Also known as "Bargain Part 2."

I don't own Doyle. I don't own the Secret Saturdays.
I do own Benton, Corbin, Zander, and the various unnamed extras.

This and the previous chapter started out as one.
I divided them for two reasons: length (which I try not to use as a reason, and it has proven to be a subjective concern)...and this one turns into another "don't-read-if-you're-hemophobic" chapter. (Yes, spell-check, I meant "hEmophobic.")

I'm thinking about adding a summary for this and other DRiH chapters (at this point, there is only one other, but I digress) at the end of the chapters in question, so that readers who wish to skip the specifics can do so without skipping the chapter.
I probably should, eventually; if nothing else, it'd give me practice for writing a synopsis. But for the time being, I'll just focus on the "full" story.

Stray

Benton listened to yet another farmer's story about the mysterious "spirit" that had visited them. He would have found some of the tales amusing, but he'd learned he was not the only one asking questions about the child. And Benton did not like some of those questions.

He asked, only slightly anxious, to see the carving the "spirit" had left. Many of the other farmers and hunters had mentioned these carvings, and the boy who'd left them, but only as a passing thought. Not one had connected the boy with their strange fortune.

This particular farmer, however, knew that the carving was strange. He knew he'd seen it glow when he'd gone out to see to his mare, he knew the boy's eyes had glowed when he'd turned the foal.

The farmer showed him the piece eagerly, and Benton looked it over while the old man continued his story.

"Found it outside my gate, he'd said," the farmer said with a laugh. "Clever whelp, he was; I didn't see the lie until I caught him making more of these. Not that I'm complaining, of course," he added hastily. "Pretty good with that knife, too, for such a little'un."

"Knife?" Benton winced; his reply was a little sharp. The farmer's dog apparently agreed, as it bared its teeth again at the hunter.

"Oh, shush, you," the farmer scolded the dog. "Oh, aye, he's outside carving up wood with this big knife. Belike the hunting blades on your belt, there."

Benton didn't even glance at the blades the farmer indicated; he just continued to examine the wood carving. He felt the piece all over until he was sure. He wasn't the sort that knew all weapons, but he knew when one of his own had done the work.

Whoever had carved this piece had done it with the knife Benton had left for the child.

"It's a wonder the boy don't try to make a living at it," the farmer continued. "That young fellow down the way tried to buy up all he had and more, but it seems the boy wouldn't even touch the money. Like he thought it was evil or something."

Benton hid a smile. He'd spoken yesterday to the "young fellow" in question, who must've been at least half again this man's age.

Then he frowned, remembering what that farmer had said about why the child had refused. Some of it could have been other beggars, but not all. The rest...it was no mystery why that boy had looked at him that way.

"When did you see the boy last?"

The farmer scratched his head and tried to remember. "Must've been...shoot, I barely seen 'em when he was here. I didn't even notice he was gone until I heard yesterday you was asking around, but I know he was here a week back." He frowned. "I told him I'd put him up for the winter, and he don't even stick around maybe two weeks. Soon as more people showed, he went an' disappeared on me."

"Are you sure?" Benton tried not to show his eagerness. If he'd been here even a week ago, that meant Benton was getting closer. "I mean, the vets told me they'd never seen this kid, and if you hadn't even noticed he was gone—"

"He's the one that turned the foal so it wasn't breeched," the old man said sternly. "And him without any teaching. I'd think I'd remember that."

Benton took a deep breath. The kid's path seemed to be all over the place, without any clear pattern, but most of the farmers didn't seem too sure of when they'd seen him. Most of the farmers didn't seem to remember him well at all, almost as though he really was some magical spirit. But this one was sure he'd been there...only a week ago.

Benton's heart hammered. He was close.

"What else do you remember about him?"

—

To seek your prey, you must understand your prey.

Benton hunted new prey. It disturbed him to hear that other people had been asking questions about the boy. He could have family out looking for him, but given what the child had suffered, Benton did not want to take that chance.

The nature of those some of those questions chilled him. He determined that he must find the boy first. Only then would he let the others show themselves.

He did not know as much as he'd like about the boy, not enough to truly anticipate him, but given the questions those others had asked, he reasoned that they did not know so much, either. And given the nature of those questions, he was the better hunter.

And what he knew, paid off in time.

He found the boy stalking a hare. Benton hung back, downwind, to see what the child would do.

The boy crept up on the animal, slow as can be, with a patience that Benton envied. How many times did you have to miss, the hunter wondered, to learn that kind of patience? Benton could easily have taken down the hare by now...but the child used neither bow nor gun, nor any other such weapon. The child stalked the animal exactly as an animal would.

And Benton found the notion profoundly disturbing. He'd seen predators on the hunt; he'd killed plenty of game himself for a living. But to see a human child hunting his prey in this manner....

The child was almost upon the animal before it noticed him. The hare bolted, and the child sprang after it. He caught the animal in his hands before it could leap three times...and fastened his teeth into its neck. He took the knife he wore at his waist and ended the creature's struggling—Benton flinched at the sight of that blade so near the boy's face—and after a quick look for other predators, he flipped his catch over and licked the dripping throat clean.

