“The future is yet to be written. So, choose wisely how you step forward.”

  Teachings of Rebecca

  Hands grabbed at him, shaking hard. Davy jolted upright, heart pounding, reaching for his knife. The cave swarmed with greys, motes flickering wildly around them.

  “What?” he shouted. “Stop,” he added, shrugging off a second attempt to wake him. Then quieter, “what d’ya want?”

  As he sat up and they all started chattering at the same time. The decoder couldn’t handle it. All he got were snippets, words.

  “Rebecca. Reds. Kits.”

  He eventually got to the bottom of what had happened. Rebecca and her kits had gone into one of the adjacent valleys and been ambushed by a bunch of reds. One kit had escaped but the others, including Rebecca had been taken off in a Bird.

  Davy was furious with himself but reigned in his anger. He’d overslept, hadn’t even woken up when a mob of chattering greys had come into the cave. But mainly, because he should have warned the greys about the reds watching them, as soon as he got back. Now was not the time to beat himself up.

  “I need to talk to your boss.”

  The greys looked confused. Finally, an older grey, the one with white-tipped fur spoke, hesitating. “But… Rebecca is our boss. That’s why they didn’t kill her. Why they took her.”

  “What?” Davy blinked. “She’s the …” Their nods confirmed it. “Well, I’ll be darned. We must get ‘em back, all of ‘em.”

  The old grey shook his head, “We can’t. They’re too strong.”

  Davy immediately replied. “No.. they... ain’t,” he shouted stabbing out the words on the grey’s chest.

  “It’s not our way. We struggle as it is to live with balance in harmony surrounded by these evils. All reds do is create chaos, kill and burn.”

  “Rebecca said ‘the future is yet to be written’.”

  The greys shaded their eyes with the Diri and responded, “It can be written.”

  Their response buoyed Davy, maybe they can fight, “Are the reds still around?” he asked.

  “No, not that we know,” came the answer.

  “We need to go to the place where you trapped them. But first, I need to get dressed.” His clothes were in a heap on the floor. More a pile of fur than something to wear.

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  A grey stepped forward, “Rebecca, my… mother made these for you, before she was…” he couldn’t finish, but was offering him a bundle.

  “Do you have a name?” asked Davy.

  The old grey shook his head answering for the grey, “No, he hasn’t been given one,” then after a paused he added, “Not yet.”

  Davy tipped his head slightly; a silent question passed between them. He saw the faintest flicker in the grey’s eye, a glint that was there then gone. He’d got his answer.

  “You’re Rebecca’s son.” It was more a statement, something else he hadn’t known about her.

  Davy studied him for a beat, seeing something familiar in the young grey’s eyes. “Then it’s fittin’ you get a name.” He exhaled. “Becson. Yes. That’s the one. In my language this is a strong name. It’s the person who rallies others to his side in times of need. It also speaks to you being Rebecca’s son.”

  “Thank you,” Becson said making the Diri as a sign of respect. Some of the greys, the younger ones, pulled at his ears, other slapped him on the back.

  Davy stepped closer, took the wad from Becson and gently opened it. Inside was a pair of trousers, a shirt and jacket. All were made of rich grey pelts.

  “Thankyou.”

  Was she still alive? He thought.

  “Yes, she is.” He knew it, sensed it with absolute surety. Unsure what to say, he turned the clothes over in his hands.

  “But the fur, it’s grey. From your mob?” he choaked, emotions welled up as Becson nodded.

  “From our dead. Yes. Their gift to the future. It’s a source of much comfort to know our bodies can benefit the mob even after we have moved on.”

  Tears rolled down Davy’s face. He laid the clothes on the floor, knelt beside them and making the Diri with his hands, slowly bowed to Rebecca’s son who looked surprised, taken aback. Becson composed himself, then knelt and struck the same pose, mirroring it.

  Davy looked up at the greys, their faces lined with fear and desperation. He didn’t want this, but Rebecca was gone, and someone had to lead. His jaw tightened and brushing dust from his new clothes, pulled himself to his feet.

  “Alright,” he said, his voice firm. “You two,” Davy said pointing at Becson and the old grey. “I need to see some things. The rest of you stay here and practice your spear work. We’ll be back soon.”

  The two greys followed him out and across to the edge of the forest where the natural contours of the ground had led the reds into his traps. He went to the pile of bodies that still lay on the ground.

  Davy looked back at the old grey.

  “What do they call you?”

  “They used to call me,” he said but what followed was a meaningless jumble of sounds. Before Davy could ask, he’d continued, “But now they call me Old White, because of the…”

  Davy cut across him, “Yeh, I get it. Well, Whitey. Get everyone to gather up the Red’s pistols and muskets. We can use them.”

  “Nope don’t work. Red guns on reds don’t work. Same with grey guns on greys.”

  “Huh,” Davy grunted, picked up one of the pistols and aimed it at a nearby tree. The pistol kicked hard, a red beam blasting through bark and wood. “Looks to be workin’ to me,” he said grinning, then swung it back towards the corpse and aimed. Click. Nothing.

  “Now, ain’t that somethin’,” Davy muttered. “Why’s it do that?” he asked.

  Becson answered, “It’s their shields.”

  When Davy looked confused Whitey added, “The guns know who is who, and what is what.”

  “Now ain’t that interesting. How’d they do that?” he asked looking at one of the guns.

  “They just do. It’s science.”

  “No, how do the guns know who is red, and who is grey?”

  Understanding dawned, “Ahh, that’s also the shields, the haze. When they’re on, the guns know who’s who.”

  As they collected what they could, Davy noticed that some of the reds wore clothes. Trousers, long sleeved jackets.

  “Also, take their clothes,” he directed.

  The grey shrugged, not understanding but did it anyway.

  He wondered where the design of their clothes came from. Certainly wasn’t from ‘back East,’ that’s for sure.