Horses of the North

by Robert Adams

  Milo was down to his seventh magazine when he saw, then belatedly heard the first grenade explosion within the enemy position, at which point he ceased firing, lest he accidentally make a casualty of one of his own men. Slinging the BAR, he slid down the bank to the roadway and was there to greet the two makeshift squads as they came back to their starting point.

  When Chamberlin saw Milo, his eyes boggled and he almost dropped the pair of fine Zeiss binoculars he had stripped from off the incomplete body of the now-dead Gefreite.

  "Gawdalmightydamn!" Gardner exclaimed, letting the holstered broomstick Mauser that had been the MG-gunner's sidearm dangle in the dust. "Sarge . . . uhh, Lootenunt, we thought you's daid, fer shure. I know damn well that bullet hit you—I could see the fuckin' dust fly up outen your fuckin' field-shirt. So why the fuck ain't you daid, huh?"

  Milo had no real answer for Gardner's question, not then, and not now, almost a century after the end of that war. Knowing that he must say something, however, he said that the bullet fired by the sniper had simply torn through his baggy shirt, leaving him unscathed—the first of many such lies he was to tell to explain the unexplainable, over the course of years—and he blamed the bloodstains on his necessary handling of Pettus' body when he took the BAR and magazine belt from off it. The men believed him, none of them able to think of any other explanation, especially when no wounds could be found anywhere on his body.

  Milo recalled that he had sustained at least two, maybe three, more dangerous wounds before the end of the war, more during the Korean thing, several more during his years in Vietnam and a couple after the U.S. Army retired him as overage, when he had gotten bored in retirement and became a mercenary. The wounds all had left scars, but these were faint, tiny, almost-invisible things, and he no longer could remember just where or when or how he had come by any particular one of them.

  As he packed away the precious notes of the departed doctor, he thought of how much, how very much, the man might have been able to explain to him of their shared affliction, if only he had known of it. He even thought of immediately mounting up and riding out in pursuit of Bookerman, but then he recalled just how many men, women, children and domestic animals now depended solely upon him, upon his leadership, for their continued survival, and knowing the thoroughness of the German, Milo did not think that he would leave an easy trail to follow. Running him to ground might well take weeks, months, if he could catch up to him at all in totally unfamiliar territory.

  If only Bookerman had spoken his suspicions months ago, even weeks or mere days ago, then told of his own, identical experiences, rather than imparting it all in a letter intended to be read after his departure.

  "Who was it," thought Milo Moray morosely, "who said that 'if only . . .' were the saddest words in any language?"

  Chapter XIII

  Arabella Lindsay's small freckled hand gently squeezed Milo's bigger, harder hand in sympathy as she beamed, "Oh, my poor Milo, you must have been so very disappointed. Perhaps, for your peace of mind, you should have ridden out after that man, no matter how long it took you to find him. But I, above all others, save maybe Father, can understand why you did not, why you felt that you could not; duty is an exceedingly hard taskmaster, I well know. But it is a shame, nonetheless, for a man or a woman should live around, near to, his or her kindred, not always alone among those different from him or her.

  "You never have found, never have come across others like yourself, then?"

  Milo sighed, then beamed, "No, although when I learned to use my own telepathy and to help to awaken that dormant trait in other men and women, I assiduously delved their minds in search of certain signs that Bookerman had noted in the margins of some of the pages of the books he had left me. I delved vainly, however; I never found any of the signs in the minds of those around me."

  "And mine, Milo?" Arabella questioned silently. "Have you delved my mind, too?"

  "Yes, my dear, it's become automatic with me. But you are human, just like all of the others, pure human."

  She smiled. "I am glad, Milo. I deeply sympathize with you, but even so I do not think I could bear the long, searching loneliness of being like you. I could not bear to watch while my little cousins and all of my onetime playmates grew up and grew old and finally died and I remained the never-changing same; I think that I should go mad rather quickly. That you have not done so, and that long ago, shows, I think, the immense strength of your character and mind and will. If anyone can end this deadly enmity between the prairie rovers and the people of the fort and the station, I think it must be you, and I cannot but agree with Father that God and God alone must have sent you to us in our time of greatest need."

