...all MSR all the time..
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Chapter 5
In the first wave of consciousness that disrupted my sleep, I thought for an instant that I was at home in my bed. But then I felt Mulder's arm wrapped possessively around my waist and smelled the leathery scent of the robe that was covering us. It would have been an extremely pleasant way to wake up, if it hadn't been for the memory of telling our new friends that we had to leave.
A small part of me wished that we didn't have to go; the setting was idyllic, the people so generous and kind. But how could I, in good conscience, stay when I wasn't positive what had happened to us? Mulder, of course, believed that we'd gone back in time, but it was only a hunch. I needed substantially more than Mulder's best guess to go on.
So we were going to hike to what we hoped was Madison. Even though I knew it was the right thing to do, I was still a little depressed that we would have to leave this village and all of the wonderful people we'd met.
"I'm not happy about it either," Mulder echoed my thoughts.
"How'd you...?" I began.
"You sighed." His voice was slightly muffled because he had burrowed his nose into my hair.
"But you still think we have to go?" I turned in his arms as I spoke.
"What if I'm wrong? It *has* happened before, once or twice." A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.
"Uh huh." I couldn't keep the 'whatever' tone out of my voice.
"What would happen if we aren't in the past? Suppose someone eventually tracked us down, happily living in our woodland paradise? How do you think 'we thought we were in the past' would go over?"
I had to chuckle at the thought of that testimony in front of a review board. "So we're going for different reasons? You're trying to prove that you're right and I'm trying to prove that you're not?" I clarified.
"They *do* say that opposites attract, Scully." The richness of Mulder's tone created a delicious tingling in my belly. Before I could respond, his lips were on mine, his tongue gently seeking entrance to my mouth. We kissed languidly, slowly savoring each other; no longer feeling any urgency, but simply relishing the fact that we could now enjoy each other this way.
"Don't think this'll change my mind." I pulled out of the kiss to warn him breathlessly.
"Maybe I'll just distract you for a little while," he chuckled before capturing my lips again.
His hand was drifting from my waist up toward my breast when a sound behind us startled me. It wasn't that I was surprised that someone would come into our wigwam unannounced, I was getting used to that. After our announcement last night, I wasn't expecting to be treated like company anymore.
"Good morning, Wanik," I smiled as I turned to face her.
As she handed me our breakfast she gave me a sad smile. Then after picking up my dress that had been folded at the foot of the bed, handed it to me and nodded toward the door.
"Okay," I nodded as I hurriedly began to eat my breakfast.
Smiling again, she backed out of the wigwam.
"I think you were just told to hustle your ass," Mulder grinned at me.
"Just as long as it's not the bum's rush." I couldn't figure out why she was in such a hurry.
"I'm sure she just wants your help with something," Mulder tried to reassure me. "Or maybe she wants an encore of the pee-pee dance."
By the time I went looking for Wanik, the encampment was buzzing with activity. The men were nowhere in sight, but the women were all busier than I'd ever seen them. I found Wanik crouched by a small fire. In a rough wooden bowl, she was mixing some kind of dough. Her face lit up when she saw me and she patted the ground beside her.
Once I was settled, she took a cast iron skillet and set it on some stones that held it above the fire. Then she picked up a small leather pouch and she scooped out some grease and put it in the pan. Every so often she would glance up at me to make sure I was watching. Using her hand, she took some of the dough and formed it into a ball. Then she began to flatten it by patting it back and forth between her hands. When the grease in the pan had melted, she quickly set the dough in the pan and flattened it further by pressing on it with her palm, spreading it out to fill the pan.
After waiting for a minute or two, she began to gently spin the cooking dough around in the skillet. When it reached some secret stage, she quickly flipped it over, using just her fingers. The top side of what I now recognized as bannock was golden brown. Even though I'd just finished breakfast, the smell was making my mouth water. A couple of minutes later, Wanik took the pan off of the fire and slid the finished bannock onto a deerskin.
