Finally, Jandell pushed Meenah away from his shoulder, sniffled one more time, and whispered, “It’s time to go.” He helped Meenah tie on her bundle of supplies, and then hoisted his own packet onto his back.
Since they were on the northern edge of the village, they had to skirt their way around it carefully and avoid the watchmen. Luckily, Jandell knew where they were because he had recently had watch duty as a full-fledged hunter, and they managed to make it around to the trail he had planned to enter – a well-used, hard-packed path that would not reveal footprints. It was also broad and easy to follow in the moonlight.
After they were a few thousand steps from the village, well out of hearing range, Jandell stopped to talk to his companion, asking, “How are you doing, Meenah? Did you get some sleep? Were your parents suspicious?”
“Yes and no, Jandell,” she answered. “I did manage to get a good afternoon sleep, and I don’t think my mother or father has any inkling of our plan. How about you?”
“My mother caught me sneaking into our hut this morning,” he chuckled, “but she bought my lame excuse that I was out frogging with Brek all night, and she let me sleep in until high-sun.”
“Oh, Jandell! I can’t believe that we’re really doing this – really escaping from the village! I’m so excited, but also very scared! Will we get caught? Or killed?”
“Don’t worry, my sweetheart,” he said. “I’m very confident that I can protect us from animals and other dangers, as long as we stay healthy. My biggest concern is injuring a leg or arm or something while we’re traveling – so please be extremely careful. I think that our deception run will give us the time we need to get far enough away to avoid capture by the hunters. But now, I’m afraid that I must ask you to walk rapidly with me for a very long time without much rest, through this moon and the next sun and possibly longer.”
When the moon disappeared over the horizon, Jandell sparked a tallow candle to life, but this one was on a wide wooden base to catch any drippings, minimizing any clues for the hunters. Occasionally, they would come to a fork in the trail, and each time Jandell would make a point of walking for thirty or forty paces on one path, then carefully doubling back to take the other path instead.
By the time the sun came up, both of the young people were completely exhausted. Meenah said, “Jandell – I can’t walk any farther now. I’ve got to rest. I’m so tired!”
They found a nice glade of soft grass nestled between some logs, and Jandell allowed Meenah to spread a hide, where he and Meenah lay next to each other. He said, “Hmmm, let me think. We’re now more than half a sun south of the village, and I suspect that our parents are just now discovering that we’re missing. They’ll no doubt run to the Elders with the news, and it’ll be another half a sun until they organize the hunters to come after us. The sun’ll probably be setting by the time Drigga finds our northern deception path. Will they attempt to follow it at night, I wonder? Probably – though it’ll be very slow going trying to find footprints and other clues with torchlight. I’m guessing that they’ll get to the stream and camp there for the night before attempting to find where we emerged. Then it’ll be another full sun before they’ll have either given up, or discovered our ruse and returned to the village – that’ll put them at least two full suns behind us, maybe more! I think we can afford a quarter sun of rest, don’t you, Meenah?”
But he saw that his reasoning had fallen on sleeping ears as his travel mate had quickly succumbed to her weariness. Jandell readied his bow and his axe and laid his head on her stomach, determined to stay alert to guard her, but he was soon softly snoring himself.
Jandell sprang to his feet awake when something nudged him. He was just in time to see a raccoon scurrying off with a piece of their dried meat in its mouth. Looking up, he saw that the sun was nearly at its apex. He shook Meenah awake, saying, “Meenah – wake up and eat some dried food. We need to get going!”
As they walked along generally southward, Jandell thought, It’s certainly easier traveling in the sunlight, but we’ll need sleeping periods. I worry about sleeping at night because that’s when the really nasty predators hunt – especially the wolves. Drigga taught me a trick when hunting alone – I’ll put it to use this evening.
They walked until the early evening, and then Jandell spotted the type of tree he was looking for – easy to climb up to five spans or so with strong branches at that level. He had Meenah wait at the base while he climbed up with his axe and hide roll. Finding the right two strong limbs, he cut several smaller branches and laid them across, making crude floor joists. Then he laid his hide across it and tested his nest by lying down on it – it seemed plenty strong enough. Next, he helped Meenah up with their packs of belongings. They ate some dried meat and corn nibbles, drank some water, and lay down next to each other with Meenah’s hide for a cover.
