by David Drake
"Ye know, Ellie," Bully Ransden continued, still astraddle the center of the path, "his own balls, they wuz shot off by the Redcoats at New Or-leens."
"Did your mother tell you that, Cullen Ransden?" Old Nathan said softly. His skin formed layers, hot and prickly on the outside while the inner surface froze against his flesh as hard as the ice on which Satan shivered in Hell. "And did she tell ye besides how thet came t' be her business?"
The younger man could have been blasted by a thunderbolt without the hair prickling up more sharply on his head and arms. He struck with the suddenness of reflex and the skill of long years' practice with the blacksnake whip in his hand.
It was a measure of what lay at Ransden's core that the target his instinct chose was the ton of muscle that was Spanish King rather than the sparse old man who looked unable to stand the very wind of a blow.
The whip, long enough to drive a team of four span, curled out and around Old Nathan as if it were really the snake its braided leather mimicked. Ransden could flick a fly from an oxen's ear without touching the beast itself, but this time he aimed to cut. The crackling end of the whip touched Spanish King at the base of the tail, where the hair gave way to the bare skin of the bull's anus.
Rather than bolting like a startled cow or an ox broken to the whip and yoke, Spanish King reacted as a predator might have. The bull spun, questing for the presumed horsefly with a clop of his square incisors. Old Nathan ducked and lurched sideways to avoid the bull's sweeping horns. The four-inch hickory hitching post that Spanish King swatted in the other direction with his haunches broke off even with the ground and clubbed Ellie on its way to thudding against the cabin's log forewall.
King danced back, hooves splaying, as his eyes searched for the horsefly which had escaped him at the first attempt. "When I find her!" the bull bellowed, referring to the horsefly. "When I find her!" His tail lashed. Blood welling from the whip-cut began to dribble along the appendage in dark red streaks.
As the old man and the woman sprawled, Bully Ransden dropped his whip. He lunged for the porch but had to back hastily away as Spanish King stepped between, tossing his head over either of his shoulders in turn.
The cunning man took a pinch of dust between his right thumb and forefinger as he lay on his opposite hand and hip. "Ransden!" he called.
* * *
The younger man glanced instinctively toward his name. Old Nathan blew the dust at his face, though at four yards distance none could actually have reached the Bully. He sprang back anyway and fell, clutching his eyes and shouting, "I'm blind, damn ye!"
The cunning man scrambled to his feet, sweeping up the hat he had dropped in dodging. His bull was pacing smartly down the road, striding at a rate half again that of his normal walk. He kept switching his tail and looking behind him, searching for the horsefly he was still convinced had stabbed him.
Old Nathan followed the bull at a rate just enough short of a trot to save his dignity. Ransden was up on his feet, thrusting his arms out before him as he stumbled in the direction of his cabin.
"Ellie?" he called, his voice rising in fear on the second syllable. He would regain his sight within minutes, perhaps less, but all he could know for the moment was that his eyes felt as if they had been plucked out and their sockets filled with sand.
Ransden's black-haired woman was gripping the doorjamb with one hand to help pull herself upright, while the other hand clamped against her side where the hickory post had struck. Under other circumstances, Old Nathan might have helped her—but under other circumstances, King wouldn't have bolted, and the cunning man had no wish to be present when Bully Ransden found he could see again.
For that matter, there were men not so touchy as the Bully who would sooner see their woman die than watch another man lay hands on her. The couple would do well enough without the cunning man's ministrations, and Old Nathan himself would do far better by getting out of the way.
The road curved, skirting the base of the hill which Ransden had been plowing, so by the time Old Nathan caught up with his bull they were out of sight of the cabin. A creek, nameless and at present shallow, notched the road and Spanish King stood there fetlock-deep in the water, drinking. He ignored the cunning man's approach.
There was no ford proper, since the stream could be stepped across at any point save when it was in spate—and then it became uncrossable for its full length. The steep banks were a barrier to most beasts and all vehicles, so here, where the road crossed, they had been trampled down by use with little intention toward the road's long-term improvement.
