** Guns and Dust will be going on a 3-month hiatus! See comments at the end of this chapter for details. **
*****
Asher seemed almost manic as he made quick preparations for the hunt. He'd pulled on his pants and boots but hadn't even bothered with a shirt, a grin now a sudden, permanent feature of his face.
Adina's hazel eyes followed him, his expression making her smile as she sat on the ground brushing her long, dark hair. She pulled it back behind her ears and tied it into a loose ponytail. "You really like hunting."
He stopped what he was doing, neatly stowing the last of their camp supplies. "We train by hunting from the time we're little." He hopped down out of the side hatch and stood up fully, the morning sun shining on his short gray-white hair and close-cropped beard. The light's angle and color were particularly suited to show off his hard-muscled torso, scars and tattoos.
He seemed to have entirely forgotten the wound on his shoulder and the scabbing abrasions on his shoulder and elbow.
He gestured around them. "Out here, we only hunt out of necessity, alone. We never get to hunt with a group like this." The boyish smile split his face again. "It's like being back home." He pulled what Adina had thought were stowed awning poles from where they were strapped to the outside of the bearcat. After leaning the half dozen two-and-a-half-meter poles against the bearcat's exterior, he pulled a box from one of the storage compartments and withdrew a spear point from it. It was over a foot long and had barbs at the base that would prevent it from being pulled out. He held it up for her to see and winked with a devilish grin and glint in his eye.
She stopped mid-motion as she was standing up, staring from the poles to the spearpoints and back to his expression. Boars were feared by caravans and small communities alike - and anyone else with a lick of common sense as far as she was concerned. Large boars weighed more than a thousand pounds; massive, angry, four-legged mounds of muscle that didn't see people as anything more than another mobile protein source in the landscape. They were terrors. Even small herds could destroy an entire camp, killing and maiming large numbers of people. And this herd was larger than any she'd ever heard of.
"You're going to hunt boars with a
spear
?" She couldn't help the way her voice sheared up.
He fixed the point to one of the shafts, smiled and nodded. "You're going to drive." He didn't even seem to have heard her.
She finished standing, her joy at his boyish excitement suddenly shot through with anxiety. "Drive?" She glanced at the bearcat and the spears. "What are you talking about?"
"It'll be simple. You drive close, get alongside one, keep us steady and I'll lance him."
Adina stared at him open-mouthed. "Lance him? But wha..."
Asher stepped to the heavy passenger side door of the bearcat and pulled some pins, two from the hinges. Then with a groan and strain of effort, lifted the heavy door off the hinges, leaving the passenger seat of the bearcat open. His back and shoulder muscles bulged under the weight of the armored door, each clearly defined, right down to the striations as he hefted it into a set of storage brackets aft of the now wide-open door.
He's out of his sun-touched mind!
After securing the door in place he pointed to the passenger seat. "See. All you have to do is get us close." He grabbed the lance and climbed up into the passenger door well, hanging onto the door frame and raised the lance. "It's easy."
She just gawked at him.
"What... what if you fall..." Where he stood wasn't too high for one of the big boars to reach with its eighteen-inch-long dagger tusks. "or if the boar turns back... or..." Now she was just sputtering words.
"Wow!" a voice cried, and Adina turned. Devon's younger son, whose name they'd learned was Nat, stood frozen at the front of the bearcat where he'd just come around the corner. He stared at Asher wide-eyed, adoration painted across his face.
Adina could understand his reaction. Asher stood in the open passenger door like some kind of golden god, the morning sun streaming on his skin, his unintentional pose with the spear like he was one of the statues she'd seen faded pictures of.
"Are we ready to go?" Asher asked, dropping out of the door and onto the ground, his boots making a small dust cloud. He leaned the spear next to the rest and fixed a point to the next one.
Nat just stood there for a moment before collecting himself enough to answer. "Yes, five men will be on the chase truck." He stared at the spears. "You're going to hunt... with those?"
Asher tossed the completed one to him and Nat barely caught it. It almost smacked him in the face. Nat ran his fingers over the smooth weapon then the lethally pointed head. He carefully ran a finger over the edge. "It's so sharp!"
Asher finished affixing the rest of the heads. "It has to be to get through their hide," he told him confidently.
Adina was still trying to figure out a way to express how...
mad
the entire concept was. "But you have the big rifle... You could just shoot them. You wouldn't have to get anywhere near them."
