by Robert Adams
"Now just hold on a fucking minute," yelped Al, "I don't understand how . . ."
Arsen shook his head. "Welcome to the fucking club, Al. I don't really understand either, so don't go asking me to explain none of it to you. It just works, is all, and that's all I need to know or want to know. Okay?"
Then everybody started to talk at once and Arsen shouted until he got them all quiet. "Look, I've got other things, important things, to do today, and there's some more to be said here before I can get to them. So just shut the fuck up until I'm done, huh?"
"Now, here's the pitch, so listen tight: I need all you and your help getting these Indians squared away and safe from the slavers and all, but Lisa and John say—and, thinking about it, I guess they're both right, too—that I'm no better than the slavers unless I level with you and tell you that I can send you all back just like I sent Mikey back this morning. So think it all out and make up your minds what you want to do. You all heard what I said about what's gonna sure as hell happen to you if you go back to after we disappeared, so the only thing to be done is to put you back to before we was projected, but that means that won't none of you ever remember any fucking thing that happened here, in this world, because you won't never have been in it to start out with. Take your own sweet time thinking about it, because I can send you back any time from now on, see, no sweat. Whenever you make up your minds, let me know about it."
"That's it. See you later. Bedros, you ready, buddy?"
CHAPTER THE TENTH
Bedros Yacubian and Arsen had spent most of the day west of the mountains, photographing animals and, in Bedros' case, making copious quantities of notes, examining droppings, and crowing in ecstasy at the first sightings of most of the beasts. The two men had quickly discovered that trying to approach any of the animals on foot swiftly brought one of three reactions—flight, defensive behavior, or savage attack. Therefore, almost all of their day had been spent in the carriers, in which they could easily advance to within actual touching distance of most of the beasts without at all alarming them, their scents exuding from the opened tops of the carriers apparently not registering as predatory with the herbivores or prey with the carnivores they had encountered. A single spotted cat about the size of a hefty German shepherd dog had leaped, claws extended, at Arsen's carrier at one point, only to slide over the top of the carrier's protective field and land in a heap on the other side, but Bedros had pointed out that the beast was clearly immature and would as likely have pounced at anything strange. In the squad tent by light of the camp lantern that night, the two men, along with John and Helen, Lisa and Rose, marveled over the stack of color photographs.
Lisa extended one of them across the table and asked, "Bedros, what is this one, a llama?"
He smiled. "No, though it does have certain features of the llama. I couldn't be certain, of course, without examining its skeleton, but I think that it's a Camelops."
"A camel-what?" she asked dubiously.
"A Camelops" said John. "Sort of a transition animal, a llama on the way to becoming a camel. Right, Bedros?"
Dr. Yacubian did not quite sniff. "Close enough, one would suppose, for a layman's explanation. This particular specimen shows marked differences from recent reconstructions, but that is in no way remarkable, since soft parts and pelages of any fossil are so very rarely preserved; besides, this could be an entirely different, more modern and advanced specimen."
"By the way, the animal which you identified to Arsen, before my arrival, as a Smilodon is in reality no such thing; rather is it a Homotherium—a scimitar-tooth, not saber-tooth, cat. Perhaps you should limit your activities to dentistry, eh? Identification of Pleistocene fauna is best left in the hands of qualified experts, you know."
He shuffled rapidly through his scribbled pages of notes, then drew out a sheet and went on, saying, "And your Bison latifrons is clearly Bison antiquus, another case of enthusiastic amateurism in action. On the other hand, you may well have guessed accurately in regard to those large spotted cats—they may well be a form of the Panthera atrox." He smiled patronizingly. "Better one right than none, eh?"
"Bedros!" Rose snapped, in a tone seldom heard from her. "Do you know just how arrogant you sound? For your information, it was John and Lisa persuaded Arsen to bring you here, give you this rare opportunity to experience something that none of your colleagues or peers ever have. You owe John an apology."
