Robert Adams - A Woman of the Horseclans

“Then, less than a year later, the one surviving Rohz boy, Hari insisted on riding up into the mountains with a party of seasoned hunters after wild sheep and elk. As you know by now, Djahn Staiklee is a superlative horseman, possessed of an easygoing courage that seems completely natural and supremely unconscious, and has lightning-fast reflexes—a combination which is the more precious due to its true rarity.

“Anyway, in hot pursuit of a wounded sheep. Djahn Staiklee rode his horse down a very steep, shaley slope up in those mountains. Young Han Rohz, disobeying orders from his stepfather and all the other hunters, made to follow, then lost his nerve halfway down and tried to turn, whereupon his mount lost its balance and feet, fell head foremost and rolled full-weight upon the boy. The mishap killed the both of them. boy and horse, then and there, outright.

“No one of those returning hunters was at all anxious to be the one to tell Lainuh Krooguh of the death of her second son by Hari Rohz, but all of them finally did, many going so far as to fully open their minds and their memories to her that she might know that the words spoken were nothing less than the full, unembroidered truth and that no one of the hunters was or could be held in any way—legal or moral—responsible for that headstrong boy’s death.

“Lainuh apparently heard them all out, delved into every proffered mind’s memories … then placed full blame upon the undeserving shoulders of Djahn Staiklee, her husband and the stepfather of the dead boy, Hari.

“When, some year or more later, he won the slave girl Dahnah, while gambling with men of Clan Pahrkuh, and made it abundantly clear to all of his yurt that he meant to keep her as a concubine, Lainuh did her utter damnedest to turn her brother. Chief Dik, against his old crony, Djahn Staiklee, but in that particular instance she failed miserably, which failure to continue to exercise a measure of control over her brother in no way improved her general disposition or her attitude toward Djahn Staiklee and his new acquisition.

“And so matters still stand, Behtiloo,” said Ehstrah, then adding, “Your mother-in-law, Lainuh Krooguh, hates and utterly despises your father-in-law, Djahn Staiklee. She is vindictive and conniving and can be violent, so would likely have murdered him long since—though of course using her wiles and exercising her considerable intelligence to be certain that his demise appeared natural—were it not that, according to clan customs, his death would considerably lower her personal status in the camp and vastly lower it in the yurt, making as that circumstance would the first wife of her eldest living son the mistress of everyone and everything in the household. A woman like Lainuh would be unable to abide such an abrupt descent although I and a goodly number of others would dearly love, would give our very eyeteeth, to see such a thing, see the arrogant and overproud Lainuh humbled once and for all.”

Ehstrah stood up and said, “Well, I for one have enough steam for today. You and I, Behtiloo, can go into the other yurt and wash while Gahbee goes out to roll around in the snow, as is her peculiar wont. I watched her once, but never again; it fairly raises the hairs on the neck. Tepid water is more than enough of a sensory shock for me, after the heat in here.”

Back in the yurt of Tim’s family, Bettylou found that affairs looked tranquil enough. Neither Tim nor Djahn Staiklee was about, of course; Tim spent as much time as he could find or make at the side of his sickly uncle, Chief Dik, absorbing the host of things he would need to know when he became chief. Djahn Staiklee, who could not for long abide inaction, had left before dawn with the best hunters of the clans to sweep wide about the area of the camp and search for signs of predators, raiders or any large game animals.

Even before she got really close to the yurt, Bettylou had caught the reek of mutton. Inside, it was all but overpowering, rising from the bubbling pot of sheep fat which Lainuh and Dahnah were using to soften and dress the cured skin of the big brown bear that Djahn Staiklee had killed during the autumn trek from the summer camp to this winter one.

And suddenly in an eyeblink of time, she was again witnessing the events of that terribly terrifying, terribly exciting day.

Hunters had killed three larger screwhorns—beasts each as big as a draft-ox and otherwise looking very much like domestic cattle, save for their twisting horns and peculiar color—field-dressed them all and brought them back to the night camp of carts to be properly flayed, butchered and apportioned out.

The bear had come in from downwind and, with all the hubbub of unhitching teams, offloading carts and otherwise making to set up a camp, no man or woman or child, no cat or horse or mule or ox had seen or scented the great, furry, hungry ursine until, with a roar, he had tried to hook a maiden of Clan Skaht from where she was standing atop a loaded cart with a swipe of his broad, long-clawed forepaw.

The maiden screamed shrilly, mindcalled a broadbeamed plea for help and leaped from off the safer side of the cart all at once … and then the campsite was pure pandemonium for a few moments, while the stubborn bear, still trying to get at his originally chosen meal, vaulted to her former place atop the loaded cart.

This action served to stampede the draft horses still hitched to the cart, and the pair raced out across the darkening prairie, vocalizing their terror, with the bear hanging on for dear life and thunderously roaring out his own concern and displeasure, which roars only pumped larger amounts of adrenaline into the team, and the speed of the rocking, bumping, toothjarringly springless cart increased appreciably.

In the wake of the runaway cart came pounding half the folk and all of the cats who had been at the campsite—warriors, maidens, matrons, slaves, everyone who had still been mounted or could quickly get astride a mount—and in their wake came more folk racing on foot, armed with whatever had come easiest to hand at the moment.

The bears portion of the journey had ended when the much-abused cart lost a wheel and he was pitched rolling and roaring onto the hard ground. The mountainous beast lay for a moment, apparently stunned, while the team raced on, still screaming, finally dragging the cart to pieces. By the time the shaken bruin had regained his feet, he was ringed about by snarling prairiecats and the mounted warriors were close upon him.

Despite the broken bones, the crippling injuries that the huge plains grizzly was later determined to have sustained even before the fight commenced, he did put up a fight, enough of a fight to kill two full-grown prairiecats and maim another, so that finally Chief Milo and a half-dozen others started in to settle the bear with wide-bladed wolf spears.

The cats were dancing about, making mock rushes, then springing back to hold the bear in place. His movements never slowed to less than lightning-fast for all that he was so quilled with arrows, his fur all tacky with blood and the ground about him splattered thickly with it.

It was while the seven spearmen were positioning themselves for their deadly-dangerous task that Djahn Staiklee rode upon a lathered horse, In a trice, he had strung his bow, nocked, and sped a shaft that flew straight and true the seventy-odd yards to strike the beast’s eye and sink deeply into the brain beyond. And the fearsome bear dropped, crumpled bonelessly to the blood-soaked ground he had so well defended.

Lainuh had been working at the bearskin off and on ever since. She had skillfully sewn up each and every hole and tear and puncture from the flesh side with fine sinew, she had painstakingly stretched and cured it and now was hard at work making it supple before she put it to use as her winter bedcovering.