“Sleep for a while, darling,” he said. “Here we’ll be safe from wolves and boars.” He didn’t mention that it would do no good against hungry large cats or bears, but those animals were rarer.
He was awakened in the dark by something walking across his cover hide – a squirrel. Looking up, he saw that the half-moon was low in the west, so they had slept half of the night. He sat up and shook Meenah awake, saying, “Meenah, sorry to awaken you, my love, but we need to travel at least one more full day before we can get a full sleep. We’ll travel by candle until the sun comes up.”
The couple travelled this way for another full sun, sticking to valleys where possible, but sometimes having to clamber through thick bushes up and down hills or ford streams. They were able to find another good nesting tree the next evening, where they ate the last of their dried food before going to sleep in the late evening. Jandell said, “We’re now four full suns south of the village, and perhaps five suns ahead of the hunters, if indeed they’re tracking us. It’ll be slower going for them because we’ve been as careful as possible to leave no tracks – sometimes even leaving false trails. Now it’ll be safe for us to sleep longer, and tomorrow I’ll hunt for small game for food. I’ve seen plenty on our trek so far, but haven’t taken the time to bring them down. Tomorrow night, we can even make a fire and cook some real food.”
“I feel so safe in your care, my love,” she claimed, hugging him in their nest. “I’ve also seen a lot of forest lettuce and edible roots – I can gather those while you’re hunting. We’ll have a small feast!”
For the next two days, Jandell permitted a slower pace, with rest periods for a little hunting and food gathering. Game was plentiful, so it didn’t take very long to reap enough food for the evening meals. Jandell restricted himself to shooting rabbits and squirrels. He could easily have brought down a deer, but they couldn’t use the extra meat, and it would only attract predators. Even when he killed a small animal, he would quickly butcher it, store the edible parts in a skin, and bury the rest. They would stop late in the afternoon, make a small fire, and cook the meat, eating their fill and storing the rest for the next morning. Then they would continue walking until it was almost dark, and Jandell would make another sleeping nest. They would awaken at first light, eat some food from the previous cookout, and continue their trek southward.
Only one night, as they lay in their nest, did they hear the baying of a pack of wolves. It was terrifying and went on for a long time, but the wolves were not very near them, and the ruckus finally abated. Nonetheless, neither of them slept much that night, listening for the pack to approach their tree and wondering what they would do if so. Jandell comforted Meenah by saying. “Drigga told me that wolves generally will not attack humans if there’s plenty of other game around, and we know that’s the case in this area.”
On the eighth sun of their voyage, they were forced to climb a large hill or small mountain that was thick with chaparral and pinecone trees. It was exhausting work, and when they reached the top of the hill, Jandell climbed a tree to survey the terrain. He was hopeful that he could see signs of the other people. He saw no such sign, but he was surprised to see a large body of water to the southeast. I know that the ocean is to the west, so what could this be? He thought. Perhaps it’s a large lake?
He descended the tree and spoke to Meenah, “I see a large lake to the Southeast. I didn’t see any human signs, like smoke from a fire, but perhaps other people have a village nearby. Let’s proceed in that direction.”
When they got to the bottom of the hill, they found another large hill that they would have to traverse. There was a small stream with fresh water and a nice grassy glade, so they decided to rest for a bit. He sat down cross-legged, resting his back on a tree trunk – intending to keep watch – while Meenah lay down on her hide next to him with her head on his lap.
Jandell awoke with a start, realizing he had fallen asleep. The sun was shining in his face, but that’s not what had awakened him. It was the low growl of wolves. There were two of them standing about 15 paces in front of him.
Jandell had his left hand on his axe in his lap, and he began to reach slowly with his right hand for his bow, when he noticed that these were not normal wolves. For one thing, they had not attacked when he was obviously asleep – that would have been their best opportunity. For another, each one had some kind of colorful band around its neck, bands that could only have been made by humans!
He reached over and gently shook Meenah, saying in a very quiet voice, “Meenah – wake up very quietly and don’t move. Some wolves are looking at us, but they appear not to be aggressive. And I don’t think they’re wild.”
Meenah, who had been sleeping on her back, lifted her head and shoulders slowly with her elbows to have a look, quietly saying, “Look, Jandell, they’ve some kind of belts or thongs on their necks – what can that mean?”
