Rejoicing In Hope

by Travis Perry

Elsa hauled a wooden bucket of dirty water out of the tavern.  She carried it downhill and poured into a coarse gully leading to the bay.  She planned to next retrieve a clean bucketful from the well and finish her cleaning, when she saw a man walking up toward her.  Not many men came around the tavern in the middle of the day—they were out hunting.

The man was tall and unshaven, gaunt like he hadn’t eaten in a while, with dark hair and eyes, and tattered clothing smelling of seawater.  He stumbled like he’d been wounded in his right leg, while burns plainly showed themselves on his rugged face.

“Young man, are you all right?”

He turned toward her and grimaced.  “I’ve been better.”

She walked to him and put her shoulder under his arm.  “I’m not that bad off,” he said, but he allowed her to help.  She took him to the well sat him on its edge and hauled up water for him to drink.

“Thanks, old lady.”

“I’d do it for anyone.  What’s your name, young man?”

“Ernsto…last name doesn’t matter.”

“Of course,” she answered, offering him an understanding smile.  Many of the new hunters had pasts they didn’t want to talk about.

“Say, old lady, you remind me of my grandma.  Can you help me with something?”

“I’ll do whatever I can.”

He reached inside his left front pants pocket and pulled free a dark sack.  It clicked with movement and she could make out shapes of round hard objects.  As if it were filled with coins.  “Could you take these for me?  They’re gettin’ awful heavy.  You wouldn’t believe what I went through to bring them this far.”

“All of them?  Surely you don’t mean it!”

“Surely I do.”

“May I…look at them?” 

“Why don’ you wait ‘till I leave, Grandma.”

Elsa waited but she was overjoyed.  It was a huge cache of copper coins, maybe fifty or more.  These by themselves might be enough to pay for trip to the orphanage, especially if there were a silver or two hidden among them.  In her mind she praised God and she hummed a happy hymn as she washed Ernsto’s wounds.

He rested with her a half an hour or so, but then arose and started walking inland.  “I’m goin’ huntin’, Elsa.  You take care.”

“God bless you, young man.  And thank you,” she added, rattling the coin bag.

She didn’t open it right away.  Some part of her had begun to fear there must be something wrong—perhaps the metal pieces were cheap tin slugs instead of money…though the bag seemed too heavy for that. 

In the evening, after finishing the tavern floor, in the isolation of the privy, she emptied out the coins.  At first it seemed her fears had come true, the coins were very light colored, like tin.  But then she realized what they really were.  Platinum.

She almost squealed but stopped herself in time.  It wouldn’t do to let everyone know what she had.  People got killed for far less. 

But this would change everything.  She could now afford new hunting gear.  She could return home with her grandchildren and teach them what they needed to know to survive—her family could live on.  In freedom.  In peace.  And most importantly, together.

Her heart poured out into silent song, Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below…

Diligence

by Travis Perry -

The four grandchildren lay next to one another on the fiber mat on the cave floor, wrapped around by two thin blankets. While they slept sound after their first meal in days, bug leg soup, Elsa reevaluated her life. She couldn’t hunt forever; there was no doubt about that.

She seemed immune to ash lung; she thanked God for that, unlike her son and daughter-in-law, both now dead. But her strength had faded from what it used to be and she wasn’t getting any younger.

Hunting had changed, too. Once mainly the livelihood of families determined to strike it out on their own and be independent in this harsh land, it had become a commercial enterprise. Hunting bugs, taking parts back to the new camp in Adagio with all its tents for paid shipment to Zirconia or up to Avenir, was a business that paid poorly, poor enough that usually only desperate souls turned from whatever they had done before to hunt bugs here. But it used to be, it never paid at all. It used to be that nobody came here from elsewhere. Back then, none of the hunters had fancy weapons like those scytheguns…

Hunting had changed, continually filled by a fresh pool of hungry young men. An old woman just could not compete.

Tears streamed down her face when Elsa understood what that meant. She would have to abandon the cave, an ancient lava tube into which her great-grandfather had hewn out a door by hand. The family would have to move into the tents of the new camp, with all its crime and debauchery. Lord, lord, oh lord, please give me the strength.

In the morning she hauled up a fresh bucket of water from the well carved out by decades of work by her grandfather. A hot spring filled the well, so the bucket steamed in the cool morning air.

The youngest child, Misha, age 5, was already awake and beaming at her with joy. “Dear child,” she said, kissing the curly locks of his head.

