4-4-4 Nobody at the Bar

"Umm... did anyone bring matches?" My little sidekick had come from the kitchen; I used her as my messenger to Salamandy since I couldn't be bothered keeping her updated throughout the two hours it took us to get everything organized. I had to admit that I was stumped. Who needs to light fires to keep warm anymore?

Sally herself came dragging her feet out the kitchen, rubbing her forehead so intensely that she was unable to see the product of my boys' and my hard work filling the fireplace and to spare for the whole night. Without giving any of us face, she dug into the pack she kept at her side that had the same Garden leaf, only in emergency-red rather than midnight-blue. She found a small braid of steel wool, and I felt embarrassed for her at once.

But apparently I was the only one when I saw everyone else ignoring her, and I felt rather embarrassed for myself when the next thing she took out was a nine-volt battery (who the fuck uses those anymore?), took the protective cap off, and touched it to the wool. Fire broke out immediately onto the small collection of dry leaves my boys had set; she was gone before the excited boys went about refilling the dry leaf stock and setting small sticks above it to catch the flame.

"Get two good branches going, then send one to the kitchen," I ordered with a whole thorn about the whole situation, "they don't want to screw with dead leaves in there." I headed out one more time to clear my head of that woman, also to get my own stuff out of the bus belly. We didn't allow the kids to bring theirs in because we couldn't stop them all making a mess; we adults could supervise ourselves to prevent that. I hefted out Sally's while I was at it. Just because she had said "please."

Dinner was a very boring choice between egg product log, vegetable product log, and several boring loaves of wheat bread. No one moved from the table (twenty seats for twenty-four; four were waiting along with Sally and myself: my own servant, and Sally had selected one of her own from amongst the boys) until he or she sampled all three flavors of food, and all we got to drink was water. There was canned soda distributed for the drive, and there was box juice and such, but Sally explained water can be refilled, but soda makes one stay up all night.

"We need to get up early in the morning, so when you stir, get yourself up," Sally ordered after we packed the riff-raff away and got into our own room. "If they have a chance to work up a head of steam without us, it'll be bad."

"Shouldn't we be sleeping with them? What if they..."

Again, she looked at me like I was crazy. "These kids grow up in barracks just like these, only by the hundred rather than the dozen. They won't wander. Especially to each other's rooms."

"How do you know?"

"Because when it's one found in the other, it's the girls that get punished."

That was the most ridiculous thing I had heard in my life.

She saw my disbelief, and again she groaned. "When it's the girl that gets in trouble, the guy looking around for a peep show no longer looks quite so interesting to the girls, being that it's not his neck on the line to snoop around."

Actually, that does make sense. Still, one more thing she had to look down on me for. "Is there anything else I need to know?" I asked with a bit less patience than I could've.

"Yeah," she sighed, but now it was a sigh of tiredness, "we won't have time to worry about getting out of here for about a week. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

I sat down next to her. There was a lot of crap she had put up to me this day, but to say something like that? "What's going on?"

"Water, Gains," she said, looking at me seriously. "If, say, I go looking for a town or something, you have to keep everyone else in the cabin where you can keep your eyes on them. If I don't find anything, that's a whole day gone, and everything we have to drink won't last through noon."

Now I was understanding why she didn't seem to find any of this as painless to tell me as, say, starting a fire. "I have to go find a natural water source over the next few days, then we spend the day bringing it up here in loads, boiling it, and storing it. About fifty gallons of it."

"In what?" I almost shouted. I knew she at least knew what she was talking about, but this was not only too far, it was just incredulous.

"In their backpacks, Gains," she said patiently. "They're waterproof. They zip up top rather than down the sides, and they hold about three gallons each."

And just like that, such a weight was lifted off me, I hadn't even had the time to realize it was there. And just like that, I developed a strange sense of respect for Salamandy for keeping her wits about her so well. In fact, looking at everything together, she never lost her calm once. The only thing that was ever out of place in this adventure-turned-disaster was me, not knowing what the hell to do. If it hadn't been for her, I would've taken the kids in that bus and driven off, probably to someplace worse than a tight cabin with a fireplace and beds.

