Carol, Daryl, Michonne, Captain McBride, Mitch, and Dianne volunteer to join Lt. Alvarado and Cyndie in scouting out the campsite he spied from a distance.
"I want to come, too," Henry insists.
Carol shakes her head. "Eight's plenty. Any more than that, and they'll be sure to hear us coming."
The scouting party sheds their packs to lighten their loads and leaves them on the road with the rest of the group.
"Fire a signal shot if you need us," Aaron tells Mitch, "and we'll come running."
"Be careful out there," Gunther tells Dianne, and then he offers his last three rounds of ammunition to Captain McBride.
"Keep them," McBride insists. "In case you need firepower out here on the road. I have four rounds still. Mitch has five."
Lt. Alvarado leads the way into the woods and over flat stones in the creek, though some don't bother to keep their feet dry. Daryl splashes through the water, eyes scouring both shores for any sign.
"Be careful," Cyndie warns in a low voice. "If we encounter a pack of walkers, the Skins might be among them. When you go in to kill, watch their hands."
They scale the opposite bank and creep toward the two-tent camp site Alvarado spied earlier from the opposite shore. Two lines of barbwire, strung from tree to tree, encase the seemingly empty campsite. Captain McBride pulls a pair of wire cutters from his belt and snaps the three layers.
Carol carefully rolls a few strands back, and Daryl, crossbow poised, creeps inside. He pauses to squat by a stone circle with the ashes of a fire. He puts a hand over the burnt remnants of twigs and branches to feel for heat. Then he stands and inches toward the first tent.
He waits in front of it, crossbow aimed, for Carol to yank back the flap. There's no one inside, but there are three bedrolls. Three. In one tent. This is not a camp for two. Daryl locks eyes with Carol. Carol holds up three fingers to Cyndie, whose hands tighten around her harpoon. Mitch, who has his loaded rifle ready turns and scours the tree line, where red and orange leaves cling as if by threads to the branches.
Daryl and Carol inch toward the second tent. Carol's fingers curl around the flap and Daryl inches one foot forward, pressing his body into his bow, as she rips back the flap. Nothing.
Daryl lowers his bow. "Two are livin' in there," he says, nodding to the tent. "Three in the other tent. Fire was lit just last night." He points beyond the tents. "Tracks goin' off that way. They went somewhere. Looking for supplies, maybe."
"My guard says there were only two Skins who got away," Cyndie says. "And you're telling me there were five people in this camp?"
"There could be more Skins you don't know about," McBride suggests. "More than the seven who were in the camp Lydia took you to, who were out and about when you got there."
"But I don't see any masks or skin suits around here, do you?" Michonne asks.
"No," McBride admits.
Daryl suddenly raises his bow with two hands. Carol doesn't know what he hears, but she follows his lead and strings an arrow into her bow. Mitch levels his rifle.
Eyes flit from tree to tree. Both Mitch and Daryl turn suddenly in the same direction – their hunters' ears tuned toward prey. Abruptly, Mitch lets out a loud cry. He drops his rifle, tumbles to the ground, rolls on his back, and clutches his knee.
Daryl shoots, but his crossbow jerks up as he does so, and the arrow lodges into the thick bark of a tree. He drops his bow and, screaming in pain, falls to the ground to coddle his knee. There's a loud thunk, and suddenly Cyndie, howling, is also on the ground. McBride runs to her aid and bends himself over her as if to take for her whatever shot might come next.
Dianne and Carol stand back to back with bows drawn and arrows ready to fly, circling around to find their attackers. Alvarado rasps out his saber at the same time Michonne draws her katana. They, too, stand back to back.
Carol glances down at Daryl. What was he hit with? There's no arrow or throwing star sticking out from him. There was no sound of a gunshot, and there's not even any blood seeping through his fingers where he clutches his knee, but he's clearly in immense pain.
There's another loud whap, and Alvarado too screams, topples, and grabs his knee.
Dianne and Carol, still back to back, let loose two blind arrows in the general direction of the shots. Just as they're drawing from their quivers to reload, four women sweep into the camp. One, a black woman with curly hair, kicks Daryl's fallen crossbow aside and then stomps down on his hand when he reaches for it. She aims a loaded sling shot at his head, and he stills.
