So he suspends me and my father gets all snide and says things about me being stupid. I’m not stupid.”

  “No, you’re not stupid,” Jon agreed. “But maybe you aren’t wise.”

  Lucien carefully avoided eye contact at this, but the colour rose in his cheeks.

  “How bad are your school reports?” Jon asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “You tell me, son. Most people seeking an apprenticeship come with good references, an excellent school report, first class examination results and the indenture fee, not to mention parental approval. What have you got?”

  Lucien hung his head. “Nothing, I guess.”

  He slumped in his chair, obviously waiting for Jon to come up with something, but Jon did not notice, he was doing some serious thinking.

  Lucien was patient for a while, but eventually he began to fidget and look for a way to end the silence.

  He tried a cough or two, until Jon looked up. “Sorry? Did you say something?”

  “Yes,” Lucien replied, the picture of innocence. “I was asking if those are fish tattooed on your hands.”

  Jon smiled at the obvious ploy, but decided to indulge it.

  “Yes,” he said, stretching out his hands, to show the tiny fish tattooed there. “A fish is the first mark of any tribal hunter. If you live by a river it’s likely to be the first thing you catch.”

  He showed Lucien each finger.

  “Trout, salmon, eel, crawfish,” he said. “A different technique is needed to catch each one. And on this hand ... bass, clams, grayling, loach.”

  Lucien studied them. “What are the round spots on the joints?” he asked.

  “Pearls,” Jon replied. “You must know about the fresh water pearls.”

  “Yes. Ma’s got some. She let me see them once. They’re worth a lot of money, aren’t they?”

  “They are indeed,�
� Jon agreed.

  “Why haven’t you got any on those two fingers?”

  “Because to date I’ve only found fourteen. To show both hands with nine pearls on each is considered a mark of great importance amongst The People.”

  “Couldn’t you just tattoo the extra ones on?”

  “That would be a lie and the tribal people don’t lie.”

  “Never?”

  “No. They may avoid or prevaricate or speak only the truth which assists them, but all will avoid telling a bare-faced lie.”

  Lucien went a deep crimson and refused to meet Jon’s eye. “Okay,” Lucien said, a sulk not far away. “What about the rest?”

  This time the change of subject gambit was so crude that Jon burst out laughing, but he showed him the three different types of deer, the bison, the hare and the squirrel all jumbled together in the limited space on the back of his left hand, and the variety of ducks, geese and other birds circling his wrists.

  “What about your right hand?”

  There were only four animals there, a bear, a wolf, a moose and a spotted cat.

  Lucien stretched out a finger and touched the cat.

  “I want to see one of those,” he said reverentially.

  Jon laughed. “You’ll have to learn a hell of a lot before you get a sight of one of those.”

  Lucien looked pained. “Will you show me?” he asked. “Is there no way you can take me on as an apprentice?”

  Jon considered him for a second for two.

  “Do you know- really know- what a Tribal Liaison Officer does?”

  Lucien nodded. “Explores and makes maps,” he replied. “Finds new lands, places no-one has ever seen before.”

  His eyes glowed at the thought.

  “And I know they keep the peace between the First Nation people and the rest of us,” he continued, but obviously considered this a secondary role.

  “And why do we need to do that?”

  “Cos … I suppose there could be trouble if the Tribes got too close to the settlers.”

  “Wrong,” Jon replied. “It’s in case the settlers get too close to the tribes. Remember they were here first and they found a way to survive in a hostile environment after we abandoned them.”

  “But why did they have to form into tribes?”