Snatched by cmsix

Chapter 4

Surprisingly I wasn't sleepy at all the next morning. Needless to say the partiers weren't up with the dawn as they usually were. I knew that my new bride would not be fixing my breakfast this morning. I wasn't going to let her even if she tried. I fixed a pot of coffee and warned up a few of yesterday's feast's leftovers in one of my smaller skillets, thankful that I'd remembered to collect some before they were put away.

Shaeta groaned lowly three times before she finally managed to get her bloodshot eyes open and then she looked like she wished she hadn't. No, she wasn't looking at me in disgust after thoughts of what she'd done, as in mating me. I could almost feel her head pounding myself.

She didn't want to drink the water I offered but I kept at her until she did and then I made her drink another cup. She almost rebelled when I asked her to eat something but I convinced her that she would feel much better if she did as I asked. She had decided that I really was trying to help by this time and so she did it.

"Now, it's time for me to reveal one of my secrets to you," I said, after she finished the breakfast she hadn't really wanted to eat.

"Secret. What secret?" she asked.

I handed her one of my stock of Percodan. Percodan is a powerful pain medication. Normally using it for a hangover is contraindicated. Not because it won't do a bang up job, but because it can become addictive. Since my entire supply amounted to thirty-nine after she took the one I handed her I wasn't worried about that. I only had those because one of my best friends on my old earth had been a pharmacist.

"What is this?" she asked.

"It is the cure for your headache," I said.

"You mean this will make my head stop pounding?" she asked, looking at me with awe in her eyes.

"Yes, it will probably make everything stop hurting, but I only have thirty-nine more, and after they are gone you will be back to the pounding after a celebration, just like everyone else," I said, and gave her a short laugh to make sure she knew I was teasing her.

"If it makes this pounding stop there won't be any more celebrations for me, or at least there won't be any more gajee. Everyone told me but I had to try it this once. I did not find the experience very pleasant," she said.

"I noticed," I said.

"Oh, don't remind me. Now I must go and see what kind of mess I made that needs cleaning up. I hope that thing does help."

"I don't think you have any mess to clean up," I said.

"I must have. I can remember vomiting everywhere," she said.

"I can too, but I led you out away from everything before you got started. No one expects you to clean up the grass out there," I said, pointing to the place I'd let her do her duty last night.

"I remember you were there, but weren't you sick also?" she asked.

"No, I didn't drink any gajee except that first sip you gave me. After that first taste I knew what would happen and I don't like gajee or what it does anyway," I said.

"I have found a wonderful mate. I can't believe my luck," she said.

"Just keep reminding yourself of that, often."

She laughed then but stopped when it hurt. I told her that it would probably be half an hour before the pain went away, and that it would leave faster if she drank more water. By now she believed me and drank another cup of water right away.

Thirty minutes later my stock went even higher in Shaeta's eyes because her headache was gone and her mother told her that yes, I had made sure she didn't soil anything. Shaeta considered herself very lucky to pull her first big drunk and have basically nothing bad to bother her the next day. Her friend, Katia, was not amused.

Katia hadn't had anyone to look after her and this was the first celebration she'd been old enough to participate in. Not only was her head pounding, she had upchucked all over her own furs. At least she hadn't done it on anyone else's. Instead of teasing her, Shaeta was getting geared up to help her clean things up.

Sensing that it would be a good move, I dug out another pill and followed them to the stream to wash Katia's bedding. I took a cup with me also. When we were out of site of everyone else I had Katia drink a cup of water and eat one of the last energy bars I had left. She balked but Shaeta told her not to be silly and that it would help.

"I can share a pill with her too if you think she can keep a secret," I said, to Shaeta while we were out of Katia's hearing.

"Yes, she can. I will make sure she does. And I will let her know that you do not have many," Shaeta said.

" We do not have many, and I cannot get more," I said, and then took it to Katia.

She looked as if she didn't believe me but Shaeta set her straight again and she swallowed the magic with another cup of water. I told them to sit and rest until it took effect and then I took the bedding to the creek and dealt with her mess.

They hadn't noticed me slip off with it, but when I came back they were surprised to find out I'd cleaned it up already.

"But Carl, that is woman's work," Katia said.

"There is only work you can do or can't do. No work belongs to a woman or a man. I know how to clean up bedding," I said.

"But other men would make fun of you for doing it," Katia said.

"That would be unfortunate. It would make me want to make fun of them when they were lying on the ground, after I knocked them on their asses," I said, laughing a little to let them know it was mostly in jest.

"But almost all of them are bigger than you," Katia said.

