Passages

by Olan Thorensen

  It took Mark four days to reach the nearest destrex country. Despite his assurances to Maghen, he understood the risk he was taking. During the last year, he had queried anyone he could find who knew anything about destrex hunting, their habits, and where to find them. They were more abundant farther south and southwest, but at least for first hunt he opted to start as close to Nurburt as possible. If his many sources of secondhand information were correct, the two varieties of destrex, oklands and ormals, didn’t favor the same terrain. In addition, despite their larger size, everyone he spoke with considered oklands the less dangerous—a relative evaluation that made Mark firm in avoiding ormal territory. The oklands also had the advantage that their skinned hides didn’t fade with time, which meant their hides brought higher prices.

  Another thing he learned was that the okland destrex tended to lurk around water holes in regions that lacked flowing water sources. They waited for prey to come to them. Mark found a ravine where he set up camp, then went looking for a candidate waterhole the next morning. A mile from his camp, he found a likely spot. About three hundred yards from a waterhole rose a hillock with a clear view of the hole. At the crest, he cut away enough brush so that he could rest a rifle barrel on the notch of a bush’s trunk and a main branch. After firing, he could step back two paces to reload and not be visible from the waterhole.

  He then waited, watching the waterhole but also constantly checking his rear. There was no reason to think a destrex would obligingly approach from only one direction. His position gave him an overview of the terrain behind him, so even if a destrex was the same height as the vegetation, he should see it coming. In theory.

  Less than an hour after he began to watch, a dozen dolerters walked out of the brush and drank. What Mark assumed was the male leader kept turning its head in all directions, looking out for danger. The animals resembled a larger version of the pronghorn antelopes common to parts of Colorado. Later, a lone lombar ambled to the water, drank for several minutes, and wandered off. An hour later, four other grazing animals, ones he hadn’t seen before, raced to the water, drank quickly, and dashed off. Hairs rose on Mark’s arms and back.

  Those were awfully skittish, he whispered. Do they know something I don’t?

  The answer came a minute later. A destrex walked out of the brush on the right side of the waterhole. The creature’s camouflage so closely matched the vegetation that from Mark’s distance, his eyes didn’t pick up the destrex until it was three-quarters exposed.

  Mark cast a nervous eye to his rear.

  Well, shit. I’m reevaluating future positions. And now I know I’m not going ormal hunting if their camouflage is even better than this monster’s.

  He discarded his assumption that his elevated position would let him see any destrex coming up behind him. Now, visions of one of the predators walking right up to him competed with his need to focus on the target. This time, the destrex wouldn’t be protecting a fresh kill, so Mark needed to make the first shot incapacitating, if not a quick kill. He had already decided to ignore the hunter’s code his father had drilled into him—never leave a wounded animal. In this case, with no other humans nearby to be at risk, he wouldn’t be following a wounded predator into brush that the animal’s camouflage let it mimic.

  The destrex sniffed the ground, likely catching scent of the prey that had recently visited the water. It went to the water, drank briefly, and stood, nostrils up as if checking the air for more scent.

  Mark followed it with the rifle, waiting for a good shot. When he and Rocky had skinned the other destrex, Mark remembering thinking the internal organs looked similar to Earth animals’, whether because they were descended from transplantations or they originated on Anyar, he didn’t know.

  He wasn’t confident enough with the rifles to start off with a head shot. He waited for the animal to either show a profile for a shot to where a heart should be or shift to a front-on stance where he would aim for the chest and hope the ball hit something vital internally.

  A minute passed. Two. Four. The animal turned quickly to face away from Mark, the movement too fast and the hoped-for angles for firing too fleeting.

  Shit! It’s going to just walk away, Mark thought.

  The destrex reached the brush, then stopped as if hearing something. Its head turned almost 180 degrees toward Mark’s position. The only vulnerable spot exposed was the neck just under the head. Mark decided he needed to take the best shot he had or watch it disappear. He froze every muscle, except those of his trigger finger.

