Making a Point

Now I had told everyone that the bandage around my arm was due to carelessness ... a moment of inattention. And that was not too far from the truth of the matter. Even if I did misdirect the rest of it for their own good. I just did not have enough information yet and the last thing I wanted to do was scare off the very person I wanted to get to know ... really well.

It all started after I rode in from the herd and I was tired and dusty. No one was around my wagons for it was still early and on the day before the move there was just too much to do to be sitting around a fire. Now I am rather paranoid as a person. Had good reason to be most of my life and it has never served me wrong. I may be paranoid .. but I am alive and paranoid. So I never do things the same way too often .. I take different paths to the stream .. I return by others .. same with going to the herd. I always watch and I am always aware of my surroundings. But there are just a few things that a man does that can not be varied too much. Like enter my own wagon. Now there is not a lot I could have done to avoid it but .. I still attribute most of it to my own inattention for I was dead tired and careless as I went through the routine of getting a drink and then I went to turn to stride up the steps of my wagon but I tripped over a basket of fresh laundry date had obviously set down and forgotten before she got it hung up. I reached out to grab the railing as I lurched forward ahead of my own pace and that is when I heard the twang even before the pain registered as the arrow passed near me and sunk into wood.. near enough to slice through the flesh of my upper arm. Now if I had not tripped that arrow would have had my number all over it. The kind of number that when added together spells pyre .. flames and ashes. Not the number I was interested in at the moment ... and I took that momentum from my own lurch and I dove under my own wagon .. rolling and scrambling out the other side. Now I did not stick my head around to look either .. but I did hot foot it around Oren's wagon because I wanted a look and if possible I would have loved to get my hands on whomever was on the sending end of that little gift. Of course by the time I got anywhere near they were gone. Smart. I gazed down and twisted my arm around so I could see. It was not bad but I would put a clean bandage on it .. swearing up a plain's storm the entire time.

My wagons are put in a small square and the arrow had come between Pacu's and Oren's wagon .. a strait shot to my own platform. I jerked the arrow out of the wood and was thankful no one was within the circle of my own wagons to witness this. I threw it inside the flap with another muttered curse.

Two of the Ubar's guard..Baal and Ran ... had been with me when I returned to my wagon .. and when I left my wagons to go to the steam to wash up they of course fell in with me again. Now they noticed the bandage and knew it had happened at my wagon .. I mentioned something about a nail .. but I could tell they were suspicious. Suspicious but without a damn thing to go on .. which was a good thing for me ... the last thing I wanted was someone else bumbling around in my own troubles which were mine to figure out. Why were they mine and no one else's? Because this Trouble had followed me before I ever came to the First Wagons and I still had no idea what it was or even how to explain it. When it came out in words it sounded like the ramblings of a fearful paranoid smooth cheeked boy. Like I was going to go around sounding like that. I would say something of course if and when I had a solid thing to say. Who knew .. perhaps it had been a stray from a practicing kid .. and not meant for me at all. I did not believe that for a moment.

Now I had a lot to think on and I better start paying attention or someone was going to bring up my number before I was ready for it to be brought up. Now some might have trusted the Sky to let that happen when it was time .. but I was not on the Sky's schedule. Did not matter if the Sky thought it was my time or not .. I did not think so and that was what mattered to me.

So I started varying my routine even more than I had. And I braided my hair in a thick rope that I then wove up into itself to shorten it to just below my shoulder blades. It was not something anyone I knew now would understand .. but I had a feeling it would be understood by the person who was intent on making a point with me ... and I was all about getting a chance to get that point ... up close and personal with a chance to do a little point making myself in return.

Now if I could just figure out what to do with Baal and Ran. They were all ready suspicious and I was going to have to think of something for them to do before they scared my mark off.