"Zakat is bigger than Carl also," Shaeta said, "I don't think any of the men would laugh at Carl if he washed your bedding in the middle of camp. Surely a second one wouldn't."

"You are right. I wasn't thinking of that," Katia said, and she got quiet after that.

Shaeta helped me spread Katia's bedding on some bushes to dry and we mostly sat around doing nothing while it did. We talked some but mostly about nothing much. I didn't really have much to talk about yet, since I was so new and Shaeta and Katia seemed to have something on their minds but they didn't share it. Actually, it seemed to me that they were making sure they didn't mention whatever it was.

Ten minutes later Katia wasn't quiet any more. She jumped up from the log she'd been parked on and laughed.

"I can not believe what a man you found up in a tree, Shaeta," Katia nearly shouted, "the pounding is gone completely and even my leg isn't sore from where I bruised it, like it was this morning."

"He is a treasure already, and I had forgotten that he was in a tree when I first saw him. What were you doing up in that tree Carl?" Shaeta asked.

"I was watching."

"What were you watching from a tree?" Katia asked.

"Everything that was on the ground. I was also waiting for your Calak to pass?"

"But why?" Shaeta asked.

"I'd felt as if someone was watching me all day, but I knew no one was. Then I smelled your Calak and I decided to climb into the tree and wait."

"You smelled our Calak?" Katia asked.

"Yes. I had noticed it off and on for a few days, but you had traveled closer that day and I couldn't believe how large it was."

"You could tell how many were in our Calak from the smell?" Shaeta asked, clearly amazed.

"Yes, I have always been able to, but I've never told anyone before now," I said, lying slightly for brevity. I wasn't about to tell them that I hadn't had such a splendid sense of smell on my previous planet.

"I don't think you should tell anyone else either," Katia said.

"I hadn't planned to."

"I still don't understand why you wanted to watch our Calak," Shaeta said.

"I wanted to see if my mate was in your group," I said, slapping a four-bagger.

Her smile lit up her face but she didn't say anything.

"I want to go back there right away, to make sure there isn't another one like you hiding up in a tree," Katia said, and then laughed when Shaeta did.

"There aren't any more like me. If there had been anyone else around there I would have known," I said, avoiding any potential trap being set by innuendo.

"I guess you would have smelled them," Katia said, joking again I was sure.

"Yes, like I smell your mother coming to check on you," I said.

Katia and Shaeta gave me a wide eyed look and thirty seconds later when Caloe walked up their eyes got even wider. They seemed astounded.

"There you are. I was worried that you felt too bad to wash your furs," Caloe said, obviously to Katia.

"I feel fine, wonderful even, and I didn't even get to wash my furs. Carl did it for me," she said, and I could tell it surprised Caloe but she didn't comment on that.

"Is that why you two were looking so surprised at Carl when I came up, because he washed your furs?" Caloe asked.

"No, we were already over that shock. We were looking surprised this time because he told us you were coming about a minute before you walked up," Katia said, and now Caloe couldn't hide her surprise.

"I see," she said, but it was plain that she didn't. It was also obvious that she didn't want to talk about it anymore, so she shifted gears.

"We are cooking now. Come and help when your furs are dry," she said.

"I will watch the furs and bring them when they're dry. You two can go back now if you need to," I said.

At least this wasn't a shock to them, but I did get the feeling it was unusual. They took me up on it though and the three of them headed back toward the camp.

An hour or so later the furs were dry so I rolled them up and went back. Shaeta saw me coming and had me put them near ours. I thought this was a little strange, since it was a good way from Shaton and Caloe's furs but I didn't comment and I tried not to even wonder about it. I didn't want any damned information popping up right now.

No one said a cross word about me walking into camp with Katia's furs and I assumed they knew better, thought it was none of their business, or had too much hangover still hanging on. I didn't really give a shit anyway.

After the meal was over I spent the rest of the day mostly on my own. Shaeta and Katia stayed close to Caloe and Shata all afternoon, and then even closer when the cooking started. We had our supper just before sunset. Shaeta brought my bowl of grub first and then went back for her own. She and Katia joined me minutes later and we didn't speak much as we ate.

I was happy to see that she didn't bring nearly as much food as we'd taken from the feast after our wedding. I like food as much as the next guy, but it was possible to get too much of a good thing.

Most people here went to bed and to sleep after sunset. There was really no point in doing anything else, especially in a traveling camp like this. The night before had been a special case of course, but tonight wasn't one. To be sure, there'd be men assigned to guard the sleepers, but I wasn't asked to join the rotation tonight.

I felt a little awkward as we were bedding down. I'd never been able to watch this particular part of the proceedings before. That was because I'd never observed a mating ceremony taking place while a Calak was traveling.

