A Glibertarians Exclusive:  Mog-ee, Part IV

Early spring

The days were growing longer, but heavy late-winter snows had sealed the pass to the valley where Wolf’s people had their winter camp.  For three moons, he had been stranded with the Diggers.

Now the snow was melting.  Grasses were starting to sprout around the edges of the muddy, damp settlement.  Some days still brought snow.  Every day Wolf looked up at the pass to the valley where the People were camped, every day he saw the deep drifts still blocking passage, and every day he grew a little more disconcerted.

Wolf had cohabitated with Mog-ee in her hut long enough now that, despite the frequent and passionate sessions in the bedding, he was beginning to find some of her habits and expressions annoying.

One dreary morning, with pellets of snow spitting from a leaden sky, Wolf went outside to moon once more over the pass.  Mog-ee followed, and immediately gave voice to another thing Wolf was growing tired of.

“Wol-ef,” she began.

Wolf cut her off by raising a hand.  “Wolf,” he said.  “Like the animal.  Wolf.”

“Among our people you would be Wol-ef,” Mog-ee complained.  “It doesn’t seem right to pronounce it your way.”

Is there nothing of myself she will leave alone?  Wolf wondered, but Mog-ee wasn’t finished.

“If my father agrees for us to be joined and says the words over us, I will be Mog-ef.  I will be yours and take your name.”

“What?”  Wolf tore his eyes away from the ridge and looked at the Digger girl.  “You’d change your name?  And what words?  Why would your father have words to say?”

“Our people take mates for life,” Mog-ee explained.  “When we die, our fields then go to our children.”

“What do saying words have to do with it?”

“When a couple joins, the girl’s father asks the gods to bless the union.  The couple promises to stay together always.  They are bound, by the customs of our people.”

Wolf considered that.  Among the People, a man and a woman – or sometimes a man and two women, or two men and one woman, or other, more complicated arrangements – would simply decide to live together, and then do so.  When they decided to go their separate ways, then they did that.

While Wolf was pondering this new information, Mog-ee’s mother, Ord-ee, emerged from the large hut she and Mog-ee’s father shared.  Looking at her, her squat form, her perpetually dirty hands, and the condescending sneer she always seemed to wear, it seemed impossible that Yeeteep-ee would have chosen to live joined to her.

But then, in Wolf’s estimation, Mog-ee’s father was no prize, either.

The morning’s surprises weren’t over yet.  Ord-ee stepped quickly over to Wolf and, reaching up, scattered wood ashes over his head.  Wolf sneezed twice, then demanded, “Why did you do that?”  He bent and started brushing the ashes from his long black hair.

“It is good luck,” Ord-ee sniggered.  “I heard the two of you talking.  Yeeteep-ee would say the words over you both.  Today if you like.  We can always use another strong hand in the fields.”

“No,” Wolf snapped.

Mog-ee looked disappointed.  But Ord-ee wasn’t done yet.

“Why do you keep your weapons still?” she asked Wolf.

“Why would I not?  Even if I were to stay here among you Diggers, I would still wish to hunt.  I don’t want to just eat seeds and leaves.”  He had carefully maintained his weapons, even after months of not using them; he had his two spear shafts of smooth, polished yew, several of the detachable, needle-sharp points of reindeer antler that tipped the spears, and his long wooden spear-thrower.  All were ready for use – should Wolf find himself in the position to use them.

“I’m told it makes some of our people nervous.  They are afraid of you having weapons.  We have no weapons here,” she indicated the settlement with a sweep of her arm, “no tools except those we use in raising crops.”

“If they are nervous, that is not my fault,” Wolf said, frowning at the old woman.  “My spears and such are for hunting game, not people.  I will keep my weapons, and if they should disappear when I’m not looking, be sure I’ll know where to come looking for them.”

“As you wish.”  Ord-ee walked off.

“Will you come back inside?” Mog-ee asked, an invitation in her eyes.

“No,” Wolf said, surprising even himself – slightly.  “I will walk up the ridge.  I want to see how long it will be before the pass opens.”  He went back into the hut, retrieved his heavy winter jacket, his spears and thrower.  “I will be back before sunset,” he told Mog-ee.  Unless I find I can get through the pass, he told himself.  Then… I may not be back.

The better part of the morning was spent climbing the approaches to the ridge, but when he reached the steep ground leading up to the pass, Wolf found himself defeated by the deep drifts.  Stopping to rest for a moment, he saw a small herd of reindeer far below, less than a half-day’s walk downstream from the Digger settlement.  My day would have been better spent reindeer hunting, he realized.

After slowly descending the ridge, Wolf walked downstream, but the reindeer were gone.  Frustrated, tired and unhappy, her reversed his steps and returned to the Digger settlement, arriving as night was falling.  But when he arrived at Mog-ee’s hut, he found her outside, looking at the bigger hut where her parents slept.

“What have they done?” Wolf asked the Digger girl.  “Why have they piled rocks around their hut?  And why is Gutak-fu standing in front of their door?”

“Mother spent most of the morning arguing with Father,” Mog-ee explained.  “She told him you and your weapons frightened her.  So, Father had the villagers help him pile rocks around, and tasked Gutak-fu to guard their door.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Wolf said.  “Gutak-fu,” he told the scrawny, short Digger, “go home.  Nobody has anything to fear from me.”

“Yeeteep-ee has tasked me to stand guard here.  I cannot leave until he says.”

“Some old man tells you what to do, and you just do it?  Have you no will of your own?”

“He is the Rain-Bringer,” Gutak-fu said, as if that explained everything.

Wolf shook his head.  The ways of the Diggers were strange beyond imagining.

“Come inside, Wol-ef,” Mog-ee said at last.  “I have our evening meal ready.”

Wolf followed the Digger girl into her hut.  They had scarcely finished their unappetizing meal of stewed seeds and leaves before Mog-ee grabbed Wolf’s hand and pulled him into the bedding.

When Wolf emerged from the hut the next morning, having slept not at all, he felt as though he had been in a prolonged fight with a cave lion.  Bitten, scratched, and thoroughly sexually spent, he looked up once more at the ridge.  Behind him, he could hear Mog-ee stirring.  Around him, the Diggers were emerging, preparing for their morning song, in which Wolf still refused to participate.

I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.

***

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more

Well, she puts her cigar out in my face just for kicks

Her bedroom window is made out of bricks

The National Guard stands around her door

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more