Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & by Anna Tambour Page A

he took my reins and pulled back towards the village with a "Let's be on our way, Modestine."
    We travelled back to the village whence we had set out, and I had a silent laugh outside old Hipole's shop until my young companion returned with another pad and a barde—a common donkey pack-saddle but a new creature to him. He looked at me and the pile of gear resting beside me in disarray; and with the assistance of the whole village, I was loaded again. Many feet pushed against my sides as the ropes were tightened. Many words of advice were yelled and laughed out. Finally the arrangement was done to the satisfaction of the crowd. A vast assortment of unnecessary necessities had been loaded upon my back and sides held by a knotted spiderweb of rope. The barde was stiff and new, the ropes hard and scratchy, the knots tight and knuckled against my flanks. And worst of all, the gear chosen so completely wrong. The bread, yes. The chocolate smelt interesting. But the tins of bologna sausage were sharp, heavy, and uncivilized. And an egg beater? Bottles of wine? So many clothes, but no blanket for me—in raw October in the mountains of the Cévennes. I determined to ditch what I could at the earliest opportunity, but first we had to get far enough away from our point of origin that even this rash adventurer would think it silly to turn back.
    It didn't take me long to educate my fellow adventurer as to who should carry what. Soon much of the superfluity riding on me was left by the side of the road, and an empty pack that he had loaded onto me was filled and riding on my companion's back—a much more equitable arrangement. However, what a mumbler he was for a companion—and his fits! First, he rumbled incessantly under his breath as we walked. Then, when you least expect it, he stops in mid-grumble, in any illogical place. His hands flap at his pockets, and he pulls out notebook and pencil. This is the signal for the next stage. Vacant-eyed, he flops on the ground. Banging his pencil against his forehead with a clunk that I find quite irritating, his mouth spurts tumbles of words in bursts as if he is angry, but he is not. Sometimes he jumps up and paces very fast, but he goes only a few steps and then reverses. I couldn't watch this stage. It made me dizzy. In the next stage, he settles down and writes completely silently—to end, like the sun coming out after a storm. Incroyable! I was expected to wait, standing quiet as a stone, until he felt restored to a state of mobility (and sanity) again. My patience was never rewarded by affording me a stroll to, say, browse some inviting gorse.
    More irksome is that for all his talk of the Grand Adventure, his object was (fits aside) to get from here to there at a pace at which no one can appreciate anything at all. His stride is uncivilized. He has no nose for scents nor eyes for beauty, though he sometimes stopped to look at himself in a pocket mirror; cocking his head, raising his lips to show his teeth, pulling a lock of his hair down toward his left eye, ending our brief rest with a smile at the mirror before turned his face to stone again for our trek. We travelled rock-strewn routes along the sides of hills that only winds love. And at night, while he settled in his sheepskin and tent-cloth sleeping bag, he left me to be his windbreak and protector in case of wolves. Just who was having the brave adventure?
    As for our companionship, the day I saw him write of me as a mere "appurtenance of my mattress, or self-acting bedstead on four casters" I was so shocked I sat down, but his teapot was between my rump and the ground. The rest of that day was even less companionable than before.
    For my efforts to pace his trip I began to earn harsh words, then a big stick. He beat me until we were both sore, and he still refused to learn. I tried to advise with every method of communication we have when a man's course of action is wrong. I dug in my heels, rolled back my eyes, threw back my