Paul Cook: Children of the Plains

“Ha!” he shouted, stamping his foot. “Go! Go!”

The nearer animal halted its advance and made its ye-ye call. Amero had the insane idea the creature was laughing at him! He picked up a stone and hefted it significantly. The pair of predators spread apart. They were making it harder for him to hit them, Amero realized in astonishment. What sort of beasts were these, who showed such careful cunning?

“Ha!” he shouted again, and feigned throwing the stone. The nearer beast sprang aside. Once he was farther away, Amero threw the rock with all his might at the other. It struck the monster on the nose, and Amero took off running.

He tried not to hear the swish of long gray limbs in the grass behind him. He ran faster than he’d ever run in his life, his toes barely touching the ground. His goal was a stout gnarled tree, with a trunk as thick as his waist. A low branch beckoned as a handhold. Only five steps to go. Hot breath on his heels, the fetid smell of the creatures’ breath. Four steps. Something touched his buckskin-clad leg, and he put on a burst of speed he didn’t know he possessed. Three paces to go. Claws raked down his right leg, ripping his chaps, and grasped at his bare heel. Amero kicked free and coiled his legs to leap. One step. He launched himself at the branch and snagged it with both hands. Paws with sharp, grasping digits grabbed at his dangling legs. Amero swung his feet up and wrapped his legs around the tree. With a supreme heave, he rolled over on a stout branch less than two paces off the ground.

Panting, two of the pack circled beneath him, waiting to see if he would lose his grip and fall. When he didn’t, they trotted away, lolling tongues pink with clay dust. Amero heard Menni whimpering from his perch but the intervening trees blocked his view of the child. Once Amero managed to catch his breath, he climbed higher in the elm and searched for his mother, Oto, or Nianki. The air was still, and he could see nothing but grass.

After being knocked to the ground, Nianki had managed to gather her legs under her. Pain raced through her left forearm as the jaws of one of the creatures snapped shut there. Agony gave way to anger in an instant. Instead of trying to pry the animal’s mouth open, she resolved to cause it as much damage as possible. In short order she had gouged its eyes and kicked it repeatedly in the ribs. It slackened its bite, and only then did Nianki go for its jaws. She pried its long yellow fangs apart until its jaw snapped. Yelling at the top of her lungs, she grasped the monster by its hind feet and swung it in a wide circle, releasing the limp body, which tumbled into the tall grass.

Blood seeped steadily from deep wounds in her arm. Nianki held the injured limb tight to her chest and ran into the bush. She knew she had no hope of outrunning the pack, but she had killed several, and others had gone off in pursuit of Amero and the baby. If there were just one or two left, she might be able to turn the tables on them.

Her vision blurred. The hammering pain in her arm was spreading. Staggering with effort, Nianki skidded down a slight draw. In the rainy season there was a swift stream at the bottom of this hill. At this time of year it would be a dry wash, but where water passed, there would be rocks, and rocks were the tools Nianki needed.

She slammed into the thin trunk of a weeping willow and clung to it, gasping. She could hear animals crashing through the underbrush on both sides of the ravine. Were there two of them? More?

She slid off the tree trunk and pressed onward. A soft sand bank gave way to a bed of pebbles. Several boulders, washed smooth by the brook, rose from the dry stream bed. Nianki found two fist-sized stones, and with one in each hand, climbed atop the biggest boulder. She had hardly reached its summit before the beasts came yelping through the bush, their strange cry echoing in the still, hot air. There were three.

“Come!” Nianki yelled, forcing deep drafts of air into her aching chest. “I have stones enough for all of you!”

The monster on her left leaped. She brought both hands together and cracked the creature’s skull between the rocks. Its blood and saliva sprayed her face. As it fell heavily at her feet, its claws and teeth tore the tough buckskin of her shirt. The beast rolled off the boulder and fell lifeless to the stream bed.

A second animal approached more stealthily and succeeded in biting her on the back of her right thigh. Nianki screamed in pain and pounded her attacker’s jaws. Each strike cost it teeth, and the monster let go before she crushed its skull as she had the others. Nianki lost her footing — the boulder was slick with blood — and fell on her back. For a moment, all she saw was bright blue sky. The click of claws on rock followed, and the third animal seized her by the throat.

The beaded collar of her shirt saved her from death. The beast’s fangs could not penetrate completely the closely studded bear-tooth beadwork. Nianki pulled a knee up and tried to lever the creature off, but it gripped her shoulders tightly with its fingerlike claws.

She could feel her pulse thundering in her head and knew she was bleeding from the throat. Her left hand opened, releasing a rock. She had no strength left to hold it. With all the life that remained in her body, Nianki brought the stone in her right hand down on her attacker’s forehead. The savage creature’s response was to tighten the grip on her neck. Fangs penetrated her flesh more deeply. She hit the beast again, and was about to try one last time when she felt the animal stiffen and shudder.

Nianki pried the jaws apart and let the furry gray body fall to the side. She tried to rise, but her strength was spent. The world went dark before her eyes, and she collapsed across the smooth granite in a spreading pool of her own blood.

For many hours Amero remained in the top of the elm tree, his back braced against the knobby trunk. He’d heard shouts far away, but it had long since grown quiet all around him — quiet as death. Menni had cried weakly for while, and then he too fell silent.

Amero called now and then to his father, his mother, and his sister, but no one answered. He was afraid to call Menni. The little boy might try to get down from the tree and come to him, and he had no doubt the killer pack was still out there in the grass, watching, lurking.

Finally, he had to give up shouting. His throat was too parched to continue. From his uncomfortable perch he took stock of the situation. He feared the worst. There was no escaping the fact that neither Oto nor Kinar would abandon their children if they were alive. They might have found some place to hold off the beasts, but this was the only grove of trees in the vicinity — hilltops or caves were in short supply on the savanna. The realization of their deaths made his eyes sting and his throat tighten. Amero scrubbed his smarting eyes. Not yet, not yet! His first task was to live. There would be time for grief later.

He had no food, no water, no weapons. His hands, knees, and feet were raw from falling and climbing. His right leg burned where the creature had raked it with its claws. His buckskin breeches hung in tatters. He pulled them off and draped them on the branch. It was cooler in his loincloth anyway. His life seemed to depend on how long he could remain in this tree. Without food and water, it wouldn’t be long.

The sun dipped below the horizon, and the first stars appeared in a flawless purple sky. Amero gazed at the emerging lights. His mother had told him about the stars — how they were the eyes of great spirits on the shore of heaven and how there were patterns in their arrangement. Her people had named these patterns. There was the Winged Serpent, symbol of the great spirit Pala, which stretched from one side of the sky to the other. Facing him across the vault of heaven was the stormbird, Matat. Kinar always called Matat “she,” and Pala “he,” though she never explained why.