“Let’s stay, but keep our eyes and ears open. Anytime one of us sees anything at all that looks wrong, we talk about it, no matter what. Deal?”

They both nodded.

Buster came over and licked my exposed ankle, looking up at me with his happy doggy eyes. One bark was all it took for me to know that he was on board with our plan too.

CHAPTER NINE

TWELVE SETS OF HANDS ADDED to our three made quick work of our boat unloading chore. Within thirty minutes we had everything inside the chickee hut nearest the landing place of our boats.

“You keep the grenades for now,” said Kowi. “We will come for our share when we have something to keep them in.”

“Where can we put our boats?” asked Bodo. “We don’t want to lose dem.”

“We’ll secure them where they are for now. Once you’re ready, we’ll show you a good place to keep them out of sight and where you can come and go - it’s not the same way you came in.”

“Thanks, Kowi,” I said. “We really appreciate you doing this for us and not shooting us full of arrows.”

He smiled. “I’m glad we sent Yokci in to greet you first.”

“Why? Because he sucks at fighting?”

“Let’s just say, he’s a little slower to anger than some of the others.”

“Or you can chust say he’s slower and dat’s all,” said Bodo.

I tried not to laugh at his stark honesty, but I probably shouldn’t have bothered since Kowi chuckled.

“I like you … Bodo is it? You’re from Germany, right?”

“Yes. How didt you know?”

“Just a lucky guess,” he said, winking at me.

One of the girls from his tribe came up and stood next to him. She stopped close enough to him and stared me down hard enough that I got the picture immediately. I half-expected her to pee on the guy’s leg, she was being so obviously territorial. “Everything is done,” she said.

Kowi glanced at her and said, “This is my girlfriend, Coli.”

“Hi,” I said, warily. I didn’t have a lot of patience for jealous girlfriends, especially when there was no need for it.

“Hi,” she said, putting her hand on Kowi’s arm.

I rolled my eyes, turning away so she wouldn’t see it. “Okay, then. So, when do you want to start training?” I asked, going over to stand at the entrance to the hut with Bodo and Peter, who were going through our things. Peter had already started organizing the food on a small set of shelves that were built in to the far side of the hut.

“Tomorrow. And if you want, you can come have dinner with us tonight.”

“She needs to take a shower, first,” said Coli.

I took a deep breath so I wouldn’t be tempted to walk over there and slap her across the face. Her tone couldn’t have been more rude.

Peter was giggling behind me.

“I’d love a shower, actually. Unfortunately, the world came to an end and all of the water that I was used to having come out of my faucet dried up. So forgive me if I’m a little bit pungent right now, but it’s not my friggin fault.”

Kowi was trying like heck to keep a straight face. “You can use ours. Eventually you can find a place to hook up your own if you want.”

I looked at him incredulously. “You guys have showers? Here?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he answered mysteriously. “I’m sure Coli will be happy to show you where they are, since she so generously proposed that you take one.”

She opened her mouth to protest but one look from her tattooed boyfriend shut her up in a flash.

I smiled at her smugly. She might smell better than me, but I didn’t have to jump when some half-naked guy told me to, like she apparently did. At least I had that going for me.

I looked back at Peter and Bodo. “Do you guys mind if I go get cleaned up?”

“No!” they both yelled in unison, causing Coli to smile bitchily back at me.

“Jerks,” I said under my breath. I stormed over to get the freshest clothes I could find out of my bag, picking out a tank top, shorts, and a fresh pair of socks that I’d taken from the army-navy store. My shoes were soaked, but I didn’t have anything else for my feet.

“Come on,” she said, walking off quickly, not looking back to see if I was following.

I trailed behind her for five minutes, picking my way along as best I could over the lumpy surface. It eventually got less rooty and more like regular ground, even though it still felt pretty springy underfoot. We reached a small clearing that the sun was able to penetrate and burn into brightly.

“Over there, behind that curtain, is the shower. The water is heated from the sun. Don’t run it continuously. Just run it to get wet and rinse off. Soap and shampoo is there too.”

She turned to leave me.

“You guys have soap?” I asked. I was in shock. I hadn’t touched soap in months. It was one of those things my dad had kind of forgotten when he was trying to set me up with supplies before he died. I had all kinds of camping gear and bleach, but no soap. I’d used up the last bit I had a month after he died, and had depended on my pool water to keep me as clean as possible for the next couple - but the algae had soon taken over and made the whole cleanliness thing a dream I left in the past.

“We make our own.”

“That’s friggin nuts,” was all I could say.

She shrugged. “Our tribe has always been self-sustaining. We might have integrated into the white man’s world once, but that didn’t mean we let the old ways disappear.”

“Well, thank God for that,” I said, impressed as hell.

A hint of a smile crossed her face before it was replaced again with her scowl. “I assume you can find your way back.”

I laughed somewhat bitterly. “You assume wrong, actually.”

She stopped her exit and turned around. “Seriously? You expect me to stay here while you shower?”

“It’s not like it’s going to take me forever,” I said, slightly offended that she found my company so distasteful.

