The Tattooed Tribes by Bev Allen

deeper water than he had anticipated. A current caught him
and he was suddenly in trouble.
    At first
Lucien thought it was a ruse, but the panic on Vlic’s face as he
fought to regain his feet in the fast flowing water brought him to
his senses and he plunged in, swimming to Vlic as hard and fast as
he could.
    They fought
the river together, keeping each other afloat as they kicked hard
towards the bank. For a brief moment Lucien thought they would not
make it, but the river was kinder than either of them deserved and
the bottom unexpectedly rose up under their feet and they were able
to drag themselves onto the bank.
    They lay
gasping for breath and then the enormity of what had happened hit
them. Lucien shuddered and Vlic shivered from cold and shock.
    “ We need a fire,” Lucien said, his teeth
chattering.
    Together they
managed to find wood and kindling. Lucien’s trembling fingers went
to the flint bag around his neck.
    “ I’ve lost my knife,” he said.
    Vlic handed
him his and Lucien struck enough sparks to ignite the dried
grass.
    Once the
warmth began to still their quivering limbs they were better able
to assess the situation. More wood was found and another fire lit
and they sat between the two, drying themselves and their
clothes.
    Neither spoke
for a while, and then Vlic said, “It’s a good idea to keep your
flint around your neck.”
    Lucien nodded.
“Jon told me to do it.”
    They were
silent again.
    “ I wish I hadn’t lost my knife,” Lucien
said.
    “ I saw where you dropped it,” Vlic replied.
“We should be able to find it.”
    Again the
awkward silence fell, but at last Lucien’s grin crept out. “We’re
going to be in deep shit over this.”
    Vlic glared at
him for a second and then a reluctant smile came to his face as
well.
    “ My dad’s going to kill me,” he said
ruefully.
    Lucien
mentally reviewed Jon’s possible reaction and thought he might not
live either. They sat and considered a possibly uncomfortable
future.
    “ We don’t have to tell them,” Lucien
suggested.
    He saw the
shock on Vlic’s face and remembered what Jon had said about the
tribes and their respect for the truth.
    “ Not lie,” he assured him. “Just not tell
them everything.”
    “ How?”
    “ Well, we can tell them you missed your
footing and got out of your depth and I lost my knife trying to
pull you back, which is all true, just not the whole
truth.”
    Vlic grinned.
“And how do you explain your eye and my nose?”
    “ They got hit by something while we were in
the water,” Lucien improvised.
    “ Which is also true,” Vlic
conceded.
    They laughed,
shaking off the last of the horrors and made their way back to
their abandoned baskets and digging sticks. Luck was on their side,
they had not lost many clams and Lucien stripped off his damp
clothes and found his knife after a couple of dives.
    Prudently they
dug up a lot more clams in the hope this would explain their long
absence, before they made their way back to camp.
    The four men
were too busy to notice them, so Vlic showed Lucien how to cook
clams by wrapping them in wet leaves and laying them in a hole
filled with hot rocks, before sealing the whole thing with
earth.
    Lucien
carefully made damper bread, optimistic that food would divert
Jon’s attention.
    Neither boy
much enjoyed the meal they had cooked; Jon and Iesgood gave them
one comprehensive look and said nothing. The lack of enquiry
bothered them far more than any interrogation.
    They fidgeted
and wriggled uncomfortably through the evening, waiting for the
inevitable questions, but none came.
    Both passed a
disturbed night full of drowning dreams and anxious anticipation of
the morrow, but the morning was also free from embarrassing
enquires.
    Over the next
few days the boys drew closer and closer together as they waited
for the axe to fall. In order to delay the event, they avoided
their elders as much as possible, offering to collect wood, water
and to hunt for berries and