Rather than squelch through the mud into which the main path had been churned, Old Nathan gripped the stem of one of the mimosas which grew as thick as a man's arm. He lowered himself cautiously down the bank to the smooth-washed stones of the streambed. Only then did King look up at him and grunt, "Well?" from lips that still slobbered the water he had been drinking.
There was neither anger nor skittishness in the bull's tone. He had forgotten the whip-cut or filed it at the almost instinctual level which warned that horseflies bit like coals from the floor of Hell.
Bully Ransden would likely be less forgetful about the incident, but not even hindsight offered the cunning man a view of a more desirable resolution. Ransden could be a bad enemy, if he chose; but so could Old Nathan, the Devil's Master. Perhaps the boy would let bygones be bygones.
"Come on, thin, big feller," said the cunning man, embracing the bull's humped shoulders before readjusting the slung panniers holding a day's food for both of them. "Savin' ye'd rather go back home thin go on with all this?"
"Humph!" Spanish King snorted. He gathered himself and sprang lightfootedly out of the stream, his forehooves planted solidly on the bank top and his hind legs crossing them neatly in the same motion, like the feet of a horse at a gallop. "I'll fight that one. Sure as the sun rises."
And he bellowed a challenge that silenced for a fearful moment the birds whose chattering made the woods a living place.
* * *
"I misdoubted you," said John Boardman. His saddle blanket was folded as a pad at the base of an oak tree, but he had been pacing restively for some time before King and Old Nathan appeared around the bend in the road. "It's late in the day, and I thought ye might not come."
"Said I would," Old Nathan replied, wrinkling his nose in disgust at a man who was surprised when another man kept his word. "Long about evenin', I said." He waggled his beard toward the west, where the sun would have been visible near the horizon were it not for the forest that stretched in all directions from the winding road.
"Well, I thought—" temporized Boardman as he tried to find some useful way to continue the sentence. One of his hands held the heavy saddlebag he had carried even as he paced alone on the road. His free hand played with the butt of the six-barreled pistol thrust between his belt and waistband instead of loose in his pocket. His gelding tugged its reins to browse more leaves from the sapling to which it was tethered.
"Well, I brought the money," Boardman began again, hefting the leather bag, "but you'll not have it till ye've done as ye claim. Laid the curse."
Old Nathan snorted. He and Spanish King had continued to saunter forward as the men talked. The bull's cleft hooves spread under his weight at every step, and he placed them with greater care than would a horse shod against the stones which rain and traffic had brought to the surface of the narrow road. Despite his size, King's step was so quiet that his approach had gone unremarked by Boardman who had been awaiting it desperately.
"Oh, I guess ye'll pay for the work I do ye," the cunning man said. He paused, his arm across the back of Spanish King whose tail-tip flicked like a pendulum. "I don't guess yer sech a fool as ye'd face the powers I'd bring onto yer head ifen ye played me false."
That was more bluster than not. Mere money was unlikely to be worth the trouble it would take to bring a major sending onto a man as well protected as the wealth and servants of Boardman's father made the boy. Nonet
heless, the threat was useful . . . and not wholly empty. Old Nathan flew hot frequently, and the anger puffed away like flame from thistledown. But he was capable of cold rages also; and they, like glaciers, ground inexorably to a conclusion.
"Well," said Boardman, "I'll take ye into the valley."
He began to resaddle the gelding. It was a comment on his focus and nervousness that he tried to spread the saddle blanket with one hand for some moments before he thought to set down the satchel with the money. Old Nathan waited, his strong, knobby fingers massaging the bull's hide while Spanish King rumbled in pleasure and anticipation.
* * *
The track to Big Bone Valley meandered a quarter mile from the public road, through forest which had remained unaffected by white settlement of the region. Custom and Boardman's deed both gave him the right to lay out a fifteen-foot cartway through the intervening land, the waterless side of a tilted rockshelf. Instead, someone—perhaps Bully Ransden—had hacked down so straight a path through the sparse undergrowth that Old Nathan only with difficulty could walk abreast of his bull.
