Dusk watched as one of the tribe’s young men twisted the lid off a bottle of home-brewed beer. Distracted by the music and dancing around him, and in the middle of bragging to one of his mates at the same time, he didn’t notice the liquid fizz up and overflow until it cascaded over his hand. “Oh, Jesus! Shit, give me a glass!” In his half-drunk state, he didn’t think to just put the lid back on, or even hold the bottle out to the side, and instead did a wobbly little dance to try and keep the stuff from dripping onto his shoes.
At one end of the fire circle, three men were providing the musical entertainment for the evening, one playing a guitar, another keeping up a simple but effective rhythm on a drum, and a third playing the violin. It wasn’t a combination Dusk would have ever thought to put together deliberately, but she supposed that beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she was actually surprised at how well it worked, the violin providing a lively melody above the guitar’s chords.
Linda was already dancing with Mario, who was one of the older men in the tribe. Although ‘older’, in this case, only meant in his forties. His nose was a little puffy from where Dusk had struck him in the face, but he was now in good spirits. Nicholas was the only person Dusk knew who was over fifty who had survived the collapse. Of course, with the sudden absence of a large number of the medical advances they’d all taken for granted, humanity’s life expectancy was likely to take a sudden and sharp downturn. Mario, she’d found out that afternoon, was from Italy. He’d emigrated to Australia some ten years ago, but still had a thick accent. He’d also had a wife when he’d first joined this tribe, though she’d died of an infection about a year later. Now, he filled the important role of the village’s record keeper. It was his job to keep track of the days, months and years, to record how much rain fell each day, the maximum and minimum temperatures, the date of the deaths of any of the tribesmen, and a plethora of other details of their daily lives that would once have been recorded effortlessly by government departments or various computer systems.
Young Mikey and his sister Julia were sitting near the musicians, playing with a couple of action figures that had magically been produced out of nowhere. Aside from casting an occasional glance their way, Linda seemed perfectly relaxed and willing to kick back and enjoy the evening.
Watching the children for a while, Dusk couldn’t help but smile. Mikey was currently showing Julia how Luke Skywalker was a ninja master and how he could kick Spiderman’s butt any day. They’d discovered rather quickly after the women had agreed to join the tribe that Mikey was a chatty one. Once Linda had assured him that these were good men, not the bad men they’d had to deal with before, he hadn’t stopped talking for the entire trip home. From his comfortable perch, first on Dave’s back, then Tom’s back, and finally Whisper’s shoulders, he’d asked an incessant stream of questions – Where did they live? Did they get storms? Did they have any animals? Were there any other children in the tribe? Did they have any nice books to read? In between the answers, he’d showered them with stories of other places he’d been and the things he’d seen along the way – a terrifying, fast-flowing river they’d had to cross to get away from the ‘bad men’; a tree that was ‘as big as the whole world’ that had come down in a storm; a farm with a rooster that was ‘so big it could make twenty-three dinners’! Even now, Dusk wasn’t entirely sure whether he’d been talking about a real rooster or an emu. Not a single person had complained about the chatter for the whole way home, and several of the men, who hadn’t seen a child for years, seemed to have been having a subtle battle over who got to talk to Mikey next.
Mei-Lien, meanwhile, had finally been persuaded to dance, though she was clearly shy and awkward about it. Tom was currently dancing with her, and he’d shown her a couple of moves. When she bashfully tried them out, she received some enthusiastic applause and cheering from a number of men watching on.
But Rochelle was sharing none of the evening’s joviality. She was sitting on one of the logs around the fire, a glass of beer in her hand and a glum expression on her face. Dusk watched as a man approached her, apparently introducing himself – she couldn’t quite hear what he said over the music – and offered his hand to her, requesting a dance. In response, Rochelle rolled her eyes and said something which, going by the expression on her face, was a brutal refusal. The man simply shook his head, shrugged, and then went off to join the throng of men all trying to dance with Mei-Lien.
Dusk was currently in two minds about Rochelle. She was a warrior, that much was clear, and Dusk couldn’t help but admire the tough, gutsy way she approached life. She didn’t back down, didn’t quit, and had the courage to stand by her convictions. Dusk saw a lot of herself in the woman, and that made her want to become friends.
But the other side of Rochelle, from what Dusk had seen so far, was that she was also carrying around a huge amount of anger, and was all too willing to unload it on whoever happened to be standing closest. That made it difficult to relate to her, when, even as a woman, Rochelle still treated Dusk with a cool distrust, despite the rescue and her offer to leave with her. But aside from that, it made Dusk far too aware of her own anger.
