A Woman of the Horseclans

by Robert Adams

  Following this debacle. Elder Claxton had sent out men bearing messages both to the original Abode, far to the east, and to some of the second-generation Abodes. The messages told of the raids and of the losses they had engendered in human life, stock and supplies.

  “I ask not for charity,” his messages ended, for such is not either needed or desired. This land is good: if it be Gods Holy Will, our losses will be replaced of our own efforts. What I do ask of you, my brothers, is young men, for them are many new widows here, as well as girls of marriageable age, while most of the surviving, sound men are either of middle years or not yet mature. Seed grains would, of course, be appreciated if they can be spared, weapons, tools, scrap metals and a wagon or two, if you see fit. Our only remaining cattle are three cows and two heifers; not one single span of draft oxen remains, nor have we a bull. So, send me what God impels you to send along with the young men, but please send the young men — as many as twoscore, total. Are they godly men, untainted by Sin, they will have good lives here on this land.”

  So now twenty-two men, ranging in age between sixteen and twenty-seven, were forking horses and mules roundabout the two big wagons and the four spans of oxen that drew each. A young bull, just come into breeding age, plodded on a strong chain tether behind one wagon, occasionally exchanging bawls and lows with the eight cows and heifers being herded along at the rear with the aid of three cow dogs.

  For all that the men gave the outward appearance of obeying the man the Elders had designated the leader — dour, ever-serious Enos Penwalt. a twenty-seven-year-old widower whose four children had died the year before from having apparently included the leaves of Dead Men’s Bells in a salad they had prepared and eaten — the real leaders of the score of volunteers were Joel and Jonathan Dunlap, and everyone save Enos Penwalt knew that fact.

  Enos was a godly man in every nuance of the word. Prayer was on his lips at waking, on beginning or doing or ending his every act during the workday, at the start and finish of each meal, and before composing himself for sleep of nights. Everyone knew that he would someday become a Patriarch. At the same time, no man liked him, for his brand of holiness was of a sort to put the teeth of the more ordinary man edge to edge.

  Joel and Jonathan, on the other hand, would never be considered as candidates for Patriarchs, nor would either of them have craved that office. The whipping post was an old acquaintance of both, as were the stocks; they had been preached at and prayed over in public so often that they had lost count, long since. They had been in trouble from their first toddling steps, and, no matter their distinguished lineage (they were nephews of the Elder of their natal Abode), the Patriarchs were delighted to be shut of the terrible twins and, indeed, would probably have conspired to send them away by force had they not conveniently volunteered.

  Coming as he did from the original Abode of the Righteous, Enos did not of course know the unsavory, distinctly ungodly reputation of the tall, strapping, red-haired and bright-eyed young men, and so brusque was his manner that no one bothered to enlighten him on the subject.

  Jo and Jon — their names for themselves — had always been as alike as two peas in a pod and had always taken full advantage of the fact that usually their own parents and siblings could not tell the one from the other. Moreover, both born leaders, they had quickly become the focal point of the anti-establishment young men of their Abode . . . most of whom had also volunteered, and were every bit as rebellious toward their present appointed leader as they had been toward those who had appointed him to rule over them.

  This rebellious faction constituted more than half of the party — twelve, out of twenty-two — and the remainder were not in any way organized to deal with them, coming as they did from no less than three Abodes and therefore not knowing much about each other.

  Enos’ authority drew its strength from the authority of the Elder and the Patriarchs who had appointed him, but these were authority figures who now were far behind and getting farther in the distance and the past with every turn of the wagon wheels, every plod of the oxes’ hooves. What now was there to fear from the ranting old graybeards? No whip they owned could reach this far.

  Had Enos been at least companionable or amiable, even bent enough to show himself to be possessed of bare human warmth. he might have stood to retain the status conferred upon him, at least among the older, steadier men of the party. But Enos had never been an outgoing person, had had precious few close human contacts in his natal Abode and had no one to speak in his support when things came to a head in the volunteer group.

