by M. L. Ryan
Alex turned to me. “Try to remember everyone gets testy when hungry, carisa.”
I nodded in reluctant agreement. “Okay, truce. But,” I said, shifting my focus to the deputy, “you can’t use me as bait. It’s unfair advantage.”
A clipped, “Fine,” was her only response, but the smirk after Alex admonished me gave the impression I wasn’t the only one thinking about the “b” word. I couldn’t decide which was worse, being stuck in a dimension rife with lawlessness and injustice, or being stuck there with Agnes Beulah.
The three of us returned to camp and once everyone was awake, we descended the peak. The trip down was faster than the way up, but no less taxing on the body. By the time we reached the bottom, my legs felt like Jell-O and visions of tall stacks of buttermilk pancakes, smothered with maple syrup pooling under crisp strips of bacon, filled my chow-deprived brain.
As if they read my mind, V and Z wandered off and returned with handfuls of berries similar to raspberries, except they were bright yellow instead of red. I hesitated at first—eating unidentified, wild fruit could be dangerous—but Ulut grabbed one and popped it into his mouth.
“Frybob,” he announced, “nice and ripe, too.”
Sebastian inquired as to their location, grabbed my helmet, and took off with the rest of the Jyryxahal. When they returned, frybob filled the makeshift bowl along with a peppery, leafy weed and dark, pointed mushrooms Sebastian assured were neither poisonous nor hallucinogenic, but best eaten later when cooked.
“It may not have rained here last night, but it certainly must have done so recently,” Sebastian explained. “I discovered these delicious morsels in a particularly damp spot under a fallen branch.”
“How did you know the mushrooms are okay to eat?” I asked, while munching on my share of the salad. It wasn’t IHOP, but under the circumstances, I didn’t complain.
“I tasted them,” he replied.
I recalled a college mycology course where the professor told us an old Czech adage: “Every mushroom is edible, but some only once.” Many species existed that, if eaten, could either kill you or make you wish you were dead. Even experts sometimes made mistakes. “Are you insane? What if they were dangerous?”
“I have been a fungophile for two centuries.”
“But what if Dekankaran mushrooms aren’t the same as the one’s you’re used to?” I argued.
Sebastian moved his hand in his typically dismissive wave. “Mushrooms are mainly the same between the Human and Coursodon dimensions. It is, therefore, extremely likely the same holds true in Dekankara. Besides, even if they turned out to be troublesome, Alex is a gifted healer.”
Gifted or not, it seemed like a big risk to take. Sebastian’s disappearing trick didn’t go as well as it should, nor did Alex’s usually painless calming touch, so there was no telling what other magical talents might be iffy. Besides, the same class taught me it sometimes took days or weeks for symptoms to appear after ingesting a bad ‘shroom.
“I think I’ll pass,” I said. “I prefer to have a functioning liver and kidneys.” Not to mention a general distaste for retching out my guts and writhing in agony.
“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug. “But, take it from an expert, my dear, the psychotropic ones are well worth the peril.”
Ulut believed a small settlement was within a few miles, and after we ate, he and Alex set out to snag some clothing more appropriate for women in this dimension. Purloining from folks who had little to spare struck me as not simply criminal, but just wrong. Logically, I knew we had to have the wardrobe changes, and without anything with which to barter, our options were limited. Still, I made them promise to take no more than one item per home to lessen the effects of their thievery.
They returned a few hours later. Ulut no longer wore the hodge-podge of extra clothing cobbled together from Sebastian, but a drapey, brown shirt and tan pants that fit him, more or less. Alex sported a similar outfit and carried some extra Dekankaran duds for Sebastian, T, W, and Z. They also stole three skirts. Mine was dark gray, gathered at the waist with a simple tie, and made of coarse, woven cotton. The others were similar: ankle length, drab colors, and made from a canvas-like fabric that itched like hell. Fortunately, they also pilfered loose, sleeveless shifts, calf-length, and constructed of a softer material meant to be worn beneath.
