Chapter Eight: Festered Wounds — Part 8
Aside — Gina Wakes Up. Part 3
Arpie and Opus have caught a dozen fish, and are smoking them over a spit when Tomas finds them. He has ridden from around the edge of the lake, Jenna on his right side, Gina trailing. Tomas waves his bow, so he can be easily seen, and Arpie looks up from his bloody work, smiling through a grimace of having lost a toss to gut and clean. Three riders coming up on them would have been nerve-wracking, if any of them had been a stranger. Arpie isn’t always liked, given his tendency to break up sticky matters, domestic squabbles, and deal with people bent on murder. Today, however, Tomas is coming, and bringing friends. Jenna and Gina are with him, so Arpie waves even friendlier, given that they are the first pretty faces he’s seen in days.
“That’s a lot of fish.” Tomas says, in way of compliment.
“Beth needs her larders stocked for fish broth, and Opus is one whipped pup.” Arpie says. “Sorry if I smell like a cod fisher’s boat.”
“All I smell is good eats.” Tomas smiles.
“We have enough smoked if you need any for your stores. Opus is top of the lake right now, should be back with another catch soon enough. We weren’t as lucky with small game, so fish it is for breakfast. The three of you are welcome to stay, if you weren’t too busy to get where you’re headed.”
“We’re right where we need to be, and I do love fish.” Gina says, to which Arpie pauses from his work so he can wash up, and then starts readying plates of food.
“Eating fish, it’s not natural.” Jenna says, mostly under her breath.
Gina hears her, and manages to mask the slight frown from her face, but not before Arpie catches it. Arpie is a gossip, and he knows who’s warming the others bed. He is certain that the comment is meant to hurt, and knows it has hit home. The men pretend not to notice, but Arpie doesn’t serve her a plate, and serves Gina and Tomas, in that order. He has learned to always serve a woman first, which is an old Southern courtesy that blends well into the culture of Tó Naneesdizí. Soon Arpie is making two more plates of the same fare as he has given the others, dried apples, strawberries, crispy wedged potatoes, and copious amounts of freshly smoked trout and catfish pile each plate.
As he is finishing, Opus comes around from the top of the lake dropping slowly to the ground, and then walks carefully outside of the gravity bowl. Arpie hands him a plate piled high and sits down next to him, nobody talking while they eat. It is one of those odd moments where Jenna feels suddenly awkward, being the only person not eating. Arpie pretends not to notice the oddity, or to care, until Jenna’s stomach rumbles.
“May I get myself a plate of trout?” Jenna asks shyly, trying to be polite.
“Oh Sugar, I apologize. I thought you said eating fish wasn’t your thing.” Arpie’s Southern hospitality kicks in, he’s managed to empty his plate rather quickly, so his hands are free, and he’s already moving to get Jenna.
“I like the smoke.” Jenna replies, aware that she sounds even more hypocritical for her admission.
Once the food is out of the way, Arpie smiles and leans forward. Opus spins in around the lake, in an awkward orbit with a massive collection of fresh dead fish, looking something like an awkward paired bolas doing its best to imitate a boomerang. There is a deep popping sound as he and the fish hit ground, bounce twice, and then walk with increasing pressure, out of the bowl and up to the camp. Arpie smiles and takes the fish, giving Opus a chance to sit and eat. While Arpie guts, he talks, pausing only when he fails at the power to multitask.
“So are you really right . . . ” There is a slight crunching sound as Arpie’s knife severs a head from a catfish, ” . . . where you need to be?”
Gina has been nibbling, but is nearly done, and she answers enthusiastically. “If my calculations are correct, then we most certainly are. You and Opus have to be somewhere soon. I have the coordinates marked on this map.”
Opus looks up from his work, dismisses the sense of urgency, and goes back to cutting: He’s heard things about Gina, more about her witchery than her sleeping habits, actually, so he’s not surprised that she might say something completely out of the ordinary. “Sounds like we have a deadline. Any idea of when we should be going?”
“To the minute. You don’t have to play cavalry, though. You can arrive at any time prior.” Gina says, pulling out a map.
Arpie makes short work of the gutting the fish, and soon another thirteen corpus piscis are smoking over a coal heavy, stagnant fire, smoke drifting like strips of algae in a slow creek. Using a couple of lemons and some fresh water, Arpie cleans up one more time, and smells something like lemony fresh catfish when he sits down next to Gina. She opens the map, finding everybody crowding around. Arpie knows the map, the terrain, and has even been to the spot. Both him and Opus lose any semblance of contentment that would normally follow a meal, sharing a similar expression of concern.
“Quick Fox Glenn, the intersection two miles North.” Arpie says, “Just off the river proper. Never thought I’d ever be going back.”
“What’s there?” Jenna asks in that quiet, almost nasal tone that seems a bit too passive, considering how her mom talks.
“An arch, and a grudge.” Arpie says.
