Angelle's mine, but the rest belongs to Joss.

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Beannaithe...in the old Irish tongue, it meant sacred and as the plow horses pulled the sled holding Hoban, all around us it was chanted. Most of the villagers were religious in some form or another. Being surrounded by creatures so vast and powerful one tends to find that either you believe in a Creator or you go crazy thinking on the science of the thing. How anyone can think that something comes from nothing is beyond my scope of thought.

"What are they sayin'?" Mal whispered in my ear, walking beside me with his upper arm wrapped in a bandage.

"That it's a good thing you didn't kill it." I laughed. "Means sacred in Gaelic. Several of these settlers are Irish decent and so we tend to use the old language here. Be the reason you don't hear much Chinese."

"And you're fluent?"

"Hell no. I understand and speak enough to get by. If anything, I speak swamp." I waved to my dad as he approached us, looking first at our catch and then at us.

"Been awhile since I seen a whitey and that shot is one in a million. Hit the tear duct and not the eye. Risky if ya missed. Would've blinded the bastard."

"Wasn't much choice in the matter, Sam. It was either shoot or let it tear your daughter to pieces. Be glad it was the tranq I picked up and not Vera." Mal rubbed his bandage as I slapped his hand away.

"You?" My dad shook his head." Wonders never cease with you, Malcolm. Come to my home, bag a gator, and my daughter." He winked as I turned about four more shades of red. "Scouts saw, not that they were lookin' mind you. I'm all for you two getting along, but next to a sleeping gator with a chance for more in the area."

"What's the use of living if you can't take a risk now and again. Seemed like good a place as any." Mal took it all like a trooper, making me wonder just what it would take to embarrass the man beside me. "Besides, way this place is, doing it the traditional way is all but impossib