  The identities of the MacEvedy Station farmers who had chosen to accompany the departing battalion for the nomadic, herding, hunter-gathering life offered by Milo Moray were no longer secret; they could not be, for with the invaluable aid of clan smiths and wainwrights, the farm wagons were being transformed, rebuilt into commodious carts like those of the nomads—with shorter bodies, higher wheels and stronger axles and running gear.

  In the cases of the soldier families, carts were having to be built from scratch, using seasoned wood stripped from some interior parts of the fort itself, and from the dismantling of frame outbuildings, the hardware being fashioned of steel from the mortar tubes and baseplates and from the ancient 75mm guns.

  When first it had become apparent that more ferrous metal would be needed were the battalion families' carts to be done properly and the colonel had ordered that the necessary steel be stripped from the last remaining intact source, the director and his son had come bursting into Ian's office at the fort, the elder MacEvedy white-faced with rage.

  "Now dammit, Ian Lindsay, have you completely lost your mind?" he had shouted. "A squad of your men and some three or four of those godless, heathen nomads are at this very minute dismantling one of the cannons, and they refused to stop it when I ordered them to desist, attesting that it was you who said they could. If you strip us of the two cannons, then how can those of us who still are sane put the fear of God into the plains rovers after you and the rest of those lunatics you lead are gone? The mortars are very short-ranged, and I have not yet figured out just how the catapults and spear-throwers are supposed to work."

  There was no longer any trace of either respect or friendship left in the officer's gaze or voice when he answered. "You'll no longer need worry yourself about the tension-torsion weapons, for they've been broken down for the timbers, rope and hardware, and the spear-throwers, too. The mortars have gone to the forges by now, and both of the cannons and their carriages are on the way. If it develops that we need more metal, the rifles will follow."

  Grant whimpered, but his father demanded in heat, "And just how are those farmers and their families you and your damned troops are deserting here supposed to defend themselves against the next pack of rovers who come along if you choose to selfishly destroy all of the real weapons?"

  Ian smiled coldly. "You no longer bother to keep abreast of what's happening in the station, do you, Emmett? There aren't going to be any people left in the station or the fort, with the exception of you, your son and Falconer and his family. Why, even your own daughter, the Widow Dundas, has asked if she might accompany us, and I have gladly welcomed her; she'll travel with Arabella and me until one of my officers gets around to marrying her."

  "But. . . but. . . but. . ." stammered Grant, looking to be on the verge of tears, "but without Clare in the house, who will . . . will cook for us and . . . and wash our clothes and make up our beds and dust and . . . and everything?"

  Lindsay snorted in disgust. "Why, Grant, you'll just have to start caring for yourselves . .. unless you can cozen Mrs. Falconer or her daughter into keeping you both in the style to which you have become accustomed."

  "But . . . but . . . but . . . Father and I are just too busy running the Station to ... to ... " sniffled Grant.

  "Why you .brainless, ball-les
s young ninny," snapped Lindsay. "Can't you understand plain English? There's not going to be any station to administer. All of the farmers are going with me and the nomads, everyone, excepting only you, your father and the Falconers."

  "But . . . but . . . but you . . . you can't, Godfather!" Grant sobbed, his tears beginning to come in floods. "Without you to ... to take care of us, without the farmers to grow food, without even . . . even Sister Clare to ... to cook and keep the dust out of the house, we'll. .. we'll all die! You . . . you just owe it to us to stay here and keep us all safe." He ceased to speak then, giving himself totally over to gasping, shuddering sobs of mindless terror.

  "My God, Emmett," rasped Lindsay, "for all your other faults, you are at least a man. How in the name of all that's holy did you and Martha Hamilton ever manage to produce a man-shaped thing like this? Get out of my office and out of the fort, and keep out of my affairs, both of you! I'm sick unto death of the sight and the sound of you!"