  Abode-born and -reared to a man, all twenty-one of the other volunteers were keenly aware of the many facets of public piety, and so a communal prayer led by one of their number before and after meals and work had always been an accepted part of life; but these prayers had always been short. Not so with the prayers of Enos Penwalt, however. It mattered not to him that his time-consuming ramblings might be delaying things better done quickly. To him, there was not and could never be anything so important as a good, full-length, all-inclusive prayer. (And he felt that those back at his natal Abode who averred that his children might not have died had he fetched help immediately instead of praying over them until dawn would likely do with praying over themselves!)

  In addition to regularly scheduled prayer times, Enos had a maddening habit of suddenly beginning to pray aloud at the top of his squeaky voice at any time of the day or the night, and he seemed at these times to expect every man to drop whatever he might be doing and drop to his knees on the ground until Enos finally wound down. Jo and Jon Dunlap took to calling the outbursts “prayer fits” and soon most of the other men did too — either aloud or under their breaths.

  Although good, well-trained draft oxen are much stronger and more docile than are draft horses or mules, they are much more difficult to shoe properly, especially under the makeshift conditions of a small party on the move.

  Of a morning, during yoking, it was discovered that the nearside pointer ox of the first wagon had cast the shoe from the inner claw of his off hind foot. To use him the remainder of the journey without that shoe could end in crippling him. The shoe must be replaced, but although there were abundant spare shoes for the horses and mules in the loads on the wagons, someone back at the Abode had forgotten to include any of the quite different ox shoes.

  At this disclosure, Enos fell on his knees and began to pray . . . loudly and with fervor. But Jo pulled out and began to set up the odds and ends of farrier equipment with which they had been provided, while Jon raked through the metal scrap and old tools; both had spent fairish amounts of time around the Abode smithy and now were willing to undertake the task of helping God to help them out of the present predicament.

  Fortunately, one of the cookfires had not been extinguished. Jo lugged the old anvil, then the tools over to the side of that fire, waved over a brace of his cronies to pile warm charcoal from the smothered fire atop the burning one, then to man the small portable bellows, Enos prayed on.

  Meanwhile, Jon had found an implement — a broken hoe — with enough Sound metal remaining to be easily refashioned into a fair approximation of the needed ox shoe. Jo examined his brother’s find critically, then nodded once and thrust it into the center of the fire, motioning to the two men to start pumping on the bellows.

  Turning to the knot of other men, he said, “You boys want to move out anytime soon, spread out in the woods yonder, and find and break down and bring me back all the squawwood you can. Green wood ain’t gonna burn nowheres near hot enough for this here job to be done soon.”

  Still kneeling on the dew-soggy ground. Enos prayed on. Jo Dunlap’s hound wandered by, sniffed at the kneeling man’s thigh, then lifted leg and rendered a hot, pungent opinion. Enos did not stop or even hesitate; he seemed to not be aware of his canine baptism.

  But most of the other men still in camp were. The majority — the rebellious faction — were nearly rolling on the ground in an excess of unholy glee. E
ven a few of the minority were seen to briefly smile and one was heard to chuckle.

  “And once again, O Lord God of Israel, Your faithful servant Enos Dunlap beseeches . . . CLAAANNGG!

  Clang! CLANG. CLANG, CLANG! clangclangclangclangclang. CLAANNGG!

  Jo had begun to rough-shape the iron hoe, aware that could he but establish the proper rhythm, the metal could be redone cold; and he harbored serious doubts that the men in the woods would be able to find enough dry wood to make a real difference. Wood of any sort was not what was really needed. anyway; Jo needed good blue coal or at least hardwood charcoal.

  As for Enos, he gave up trying to outshout the metallic clangor finally, and just prayed on to himself, his thin lips moving, but no sound issuing from them.

  When he at last had a rough shoe ready for preliminary fitting, Jo had his twin and several other men tie the ox with his head between the front and rear wheels of a wagon. The ox liked not one bit of it and bawled loudly, over and over again.