  BOOM!

  The destrex whirled, dropped its head, but made no sound. Without taking his eyes off the animal, Mark set the rifle down and picked up its sibling propped up within reach. The destrex staggered, obviously in distress, and presented the profile Mark wanted.

  BOOM!

  Mark couldn’t see the hit, but the destrex stumbled, took three steps, and collapsed. Mark couldn’t tell whether the animal was still breathing, so he waited ten minutes. Despite focusing his eyes, he detected no movement.

  BOOM!

  This time he aimed at the head. He thought he saw a hit on the jaw. He reloaded and slowly walked forward. At one hundred yards, he didn’t think it was breathing. At fifty yards, he fired a fourth time, hitting the destrex between the eyes. It didn’t move.

  He reloaded.

  “Well, if you ain’t dead, and I get out of this alive, I’m going to give up destrex hunting until I have a tank.”

  He waited five more minutes before deciding the animal was dead. He didn’t know which shot had been fatal. When he walked around the carcass, he decided there was no reason to worry about firing too many times.

  With the most dangerous part over, the hardest task came next. He retrieved Secretariat and galloped back to his camp to collect gear and two horses. He already had experience in skinning a destrex, although the first time Rocky and he had done the bloody work together. This time, he began alone, with the need to finish before other predators arrived. The latter worry resulted in him finishing the job in only a slighter longer time than previously. Taking the advice of the Nurburt trader, he cut the hide halfway between the leg pairs, instead of along the back, but that still ruined some of the value. He then headed back to camp with half a destrex hide on each of the two wagon horses. They were not enthused about having the destrex odor on their backs.

  Even though the sun’s position showed several hours of good light left, he felt exhausted from skinning, rotating the carcass, and wrestling to load the hide onto the horses. Unfortunately, Mark needed to do more work before resting. At the camp, he scraped and salted the hide, then hung it to dry over some brush.

  The hunt had gone as hoped, to his relief. There had always been the possibility he’d waste time and their savings. On the trip south, doubts had preyed on his mind about whether the entire endeavor would work and if he had accurately evaluated the danger. Now his mood was buoyant. The hunt had been successful, and the rifles had worked as hoped, resulting in a destrex hide he didn’t have to share with partners.

  He slept until daylight, then loaded the hide halves onto the wagon, packed up the camp, and started back to the ranch. It was a long trip for a single hide, but it was worth it. This successful venture encouraged him that future hunts should also be profitable.

  His solo hunt reinforced his recognition of the dangers of hunting alone and the difficulty of skinning and processing the hides. He briefly considered asking Rocky to join him in future destrex hunts. Mark knew from experience that the man would stand his ground. Two men meant splitting hides or coin and introduced the chance a partner might fail to keep the hunts secret. No. Mark decided to continue hunting alone.

  Instead of going first to the ranch, he went to Nurburt. No formal banks existed in Frangel, but larger towns, such as Nurburt, often had a business that housed whatever a customer wanted to store—for a price. The Nurburt facility was just short of a fortress, and the onsite proprietors remained heavily armed at
all hours. Mark estimated the bin would hold three hides. As soon as his rented bin filled, he would make another trip to Landylbury, this time to sell hides.

  When Mark rode into the ranch’s cluster of buildings, the first person to see him was Tylmar.

  “Hello, Mark. We wondered when you’d show up. Some of the men thought you wouldn’t come back because hunting destrex alone is insane. But I told them they needed more faith. If anyone could do it, it would be you.”

  Mark almost fell out of the saddle.

  “What—!” Mark stared at Tylmar, startled. “Why do you think I was destrex hunting?”

  “I don’t know. Word’s been going around. I forget where I heard it.”

  Maghen? thought Mark. Did she tell someone?

  “Uh . . . I need to get home. Talk to you later.”

  Someone else must have seen him coming because Maghen waited at their cottage door, holding Alys on her hip and looking relieved.