Her temper was roused quickly these days, much quicker than it had been back when the world was civilised, and though she recognised the reasons behind it, she wasn’t entirely happy about it. Aidan had been going out of his way to make her feel comfortable throughout the day, and she’d bitten his head off at least three times for some perceived slight that had only been intended to help her. Anger had become a survival strategy, but it was confronting to now see it reflected in someone else. Was that how she came across to other people?
She glanced around the circle, noticing that most of the men were dancing, aside from those preparing the feast that would follow. Mei-Lien and Linda each had five or six men dancing ‘near’ them, which, Dusk supposed, allowed them to convince themselves they were dancing ‘with’ them. But both she and Rochelle had been left on the sidelines.
As she watched, another man approached Rochelle, getting down on one knee to ask her to dance, presumably to try and lighten her dark mood, but he received the same curt reaction as the previous man had. Dusk waited for the inevitable anger at being rejected, for the man to tell Rochelle she was frigid, or a bitch, or some other unhelpful, entitled comment… but instead, he just sighed and walked away. But as he went, Dusk happened to catch a glimpse of another man, standing at the edge of the firelight on the far side of the circle. It was Stormbreaker, a beer in his hand, watching Rochelle with a look of undisguised longing. He watched as her latest would-be suitor walked away, then shook his head, taking a mouthful of beer. After having seen him fight, Dusk didn’t think he was suffering from a lack of courage. Perhaps there was something more terrifying about being rejected by a woman than there was about being stabbed through the heart with a sharp sword.
But the look of longing on his face made Dusk pause. When she’d joined the tribe, there had been a cautious optimism among the men, but also a cool resentment, her presence a sharp reminder of all the things they couldn’t have. With the arrival of Linda, Mei-Lien and Rochelle, the mood had swiftly changed. Four women were still not nearly enough to balance out the tribe, but their presence seemed to have given everyone hope. The more women they had, the more likely it was that others would agree to join them in the future, and it was the first ray of light they’d experienced in a long time. But even so, there were only two more men who were going to end up with wives tonight, and Dusk couldn’t imagine the anticipation and disappointment that would be going through the minds of most of these men. Aidan, Whisper and two or three others who Dusk supposed were the village ‘elders’ had disappeared into Aidan’s cabin to talk this afternoon, and it was an easy guess that they were discussing who the lucky men would be. In a fairer world, the women would have been able to choose their own partners, of course, but given current circumstances, she supposed there was a certain logic in making the decision for them – not that she agreed with giving women away like chattel. Perhaps they could at least have given them the chance to choose which man they’d like, a rough and ready version of speed-dating, perhaps?
“May I have this dance?” Dusk looked up in surprise. A man called Hawk was standing in front of her, long dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail and numerous tattoos covering both his arms. He could only have been in his early twenties, and with her thirty-first birthday coming up and no particular fondness for either tattoos or dreadlocks, he was pretty much the last man in the tribe she would have volunteered to dance with. But only a heartbeat later, Dusk was calling herself an idiot. Just a few minutes ago, she’d been bemoaning the fact that no one had asked her to dance yet, and now she was going to turn down the first man who did?
“I’d love to,” she said, standing up, but just at that moment, she saw Hawk glance behind her. He raised his eyebrows and adopted a pleading look – none of it aimed at her – so she turned around and saw Aidan standing there. Again, not looking at her, but at Hawk, Aidan inclined his head and made a ‘carry on’ gesture, and for a moment, Dusk saw red. She was entitled to dance with whomever she chose, and if Aidan thought he could tell her otherwise, he needed some sense beaten into him…
But just as quickly, the fire in her belly cooled. Perhaps Hawk wasn’t asking Aidan’s permission that Dusk be allowed to dance, but rather permission for him to be allowed to dance with her. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to get his ass kicked for stepping out of line. And if that was the case, then it was something of a relief to realise that the rest of the men in the tribe had already acknowledged that Dusk was unavailable and that they’d have to deal with Aidan if they made any attempt to harm her.
God, could she just stop overanalysing everything for once and enjoy the party? She was safe, she had a tribe to belong to, she now had three women who, with a bit of effort, could become good friends, and the makings of a hearty feast were being prepared all around her. Smiling for the first time in what seemed like forever, Dusk took Hawk’s hand and joined the throng already dancing around the blazing bonfire.