Snatched by cmsix

Chapter 2

The third day was always reserved for hangovers, and almost everyone had a big old good un because almost everyone had been shitfaced the day and night before. Adding to the injury was that it seemed cleaning up any vomit that had been sprayed around the day before was done while heads were still pounding, and with those that had been forced to stand watch doing a lot of laughing at the ones that suffered and cleaned up.

I watched several of these from start to finish but I never could discover what set it off. It was almost like the two woke up one morning and just knew somehow that it was time to get hitched so they could do the nasty. As I said, I never got a hint that any nasty was done before a ceremony. This in itself was strange to me.

Back to my present state, I still felt like someone was watching me and I still knew that they couldn't be. At least nothing I had discovered here so far could be watching, since I'd already proved to myself that I knew a lot more about hiding from them than they'd ever be able to learn about sneaking up on me.

One thing that helped me immensely was their scent. The smell wasn't unpleasant at all, neither the men nor the women, but it was blatantly obvious to me. I could even tell whether I was getting close to a man, woman, boy, or girl from the smell and I could tell from at least three hundred yards. It was something that had seemed very strange at first. In fact, it wasn't just them; I seemed to have the nose of a bloodhound since coming to Margata.

Finally, after about two hours of feeling strange I did catch the scent of someone and in a few minutes I could tell that several Kwagi were approaching. I had only my bow and my Glock with me and I decided to climb a tree and watch to see what was coming.

Lying on a fairly large limb about twenty-five feet up let me see them first. It was a complete Calak on the move, and a larger one than I'd ever seen before at that. This particular area was new for me and I'd only been snooping around here a few days, but still, this was a big bunch. As they came closer I got a count; there were fifty-two adults, probably fifteen adolescents and twelve smaller children, and that didn't count the babes that were being carried.

It was obvious at once that they were moving, since major moves were the only times the men did wholesale beast of burden duties. All the men in this Calak, except the Zakat and the Matatu, were pulling travois. It seemed a little strange to me that they'd never thought of trying to capture and train a thaka to do the grunt work.

Thaka weren't as large as cattle or oxen from earth, but some of them reached the height of a donkey or a little larger, and all of them seemed to be built more robustly than any donkey I'd ever seen. I figured they would be perfect for such work. At least they'd have been better than having to drag the damned thing by hand. Oh well.

Staying still, I watched until a few more than half of them passed under or near the tree I was in. Just then the feeling hit me again, but hard this time. It was almost like one of the warning jolts I sometimes felt. I was nearly beside myself with worry when I discovered the cause. Right away the answer to the mating mystery revealed itself.

She was a redhead, which was fairly unusual anyway. Most of the females were blonde, and by a wide margin. I'd estimate that sixty percent were blonde, twenty-five percent were brunette, about ten percent had black hair and only about five percent were redheads. This one had the darkest wine red hair I'd seen on this planet, maybe on earth either.

To top it off she had dark green eyes and was beautiful, perfect. Since she was looking directly back into my eyes and smiling slightly I knew that I had finally sorted out the mechanism by which they found their mates. There was no doubt in my mind. I also knew somehow that tomorrow would be the day. I jumped off my limb.

It was shocking to the ones that saw me come down. Three of the men who witnessed my descent were so surprised that they dropped their travois. The women around them that didn't happen to see my stunt squawked and complained a little but those that had seen me stood stupefied. Soon word was moving out from about the center of the group toward each end.

Five minutes later the Zakat and Matatu walked up. The Zakat spoke right out with the normal greeting to an outsider who came alone to a Calak.

From the first I'd realized that my ability to understand the Zwangi's language had been helped along by whoever had put me here. Since then I'd listened clandestinely to plenty of them and practiced to myself often enough to feel confident I could communicate, but my learning curve had been too steep to be completely my doing. I was happy about it now though.

"Who are you stranger and why come you among us?" the Zakat asked me.

"I am Carl and I come to join you."

"Are you ready to fight then," he asked.

"I am ready."

He handed his large and fairly ornately decorated spear, a sort of ceremonial one that denoted his rank, to the Matatu as travois were being dropped and people were spreading out into a large circle to give us room for this little ditty.

As I mentioned, I'm six two and weigh nearly two fifty. This Zakat, who wouldn't even tell me his name until this was all over, looked to be every inch of six foot ten and I'm sure he wasn't even a biscuit shy of three hundred pounds. Just my luck my soon to be was traveling with the biggest mother-fucker I'd seen since I got here.

