The Mender

Nat Makes Friends

Nat visited Dara's grave often. He was waiting for the completion of enough moon cycles so that he could dig up her bones and carry them back to Marim's grave. In those weeks, Nat's wall of grief started to come down. He was thankful for how welcoming and good the Flat Rocks bode was to Dara while she was sick and dying and, like Wilki, he now felt they had done the right thing by making the long walk from their bode. He realized that Dara's last days were better at Flat Rocks than if he had tried to nurse her alone. And he would never forget the day she died: how there was always someone with him throughout his all-night vigil by Dara's grave. Some came who he hardly knew.

He wanted to show his gratitude to the bode before he left, so he worked hard, gathering food, hunting, helping Wilki with her baby, and pretty much any projects that needed doing. He continued to keep himself somewhat apart, rarely joining in with any of the laughter or singing.

Riga made several flirtatious attempts to interest Nat, to no avail. She had given up on Dagan, who seemed more interested in Saba, though with Dagan and Saba's shy ways, theirs was a slow-moving courtship.

It was only when hunting with Kai and Esri that Nat seemed to enjoy himself. Several times the three of them tracked the now more-common eland herds, hiving off the oldest and literally running it to death. While eland could run more quickly in short spurts, they needed to rest more often and, unlike the hunters, the eland had no means of carrying water. The three found if they could keep an eland moving, not giving it a chance to stop for water, eventually, it would collapse.

It could take a long time. Esri, Kai and Nat worked out systems for storing caches of water and carrying water with them. Usually Esri and Kai left it to Nat to make the solo run at the end of the hunt to bring the eland to complete exhaustion. Esri and Kai were skilled trackers, but Nat was exceptional. They also saw a more joyful person emerging on those hunts, and hoped the hunting trips would persuade Nat to stay at Flat Rocks.

Before Nat came, Dagan usually hunted with Kai and Esri. Esri spoke with Dagan about taking Nat with them to help shake Nat out of his sadness. Dagan understood and did not mind staying close to the bode as he worried about the big cat signs near Flat Rocks and was anxious to look out for the more vulnerable people: Wilki with her baby, Zura and Nagar, and Fenti-Dumu. And this meant more time with Saba, as she was usually near Nagar.

The hunts were not always successful. Sometimes even Nat's keen eyes lost sight of the track, and the lucky eland managed to live another day. At the end of one long and unsuccessful day, they trudged back to Flat Rocks. Saba, Riga, Wilki and her baby were sitting by the fire. The returning hunters were tired but not unhappy. They had a successful hunt not long ago, and just to be out again with the possibility of finding game was still exciting.

The three women sitting by the fire noticed that Nat was even smiling. Kai and Esri were teasing him about losing track of the old eland they were chasing. He started teasing them back, saying, "I think that you two want to get rid of me and be alone to mate."

Saba and Riga looked at each other and started laughing. Riga said, "I doubt that."

"Why do you say that?" said Nat.

Wilki wondered too what was going on. She glanced at Kai and Esri, and then it slowly dawned on her, "Ah, could it be that maybe Kai doesn't want to couple with women?"

Kai smiled, "You're right, Wilki. I do like women and I really like Esri, but I dream of men."

"Ah yes, we too had men who mated with men and women with women," she said. "You and Esri confuse me because you are often together but sleep on opposite sides of the bode."

"We're few at Flat Rocks. It's hard to find mates, but maybe we'll find more people and there will be others like me. I hope so," Kai said. "And now that we all know about me," he looked around the group, "I think everyone else should tell me about their special dreams."

They laughed but no one volunteered any more personal thoughts, and they went back to talking about the hunt and playing with Wilki-Dumu. Unlike other times, Nat stayed around, even adding a comment now and then. It was a revealing insight for him, discovering that Esri and Kai were not life-mates or wanting to become life-mates. He felt dumb for misreading what was going on between Esri and Kai, and remembered how Marim used to tease him that he was better at understanding animals than people. Nat was aware that thinking about Marim was not as painful as it used to be.