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

traces of rust, only the weeds that had grown in and the traces of the rodents that had been set up their nurseries in the seat upholstery. He bent down through the broken strands of thick cables, which had run from the cockpit through the whole glider. He pulled them by the meter from their cable ducts, heard some mice protesting, which had been comfortable there, wrapped the insulated cables together into thick strands and hung them like a cartridge belt over his shoulder. The rest he could not use anymore, thought briefly to seek the other part of the glider. The hyenas did not survive the crash and certainly their remains were discarded by the hard-working small predators of the forest.
He did not come to look for the remains. He wanted to make sure that the Tusk, if they should fly over this part of the forest, would not see the old lane crash. Nothing should arouse their curiosity. The broken trees had long since been replaced by young fast growing trees, the undergrowth grew denser than before. Jack was pleased, made on the way back. He had promised Rachel to repair the roof of the house, it rained in for several days and still he had not found the leak. Also he had to prepare together with the Ciudad the upcoming feast.
The feast consisted mainly of the game "catch the piglet", which means the males had to capture a piglet in a muddy corral and hand it over to the beloved ones. If the young men ridiculed themselves by chasing a pig it was always a great source of amusement for the girls and the rest of the villagers.
Dustin, one of the shy guys, whispered while working on the corral: “How would you catch the pig, Jack?"
"I would shoot it."
"You know, I'm not very fast on foot."
"Push her into the corner and throw yourself on her", said Jack, "it always works."
"And then I go to Leyna and put the piglet in her arms," said Dustin. Presumably it was quite easy if you knew how to do it. Jack stared at him with a perfect blank face and said: “Pig? Dustin, if you want to prove that you have balls, you should throw yourself on Leyna. Do not struggle with a stupid piece of ham.”
Dustin hung his mouth open, and Jack had to push him with the elbow, so that he finally understood the joke.

During the festival, they ate lots of sweet bread, the children rode the ponies and they all drank the terrible cider. In the mountains one of the ancestors created an apple orchard and if the trees were being maintained and cut, the Ciudad would drink cider in the future.
Dustin put himself together, stepped into the corral and threw himself on the piglet, encouraged by the jeers of the others. He managed to grab and hold the piglet, only to find that Leyna guessed that it came up to her and she fled, even though her friends called at her not to be silly. She disappeared between two huts, followed by Dustin, clamping the hysterically squealing piglet under his arm. Jack nearly choked on his cider with laughter.
Rachel gave him a piece of bread with honey and whispered in his ear if he would try himself on one of the piglets. She smiled at him invitingly, with a bright shining face, framed by the bright ginger hair, and though Jack had always refused to make a fool of himself, he whispered back: "Only if you promise that we bathe afterwards along the river."
"I will not run away from you."
He took off his gray coarsely woven sweater, took off his belt. Some of the men standing around noticed what he was up to and whistled enthusiastically. Jack was not sure why he did it now – in the past he had been afraid to reveal too much of himself, but this time he climbed into the corral, and they drove in the pig.
What a pig. Piglets for the boys, piglets which still needed half a year of feeding before worth of anything, but for Jack they presented a real monster sow. Hudd seems to find the weight class for each participant, he was standing at the gate and grinned. Jack knew by his face that it was his idea. They had some fun with him.
The sow was almost fully grown, high-legged and the kind of pig which walks through the wood all day instead of lying fat and lazy in the dirt.
She had been robbed of their own kind and knew exactly who was to blame - the men. She was furious.
The piglets had run away before the men, but this pig attacked. Jack found himself in the dirt before knowing it, saw the gaping mouth of the sow in front of him, rolled to the side and jumped back on his feet. She just missed him sharply after she had run over him. He grabbed one of her ears as she ran again at him and she pulled him with her. But this time he did not let go, fell her hooves and would feel the pain by the next morning. He fought with the pig as if his life depended on it and some of the men stopped with their derisive laughter when they saw it. They might have always believed that Jack was tough and now they got the evidence for it. Jack proved that he had often fight a you-or-I decision.
And he fought well. Despite the low balance point of the sow which was a clear advantage for her, he brought her down without being bitten by this murderous canines and threw himself on the beast. The sow tried to get back on her feed, but she found no support in the mud, squeeling angry and indignant. The whole lasted only a few minutes, but Jack was out of breath, the mud was running out of his shirt and dripping from his head. The pig was too heave to be lifted, but the Ciudad declared the round ended as a success.
"Come out here," shouted Rachel and waved with both hands. She might have a bad conscience having him persuaded into the pig wrestle, but she laughed anyway. Jack shouted back: "I don’t dare to get up from the sow.”

