Summer advanced; the settlement grew in steady stages but never fast enough for Buccari. Shannon knew he was in trouble before she spoke.
"Where the hell are they?" she snapped, flipping a thick braid of sun-streaked auburn over her shoulder. Lizard followed her like a dog, stylus in hand. Two other cliff dwellers—stone carvers— labored on the lodge foundation, setting stones and nervously watching the heated exchange. Whenever kones were present in the valley, the cliff dwellers became invisible, but with the kones gone, the knobby-headed creatures scurried about the settlement with characteristic single-minded purpose.
Shannon looked down at the striking, if stern, visage. "MacArthur thinks he can get close enough to the buffalo to get some of their hides. I gave him permission to take Tatum and Chastain across the river and give it a shot. I take full responsibility, sir."
"Sure, Sarge," she snapped, "you always do, but—dammit, I want this lodge and palisade up as soon as possible. With Hudson and Chief Wilson gone south, we're a bit short-handed, now aren't we?"
"Yes, sir. The rest of us will take up the slack, Lieutenant," Shannon continued. "We need the hides, sir. Mac doesn't want to shoot any more lake elk. Tatum says there aren't that many in the valley. Killing off the local herd won't help us in the long run."
"Okay, Sergeant," she exhaled, turning to continue on her rounds, the cliff dweller mimicking her movements. "It's a good call. I just hope they survive the stink. The musk is awful strong today."
"They'll do okay, sir," Shannon replied as Buccari marched downhill toward the planted fields on the margins of the cove.
"Whoee, Sarge," O'Toole whistled, "Thought you were buttburger."
Petit and Gordon, leaning against large rocks just transported from the quarry, laughed at Shannon's expense. Shannon's neck grew hot.
"You helmetheads better start putting real muscle on those rocks instead of just your fat asses," he snapped. "Move! You heard the Lieutenant."
The Marines crept over the low ridge and looked down upon endless herds. A rippling herd of gray-striped tundra gazelles bolted from their scent, and a giant eagle soared low over the downs, its monstrous wings flapping lazily. The river valley lay behind them. To the west, billowing ash and steam, were the twin volcanoes; beyond the volcanoes were the cliffs of the plateau; and beyond the cliffs were the perpetually snowcapped mountains, gracing the horizon with their ponderous majesty. A land of immense vistas— and immense odors.
"Good grief, Mac!" Tatum exclaimed, gagging. "How can you take this?"
The cinnamon-red and burnt-umber backs of musk-buffalo formed a placid sea of pelt and muscle. Interspersed at irregular distances were small concentrations of lighter-colored animals, muted straw-yellow and gold. MacArthur looked skyward and saw Captain and Tonto soaring overhead, the hunters his near constant companions. Returning his scrutiny to the grazing beasts, he pondered his options. He had to get closer. No wasted bullets! MacArthur could think of only one strategy.
"Stay put," he ordered, rising to his feet. "I'm walking until I get close enough to shoot."
"What!" Tatum exclaimed. "Closer? The smell will kill us." "I said stay put! I'm going solo. If it gets bad, I'll turn back." "I'd say it's bad enough now," Tatum groaned.
"Gotta kill him to stop him," Chastain said. "Careful, Mac!" MacArthur grinned as he checked the action of his assault rifle.
"Have to get damn close to hit anything with that," Tatum said.
"Then I better start walking," MacArthur muttered. He would go right at them, slow and steady. The smell was immense. His head throbbed, and his sinuses burned. His nose and eyes started to run; he worried that his eyesight would be too blurry, but he pressed forward, the musk-buffalo oblivious to his presence. At three hundred meters some animals lifted their massive heads. Still too far away. The first shot would stampede the herd. There would be no second chance.
The prodigious smell assaulted MacArthur' s sanity. He reeled with nausea, constantly shaking fuzziness from behind his eyes. He stopped, dropped to a knee, and threw up until his stomach was empty, and then he retched and gagged for many more minutes. His guts purged, he staggered to his feet and continued his drunken march toward the milling buffalo. He heard soft lowing and bellowing. He forced his vision to focus and noticed the nearest animals moving away, slowly, the press of the herd holding them in check. When would they spook? Could he get a shot off? Out of the corner of his eye he detected a motion; Captain and Tonto glided low over the tundra grasses, coming straight for him. The cliff dwellers landed at his feet, hopping to a halt, chattering and squeaking, flashing hand sign. MacArthur stared stupidly, unable to comprehend. His throat burned. With effort he recalled his mission and began walking, but immediately stumbled and fell, leg muscles stiffening and joints locking.
The dwellers waddled close and lay next to him. Captain waved frantically, indicating MacArthur should stay on the ground. Not that it mattered; MacArthur was physically unable to stand. The trio lay flat, sinking in the yielding surface and concealed by the short prairie grasses. Something was happening. MacArthur shook fog from his brain and strained his vision outward. He had walked farther than he had intended. The animals had moved, and he had penetrated into the herd. Buffalo grazed placidly on three sides, and some were slowly moving around behind, less than a hundred meters away, closing the gap and coming closer. He gaped inanely at the cliff dwellers and feebly waved in thanks, trying to smile. He dry heaved instead. The cliff dwellers huddled on each side, intent on his condition.
