Gima The Beginning : Gima: Resolute Decisions by barkingdog |
Dear Reader: The GLOSSARY is included by request. It's not a required part of the reading. It's merely to assist a new audience. I have added information on herbal remedies for this chapter. Have fun reading. :) barking dogPreviously in Chapter 22: Asmel was attacked by a brown bear and lies on the east trail. A fire started in the east forest clearing because Hunter fell asleep, leaving his campfire unattended. Gima and Trell rescued Hunter from the fire and carried him to the stream on the north side of the Valley. He is still unconscious. To Trell's dismay, Gima left him to tend to Blathen, Zee and Hunter while she gathers herbs for Hunter's wounds. "Tell me, and I'll go," signs Trell. "I'll be faster. You can protect them." She motions toward the three. In response to Trell's worried expression she laughs, "I'll be fine." She kisses him quickly and runs north, her tall boots splashing across the rocky shallows of the stream. Trell watches her fade into the forest. He sighs, kicks the ground, and taking out his knife, cuts several twigs from the willow tree swaying overhead. He leans back against it and begins whittling small whistles to entertain his boys—Blathen, the snoring, drooling lieutenant and Zee, the quiet one. CHAPTER 23 Lost in delirium, Hunter’s body quivers from fever and he mumbles, “Azzy … sorry ... Azzy.” Over and over, he repeats the apology as his face contorts with pain and worry. Hunter’s mind plays memories of Gima at the Ox Bow River campsite. One moment she's the clever, agile child, swimming to cool depths in the green summer river and surfacing with a ‘browny’ from its hiding place in the rocky outcrops or fallen log’s shadows; and in another, she's climbing to the tallest branches of the great oak to spot distant game too far for the human eye to see. He never told Asmel about any of this. These behaviors set her apart from them and verified her as Vertant. He couldn’t face the fact that this rare Under Earth beauty, whom they'd rescued from Subby Side, might be anything but human. "Gima," Hunter sputters through burn-blistered lips. “Gima?” He drifts deeper into unconsciousness, his breathing shallow and life signs minimal. Trell watches the man Gima calls Papa Nigel. Then he traces his vermel culture’s symbols in the dirt with his knife. He doesn’t like the way he feels; his insides are tied up in knots. Tossing the, once important, whistle project down at the base of the willow tree, he paces, trying to think. A number of things come to mind. I have a bond with this human. Trell walks toward the stream and looks back, remembering Hunter's scarred back. Both of us tortured by Ticum. His clear blue eyes follow several leaves drifting on the current, bobbing along their merry way to who knows where. He stoops to pick up a hand full of smooth vari-colored pebbles from the water’s edge only to throw them briskly back. We are all very different, yet here together. His mind holds only one thought as he walks back: Gima cares for this human. Trell circles. His deer skin clad feet nudge Hunter's side. Tension tightens across his back. Twisting to stretch at the waist, Trell looks down at the insignificant, by Under Earth standards, human whose life is dwindling away right in front of his eyes. Its blistered wounds seep life’s clear fluid. Trell moves to the right, prods Hunter’s swollen foot, and clicks in harsh Vermel, “Let death have it.” He kicks leaf debris toward the non-responsive body. Trell walks back to his boys by the willow. Why should I tend to this stranger, this human thing, who smells so terribly of death? It’s unnatural. His mind is torn between his past beliefs and this present reality. But ... Gima wants him to live. Conflicted, he reverts to the old ways and tones 'Frere Jacques,' hoping to calm his instinctive needs to obey his father’s fatalistic teachings that see humans only as enemies to be destroyed or toyed with for amusement and, in this case, left to die. Distraught, he sits rocking. Blathen watches, pulls himself to an in-charge upright position, and as any proper first lieutenant should do, he offers what he considers expert advice. He runs a curved claw down Trell's arm to get his attention, unintentionally drawing a drop of blood which he tastes and catalogues. Trell looks up, his eyes blank. For a moment he thinks he sees Trolious. In a small, direct voice, trying to sound all-knowing and wise, Blathen breathing his hot breath in Trell's face, tones, “Father... Father, remember … you said, we are better for control. The need to 'do' can be our downfall.” Then the minature vermel laughs, and rolling like a little red ball over to Trell’s feet, looks up raising his hands. "See, this is fun. This fun is the better kind." The one-eyed, fuzzy buddah wobbles on his round bottom and grins, his fat tummy jiggling with hee-haw laughter. Trell can't resist Blathen’s comedy.The spell is broken. He reaches over and playfully pushes the little one backwards which sets him rocking on his back-hump. Blathen gurgles with sheer enjoyment, kicking his feet high and wide. “Up, up Daddy. Up.” And so it is done. Trell throws Blathen, gurgling, towards the sky. Then catching him, Trell explains, “In Bellow City, death was left to continue its course. Here your mother believes that she can turn death around with flowers and weeds. So I do this, this thing that goes against all I’ve been taught. I tend a human … for her.” Blathen nods—What is this Bellow City he speaks of? And then for more information, he sweeps his collector across Trell’s face. The flavor transmits confusion and relinquishment; both he classifies under weakness. “Thirsty, Daddy. I’m thirsty.” Trell, relaxed after a good laugh, slings Blathen over his shoulder and saunters over to the stream to