Chapter 8

Not more than a handful of seconds passed before Merry came bursting into camp, equally sweaty and short of breath. “You won’t be eating my food today, Peregrin Took!” he panted triumphantly and plopped down next to Pippin.

Frodo relaxed visibly to see the two of them back, whole and sound – and with no evidence of encountering hobbit-devouring bogs. Still, he had to wonder what had taken so long. Even if Merry had been upset, Pippin should have cheered him up long before now. “And where did you two wander off to? We were worried,” he said casually.

“Oh I’m sorry, dear Frodo, but Merry got us lost,” Pippin answered smoothly.

“And I do beg your pardon, dearest Frodo, but I had the most annoying distraction bothering me as I was strolling through the woods,” Merry put in. “I tried to lose him, but as you can plainly see, I quite failed in that endeavor.”

“And a good thing you did, or you’d still be lost,” Pippin returned. “Let’s not forget who it was that found the way back to camp.”

“And you’d be stuck on top of a thorn-riddled hedge if it weren’t for me,” Merry countered.

Sam quietly retrieved the leftovers from breakfast and grabbed more food for luncheon while the cousins talked. By the time he returned, Merry and Pippin were bustling about getting more firewood and Frodo was watching them with fondness in his eyes. Just as before, when the young cousins came back, they and Frodo swiftly and without a word of discussion between them began banking up the fire and preparing the midday meal, Merry and Pippin taking bites of their breakfast in between preparations.

Sam tried to help with luncheon, but each time he reached for something to chop or stir, one of the cousins would grab it out of his way. Finally, Sam had to resign himself to sitting back and watching the three cousins work. He didn’t know what to make of his position really. On the one hand, he was Mr. Frodo’s employee and he should be the one working while Mr. Frodo relaxed and took it easy. On the other hand, Sam wasn’t supposed to be here, and Mr. Frodo would be doing all this and more himself if none of them had come along. Clearly, his master didn’t mind doing for himself. Even at home, Sam’s duties were more often than not restricted to the gardens, and apparently Mr. Frodo preferred to keep to that pattern while camping also. Even realizing that, Sam was still left with nothing to do.

Not wanting to feel useless, he eventually offered, “Mayhap I’ll look about for some water sources then.”

“That might take some time, Sam,” Frodo stated. “We’ll all go together after we’ve eaten.”

Merry and Pippin looked up in puzzlement at this exchange. “What’s this about water?” Pippin asked and finished the last of his breakfast with a flourish.

“We’re nearly out of it,” Frodo explained. “The weather’s so warm, we’ve been plowing right through our supply. If we don’t find a source, we’ll have to turn back for home tonight.”

“We’ll find a source,” Merry stated with confidence. And even if they didn’t, he for one was not going to return home early. Frodo had promised them three nights camping under the stars and Merry wanted his last night. Besides, how hard could water be to find anyhow?  

When they finished their meal and secured the camp once again, they took up two water skins each and spread out into the woods. As they had fairly well covered the forest immediately west of camp in all their various wanderings and not seen sign of even a puddle, Frodo decided to check the woods to the east.

They stayed together at first, their walking sticks in hand, until they came to a large boulder they could use as a landmark. “Let’s split up,” Frodo said. “Merry and Pippin, you go north. Sam and I will go south. We’ll search until the sun begins to wan and then return here before dusk. Go slowly and carefully and please keep your feet. We can’t afford anyone getting lost again.”

“Yes Merry, do be careful,” Pippin teased and started off at a casual click.

Frodo turned to Sam and steered them south. The ground here was littered with creeping vines and thistle bushes and they had to pick their way carefully so as to not get tripped up or step on any thorns. They passed the time in attentive reflection, simply taking in and observing the land around them. Not until an hour passed did Frodo break the silence.

“Next trip we take, we’ll have to bring more water skins,” Frodo stated as he sidestepped around a questionable patch of what looked like dried grass.

