Avram Davidson: The Kar-Chee Reign

The spring and the man-made salt-lick were well set up for hunting, the arroyo and ravine being so as to provide an almost perfect situation for ambush. Only the one narrow way led up to the water welling up at the foot of an abrupt cliff: as the deer went up, so that same way they had to come down. “Beating” was here not the most exact word — the younger boys went up to the top of the cliff-face by another and roundabout way and pelted any deer they might find below with stones and sticks. It was doubtless not sporting, but this was a conception unknown to them. They killed what they needed, and no more, and it made sense to kill as quickly and easily as possible.

Lors and Duro levered down their goat-foot crossbows and loaded them with a bolt each, Tom-small nocked an arrow into his short straight bow, and the three of them picked their hiding places among the rocks and hunkered down.

They could, if need be, maintain the position for hours. But as it turned out, they had to maintain it for something much less.

From above and ahead, faint but clear, after perhaps a quarter of an hour, the three heard a series of whistles. Duro got up, swearing. Lors shrugged. To Tom-small, who looked at them inquiringly, he said, “No game at the spring. Well, we’ll have to go all the way up there to see if there’s anything along the path… and then come all the way down again, if there is or there isn’t.”

“Oh, Devil!” said Duro, again.

And there was nothing along the path.

There was nothing along the usual beats, either — no actual game, that is. There was spoor and trace, to be sure, and these signs made them all look at each other with faces wrinkled in uncertainty.

“Upland,” Tom-small said. “Everything seems to have gone upland… Do you know why?”

The brothers didn’t. “I don’t know who’d be beating up from downland hereabouts,” Lors said. “I don’t smell any fire, either.” Automatically, at this suggestion, they all sniffed the air. As though to accommodate them at just that moment the wind shifted.

“What is that? ” Duro asked, scowling.

No one knew. It was musty and pungent and utterly strange. It might be connected with the curious absence of game; it might not. “Let’s go see what it is,” said Duro.

Lors shook his head. “Popa didn’t send us out for anything but to get meat, and the meat’s all gone upland, it seems, so we just have to go upland after it. When we get back we can tell him about it, and he’ll know what to do.”

“By the time we get back with anything — if we find anything — they’ll all be hungry, anyway,” his brother pointed out. He looked windward, made as though to reload his crossbow.

“The longer we wait and gibble-gabble, the hungrier they’ll be. Up,” said the elder. And turned and started. Tom-small and the younger boys followed at once. So, after a moment, did Duro. They went upland, all of them, but they came within shot of no game. Once they stopped stock-still at the sight of three deer outlined upon the top of a ridge, heads all up. For a moment nothing moved, nothing was heard. Then, far off and below, it came… deep and distinctive and strange, and it sounded again — the deer darted off and were gone — and it seemed to have ended upon a higher, a questioning note.

“It’s no horn,” guest Tom-small said, low-voiced, evidently answering his own unspoken questioning.

But as to what it was, none had any suggestion. They nodded when Lors said, finally, “All game gone upland… nobody beating besides us, that we know of… a bad smell, a strange smell… and now a strange noise…

“My guess is that whatever made the smell is making the noise. It’s gotten late. We’d better go back and tell Popa, that’s the best thing, and we can kill stock for the guests and then we’d all better find out what this thing is.”

As they started back, Duro said, “Maybe it would be better to find out as soon as can be, even if it’s got to be done on an empty belly.” His brother grunted his agreement. The smaller boys were all silent, and kept close instead of spreading out. The sun declined away behind the mountain and the air felt chilly on their skins — and perhaps it was not just the air

They followed Lors without questioning when he picked a trail over fallen rock which would cut time off their return. And it was while the loose shale was still sliding a bit under their feet that they all stopped short with no more sound at first than the hissing intake of breath and looked down where his hand pointed and where it trembled despite all his brave effort.

Along the distant shore below, at that same shelving beach where the first Rowan had brought his tiny boat ashore, there, outlined against the wine-dark sea, they saw the forms of two utterly strange and utterly dissimilar figures stalking across the twilight landscape — one erect, though slightly stooping; the other on all four giant legs which held it high above the sand.

Slowly, fearfully, they sank down and spread themselves flat upon the shale. After an infinity of time the two strange beasts passed out of sight around a bend in the shore line. Then, crouching, sliding, trotting almost as they squatted and slid, spraddle-legged, the young hunters vanished into the safe-promising shadows. And only when the dearly familiar walls of the homesite, outlined by the vigorous fires still burning outdoors, came into view did any of them speak. It was the youngest and smallest of the boys.

“Devil,” he said. “Devil.” He was not swearing. “Devil-Devil — it was the Devil!” he chattered.

And Lors said, “Maybe… Maybe… But— which one? ”

The raft was low on one side. Whether the underbeams had been lashed wrong, or if something in the wood had caused more and sooner waterlogging, or — No one worried or cared about that any longer. It was accepted with a brute resignation, like the burning sun and the scant food and drink, the waves which lapped up and over all around and left salt encrustations which itched and stung the swollen flesh. Three people already had gone off that perilous slope — one had slipped and slid, shrieking, while the others had looked on and blinked their burning eyes and licked their cracking lips and otherwise done nothing; one had simply rolled off, a scatter of rags and flailing limbs, uttering no sound; and the third, with a pleased smile and a look of anticipation, had just walked off at a brisk pace, knee-deep before he’d plunged out of sight.

Now and then a shark circled, leisurely, and those who still had the energy to do so crawled as high as they could, as though fearing that the great cartilaginous fish might suddenly sprout legs and climb up after them. And now and then a huge sea-turtle flippered by, paying them no attention at all; some eyed it hungrily, but helplessly: the small boat in which they might have pursued it had gone in a storm uncounted time ago, and even had it remained it was doubtful if any of them now would have had the strength to man it.

Some few fishing-lines still dangled, some presently without even hooks, and none with other bait than a bit of cloth of similar counterfeit. It had been days since any of these had succeeded in catching anything — a bony, ugly thing, but the man whose line it adhered to had eaten it at once, fearful and famished and secretive and swift. Then he had vomited it all up. Then he had eaten it a second time, shameful and slow and sick.

It had been months. It seemed like months. Perhaps it was only weeks. Perhaps, by now, years. Liam would know, if anyone knew, Cerry thought. Vaguely, she considered asking Liam if he still kept up his records. But the notion soon ceased to interest her. She had too little voice left, her mouth and throat were too dry, for her to call over to him where he sat, crouching, motionless. He might be dead. But she didn’t want to face this possibility. If Liam were dead then the rest of them were as good as dead. So she made her mind consider other things.