"We'll go through the most water flushing our toilets, and we'll have to check where they drain off too," she explained further. "and though you may have guessed, we'll have to find our own food."

I hadn't thought of that; I simply nodded agreeably.

"We'll work that out later, but the biggest problem is actually finding the water. We can do without everything else for a while as long as nobody gets dehydrated." She went on about other details, like keeping a few of the kids moving branches into the house for timber since we'd be boiling water around the day for drinking, some kids for hauling berries or fish once we found berries or fish, others hauling water practically all the time, and the two of us being absolutely cool at all times, no matter how the stress got to us.

She finished with a sigh. I knew she had more to say, but I could feel her being tired, and I had troubled her enough with my ignorance. I saw past our mutual bullshit then, and without hesitation I did exactly what I wasn't supposed to do: touch her. I put an arm around her shoulder, just briefly, just squeezing her once in appreciation for her efforts, then I pulled down to my skivvies and went around to my side of the bed.

"Thanks for bringing my stuff in," she said quietly. She may have undressed; there were no lights to tell me so. At dinner, we had eaten mostly by the light coming from the stove through the door communicating between the dining room and the kitchen. Now it was by moonlight that we kept from banging our toes into things. And by moonlight were the creepy-crawlies of the night starting to sing, probably scaring the children.

Enough thinking. Bed now. Plenty to think about tomorrow, so tonight may be the last day I get to rest peacefully for at least a week. Maybe a lot longer.

***********

Several months later...

"You brat, don't steal the puck unless you're going to run for cover!" I hollered yet again.

The surprised girl dropped the rather heavy turtle shell, seemingly surprised to see it in her hands, and ran in the wrong direction, only to be tagged while her teammate covertly grabbed the shell and hid in the correct bunker. Two more players entered the field, and from there it would be a rush to dance scene one from "The Lonely Lakenois" as fast as possible so the two twigs could be rearranged for yet another point for team five.

Beside me, Sally broke into a fit of laughter that had her squirming on the ground, gasping for breath. "This game is so ridiculous!" she shouted amidst the pain of her splitting sides. I can't remember a time when I could imagine going a day without seeing that carefree sparkle in her eyes.

I pulled her back to her feet, and we gazed upon one-another for those few moments, still joined hand-to-hand.

"Gross! That old guy's hitting on Miss Blackfeather!" one of the more obnoxious boys shouted, and his fellow hecklers joined in to heckle us. I caught the eye of my protégé, who winked at me and ran for the opposite end of the field like the previous girl, only she made it without being tagged.

"Another disadvantage, I'm afraid," I announced. The boys stopped their heckling to see what happened, and they rose up as one voice again, only this time in protest.

"Pay attention to the game then," Sally said, still working through a few tears of laughter. When they saw they were getting no assistance from us, they selected and removed one of their number from the playing field and stopped screwing around so as not to get one-upped again.

Sally and I left them to their devices and returned to the lodge, passing the few stray children that were assigned to work while the rest played, tending the fire here or preparing fish there. We shut ourselves into the bedroom we had shared all this time, and we threw ourselves onto the bed with a few remaining coughs of humor. I had never let go of her hand.

"We have got to invent a better game," she said, leaning up on one shoulder to look at me. Her breasts fell together to form the most titillating cleavage poking out of the white button-down she had stolen from me a mere week to our little excursion while all her shirts were being laundered; she wore it knotted right below her breasts, and it was getting rather thin from its constant use.

Her short jean shorts were still her daily fare, though they were getting tattered at the seams and she had patched up more than one tear in the seat made by her full backside. Though her feet were calloused from the wild, she kept them soft and clean at all times, her nails perfectly pedicured.

