26th Dec. 1838, Yagoi

“Laneh!” Fima called. “Laneh, you bad dog, where are you?” She banged his food pan with her cooking spoon and listened. Whenever her puppy disappeared, she searched first out near the forest behind the house. Today, though, there was no sniffing or digging noise in the undergrowth; no barking to answer her call.

Fima sniffed, herself, and remembered she had sauce on the fire. She half-ran back to the kitchen and found Mama Boi, her mother, adjusting the firewood under the pot. She looked up when she heard Fima. “There’s the spoon! Why are you walking around with it?” She stirred the pot and checked the heat and stood up. “Have you found Laneh?” Fima shook her head. “Never mind, he’ll turn up.”

“Not if someone captures him.”

“Who would harm a dog named ‘Faith’? Go and call for him again. But don’t go into the forest!”

Fima was heading for the side of the house when a shrill greeting sounded from down on the river path. After that came loud barking! A small dog had burst from the bush and stopped a woman in her tracks. 

“Laneh!” shouted Fima, running down the path.

“You see?” called Mama Boi to Fima. “Didn’t I tell you? That dog is smart! There he is protecting our house.”

“It’s Fanta, Mama!”  Fima folded the dog in her arms and gave her cousin a hug. She took her bags and they walked together up to the house. They were age mates, but it seemed to Fima that Fanta had turned into a woman in the years since she had seen her. The restless fingers and laughing mouth were still there, but she was somehow quieter than before. Then Fima remembered that if Fanta had just arrived from Mengbinteh, Mama Boi’s village, she would have been walking for two whole days.

“I’ll bring water to the washroom for you. We’ve almost finished cooking.”

Later, when they gathered on the veranda to eat, Fima couldn’t keep quiet. “Fanta, weren’t you afraid to come all this way by yourself? Your clothes smell like smoke. Was there trouble?”

“Yes! There was a raid up the river from here. They set fires to scatter people so they could capture them. The place I hid was not near flames, but there was a lot of smoke.”

“You shouldn’t have risked it!” Mama Boi said. “Why did you come? What has happened?”

“Grandma Karfua needs your help, Mama Boi. Her leg is worse. She can no longer farm. If you don’t come, we won’t get the harvest in.”

Mama Boi was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “We’ll leave in the morning.”