"Bethela!" James makes the leap over the upper river border with a shovel, a pickax, and a tool belt, greeting her with an exaggerated Yiddish accent, "Mother of a generation!"
"Shut up—" John grouses from where he's dozing in the far hammock.
Beth's looked up from the arrows she's assembling with a reciprocating smile for James. It wasn't hard for the group to make adjustments to work assignments to keep her in camp while she chooses to stay close; they adjusted, then plowed ahead with the business of the camp, leaving Beth as much privacy as such close quarters permit. Though there's been no dwelling on it (and no long-term plan has yet been devised), the novelty of her news now and then invites some waggish attention.
She doesn't mind James' occasional jocular remarks. His jests are good-natured and warm. Something in his attentions brings to mind Shawn, and a little of Maggie, a kind of connection she's missed and finds herself reservedly open to. It's familiar; all the guys are.
Breathing heavily from his hurried return, James ignores John as he nods his inquiry to Beth, "How ya doin'?"
Pulling close her thick sweater, Beth hands James a bottle of water as he stows away the tools. The familiarity is comforting, and something to build on. "Ev'rything's good."
Taking the bottle from her, he drinks some then dumps some on his sweaty head. "Y' cold there?"
Beth's sharpened blade cuts at an off-shooting branch, "I wasn't diggin' trenches."
"Lucky you." His dampened head shakes the water off much as a dog would, forcing Beth to duck and lean to dodge the spray. James tucks his work gloves into his back pocket and dries his dripping face with a rag before using more of the water to rinse off the black walker blood splattered over his forearms.
"You could help," she offers to his charge of 'luck', flashing an astute smile as she looks up briefly from her work.
"I don't know..." he feigns to weigh, rubbing the calluses of his work-hardened hands, "I'm pretty lazy." With another swig of water, James then drops himself beside her, pulls out his hunting knife, and takes up one of the choice selected branches to shave down and straighten into bolts.
Between quick strikes of her knife, Beth eats a piece of the salted fish from the container she keeps beside her, waging, as best she can, offensive maneuvers and countermeasures to battle her stomach turning on her. "How's it goin' out there?"
Since their return from the run, Beth hasn't much ventured from their small radius in the woods. She's still getting hit with bouts of exhaustion, and though she's otherwise been doing well enough with managing the nausea up to this point, she isn't ready to risk another incident with walkers. Her world has gotten smaller since the run, but she's grown accustomed to small worlds, and after all the walking and wandering and looking for a place to stay put, staying close to camp does not feel so unwelcome or confining, and there is work enough to be done in camp.
James swallows a large yawn. "Well," he starts, "there's no stopping a true herd if one comes through, but we've got decoys and distracters, plus the tiger traps, trip lines, and palings. Spread out like they are, they'll make a good difference."
Beth nods. She lived through the storming of her family's farm, and the two attacks on the prison; she's well aware there's no trenches or traps to be dug that will truly stop a full siege of the walking dead. She knows this. "How's the progress on the mislead camps?" This tactic was Beth's idea. Concerned that the walker diversions would draw the unwanted attention of any living bodies that should happen to make their way through the woods and send them in search of the settlement that had built them, Beth had proposed the building of counterfeit encampments. If their defenses against walkers prove to be their weakness against the living, all their work, all their care, all their losses will have been for nothing. Though it meant much harder work, pushing them further out into the woods in all directions on a much more regular basis until the work is completed, she'd successfully convinced all eight of her companions that the true merits of their camp – low profile seclusion – are only jeopardized the more rigged and wired and dug up their surrounding woods are kept. It was decided there would be three dummy camps, each several miles off from the actual camp, each staging a tableau of massacre or violence that would lead one to conclude the builders of the trenches and traps were long departed.
"West camp's up. Three tents in all. We're using th' burnt-out camper in the valley for the second spot; Jo Jo's idea." As recognition, James grasps up a wood shaving and flicks it over at his sleeping cousin. John, sleeping off a particularly arduous work detail after an early morning watch shift, doesn't move a fraction. Smirking fondly, James turns back to her and his task. "It was a good idea, Beth." After glancing at her quick-handed motions as the measure for his own work, James loosens his wrist and increases his dexterity and speed. "Smart," he praises soberly.