The work of clearing the newground had not been skimped, however.
The track debouched on the valley head and a scene of devastation which suggested natural disaster rather than human agency. There was still a tang of smoke in the air, though the fires that devoured the piled cuttings had been cold a month. Rain had beaten down the ashes and carved long gouges through the red clay beneath. Though the spring-fed stream in the valley's heart had cleared, the moss and crevices of its bed were stained by heavier particles of clay that would not wash away until another storm renewed them.
Ransden and his oxen had dragged the tree boles together at the far end of the valley, but the stumps would remain until rot and termites dissolved their roots enough that a team could tug them free. There was no evident reason the shallow valley should not have been plowed despite the stumps, but the one straggling attempt at a furrow was shorter than the rain-cut gulleys it intersected.
The sun was by now beneath the horizon and the sky, though bright, cast a diffuse illumination which softened the scene. Nonetheless, the valley's starkness was so evident that John Boardman muttered, "Sally Ann would have this and not forty acres uv bottom as good as any land in the county. And we'd hev lived at the homeplace till our first crop was in the store, besides."
The cunning man looked at the boy who had hired him and said, "Sally Ann Hewitt may be able t' carve ye into a man yit, but I don't know I think much of what yer daddy's left her t' work with."
"He ain't here, now," said Spanish King, striding deliberately down the slope with his nose high and his tail vertical. "But he's been here, yes, he's been here."
"I said I didn't like this place!" interjected the gelding on a note that rose close to panic. The horse curvetted with a violence which took his rider unaware.
"Virgil!" cried Boardman, glad enough for an excuse to ignore the insult he had just received. He sawed the gelding's reins and pounded his boot heel into the outer flank of the rotating horse. "Virgil, I'll flay the hide offen ye!"
"Steady, ye fool horse," Old Nathan put in, understood but just as likely as Boardman to be ignored. With animals as with humans, being heard was a far cry from being listened to. "Settle yerself and ye'll be out uv here in no time, seein's it flusters ye so much."
For whatever reason, the gelding calmed enough for Boardman to dismount and lash his reins to a deadfall too heavy for the horse to drag. Panting with exertion, the young man followed Old Nathan on foot as the cunning man walked slowly into the newground. The shadows thrown eastward by the taller stumps were beginning to merge and drain the color from the soil.
Old Nathan tapped a stump with his toe-tip when Boardman had caught up with him. "Eight inches," he said. "Not so very big fer a pine. This track's been cut over before, thin?"
"Vance Satterfield held it all on a Spanish patent," the younger man said, holding his arms tight and crossed on his chest as if he feared something would poke him in the ribs. Down near the creek, Spanish King's black hide was almost lost in the gathering darkness. The bull's white horns danced like fairy wands, tossing and sweeping through the empty air while the beast explored the newground.
"Could be," the younger man continued with a shudder at something in his imagination, "that Satterfield er kin t' him cleared the valley forty years back er so. Reckon somebody found bones, thet they give it the name they did."
"Reckon they didn't settle long neither, thin," said the cunning man grimly.
Though to look at, it was a tolerable tract or even better. Well watered, and though the valley was aligned east and west, it was shallow enough that the north slope would get enough sun to bring corn to fruition.
"Hit's good land," Boardman said with a frustrated whine in his voice. "It must be there's an Injun curse on it." His tone became one of potentous certainty. "I reckon that's hit, all right. Injuns."
Spanish King was trotting up toward the two men. His hooves clopped like splitting mauls when they struck on stumps or unburnt timber.
"Stick to yer own affairs, boy," Old Nathan gibed. "That is, effen ye hev sich. There's no curse onto this valley, not Injun nor white neither."
"You say that now thet the sun's down," responded Boardman without, for a wonder, either bluster or whimpering. "Come back by daylight'n tell me then there's no curse on my newground."
"I'll tear 'im up!" bellowed Spanish King, making the younger man jump. "I'll gore and I'll stomp 'im!"
