Chapter 5, Under a Waning Moon

   The next morning, Abri started as if she were headed to the Earl’s mansion, but when she was
well out of sight of home she veered off towards the work camp where the new rail line was being
built.  Abri had never seen a locomotive and had only her imagination to suggest what a rail line
might look like or what the work crews would be doing. 

   She chose not to walk the road, but kept it within sight.  She could detect any travel on the road,
but she could advance unnoticed in the trees.  

   At Noon, she stopped and ate a lunch she had brought: salted pork and a corn meal biscuit.  An
hour or so farther on, she was chased by a dog which she befriended by means of a scrap of the
salted pork.  It is true that some dogs are bred and trained to be vicious, but dogs are like humans
in the respect that most of them would prefer to make friends.  In no time Abri was scratching
behind the dog’s ears.  He would have followed her for the rest of his life.

   It was late in the afternoon when Abri found the camp which was deserted other than a group of
women who were busy about kettles over a fire.  From a particularly large kettle a woman drew out
what appeared to be work clothes and hung them on a line for drying.  Laundry.  The others must
be cooking something.

   Abri tried to guess where the work crew would be, but as the sun was maybe a hand from the
horizon, she figured that if she stayed put she would soon see the work crews coming back to camp. 
No need to go hunting them.

   So it was.  When the sun hit the horizon the work crew came trudging into camp.  Some made
straight for what must have been a barrel of water.  Others went to their tents and came back with
a tin for food.  They fell in line and passed one of the kettles where something was ladled into their
tin.  

   Abri watched for John.  She didn’t see him going for water and she didn’t see him line up for food. 
I can’t miss him, Abri thought, not with that flaming red hair of his. But she had missed him.  She
moved a little closer, leaving her secure hiding place.  It’s growing dark: they won’t see me, she
thought.

   There!  A tall, red headed, young man crawled out of a tent and advanced to the cooking kettle
with his tin in hand.  The line had died down, so he didn’t have to stand in line for long.  Abri watched
him and advanced.  Approaching directly at meal time would be a disaster, so she skirted the camp
and planned a safe route to the tent she had seen him emerge from. 

   The tents looked like they would hold four men comfortably or six otherwise.  Abri pondered how
she would get John’s attention before he entered the tent, because once he was in, she couldn’t
imagine seeing him without being discovered by his tent mates.  She unlaced her boots, took a bit
of leather from her traveling bag, and made a sling.  With this she slung a couple of stones at
leaves and thistles to make sure she wasn’t off on her aim.  Then she waited for John.  

   When the dinner was eaten (probably no more than a small potato and a piece of braised meat)
John made his way to a trench latrine where men were relieving themselves. Abri calculated the
path John might take from there to the tent and prepared to sling a small stone just hard enough
to get his attention.  The stone didn’t quite work.  John looked up, a quizzical look on his face, but
he continued his route to the tent. 

    Abri shot again and harder, this time aimed for his left shoulder.  John stopped at this, looked
around, muttered something, and then plodded on.  

   “Oough!” Abri whispered in disgust.  “The next one’s aimed for your thick head.”  But Abri thought
better of it and bounced the next stone off of his sternum.  

   “Ouch,” came John’s response; too loud.  Abri ducked behind a tree.  Peering out, she saw John
was moving in the direction from which the stone had struck him.  Finally.  Abri prepared the next
stone in case it was needed.  

   John’s loud voice boomed, “Who are ye, and where are ye hiding?”  He advanced three yards in
as many strides.  “Show yourself.”

   Abri risked a forceful but barely audible “Shush!”

   John stopped, listened, and then advanced cautiously now, in the direction of the “shush.” Abri
waved a handkerchief from behind her tree and John quickened his pace.  

   “Why did they take you, John,” Abri asked.

   Ignoring the question, John asked, “What are you doing here?”

   “I asked you first.”

   “Abi, they don’t show you the courtesy of telling you your crime.  There’d be no arguing the point
anyway.  They just take you.”

   “Well, I came to see you, to find out what happened, and to ask why you invited me to that
infernal clan meeting.”