Benton immediately began retching into the bushes, uncertain whether to be glad that he hadn't eaten yet. The boy froze at the sound, then he slowly turned, the hare still in his teeth, to face the hunter.

—

Benton tried to control his nausea, but he could not force himself to look at the leg the boy offered. He'd had raw meat before, but that was nothing like this. Sushi was kept chilled, as often as not, until it found its way to a restaurant. The meat he'd accepted in those tribes was cleaned until only another hunter would know that it was once alive. He had never eaten anything still bloody and warm from the kill.

What was he to say? No, thanks, fresh hare tastes terrible? Benton had seen the sort of things beggars and the like ate. It didn't appear that the flavor of this meal bothered the child.

No, it will make me sick? He remembered how the boy was with the food Benton had offered; no, that was the wrong impression to suggest. Though if Benton refused to eat it....

I like my meat cooked? Like the flavor, possibly not important to one who had known real hunger, and it might also serve as a reminder of the villages. Given what he'd learned of the boy, that was the absolute last thing Benton wanted to start.

"Sorry," he finally managed. "I can't. Some things...some foods...don't...quite...agree with my stomach."

The boy watched him warily, but retrieved the leg.

As much as it sickened him, he couldn't help but watch the child eat. There was one thing to be said of the boy: though he ate quickly enough, hunger had taught him to be a clean eater, wasting not even a drop of his prey's life if possible. He made a smaller mess than even the villagers, which reminded Benton of another concern. The hunter had worried about bugs, with the boy living wild like this, but now he began to wonder if the child might instead be cleaner than many "civilized" people.

"So what do you want, then?" the boy asked between bites.

"Am I...supposed to want something?" Benton replied, fighting to keep a grimace off his face. If I can get him to Corb, he decided, the first thing I'll do once he's settled in is teach him to cook his food. He suppressed a shudder. And then to hunt like a human.

The boy shrugged. "You left me stuff. Food. Clothes. The knife." He took another bite; Benton turned to study the trees around them, and missed his expression. "Knife helped a lot. My teeth ain't so good as the animals', and I got no claws of my own." He looked at Benton for a moment. "I figure I don't get something for nothing, and you'd given me stuff that helps me hunt, so I'm supposed to pay you back, somehow."

Benton cringed inwardly. He didn't know if the boy had learned that from his dealings with the villagers or after he'd taken off on his own, and finally decided it didn't matter. The child was far too young for that particular lesson, no matter where it had come from, but he seemed to understand it better than most adults. What could that possibly mean to Benton's mission?

It means, he thought, that he won't understand or believe if someone wants to be nice...just to be nice. No matter that he knows they can be mean just to be mean.

He made a mental note to tell Corb about the observation, though he was confident the other man could pick it up on his own.

"You left those carvings," Benton pointed out. "They're...nice. And I've talked to other people you'd given them to. A lot of people like them."

The child frowned. "They're just toys. Nothing special. Nothing useful." He'd cleaned all the meat off, and started cracking open the bones for the marrow. Benton winced at the sound.

"You'd be amazed at how 'just toys' could help someone," Benton replied.

The child actually put down the bone to look at Benton. "What kind of help?"

Benton shrugged. "Well, I got this friend in the...I have this friend. He's got a son, maybe five, six years older than you—" Looks twice your age, but I'd bet you're older than you look...of course, Zander doesn't look his age, either— "who's been real sick. Nothing catching, but he's stuck in his bed most of the time, and hasn't hardly been able to leave his room in...probably almost as long as you've been alive."

He sighed, and his voice trembled. "Being stuck inside is killing him near as much as the sickness, but he isn't strong enough to go out. Might be some of your 'just toys' could make him feel better, maybe even make him forget for a while that he's ever been sick." He chose not to reveal what kind of "help" he suspected these carvings could really give. Time enough for that later...if the kid gave him a later.

The boy appeared to consider this, and Benton realized he had his opening.

"Look, if you really think you need to pay me back...." Benton thought over his next words carefully. "I'm not going to make you do something you don't want to. So if you want to pay me back, and you don't want to do this, then we can figure something else out. But you asked me what I want, and that's it." He looked the child in the eye. "I want...I would like...for you to try to help Zander."

The seconds stretched into an eternity.

Finally, the boy nodded.

My morbid side finds something amusing about the image of my tough-as-nails professional game hunter feeling nauseated watching Doyle eat...even though I agree with him, under the circumstances. Just imagining it well enough to write it was...disturbing.
That probably qualifies as ethnocentrism, or something like it.

Hmm, I wonder how old Zander really is? I seem to have a number of original characters (okay, two: Aeron and Zander) that I estimate as "about" Drew's age...and one canon character (Paul Cheechoo) that I judged as also "about" her age. (Though for my timeline, I could say that Paul is anywhere from as young as Doyle—maybe a year or two older—to a few years older than Aeron without mucking anything up.)
But how old are these characters, really?