Once she'd replaced the skillet on the fire, she handed the pouch of grease to me. It was then that I finally realized that I was getting a cooking lesson. So I began to mimic the steps that Wanik had shown me. My first attempt turned out a little on the crispy side and Mulder, who had joined the few women who were watching the spectacle, laughed at my blackened bread.
"You want to try?" I motioned for him to take my place.
"Nope, you're doing just fine," he back pedaled rapidly, his hands up in surrender.
"I thought as much," I huffed as I continued with my second attempt, which I ended up under-cooking.
It took all of the dough that Wanik had mixed before I finally managed to cook one properly. When I looked for Mulder to gloat, I couldn't see him anywhere. As it turned out, it didn't matter; Wanik wasn't through with me yet.
Taking the bowl that the dough had been in, she filled it halfway again from a nearby sack. It looked like whole-wheat flour, but I knew there had to be more to it than that. Using warm water from another fire, she showed me how to mix and knead the dough. When we were done, I'd become fairly proficient at bannock making.
Before I had a chance to look for Mulder, Wanik started to show me how to make the venison and wild rice stew that was a staple here. Mulder was right; we weren't being shown the door, we were being given the tools to survive on our journey.
I took Wanik into my arms to try to show her my appreciation, and she was puzzled by my action. Then I backed up and tried to smile and say thank you, but my mouth wobbled and tears clouded my eyes. I was worried that she didn't understand how grateful I was, but she pulled me back into an embrace, patted by back and murmured softly. When we parted, the tears shining in her eyes made me well up all over again. But I didn't have time to wallow in my sorrow; Wanik still wasn't done with me.
After we ate a quick lunch, she began to pack foodstuffs into a haversack. With the exception of the meat, she packed everything that I would need to make what we had practiced earlier. In the middle of the packing, Mulder showed up looking for food. With a roll of her eyes, Wanik handed him a bowl and a wooden spoon and sent him off in the direction of a pot of stew that had been simmering all morning. Wanik, it seemed to me, thought men were all the same.
I watched carefully as Wanik packed. She showed me everything that went in. The sight of salt, oatmeal, and whole-wheat flour surprised me. They weren't commodities that I associated with Native Americans; at least not traditionally. With the cookware that we'd used and this food, I came to the conclusion that if Mulder was right and we were in the past, we weren't as far back as he thought. Once Wanik had finished packing, she had me wait for a minute while she dashed off toward her wigwam.
Now that we'd spent a few days here, I was starting to figure out some of the family connections. Wanik still lived in a wigwam with her parents. Originally, I'd thought that she was in her early twenties, but now I had a feeling that she was younger than that. There was nothing specific I could point to, it was just a feeling. I'd seen some of the younger men trying to get her attention, but she didn't seem to notice. Most of the other girls her age were already attached, and a few of them were pregnant. Wanik was a very pretty girl and it made me wonder why she didn't pay any attention to any of the young men who obviously liked her. I did assume that in this society, she wouldn't have much choice in who she was partnered with. I wondered if she'd already been promised to someone--maybe in another tribe. Then I shook my head slightly as I realized that I was starting to think as if Mulder was right about where we were.
If we'd only been able to communicate more easily, so many questions could have been answered. My thoughts were interrupted by Wanik reappearing, her arms full of cooking implements--two little tin pots, a small skillet, three bowls and various utensils. Hoping that she would recognize my words of gratitude, I thanked her again.
It was suppertime before Mulder and I had a chance to talk again, sitting in front of a small fire near our wigwam. But he wouldn't tell me what he'd been up to all day, saying that he'd been sworn to secrecy.
"I'm a man of my word, Scully," he responded dryly when I tried to coax it out of him. "You'll find out soon enough."
I went back to my food, trying not to care that he was keeping something from me, but the suspense was killing me.
"How'd your cooking lesson go?" Mulder tried to restart our conversation.