Yacubian shrugged. "Oh, I'm certain, Rose, that the doctor here is at least sufficiently sophisticated to realize that there was no offense intended. Actually, I respect him or any man who can and will and does recognize his own limitations and call in a specialist. Persons of John's type are, indeed, very useful in field work, just so long as they are subject to expert supervision."
Later, after everyone else had gone to their own quarters, Lisa said, "Arsen, I'd only met Bedros a few times and I never would've dreamed that he would or could behave like that. I've never before heard so supercilious a performance as went down in this tent tonight. Who in hell does he think he is, anyway?"
Arsen snorted. "A leaping, cavorting asshole, that's what that stuck-up fucker is, honey, and no two fucking ways about it. You know, I got bad vibes listening to him in here tonight, real bad vibes. I think he's gonna cause us trouble, honey—I don't know when or how or what kind of trouble yet, is all. I'm just glad as hell now that I wasn't able to give him one of the real helmets today, so he couldn't really control his carrier and hook into the instructor. That fucker is trouble sure as hell, and if it wasn't for little Rose, I'd take him back exactly where I got him from, tonight, right now. I'm gonna keep my eyes on him, and I want you and John to, too."
Within the bristling fort at Boca Osa, which guarded the sea approach to the town and anchorage of the same name at the mouth of the Bear River, Captain Don Guillermo ibn Mahmood de Vargas y Sanchez del Rio sat in one of the high-ceilinged, airy chambers built into the walls of the fort, presently the sickroom of the gravely injured Captain Don Abdullah, unfortunate onetime commander of the slaving station some hundred leagues upriver from the fort.
Don Guillermo and Don Abdullah were old friends, circumstances having thrown them together almost from their very times of arrival in this new land, many years before; moreover, both men were legally recognized bastards of noble fathers—Don Guillermo's being a conde real and Abdullah's a bishop—and both had been very lucky . . . up until quite recently.
"First of all, Abdullah," he assured the man on the sickbed, "you must know that—based upon your earlier reports and those rendered me by Dons Felipe and Eshmael—you can be held in no way responsible for the debacle at the island of Decimo, and I have said as much to His Excellency in my own report. Don Felipe tells me that had you not demanded that the pinnace be kept constantly ready for departure, all would assuredly have been lost that dark night."
Don Abdullah shook his head sadly. "If anyone was saved, it was not my doing, Guillermo, rather the fine works of Dons Felipe and Eshmael and that sergeant, Gregorio something-or-other. No matter your comforting words, my friend, I know exactly who was in command at sundown of the day preceding that night, and therefore just who must bear the onus for the losses of the men, the fortaleza and all that it contained, the slaves, the loot, the arms, and the boats."
"Man, what more could any man born of woman have done?" asked the overall commander. "You'd lost all your gunpowder, to start, the fortaleza was ablaze in numerous places, and fifty hundredweight of a gun and carriage had just knocked you down and run over you; it was at that point that whatever happened ceased to be accountable to you. What is, to your great credit and honor, accountable to you is that a brace of your lieutenants and one of your half-breed sergeants had received sufficient quality training from you that they were able to assume command after your injury and escape that defeat with two and a half dozen men, the best and largest of your boats, and intelligence that will greatly aid the return force that will reconquer the island and that stretch o
f river for Spain."
"You do mean a reconquest, then, friend Guillermo?" asked Don Abdullah.
The commander smiled warmly and patted the hand of his old comrade-in-arms. "Of course, I do, Abdullah, immediately I have secured the approval of His Excellency to the scheme, naturally. I also have requested of him two or three shallow-draught vessels of enough size and solidity to mount guns of decent sizes—culverins and demicannon—that they may lay to in the channel of the river and pound that fort you reported of to me into stone shards and wooden splinters. Then we'll land with the additional troops of which I have requested a short-term loan and put paid in full to the now overdue account of these scabrous Shawnees and those poxy, devil-spawn, French by-blows of a spavined camel. I'll teach them to break hoary treaties and instruct the indios in firearms."