“Aye, especially in such as this,” Sam agreed with a vague wave of his hand at their surroundings. “Meaning no disrespect, Mr. Frodo, but you might have picked a cooler time of year for a tramp, and a less bothersome place to hike besides.”

“I might have, had I known I’d have company along,” Frodo said and started planning his next hike. “What do you think of early fall? We could go for a hike through the Eastfarthing, through the fields north of the Water, and maybe a few nights in the Hills of Scary. There are caves up there, and that would be a good long hike, two weeks at least. Doesn’t that sound delightful?”

Sam nodded, a mixture of wistfulness and apprehension in his soft brown eyes as he searched the ground for any sign of water or moist soil. “That does sound mighty nice. I’m sure you and your cousins will have a grand time.”

Frodo paused momentarily, then started walking again. “You’ll be coming too, Sam, if you want.”

“It’s not a matter of wanting,” Sam started, though secretly he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to make such a long trek from home, especially when this rather short one was making him so uncomfortable. “It’s the garden, sir. There’s a lot of work as needs doing to fix the beds up for winter and get them ready for spring. I wouldn’t dare leave it for two days, let alone two weeks.”

“Oh,” Frodo said simply and puzzled this out as he stepped around some thistle plants. They came to a small wall of thorn bush and steered to the left, finding a way around through a pair of trees. They had to dodge around some more thistles before the land was safe again, and Frodo commenced the conversation. “Well then, we could go after Harvest.”

“Aye, we could do that. We could go to sleep under a star-filled sky and wake up covered in snow,” Sam stated.

“We’ll be sure to bring two tents then,” Frodo said happily, thinking the problem solved. “We could go hunting and fishing. Ptarmigan and grouse are good that time of year and trout should be running still in the Brandywine. It will be almost like a real Adventure.”

“It’d be a mite tricky going after Harvest wouldn’t it, sir?” Sam asked. “Won’t your cousins be spending the time in Buckland this year?”

Frodo considered this. It would delay the trip by a week at least if Merry and Pippin had to travel to Hobbiton to fetch him and Sam. Unless… “They could spend it in Tookland again. Or I could just invite them to stay at Bag End for a change. It’s been too long since they’ve spent a Harvest there.”

Sam nodded silently at this and looked about them at the various plants and shrubs. They had to sidestep past several more thorn bushes, so much so that Sam felt they were walking through a maze. He hoped his master was keeping track of all the twists and turns they were making, as Sam had lost count of lefts and rights quite a ways back. They were coming back to the vine trees and the sun was beginning to wan when Sam spotted it.

“Mr. Frodo, look!” he cried and dashed off to the right.

Frodo ran after him, water skin ready, and caught up with Sam who was looking at a flowering bush. The flowers’ petals were thin, long, and pointed at the end, overlapping in gentle waves, and were colored rich yellow with dark splotches of honey brown.

“It’s beautiful,” Frodo said, forgetting his disappointment in his gardener’s enthusiasm.

“It looks like a butterfly,” Sam said and lightly traced a petal with his fingers. Then he slouched down and dug softly through the topsoil for seeds. “Can you just imagine these along the walk path with the roses? No one else’ll have aught like it.”

Frodo smiled now. If he didn’t get his gardener out of these woods soon, Sam just might decide to take up residence here. “That would be lovely, but would they bloom anywhere other than here?”

Sam nodded vigorously. “Oh aye, sir. This here is a lily, though it’s one as I’ve never seen afore, but all lilies are the same in what they need to grow, just like roses are.” When he had enough seeds, he deposited them into his right breeches pocket, so as not to mix them up with the rose seeds. “Or at least, they should need the same to grow. I hope I don’t kill them.”

“You won’t kill them, Sam,” Frodo said encouragingly. “They will bloom if only to make you happy. Come on now, lad. We need to be getting back.”