"Fine," I replied snappishly, instantly regretting my tone.
"Scully," Mulder leaned over to whisper, "I would tell you but I promised. You wouldn't want me to break my word and ruin the surprise would you?"
"I guess not," I admitted, but I still didn't feel any better about it.
"Your feet seem to be completely healed." Mulder changed the subject.
"Pretty much," I agreed. "It's a good thing, too. I've got a long walk ahead of me in bare feet."
"You should be fine in the woods. It looks like your soles have started to toughen up already." He nodded at my feet. He had taken to walking around barefoot too. His dress shoes just didn't suit his breeches.
"I used to go barefoot in the summer all of time. The soles of my feet would be like leather, come September." I thought back to all of the time spent on different, yet almost identical bases. All of the kids ran wild in the summer--almost controlling the place. Even the MPs gave way to us on the streets. I was still thinking about Kool-Aid and homemade popsicles when Mulder asked me if I was done with my bowl. I looked up to see Wanik standing there, patiently waiting for me to finish.
"Why do you think it's Wanik that's always looking after us?" Mulder wondered aloud when she'd gone.
"I'm guessing that it's because she has no one else to look after. It was easier than burdening someone who had a family," I suggested with a shrug.
"I wonder why she doesn't have anyone to look after? Seems to me that she'd be a good catch." Mulder mirrored my earlier thoughts.
"I wondered the same thing, but I doubt we'll ever know, Mulder."
"Mmm," he replied vaguely, apparently lost in his own thoughts.
Twilight had settled over us and the warmth of the day vanished almost immediately.
"Maybe we should call it a day." I rubbed my bare arms, trying to warm them up. "If we're leaving tomorrow, we should get some sleep."
"It's a bit early yet, Scully," Mulder chuckled. "C'mere, I'll warm you up if you're cold. Or were you hoping that I'd warm you up in the wigwam?" He waggled his eyebrows at me.
"Do you ever think about anything besides sex?" I shook my head.
"Let me see." Mulder spoke slowly and rubbed his chin thoughtfully before his armed whipped out and snagged me around the waist. He dragged me, giggling, onto his lap. "Not really," he whispered into my ear before his lips began to tug on my earlobe. "Occasionally I think about global conspiracies." His hand was slowly sliding up the inside of my thigh. "Cases sometimes distract me from thinking about sex, but more often than not, dreaming about having sex with you would distract me from a case."
"Oh yeah?" I murmured huskily.
"And there is that obscenely overdue triple X bill," he reminded me, barely lifting his lips from my neck.
"I think that still counts as sex," I argued half-heartedly. The truth was, I was enjoying being warmed up too much to care. I turned my face to his, seeking his mouth. His hand wandered perilously close to the juncture of my thighs as we kissed. A soft shuffling sound made me open my eyes.
"Mulder," I broke our kiss.
"Hmm?" His lips settled on my neck again.
"We have company."
Our small fire was surrounded by almost every member of the village. Namid sat down opposite us, and everyone joined him, circling the fire. There wasn't enough room left for me to slide off of Mulder's lap, but he slowly eased his hand out from under my dress. I don't think we fooled anyone, but I don't think they cared either.
Namid began to make a speech, and despite his gesturing and the fact that I recognized some names, I couldn't follow what he was saying. Suddenly Wanik stood up, and taking her hands from behind her back, she held out a pair of moccasins to me. Scrambling out of Mulder's lap, I stood up to accept them. I recognized them instantly as the pair I'd seen her working on by the fire. Each top had been decorated with a sun of yellow and orange beads; the rays reaching the outer seams.
"Wanik, they are beautiful," I sighed. "But you went to so much work." She smiled joyfully at me as I ran my fingers over the beadwork. "I can't thank you enough." Lowering her eyes shyly, she returned to her seat.
"Did you know about this," I accused Mulder once I'd settled into his lap again.