Before Jandell could answer, they heard a high-pitched whistling noise from farther away, and the wolves bounded off in that direction, emitting some kind of sharp cry that he had never heard from a wolf. Jandell and Meenah sprang up and rapidly packed their belongings, ready to run in the opposite direction from whatever was controlling those strange wolves, when they heard a very human voice crying out in some words they didn’t understand, “YOOOOO! ABETTA DIBORNY? YOOOOOO?”
Jandell’s first impulse was to run, but then he remembered that their goal was to find other people, and apparently they had found at least one – one that could control wolves! So he yelled back toward the voice: “HELLO! WE ARE HERE! WE WANT TO MEET YOU!”
A short while later, a very large man with a long black beard and wearing a black bear skin emerged from the forest, looking as shocked as they felt to see them. The two wolves were walking next to him. In a sign of peace, Jandell put his axe and bow on the ground in front of him and bowed slightly, signaling for Meenah to do the same.
That brought a great roar of laughter from the bear-man, which caused the wolves to make that sharp noise again until the bear-man said something to them sounding like a command. The wolves immediately sat on the ground and quieted – ears perked up and alert. He had a very strange-looking bow made of some material Jandell had not seen before, with the ends that connected to the twine curved in the wrong direction. Bear-man laid this bow on the ground along with the longest knife Jandell had ever seen, and walked over to them.
Bear-man stood in front of the couple with a quizzical look on his face. He held his hand up and slowly touched Jandell’s amulet and his deer-skin sleeves. He also touched Meenah’s long, blonde hair. Finally, he bowed slightly as they had and asked, “Feg musdle zo neber shon?”
Jandell replied in the Ren language, hoping that bear-man would understand, saying, “We’re from the Ren village many suns north of here. We’ve run away to try to find a new village to live in.”
“We couldn’t stay there,” added Meenah. “I was being forced to marry a man I didn’t love.”
But it quickly became obvious that bear-man understood not a word of what they were saying. So he began to use some sort of sign language. He uttered, “Feg brenna kloppen thap?” as he tapped each of them on the forehead, then lifted his own head and made a motion like putting food in his mouth and chewing.
“Yes! Yes, we are hungry!” said Jandell as he tapped Meenah and himself on the forehead and made the same eating gesture.
“Feg dokkel Theeba!” bear-man announced and motioned to his rear-end as he turned around back toward the wolves.
“I think he wants us to follow him,” Jandell said to Meenah, smiling. “I think he means to help us!”
The couple picked up their belongings and followed bear-man, but stopped a few paces short of the wolves, who didn’t appear to be so sure they wanted to help, bearing their teeth and growling quietly. Bear-man shouted more orders at the wolves, who immediately stopped their growling and lay on the ground. Bear man then pointed to Jandell’s right hand and said, “Feg jissel!” Indicating that he wanted to take Jandell’s hand. Jandell complied and, much to his consternation, bear-man led him over and held his hand in front of one of the wolves’ noses. The wolf sniffed it for a few heartbeats (which were coming very fast for Jandell) and then huffed and sat down again. The procedure was repeated for the other wolf, and then again for both wolves with Meenah’s hand.
Next, bear-man touched one of the wolves on its forehead and said, “Masser.” He then touched the other wolf and said, “Bollah.” Finally, he touched his own forehead and said “Theeba!” afterward gesturing at the couple and asking, “Feg jurba?”
Meenah smiled and got it first, touching her own forehead and saying, “Meenah!” Jandell followed quickly with the same gesture, announcing his own name.
Theeba smiled and said, “Meenah, Jandell, dokkel Theeba!” making the follow-me gesture again. He issued some unintelligible command to the wolves, who got up and began running around in front of them, urinating slightly on every tree they could find.
They didn’t walk very far before coming to what was evidently Theeba’s temporary camp from the previous moon. There was a small campfire still smoldering, and over it was a strange metallic bowl held in place by some rocks and wooden branches. Nearby was a pile of hides of various animals, from a beaver to a deer. As they entered the camp, the wolves ran to chase a raccoon off of what appeared to be a pile of flesh and bones from a deer. The wolves were obviously interested in the meat, but they dared not take any – just sniffing around it instead.