“Where did you find all this stuff?” I inquired, modeling my new, Dekankaran duds for Alex.
“We were lucky. It must be washday. Almost everyone had laundry out.”
“And you didn’t have any problem keeping out of sight?” It would have been better to go at night, but we didn’t want to waste a whole day waiting until the sun went down.
“Don’t worry, carisa. We were stealthy and did exactly as you instructed, only grabbing one piece per clothesline. We weren’t in one place for very long.”
The one piece per homestead rule aside, the sheer number of burgled garments must have made the townsfolk wonder if a gang of roving fashionistas invaded the area. Even if they didn’t notice the losses immediately, we couldn’t rely on that community for anything else, lest they recognize the looted clothing. If we wanted food and shelter, we’d have to find it someplace farther away.
Dressed in our filched finery, we stowed our obviously extra-dimensional gear deep in our packs and took off to find a different hamlet with someone willing to help our motley crew. Alex and Ulut also found a well during their duds-run and refilled our water bottles. The replenished water supply kept us from succumbing to dehydration, but while the terrain was relatively flat, the lack of food made the hike more tiring than expected.
I passed the time walking with the Jyryxahal, trying to memorize who was who. I had no problem with the two women. Bex stood out not just because she was clearly the head honcho, but she was also much taller than the others, and her hair was quite distinctive. Today, her perfectly straight, blue-black tresses were braided, and the long plait hung almost to her waist. V was closer to my five foot six, curvy, with short, dark brown waves, and she always smiled.
The men were more difficult to keep straight. They all stood about five foot ten with shoulder-length, wavy, mousey brown hair. After careful observation, I realized there was a chip in T’s left incisor and Z’s eyes had a touch of green, not light brown like the others. T for tooth and Z for hazel and I had the memory cues necessary to distinguish one from the other. W was the one without either. I was proud of myself; if I had to have acolytes, the least I could do was be able to tell them apart. If I could just get them to stop gazing at me all dreamy-eyed, life would be good. Or, at least not quite as sucky.
After five hours of walking, another small settlement came into view. According to Ulut and Alex, while it had as many houses as the one they visited earlier, they were further apart.
“That is excellent,” Sebastian affirmed. “If we can find refuge at one of the outlying residences, we will be less likely to call undo attention to ourselves.”
Ulut went in alone to get a feel for the place and returned with good news. The first person he encountered offered to let us camp in his barn in exchange for some chores. The farmer, named Gera, was a widower twice over who longed for a decent meal and helpers in the fields. He was, therefore, untroubled there were ten of us, as long as someone in the group could cook and the rest had strong backs. His acceptance that all but Ulut hailed from a region far away—a backstory concocted to explain our lack of proper language skills—made him the perfect host.
We got to work almost immediately. While W and Alex climbed up on Gera’s roof to patch a hole, Sebastian chopped wood, and the rest of us went inside to see about dinner. The house, constructed of adobe, was really only one good-sized room. The kitchen took up a large portion of one side, with a rickety table and chairs in the middle and a mattress of straw in the far corner. As unlikely as it seemed, Agnes spent a few summers working in Colonial Williamsburg and knew how to cook on the hearth of the brick fireplace. Her expertise
was fortunate because no one else had any idea how to cook without benefit of electricity or magical enhancements, and those so inclined with the latter skills were under strict orders from Alex and Sebastian not to use them.
Assembling ingredients into something edible took a group effort: V picked squash, peppers, and tomatoes from Gera’s garden, T and Z ground jewel-colored kernels of dried corn, and Bex hefted water from the well. I plucked and eviscerated the wild turkey Ulut expertly dispatched with a bow and arrow provided by our host. Sebastian thought I was best suited for the task given my penchant for doing just that when in hawk form. I was sure everyone was relieved I used my fingers and not my mouth.
Somehow, we managed to cobble together a delicious repast, or, at any rate, an edible one. By the time we dug into the meal, I was so famished that anything would have tasted good. Just like at Thanksgiving, it took hours to prepare, and mere minutes to consume.