“The way you smell? Uh, yeah. It is.”

I threw my arms up and stalked off. “Whatever. Leave then, jerk. See if I care.” I was pretty damn sick and tired of everyone making comments about my stink.

“I was only kidding,” she said, not sounding at all contrite.

I looked over my shoulder and she was still standing there. She looked fragile and unhappy, but I ignored her and whatever her issues were as I continued to the shower.

The curtain that I’d been able to see from far away was actually a small enclosure, set up using nearby tree branches as support for the animal hides that hung down. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of animal they were, but thought maybe deer.

I quickly shucked off my clothes and stepped over to the black hose that was hanging down at the far end. I could see that it was coming from a large black rubber bladder thing above my head, the entire side of which was in the full sun, getting heated by the rays attracted to its dark color. There was another bladder next to it, but this one was gray and hidden in the shade, not directly exposed to the sun. Both of their hoses were tied together with twine, and a giant clip thingy kept the water from coming out with the force of gravity. I walked up and squeezed the end of the clip gently, allowing a little of the water to escape. It was a mix of very hot stuff from the black tank and cool stuff from the gray one, mixing to make a perfect temperature for a shower.

I hurriedly pulled the rubber band out of the bottom of my braid, sliding it onto my wrist so I wouldn’t lose it, and tried to finger comb all of my hair. I brushed it every day, regardless of the fact that it was disgustingly dirty, so there weren’t any tangles to speak of.

I looked on the ground and noticed some plastic water bottles filled with a cloudy white liquid. I unscrewed the cap of one and then the other, deciding which one was the shampoo by the way they smelled. One had the light scent of flowers, and the other smelled more like the harsh kind of cleanser they had at my school in the art room - the stuff we used to wash the paint off our hands.

I went back over to the hoses, squeezing the clip so enough water would come out to soak my hair and body. Then I lathered the heck out of both, using generous amounts of the soaps. I hated to be selfish and use more than my share, but like everyone was so fond of saying recently, I stank to high heaven; and it was going to take some industrial-strength stuff and lots of it to get me back to normal again.

Coli’s voice came to me from a lot closer than it had been before. “There’s a bucket of sand there. You can take handfuls and use it to scrub your skin clean with the soap added to it.”

I looked over and saw the dry sand, grabbing some eagerly and using it to slough off the dried, stained skin on my elbows and hands. I ended up using it everywhere but my most sensitive parts, scrubbing until my skin turned pink. It almost hurt, but it felt so damn good to be clean again, I didn’t care. I even used it on my face and neck, totally thrilled with the feeling of non-oily skin. My face hadn’t felt this soft and smooth in forever. I wanted to sing with joy.

I shampooed my hair three times, letting the soap sit in it for several minutes, hoping the harsh cleaning product was cutting through and dissolving the smelly hair grease that had plagued me for months. When I finally rinsed it out, I could feel that my hair was almost completely dried out, which made me so happy I couldn’t stop smiling. That’s how my hair had felt when my dad was alive. I’d used gallons of conditioner over the years to try and get rid of that feeling, but now I just wanted to let it explode all over my head. Maybe, possibly, if we could get along with these Miccosukee indians, I’d never have to have oily hair again. A girl can dream.

Once I was finished removing an entire layer or two of skin from my body with the scratchy sand and soap, I rinsed off. I stood out in the sun for a little while with my arms up in the air, letting its warm rays and the slight puffs of breeze that made their way into the enclosure dry me off. When I was almost totally dry again, I got dressed. The shorts were too big since I’d lost some weight, so I rolled the waistband down. I didn’t bother with a bra since I didn’t have a clean one anyway. My chest wasn’t that big, so it didn’t make a noticeable difference that I could tell. I slipped the tank top over my head and pulled it down to cover the top of the shorts.

I stepped out from behind the curtain expecting to be alone, but Coli was still there, standing back again at the entrance to the glade. I walked over to meet her, combing my hair out with my fingers as best I could before putting it up in a quick ponytail. It was getting too long, so I planned to cut it when I got back; just a few inches and I’d be all set. Now I just had to find some dry shoes.

“You didn’t put your shoes on,” said Coli, looking at my feet.

“My shoes are wet and they reek like dead monkeys.”

“We have moccasins you can have. But it’s dangerous to walk around here in bare feet in the meantime.”

“Why?” I asked as we set off to go back to the hut.

“Cuts lead to infections. And there are spiders and any number of other creatures on the ground that don’t like humans walking on them.”

I stopped immediately and slid my bare feet into my smelly shoes. I didn’t need to hear the word spiders more than once.

Coli waited for me to finish before continuing again.

“So how long have you and Kowi been dating?”

“Six months.”

“Oh.” That meant the love affair had begun after the apocalypse. Interesting. I asked what I thought was a stupid question next, just to keep the conversation flowing. “So, you’re Miccosukee?”

“No.”

I stopped walking for a second, trying to decide if she was messing with me. “Well, if you’re not Miccosukee, what are you?”