Theeba walked over to the carcass, took the huge knife out of his sash, and carved off two large hunks of meat and bone. He tossed one into the bushes and said, “Masser!” The wolf ran after it. He threw the other fagot in a different direction, saying “Bollah!” and the other wolf ran to fetch and devour it. After that, he walked back to the metallic container, pulled it off the coals with some sticks, and looked at the couple. Pointing into the pot, he said, “Jandell, Meenah, Kloppen!”
Jandell looked in the pot to see that there were pieces of meat, roots, and some kind of leaves cooking in water inside. It smelled wonderful. He and Meenah used their knives to stab and pull out chunks of meat and root to eat, while Theeba sat back with arms folded, watching them and smiling.
When there was just one bit of meat left, Jandell stopped and pointed to it and then to Theeba, making the sign for eating. The bear man just laughed and indicated with his hands over his stomach that he was already full, no doubt having eaten before the wolves discovered the Ren couple.
After throwing the leftovers to the wolves, Theeba motioned for the couple to sit with him by the dying fire. He spoke in his unintelligible language, but while speaking, he made gestures that Jandell and Meenah began to understand. First, he pointed to each of their foreheads and then to all different directions, shrugging his shoulders and waiting for their response.
Meenah said, “I think he’s asking where we came from.”
Jandell agreed, so he pointed to the north, then to the sun, and made round, sweeping gestures of the sun going up and down seven times, counting those times with his fingers. Theeba grinned in understanding, so Jandell pointed to Theeba’s forehead and then in different directions to ask him the same question. Theeba spoke a few words, pointed to the south, and indicated just one circuit of the sun. Next, Jandell pointed to Meenah’s forehead and his own, and then to Theeba, and then to the south direction, and asked verbally, “dokkel Theeba?” which he hoped meant “may we please follow you home?”
That produced another explosion of laughter from Theeba, setting off the howling of the wolves again until the bear man ordered them to be quiet. He looked at Jandell and Meenah and shook his head from side to side while moving both hands up and down.
“I sincerely hope that means ‘yes, I will take you home with me,’” said Jandell to Meenah.
Theeba tied up the pile of hides and pelts with some leather thongs and attached them to his back, along with the empty metallic pot. The package of animal skins was large, and Jandell thought that he himself could probably not even lift it, but the huge bear-man seemed to have no problem with it. He headed off to the south with the wolves going ahead and Jandell and Meenah trailing him. He left the carcass where it was, so Jandell assumed that his tribe or village didn’t need the meat for some reason.
The three humans and two wolves traveled until the sun began to set. As they walked along toward the south, the forest became less and less dense and the trees smaller. By the end of the sun, most of the trees were of some type that was perhaps five times a man’s height and much broader, with gnarly trunks and branches.
As it began to get dark, Theeba stopped in a glade among the short, fat trees and indicated that they would camp here for the night. He pointed to a depression in the ground and made a gesture of warming his hands. Meenah told Jandell, “I think he wants to make a fire here – let’s help gather wood.”
Jandell shook his head at Theeba and moved his hands up and down, which he hoped meant “Yes, we understand,” and then he and Meenah began gathering kindling and small logs. Theeba just watched with admiration as the couple built a small pyre, and the admiration changed to amazement as Jandell brought out a piece of flint and immediately sparked a flame with some dried grass to start the fire. Theeba gestured to hold the flint, which he examined with great curiosity. Jandell took the flint back and demonstrated how to use it for Theeba, then he used sign language to offer it as a gift. Theeba smiled broadly, grabbed Jandell, and smothered him with a huge, very un-Ren-like hug.
Meenah, observing, said to Jandell, “I hope that we don’t have to make another fire – it’s harder without flint.”
“It’s OK, I brought another piece,” said Jandell. “And besides, I know how to find more. The hunters taught me.”
With the fire established, Theeba collected some water from a nearby creek into his metallic pot and propped it over the fire, putting some dried meat in it for their meal. He was once again amazed and delighted when Meenah gathered some edible roots and leaves to add to the pot, plus some bay leaves for flavor. The three let almost all of the water boil off and then shared the delicious stew, eating it as best they could with their knives and hands. The wolves had found their own meal, fighting over the carcass of a squirrel one of them had caught.
For the first time in eight moons, Jandell and Meenah enjoyed a good night of uninterrupted sleep, guarded by the watchful wolves and the bear-man. And Jandell was reasonably sure that they had successfully evaded the Ren hunting party, if one had indeed tried to track them.
Chapter 18 - The Others coming on Jan 28