She woke the other three, having them wash their faces and hands in the warm, mineral-bitter water. They ate the breakfast she’d warmed of leg soup. By then the bucket water had cooled enough for drinking, and all of them took long draughts.

They loaded up all their kitchenware—the pot, two knives and a ladle, and bugshell plates and bowls. Elsa added the household goods, the one precious family Bible, the blankets, the mat, and the cannon, along with a single old spear. The children carried each one a portion of the goods, but Elsa reserved the heaviest thing, the cannon, for herself.

After the long walk of nearly a whole day from Tube Hill, tears rimmed her eyes to see the beaten-up tents of Adagio, their new home. She sold most of their goods, especially all the metal. She found work cleaning the tavern floor, in exchange for paltry broken pieces of bugshell, even though her people had always frowned on all forms of liquor and any association with it.

She labored late into the night, exhausting herself in the twilight hours, forming shells’ bits into little bowls and plates and smaller items. She exchanged her few goods for bigger pieces, enough to eat off of, and with discipline and diligence, there was enough left over to sell to the Zirconia Trading Company about once every other week, many dozens of hours of toil for a few small copper coins.

She saved her coppers and her one silver piece, struggled to trust the Lord to not worry about camp robbers and what the hunter men might try to do to her one granddaughter, and prayed and prayed and prayed for her grandchildren every waking moment and sometimes in her dreams. The grandchildren helped her in her labors, even though none of them knew why she was working so hard to save coin.

Insight, from the Lord no doubt, had told her that she would not live long enough to see the grandchildren reach adulthood. She had to provide for them past her own life, even if the life she gave them would be strange, dangerous even.

All the copper she saved, all the continual ache and pain of her endless handiwork, all served one purpose: to pay the passage to send her grandchildren to the orphanage in Zirconia.

Hospitality

by Travis Perry -

Elsa studied the grim face of her pastor, Elihu Simmons.

“Elsa,” he said with the raspy wheeze of the early stages of ash lung, “You know I don’t get paid hardly a thing by the congregation, that I hunt bugs to make my living, just like you.”

She stood at the entryway to his cave. He leaned on the chiseled doorway as he spoke with her, looking down at the ground, his face tinged with red, framed by his ash-flecked beard and graying mane of hair. His gaunt wife in the room behind him cast uneasy glances her way.

“That’s why I haven’t asked you before now, Preacher. I know our church isn’t rich—we’re lucky to have a church at all in this place. The rich churches build their universities and cathedrals but don’t do anything for us—”

“Give ’em credit,” he interrupted, “They send travelling ministers on a regular circuit. And give out things. Like old clothes and such—”

“But you live with us. You’re one of us and share our troubles. That’s why I’ve always respected you, Preacher. That’s why I’ve been a faithful member of your congregation. And never asked you for any help…until now.” Tears clouded Elsa’s eyes.

Simmons cleared his throat, still looking down. From somewhere behind his wife a baby began to wail. “Sarah,” he said after turning his head back. “Please fetch all the bug legs we’ve got on the shelf. I can always go back out for more.”

His wife’s eyes showed the whites of her astonishment, but she arose without a word. In less than a minute she was at the doorway, handing them over to Elsa in a rough sack woven from the long fine bristles that line the legs of powder bugs. The sack held six scrawny legs.

“Thank you so much, preacher. God bless you,” sang Elsa.

Pastor Simmon’s face flushed a deeper red. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t give you more, Elsa. Very sorry. Would you like to come in for some tea?”

“No thank you. Have to get back to feed the grandkids! They haven’t eaten in three days.” On an impulse she kissed his cheek. The pastor’s face somehow looked even redder, glowing like the ruddy sunshine during a dust storm. His wife first was astounded, but then she smiled—perhaps because she saw no threat in a woman more than twice her age.

Elsa turned away, striding back toward her home. She knew there wasn’t much meat in these half-dozen gangly legs. But it was more than a day’s worth, which was more than she had any right to expect. For the Lord had taught the disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Forgiveness

by Travis Perry -

The fist-sized cannonball made a neat puncture in the seam that ran down the middle of the mammothbug’s exoskeleton. Dazed by the blast of the cannon as she was, this was not the first thing Elsa noticed.