  This last was just too much for Enos. He arose and stamped over to the well-occupied knot of men, his cadaverous face working in frustration.

  “All of you, do you hear me? Stop that noise. Stop doing anything and fall to your knees while I pray God for deliverance. Put down that . . . ahhAAARRRGGGHH!”

  Jon ever after claimed it to have happened by the purest mischance. He and another man, each holding one end of a pole, had placed it forward of the hock and used it to lift the lower leg of the bound ox clear of the ground so that Jo could easily get at it for the first fitting. When Enos Penwalt shouted that everyone should drop everything, he simply let go his end of the pole . . . which then landed with the full weight of the ox’s leg propelling it squarely across Enos’ broganed foot.

  For once, Enos did not pray. The tall, spare man rather rolled on the ground, clutching at his foot and squalling his agony almost loudly enough to drown out the bawlings of the ox.

  Within another couple of hours, Jo and his sweating, cursing scratch force had gotten the barely tractable bovine shod. Within that same amount of time, Enos Penwalt’s foot had become terribly discolored and immensely swollen, and the twins had discussed camping in place until the swelling had subsided sufficiently for Enos to at least get his shoe back on, but on being convinced by a couple of the older volunteers that there existed considerably more than a possibility that one or more of the bones in Enos’ foot were broken, the brothers decided that the sooner a real doctor saw the suffering man, the better.

  By rearranging wagonloads, by utilizing some of the led stock as pack animals, a space was made to convey the injured man on a bed of blankets and conifer tips laid on the floorboards of one of the wagons. The track they followed was but infrequently used, rough at the best and overgrown in more places than not; moreover the wagon was utterly springless, built for strength and wearability, not comfort, but it was the best type of transport they knew how to provide.

  “Ever time them wheels turn, it’s gonna hurt Enos like blue blazes,” Jon opined.

  Jo just shrugged. “At least it’ll give him suthin’ to pray for, brother. And that alone oughta make him happy.”

  * * *

  The dog-tribe had not one but rather three chiefs, each the theoretical equal of the others, although the eldest — a short, stocky man of middle years — seemed to do most of the talking for them and the tribe. Clad in gaudy finery, they rode in to meet with Chiefs Morai, Krooguh and Skaht at a meeting ground laid out well away from the clans camp.

  For all that few weapons were in evidence to the casual glance, everyone well knew that everyone else was heavily armed, and, consequently, nerves were strung bowstring-tight, while ultimate courtesy was become the order of the day; for everyone there also knew that as often as similar meetings had resulted in friendship and alliance between Kindred and non-Kindred, they had just as often resulted in pitched battles.

  The agreement had stipulated that each chief might bring to the meeting, itself, no more than two advisers, although up to a score of his warriors might await him beyond the confines of the meetingplace. So eighteen nomads sat in the council circle deciding their mutual future, while some sixscore warriors squatted near their horses all around the perimeter. caressing their weapons and eying their counterparts warily, alert for any slightest hint of treachery.

  Morai had brought along one warrior each from Skaht and from Krooguh as advisers. Skaht had his brother and another subchief, and Krooguh had with him Djahn and Tim Staiklee of Krooguh.

  But all fears of imminent carnage were laid to rest when the dog-tribe spokesman — Kehvin Burk — arose and spoke his mind. “We are from the north, have always been, and the only reason we moved south this spring was in hopes of finding tribes of you cat-people to help us . . . help yourselves, too, for that matter. Problem is these damned farmers. They’re moving farther and farther out into the prairies, killing off, all the game, burning off the grasses and plowing up the land. You may not have seen too many of the buggers down south, here, but up north, they’re becoming thick as flies on a fresh-skinned carcass . . . and, mark my words, your turn will come, and maybe one hell of a lot sooner than you think. These farmers hate and fear all of us herding people, be we cat-people or dog-people, and no mistaking; so it’s a pure case of either we hang together now or we hang separate and high, later, but not too much later.

  “Now, I’ve said what I came to say. Let’s hear from one of you cat-folk chiefs, say I.”

