Sings in Morning’s eyes flared open and her heart began pounding. She’d actually slept! How had that happened? For how long, she could not know. With the wooden curtain blocking the entryway, only a tiny bit of light was able to make its way into the cave, and it wasn’t possible to say whether it was sunlight, or yet the fire the Sam spirit had freshened beneath the strange, shiny basket.

She lay there, clutching her blanket, ears straining for the least sound. The inside fire was ash, with only the faintest of glows flickering at the edges of the fire circle.

What had awakened her? Not the cold, for she’d slept through far colder than this many times. She tilted her head, trying to see if she could make out the shape of the Sam spirit in its strange bag, but the coals of the fire could not pierce the shadows on that side of the cave.

Without warning, the curtain swung inward, letting in a wash of bright light to sweep across the floor of the cave and catch her in its glare. She let out a tiny squeak as the figure occluded the light, but it seemed not even to notice her. Instead, it moved on silent feet to the shelves along the far wall.

The Sam spirit only noticed her staring when it had turned back from the shelves, a small pot in its hand. It bared its teeth at her and waved, which confused her. The baring of the teeth wasn’t a thing the people did among friends, but it did not seem angry. It left the curtain open behind it as it left, and Sings in Morning could see the sunlight beyond.

The day was warm, and so she left her cloak behind, moving out into the log half-house to see what it was up to. Cooking again. She felt bad that it should now be cooking her a second meal when cooking was a woman’s task.

It must have heard her coming, and asked something lightly over its shoulder without turning around. She understood not a single sound of it, so either it was a phrase the spirit knew so poorly that it was mangled beyond understanding, or more likely, it was speaking its own language, and didn’t expect her to understand.

The strange pot was in the fire again, and there were fish in it, bubbling in fat. The Sam spirit was sprinkling something from the wooden pot it had just retrieved onto them, speckling the frying flesh with black flakes. She felt her stomach gurgle in anticipation.

Thinking to learn the ways of this type of cooking, she moved in close and squatted where she had a good view of what Sam spirit was doing with its strange tools.

The seine nets had caught some nice sized fish. Sam neither knew nor cared what they were beyond that. Maybe he’d check the tablet later to see what he’d eaten, but so far as he knew, there weren’t and hadn’t ever been any poisonous fish in Massachusetts, so he was cool.

As he knelt there, watching them cook, he thought that pepper was something they needed. He’d been hoarding it, but he was craving a bit of spice. Screw it, what good was having it if he didn’t ever use it, right?

He was turning away from the shelf when he noticed the wide eyes in the darkness. He smiled and waved. And since she was up, he left the door open behind him. It was pretty warm out, and the sun was lovely after so many frozen or near frozen days.

He smelled her coming even over the smoke and bubbling fat. “Fish for breakfast,” he said lightly. The tablet was inside and well hidden, so he said it in English.

She didn’t answer, but he heard her move closer. Then she crouched beside him and said something that he couldn’t understand. He turned to say that and froze, staring stupidly as she looked back, her face scrunched into a puzzled frown. She was naked! Well, not naked, naked. She was still wearing the skirt, although her stance was rendering that dubious. But north of that, just a necklace of beads and shells.

It occurred to him that, in every drawing he’d run across of these people in the old documents, the women, like the men, were shown without upper garments. Until just this moment, he’d sort of given it over to artistic license. It then occurred to him that he was staring, and that she was flushing from the belly up, although her nipples were also standing. He whipped his head around to avert his gaze, hearing her rise and leave.

He was still mentally kicking himself when she returned, the cloak once more in place around her shoulders. She looked angry. He couldn’t really blame her. Where in hell was Bob with the booze when he really needed him?

Sings in Morning was shocked when the Sam spirit turned to stare openly at her breasts as though it had never seen any before. She was even more shocked at the way it made her feel. For what seemed a long time, they stared at one another, and then Sam spirit turned away as though averting its eyes from something terrible.

She looked down at herself, wondering what had come over it. Was she so terrible to look at then? But, no. for that long time before turning away, the Sam spirit’s look hadn’t been of someone looking at a thing it found unpleasant. She flushed anew at the thrill of excitement that ran through her at this thought.

Then she remembered the argument between Sam spirit and Kills Bear. Sam spirit had warned them, hadn’t it? Not safe for it to be with a woman alone. And yet, here she was, alone with it. And now she understood. It had seen her breasts and her body and wanted her. Wanted her in the way a man wants a woman.

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She wondered if the body the Sam spirit had fashioned for itself was so new that it didn’t yet understand it, or the urges of it. In any case, she would have to be careful lest she find out just how accurate that great body was and be soiled for her future husband. Always assuming that she lived through this adventure and found one.

The food was waiting for her when she returned with her cloak about her. Sam spirit had put it in the same, shiny pot as it had last night. This time, though, it had given her the tool with the forked end. She’d worked out the spoon easily enough, though it was —as were so many of Sam spirit’s belongings— ridiculously thin, but also very strong. This new tool, though, she wasn’t quite sure of.