MacArthur wanted to sleep; unconsciousness would end his misery. Captain prodded annoyingly at his elbow, and he dreamily opened his eyes, trying hard to be irritated. MacArthur looked into the hunter's sinister eyes, its scarred snout practically touching his numb nose. The little animal chewed on something, and its breath smelled sweet, all the more remarkable because the odor distinctly penetrated the miasma of buffalo musk. MacArthur' s brain labored to process the foggy inputs, but the noxious effects of the musk were overpowering; he could feel his nervous system shutting down. The rifle fell from his hands, his fingers unable to answer the commands from his misfiring brain. MacArthur rolled onto his side and could move no more. He had withdrawn from his body; all that he had left was his vision—and his lungs! His breathing, heavy and labored, was the only sound in his universe. All else was silent.
Buffalo drew near. One was but fifty paces away, downwind and coming closer. MacArthur endeavored to stay interested. He tried to remember his mission. His mission! What mission? Apathy and fatigue brought sad and restful thoughts, and he felt his last bit of self-will slip into eternity. Coma was near, death not far behind.
Something vigorously manipulated his head. Vaguely irritated, MacArthur focused on Captain's ugly face. The cliff dweller's mouth opened, and a bony little claw reached into the tooth-lined maw and pulled out a wad of spinach-green material—a cud, masticated and churned with saliva. MacArthur watched dully as the dweller's hands came into contact with his own senseless mouth. Strong, wiry fingers—warm and leathery—pried open his jaws and inserted the lump of dark green on his tongue. Captain brought the human's chin to, closing MacArthur's mouth on the strange substance. MacArthur wanted to sleep. To die.
The same sweet smell he had detected earlier manifested itself as a sensation on his taste buds. A sensation—something felt! Like an explosion expanding outward, nerve endings reawakened to the electrical impulses of consciousness. Muscles twitched with spurious signals and a section of his brain still capable of command ordered his jaws to grind juices from the green pulp in his mouth. Awake again—the sweet taste and smell rushed through his palate and sinuses and down his throat. The cliff dweller had given him a stimulant of wondrous power; MacArthur felt alert, psychedelically aware. The colors of the world pulsed with intensity. His mission! He remembered his mission with obsessive fervor.
Buffalo grazed about him—more easy targets than he had bullets. MacArthur slowly turned his head to look at the hunters. The cliff dwellers watched him intensely, concern dominating theirobscene features. MacArthur opened his mouth, holding the green substance between his teeth, and displayed it to Captain. Both creatures—man and hunter—grinned conspiratorially. The cliff dweller made a shooting motion with his hands. MacArthur recovered the rifle and turned his body slightly, aiming the heavy-sighted weapon at the neck of the nearest buffalo—a large bull— barely thirty meters away. The movement caught the animal's attention; it jerked its head upwards, alarmed. MacArthur and his furry comrades froze, the hunters staring with rapt attention at the barrel of the weapon. Both creatures held hands tightly over their ear openings, wincing and flinching with painful anticipation.
MacArthur fired one round. The bull staggered, took several stuttering steps and crashed heavily onto its side, raising a cloud of dust. The cliff dwellers, stunned by the rifle's report, recovered from the explosion and jumped up and down, whistling and chirping. The buffalo herd reeled against the noise and blindly dashed in full flight—a stampede! MacArthur moved awkwardly to his knees, his leg muscles not fully awakened. He worried about getting run down—an imminent possibility since buffalo were galloping in all directions. Two bulls leading a frantic herd bore down on his position. The cliff dwellers pointed—rudely—at the driving animals, nervously hopping from leg to leg and unfurling their wings.
MacArthur sighted down the barrel of the rifle, placing the bouncing forehead of the biggest bull atop the knife-edged sight. The buffalo were close! He squeezed the trigger, and the large-bore rifle kicked violently against his shoulder. The herd pivoted as one, swerving away. MacArthur swore for wasting a bullet and took aim at the same bull. But the animal was wounded, and its pace slowed amidst its panicked mates. The stricken animal lumbered to a wobbly halt, staggering lopsidedly away from the herd. It fell to its knees and collapsed on its side, bellowing in fear and agony as it died.
The dwellers, hands still over their ears, screeched their delight. The rest of the herd bolted away, giving MacArthur only hindquarters at which to shoot. Two bullets, two hides. Enough. MacArthur chewed vigorously. The substance in his mouth yielded juices like sparks of electricity crackling against his teeth and throat. He felt tightly wound, a coiled steel spring; his senses were acutely raw; he could see forever; the sounds and the smells around him were abundant and crisp, each a separate and distinct event. Pungent buffalo musk billowed through the air, almost visible, a brown, dusky odor—not pleasant, but no longer putrid. He could smell the tundra grasses, the gunpowder, the cliff dwellers; he could smell his own sharp body odor, and the high-grade machine oil used on the rifles. But—But, something was wrong! The dwellers were whistling—whistling at him. Too loud, it hurt his ears.
