John Dalmas - The Lion of Farside

Mostly though she rode alone or with Macurdy. The Green River, broad and dark, formed the south boundary of the estate, and they enjoyed exploring the woods that bordered it, both on the flood plain and the first terrace. Coons were numerous, and possums and fox squirrels. Floods were too extreme for beaver and muskrats, and deer and razorback were scarce because of hunting, but porcupines and otters weren't uncommon. Sometimes they saw tracks of bobcat and fox. And of course, cows that trailed down to drink.

Once Melody called, "Macurdy! Come here! There's something you've got to see!"

He rode over to where she sat in the saddle, pointing at a patch of heavily disturbed ground. Something had been rooting up roots or tubers of some sort; skunk-cabbage he supposed. "Looks like a really big razorback," he said.

She shook her head, led him to the shore, and pointed to an exposed sandy mud flat. "Look at those."

He saw hoof prints, sharp and deep, far bigger than any razorback's he knew of. "I've never seen any before," she said, "and never expected to, certainly not in country as cleared and farmed as this."

Macurdy chewed a lip. A great boar could mean trouble. Something that large could hardly sustain itself on skunk-cabbage; in country without much large game, it would prey on livestock. And while he didn't believe in enchanted swine with powers of witchcraft, even in Yuulith, he could very well believe in an animal so cunning that it could be thought of as supernatural. Hopefully it was merely passing through. If it took only a calf or two, he'd call it a bargain.

They found where the tracks moved on, and leaning forward in the saddle, Melody started following them.

"Where are you going?"

"To see if we can come up on it. We'll probably never have another chance to see one."

"Hey! Wait now! They're dangerous!"

She looked at him as if to say, "So?"

"Suppose you do? And suppose he doesn't like it?"

"Then he'd have to run fast enough to catch us."

"He just might do that."

"Damn it, Macurdy! Who's the one that climbed the tree to chase the jaguar out?"

"I didn't have any choice."

"Well then, who went into the fallen timber and buffaloed Slaney? And who went into the Kormehri camp and fronted down a whole damned company?"

"I had to do those things, honey. I didn't have any choice!"

"Macurdy, you can be so exasperating!"

"Besides, you're pregnant. If something happens to you…"

She swore at him, and turning her horse, trotted across the bottomland and up onto the terrace, Macurdy trotting Hog a bit behind. He knew what would happen next, and he was right; when she got onto the firmer high ground, she kicked her horse to a gallop. The last he saw of her, she'd crossed a field of corn stubble and cleared the rail fence on the other side. He shook his head, wondering if she'd ever get over her reckless streak. After the baby comes, he told himself. If she didn't jiggle and jar it to death first. He wasn't going to bring that up though. Not again.

To his relief, there was no predation. The great boar passed through the neighborhood leaving no damage behind.

They had snow cover two weeks before the solstice, which everyone said was early. And when, a month later, it had deepened instead of melting, they said it was the hardest winter they'd ever seen. Finally, in mid-One-Month, a thaw arrived, with an all-night rain that took the snow out at one shot.

Meanwhile Melody had begun to swell, and not long afterward could feel the fetus move inside her. In bed, she'd place Macurdy's hand where he could feel it, and he decided he loved her more than ever. She was more affectionate than ever, too, given to kissing him without warning-or without cause, so far as he could see.

One night after they'd made careful love, she lay gentle fingers on his cheek. "Liiset calls you Curtis," she said. "Is that what Varia called you?"

"Um-hmm."

"Would you like me to call you that?"

"If you'd like. I like whatever you call me." He chuckled. "Except when you're mad at me. Some of those names I don't like too well."

"Curtis," she said thoughtfully. "Curtis. I like it." She kissed him. "Curtis, I love you. I love you very much."

And when they got up in the morning, she still called him Curtis. She stopped running her horse, too, settling for a walking gait, or an easy trot. She's settling down, he told himself. At last.

In the beginning of Two-Month, with the ground bare, the big freeze struck. The fireplaces, never adequate in cold weather, seemed almost useless now. More blankets were piled on the beds, enough that they had to wake up to turn over. Ice froze in the pail in the kitchen, and despite the fireplace, burst the ceramic pitcher on the washstand in their bedroom. Macurdy let Blue Wing perch on the mantle in the living room, though the bird suffered from claustrophobia indoors. Then, blowing on his fingers from time to time, the squire of Macurdy Manor sat down and drew plans for a brick stove, with flues to be built in the walls between the living room and the rooms adjacent, intending to build it the next summer.

The big freeze lasted for four days, cold enough that when he went outside, even at midday, the hairs in his nostrils stiffened. Something which, back home in Washington County, was taken to mean the temperature was below zero.

This time the cold broke without a storm; on the fifth day it simply warmed up. Not up to freezing-not that warm-but the bright sun felt good on his face, and the cows were let out for the exercise. The sparrows and crows were out too, those that hadn't died. And Blue Wing. After five days with only brief hours outside, he flew high and wide. "The river is frozen," he announced when he returned, and said that was something rare for the Green. The ground was certainly frozen-as hard as the new concrete pavement on Main Street back in Salem.

The next day dawned warmer than the day before. Toward noon the temperature rose above freezing, the bright sun shining on a slick of mud atop the frozen ground, and Macurdy and Melody saddled their horses for a ride. The cattle tracks went directly to the pasture above the woods, and when the two riders got there, Macurdy rode around examining what condition it was in, while Melody rode down to see the frozen river, and Blue Wing soared high overhead. The pasture grass was a mixture, and grazed-down enough that Macurdy wasn't sure what species dominated. Nor how much winter-kill there might be, given such severe cold without snow cover.

He heard Blue Wing shrieking something and looked up, to see the raven spiraling down, almost diving. The short hairs bristled on Macurdy's neck. Then he discerned the words: "Macurdy! Macurdy! The ice has broken! Melody is in the water!"

Thumping Hog's flanks with his heels, Macurdy galloped as recklessly as Melody ever had. At the river bank he pulled up. The hole was mostly full of broken ice, and only her horse's head showed, whinnying wildly. She's gone under the ice, Macurdy thought, and galloped wildly downstream, where eighty yards away he could see water kept open by rapids. If he could get there before she was carried through and under the next ice…

He got there just as she emerged, and Hog didn't hesitate when Macurdy drove him into water shockingly, deathly cold, reaching her near the foot of the rip. Leaning down, he grabbed her sodden coat with a grip of iron, then Hog fought their way across the current back to shore. Macurdy jumped down and examined her; there was no trace of spirit aura; little even of body aura.

He howled then, howled at the sky like a hound. But only once before turning her over on her stomach and beginning the artificial respiration he'd learned in grade school, at the same time chanting brokenly a formula Arbel had taught him. He pressed and relaxed, pressed and relaxed, until, soaked as he was, he was shivering almost too violently to continue. God! he prayed silently, let her live, and I'll do anything you ask! He knew that artificial respiration would be useless if long interrupted, yet feared that any life which might remain would freeze out of her, so after half an hour, his hands and mind numbed by cold and shock, he stopped. High clouds had moved in to block the sun, as if God himself had turned against him.