In a normal camp a hut would have been constructed for the new couple and they would have already spent their first night in it. We didn't have a hut yet. Nobody in camp was sleeping in a hut in fact. It was too much trouble to construct one during traveling.

I assumed that Shaeta and I would sleep together now and the furs that had appeared for us indicated that I was correct. I was at a disadvantage over the exact specifics of getting into bed with my new mate though. It turned out to be a non-event.

We sat around near our furs, talking with Katia until it was fully dark and then both Shaeta and Katia began taking off most of their clothes. I did the same and soon enough we were bedding down.

That left me wondering about what would be expected under the covers tonight. My dick wasn't wondering, it was just hoping and it was at attention already just in case it was going to be called into service. I doubted it would be and Shaeta confirmed my suspicions.

"I hope we will find a new camp site soon so we can build our hut," she whispered, once we were in bed.

"I do too."

That let me know that she didn't expect to do any fucking out in the open and even though my dick didn't like it, I did. Fucking just wasn't much of a spectator sport to me.

That didn't keep Shaeta from snuggling right up against me and giving me a serious goodnight kiss. Her body felt fantastic against mine and it was even better when she turned over a few minutes later and worked her way back against me and into the spoon situation. I put my arm around her and we settle down to sleep.

Shaeta and Katia were both awake and out of the furs before dawn the next morning, but I didn't stir yet. I had been able to observe the general morning behavior of traveling groups before.

Almost always the women would wake and dress before the men woke, or at least before they began to stir. This morning I kept still but I was able to perv on both Shaeta and Katia as they dressed and it led to an interesting discovery.

Of course I'd known that Shaeta had not been completely naked the night before when we went to sleep, but I hadn't seen the details of what she was wearing to bed, so to speak.

This morning I saw that it seemed to be an undergarment made of carefully tanned soft skins. They were made with what I'd have thought of as crude stitching on my old world but I knew that it was about as delicate a stitch as they could manage with their limited tools and materials.

Her garment was basically a sort of shift; it managed to cover most of her breasts and came down slightly lower than her bugger. Of course any bending over gave me a peep show. I'll admit that even as a newly married man I spent most of the few minutes while they dressed trying to get good looks at Katia.

Katia was beautiful too, and I realized that soon I'd be able to see plenty of Shaeta. I might not get another chance like this to ogle Katia for quite a while. In any case it didn't last long. Most of the camps women were dressed quickly, and then Shaeta leaned down to shake my shoulder.

I could tell that she was surprised to see that my eyes were open and that I was smiling at her. She smiled right back and then damned if she didn't wink. She then pretended that I wasn't awake yet and shook me again.

"Carl, you've been such a fine mate so far, don't turn into one of those that is hard to shake from the furs," she said, and I thought it might be for Katia's benefit.

"Do I need to come help you roll him out, Shaeta," Katia asked, in a quiet teasing taunt.

"No, I'm awake," I said.

They were perving on me in seconds since I stood right up and my dick was standing also. I'd slept in my briefs, boxer briefs at that, and both of their eyes went directly to the white garment as I stood. I couldn't know whether they were looking at my bulging dick or the odd white garment, but I didn't care. In seconds I was dragging up my jeans and then sitting on my ass to lace up my boots.

My clothes did not look like anyone else's but no one had questioned me about them yet. I guess they didn't appear so different during the day but as I put them on I knew that Shaeta and Katia now realized that they were very far from ordinary. They didn't say anything either but they sure paid attention as I dressed.

Part of my disguise so far had been the overshirt or tunic type outer garment I'd made for myself shortly after I came here. It looked more normal, and almost like what all the other men wore. Not a woman here could have hoped to copy my fine stitching, but then again, none of them had a proper needle and thread, yet.

No one else seemed to be paying us any undue attention this morning and that was good enough. Shaeta and Katia drifted over toward their mothers and that made my morning so far, since I knew they were going to fix a little something for breakfast.

One serious drawback to finding my mate in a travel Calak was that I was mostly at loose ends on days of no traveling. I didn't know any men to talk to and Shaeta was often busy cooking. Or at least that's what I expected. No matter, we would surely travel today so I wouldn't be left with nothing to do.

I'm not sure if my next thought was mine or instigated by whatever it was that often gave me little hints, but I realized suddenly that I would need a couple of poles for a travois and pretty damned quickly too.

I opened my trunk and took out my Wyoming Saw II's case and my Glock, attaching both to my web belt. I doubted anyone would notice and if they did, they did. I also grabbed my handy hatchet and hooked it on too, then I was off.

