Bless Me On My Way - English Edition by dublinertinte (beach read book .TXT) 📕

and wondered whether he should wash himself in the glut or in the river. He could try to catch a few fish, and contribute something to the common meal.

The river water in the shallow part was cool, and much colder when he got into the middle of the flow. Jack washed and shaved, put on his pants again at the bank of the river and trudged in the middle of the river, where he threw out a large meshed basket on a leash. It was a rather primitive way of fishing, but any other method was condemned as blasphemous by Rachel and the other Ciudads. No one should use other methods than any other, no one should have an advantage, even if it was only a matter of catching more fish. However, they were reluctant not to any kind of progress. When Jack had started to help Hudd with his work, he had forged a knife that was about the same knife he used to have in his old life, and as soon the others had a chance to see it, everyone was eager to own one. It could be handled better than the ones they used to have, the rabbits and fish could be exempt better and you could even cut the ponies' hoofs it, if needed, the men could shave with it. It was this knife that had managed to make Jack less suspicious to the others, the men traded food and other stuff for one of this knifes, they came to him while he was sitting outside the half-ruined hut, hardly ever moving while his leg was still broken.
Rachel's father had told that he had fallen from the sky. It was him who had found Jack.
He was standing in the river, holding the basket against the current, and was glad he had at least put on his pants again, for the children of the village had chosen this morning to go swimming as well. There were about ten children, some in the age at which they could only crawl and these were carried around by the older ones. They spent the whole day to themselves, running around free as the ponies, and found their way back home when they got hungry. They laughed and giggled splashing in the water, cleaned up the little ones, cleaned the dirty faces and running noses and one of the boys peed by a thick overhanging branch down into the water.
Jack pulled up the empty basket, threw it again. Probably the children drove away all fish and he would come empty handed.
When the children discovered a group of ponies, they followed the animals and tried to catch them, their cries were heard through the forest and rocky gorges a long time. The fish were found again, two large found their way into Jack's basket and he pulled them to shore. He cleaned them with the knife he always carried with him, put them into the basket, which he used to cool them in the flow.
His back ached, the night was long, he had fanned the fire, hammered metal and worked in the blazing heat and Jack went to bed on the forest floor under a tree outside of the narrow trodden path. His pants were still wet. In the distance he heard the noise of the fast pony hooves and the enthusiastic cries of the children. As it seemed, one of the brave boys had managed to climb on a pony and galloped with him through the meadows surrounded the village. The mountains threw the sounds of the forest, the sounds from the village and the area back and forth, one could never be sure where it came from, if you are not versed.
Jack quickly fell asleep and dreamed of the things he mostly dreamed of and had never spoken to Rachel about. Where had he come here and what he had done earlier, she had never been interested in, she never had asked.
When he woke up, she sat beside him, humming one of wordless songs known by the Ciudads. Like most residents of this area she was light-skinned and had ginger hair, which she wore mostly open, it was often washed but rarely combed.
"We can fish fry," she said, "and have potatoes. Mauri is back and he brought me some. He has no good news."
News from the outside were never good. It was about the news of Ciuadas from the other settlements, who had died or moved on, what was happening in the distant mines and if the Tusks attacked again.
"He wants to tell the news this evening."
Rachel lay down beside him, he turned on his side, holding a strand of her hair against the dim sunlight.
"If we are attacked," she whispered, "we must go even deeper into the forest and build our homes even smaller."
"They will not attack," said Jack.
But a meeting at the usual place, beneath the dome, which no one entered, would provoke the fears of the Ciudad again. It was only a matter of time, when the Tusks would fire again from their flying machines into the woods, where they suspected people.
"Hold me tight," said Rachel.
She was sensitive and excitable, usually for a touch or a kiss on the neck was enough. During sex she had no inhibitions and she did not care even if the children would watch them in this parts of the woods.
The Ciudad were the offspring of miners who had moved into the woods, not a religious denomination. If one man who moved from settlement to settlement bring alcohol, they got drunk unrestrained.
Rachel moved Jack up, turned him into herself and clung to him, whispering, panting, despite the fact that they were in a part of the river that are neither hidden nor was lonely. They could have been caught at any time, but even that would have been no big deal. She bit into his shoulder as she came.
"My dad escaped with me when I was still quite small," she said, "because the Tusk have shelled the village. So many has died here. If we cannot go deeper into the woods, where should we go?”
"I have no answer." Jack would have had, but he did not want to talk about it, so shortly after they had slept together. He knew Rachel, she was a tough one, if it had to be. Once one of their ponies had drowned in a mud hole and she had dug for five hours with her hands around him, pulled on his halter and pulled until it was free again. She was narrow and thin, but she had incredible will power.
"Let's eat something," he said. They get dressed, and holding up the fish, collected on the road a few more fruits and went home.