Setting aside another completed arrow shaft, Beth takes up yet another branch, "I don't know what good it'll do."
Hearing this from her he glances at Beth, checking her frame of mind, but there isn't an air of despondency about her. Her blade moves steadily down the length of the branch as she continues her work uninterrupted. She's been like this, stiffly tethered to reality. Her pragmatism is neither morose nor melancholic; no one could fault her, with her still girlish giggle and easy manners, for being defeatist, but at some point, she'd grounded herself in reality, and her young blue eyes see things clearly, and for what they are. James shrugs; if she isn't depressed just prudently sober there's not anything to be done — a little tighter grip on new realities no doubt could have kept a great number of the thousands dead alive a little longer. "Some, I hope," the young man admits freely. From where he lies, John shifts and grunts. James shoots a glance in his direction with a chuckle, then looks around the camp for her benefit, "It's shaping up here." In the three weeks since the run, there have been ongoing repairs and upkeep, not only in the woods but in camp. Deeper gutters have been dug about the huts, the slanted roofs have been better reinforced with plastic sheeting, insulation, netting and tarps, and a better fire pit – one that is covered, blocked from view but aerated – has been erected. The camp was well situated and secured when she and Daryl had been brought in weeks back, but with more hands, fresh eyes and minds, and more consistency in food securement, improvements have made it safer and measurably more liveable for the advancing winter.
Beth glances at the bread baking in the cast iron pot in the solar oven Peter constructed from a car windshield reflector. The metallic insulation, held together with wire and duck tape has reduced the need for firewood and kindling, allows them to cook – without flames or smoke – undetected by walker or man, and has freed their hands and time for other work about camp. With a series of trials and errors, it has unquestionably made a big difference. "Mm, hm."
"So chatty," James remarks, his blade, like hers, never pausing from its work.
"Huh?"
"Never mind—"
"That's Jamesion for 'You're usin' one word when twenty would do better'," John mutters from his hanging bed, not too tired to cause a little stir. "Never's as happy as when he's talkin' a thing over five ways t' Friday—" John turns into his rest, meaning this time to fully fall asleep.
"'Sunday'," the nineteen-year-old rephrases.
"Huh?" The voice from the hammock would much rather be sleeping than subject to idiomatic scrutiny.
"Nothin'," the rich timbre of the elder's voice directs. James looks at Beth, "Didn't mean anything by it. Talk as little as you want."
The camp settles into a somewhat heavy quiet. Beth hadn't meant to disavow any improvements or precautionary measures. The overall daily and special efforts of the camp – if they're to endure past rank survival – require more levity than the monotony of level-headedness; what they're trying for is good. She's just refraining from becoming overly invested. The others are all still out about their work, and the camp is soundless but for the running of the water and the cutting of knives against coarse green wood sounding above the rustling of leaves overhead and the calling of hidden birds in the recesses of the wooded shadows.
From the hammock unexpectedly sounds the sharp echo of two strong snaps. Then the voice. "Snaps isn't the name of the game."
James looks up first, then Beth. She looks from James to John where he lays, then lets herself smile fully.
Awake now, but still in recline, John's words come quickly. "Probably you won't get this." John's right-hand snaps four times, followed by four more from his left. "Ready to review your history? Really pay attention." Three snaps follow after.
Beth and James listen as they work, trying to keep up with the clues of the old summer camp game that long ago took root in the camp to sometimes fill the quiet and the boredom.
"Can you keep up? Have you been listening?" Single snap. As it's told, it took Michael near to a year to catch on, and Tom not much less. Daryl doesn't get the game at all, but unlike the others who struggled to make sense of it, he never minds. While the others snap and fire off obtuse quick-winded clues he does his work, he eats his meals, he keeps his pace, he sharpens his knife, or he gets some sleep. "Really?"
"I know," James says.
"I know," Beth counters. The game may be dumb, but it keeps them entertained, and even Daryl appreciates it keeping the group laughing and the silence at bay.
"Duh," John swings where he lies.
James only gets as far as "Be—"
"Benjamin Franklin!" Beth and he shout out at the same time with a laugh and a pair of competitive grins.