I had grown fit from waking at the butt-crack of dawn each day and carting nine gallons of water to and from the fish-bearing creek we had found about a mile into the forest, hauling firewood, and wrestling rather brawny young men (and women) that got out of hand on occasion. Both our skins had darkened several shades from the constant sun, though a few glimpses here and there revealed to me that Sally bore no tan lines, a thought that kept me up many a night.

Her eyes had changed. I had stopped trying long ago to not stare into them, and I was glad I did. There was laughter in her eyes, there was happiness too. Contentment. Gone were the days of her frustrations and protests at our situation, now there was only each new day, and they were all memorable in their own right, especially since the advent of "Harquewatch," the impromptu game that got invented with an over-abundance of boredom. I had yet to see the game placed the same way from one day to the next.

We had spent many such moments like this, just the two of us taking a few minutes from the hot sun to enjoy each other's company while the kids played on into the heat. They hardly needed our supervision for a darn thing except for the long trip off to the water source or for the various traps we set for pieces of meat here and there, so the longer we were stranded, the more time we had together to just sit quietly.

"How long are you gonna stare at me like that?" she asked. Even a month ago, I would've thought she was being her usual bitchy self. Now? She was actually shy about it. The bitch was still in there; she had a great deal more verisimilitude with the children when giving warnings than I did, but with me, she had slowly accepted that I was an idiot that I tried very hard to do what I could to make everybody comfortable.

"For as long as you let me," I answered. "Here, I got you some food." She looked softly at my offering of wild mushrooms and berries. She had been losing weight fast since the beginning of our trip, making sure everyone was full before she took a bite. I adopted her regimen, and as a result our children were continuing to grow at a normal rate, though the two of us were looking sallow.

While we all scrounged regularly, I would sometimes go a bit beyond the time limit and allocated range to find a few things more just for her. It hurt her to see food that wasn't meant for the children, but I had to (kindly) remind her that she needed to eat something. She picked at the little bits carefully, and in no time at all it was gone.

"Thank you."

"Do you think we'll ever get out of here?"

"I know we will."

That marked the first time we broached the subject since our private discussion on that first night. We hadn't brought it up before as though it was a taboo that would jinx us, but it was at that moment that I learned true appreciation for the word "bittersweet." I could stay here forever, but I didn't want to have to watch this hard-working, mothering person to wither away into nothing, to have the rest of her life be to look after a mess of kids that don't belong to her, to have her have to wake up to me every day.

Actually, I did want that last part. It's just that she should have more of a choice in the matter.

Oh god, did I just say that? I want to wake up with her every day.

When I had found a cow and her calf, she had lassoed it in herself, had the kids build a pasture for it, and had milked it first thing every morning so everyone had fresh protein and fat. When someone got sick, she had everything in order to get him or her right again in no time. Thanks to her prudence, we only had one broken bone, and she set the bastard thing herself, bound it up right so that it was almost healed by now.

Me, I did what I could.

"What is that?" she asked of the slight mist permeating our room. This was one of those things I did.

"Happy birthday, Salamandy Ravenlock."

"Miss Blackfeather," as the children named her, stared at me in disbelief. "How'd you... which of the little runts told you?" she demanded. After so many months out here, we had our share of birthdays, for each one we tried to accommodate them with a few special treats, and Sally was to be no different. Bit tricky though, with about twenty different people keeping their own calender. As near as I figured, the date was December One.

She got up to look where the mist was coming from, and she saw the large clay tub, which we wondered why had ever been put there in the first place, was filled to the brim with piping-hot water. "Gains..."

I grinned in satisfaction. While I had gotten used to carting the water all that distance, never once did the six bags-full I carried just for her to, for once, submerge herself in hot water, feel so good. I put on a blindfold and stood by the bath so she could dwell in it without having to get out for anything until she was good and ready; I'd be right there to grab whatever she needed.

I heard something unzip, then something entering the water. Sally was naked not a foot from me, and it soothed me. Months of sleeping in the same bed, and we both showed remarkable control, especially for two regular weekenders like us. "Gains?"

"Yeah?"

"...There's something I have to tell you."