The first thing she realized was the bug charging her way, roaring in pain. It wasn’t until long moments afterward that some detached and objective part of her brain realized the shot actually had been in the right place, it should have hit the bug’s heart, killing it instantly…

Her mind pondered but her body scrambled up the rock face immediately behind her, knowing the bug would come straight after her and was a poor climber. She moved as fast as her elderly frame would bear, the bug roaring behind her—too close. The only thing that soothed the bitter certainty that she would die was the fact she had been certain of her own death before—and lived.

“Help, Lord!” her mouth said, it in turn operating independently of her slow-moving body and shot-critiquing mind. She found hand-and-toeholds and moved upward, not fast enough, she knew, as the bug’s roar drew terrifyingly near.

But then from behind her came the muted crack of a scythegun followed an instant later by the roar of its projectile breaking the mammothbug’s back. Elsa glanced down and saw the bug’s last twitching movement before death. Its carcass was not even two meters from the rock face.

Behind the bug’s body, she saw her savior, a grim-faced bearded man, in new-looking clothes, about a hundred meters away. “Thank you, young man!” she shouted and waved, feeling her face spread in a wide smile.

He approached without saying a word until he was close. By then, Elsa had recovered her cannon and her skeleton saw. She would have to cut the carcass in pieces and carry it bits to get it home. She’d be lucky to get it all back before the scavengers arrived, but once she returned with the first piece, the children would help with the rest. She began her work, starting to saw off the right front leg.

“What are you doing?” said the man, now only meters away, his weapon not quite pointed at her but not quite pointed away, either.

“Oh, taking home some of this kill for my little ones.” Observing his scowling face, she added, “Since you were so kind as to help me, perhaps you would like to take half for yourself?”

Now the weapon pointed itself directly at her. “This is my kill. Move along outta here.”

“Surely there is enough here for both…perhaps you would like to take three-fourths of the beast? I really need at least a small part for my family…you see, one of my sons abandoned us long ago and the others have died in the hunting, the last leaving a very pregnant wife and five little ones behind.” She smiled as sweetly as she knew how, trying her best to appeal to his sense of human decency.

“My kill, old woman,” his voice growled, not sounding particularly human. “Shove along. NOW.”

She moved, bitter tears streaming down her face. Why, dear God, she thought, would you save me from a quick death only to let me die a slow one?

She glanced back behind her and saw the man carving her bug into neat slices with a powered blade, paying no more attention to her at all. And it came to her in a flash of insight what she should do. There were a whole series of little ridges in this narrow valley—she should duck behind one, reload the cannon with the last of her powder and the last cannonball and kill the man stealing the food from the mouths of her little ones.

Behind a ridge no more than twenty meters from her intended prey, the powder and cannonball in place, heavy guilt flooded Elsa’s soul. This is wrong, she acknowledged and knew with bitter resentment that no matter what it would cost her, her God demanded one thing from her: forgiveness.

Elsa wept bitterly.

Patience

by Travis Perry -

One advantage to getting older is patience comes easier. The thought seemed to come from nowhere, interrupting Elsa’s rambling talk with God. “Now where were we, Lord…” but she fell silent when her eyes caught movement.

Beyond the pile of black volcanic rock that served as her hunting blind, she saw the movement in the lure she’d been waiting for. Back toward the cave. The mammothbug was about to come out.

Elsa glanced down at the wick of her bronze cannon. Its white tuft stood straight up, still in place, still dry.

Months ago her family had run out of the money required for the ammunition for their modern weapons. But she still knew how to mix black powder, keeping the cannon handed down through her grandfather’s line the only viable hunting weapon the family had.

The bug pushed its massive hairy head out of the cave, its bulbous red compound eyes glimmering in light of the setting sun. It had pulled back its “trunk,” the hairy bug-like lure it had laid out in front of its cave, which it would wiggle seductively to draw in lesser bugs, as preparation for its once-in-five-to-eight day walk outside to regurgitate the exoskeletons of its prey.

The head hesitated a moment at the entrance, as if it knew Elsa were there. She held her breath and waited, unmoving. Finally, after what seemed to be endless minutes of motionlessness, the creature the size of a small house pulled itself over volcanic rubble, rumbling out of its lair.

She gently lifted the heavy butt of the cannon, lining up the shot. The bug’s death would bring food and clothing to her little ones. But with the cannon, she had only one chance.

At just the right moment, she flicked the lighter and touched it to the wick. Thunder roared in the narrow valley as the cannon threw Elsa back.