Sam stood and they walked back the way they had come in the slowly fading light. The sun was sinking closer to the horizon and the sky was streaked in crimson and gold by the time they found the boulder. They had made their way back easily enough – Frodo had indeed taken care to memorize the path they had picked through the shrubs – and sat down to wait for Merry and Pippin. They stared through the trees at the setting sun and listened to the wind blowing gently through the treetops. Sam wished the breeze would make its way down to where they were sitting; he could use a break from the continual heat.

Frodo tried not to be disappointed and hoped that Merry and Pippin had better luck in finding water. As much as it surprised him to admit it, he would be sad to see this trip end and wasn’t looking forward to cutting it short. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow and neck of sweat as he lowered his gaze to the surrounding shrubs. “I hope they didn’t get lost again,” he mused.

Sam laughed under his breath and clucked his tongue, but kept his mouth shut.  

“There’s nothing up here, Merry,” Pippin said at long last. They had been searching in vain for the last two hours and found nothing but more tangling brush and spiky thorns. They had finished nibbling all their snack food and Pippin was, predictably, hungry. “Let’s go back now.”

“Just a little bit farther,” Merry insisted and rolled his sleeves up again. They kept rolling down no matter what he did and he was getting quite irritated with them, and Pippin wasn’t helping matters. He really wasn’t helping. “Don’t you have any ideas?”

“I already told you what I thought,” Pippin answered shortly. They had been going around and around this topic all afternoon and he was getting quite tired of it.

“But what if Sam doesn’t forgive me, even after I say all that?” Merry asked. He was more than a little afraid of reliving that horrible night and finally revealing his feelings behind his ill-thought acts. What if he mustered the courage to do that, and it didn’t pay off? What if Sam simply couldn’t forgive him?

Pippin stopped walking and turned to face his cousin. He regarded Merry closely for several minutes before answering. “I think he already has, he just needs to hear you ask to say so.”

“But what if you’re wrong?”

Pippin shrugged. “Then I’m wrong. You’re never going to know though if you just fret about it and continue to guess and worry about it. This isn’t like you, Merry. What’s the real problem?”

“It’s just that no one’s ever talked about it since,” Merry said and slumped down on the ground in some shade. He fanned himself as best he could with his shirt. Pippin sat next to him and waited. “We left here so suddenly after, we didn’t get a chance to say anything to Sam or the Gaffer. When I got home, everything was explained in the letter Bilbo sent to my parents. I never had to explain and I don’t think they wanted me to anyway. By the next time I came to visit, it seemed like everyone just sort of forgot about it, pushed it to the back of their minds and locked it up tight where it could do no harm. At the very least, they certainly didn’t want to talk about it, Sam least of all. What if Sam still doesn’t want to talk about it? What if I bring it up and it only hurts him? I might lose the little bit of friendship we still have. What if I can’t talk about it after all these years?”

“I don’t know, Merry,” Pippin said and shrugged again. “But you have to do something, or things will never change. ‘You can’t do the same thing and expect different results.’ Trust me, I’ve heard Da say that enough times to know it’s true.”

Merry contemplated this and sat in silence until the shadows began to grow long on the ground around them. Then he shook himself from his thoughts and stood up. He offered his hand to Pippin and pulled his cousin up too. “Come on, let’s get back. Maybe Frodo and Sam found something.”

They walked back in the general direction from whence they came. Their route had not been so winding as Frodo’s and Sam’s and they were able to walk more or less in a direct line back to the boulder, always looking about for overlooked water sources. They found none, but Merry did spot an odd patch of small, deep green stalks shooting out of the ground near a hawthorn bush.

“Look,” he said and went to get a closer look.

He and Pippin crouched down over the patch, which was roughly the size of the entrance hall to Bag End.

“What is it?” Pippin asked.

“They’re onions, you nut,” Merry said. “For someone so in love with food, and living on a farm no less, you know very little about what vegetables look like while still underground.”

Pippin rolled his eyes and said, “So why are we staring at an onion patch? Even I’m not so hungry as to go eating them straight out of the ground.”

“Sam said we were out and that he wished he had brought a few more,” Merry said.