Gera sat back and patted his stomach. He reminded me of Billman, shorter and plumper, but they shared the same chestnut skin tone and long, greying hair. It was difficult to determine how old he was, but I guessed around mid-fifties in human years.
“Nitkew o jerit lo pimtuc,” Gera said contentedly.
Ulut translated. “He says, ‘thanks for the lovely meal’.”
Alex smiled at our host and replied, “Tell Gera we thank him for sharing his food and offering us a place to sleep.”
Ulut relayed the sentiment, and he and Gera spoke at length.
“He appreciates everyone’s hard work,” Ulut explained, “and hopes we do not think poorly of him for having us stay in the barn.”
I didn’t have a problem with it. There was barely enough space for all of us to eat inside his house, much less lie down and sleep there. Besides, there was a lot of hay spread across the barn’s floor, which was a huge improvement over the hard ground we slept on the night before.
My enthusiasm about the arrangements waned when it actually came time for bed. The barn may have been twice the size of Gera’s cabin, but once we herded the goats inside for the night, our usable square footage was minimal. It made perfect sense for the livestock to be sheltered during the prime predator hours, but for some inexplicable reason, it never occurred to the city girl that we’d share the barn with farm animals. So, instead of the ten of us scattered throughout, we ended up crammed together in a section where tools were normally stored. Gera cleared out the plow and such, but it was still tight.
Some people had no problem snoozing next to someone they didn’t know, but I was not one of them. It was difficult for me even sharing a bed with one of my sisters. A lover—fine. Strangers? Not so much. We arranged ourselves in two lines of five, and I got between the wall and Alex. Sebastian was in the opposite row, his feet almost touching mine. Ulut slept next to Sebastian, and shared foot space with Alex. My favorite men formed a buffer zone that separated the rest of the gang from me and my neuroses. If I hadn’t been worried about rolling over into a pile of manure, I’d have bunked with the goats.
15
We planned to keep moving, but a new warlord had recently taken over the area, and while the brutal incursion bypassed Gera so far, others farther east were not so fortunate. Gera hinted he’d be more than happy to continue our arrangement, and aside from the cramped sleeping arrangements, it wasn’t a bad deal. After weighing the pros and cons, Ulut thought staying put was the better choice for now. Besides, we awoke to a breathtaking, cloudless sky. Who knew how long we might have to wait for another storm, and we didn’t want to be too far from Dekan-Babo when it finally came.
Farm life, particularly without benefit of modern machinery, was demanding and exhausting. It was difficult to fathom how Gera managed by himself. Granted, he had a lifetime of experience with agronomy, and Dekankarans, like the Courso, were blessed with super-human strength. However, he wasn’t a young man and even with chores split between all of us, there always seemed to be lots more to do.
My years milking chinchilla put me in charge of the dairy tasks. The process was essentially the same, except the goats required milking twice a day, and their teats were considerably more productive than the rodent’s. Another upside was the goats seemed perfectly comfortable with me yanking on their swollen udders, contentedly munching on some hay while I worked. Chinchilla, on the other hand, had a tendency to bite when their mammaries were squeezed, particularly when the squeezer was someone to whom they had not been properly introduced. Not that I blamed the furry creatures; definitely the response I’d have under similar circumstances.
With the goats emptied, I hoisted the bucket onto my shoulder and carefully walked back to the cabin. The wooden container was heavy enough on its own, but filled, was difficult to carry without its contents sloshing over the sides. After spending forty minutes hunched under lactating ruminants, I’d be damned if I lost any.
As I cleared the barn, Ulut returned from a field holding something with iron spikes protruding from multiple wooden slats.
“What’s that?” I said quizzically. “Some Dekankaran torture device?”
Ulut laughed. “It is called a harrow. They are used to break up and smooth the surface of the soil.”
Carefully, I lowered my pail and examined the implement. “Isn’t that what a plow is for?”
“A plow makes deep cuts; a harrow comes after to give the soil a finer finish for the seeds.”