A second, younger black woman aims a sling shot at Michonne. A white woman with brown, scraggly hair seizes Mitch's rifle from the ground and points it at McBride and Cyndie as McBride rises from the ground and attempts to unshoulder his rifle. A fourth woman grinds her boot heel down on Alvarado's hand as it closes around his saber on the ground. She holds a longbow with an arrow drawn and pointed at Carol and Dianne. "Drop it!" she yells. "All of you! Drop your weapons or we'll all shoot!"
The whole thing takes less than sixty seconds, from the time Mitch first fell and clutched his knee to the time the bow woman is yelling, "Drop it now!"
Dianne and Carol fling their hands up. Their bows topple to the ground. McBride lets his rifle slide from his shoulder to the earth. Michonne growls but drops her katana. There will be time to fight later, but only if they're alive.
Carol looks down at the earth again and sees it this time – the round, black rock that sent the sudden, searing pain through Daryl's knee. It wasn't big enough to bust his knee cap. It's just going to hurt for a long while. They must not have been trying to kill them, or surely that woman would have used her arrows.
The woman with the bow, who is Asian and has long black hair, nods to the younger black woman and tells her to collect the weapons. The young woman pockets her sling shot and scurries about, grabbing the bows and swords and McBride's rifle, all of which she deposits inside one of the tents.
When the woman with the slingshot pointed at Daryl backs off of him, removing her boot from his wrist, he rolls over, sits up, and coddles his hand. Mitch is also sitting up now, with his leg outstretched, wincing. He picks up the black rock with which he was struck, tosses it into the air, and catches it.
"Bloody genius!" McBride says. "You get your ammunition from the earth. You have an unlimited supply. With a good aim, you can bring a man down and disarm him. I wager a bigger rock would go straight through a cannibal's squishy skull, huh?" He looks at the curly haired black woman, but she doesn't reply. She stands with slingshot still drawn. He turns his attention to the Asian bowman. "What do you want with us?"
But it's the white woman with Mitch's rifle who replies. "You're in our camp. So I think we should be the ones asking that question. Are you with those whispering skin freaks?"
"Nah," Daryl insists. "We were lookin' for 'em."
"They killed one of ours," Cyndie explains.
The Asian woman lowers her bow. Her voice cracks as she speaks. "They killed one of ours, too."
There's a sudden burst of movement. Daryl, powering through the lingering pain in his knee, leaps up, draws the knife they didn't bother to disarm him of, and puts it at the neck of the bowwoman. McBride snaps Mitch's rifle from the white woman's hands and turns it on her. Carol moves like a cat in the confusion, draws, and puts her blade at the neck of the curly haired woman with the slingshot. The woman doesn't make a sound. She just silently lowers her sling shot and stays still. The rest burst into the tent to recover their weapons and flank the others.
"Smart enough to get the drop on us," McBride says, "but not smart enough to keep it. Your turn to drop your weapons."
[*]
When the four women are disarmed, and each member of the scouting party has his or her own familiar weapon in hand again, they get names and stories.
The two African-American women who took them down with rocks from sling shots like the lowly shepherd boy David are named Connie and Kelly. Connie is deaf and doesn't talk, but her sister Kelly translates for her. The bowwoman is Yukimo, and the white woman is Magna. They had a man with them, by the name of Luke, but when they ran into a small pack of walkers yesterday, and they thought they would quickly slay them, he was unexpectedly stabbed. He lost too much blood and died this morning. They were burying his body in the woods when Alvarado spied their empty camp.
To reassure the scouting pack that they're telling the truth, the women lead them into the woods to show them the grave and, farther back, the slaughtered walkers. "Once the pack was slain," Yukimo says, "we found two human people among them." She points toward one. "They were wearing these…" She breathes in unsteadily.
"- Skin masks," Magna finishes for her. "They were in the pack. I don't know why."
"Maybe they were trying to rebuild their herd," Cyndie murmurs.
"Their herd?" Kelly asks.
Cyndie explains their encounter with the Skins and the herd they recently destroyed.
Yukimo looks stunned. "That many? And they were so close to our camp!"
Connie signs something to her sister, who translates, "She says thank you for clearing them out. We'll have a chance to survive here now."
"You aren't staying here," Lt. Alvarado insists. "You're coming with us." He looks around at the others. "Aren't they?"
Cyndie looks somewhat reluctant, but agrees, "We can't leave them out here alone. The representatives of the four communities will have to meet and discuss which one of us takes them in."
A stunned look crosses Yukimo's face. She and Magna exchange a glance. Kelly holds up four fingers to her sister and then signs something. Connie's eyes widen.
"You have four communities?" Yukimo asks.