My two saws had been worth more than their weights in gold since I got here. I still had good thoughts of the day I'd been stumbling around in Cabela's and happened to see them. I wanted one at once and ended up buying both the original smaller one and the II model, which was larger.

They had removable blades, slightly like a normal hacksaw, but there were blades for meat, bones, and wood available; there were even hacksaw type blades. I made sure to get plenty of each type at the time.

The saws would disassemble to fit in belt pouches and they were as handy as a pocket on a shirt. They were probably my most valuable and useful tools since I'd been put here.

Seconds after grabbing the saw I was off to find travois poles, and twenty minutes later I had two cut and stripped of branches. I knew that in a few minutes I was going to be a minor spectacle but there was nothing I could do about it so I grabbed my new poles and walked back to camp.

If my loading dolly and trunk hadn't been a showstopper yesterday, I was expecting my travois to do the job today. For the last six months I'd known that sooner or later I would have to join a Calak, or else spend the rest of my life jerking off.

With my ability to watch them I knew pretty much what was required, especially when they were traveling. The men carried most of the weight while traveling and they did it with travois, which they pulled themselves. I'd had to come up with a workaround since I had to pull my cart; I wasn't leaving it anywhere.

With a lot of experimentation followed by the trial and error technique I had come up with a way to add a travois off the back of my cart. It was simple to find the best place to attach the poles and how long to cut them. Things were set up so that once attached, the cart's wheels would carry most of the weight.

A travois is a good first step for carrying more weight than a man can simply pick up and leave with, but the wheel is miles ahead. My travois pole ends would still carry some of the load but careful adjustment let most of it rest on the wheels. I was pretty sure that even pulling both the cart and the travois would end up being easier than pulling a travois alone.

That odd arrangement wouldn't be the only thing that looked strange when we started packing either. It had taken nearly two months to do it the old fashioned way, but instead of using animal skins to support the load between the travois poles I had taken the time to tie a custom cargo net. Made of rawhide thongs it wasn't very attractive, but it would get the job done easily.

I stopped my travois construction when the meal was ready and walked toward the smell of food. When I spotted Shaeta and Katia I saw that they were waiting on me to show and already had food in hand, or in bowls I guess you'd say.

It didn't take long to eat the light meal but Shaeta had a question for me after we were done.

"Carl, what do you call that thing you pull with your possessions in it?" she asked.

"There are several names since it is actually more than one thing. I think that cart is the best name for it though, until I have time to show you all about it," I told her, but I could tell she was still wondering about something.

"Will you be able to put all our things on it?" she asked, a few seconds later.

"No, that's why I cut poles for a travois," I said.

"Oh," she said, looking relieved for a few seconds and then asking, "Do you think I can pull the cart then?"

"No, you don't need to. I will make the cart pull the travois and I will pull the cart," I told her, but I could tell she wasn't getting the picture.

"I don't understand?" she said, finally.

"I am not surprised, but it will be much easier to understand after I am doing it. All you'll have to do is watch. Just trust me this time. I've done it many times before, for practice. I knew I'd need to be able to carry my mate's things while traveling and I've already made sure I'd be able to," I said.

For some reason that little speech was yet another showstopper. Shaeta and Katia both looked at me like I had an extra eye or something and their mouths dropped open. Shaeta recovered first though and she said she wouldn't worry about it anymore if I had things worked out. She and Katia made a retreat then and headed directly for their mothers.

Going back to the travois construction site I hoped I hadn't said something that turned out to be a major fuckup. If I had though, I had, and would just have to deal with it later. I knew everyone would want to be leaving soon, in fact I wondered why it didn't look like anyone else was packing up.

There wasn't time for me to worry about that now though. I tied the net to the poles and made sure everything was ready to tie the front of the travois to the cart.

Now that everything was ready I had time to look around at the others and noticed that they were only starting to get packed now. I still didn't understand what they were waiting on but I didn't waste much time trying.

I rolled the two poles up in their own net, put them over my left shoulder and then took hold of my cart's handle with my right hand and went looking for Shaeta. I found her near where we'd slept. She had our furs rolled up and ready to go and there was quite a stack of other bundles near her.

"Are you ready to load the travois my mate?" I asked, as I came up.

"Yes, everything is ready," she said.

"Good, maybe if we go ahead and get ready to leave some of the others will shake off the sleep. Have you noticed that all of them seem to be lost this morning?" I asked her, and she laughed.

"They are deliberately moving slowly to give you time to cut travois poles and then try to trade for a big hide to go between your new poles," she said, and then giggled.