Jack is a tough guy

, the men said later that evening, as they stood together at one of the campfires, you have seen the bruises on his arms? And the claw marks on his stomach? He has taken up with the angry sow like nothing, I don’t want to get into a fight with him, bless me. I wish we had more like him, we could defend ourselves against the Tusk.

"Rachel's father told me once how he found him," George said. He was one of the old men of the settlement.
"He could fly such a sky machine.”
But they said nothing to Jack about this, because they feared they could conjure the evil upon them. Name it and you call it.

Rachel met Jack's condition and by sunset they were swimming in the river, near by each other, Rachel washed the mud from his head, they have been in the lazy current of the river drift and tried to catch fish with their bare hands. Rachel grab on a branch overhanging the water. Her shirt stuck to her body and Jack watched fascinated as her skin became apparent under the thin fabric.
"Come back here," he said, swam over to her. She fell back into the water, dived, and came puffing up again - her hair dark and smooth as silky fur.
"I'm sorry for the kicks”, she said.
"In a few days it will be gone.”
They left the deep water, lay on the bank of a verdant slope. They had removed most of their cloths for the swimming, took off the rest of it.
"It should never change," whispered Rachel, put his hand between her legs, "I am so happy when you're with me."
Her voice was a tense sigh when Jack moved his fingers in the place where she was particularly sensitive. It always ended up in this way when they started the game.
"What do we do with the sow," said Rachel. In the darkness they had put on only the most necessary, the rest of the clothes wore around their necks and they found their way home only by the torches that still stuck in the ground everywhere.
"With the pig?"
"You've won."
"I hope you don’t want to keep it behind the hut. It will see me and kill me.”
"It's your pig."
"I would not have won if you had not persuaded me."
"Pig roast and ribs?"
"Good idea."
Also around the houses and huts a few more torches burned in the night and some of the night owls were still in the streets and talking to each other.
"You do forgive me the trick with the pig, don’t you.”
Jack did not answer immediately, he looked to the torches and had worried about it for a moment.
Why do I go and check if they can see the glider from above if the whole village looks like a birthday cake?

He pushed the thought away. They celebrated many festivals with fire, careless and jaunty, but there was also no doubt that the Tusk knew where the settlements were – they just only attacked for a reason.
This feeling of unrest was difficult to suppress, but he blamed it on the cider.
"Of course I forgive you," he said, grabbed her by the hips and swirled her around, once again amazed how strong she felt, even though she was small and delicate, "but not the sow."

He woke up as Rachel fed the ponies in front of the house and groaned as he struggled out of bed. As usual, the kicks hurt more on the morning after. Around his rib cage he already developed a beautiful hematoma, not to mention the nasty abrasions from pig hooves on his skin.

It rained all day. Jack tried to seal the roof, but when he thought he had found the leak, Rachel called up to him that the water was coming in now from another place. He was soaked to the bone, wiping the rain from his eyes, put the tool and the wood shingles aside and sat motionless on the sloping roof. There was no sense in what he attempted to do here. It had been his idea to climb up and find the hole, although the water came already in for months. He would tell Rachel to use the buckets and bowls and to ignore it.
Sitting on the roof, he could see through the tree tops, it was hazy in the rain and the fog and he could see not much, but the brief flash on the horizon he could not ignore. It looked like some scap part burned in the atmosphere or the signs of an approaching storm. Jack knew that it was neither.
I should warn her

, he thought.
But he sat on the roof, staring into the sky and reacted only when Rachel called to him if he was asleep already.
I have to warn them

, he thought, they must seek shelter. I hope they do not think I am in cahoots with them.

Jack slid down the back of the roof, landed with both feet in the muddy ground.
I tell them

, he thought, and then they will decide.

He knew he could not pass this decision on Rachel, but he