   “Oh, that.”  John lowered his gaze.  “That was a mistake and I’m sorry for how you were treated.”

   “A mistake?!”  Abri was ready to unleash a little outrage.  “What is this clan, and why are you
involved with it?”  

   “I...ummm...ahh….”  John stammered.

   “John, they tied me up and left me at the crossroad,” Abri complained and shook her bandaged
wrists at him.

   John sat down and leaned his back against the tree.  He was tired from the long day’s labor. 
He wanted a second to breathe and to calculate his response.

   “Sit down, Abi,” he said.  And as she did, he added, “Let me see those wrists.”

   “No!” Abri replied and withdrew her hands.  

   “Abi, the clan is mostly the married men of the village.”  John was under the strictest vow of
secrecy where the clan was concerned, but he also saw that the only way he could advance
towards a relationship with Abri was to give her something.  “I’m sworn against my life not to reveal
even that.”

   John looked directly in Abri’s eyes, and time stopped in that moment, frozen in eternity.  Her
eyes were fathomless pools of grey.  In them were reflected the crescent moon and the first stars
of evening.  John felt himself falling helplessly, and he reached out to steady himself.

   “Abi, what I tell you next I can no tell without fear o’ death.  So I have to ask, What does my life
mean to you?”

   Abri was taken aback by the unexpected question.  “You’re a boy I’ve met on the road home
every night for the past five years.”  This wasn’t going to win the secret.  

   Abri fished for a response.  “You’re kind.  You’re simple in your ways but not in your mind.  You’re
loyal to your father.”  She could still see that she wasn’t winning.

   A pause.

   “John, you know that I value any life.  Even the wee rabbit I took the other evening, I gave thanks
to its spirit for the life it gave that I might eat and live.  Your life, I value above a thousand times that
rabbit.  Your words are safe with me.  I will not betray you.”

   John felt Abri’s sincerity and was moved.  “Abi, the clan is going to stop the rail.  Too many men
of our community will lose their livelihood if it succeeds.  They’ve recruited me to help with the
sabotage.   I’ve been severely punished for inviting you to the meeting.  It was foolish of me, but
I know what will happen to you if you are taken by Gillingham for the public works.  And...I wanted
their help.  I thought I would get some help because I’m helping them.  It’s really that simple.”

   “I can work as hard as any man, John.  What’s so hard about the public works?”

   “Yes, Abi, you can out work most of the men here.  But you’d be put to the women’s work which…”
John hesitated.  He didn’t know how to broach the topic of sex trafficing with a woman.

   Abri understood his sudden silence.

   “And the clan looks by as this women’s work goes on?”

   “No.  The clan has forbidden any member from seeing the women at night.  They have
threatened the rest of the men here if they visit the women’s tents.”

   “Well then, what’s the problem if I should be here?”

   “There’s the Earl’s men--the overseers.  The clan won’t threaten them.”

   “And why not them?”

   “Because the clan is working in secret here.  The Earl’s men mustn’t suspect the clan is here.” 

   Abri could see more clearly now.  If the Earl and the clan were to go to open war with each other
the village would suffer for it.  Nevertheless, the rail must be stopped to save the livelihoods of the
village.  

   Abri had a sudden question.  “How does one become a member of the clan?  Is it by invitation,
or by application?”  

   John didn’t quite grasp the question.

   “Do they ask you, or do you ask them?”

   “Oh,” John exclaimed as the light came on.  “They come to you.  There is no asking to join.  At
least I don’t think there is.”

   “And can you refuse an invitation?”

   “Your Da refused,” John replied.  

   This jolted Abri a little, even though she knew that Da was not a member of the clan.  

   The evening had transitioned to night.  The crescent moon had set.  The stars pieced the cold
night air like points of ice.  Abri noticed that she was leaning into John for his warmth.  She felt a
sense of security next to him.  She realized that he was missing sleep and that there would be a
physical price to pay on the work detail tomorrow.

   “John, I’ve kept you up way too long.”

   “I haven’t noticed,” John replied.  He wanted to say more but his anxiety overruled him..  He felt
Abri’s warmth as she leaned into him, and that was enough for now.  