After dark, the villagers marched to the place under the dome. Mauri was a man in his last years, and he was a man without a special talent. He moved from settlement to settlement, did a little trading with the things that everyone needed, such as salt, tobacco, alcohol, and news. He knew the secret paths in the woods and was walking quickly through the valleys and mountains on the road known only by him and his pony. He'd always tell a lot when he was back in the village, but to his shame he was not a good storyteller. He quickly lost the thread, became embroiled in trivial little things and rarely took the important point of a story. It was then up to the village people to interpret the reports correctly, and then to decide for themselves whether they were good or bad news. Jack said he would go later, because he had to do something. Most of the times, he did not go to the meetings. Still, he was not really a part of the community, but for Rachel's sake, he would go and listen to the endless discussions this time.
Previously, he checked his old equipment, as he did almost every day, hoping that the old Mauri had been able to organize the batteries he requested. Rachel did not mention the batteries because she did not know about it. Some parts of his equipment he could repair, but the batteries were down for so long and he needed new ones. If he was able to fix the whole thing.
Below the dense foliage of the trees the place was lit with torches and bonfires and the large steel dome could only be guessed, but it was there.
The tusks might see it every time they flight above the green of the forest, but presumably they ignored it. Probably it was a good idea of the Ciudad to ban the dome. They treated him with respect, because they did not understand the technology and the functions any longer. It was a taboo to enter him. Even to speak of the dome was considered as bad. Jack had asked about the dome, when he had discovered him during his exploration tours, but no one gave him a clear answer, only the instruction not to ask for it and to stay away from this place.
They assembled below the hill on which the dome had been built, because it was a fitting venue for important meetings, but the dome was something from the days when their forefathers still had toiled in the mines. They had worked for a pittance in the mines, there were some deaths, and only those who worked with the machines and technology were treated with a little respect.
"We have left the mines and the technology," Rachel's father had told him, "we went into the woods, our women have organised a couple of ponies. We wanted a different life than what they had promised us in the old country, and what we had then in the mines. They have always lied to us all. Since we live in the woods, no one is lying to us anymore. We live in a close community. We wish for the blessing in all ways. And we are doing well."
Bless me on my way

, they said, when they parted, they said it if they were doing something tricky, if something was imminent.
Jack lived for years with them, but he knew that life in these forests was not paradise. They lived mostly satisfied in a stable community, but now and then there was a fight and now and then someone was removed from the community. Sometimes there were flights and manslaughter. The damp climate caused illnesses in which they suffered at the age especially. Many children died before they could walk. They had no doctor, only a few old women who knew a little about medicine, but that did not help when a man fell from a tree, broke his ribs and they stabbed through the lung, or when a woman died in childbirth because the bleeding was not stopping.
Bless me on my way

, was the only thing that helped them. The community cohesion in need, and they had no God. Certainly no God who came from the sky as the Tusk did when attacking them.
Jack went to the meeting, accompanied by one of the village dogs, who followed him and Jack mumbled questions, how he was doing and if he had some plans for the rest of the day and the dog responded to the questions with a tail wagging. He saw Rachel sitting with the other women away from the lighted square on a boulder. All the villagers were together now, children ran around and Mauri, again impressive with a terrible striking coat, just greeting him with a nod and showed him the thumb facing towards the sky. Jack thought of