“Wow, I had no idea you were so versed in the ways of farming. Between this and your skill with a bow, you’re a regular frontiersman.”
Ulut frowned. “I am not familiar with that term. Is it meant as a compliment?”
With his impressive language skills, it was easy to forget English wasn’t his native tongue. “Frontiersmen settled the wild, unpopulated areas of the early United States.”
“Like Davy Crockett?”
“How do you know about him?” The only thing I remembered about Davy was he died at the Alamo. Or, maybe that was Daniel Boone. I could never keep them straight; seen one man with a coonskin cap, you had pretty much seen them all.
“Sebastian and I like to watch a television show where they test things to see if they are true. I think it is called, Myth Bursters.”
“Myth Busters,” I corrected. Somehow, the thought of Sebastian stretched out on a couch, with Ulut in dog form curled up next to him bonding over The Discovery Channel made me smile.
“Yes, that’s it,” he agreed. “They proved the story that from forty yards away, Davy Crockett could fire his rifle and hit the edge of an axe embedded into a tree trunk so precisely that the bullet would split in two. If you are comparing me to him, I am honored. They called him, ‘King of the Wild Frontier’.”
“Well, Your Majesty, you still didn’t answer my original question. How do you know so much about agriculture and hunting?” I bent to grab the bucket, but Ulut lifted it instead.
“If you don’t live in town, you have to learn how to grow or get your own food,” he explained as we walked toward the house. “That’s how I knew where to go to hunt the turkey. Even in a city, there aren’t grocery stores, just open markets where locals sell things they grow.”
“There’s probably something to be said for no Super Wal-Marts,” I noted. While Dekankara lacked many modern conveniences like electricity and indoor plumbing, not having to encounter oversized women jammed into two-sizes-too-small jeggings searching for chicken breasts on sale at three AM was a definite boon to any civilization.
Almost everything we did each day contributed only to our own survival: tending the animals, gathering food, making food, or fixing things that broke in the process of tending, gathering, or making. The work was an endless circle that never seemed to move anything forward. At first, the utter simplicity of our existence was intoxicating but, as the days passed, it got old fast. Each night, once dinner was finished, all I wanted was sleep.
“I don’t think I’m cut out for farm life,” I complained. Tired, filthy, and achy, Alex manipulated my so
re shoulders with the deftness of a trained masseur. “I never thought of myself as a girly-girl, but right now, I’d give almost anything for a nice, hot bath and a good loofa. There’s grit embedded in places I don’t know if I’ll ever get clean.”
Alex brushed his lips against my neck. “You are beautiful under any circumstances, carisa.”
“Sure, that’s because you’re as grubby as I am.”
He pulled away and offered a playful grin. “Does that mean I no longer smell like Ben and Jerry’s?”
“Actually,” I confessed, “ever since your imitation of a lightning rod, you smell like S’mores.” Sure, I reeked like a locker room, and he gave off the scent of graham crackers, toasted marshmallows, and chocolate.
“I suppose that’s appropriate given the camping-like conditions in which we are living,” he noted.
“Or the fact you almost roasted yourself.”
“That too,” he agreed. “You know, Gera said there’s a small river not far from here with a variety of fish. Perhaps tomorrow we can go catch dinner and use the opportunity to bathe in a more leisurely and productive manner.”
That sounded like a plan. Drinking water came from the well, and a spring on the property allowed for irrigation of the crops. Pails of the precious commodity allowed for rudimentary bathing, and while we tried to scrub our clothes as best we could, at this point, I’d become used to my own stench. The thought of submerging myself and really washing my hair seemed too good to be true after so long with only sponge baths.
“I’ll have to ask Bex and V if they can do my afternoon chores.” Crap, could I possibly sound more like Laura Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie?
“You should ask Agnes. Each of the Jyryxahal does twice the work she does.”
“I know, they do more than anyone, but there’s no way I’m letting that woman near the goats. Yesterday, Sebastian and I caught her screaming, “Get the fuck into that coop and lay some fucking eggs,” at the chickens