Abdullah frowned. "But Guillermo, I thought you said, earlier on, that the French governor-general's letters had disclaimed any knowledge of all this dirty business upcountry. Why do you now so suspect them, rather than the Irish or the always-troublemaking Portuguese?"
The commander laughed harshly and without any trace of humor and said, "Yes, my friend, and the damned lying dung-eating dog of a French bitch's whelping also swore upon his sacred honor that he knew nothing of that great four-masted galleon that was engaged in sea piracy and shore-raiding from Greenland to Nueva Granada last year . . . yet we were able to eventually prove that the vessel had, not too long before she arrived in our waters, been a French royal ship-of-the-battleline. The thing had most likely been sent to attack the yearly treasure fleet, and it was only by God's good offices that she missed them. So much for the French governor-general's nonexistent honor!"
"No, I would not have likely believed the pig anyway, but when he pled paucity of troops to send against these firearm-equipped indios, while Don Jose da Seco and that Irish knight with the rare name . . ."
"Don Rogallach Ui Briuin?" inquired Abdullah. "The one with the full, bright-red beard and bald pate?"
"The same." Don Guillermo nodded. "I never can, somehow, twist my tongue properly around that passing strange name. He and Don Jose, regardless our differences in other matters, both have pledged troops and other necessities of warfare to help us scotch these ill-favored French dung-eaters and their Shawnee pawns before they can foment real trouble for all of us here."
"As you and I know, amongst all others, my friend, the French have for some strange reason always gotten on better with the indios than have we or the Portuguese or the Irish or even the Norse, right many of whom are unashamedly interbred with the red swine. And further, the French maintain almost as many troops on the mainland here as do we. I'll tell you, if I thought for one minute that that governor-general was mouthing anything less than an infamous lie, I would move heaven and earth until I was part of an expedition to go against the section of stolen, illegally occupied territory that he calls New France and see it wrested back for the glory of Spain. But I know he's lying, it's his unfortunate affliction, for he's French, after all, and all Frenchmen are liars born, it comes with the milk of their mothers . . . into which I piss. Speaking of which . . ."
Don Guillermo arose, walked over to the commode, took out the pot, undid his flies and relieved himself, then pulled one of the ropes to summon a slave. He had already reseated himself when a silent, barefoot Indian shuffled in, picked up the pot, and shuffled silently out, never lifting his eyes or even indicating that he felt the flies crawling and feeding on the suppurating weals that crisscrossed his scarred back.
"As to exactly how your fortaleza came to grief, Abdullah, I think I can reconstruct what must have happened on the bases of your reports and those of Dons Felipe and Eshmael, the sergeant and the squires. I would imagine that your powder house was set off by one of your own Creeks, or rather by one of those who had deserted Don Felipe's raiding force and gone over to the French. You know how difficult it is to tell one of those savages from another, usually. So this one most likely just trotted downriver until he was opposite the island, swam the river branch there, and strolled into the fortaleza as calmly as you please. Those greasy bucks all have solid brass cojones, you have to give them that much."
"Don Felipe, Don Eshmael, their squires, and one of yours, Yusuf, all told me roughly the same things about the devices that smashed in your stockade. Based on their descriptions and drawings, I can tell you exactly what they were. In siegework they are called testudos or tortugas—wooden frames, sometimes wheeled, and hung all over with armoring of some kind, used to protect rams or mines and their crews from defenders atop walls. Usually, they are lifted and borne into position by men, but powerful as these seem to have been, they likely had horses or mules under them as a motive force; they seemed to move too fast for oxen to have been used. Apparently, they were rafted downriver and sent against the unmanned stockade wall at just the proper moment, so it is clear that we are herein dealing with a military mind of vast experience, a tactician and strategist of near genius, and a man with splendid control of his troops."
"These tortugas are, so attests Don Eshmael, protected with iron or steel plate, and he seemed vastly impressed that big caliver balls had no effect on it, but then he is still a young man and never has fought armies armed with anything more sophisticated than bow and arrow or darts. Right many a fine-quality breastplate or helm will turn a caliver ball, as you and I know full well, Abdullah, though God be thanked there's heretofore been no need to wear such world-heavy stuff here."