Asher took the spear from Nat, set it with the others and then turned to her. His grin now a slightly maniacal, boyish smile again. He stepped close and untied the sash that held her arm to her side. "Now where would be the fun in that?" Then he undid the sling, freeing her arm and clambered into the back of the bearcat. "I guess you're out of shoulder prison now." He tossed both sash and sling aside. When he came back out, he was carrying the smaller bolt-action hunting rifle she'd trained with in the rift along with a bandolier of rifle cartridges. He handed her the rifle and bandolier.
Nat whistled at the finely made rifle.
"But you should keep this at hand in case of emergencies."
She looked at the rifle and bandolier in her hands, to Asher, then Nat, and back to Asher again, unsure if this was some kind of elaborate joke.
"You're serious? You're going to hunt boars with...
spears
." She threw her hand with the bandolier out toward the spears. The bandolier swung heavily from her motion. "While you're hanging out of the side of the bearcat like some kind of raider?"
"Wicked," Nat breathed.
She turned and narrowed her eyes at Nat. "Nobody asked you."
Asher gave her a distracted a kiss on the cheek. "It'll be fine. It'll be fun!" Then he turned to Nat. "How long before we're ready to go?"
"Uhh... half an hour or so. They're still getting the truck rigged."
Asher nodded. "Alright, tell them we'll be ready."
Nat didn't move, still staring at Asher, the spears, the bearcat.
"Go on," Asher coaxed.
Nat turned and bolted for the rest of the caravan. Thirty seconds later Adina heard Nat hollering. "Asher's going to hunt the boars with a SPEAR!"
As they rolled across the desert, hot, dusty wind whipped in through the open door of the bearcat. Adina was going through the sequence of events trying to make sense of what they were doing. It had all happened so fast. She'd cleaned up the inside of the bearcat right after waking up. It had been anything but thorough, but still... She glanced at the thick cloud of dust now billowing inside and sighed. Then she'd changed Asher's dressing. It and he were now coated with dust, like everything else. She raked stray, windblown strands of dark hair out of her face and focused on the parched landscape in front of them.
This is insane...!
But Asher's excitement hadn't ebbed in the slightest and it was hard to not be swept up by his frenetic energy. Her heart was pounding.
Excitement... or sensible terror?
she wondered.
The whole camp had been in an uproar as they left. She couldn't be sure how much excitement would have normally been there for a hunt, especially after the caravan's losses. But Nat's town crier performance had brought everyone out to stare. Asher stood in the open passenger door; a spear gripped in his hand as she drove them to where the preparations on the chase truck were being finalized. He was still bare-chested, the rest of the spears standing neatly trapped between the dismounted door and armored exterior of the bearcat. He never seemed the sort to want to draw attention, but she could tell he was thoroughly enjoying himself as they rolled through camp. He called to the other hunters, cajoling them and shouted to the rest of the caravan, working them up for the hunt. It was like he'd become a completely different person. He projected fierce, unbridled, joy and easy confidence.
Adina couldn't help the smile that kept tugging her cheeks, her emotions pulling to and fro.
Even Priav was excited. It was more than matronly leadership, motivating the caravan for the dangerous hunt to come. She stood on top of one of the vehicles, leading a stomping, clattering chant, seeming caught up in Asher's energy too. It could have been normal for them; Adina had no idea. For long minutes, people banged on metal holding the rhythm, others clapped and used their voices, some people danced. It was a stomping circular dance where the participants thrust their arms down and then up again every few beats, spinning and throwing their arms wide. Adina had never seen anything like it. Asher howled and banged the exterior of the bearcat along with everyone else. The celebratory atmosphere felt strange, given all that had happened. But as someone once told her -
That was yesterday, we don't live in yesterdays, only today.
Then as they drove off, Priav threw her rifle high over her head leading the ululation as they rolled away. The rest of the caravan would follow along their route.
Adina had her rifle safely stowed in a vertical holder just to the left of the steering wheel. She'd made sure she checked every part of it and the eight rounds in the magazine before storing it. If she needed to use it, there wouldn't be time for anything to go wrong.
What if Shoah, or the Ghost Eyes are out there?
But that thought seemed to have been completely forgotten by Asher and the rest of the caravan - at least on the surface.