It didn't matter though, because I knew if I put up even a half assed fight he wouldn't kill me and I'd probably be allowed into his Calak. But hopefully I could do better than that. These fights didn't involve hitting the other man, with fist or anything. They were more like a sort of stand up wrestling but knockdowns and slinging around weren't uncommon.

I'd never been a big martial arts devotee but I had come across a little training, and I knew that even the little I'd had was more than he'd been exposed to. He came charging at me at once and it was duck soup to step aside and give him a shove that sped him up until he fell. There was an immediate gasp from the crowd.

He was a game big bastard though. His next trick involved running at me headlong with his arms spread so I couldn't slip out of the way this time. It was another mistake but he couldn't know it.

Since peewee football I'd been a linebacker and with my size a scholarship had me playing college ball against offensive linemen that were nearly as tall as he was and heavier by a long shot. I ran at him just as hard as he was coming at me and put my right shoulder to the center of his chest. It knocked him back on his ass and I landed on him when he hit the ground; rolling off and popping back up before the air quit whooshing out of his lungs.

Since he had no way to know I wouldn't want to be Zakat, even if I did win, he kept at it. This type of fight wasn't only for entrance to a Calak. It was also the way the leader made himself the leader. It was perfectly Kosher for me to win and then decline the office of Zakat, but he couldn't know I would, and most men that were Zakat probably wanted to remain Zakat. I was sure he did.

I had to knock his ass over eleven times in all before he realized that he could not beat me, now or probably ever. He finally gave up the ghost when he knew he was worn out.

"You have bested me, Carl. You are now Zakat," he said, giving the semi-ritual concession speech, such as it was.

"No, I am not Zakat. I am young and strong, but I am not wise. You are still Zakat. May I join your Calak?"

"Yes, Carl. I, Shaton, welcome you," he said, finishing the song and dance by telling me his name.

Good old Shaton wasn't the only one that was winded. That big bastard had been a load more than once during the dustup, and I'd been getting a little out of breath myself right at the last.

When I happened to get a glimpse of the redhead sneaking a peek at me it made everything seem worthwhile. It also showed me I'd probably just ignored the mating signs of the couples I'd watched so often, then again I'd probably never have noticed anything that subtle.

Shaton called a lunch break for now, and he couldn't have been any happier about it than I was. I could do with a bite or two to eat, and this would be the first meal since I arrived that I didn't have to fix myself. It was surprisingly good.

I knew at once that it was qaka inside the almost corn tortilla type thing a woman handed me about an hour later. All the older boys and younger, unmated men of a Calak pretty much ate together and they were usually served by a few of the mated women who seemed to rotate the duty.

I could tell right away that the women knew something about cooking qaka that I hadn't learned yet. In fact they knew a whole lot about cooking it that I didn't know. I'd never even paid much attention to the tortilla type thing it was wrapped in though I'd seen them. Hell, they were good on their own.

Finishing my lunch as quickly as possible, I left to go fetch my cart. It was hidden where the trees were a little thicker, about a quarter mile away. There was no sense telling anyone about it so I didn't bother to mention my departure, I didn't know anyone anyway, but I did give the redhead a quick look just before I trotted off.

On earth I could have never trotted a quarter of a mile, not after I'd been out of college and away from football for about a year. Here on Margata I'd worked myself back into excellent physical shape, hell, I had to. It wasn't like I could call a cab when I needed to go somewhere. Here it was ankle express or stay where you are. Fifteen minutes later I was back with my cart and the shifty stares got started.

Of course no one asked me a damned thing, even though every one of them made sure to take several looks. I couldn't blame them. I was pulling two perfect examples of the wheel along behind me and even a caveman could see that it beat hell out of a travois. For my next trick I was probably going to need to discover how to make more wheels.

We traveled the rest of the day, and probably made six or seven miles, stopping for the night earlier than I would have expected. I also noticed that the camp they put together seemed to be a little more substantial than I'd have thought they needed for sleeping one night and moving on in the morning. I wasn't considering what I knew was coming tomorrow, but I guess somebody was.

No one said a thing when I put down a small tarp and spread my sleeping bag for the night. My sleeping furs didn't look a thing like theirs but no one seemed to notice. I didn't even consider putting up the tent or inflating my airbed. Surprisingly I didn't have a bit of trouble dropping right off to sleep after the evening meal.