   “John, I came with the vague notion that I would help you escape from here, but I can see that
you have other ideas.”

   “What are you going to do, Abi?”

   “I don’t have the foggiest notion,” she replied.  “I can’t see me going to visit Gillingham.  I can’t
see me going back to work the farm.  I don’t know.”

   

   John stood and took Abri’s hand to help her up.  He wanted to embrace and kiss her, but he
took one last deep look into her deep grey eyes.  “Be careful,” he said.

   “I will.”

   And they parted.

   Abri didn’t look back (as John did).  She did not see three figures steal from the shadows and slip
a black hood over John’s head.  

Chapter 4, Corn Cakes

After Darcie left, Abri climbed to her loft and lay down.  Her vision (her word for the clarity she
gained following a seizure) did not prompt her to appear at Lord Gillingham’s as Gerald had
commanded.  She wouldn’t have arrived by noon if she had gone; plus she was too exhausted
due to spending the night tied to a tree, not to mention that she always awoke from her fits
feeling completely wrung out.  

    Hours later, she woke with a start.  Da would be coming home and she had prepared nothing
for their evening meal.  The rabbit had been so small that there was no left-over stew.  Her mind
ran through the options: Beans?  No, they took hours to cook.  Soup?  She hadn’t been to the
fields and had nothing to put in a soup.  Bread would take too long to bake.

   She ground a handful of corn into meal, added a little bacon fat and buttermilk, and formed five
balls.  These she flattened into thin discs and fried in a cast iron skillet.  On top of each corn cake,
as she called them, she put a slice of salted pork and a slice of cheese.  This would have to do,
she thought and then ran to the well with the pitcher.  

   The rest of the evening was an anxiety festival as Abri thought about what Da would say and
what she would say.  Certainly he would see her bandaged wrists, but if she explained how she
got them she would have to explain about the clan, and Da would be apoplectic.  

   For many people anxiety is paralyzing.  One becomes unable to do the exact thing that would
relieve the anxiety.  Abri was not that type.  Her hatred of anxiety pain motivated her to face
whatever fear was causing it.  She would tell Da about her vision.  Perhaps she could explain that
her wrists were bleeding when she woke from the fit and that she had no idea how they were hurt. 
That was an innocent enough of a lie to tell.  

   Abri ate one of the corn cakes and left four for Da.  She never felt like eating much when she
was anxious.  

   Da was not late coming home this evening.  He sat down at the table, snatched up a corn cake,
and mumbled through a mouthful, “Is this it?”

   “Sorry.  I didn’t have time to make anything else.”

   “And how should that be?”

   What to say…? Abri hesitated.  

   Da interrupted Abri’s thinking.  “And why didn’t ye show at Lord Gillingham’s as instructed?”

   Abri thought, He hasn’t realized that I wasn’t home this morning when he went off to town.

   “Da, I had a vision.”

   “Oh, is that why you wouldn’t wake this morning?”

   “Da, I’m not to go to Lord Gillingham’s”

   “What? That won’t do, Abi.  That won’t do at all.”

   “Da, the vision told me to go to the labor camp and find John Saunders instead.”

   “Girl, you’ll do no such thing.  First thing on the morrow you’ll be going to the manor house
and presenting yourself.  You’ll make your excuse about having a seizure, and hopefully that
will be good enough to win some compassion from the Earl.”

   Abri looked doubtful.

   “Do you hear me, Girl?”

   Pause.

   “Do you hear me?  Abi, this is no small matter.  You’ll go if I have to drag you.”

   “OK, Da, I’ll go.”

   Da was satisfied with that, uncorked a small keg, and poured himself a mug of cider.  Abri sat
by the lamp at the table and tried to read, but she couldn’t concentrate on the page.  Her mind
kept returning to the conversation with Da and what she wished she had said.  

   The lie about going to the manor was harder to tell than the one she had planned on.  But if
she didn’t tell it, Da would drag her to the manor himself.   She would do as the vision had told
her--go see John Saunders--even though she feared to displease Da.  She blinked back a tear
and wondered if she was angry that Da had forced her into a lie, or if she was angry that she
had displeased him.  Reading was impossible, but she kept up the show of it for a while longer.  