"As for Don Eshmael's and his squire's report of some fantastical and fast-firing weapon that would kill entire gun crews . . . well, he admits that what with the darkness and the smoke and confusion, no one could see very well, so scant wonder he and his squire are most bewildered. Most probably, that tortuga he saw mounted one or more breech-loading sling-pieces or portingals or perhaps even one of those antique Italian volleyguns—you know, Abdullah, the ones that had a dozen or two barrels circling a central core and fired them all from a single priming? Any of those three weapons at such range would've been easily capable of taking out a gun crew."
"And speaking of gun crews, the ones working those on the two tortugas must've been highly skilled veterans with a huge number of preloaded breech pieces for them to've done as much deadly damage as Don Eshmael and the rest attest they did within so short a time. We must all of us be sure to remember when we go up there to root them out that we are facing men who know their guns and how best to emplace and employ them; if we expect to come back with any meaningful numbers of troops left, we had best make certain that we bombard them and their fort and their guns into rubble before we try any kind of assault."
Slowly, gingerly, his face alone showing his pain, Don Abdullah shifted himself slightly on the bed, then said, "I can but hope that I am sufficiently recovered to take part in this reconquest, comrade."
Don Guillermo sighed. "You know well of my ever-constant regard for you, Abdullah, but I cannot but hope that it all is over and done by the time your legs again will bear your weight. I feel most strongly that every day that we wait will be another day in which the French and their Shawnees can further fortify and strengthen that position, bring in more and—may God forbid—bigger guns to use against us when come we finally do."
"But Guillermo," asked Don Abdullah, "what of those things, the silvery things that can fly and explode kegs of powder in boats? If they send those against even ships or gun barges, then our plans for a reconquest are doomed before we start. What can they be?"
Don Guillermo shrugged and shook his head. "I really have no idea exactly what they could be, my friend, but then I am but a simple knight, a soldier, and that's all I ever have aspired to be. However, I do know that for centuries, the Church has generously supported priests and monks to do nothing save dream up and then fabricate novel things. Likely this new thing is one of them, and with all the strife and conflict afflicting Rome just now, the larcenous French king has gotten his hands upon it and is making more of them to b
ecome a pest upon his foes. Perhaps it is being tested here before it is set against his European enemies there."
Had the harassed French king only known of such devices as the carriers, he would have moved heaven and earth in order to get them or anything else that might have helped ameliorate his deadly dilemma. When the Holy Roman Emperor had called for all his vassals and begun to hire on mercenaries to form the vast army he meant to lead into Italy and set matters aright, the French king had begun to make plans to seize, in Emperor Egon's planned absence, certain choice and long-contested border lands and smaller, weaker client states of the empire. It had been then that the ruthless emperor had done that which he long had threatened but which no western monarch had thought heretofore that any civilized ruler ever really would do. He had treated with the pagan Kalmyks and their unsavory ilk of fur-clad barbarians, all squatting and stinking in their filth and fleas just beyond the empire's eastern marks. He had gaped wide his own borders and had had thousands of the fierce Kalmyk horsemen guided through his own lands into the eastern marches of France, wherein they now were riding at large, looting, killing, raping, burning, annihilating small or weak or poorly led and armed bodies of troops, easily and skillfully avoiding larger and stronger ones. Vast herds of lifted livestock and pack trains of loot and captive women and children even now were being driven across the intervening empire lands back to the Kalmyk plains to be lost forever.
Having thrown such troops as were quickly available into the eastern marks as a frantic stopgap measure, the king was hurriedly assembling all his barons and their forces for a do-or-die campaign against the pagan savages, but his vassals were not responding with anything approaching the alacrity that the situation demanded. And meanwhile, the slant-eyed Khans were waxing richer and sending more and more vicious, merciless horse archers on their ugly, big-headed and shaggy little horses into France.