  “Maghen, Tylmar said—”

  She ran to him, the child bouncing on her hip. Alys laughed at the game she thought they were playing. After a hug and a kiss, Maghen leaned back and looked into Mark’s eyes.

  “I don’t know how word got out. I suspect Leesta did it. Keeslyn could have told her, and she told someone else accidentally or on purpose, not fully realizing we wanted it kept secret.”

  He sighed. “Well, it’s out. There’s nothing to be done, but I may have to go back hunting sooner than I planned before word spreads and men start asking me questions or trying to follow me.”

  Her faced lit up. “You got a hide?” She looked around. “Where is it?”

  “In Nurburt. I thought it would be safer than keeping it here. I took it there before coming home. As soon I have two more hides, I’ll take them to Landylbury. I don’t want them lying around Nurburt, even if they’re supposedly in a secure place. They’re worth so much, there are bound to be men tempted to take them.”

  “You’ll be gone so long! We’ll miss you—plus, what will Keeslyn say?”

  “I’ll talk with him. I think he’ll agree, as long as I travel when work around the ranch is at its lowest. There’s a couple of times a year when he could manage to do without me. Of course, it’ll mean I’ll be gone for a good part of a month each time I travel to Landylbury.”

  “Anyone else, Mark, and I wouldn’t agree,” said Toodman. “I’ll trust you don’t let the work suffer for your absences. I’m glad the first hunt went well. Just don’t start getting careless if you feel pressure to hunt as much as you can before other hunters catch on to your methods.”

  A month passed before Mark got away for another hunt. This time, luck seemed absent. Once he got to destrex country, a sixday went by without him spotting one of the predators. He wondered whether the damn things migrated, hibernated, or turned into giant toadstools. He gave himself three more days before he’d head home. On the second day, a stampede of hundreds of lombars swept him and Secretariat along with them until they were able to disengage after a half mile.

  “Well, Secretariat, now we know you can keep up with a lombar herd. What’d you say? That’s something you didn’t need to know? I agree, but what do you think the odds are that a destrex spooked them? Yeah, yeah, we’ll be careful not to surprise it.”

  Surprising the animal or being surprised turned out not to be the problem. Mark heard the roaring by the time he returned to where the herd had swept them up. Finding the destrex only required following the noise to where two destrex challenged each other over a lombar carcass.

  He staked Secretariat and crept toward the uproar. When the ground began sloping, he came in view of a small waterhole. Which destrex had made the kill wasn’t discernible, but the two animals performed a ritual threat display. Mark recalled nature shows on TV about animals attempting to settle disputes without serious fighting—it being a species survival advantage to not kill or injure others of your own kind. Whether the same held true on Anyar, Mark didn’t know, but he admitted the roaring, the stamping of front feet, and the color changes that swept over the two destrex’s bodies were impressive.

  “This is interesting,” he murmured. “Two targets. I wonder if I shoot one, will the other hang around long enough for me to shoot him, too? Nah . . . what would I do trying to skin two hides before scavengers or other destrex showed up?”

  The range was shorter than the last hunt, this time less than two hundred yards. He figured it was close enough to try a head shot. What he wouldn’t do was switch targets. He’d pick one and stick to it. No way would he risk having two wounded destrex this close.

  BOOM!

  The destrex on the right jerked its head to one side, stiffened on all four legs, and took off running not directly at Mark, but if it kept going it would pass within twenty yards.

  Oh, shit!

  Mark dropped the first rifle, picked up the second one, and brought the barrel in line with the moving destrex when its front legs collapsed, and it nose-dived into the ground forty yards from him. He shot it again to be sure, then waited almost an hour for the second destrex to feed on the lombar carcass before ambling off. Mark skinned the dead destrex while keeping a nervous watch, in case the live destrex returned.

  Another two months passed, and he went on a third successful hunt Mark had three hides, his goal for making a trip to Landylbury, but he worried Toodman would balk at him being gone again for so long. A suggestion by Maghen solved the problem.