   She lost the battle with her emotions when she realized that Da hadn’t even noticed the
bandages on her wrists.  She softly closed the book so as not to draw attention, climbed to the
loft, and silently cried herself to sleep.

Abri's Story, Ch 1,2, & 3

I have revised the first three chapters of my story.  I need feed back.  Please make comments and answer the following about the main character, Abri.

1.  What do you think Abri wants more than anything?

2.  What do you think Abri fears the most?

3.  What are Abri's strengths and weaknesses?

There is no right or wrong here.  I just need to know what feelings you get as you meet her for the first time.  

Happy reading!

Abri's story

It All Started with a Rabbit, preamble

It has been nearly 7000 years since the nuclear holocaust that gave the world the prophesied era of

peace.  During the Millenium, as those years were called, there was continual peace because

humankind with its warlike ways had been blasted back into the stone age.  For a thousand years

there wasn’t much more than tribal disputes over hunting grounds.  Humans lived like wild beasts--at

home in nature, and as nature’s children, well fed and happy.

But at the end of the Millenium humankind began to learn technology again.  First came simple

machines like the bow and arrow, the lever, and then followed the wheel.  And the world knew war

again.  

Our narrative begins nearly 6000 years following the millenium as a new industrial age is dawning in

what had been in ancient times England.

It All Began with a Rabbit, Chapter 1

  It all began with a rabbit.  Well, more exactly, “it” all began with an apple and a young couple who

were more interested in knowledge than they were afraid of dying.  But our story begins with a little

bunny.  He had been taught by his mother that the forest would provide everything they would ever

need.  She also taught him that crossing the road to try the tempting cabbages in the farmer’s field

would mean risking death.  But when the wind blew across the fields of cabbage past his soft little

nose, he could not contain himself.  He watched. He waited.  Then he crossed the road.

   The farmer’s young daughter was becoming a woman.  She had been taught by her father how to

work.  “The farm will provide everything we need, Abri.  Stay as close to the land as you can.”  The

young woman had begun carrying her father’s musket with her to work in the fields.  “You may shoot

the small animals that come into the fields to feed,” he told his girl, “but you mustn’t ever hunt in the

forest.  The game there belongs to the Earl Lord Gillingham and we may not take it.”  

   So it happened one day that the young woman was leaving the fields at last light.  

She had finished the row she was hoeing, shouldered the musket, and started for home.  The last

light of a bright day is often golden, casting long shadows.  In this light, the young woman saw the

rabbit munching a cabbage leaf.  She stopped cold and swung the musket into firing position. 

   The rabbit saw the young woman and immediately froze as his mother had taught him.  Any motion

would catch the eye of a dog or fox.  The young woman had better vision than these, but the musket

had not been properly sighted, so the ball went a little to the right and down, striking the bunny in his

left haunch.  He screamed in pain and ran for the safety of the forest.  

   Mother had told him (when she realized that he would not resist the temptation of the cabbage),

“The Earl’s hunters will not come for you.  They are only interested in big game.  The farmer will not

cross into the forest for you.  Run to the forest.  The forest is your mother’s loving arms.”  And the

bunny ran, filled with pain and terror.

   The farmer’s daughter also ran.  She had seen a puff of fur in the golden last light, and she had

heard the scream.  As she ran, she saw the white tail disappear into the brush on the forest side of

the road.  

   Now, the girl didn’t forget what her father had told her about the forest and the Earl and the taking of

game, but her blood was racing with adrenaline and she was taken by the primal instinct of the hunter. 

She leapt the fence at the road side and came at the rabbit’s hiding spot from the forest side, hoping to

frighten him back into the road where he could be taken legally.  

   The bunny, bleeding and frightened, relied on the rabbit’s last defence.  He froze.  

   A quick search revealed the hiding spot, and the farmer’s daughter reached in and took him, screaming.

  Her knife ended the squall.  

   This’ll please the old man, she thought.

   A third party entered the scene at this point.  Gerald, Lord Gillingham’s nephew, and a riding companion

were coming up the road, returning home after a long day of recreation.  

