Dinner

Rope hunched over the fire, her canvas bed bag of leaves and litter a little too close to the embers, but the goopy-eyed child on it needed the heat. The autumnal chill would turn to frost this night, clouds notwithstanding. Not rain clouds, no pink sky to threaten snow, not yet. A spit turned, sending sputtering grease from the carcass to flare in an irregular syncopation.

"So? You seem a little awake, breathing like you might take another breath, now." Rope laid a hand on the shivering body, cocked her head to match the orientation of the smudged, pale face, "do you have a language? Or are you a feral child, brought up by wolves, who wandered amongst suicidal murderers?" Her tone remained conversational, underlain with icy exhaustion, not ready to keep talking much longer, not able to stop. "Bladdered up satellite wouldn't relay my messages, only got enough to mark my gips, and I'm not sure that recorded. So, no help on the way, not even to meet us. Just you and me, kid. Think you will live til we make it to the Abby? Maybe if fool mule decides to go home directly, they'll send a posse on the road, meet us up, shave a few hours off, the bitter ones, that'll count, come to think about it."

Rope poked a stick into the edge of the campfire, dislodging a leaf wrapped package, opened it with ginger fingertips on a flat rock, and scooped out a bit of the mash inside, in a fold of green. "Not quite done, but good enough. Here, yams and herbs, in a chard leaf." The small hand extended, accepted the food, and smeared it into her mouth. "Nothing hot to drink, got nothing to hold water."

"Enku. Leaf." She smacked her lips, and nearly smiled in the flickering light as the grey sunset faded.

"She does speak. And at least one word of Abbey. Is that your name, Leaf?"

The child pointed to the wrapped dinner, "leaf," and sat up awkwardly, rustling the makeshift bedroll.

"Ah. Still, a good Abbey name, Leaf. More? Well, of course more, you need all I can spare, here. No other name? Traumatized or just shy?" The child looked like a squirrel carrying nuts, but Rope stopped herself laughing. "Or just got your mouth full. Coypu needs to be well cooked, so that'll be a little while yet." They ate in silence, watching the fire in the gloaming. "Got any more words?"

"You. Black madonna?" The exclamation erupted, followed by hands clapped over her mouth, stuffing spat food back in, coughing.

"Ha! I know that one. No, no, it's ok, relax, relax." She patted the bony back tenderly. "Well, I've birthed three times, and I'm as black as humans come these days, so sure. My mother, my bio-mother, would call you sacrilegious for that, especially applied to me. Her old religion. Real Lalibelan, escaped from her tribe, and I'm the catalyst. Were those your folks, all the dead ones?" A terrified nod. "Bible people, like my mother's people?" Another nod. "So, you understand what I'm saying to you?" A nod, a shrug, a confused glance in the gathering darkness, the wind rustling the surrounding trees. "Some, huh?" Rope pulled back the spit to test the meat. It pulled away to her satisfaction and mild surprize. "Eat, sleep, talk when you're ready. We got another two days walk, if the weather holds. And I'd love you do do some of it on your own feet."

"I'll call you Leaf the Foundling, for now. Wanna hear the story of my Mother?" She assumed she heard assent in the greasy snarfling. Rope the Weather settled in beside to eat her own New Rat, sent thanks to her mums who taught her to always keep spices in wax paper up her sleeve pockets - making the strong meat edible, and her dads for teaching her to hunt the beasties and watch for tubers. She plucked out the warmed rocks from the sand around the fire, to keep their feet warm, and listened to the wind in the sky, and the bats flapping after moths, rodents scurrying on their business, other animal and earth sounds she found familiar, but could not name.

She knew she should check the actual numbers, pressure and humidity, do a proper spotter's weather report, but her arms ached from carrying the child since midmorning. And she didn't want to get grease on the pad, since the connection had already glitched. In the morning, she promised herself. She threw the bones in the fire, added a thick branch stump, and snugged around the warmish, stinking body of her find, and remembered her Mother. Dream about her tonight, she thought, as cold sleep paralyzed her, tell the tale on the road tomorrow, like Chaucer's pilgrims.