"They will be standing around scratching their asses when we leave then, I guess. I'm not going to add to my load by putting a heavy hide onto my travois. I have it ready to travel now. Do you have any small things that are delicate and need special care?" I asked her, and it seemed to stump her again, for a few seconds anyway.

"All those things are in my pack," she said.

"There's no sense in you carrying a pack unless you just want to. There's room for it in my trunk," I said, and when I saw that she was confused by the word I set down the travois poles and then opened my trunk.

Women are just funny sometimes I guess. I don't know why she was so surprised; surely she'd seen it open before. Maybe she hadn't paid any attention to it. She was paying attention now though and she paid even closer attention when I placed her whole pack over in the closet side and then shut the trunk again.

She looked like she was still trying to come to grips with this little maneuver when I unrolled the netting, fastened the travois poles to the trunk, and then spread out the poles and put the small sapling stiffener in place to keep them spread, back at the wide end.

"Now, my beautiful mate, what do we need to put on here first?" I asked.

I hadn't been paying any attention to the others near us but now I noticed that Shaton, Caloe, Shata, Caltort, Katia, and even Matatu were looking at me, and clearly amazed.

Shaeta recovered first and began pointing out what we needed to load. I started piling it on the net and hell, it didn't seem like much at all, though it ended up covering a lot of the space. We still had room for more though when I was done.

"We have room for more on here, do you think there is anyone who is too heavily loaded? I can carry at least fifty more pounds with no trouble," I said to Shaeta.

For some reason I got that ten thousand watt smile from her again and another squeal. She made it worth the effort then by grabbing hold of me and giving me a serious kiss. By the time that was over those who'd been watching had scattered.

"The healing woman always has more than she and her mate can easily carry. Do you think you could help them?" Shaeta asked.

"Of course I can. I'm sure that her things are very important to everyone. If some of them are small or need special care they can go into the trunk with your pack," I said.

"I will go and offer your help then," Shaeta said, and walked off.

She and Darita, the healing woman came back in a few minutes and Darita was carrying a small package. It was obvious to me that she didn't really trust me to carry anything that was important and I wondered what this charade was about. I didn't question them though.

By the time they reached me I'd already taken the travois back off the cart, opened the trunk and when Darita handed me the bundle I put it near Shaeta's pack, closed the trunk, and put the travois back to it.

At first I thought it had all been a little odd, but what did I know. It made sense that the healing woman wouldn't trust me with anything valuable or fragile. No doubt her things were as important to her as anyone's would be to them. If she came to trust me later her mate could get a little relief, if she didn't it was no skin off my ass.

Shaeta seemed at a loss for something to do after that. We were just standing by the cart and travois and watching everyone else at work trying to get ready to go. I didn't say anything about it, even though I wondered. This had seemed like a very organized Calak when I'd seen them moving but this morning they acted like they were lost.

Suddenly Shaeta looked at me and just burst out laughing, she wasn't even able to stop for nearly a minute but somehow I could tell she wasn't laughing at me. She was able to stop and catch her breath shortly.

"What was so funny? I asked, grinning like a dummy I know.

"I was laughing at the others. It suddenly hit me that you had ruined their fun and now you are making them look like they don't know what they are doing.

"You are standing around waiting on them with your travois loaded and ready to go. You have even offered to carry extra weight for the healing woman and already have it loaded also.

"They were expecting you to be running around trying to cut poles for your travois and having to make an unequal trade so you could get a suitable skin to hang between the poles.

"Mother already thought you were the smartest man she had ever seen after you bested Shaton and refused to be Zakat. Now she is even more convinced. She and Caloe are standing around now sniggering at Caltort and Shaton while they are trying to get loaded and ready to move on," she said.

"Well what kind of dunce would take a mate without being prepared to carry her things and take care of her?" I asked.

Shaeta burst into laughter again and tears were streaming from her eyes before she could get stopped again.

"Every one of them," she finally managed to get out, waving her hand around to signify every man in camp and then laughing even harder.

I couldn't stop myself, I laughed long and loud too but at least I didn't get so far as losing my breath and tearing up over it, like Shaeta had.

Katia couldn't stand it any longer and she came over to join us. I could tell that she had to find out what we were laughing about and it was the first things she asked but I let Shaeta tell her.

"I'm laughing at something Carl asked me," Shaeta told her.

"Well what did he asks?"

"He asked what kind of a dunce would take a mate without even knowing how to make a travois or having a skin to make it with?" Shaeta said, and it caused Katia to howl herself.

I was beginning to worry that everyone else would think, or know, that we were making fun of them. What if they did? They'd been standing around scratching their asses waiting for a chance to make fun of me. Good enough for 'em.