"Nope." He shook his head. "Honestly," he swore when I turned to look at him sharply. "I had an idea, but I wasn't sure."
I was busily admiring my new shoes when Abequa, one of the grandmothers that Mulder liked to flirt with, stood up. She, too, held out a pair of moccasins, but these were larger, intended for Mulder. When I started to get up, Abequa motioned for me to stay put and handed the shoes to Mulder.
"You knew about these?" I leaned back to ask. "That's why you suspected that I'd be getting a pair?"
"Mine were made today," he confirmed. "Abequa measured me for them this morning."
Namid started to speak again, so Mulder and I listened politely. As he spoke, he stood up and everyone but Mulder and I gasped. Shrugging out of the vest he was wearing, he presented it to Mulder. This time I got out of Mulder's lap and when he stood up, the chief helped him into the vest. The front was adorned with suns similar to the ones on my moccasins, but the back featured a large picture of a fox. Mulder was speechless; not a condition I'd seen him afflicted with often.
"Say something, Mulder." I jabbed him in the ribs. "Smile, anything."
"Thank you, Namid." Mulder's voice was laden with awe.
Then everyone stood up and began to talk at once. It appeared that Namid giving up his vest was a major event. Standing behind Mulder as he was congratulated by the men, I studied the design on his back. Red, black and white beads combined to create a fox, standing on its hind legs, looking up and to the left. In a semi-circle above the fox's head, floated 7 blue stars. Although it was merely a coincidence, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I was still looking at Mulder's vest in amazement when I heard Omiga's voice. Everybody stopped milling around and sat down again. Omiga made a speech of his own and then motioned for Mulder and me to stand up. Then he turned to retrieve two bowls that were on the ground behind the circle. I cringed inwardly, but tried to keep the smile on my face. As long as it wasn't like that first drink he gave me, I'd be fine. It turned out to be like neither the first or the second; it was very sweet--almost syrupy.
When we handed the bowls back to Omiga and thanked him, Namid clapped his hands together twice. There was some scurrying about and then I saw several of the men formed into a small circle. The beating of a drum began, followed by the rise and fall of their voices. Around them, all of the young, unattached men of the village began to dance. The clothes and make-up they wore weren't as elaborate as I'd seen in pictures, but far grander than anything I'd seen here.
The women bowed their heads together and murmured as they watched. One of the little boys got up and began to mimic his elders, making everyone smile. When the dancing stopped, the drumming continued. Once the drumming faded away, one of the grandmothers stood and spoke. Everyone listened in rapt attention as she talked. At the end of her story, there was more murmuring, and the crowd began to disperse.
With all of the reveling, it ended up being quite late before we finally got to bed. I had been worried that we had offended these people by saying we had to go, but they seemed to understand completely. We couldn't ask for better friends. When we needed help, they gave it to us--fed, clothed, and sheltered us just as Mulder had said. And now that we were leaving, they were giving us everything we could need for the trip, and they'd given us a going-away party to boot. As I lay in Mulder's arms drifting off to sleep, I thought about everything that had happened and what was yet to come. But even the thought of our upcoming journey couldn't keep me awake.
The sun hadn't yet begun to burn off the early morning mist when Wanik woke us. After a quick breakfast, Nawkaw helped Mulder and me sling our haversacks. Pots hung from my pack, and the skillet from Mulder's. Then we were each given a water skin to carry over our shoulders. With all of the commotion, I didn't notice that someone else was being loaded up as well; it was Apram. It had never occurred to me that we'd be given a guide. And if it had, I never would have expected it to be the chief's son.
In the little time we were given to say goodbye, I gave Omiga and Wanik each a quick hug. Mulder shook Namid's hand, but before I had a chance to thank the chief myself, Apram was hurrying us out of the village. I tried to wave to everyone, repeating all of the names I could remember. Mulder was more stoic, but judging from the way his jaw was clenched, I could tell that he was going to miss these people as much as I was.
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