   “Isn’t that peasant poaching your uncle’s game?” said the young woman.  Gerald might have otherwise

ignored the incident, being uninterested in rabbits or farmer’s daughters.  But a show of manliness was

required now.  A response must be given.  

   “Hey, you!  Peasant.”  

   Tables can turn, sometimes just that quickly, and Abri knew that she was not the hunter any longer. 

She froze.  “You belong to that good-for-nothing farmer, don’t you?” shouted Gerald.  

   Abri wanted to run.  A few years ago she would have screamed.  But she froze.  “Never look a lording

in the eye.”  Her father had taught her.  “They will take it as a challenge, and that means they will feel

bound to humble you.”  Abri looked at the ground, and hated herself for doing it.  

  “He was eating cabbage in the fields.  I shot him.  He ran for cover across the road here.  I think it no

harm that I took him.  I’m allowed to shoot the small game that enter the fields.”  All this was the truth. 

Large game had to be shooed back to the forest, but small game could be taken.  

  “Shut up!” shouted the nephew.  “We’ll see what Lord Gillingham has to say about it.”  And as he road

off at a gallop, “I’ll see you at the great house at noon tomorrow.”  

   

    Da’s going to kill me, the girl thought, and turned for home into the darkness of nightfall.   

Chapter 2, Scraping the Pelt

 Abri tied the rabbit to her belt and thought what a small meal he would make for all the trouble he’d

caused.  She started east for home, her long shadow stretching into the darkening horizon ahead, and

the sequence of events ran through her head as she tried to compose an explanation to give Lord

Gillingham on the morrow...and one for Da tonight. 

At a crossroad and in the dusky shadows, Abri saw a figure approaching.  

   “John, is that you?” she called out.

   “An’ who else would be haunting the road this time of day?”

   John Saunders was the son of a neighboring farmer, and ever since childhood, he and Abri would meet

and walk a stretch of the road home together.  What Abri had never realized was that John would wait

and watch for her, timing his approach to the crossroad to arrive when she did, though never precisely

when she did.  

   “That’s a measly meal of a bunny tied to your belt,” John ribbed.

   “It’s a wee bit larger than the one at your belt.”  Abri was referring to a lucky rabbit’s foot that John had

worn from boyhood.   They both had a laugh.

    “I have to be at Gillingham’s in the morning...about this rabbit.”

   “What?!  You didn’t poach that half-a-mouthful, did you?”

   Abri glowered.

   “You did!  Wow.”  Then John thought better and asked, “You and your dad are eating ok, are you?”

    The concern and charity in John’s voice at the last remark were more irksome than the derision in the

first.  Abri pretended to peer into the distance.

   “Yeah, we’re fine.  I shot him in the fields but only wounded him.  He ran across the road.  I probably

should have left him there, but I couldn’t.”

   “I saw Gerald ride past here with a girl just a bit ago.  It must’ve been he that spied you.”

   “I’m to answer at the mansion house tomorrow noon.”

   “Abi, there’s a clan meeting tonight in Daniels’s Hollow.  You should come.”

   “And are they allowing women to their meetings now?”  Abri laughed at the thought.

   “I’m serious, Abi.  You’re in more trouble than you think, and it has little to do with that bit of fur at your

belt. The clan should hear what happened with Gerald, and you’re going to need their help, though you

don’t know it yet.”

    The clan was formed of local men who met in secret, had codes and signs, and swore an oath to

protect the community.  To the law-abiding of the community they were Holy Knights, but to the stranger

or to the trouble maker they were a lynch mob in masks.  

   Abri looked at John and measured what he had said. The humor drained from her face. 

   “John, what’s up?  What’s going on?”

   “The Sheriff has been rounding up folk for a work detail.  Lord Gillingham wants laborers for the new

railroad.  Guilty or no, the judge will clap you on a public works gang. 

   As they parted ways, John said, “Meet me at Douglas’s Fork, Eleven O’th’Moon.”

   “If I can’t get out you’ll see a light at my window.”

    O’th’Clock was an expression used for daytime telling, and O’th’Moon was used at night.  On the New

Moon, it was O’th’Stars since neither clock nor moon could be seen.  But the celestial signs told any

country child what time it was.