“We should bring him here then.”

“No,” Merry shook his head. “It’s getting dark and we still have to get back to camp. There won’t be time. I’ll just uproot a few and take them to him.”

Merry choose a fairly large-looking onion near the edge of the patch, were the ground looked relatively loose and easy to dig through. He soon found that it was quite the opposite. He had a time trying to find the bulb beneath the ground and when he did, the plant still did not want to yield to his gentle pulls. He tried again, yanking a little harder with no results. He dug a bit deeper and got a better hold on the bulb, but still it would not budge.

“Maybe we should just leave it,” Pippin suggested but Merry shook his head. He had that look of stubborn determination on his face and Pippin knew it was pointless at this point to try to talk him out of his mission. Merry yanked and pulled and dug and yanked some more, until he was panting heavily, with sweat running down his face and in his eyes.

“Why… won’t… it… come… out?” he said, speaking each word with yet another fruitless tug. Finally, he wormed both his hands around the bulb, got his feet under him and pulled up with his legs and back muscles. The onion finally yielded, popping out of the ground, disturbing the soil and leaving a gapping hole, coming so suddenly and unexpectedly that Merry fell onto his back.

“I got it!” he cried triumphantly and held up his prize. He looked at it appreciatively in the fading light. “A good find, wouldn’t you say? Sam won’t be expecting this.”

Pippin just shrugged. “I would have expected it to be bigger,” he said. “And look how long those roots are! No wonder you couldn’t get it out. … I’m hungry.”

Merry shook the plant until the dirt fell away from the roots, which were about as long as his forearm. He beamed at the vegetable and glanced back down at the patch. The onion had left quite a big hole in the ground, and something was struggling there in the soil that had fallen from the roots. They watched as the small yellow and black insect flipped itself over and flew over to the hole. Merry frowned worriedly and felt a small twinge of dread in his gut.

That’s when they heard it, the distant buzzing of angry wasps below the ground where they sat. They looked at each other, looked at the onion, then down at the hole it had created. The buzzing grew louder, alarmingly louder, and the noise was near deafening by the time the first yellow jackets made their way to the surface. They looked at each other again, and though it seemed like an hour had passed, it was not more than a split second later when Merry shouted, “Run!”

Pippin didn’t need telling twice. They were on their feet and running as fast as they could manage through the thistles and bushes and creeping vines. Merry stumbled a couple of times and Pippin nearly ran right into a tree before dodging out of the way, and all the while they had the sickening drone of buzzing in their ears.

“Ouch! Something bit me!” Pippin screamed as a sharp burning spread through his lower calf.

“Run faster!” Merry said and grabbed Pippin’s hand and pulled him along, moving his own legs faster than he ever thought he possibly could without them falling off.

They turned a corner and the boulder came into view. Two figures were relaxing upon it, lying back, resting with pipes in hand. “Run! Hurry!” Merry called out but the figures did not move. “Run! Quick!” he said as he and Pippin reached them.

“Merry, what in - ?”

“Run!” Pippin cried now and they grabbed Frodo and Sam and dragged them along.

“Not that way,” Frodo warned, for Merry was taking them south, where there were too many obstacles in the way. He steered them east, not caring at the moment why they were being chased by wasps, and Sam was simply too shocked by the sudden change of events to do anything but follow after them.

The buzzing was beginning to fade, but Merry’s sudden cry of pain proved that they were not out of danger just yet. The land dipped, down a slight slope, and up ahead Frodo spotted some mist rising from the ground in the last strands of sunlight. “There!” he shouted and led the way to the promising sight.

Down another small slope, around a bend… They were hip deep in the creek before any of the others even knew what had happened. They dunked under the surface of the water, even Sam, and came up splashing and flaying about until the last of the buzzing had stopped.

The danger over, they stood where they were, soaked and shocked, hearts racing, and caught their breath. Then Frodo turned to glare at his cousins, and Merry shrugged sheepishly. “At least we found the water.”
 
 
 

To be continued…