I cannot get clean enough. I cannot rest enough. I still smell the smoke. I still taste it on my tongue. My body aches beyond belief and I still have burns that haven't been properly treated.
I would like to say that my efforts are wholly unselfish, but I cannot. I would like to say that I have done it all for my tribe. This would be a lie. I mean...I am a Tuchuk, first and foremost. But father is still missing and the longer I take to find him the harder I push myself to do anything and everything I can to find him. The blessing? There are men, women, and children who benefit from my efforts. So all is not lost.
Yamka was the first outside of my family to know that father had not been found. I was cleaning the dirt and sweat from my body when I noticed her there by the stream. She wanted to comfort me. She even made an effort to embrace me, but I turned away from her. I sincerely hope she realizes that it had nothing to do with her presence for I realize that I cannot avoid her. It had only to do with the fact I was not fully clothed and I had no intention of sullying her reputation. She has earned that level of respect in my eyes. She said that I should sleep, but I returned to the clean up efforts with a newfound vigor. It was only when I got desperate that I asked around and made an effor to find someone that could point me in the right direction.
With the same name on everyones lips, it was late one evening that I sought out Tarra at her wagons. She, like Noni, was sitting on the steps of her wagon almost as if she had expected me to be there. She too could see the weariness that weighed heavily upon me, but her words of concern fell on a deaf ear as I made it a point to ask if she knew where I could find my father. If I would find him. She took the knife he had given me as a boy and cradled it in her hands. They were tattooed with stranged symbols and designs the likes of which I know that I will never have any understanding of. If I was more myself, I would have made it a point to let her know just how attractive I found them...but her next few words excited me as much as they perplexed me.
She said that I would be the one to find him. She also told me where it was that I should be looking. I was thankful for her, I hope she knew it. If she didn't it was because I left so fast that I didn't have time to voice my appreciation. With revived energy I ran from her wagons to the trenches she had mentioned and into the area that she had described. The tribe had been dragging debris here, clearing it away from the harigga so the healing could begin properly. I wandered through it all for ahns. I spend much of the night out there and each time I felt like giving in I remembered the promise I made to Noni.
Shortly before sunrise I sat down beneath a tree that had only partially survived the fires that swept across the plains. One side had been charred black while the other struggled to survive. I found myself praying for rain in those moments of weariness, but my prayers were cut short each time I felt myself slipping in and out on consciousness. How long has it been since I've slept?
"Tuchuk? Tuchuk?!" I was being shaken from my slumber suddenly. The sun was up, and I found myself staring into the eyes of two more scarred warriors whose faces seemed as shocked to see me come around as I was to see them standing before.
"We thought you were..."
"I'm not."
"What are you doing out here?"
"I am looking for my father?"
"He's not out here. Only debris from wagons and such..."
"He's here. She said he would be here."
"Who sai---"
"He's here!"
I snapped at them both and sighed. I had no mind about me to apologize though I probably should have, I had only one goal in mind. Finding my father. I continued my search for what seemed like forever, until I finally broke down and began to weep next to a tattered wagon that looked so fragile and burned that I was afraid to touch it for fear of it crumbling and blowing away on a breeze.
I circled it a few times for reasons I cannot explain and found myself looking over the edge into the scorched belly that had once upon a time been someones home. There was a body there. It was so tightly wrapped in skins one had to wonder the reason for it.
"That one never made it out.."
"Huh?"
Another Tuchuk came to stand by my side, resting his weight upon a spade that he had been using, possibly to dig the trenches deeper.
"Yeah, they brought the wagon in with the body inside...looked like someone had him on a pyre and then took him again. We wrapped him up..outta respect for him, ya know...feel bad for him...ain't no one come to claim him."
I looked back at the wrapped figure and rested my fingers on the edge of the wagon. The wood broke beneath the weight of my fingers and a few of the charred splinters buried themselves into my palms.
"Unwrap him..."
"What?"
"You heard me."
The Tuchuk looked at me as if I'd grown seven heads. I looked right through him and nudged my head toward the wagon. Clearly he was reluctant, but he cut the binding just above the should and stepped back allowing me to unwrap the layers of hide that had been placed around him.
I worked slowly for fear this might not be him, but something inside me knew that Tarra would not lead me on a wild goose chase. There was something in her eyes. The deeper I got, the hides started to be stained with flesh, blood, and soot while the smell of seared flesh immediately swirled into my nostrils and threatened to suffocate me while I stood there.
I didn't need to look long. I want to. That was not the wagon I wanted to remember him. If I am ever asked how I knew that I was him, I would not and could not say. But I knew. There was no doubt in my mind. Consider it a bond shared between a Man and his Father. The old man never made it out. From the looks of it, he knew nothing of the fire burning all around him.
After a few tears and a deep breath, I rewrapped his face and began pulling the charred wood away from the now shallow wagon. The Tuchuk was speaking to me I think. He was telling me something and asking me other things. I did not care to listen, I had an agenda that would not be put off. When I felt that I could take the figure into my arms properly, I hefted it off the wagon and cradled his lifeless form against my chest. The immediate buckling of my legs drew the Tuchuk and another who had gathered to watch to my side but I shrugged them off, and willed myself upright.
I wept the whole way back. Not simple tears, but cries of agony the likes of which I will never cry again I feel. When I arrived at Tarran's wagon Noni had a few children gathered around his steps reading them stories while Tarran looked on with his mate tucked under his arm, her belly still swollen with the child she carried. Tarran was the first to hear me, but Noni was the first to see. I could feel the lost look in her eyes into my own heart. Even Tarran began to weep as he moved in and took father the rest of the way for I could carry him no further. Noni immediately went to Father's side while Tarran's mate rounded up the children and ushered them away.
"I brought him back..."
I wept. I could feel all of it in those moments. The pain of loss. The weight of weariness. The sting of burns, cuts, and splinters untreated. It was more than even I could bear in that moment.
"I promised...I would bring him back."
And everything went dark. When I awoke it was night. My would had been tended and properly dressed and somewhere in the darkness I could hear Noni humming a song she used to hum to me when I was a young boy. A single tear slipped from my eyes still stinging from the abuse of smoke. I covered them. I didn't want to open them. I didn't want Noni to see me cry, but I wept uncontrollably to which Noni only spoke from the shadows.
"It is okay to weep, Tasco."
She continued to hum. And I...I managed to stifle my tears and stared into the black above me. I have cried enough in the days after...there are so many more days ahead.
I am Tasco the Scarrer, son of Tasco the Scarrer and I am...the only.
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