Exhausted. That was exactly what I felt. So exhausted I fell to my hands and knees and was dry heaving. Brin collapsed next to me and he wasn’t in much better shape. My horses were blowing and shaking the water out; their eyes looked pretty dull.

Of course, my rescuers were laughing and chatting back in forth in a language I didn’t recognize. I reckoned I’d just done something stupid.

I finally pulled myself back to my feet and stood there, somewhat shakily, looking at them. They laughed even harder. There were ten of them in total, mostly young teens, with the one guy about my age. He was the one who had called to me. He laughed the hardest whenever one of the young guys made a new crack.

I grabbed my pack towel and dried the river water away, then pulled on my shirt and boots. The exhaustion slowly ebbed as I clothed myself and, once I was reasonably presentable, I turned to the apparent leader and asked, “What is funny?”

Yes, I spoke in pidgin English; I also carefully enunciated my words. When dealing with foreign languages, it was best to ensure they understood exactly what you were saying. If you just rattled on, throwing in slang and such communication would become nearly impossible.

It turned out what was so funny is that, about a half of days travel upstream, there was a spot you could wade across the river. I looked at them in disbelief and then simply sat on a log with my face in my hands for a minute. That brought on even more peals of laughter.

I did the proper then and introduced myself to the leader and thanked them all for their help. I used my standard handshake greeting because I simply didn’t know theirs, but he seemed comfortable with that. His name was Petalesharo but I was to call him Pete. Well, that threw me a little bit and I vowed to follow up over dinner.

Pete sent his guys out in three man teams to scout, track, and forage on our way back to their camp. “We train young men today,” he said matter-of-factly. I simply looked at him, so he continued, “Scout for Army, helps bring food in winter”. I certainly understood that; the Pawnee were famous Army Scouts and their bravery and service had been well documented.

We finished the short journey silently, with Brin and the horses trailing behind. Dinner and sleep couldn’t come soon enough, in my book. Pete set an amazingly fast pace for how silently he moved. You could tell this was a skill that was decades in the making. He was not a man you would want to go one-on-one with in the forest or brush. I was the elephant behind him. I was probably even clumsier because he was so damn good; have you ever danced with a true talent? Even if you have some skills of your own, you lose rhythm and step on toes like never before. That was me, bumbling along behind him. He grinned at me a lot, which only made me stumble more. That was enough, I planned to have my bourbon revenge tonight.

He led us down a bare memory of a side trail and into their small camp. It was barely big enough for the lot of them. He took the horses' lead from me and led us about a hundred yards further down the same trail to a small clear spot. He turned to me and said, “You sleep here, eat there with us.” I merely nodded and smiled. I would have had visitors that night, regardless, and they probably would have stolen my horses just for fun. They were in training, after all, and horse thieving was one of their favorite cultural pastimes.

“No fire,” he said, “tonight boys steal horses.” I smiled and nodded. “No shoot!” he said, “they learn.”

“Ok,” was the best reply I could think of. I’m so frigging witty sometimes. Actually, I was thinking that Brin might have an entirely different opinion on the matter; it would be good training for somebody either way.

“Dark comes, we eat, you join.”

“OK,” I was still on a verbal roll.

Pete left and I got busy setting up camp, spending way too much time considering what I should bring to the dinner tonight. In the end, I simply settled on my whetting stone and weapon cleaning gear. I’d check over my firearms and sharpen my sharp things while we conversed.

It was strange, setting up camp without a fire. I knew why and I took that as a good lesson. I was sure I’d get a few more before the night was over. I fed the horses and gave Brin his dinner. He got the meat I was intending to eat that night and it didn’t seem to hurt his feelings. I set him to protect the horses and camp. He didn’t seem to mind too much as he stretched out in our lean-to, happily gnawing on his rabbit carcass.

It was nearing full dark when I strode into the Pawnee camp. There was a small fire in a deep hole in the middle of the camp. You couldn’t even see it from the trail. Well, I just strode on in figuring I’d be quieter that way than if I tried to actually walk quietly. Obviously, these guys knew I was coming; they were scouts after all. They even pretended to be slightly surprised when I walked in. I just played along and made with my best manners.

I was greeted by Petalesharo and introduced around. I couldn’t pronounce, let alone memorize, half their names, so I committed their faces to memory and went with that. We sat down around the fire and one of the boys produced a water skin that turned out to have some sort of slightly sweet tea in it. It was very tasty. I had brought a couple of cups, a bowl, and a spoon with me in my shoulder bag, so I poured myself a polite measure.

It wasn’t a large cup, only holding about 6 ounces, but it was carved out of wood and worked just perfectly, being period specific and all that. The spoon and bowl were wood, also, and just a little larger. Holder had carved them for me and did an amazing job. He was turning into a handy asset to have around.

Up close, I could see that there was a small diagonal tunnel running into the fire pit, feeding air to the fire. Every once in a while someone would run a stick down through there to keep the embers stirred and the air passage open. It was amazingly effective at cooking, though it wouldn’t do much to warm you and would be worthless on a wet day. But it worked better than an electric range in the clear weather.

“We bring wood, also,” commented Pete, “it is very dry and make no smoke. When we leave, clean.” He said, as he waved his hand around the campsite. I was impressed; even their sleeping mats were deer skin with the hair still left on them. I supposed that if you found a compressed area in the grass it would simply seem like a white-tail had bedded down there.

The funny thing was, I knew for a fact that the tribesmen I descended from in Europe knew all these tricks. It made it a lot easier to understand why the Roman Legions got their asses handed to them for centuries up in the Black Forest.