  Wearing a broad, very friendly smile, Chief Milo of Morai arose. “Chief Kehvin, you echo my very own sentiments with regard to these abominable Dirtmen, these farmers, these foul despoilers of the prairies and plains . . .”

  The conclave went on for all of that day and well into the night, then for several days and nights after. Before it was done, it had been joined by the chiefs of two more Kindred clans — Makaiuh and Fahrmuh — and a firm, mutually agreed-upon decision had been reached.

  Milo Morai, Claim Skaht and Fahrmuh would join forces with the dog-tribe and return with them to the north to deal with the Dirtmen there, to try to persuade the agriculturalists that their attempted westward expansions were unhealthy if not downright fatal.

  Meanwhile, Clan Makaiuh, the chief of which had not been excessively keen on trekking north this spring anyway, would move back southeast with Clan Krooguh to explore the possibilities of hunting and raiding in that sector.

  Once the decisions were made, they were quickly enacted, for the large numbers of stock had all but exhausted the easily available graze. Within days, the clans were on the move.

  Chapter XII

  The spring became summer and that summer became autumn, then winter came once more and Wind sent blizzards howling down from the far north to slay men and women, children and babes, horses and cattle, sheep and goats.

  But in the orderly, inevitable progression of the seasons, even the coldest and deadliest of winters at long last became spring again, with rushing streams of snowmelt temporarily turning portions of the prairie into one, vast sogginess before the thirsty roots of the billions of grasses sucked up the moisture and the land was once more covered from horizon to limitless horizon in an endless clothing of shades of rippling green.

  And as season followed season, relentlessly so did year follow year on the prairie as on all of the earth.

  The Horseclans roamed the prairies and the high plains, setting up their yurts or tents near to spring or creek or river only for the length of time it took the horses and stock to exhaust the nearby graze and their hunters — human and feline — the game and wild plants that made up much of their normal sustenance. Then the clans would pack up and move on. To north or to south, to east or to west, they moved, wherever the graze and the hunting and, sometimes, the raiding seemed best.

  The life was in no way idyllic, far from it, in fact. Folk died in every season and in a multitude of ways, some of them exceedingly painful and protracted. The weak — very young or aged or injured from whateve
r cause — quickly succumbed to diseases, and there had been occasions when these diseases had extirpated all or most of entire clans of supposedly healthy folk, especially in winter camps, when the clanspeople were perforce packed tooth to jowl and contagions spread with terrifying rapidity.

  Spring floodings and the unexpected quagmires drowned folk and stock, while summer brought flashfloods from the terrible storms and, even more fearsome, the lightning-spawned prairie fires which often swept on unchecked for countless miles, consuming all in their paths.

  Raiding and warfare claimed lives and caused wounds, but not nearly so many of either as were brought about by the usual mundane occupations of herding and hunting. The stock of the nomad herds were nowhere near as docile, most of them, as were those of the Dirtmen; they had horns and hooves and the strength and will to use both to deadly advantage when angered or frightened.

  Hunting injuries and deaths were second most commonplace, killing or maiming both horses and men and, more rarely, the great prairiecats, Due to the universal Horseclansfolk craving for snakemeat, cases of snakebite were fairly common, though few died of it. The majority of hunting casualties were sustained during mounted chases at high speeds over rough ground and resulted from rider or horse and rider falling.

  The most dangerous game beasts were plains grizzlies, lions, shaggy-bulls, wild swine and the rare but much-feared monster predator of the far-northern plains called a “blackfoot” by the nomads.

  Of this most dangerous list, only wild swine were hunted with any regularity, and then only if there were no Dirtmen nearby who could be raided for domestic swine. Like the wolves and other predators of the plains and prairies, Horseclansfolk left the bears and the lions alone if those beasts, in turn, left them and their stock alone; for these huge carnivores were possessed of formidable strength and always died hard; arrows alone seldom sufficed to deal them death, and going in to finish one at close range with a spear was not an undertaking designed or intended for the inexperienced, the weak of body or the fainthearted.