refill the water bladder. They sit to kick their feet in the stream. Two very different sets of feet. Blathen splashes and slurps contentedly, spilling for fun and squirting for distance, occassionally, aiming for salamanders who dart away. When Trell turns to go back to the willow to check on Zee, he sees hundreds of purple and yellow coneflowers swaying across the meadow. He remembers Gima; just this morning she wore them in her hair. Beautiful. Then she chewed one into a potion for Hunter—to heal him. With this sudden epiphany— flowers to heal Hunter—Trell, still toting Blathen on his shoulder like a little parasite, rushes to pick several waving coneflowers. Blathen watches from the base of the willow as Trell chews the flowers to juice, swishes water in his mouth and drips the liquid into Hunter’s mouth again and again. Hunter moans to swallow without waking. Distracted by a noise overhead, Trell’s keen eye follows a red-tailed hawk alighting atop the tallest oak. She puffs her feathers over newly laid eggs. Eggs! Gima burned her hand on the cabin’s stove last fall. I'd just gathered wild turkey eggs? She soaked her hand in the clear slime, and there wasn't even a blister. In a split second, he picks the quickest route to the nest through the oak’s branches, springs straight up, catches a branch, and easily pulls himself into the tree. “Up Daddy. Up,” cheers Blathen. Looking down he sees the three: Zee is curled up asleep, pale and freckled; Blathen bounces, waving merrily, wishing he could climb; Hunter shivers still talking nonsense. Taken by a sudden tightness in his throat, Trell coughs and spits the taste of human from his lips. The previously dormant nodules to either side of the back of his tongue are swollen and tingle. An inner excitement that he’s never felt before rushes through him. Shaking his head, pushing this away, he looks up at the nest. ****** On the east trail, a little red scout jounces along. Pulled by the smell of fresh blood, it explores. Cautiously, moving around the long, lanky dark-haired figure, the ant crawls up the gray, blood soaked hand to the creature’s torn shoulder and onto a neck where it feels a beat of life on the inside trail that runs there. It quickly scurries the entire, barely breathing, length of Asmel’s back to jump off at the boot. Safely back home in the fallen tree which is being totally re-furbished by hundreds of his relatives, Scout 435 reports that the death of the creature would have been better for harvesting, but they can still gather from the seepage on the ground. He adds that the flies, the supposed wise foreseers of death, had already begun to claim the face, but the sound he heard and the rushing felt from within the creature may prove them wrong. He believes his judgment is far superior to a fly's. ****** Still searching for comfrey, Gima has gone much farther north than she ever planned. Her usual gathering place in the east clearing was destroyed by the fire, and, right now, she’s somewhat unsure of how to find this other stand that she’s only seen once, a very long time ago, while collecting herbs with Papa Azzy. Witch hazel leaves were easy enough to find and are in her leather hip pouch. It’s beginning to get dark, and though her eyes see well in the dimming light, Gima can’t find the knee-high, fuzzy leafed comfrey which should be easy to spot with its bell-like purple flowers. But, she’s not about to give up. Anxious to get back to her family, showing little caution, she pushes her way through the brush, looking from side to side, disturbing nesting whippoorwills, toads and other ground dwellers. A steel-gray diamond back, who’s been basking in the last of the day’s sun, raises a broad head. Its heat pits sense Gima is near. A bush nearby rustles. The snake startles and coils. The rattler is poised—intruder ready. Its black split tongue vibrates in and out, picking up Gima’s scent as she blunders within its reach. The black and white ringed tail issues a scaley warning, just before striking. Quarter-inch long fangs hit her left legging. Lightning fast, Gima jumps back, reaches for and flings her knife, piercing, anchoring the snake’s triangular head to the ground. Angry at her own carelessness and instinctively hungry to eat her kill, Gima lops off the ornately patterned, reflexively-snapping head, kicks it aside and then rips ravenously into the warm flesh. Knowing that no one can hear her, she snarls with satisfaction. With sunset quickly approaching, and no comfrey in sight, she turns west toward the mountains. ******* Meanwhile in the forest east of the clearing, the rain has quenched the fire. The light drizzle that persists wakes a pale green anole that lies curled up in its basking spot near Asmel’s hand. It scratches its nose while stretching its length, and a delicate light-pink tongue tastes the humid air to gulp a partial drop at the very moment a giant finger twitches. Frightened, the small lizard darts further upward into the safety of the blackberry bush’s shady camouflage where it turns a darker green. With its tail twitching, head bobbing and its bright red dewlap fanned open at its neck, it jumps up and down, hissing a warning toward the body occupying its sunning territory. Brown relatives, basking in their own territorial spots, flee to blend into the dark-brown peeling bark plates of a thirty-foot sugar maple. Invisible, they chatter and squeal in inaudible pitches that Asmel’s alive. Several persistent flies flit off and on Asmel’s face, waiting for death to relax the occasionally twitching lips and eyes. The giant’s fingers move. His wrist and elbow bend. Asmel's massive hand flops upward to cover and claim the face—its territory. Angry flies argue their miscalculation, and Scout 435 merrily prances to report.
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