She looked up and blushed as she caught Sam spirit regarding her. So soon as it saw her blush, it did also, ducking its head as though it were an awkward boy courting his girl. She frowned more deeply, but Sam spirit was already swinging around to show her how to use the shiny forked stick, holding the body of the fish with what looked like a smooth knife on a short handle, and sliding the flesh from the bones with the tines of the forked stick.

That would work if she had a knife, but she did not.

This whole morning was turning awkward, and it wasn’t promising to get any better any time soon. Every time he looked at the girl, the image of her naked flashed behind his eyes, and his nineteen year old body reminded him that he wasn’t sixty anymore, and wouldn’t be for anther forty years or so. What the hell was going to happen once he rolled into their village?

Sings in Morning returned and plopped herself down across from him, holding the cloak tight. He handed her her plate and the fork he’d unpacked after last night’s meal, watching to see was she familiar or could she work it out on her own.

After a minute or two, she looked up and caught him watching. She blushed instantly, which caused him to follow suit. But he wasn’t really nineteen, and so he mushed through the embarrassment, swinging around with the pan on his knees and showing her how to get the meat off the bones with the tools at hand.

Instead of hauling out her own knife and following suit, she pointed to his and said something that he didn’t need to translate. Sighing theatrically, he put the pan down close to the fire and headed inside. Better and better.

Once inside, he checked behind him, just to be sure she hadn’t followed. Assured that he was alone, he dug one of the small flashlights from a pants pocket and dug through the big pack. Where was that thing? Ah! This thing had been meant for a completely different purpose, but he’d left the sheaths for all the other knives behind in the future, and hadn’t gotten around to making anything to replace them. For this thing, though, none would be needed. Instead, he dug around in the corner for the roll of five-fifty cord and sliced off a good twenty inches, threading it through the lanyard hole and tying it off in a good knot.

As he returned to the fire, he had to chuckle, wondering what would happen if future archaeologists happened across the remains of a RAT 1 folder in a pile of early-middle woodland artifacts.

She was still where he’d left her, with the plate of cooling fish in her lap. This was going to be interesting.

He got down on his knee and held the knife and its lanyard out to her. She looked at it, then up at him. He pointed to her left hand and opened his own. She opened her hand and he leaned in, pausing when she jerked the hand away. He waited calmly, holding the folder still until she inched her hand back towards it, reluctance shining from her very pores.

She closed her fist on the RAT as he placed it in her palm, but he shook his head gently and equally gently moved her fingers to clear the blade. She was getting used to his hands upon her now, it would seem.

“Okay,” he whispered in English, cupping her hand in his and moving her thumb with his own, sweeping it down onto the knurled button projecting from the base of the blade. “You push like this to open it.”

She jumped as the blade leapt clear of the handle, letting go with one of those squeaks she used when something surprised her. If he hadn’t been holding her hand, she’d have dropped the knife entirely, and probably have drawn blood, for it was wicked sharp.

He held her hand for a moment longer while she examined the big knife. She only twitched a little when she noticed. While he still had hold of her, he wrapped the long strand of five-fifty around her wrist. He didn’t want it dangling in the dirt or her food.

She started to withdraw her hand from his, but he shook his head and rotated her wrist so that the hollow where the blade was stored faced up. Reaching carefully across her body, acutely aware of what he was brushing up against, he brought her quivering right hand into the folder and showed her where to press to release the blade, guiding that hand as it closed the knife.

He settled back on his heels with a shallow cough, and waved for her to repeat what he’d shown her. This time the jump was much reduced, and the squeak absent entirely. She closed the knife with great care, for which he was grateful.

The next time she opened it, she moved a finger towards the blade, but he told her no, which was a word he was getting good with. Taking up a stick from the fireside, he held it up and motioned for her to cut. Her eyes got very large at the ease with which the heavy steel blade sliced through the wood.

“Now imagine that was your finger,” he warned. Again, in English.

As she was eating her cold fish, Sings in Morning took time out from marveling at this new tool and wondered about what might be wrong with Sam spirit. It had not used a single proper word all morning. Well, aside from telling her no when she would have probably cut herself to the bone. Had the sight of her breasts so befuddled it that it had forgotten everything? She couldn’t believe that. She knew that boys liked to look at her, but it had never turned any of them stupid before.

She wanted to ask Sam spirit what was wrong, but it seemed not to understand her anymore either. This was a very large problem. Nor was it one that she would be able to address any time soon.

Once the meal was done, Sam spirit held its hand out for the tools. She gave the knife thing over very reluctantly. She had grown very fond of it in a very short time, imagining what her friends would say if they could see it and her using it.

Sam spirit surprised her by returning it after it had been soaked and scrubbed. She had to hide her glee when the mystery of the long cord was solved by Sam spirit looping it over her head so that the knife thing would hang between her breasts. It would seem that it really was hers now. What a grand gift!

After that, though, Sam spirit seemed to forget she was there, moving out into the forest with a long stick with an axe head on it of that same shiny substance. A little while later, she began hearing great whacking sounds off in the direction it had gone. This would explain the logs everywhere, as if she would still need explanation.