Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

offended. “I’m not trying to hurt anyone here.”
    It was a smooth move on Kowi’s part. I tried not to smile at him and get Trip all upset about a possible conspiracy that didn’t exist.
    “Let’s have a secret ballot vote,” I said.
    Both chiefs looked at me confused.
    “Everyone gets … uh … a leaf. And they put the leaf in one basket or another to cast their votes. Behind a tree. So no one can see it.”
    Kowi and Trip nodded.
    “Everyone find a leaf,” ordered Kowi. Within seconds the whole mass of people was reaching over to grab leaves off the ground, passing them around to friends until everyone had one.
    Two baskets made their way up to the front. One was square and one was oblong.
    “You want to take over, Nokosi?” asked Kowi, handing me the containers.
    “Not really.” I wasn’t kidding either.
    “Do it,” said Trip, his voice brooking no argument.
    I rolled my eyes. Sometimes his macho act was really annoying.
    “Fine.” I spoke up so everyone would hear me, holding up the baskets in my hands above my head. “The square basket is for staying square - everyone staying in his own little box. Keeping the tribes separate. The oblong basket is one big body of water - everyone being part of the Kahayatle as one tribe. Put your leaf in the basket representing the way you want to go. If you want to join the tribes, put it in the round basket. If you want to stay separate, square basket.”
    I brought them down to waist-level. “Where should I go?”
    “Go sit behind that tree.” Kowi pointed over where Peter was standing.
    I nodded and walked towards Peter, gesturing with my head for him to come with me.
    “How do we know someone won’t choose one basket over another based on peer pressure?” asked Peter, joining me as I walked behind the tree.
    I flipped the baskets over and put them down on the ground with their bottoms up. Luckily they weren’t totally solid and had spaces between the fibers. “Like this. They have to jam their leaves into a hole. They won’t be able to see how many are in either one.”
    “Sweet. Man, did you plan that out all ahead of time?”
    “Nope. Totally pulled it out of my butt.”
    “Nice. Your butt has voting machines in it.”
    I shove him gently. “Shut up. It’s a voting system, not a voting machine.”
    “Okay. Yeah, that sounds so much better. You have a voting system in your butt.”
    “You’d better be quiet or I’m going to cast a vote from my system right now.”
    Peter looked at me, horrified. “Can I just say, ew? Ew, Bryn. Ew.”
    I shrugged. “You started it.”
    The first voters showed up to join us. We could hear the sounds of the group gathering and talking on the other side of the tree as the tribe members mingled, waiting for their turns to come.
    I instructed the girl who approached. “Push your leaf into a crack in the basket.”
    “Round is for combining, right?” she asked in a soft voice. I recognized her from our training.
    “Yep,” I said, smiling as she pushed her leaf through the bottom of the round basket.
    She smiled back. “Thanks, Bryn. For everything that you’re doing.”
    I was embarrassed by her compliment and momentarily dumbstruck.
    Peter spoke up while jabbing me in the ribs with his boney elbow. “She says thank you and that it is her pleasure.”
    She giggled. “Bye.”
    “Bye,” said Peter.
    When she was gone he looked at me. “Hello? Anyone in there?”
    “Shush,” I said, as another girl came around the corner. I felt really weird, taking thanks from anyone, mainly because it felt like everything I was doing, I did for selfish reasons. I just wanted a safe place to live for my little family; and to get it, I had to help them. It didn’t seem right, acting like I was being this altruistic nice person they all seemed to think I was.
    We repeated our voting instructions for this second girl and the other almost one hundred indians who came behind the tree eventually. It took what felt like a really long time, even after several of them came back together, not worrying about hiding their votes from anyone.
    When we were finally finished, Trip and Kowi came back and joined Peter and me.
    “Is that everyone?” I asked.
    “Yeah. What’s the vote?” asked Kowi.
    I lifted up the square basket to reveal a small pile of leaves. I knew one of them was Trip’s.
    I lifted up the round one, the pile of leaves underneath about five times bigger.
    “Well, I guess that’s it, then,” said