Lying around slug-a-bed wasn't on the program the next morning. As soon as I woke, thoughts of the redhead were the only thing on my mind and I needed to find her, right now. It was the strangest damned feeling and it was a little unsettling. There was no mistaking what I was supposed to do and as soon as I found her I could tell she knew the same thing.

"I am Shaeta," she said, when we walked up to each other.

"I am Carl," I said, though I knew she'd probably heard it yesterday, before the fight.

"We will mate tomorrow," she told me.

I was a little bit lost here. There was probably some ritual speak expected out of me, but damned if I knew the words. I'd have to wing it.

"Nothing could make me happier," I said.

By the look on her face I knew it wasn't exactly what she was expecting to hear, but the way her smile grew wider and wider let me know it was plenty good enough. I'd seen enough of these meetings to know I was supposed to put an arm around her waist and hug her pretty close now and I was more than happy to. It was odd, but it just felt right to do it somehow.

Shaeta gave me a little surprise of her own then. The normal reaction, when the male put his arm around the female to hug her, was for her to lean against him and just appear content. That wasn't what Shaeta did though. She turned, pressing herself against me and wrapping her arms around to give me a full frontal hug, and she squeezed me tight. Of course I returned the favor but I did wonder what made the difference.

After a few seconds we unclenched and then stood together holding hands for a few minutes, just looking at each other. This action was more like normal and I decided that I hadn't fucked something up after all. Shortly Shaeta started telling me things about her life but she didn't ask any questions about mine and didn't even seem curious.

Here was something I could not know about. I'd never been able to get close enough to listen in on this type of conversation. It seemed though, that Shaeta didn't intend to ask about my life. I counted that as a good thing. She told me all about her friends and family, and even gave me a sort of rundown of what her day-to-day life was like. She even admitted being anxious for the wedding ceremony to be done so she could introduce me to all her friends.

"Especially Katia, she's my best friend," she said, emphasizing best fairly strongly.

"We've known each other since we were tiny and we even learned to walk and talk together. I've always had Katia around and she's always had me," she said.

I didn't know how to respond to this or even whether I should. Shaeta didn't seem to be expecting comments out of me and so I didn't volunteer anything. She went on at some length about Katia though, and soon she started leading me around and telling me who everyone was.

She didn't point to them or anything, just made me understand who was who. She also didn't introduce me to anyone and it seemed that the others all understood she wouldn't. In fact, the only ones that ever looked our way were the smallest children. Often one or the other of them would look at me or Shaeta and smile, or try to talk without being able to get the job done yet. Any of them that were old enough to be able to walk and talk on their own seemed to completely ignore us.

I still don't know if it was my internal store of new knowledge or whether the light just finally shined. Shaeta needed to give me all this information because I'd have no way of knowing anyone. I was a stranger here.

Understanding came more fully and I realized that since every boy left his mother's Calak shortly after he was old enough to hunt and fend for himself, he would need this kind of information when he found a mate. The tidbit that came next was definitely from my new knowledge.

No boys ever mated a female they grew up with. They always left their mother's Calak and they were not welcome to come back for a visit until they had a mate of their own.

In other words, after they were old enough to be sent from their mother's side, they had better be able to fend for themselves. Not only that, they had to be able to get along alone long enough to get big enough to fight the leader of a Calak.

As I said earlier, they didn't have to be able to win the fight, but they had to at least be able to make a good showing. I'd witnessed a couple where the challenger was sent on his way, presumably for not giving a suitable accounting of his fighting skills.

Man, that was a pretty tough row to hoe. Just imagine being sent away from your home and family when you were around sixteen and then not being able to get into another family until you thought you could give an offensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys a good fight, one on one. Talk about survival of the fittest. No wonder these guys were all so big.

It was time for me to quit this wool gathering and start paying more attention to what Shaeta was saying. She was giving her new mate the lowdown on how the cow ate the cabbage in her Calak and no doubt I'd need to retain some of this information. We spent the rest of the day with her giving me the straight scoop on everyone in their rather large group.

As the sun was going down, Shaeta told me that it was time for her to return to her mother's home for her last night with that family. It sounded a little odd to me since no one had even put up a temporary shelter. This was just a traveling camp and everyone was sleeping in the open on the ground. I didn't comment though, I just told her I would also be happier after we were mated.

I went back to my trunk and dolly, where my tarp and sleeping bag were, rolled out the bag, and lay down, drifting off almost at once.