Abri stopped near the well to fetch water to gut and clean the rabbit.  Maw, her calico cat, was already

there, looking up with expectant eyes.  

   “Ahk, you are a poor little bunny indeed, and I’m sorry to have taken your youth.  Did’n your mother

teach you anything of the danger in crossing the road?”  She lowered the bucket down the well and drew

it up again brimming with cool, clear water.  Abri rinsed the carcase and washed her hands; Maw made

off with the entrails.  The pelt had to be tacked to a board to begin the tanning process, and she would

have to scrape it soon.  But Abri could put this off until after dinner.

   Da came home from town later than usual that evening, so Abri had the rabbit stew on the table with a

crust of bread when he arrived slamming the door.  

   “What have you gone and done, you foolish girl?” Da roared.  

She began slowly while methodically scraping the pelt.

  “Sit down and have your supper.  What have you heard?”

   “Answer me, Abi.  What have you done?”

   “Sit down and have some dinner, Da. I’ll tell you.”

   The stew was warm and had a calming effect on Da.  

   “I was spied taking this rabbit from the Earl’s forest.”  

   “Why, Abi?  Why?  Are we so poor we have to go poaching now?”

   Abri’s reply came haltingly.  “He was eating the cabbage, Da.  The sight on the gun is off so I only

wounded him in his leg.  He ran for the forest.  Da, he had just crossed the road.  I took him cowering

under a bush right on the road’s edge.”

   Da’s expression was too stolid to read.

   “Da, it had just crossed the road after my wounding shot.  I think the Earl will blink the offense.  His

men don’t hunt the rabbits anyway.”  

   Nothing came from Da but the sounds of his eating and a glare as he looked up from his bowl.  

   “I’m to report at Lord Gillingham’s at noon tomorrow, Da.”

    “That much I already knew from the Blue Bull.”  The Blue Bull was the local tavern where Da often

spent his evenings gathering news over a pint.   

    “The Sheriff’s begun a new round up.  You‘ll be taken for a laborer on the railroad.”

   “How do you know?”  Abri asked with a show of incredulity.  

   “Tom Saunders’s boy was taken.  My mates at the pub be talking of little else.”  He paused to gulp his

stew.  “And this infernal railroad will mean ruination for every mule team and ox carter in the region.”  

    This was true.  The railroad that Gillingham was building would haul freight to Lochdown faster and

cheaper than the muleskinners and carters could.  Livelihoods would be lost.

    Abri gasped.  “John and I walked the road home just at sundown.  They’ll make him build the rail that’ll

put ‘is old man out o’ work?”

   There was a stretch of silence while Da mopped up the last of his stew with the bread.

   Abri asked, “What’d John do, Da?  What was his crime?”

   “Ain’t no one can tell.  Ol’ Saunders thinks it may be John was truant from church Sunday last. 

Whenever Gillingham needs laborers for a public works project, he tells Sheriff to arrest a few likely

suspects.  The Judge is swift to find a guilty verdict, and the penalty is always “public works.”  Whatever

the reason, it’s sure an’ John never did no real crime.”

     “Well then, it’s sure they’ll come for me whether or no I show tomorrow,” Abri said. “If I go, there’s no

guarantee they won’t find an excuse to come for you also.”  

  

    Abri continued scraping the bunny’s hide, deep in her own distressed thoughts, but comfortable in the

silence.  The lamp light flickered as a moth found it too attractive to resist. Abri’s mind was fixed on

Daniels’s Hollow.  She would go alone.

Chapter 3 Daniel’s Hollow

Abri slept in the loft which had three slanted walls, a ladder up, and a gabled window facing East.  This,

she carefully opened, climbed onto the roof, crossed to the West and jumped to catch a limb of the great

Oak that grew there.  All had to be performed in stealth so as not to awaken Da.  Abri knew that Da

would not be at the clan meeting.  He never went to such, fearing what Lord Gillingham would do if he

were caught. 

     Soon she was passing Douglas’s Fork.  No John Saunders.  She was troubled by Da’s gossip and

quickened her pace to an easy jog.