I didn't care what it was as long as this dream went on. "Go ahead."
"I was the one who told your sister you had a crush on her."

Like a single photograph that can bring up the most traumatic event of a lifetime, Sally's words made me immediately claustrophobic with such a range of conflicting emotions that I didn't know what to do with. There were many nights in the beginning where I couldn't sleep for wondering if my sister Becky was okay, whether she was actually worried about me being lost when I didn't check in with Reo by phone over the first week, whether she knew, whether she cared, whether she was okay...

Then I would remember that I wasn't supposed to care. She had damn-near kicked me out of town; I only left as soon as I could so as to avoid yet another Gains-on-Gains crime. With so much time passed away from her, the lines of who had hurt whom became amazingly blurry. Facts and fiction blended together with my insecurities to make an untoward conglomeration of nonsense that I had long forgotten why I should even be upset about in the first place.

Most importantly, my time spent with beautiful Salamandy was making me forget the harsh and complicated Becky. Sally liked being obeyed and giving orders, but she didn't know what to do with herself when everything was going her way, which it usually was because everyone knew she was the one in charge between the two of us. Sally liked being pampered, so at some point I had begun picking up what chores she assigned to herself so she could take care of her body, which was as important to me as it was to her.

She began to give up on it, that dynamite body of hers. Something about not having a selection of boys to impress can do that to a girl, I suppose. My comment about not wanting to be stabbed by her prickly black stubs was meant as a joke, but amazingly enough she seemed to have heard my inner voice pleading her to stay beautiful, perfectly groomed, just for my benefit. She continued to look good, but now it was just for me. That's when she started smiling despite her troubles.

Oh yeah, Becky. Whatever. "Whatever."

"What do you mean, 'whatever'? You know how guilty I feel?"

"You can stop, then," I said calmly, feeling calm. "I may never have told her myself, which would't've been fair to her. I should be thanking you, really."

It was something to think about, I suppose. Sally, being her usual self, would've done something exactly like that, no question. Thing is, I didn't care.

"Don't you care?"

"Care about what?"

"I thought it'd be a nasty little joke, but you've been such a... so helpful around here, I feel like I peed on your shoes or something."

"I'm not wearing any shoes."

When did all that happen, anyway? What happened? Months of keeping track of water-retrieving schedules, branch-breaking schedules, fishing schedules, meat-trapping schedules, milking schedules; little things like my sister declaring war on me didn't seem to matter. I remembered that I left in the first place because I got in a fight over defending my sister's honor or something, and the next day she wouldn't talk to me. Over-exaggerated on my part, really. What did Sally have to do with that?

Oh, right. Back then, I developed a healthy little crush on Becky, my sister. Something about the way she dresses or something. It was a crush like any other, I suppose. I felt like I was going to whither and die unless I spent one night with her as I had with many other girls before her each week since I entered puberty.

She tried to tell me on that day. "I know you like me." Something about her friend's brother's uncle's teacher's first mate's left-wing candidate... She tried to tell me who had told her as though the person was at the end of a maze I was more than allowed to follow to the end if only I could decipher teenage girl. Guess Salamandy was the one at the end of the maze.

So I had her to thank for all this? No, whatever happened between Becky and me, Sally had done nothing more than do something a little snide. A catalyst, nothing more.

She was quiet for the rest of her bath. I don't know about her, but I felt my odd metaphor about shoes really fit in a strange way. A person isn't going to get upset you drinking his milk if he doesn't like milk. I suppose the fact she didn't care if she hurt me should've bothered me, but I knew she'd never do anything like that to me after all we'd gone through together. Not anymore.

She got out the bath and did herself down with our combined towels (everybody brought their own, thank preparation, and I let her use mine for extra points), and shortly after a "zip" she told me to take the blindfold off.

I did; and there, on the bed, was a zipped-up pair of barely-there shorts, a yellow thong, and an old dress shirt wrinkled in the front from being tied in a knot for months on end. Next to them all was a very nude Salamandy with very wet hair.