  “A good idea, dear,” said Mark. “Toodman agreed that I can be gone long enough to make another trip to Landylbury to sell hides. In return, I’ll bring back goods for the ranch that I can buy far cheaper than in Nurburt. He’s making a list of the ranch’s needs for the next five to six months. He also suggested I make the same offer to neighboring ranches if I think I’ll have room.

  “He’s giving me an older wagon that’s sitting under a hay pile in the north barn. The wagon is in generally good shape—just needs some minor maintenance I should be able to do in a few hours. He says the savings from goods I bring back from Landylbury will more than pay for it.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you traveling alone with the three hides,” said Maghen. “They’re awfully tempting. Just be sure you keep them covered. How much do you think you’ll get for them?”

  “I can’t be sure, but certainly much more than I could get in Nurburt. If it’s like any other market, it will depend on the current demand for destrex leather and what the supply is. Too bad we couldn’t do the tanning ourselves. The price would be higher, but we don’t have the equipment and facilities.”

  Three days later, Mark headed north-northeast, back to Landylbury. He’d hidden the three hides under two feet of straw—at least for the first half of the trip until a windstorm distributed the straw over several square miles. Mark then spent most of a day cutting enough tree branch sections to provide a layer of camouflage that lasted until Landylbury. There, he found a trader who seemed honest, as far as he could evaluate. The three hides sold for twenty-four large gold coins—roughly equivalent to $30,000, by Mark’s estimation. Compared to the coin flow from the safety pins and the springs and to his vision of where his introductions of Earth technology should lead, the destrex payment seemed puny. Yet . . . he felt encouraged at the good start toward acquiring land for his and Maghen’s future home.

  By the time he returned with a wagon weighted down with Landylbury goods, he’d been gone five sixdays.

  The next Anyar year filled with routine ranch work, more destrex hunts, and watching Alys grow. Toodman continued transferring more supervisory duties to Mark and said the future foreman’s role would be his if he decided not to start his own ranch. Mark thanked him but told Toodman their plan remained the same.

  Alys talked to anyone, whether people listened or not. Mark and Maghen agreed to try to postpone another child for at least a year. There being no barrier method available, they relied on Maghen’s monthly cycle and her confidence she understood how it synchronized with
Anyar’s two moons. During her fertile periods, they abstained from intercourse or engaged in alternate sexual activities.

  Another Harvest Festival came. Mark declined Fenon Lorwell’s entreaties to participate in weightlifting and wrestling, citing his promise to Maghen to accompany her to all the exhibits she favored. Both Lorwell brothers wore a skeptical expression, but they accepted his lame excuse.

  At mid-day, Erlon Lorwell chanced upon them and mentioned a man whose name Mark didn’t recognize.

  “Maghen,” said Erlon, “I just saw Sloffland. First time I’ve seen him in two years or more. I came to warn you. Are you sure you don’t want me and Fenon to threaten him?”

  Maghen morphed from merry to visibly angry after hearing her brother’s words, her face red and mouth tight.

  “Who’s this Sloffland?” asked Mark.

  Erlon looked uneasy. “Uh . . . that’s something Maghen needs to explain.” He looked expectantly at his sister.

  “I didn’t tell you about him, Mark. Sloffland . . . Gerlyn Sloffland and I were involved for a short time. He’s one of the reasons I went to work for the Toodmans. When I told him I didn’t want to have anything more to do with him, he wouldn’t stop pestering me. It got bad enough I feared Erlon or Fenon would kill him, so to keep the peace I moved to the Toodman ranch. Keeslyn and my father are old friends. I didn’t tell Father all the truth about why I left. I said I wanted a chance to meet different men. He and Mother worried I’d never marry, so he accepted my excuse. I haven’t seen Gerlyn since then. When you and I were at the same festival the first time, I stayed with my family until I was fairly certain Gerlyn didn’t attend. I hoped he’d moved out of the area.”