  On the next Sunday following that meeting, the few older people who had attended divine services arose and slowly filed out when the Reverend Gerald Falconer cleared his throat to commence his sermon. Their departures left only the station director, his son and Falconer's own family, less his eldest daughter, Megan, who had earlier in the week surreptitiously moved into the nomad camp and sent back a note declaring her intention of there remaining and of leaving with the battalion.

  What issued from Gerald Falconer's mouth during the next three-quarters of an hour was not a sermon. He ranted, he raved like a frothing lunatic on the disloyalties of parishioners, children and other relatives. He damned every prairie rover ever born or spawned, laying upon them the full blame for every ill that had afflicted the station in the last fifty years. At last, when he had worked part of the frustration and rage out of himself, he paused for a long moment to catch breath.

  Then he bespoke his wife. "You get out of here now, and take the children with you. Have my dinner ready in an hour. I needs must have words with Emmett here."

  For all that Jane Falconer had been Gerald's wife for over ten years, she still was a young woman—not yet twenty-six—and not even his years of browbeating had worn her down, any more than identical treatment had broken the spirit of his daughter by his deceased first wife. She and Megan had, indeed, thoroughly discussed in secluded whispers the girl's decision to quit the house of her overbearing father and seek a chance of happiness in the nomad camp. She had thought to remain with the husband whom so many had already deserted, not through any sense of love or duty, but because she had felt pity for him. But after today's diatribe, she now entertained serious doubts as to his mental and emotional balance and the wisdom of her and her tiny children's remaining in proximity to him.

  She did go home, but she remained only long enough to get together her clothing and that of her children, her Bible and a few especially treasured kitchen utensils. With everything packed in the garden wheelbarrow, her youngest child perched atop the load, she led the other two in the direction of the camp of the nomads.

  "It must be done in front of as many of our people as is possible," averred the Reverend Gerald Falconer. "I leave it to you two as to how to assemble them. Lie, if you must. God will forgive you, for it's being done in His Holy Name.

  "When we have them and him there, I will advance upon him and offer him the silver cross, demand that he hold it in his hand, kiss it and bow knee to me. He will, of course, recoil in horror and loathing from the sacred cross, and that will be your signal, Emmett, You must then bring out the pistol and place that silver bullet as close to his foul heart as you can, praying hard that God Almighty will guide your eye and hand.

  "I will not, of course, be bearing any weapons, but Grant will have a rifle, and—"

  "But . . . but Reverend Falconer," protested Grant MacEvedy anxiously. "I ... I don't know anything about shooting rifles. Besides, the noise is so loud that it gives me headaches for days afterward, sometimes."

  "All right, all right," snapped Falconer shortly. "Get yourself a hunter's crossbow, then. That ought to be noiseless and simple enough for even you at the short distance you will be from your father and me. All you have to do is put your bolt in anyone who makes to prevent your father from shooting the Beast. Do you think yourself capable of protecting your own dear father, boy?"

  Grant MacEvedy left the chapel meeting and repaired to the empty, echoing, now-dusty house that he shared with his father. MacEvedy pere had, in better times, been a hunter and owned the usual collection of hunting weapons, clothing and equipment.

  Grant was not and had never been a hunter. He ate game, just as he ate domestic animals, but he had never even thought of killing his own food, for it was just so terribly messy a job. He had always insisted that his meat of any kind be cooked completely through, for the sight—indeed sometimes even the mere thought—of blood could render his delicate stomach unable to hold food of any type for some little time. Besides, hunting as practiced by fort or station people had always included dogs—before the folk had had to eat them, the cats and even the rats and mice—and close proximity to any furred animal had always set Grant to sneezing, wheezing and coughing, his eyes so red and swollen and teary that he could not see clearly.

  Because of Grant's utter inexperience in the use of and his complete unfamiliarity with the construction and appearance of weapons—to him, all of the prodds and crossbows closely resembled each other—it were perhaps charitable to forgive the born blunderer his grievous error in arming himself for the imminent confrontation into which he had been most unwillingly dragooned.