"Tain't a curse, fer all thet," the cunning man explained. "This track, this's been forest fer a long time. Onct, though, it wuz in grass. When ye cut the timber off 'n sun got t' the ground agin, ye brought back somethin' as wuz here aforetimes."
Old Nathan hacked and spat into the darkness before he concluded, "Hain't a curse yer lookin at, John Boardman. Hit's a ghost. And we figger t' stay here till we lays it, King 'n me."
"Tear 'im and toss 'im and gouge 'im t' tatters!" rumbled the black bull, and the night trembled.
* * *
The shadows thrown down the valley by the morning sun were sharper than those of evening, and the unshadowed clay was red as blood.
Old Nathan stood slowly and faced the sun. His shirt bosom and his hat were wet with dew, but the night had not chilled him because he had slept against the flank of Spanish King. His joints ached, but that was as much a fact of life in his own cabin as here on Boardman's newground.
King snorted to his feet, hunching his downside—right-side—legs before he rolled left and stood. The whole maneuver was as smooth and as complex as the workings of a fine clock. He looked toward the dawn sky and said, flicking his ears, "Well, shan't be long."
Turning, the black bull stepped toward the nearby creek, carrying his head high. He seemed disinterested in the sparse browse, even though he had finished the grain from his panniers.
A mockingbird flew past on the left. Spanish King drowned its cries with a challenge to the world.
"Hit ain't here," said Old Nathan, placing a hand on the bull's rib cage so that the distracted animal did not turn suddenly and crush him by accident.
"He'll come to me," rumbled Spanish King. "Er I'll go t' him. Hit makes no nevermind." He stepped deliberately into the creek and lowered his head to drink.
"There's blood in the water," said the cunning man, feeling his soul freeze within him.
"No, hit's the red sun," replied Spanish King, but his muzzle paused a hand's breadth from the surface. His tongue sucked back within his lips without touching the water.
"Runnin' with blood," said the cunning man, aware of his words as he would have been aware of words spoken by another whom he could not control. "Heart's-blood pourin' out like spring water."
"There's blood red clay in this stream," said the bull. "That's what you're seein'." But he backed out of the creek, two short steps and a hop that brought his shoulder even with Old Nathan as the man stood transfixed beside him.
Another bu
ll bellowed from the foot of the valley, where the sun would just be touching the spring that fed the creek through a fissure in the limestone.
"Well," said Spanish King quietly, and then he bawled back, "There's none my like on this earth!"
The black bull began to stride along the stream, his broadly spreading horns winking with the ruddy light of dawn.
* * *
The waste that was Boardman's newground was three furlongs in length, valley head to valley foot. Old Nathan, tramping beside King, could see the other bull before they had covered a quarter of that distance. It was the piebald brute he had scryed in the plate of water, pacing toward them as they approached him.
"Big 'un," muttered Spanish King. "Well, we'll show 'im."
"Run, little one!" roared the strange bull. "I've crushed your like into the stone beneath this clay!"
The piebald bull was a match in size for King, but they were not twins. The stranger was higher at the shoulder than the black bull, and the difference was in the length of his legs as well as his pronounced hump. His horns thrust forward where King's spread widely, and they were as black and wicked as the creature's eyes.
"Well, reckon I kin take 'im," Spanish King murmured.
He paused a hundred feet short of the piebald stranger and lashed his tail vertical, then down again as sharply as a railroad semaphore. "You walk on my earth!" bellowed Spanish King, and he launched himself toward his rival at a trot that snatched him away from the supportive touch of Old Nathan.
The stranger's roar and the hammer of his hooves shook the sunstruck clay. The bulls met head to head, with no more finesse than icebergs grinding together in the swell of Ocean. Both of them recoiled onto their haunches, the thud of their foreheads overlaid by the sharper clack of the horns striking against one another.
The piebald bull, the aurochs, bellowed with the wild fury of which the Biblical prophets had spoken. He shook himself and got his hindquarters solidly beneath him again by pivoting to his left around his firmly planted forelegs. He snorted angrily, tossed his head, and lunged again at his rival.