Robert Adams - A Woman of the Horseclans

Milo continued, “Dik, tell the chiefs of all we have found and all we have done here. Tell them to come with a large party and plenty of spare horses. We’ll strip that ruin up there of anything and everything we can use; then, too,” he grinned “none of you will want to leave any of your wolfskins or snakehides behind.

“Tell the chiefs that I say to hurry, Dik. If they heed me in this instance, they stand to be chiefs of fairly wealthy clan by the time they leave this winter’s camp.”

With Dik departed, Milo and Djim continued to hunt vainly, for a while, but then Djim mindcalled, “Uncle Milo elk dung, still hot!”

Following the clear trail, the two men shortly came out of the thick woods into more open terrain. Well ahead, among the stumps verging a beaver pond, a solitary bull elk had cleared enough snow from off the frozen ground to give him access to the bunches of sere grass that underlay the white blanket; now, he was grazing.

Raising his head with its wide-spreading, still-unshed rack of deadly tines, the huge beast gazed at the two men without apparent alarm. A brief scan of the elk’s surface thoughts told Milo the reason for this unconcern—this particular bull had been hunted by men more than once and he now realized that the long distance separating them was just too far for the hurting-sticks to travel through the air. If the two-legs kept to this distance, he was safe. Should they try to close, he would flee. Meanwhile, he would eat grass. Simple.

A single well-placed shot from the ancient hunting rifle dropped the half-ton animal, but Milo put a second into the head at close range as a precaution, for bull elk could be highly dangerous adversaries. Then he and Djim. taking time only for a few refreshing drafts of hot elk blood, set about the skinning and cleaning and butchering of the kill.

“The Hunter and her brood,” thought Milo, “should be very happy with some hundreds of pounds of elkmeat, and that’s to the good. I want her in a very damned jolly mood when I breach the subject of her and them leaving here for good with us and living out their lives with the clans.

“I would imagine that the idea of a steady, reliable and effortless—on her part, at least—food supply will appeal to her, so that’s one point in favor of my plan. For all of her stubbornness, she’s highly intelligent—more intelligent than any dog or pig that I ever came across, and they’re supposed to be the most intelligent of four-footed creatures—and if you can convince her that something new or different is for her own or her cubs’ welfare, she’ll usually do as you say—as witness the fact that she has not pulled off her bandages even once, for all that those healing injuries must itch like pure, furious hell.

“If she’s a sport, she’s breeding true, for all three of her cubs can mindspeak, can beam every bit as strongly as can she, though not yet as far. When she has recovered her physical strength, she and I will have to travel around and see if we can locate a mate for her, since she avers that there are more of her kind in this neck of the woods.”

Secure in the belief of the efficacy of his own powers of persuasion, Milo chuckled to himself on that long-ago, snowy, bitterly-cold day, “Who knows? In time, there may yet be still another Horseclan—a four-footed and furry Horseclan!”

“And so there is,” beamed old Bullbane. “The Clan of Cats must be the most numerous of all the Clans of the Kindred, for every two-leg Horseclan has an allied sept of Cats. And there must be many claws-count of Kindred clans.”

“Yes, honored cat brother,” agreed Milo, “I, too, am certain that the full Clan of Cats is the largest of all the clans. Fourscore are the Kindred Clans, and each sept of the Clan of Cats averages some twelve, plus cubs, so there are well over one thousand prairiecats following the herds with their two-leg brothers and sisters. Nor does that figure include some that still are living wild, apart from the clans.

“The wild life is a good life for a healthy sound cat in its prime.” stated Bullbane silently, “but illness or serious injury or advanced age in the wild presage naught but a slow, painful death. Far better that a cat live our his life with his two-leg cat kin, secure in the knowledge that his abilities are valued, that his belly will be full as long as the bellies of his kin are full, that he will be protected and fed in illness or if injured, and that he will be vouchsafed a quick, painless death when he feels that the time has come for him to go to Wind.”

Tim stumbled into the yurt a little after the dawning, half frozen, his knitted face mask stiff with ice rime. Dark blood had hardened on his mittens and in splashes up his sleeves, with blotches here and there on his trousers. His exhaustion was too great to allow him to do the normal things, so Mairee and Chief Dik’s other two wives made haste to fetch his gear from off the horse, then drape the mount with sheets of felt until it had had time to cool properly.

Bettylou helped her husband out of his wet, filthy clothing and into the lighter garb worn within the warm yurts. When she had seen him with a full bowl of last nights stew, she took his bare icy feet into her lap, under the swell of her belly.

Mairee and the other two came in laden with the gear as well as with two stiff-frozen winter wolfskins, each of them of a creamy, almost-white color.

“White wolves are rare, this far south,” remarked Chief Dik. Skillfully assembled, those two will make a fine, warm, heavy cloak, like my own black wolfcloak.”

“There are at least two more of these white ones out there,” said Tim, mindspeaking, so that he might continue stuffing his mouth with cold stew unhindered. “And they are huge, a third again as large as the biggest of the other, more normal-sized wolves, they’re braver, too, and more ferocious and cunning. This brace let the others go after the cattle and occupy our attention while they sneaked into the herders’ yurt and tried to drag out a sleeping stripling—a lad of Clan Skaht. They did kill him, but his shouts alerted those of us who happened to be in that vicinity. I was just riding in off herd guard, so my bow was strung. An arrow was enough for one of them; the other I had to get down and take on my spear, which is why the larger pelt is so ragged in the breast area.”

Shaking his head reprovingly, old Chief Dik said, “You must learn to exercise caution, Tim. You are the last Krooguh in the direct line of the chieftaincy. Were there not other armed clansfolk about who might have faced that wounded wolf in your stead?”

Bettylou felt her husband stiffen then, but when he spoke aloud his voice was controlled. “Uncle Dik, even when or if I am a chief, I never will ask or expect another man to fight for me against man or beast. Yes, there were other armed folk about out there, but I was closest and my bow was strung. You are chief and you bear honorable scars of manhood, marks of your bravery in battle and in the hunt. Would you advise me to not win such, then? If so, then choose another for your successor, for I would far liefer be a common clansman who fought and died in honor than a living but cowardly chieftain of the richest clan on all the plains!”

Bettylou expected rage from the older man at Tim’s words, but Chief Dik only nodded gravely. “A good answer, Tim, and though strongly worded, spoken with all due courtesy. You much put me in mind of my own uncle. He was a very good chief, and I harbor no doubt but that you will be every bit as good a leader of our Clan Krooguh. A chief must be courteous and display a level head even when driven to anger, you have shown us here that you possess right many of the needed attributes of the chief you soon will be. You please me mightily, nephew.”