  After all, every person or other living thing that he had ever seen shot at and hit with a fired bullet or a loosed arrow or quarrel bolt or a prodd-pellet had immediately fallen, either dead or mortally wounded. Therefore, the young man had a much-overinflated faith in the never-failing efficacy of all firearms and other missile weapons. He did not for one single minute doubt that immediately his father blasted the holy silver bullet into the breast of the werebeast, Moray, the sinister, unnatural creature would curl up and die, thus proving for once and always to all and sundry of the misled, mutinous people that Director MacEvedy and the Reverend Mr. Falconer had been right all along.

  He seriously doubted that he ever would have to actually make use of the heavy, clumsy, terribly dusty weapon he finally chose, but he always had obeyed his father, and his father had instructed him to cooperate in every way with the Reverend Gerald Falconer.

  He left the room that housed the director's modest arsenal with a medium-weight crossbow and a belt pouch of quarrels, just as he had been bidden to do. However, that device which he took for a crossbow, because of very similar shape, was actually a double-stringed prodd or stone-thrower, while the pouch of quarrel shafts—which, of course, he had not bothered to check, nor likely would have known for what differences to look, had he checked—were tipped with smooth, blunt horn heads and were intended for use in a lighter, one-stringed weapon when hunting birds or rabbits.

  After severely skinning the knuckles of his butter-soft hands while trying to operate the built-in cocking lever of his chosen weapon, Grant brushed away his tears, blew his sniffly nose twice, then carefully washed off the scrapes before donning a pair of pliable doeskin gloves, lest he be again so injured.

  Next came the problem of concealing the fact that he now was armed. The pouch of quarrel bolts presented no difficulty; he simply allowed his shirttail to dangle down untucked, as he often did in hot weather. But the awkward and, to him, ill-balanced prodd was something else again. At last, despairing of really effective concealment, he wrapped the ill-shaped weapon in a rain cape and took it under his arm, still uncocked. Then he left the house and set off for the chapel, whence all three of them—Director Emmett MacEvedy, the Reverend Gerald Falconer and he—were to set off together for the fateful confrontation with the Satanic beast and the God-sanctioned, fore-ordained successful conclusion of their deadly purpose.

  Soon,
very, very soon, Grant assured himself, everything in the fort and the station would be just as it had always been. At the orders of the director, the reverend and himself, the people would join together to kill or to drive off the dirty, smelly, godless, heathen, prairie rovers—keeping their cattle and sheep and goats and horses, of course. Then, with proper order again restored, he and his father and the reverend would firmly reestablish their God-given sway over the deeply repentant insubordinate subordinates. Personally, he, Grant, relished his thoughts of making the faithless folk of station and fort squirm for many a year to come as he hashed and rehashed the tale of their faithlessness and gullibility to the wiles of Satan.

  As for the arrogant, violent and often—to Grant—frightening Colonel Ian Lindsay, he would be utterly discredited for all time, and whenever Pa died and Grant, himself, became director . . .

  So, thinking thoughts of ultimate power and revenge for all real or imagined wrongs done him in his lifetime, Grant MacEvedy trudged on to his appointment with destiny.

  The quadrangle of the fort was become an open-air smithy and wagon-building yard, wherein the Clan Ohlsuhn smiths—they being traditionally the best practitioners of the art in Milo's tribe—and the smiths of the Scott tribe labored on as they now had for long weeks at turning archaic steel scrap into useful hardware with the willing assistance of the smiths from fort and station.

  In the area near the wide-opened main gate and outside, beyond it, the gathered lumber had been piled, and men scurried like ants around and over those piles, busy with measuring instruments and tools—cutting boards into fellies, turning dowels and then shaving them down for tapered spokes, assembling running gear, bending wood for ox yokes and tying it into its new shape with wet rawhide strips and then hanging it within the heat radius of the ever-glowing forge fires in the quadrangle to set and season.