Colony 2: Beach, Chapter 6, by DarkBeta
(About Noon, Second Day)
In the encampment, shaded under the cliffs, Mrs. Wilson, Mama Colton and Mrs. Kiley made mats and baskets from the gathered reeds. Nearby Sam worked desultorily on some kind of hutch, listening to Pete. Uneasily Mac realized he was probably the topic of conversation. Still, at least Pete didn't feel like he'd been sent off like an old woman.
Nikki, Connie and Willis waded in the surf again. Kiley, Dent and the Coltons had trekked out along the cliffs, and Jack had disappeared. He was probably asleep. The younger people orbited among the groups, depending on the extent of their interest or their hosts' patience. The only solitary figure was Mama Lorraine.
Mac had never thought of her as either young or old. Age didn't seem applicable. She looked old now, hunched on the driftwood log with her bright shawl drawn up around her shoulders like a grandmother's.
"Is this bench taken?" he asked.
She didn't react. He sat down anyhow, staring out at the blue ocean with her.
"The loa are silent. They do not speak," she said, finally.
He'd walked over here with a whole list of platitudes ready, from 'don't worry' down to 'we'll be fine'. None of them were apposite to a voudon's religious crisis.
"Uh, I don't know much about loas . . . ." he started.
Mama Lorraine snorted, expressing his total ignorance in a puff of sound.
"They aren't all the same in different places, right? Maybe there are different loa here."
"The loa are everywhere."
"Then do they have different shapes? Maybe you don't recognize them." Mac gestured vaguely, trying to think inside an alien worldview. "Maybe they don't recognize you."
"Why do you argue? You do not believe. Or if you do, it is in the solitary god, like those women."
"Um, I guess I believe . . . that whatever I believe in isn't the whole truth. Your belief is important because it's another slice of the truth."
She cocked her head, looking mildly flirtatious.
"And what is your slice, MacGyver?"
"Looking for the way things work, I guess. The way different things fit together. And trying to keep them together."
Mama Lorrain nodded in decision.
"As the loa do. You are right. I would be foolish to give up so easily."
She started up the beach. Mrs. Wilson watched her walk, and nodded stiffly as she passed the camp.
She was going to look for the loa? The rest of them needed to look for something better too. The stream, fed by snowmelt from the mountains inland, was their only source of fresh water. Mac had taken a look at the range through his telescope. The peaks weren't high enough to keep the snow all year round.
In a month or two the spring floods would be gone. The flocks would fly on north-ward. (Well, pole-ward, anyhow.) The river would dwindle to bitter mud, if it didn't dry altogether.
Even if they found reliable aquifers, the desert was unforgiving. Willie was at risk here. So were Breeze and his friends, Veronica, Penny, and the Lisas. And Pete. No, they had to be ready to move, cover enough territory to reach some place more temperate, and do it safely. A few hundred miles, maybe more.
They might have to do it on foot, but the shape of some of the driftwood logs teased at his imagination. The Polynesians could travel a thousand miles of open ocean, in hollowed logs . . . .
(As Mama Lorraine put it, "Voudon is my religion. *That* was Saturday morning cartoons!" Writing this, it was my intention to be as respectful of this religion as any other. However I didn't want my lack of belief to keep me from writing about some great characters. Please be as tolerant as you can about my inevitable errors!)