    Daniel’s Hollow wasn’t far.  It sat low between two ridges.  In early Spring it was often flooded, but now

it was a shaded glen.  The soft moon light sifted through a thousand, thousand leaves and bespeckled

the ground.  Abri slowed as she approached.

   There was no fire, and in the darkness she could see no one.  A voice was speaking in hushed tones.

   Suddenly all was silent.  Abri instinctively halted and listened.  The attack came swiftly.  One man

secured her legs; a second, her arms; and a third slipped a bag over her head and tied it around her

neck.  The men were practiced and precise.  There was no chance for escape.  Abri didn’t struggle.  The

time for that might come later.  The men handled her roughly, but not violently.  She smelled no alcohol

on them--a detail which calmed her.  The voice spoke, muffled and disguised.

   “Who be ye?”

   “Abri McCullouch.”

   “Why come ye here in stealth?”

    “John Saunders invited me to a meeting.”

     John’s invitation of Abri had been a youthful error in judgement for which he would be reprimanded or

punished had he not been taken by Lord Gillingham and the public works.

   “Ye lie.  John Saunders is not a free man.”

   “He was free this evening as we left our fields.  Gossip from the Blue Bull says he was taken after dark. 

I came in hopes that something can be done.”

   Silence.

   Abri’s eyes would have become accustomed to the dark by now, but the hood prevented sight.  Still

she tried to picture the scene in her mind..  It was obvious that the voice was not in charge here. 

Another must be giving silent signals, but how?  She could hear no writing, nor could it have been seen. 

Hand signs.  They must be using some kind of hand signs.  The “speaker” places his hand in the hand of

the “hearer” and forms letters and words.  Abri had seen the Blind communicate silently in this manner.

   “Leave here,” came the voice at last.  “Ye do no belong.”

   “But what of John Saunders?” Abri struggled to keep any tone of emotion from her voice.

   “Leave at once.”

   Abri was pulled away.

   The hooded men left her tied to a tree at Douglas’s Fork.  The bag was removed, but there was

nothing to see, only three dark figures departing in separate directions.  In the morning someone would

untie her.

When the sun broke the horizon Abri felt a rising fog in her brain.  Her limbs began to contract

involuntarily.  She knew the signs; a seizure was coming on.  “Good,” was her last thought as she lost

consciousness.  As the electrical storm raged in her head, her muscles contracted sometimes violently. 

Her tied wrists were torn and bled.  After eight minutes she fell limp.  Abri’s seizures were not frequent. 

They usually came when she was stressing over some course of action or other.  Like the ancient oracle,

when Abri awoke from her fits, her way forward would be clear.

   Darcie, the tailor's wife, discovered Abri at about 10 O’th’clock.  Her wrists were bruised and caked with

dried blood and she was exhausted.  The knot with which she was tied would not give.  The pain was

terrible and Abri gritted her teeth.

   “Do you have a knife?”

   “Yes, but I might cut you.”

   “Maybe, but it’ill hurt less.  Just cut it.”

   Darcie helped Abri to her feet and walked her home.  They didn’t speak.  Darcie knew better than to

ask who had tied her up or why, and Abri knew better than to discuss it.  As they approached the

McCulloch cottage Darcie asked, “May I help you bind up those wrists?”

   “That would be a blessing,” Abri replied.

   Abri wanted to ask Darcie if her husband had been at home last night, but strong taboos prevented her. 

No one pried into clan matters--ever.  Wives did not ask where their husbands had been if they came

home sober.  (Drunk was an entirely different matter.)  No one went or came from a clan meeting drunk. 

Initiations into the clan were stone cold secret, guarded by threats of mutilation and death, the tales of

which were whispered among children and believed by adults.  The business of the clan was mostly to

hold court, pass judgement, and plan the execution of punishments.  The condemned were only present

at such courts if he were a clan member.  If the community was ever threatened from without, the clan

would meet in warlike council and plan for protection. This rarely happened.

   The clan also kept up community traditions twice a year donning ceremonial costumes and masks in a

kind of play performed at the Vernal Equinox and at the Winter Solstice.  Seven elders of the clan would

dress up as the ancestral spirits and put the fear of God into the children.