Savage Tales

mother told him to hurry.
    He set out with only a sack of dried meat over his shoulder.
    The stream went down through the hills, where he often played with his friends. That was the first day. He slept peacefully that night, knowing he was doing good and that soon he would bring help for his father and all would be well again.
    On the second day the stream went on and he walked for many hours until his feet were calloused through the leather coverings over them. The stream bent into a forest he had never been to before. He had never been to any of this before, and he was alone.
    He slept in the forest to the sound of crickets. He had heard stories of wolves living in forests and he would not have been able to sleep had it not been for all the hiking that day and the exhaustion that overpowered him.
    The next day the stream took him through a thicker part of the forest before finally breaking free and entering a meadow that seemed to stretch forever. In the distance were the mountains, and he guessed that this is where the stream would lead him.
    And this it did. He arrived the next day, weary. The sun blazed overhead and he would drink from the stream many times through the day, thankful that he followed the water. His supply of food was dwindling, and he found some berries on the edge of the meadow. But when he ate them he found them sour and they caused him to vomit them back up.
    The next day he arrived at the meeting of the stream and the river, and he was spent.
    There upon the far bank of the river was a girl. He watched her from a distance, unseen in the bushes. She was his age or younger, and she had a small moon-shaped face like he had never seen before. He could not take his eyes away from her. She filled a pail with water from the river and placed the pail on her head, walking away.
    He could not let her leave him, but he was too frightened to approach her, so he followed.
    Her path took her away from the river and its course, and the boy promised himself to return and continue his journey shortly. The girl walked over several miles until at last she came to a small village, not unlike his own.
    As he watched her enter a hut, two men seized him from behind. He struggled, but they were men and he was caught.
    They took him into the village. As they hauled him along, a small crowd of onlookers began to follow the men and the boy, staring at his strange face and unusual dress. By the time they reached the village center nearly all of its people were gathered around to see what would take place. The sun was setting and a fire was lit.
    Finally, from a central hut emerged the village elder. He limped over to the fire and the men and the boy, without taking any particular note of any of them. Finally he turned to the boy and asked for his story. The boy tried to begin, stumbling over his words in that large audience of onlookers, stuttering and contradicting himself, revealing too many of his inner thoughts and decisions, painting a sorry story with little narrative sensibility.
    The village elder stopped him. He looked the boy over and instructed the men to release the boy. They did. The village elder then told the boy that he would be their guest that night and that they would feast shortly.
    The village people began to disperse and go about their own business for the evening, with only a few remaining with the elder and the boy. A woman and a girl emerged from the elder's hut and came to sit with them. The girl was she whom the boy had followed that day to the village. He looked at her and she looked at him. The village elder looked at them both, and asked the men to prepare the deer. They did and cooked it over the open fire until the meat had changed. They gave a piece to the boy and he ate his full.
    That night the boy slept in the hut with the village elder, his wife, and daughter. His eyes for a few hours kept falling to the girl whose beauty he could not have imagined before this day, and at one point he thought that her eyes were open as well, looking at his, but of this he could not be sure.
    The next morning the village elder spoke to him, asking him his plans. He said that the boy was welcome to stay for another night if he wished. The boy thought about his mother's instructions and his father, but he also thought of the girl who he might never see again if he left. He decided that one more day could be spared.
    During that day he spoke with the girl, and learned her name. She showed him the rock