“Markos and the others saw the red-haired woman try to inject you with a needle as you lay unconscious,” the fine boned woman replied, although in a tone that suggested she was confused and unsure when confronted with Mildred’s authoritative tone.
Mildred frowned, her mind racing. Krysty trying to inject her? Why would she do that? Her keen doctor’s brain, sharpened by the need to focus, raced through the possibilities.
“Where did the needle come from? Inside the jacket I was wearing?”
“You were wearing no jacket. Markos told me it came from a jacket that was full of pills, bandages and other needles.”
“I hope to hell that you haven’t done anything to that jacket or what was in it,” Mildred said in low voice. “I need those medical supplies.”
“You are a medicine woman?”
It was Mildred’s turn for an enigmatic expression to cross her face. “I guess you could say that. Yeah, I guess you could. I was the medicine woman for the group. I taught Krysty—the redhead—to give that injection in extreme circumstances. Guess they must have been worried, and I must’ve been out for a long time.”
“But how can that be? They treat you as an equal?”
Mildred furrowed her brow. “Yeah, why shouldn’t they?”
“Because it has never been that way. That is why we are here. That is how we came to be here. And why we continue to be here.”
Mildred sank back onto the bed. It seemed to her that there were two different stories being played out, and until both she and her benefactor—why not call her that?—knew each other and understood their circumstances, they couldn’t understand each other and would continue to go in circles. If the others were imprisoned, at least they were alive and safe. Rather than try to rush matters, it would be as well to take the time to attempt to explain and understand. For this woman who sat by her feet seemed to hold high position in this ville.
“Look,” Mildred began, “this is ridiculous. How about we play a little game of truth or dare? Give me some of that water, and I’ll tell you about myself and the people I travel with, and then you can tell me about where the hell I am and who you are. At least that way we may start to understand each other. Sound reasonable?”
The fine boned woman nodded. Filling the wooden cup and handing it to Mildred as she propped herself on one elbow to drink, the woman said, “Your language is coarse and strange in some ways. It lacks the manner of our ways, and so is sometimes hard to grasp. It seems like the promise of rain on the breeze after a drought. It offers a release, and yet frustrates by being forever just out of reach. And yet you speak sense. Tell me of yourself, and then I will endeavor to reveal to you the history of myself and my land.”
Mildred handed her the cup and began to speak. She told the woman her name and about her meeting with the companions—omitting the fact that she was a freezie, as this would only complicate matters unnecessarily—before detailing some of the things they had been through together. She talked of Ryan, J.B., Doc, Krysty, Jak and Dean as individuals, so that the woman would get a fuller picture of the people she traveled with. She told the woman about herself, and what she felt for her companions. And she told her how they had found themselves on the peninsula—changing the mat-trans for a smashed boat to simplify matters and stall unnecessary questions—before deciding to explore the island.
“So you did not wish to come here to join us, and they were not trying to stop you?” the woman asked when Mildred had finished.
Mildred shook her head. “We didn’t even know the island was inhabited. And I don’t know who you are yet, let alone why I should be looking for you.”
The fine boned woman nodded to herself, before saying, “You have been most illuminating. I will endeavor to be the same.”
“THE STORY OF OUR LAND is one that goes back through the mists of time, to a place where legends begin and there is nothing that can be taken for an absolute truth. But there are some things that we know to have occurred and men of legend who we know to have existed.