The clouds! The clouds were flowing like wild things overhead! They were changing colors—luminescent and pulsing and golden. The clouds were beautiful animals descending from the skies. MacArthur could reach out and touch them. He could fly! He could fly—fly like the animals in the clouds. What was happening? This was not real. His intellect struggled to overcome his senses, but he was no longer sure of anything. Something was wrong with his body—with his mind. He was hallucinating. It was too real, too vivid. Golden horses! Golden horses, heavy chested and silky manes streaming, were running over the prairie. Beautiful. So beautiful. He could smell them.
MacArthur was afraid to move. His very being eclipsed his corporeal form, as if he would burst his skin like an overinflated balloon. The spinach stuff—the cud! He stopped chewing. He dimly deduced the dweller's stimulant was causing him to hallucinate. He spit it out just as his arms and legs seem to disappear; he fell forward, like a falling tree, squarely on his face. Helpless, mouth open and drooling into the tundra, he watched magical horses gallop across the plains, just paces in front of him, thundering hoofs vibrating the ground. What magnificence! Euphoric, he managed to roll over on his back and stare at the sky. Everything was beautiful.
"The thickweed is taken over!" Brappa exclaimed.
The stampeding herds were clear, and a veering wind kept the invisible musk cloud at bay. Braan looked back at the other longlegs, Giant-one and One-arm, stumbling drunkenly over the prairie grasses in the far distance.
"He has spit it out. He will recover," Braan said, standing over the prostrate stranger. "Let us skin the buffalo."
Brave-crazy-one lay spread-eagled, eyes glazed. Braan picked up the discarded wad of thickweed pulp, broke it apart, and placed it in his leather pouch. The hunters pulled out knives, and each headed for a downed animal.
Braan was not long at his task when he noticed the stricken long-legs staggering toward him, head in his hands. His comrades were trying to help him, but Brave-crazy-one rejected their assistance.
"The long-legs recovers," Brappa screeched.
"Its head will surely ache," Braan warbled.
Buccari adjusted her position so that the light from the extravagant campfire fell more directly on the dweller message. She half listened to the raucous banter, feeling peculiarly light-hearted. They were starting a new life, their new settlement awakening. And they had just finished their first year on the planet. Not an Earth year—a full Genellan year—four hundred days, four hundred twenty-six hour days.
"I saw horses. Golden horses!" MacArthur declared.
"You're crazy, Mac," Fenstermacher said. "Tatum says you were all as drunk as a dogs."
"Leave him alone, Winfried," Dawson said. "Look what he did for us. What a feast."
"Dawson' s right, for the first time in her life, Fenstermacher," Wilson said. "Stop picking on Mac, and be thankful you've survived a year on this planet. I don't know how we managed to put up with you."
"Yeah, Winnie," Lee said. "Happy anniversary to us all."
Cliff dwellers and humans sat around the evening fire. The midsummer sun had reluctantly settled behind the soaring peaks, leaving clear skies layered in vivid orange and deepest blue above the stark sawtooth silhouette. The meal was over, but the campfire burned brightly, a celebration of survival.
MacArthur's provision of buffalo steaks and hides had changed the dubious nature of the occasion into a festive and social mood. The campers reveled in the telling and retelling of MacArthur' s adventure, embellishments growing with each new version. MacArthur regaled the listeners, humans and cliff dwellers, with outrageous histrionics and exaggerated sign language. The Marine danced around the fire, pulling Tonto along behind him. The young hunter parodied the dancing human, and soon all the hunters were jumping to their feet and dancing a pagan conga, whistling and screeching in a snaking line behind MacArthur, while the humans pounded out a rhythmic chant, clapping and laughing.
The cliff dwellers had taken to joining the humans at their evening campfire. The taller guilders had grown comfortable with the humans, having found living with earthlings more tolerable than living in the woods with their hunter cousins. A tent adjacent to the campfire had been provided for the visiting workers, while the hunters remained content inhabiting the rocks on the wooded peninsula, close to the fish.
Dancing shadows cast by the flickering firelight struck the newly risen stone walls and foundation of the main lodge looming above the fire pit, sheltering the flames from steady northerlies. With the help and guidance of dweller stone carvers, construction of the lodge had moved rapidly, and its stone walls were nearing completion.
The stone carvers were not the only ones to make a difference in the new community. With the frosts behind them, and despite some insect pests, the crops planted from Earth seed flourished. The cliff dweller gardeners were intrigued with the variety and impressed with the robust qualities of the fruit trees and vegetable plants. When Buccari presented them with a sampling of the seeds, they behaved as if they had been given precious gems, falling to their knees in effusive gratitude.
In addition to helping with the crops, the gardeners spent time with Lee gleaning and gathering medicinal roots, tanning agents, and herbs. The gardeners had much earlier shown Lee the dark, pulpy plants by the river, giving her an emphatic caution as to its use—a medicinal narcotic. Using Lizard's writing skills as the communication vehicle, the gardeners described the weed's primary medical benefit—it was a potent but potentially lethal painkiller. MacArthur' s exploits had revealed yet another use for the thick, blackish leaves.
The dancing MacArthur fell to the ground, exhausted, and chirping hunters piled on top of the earthman. Tonto stood on the Marine's chest and whistled sharply, his whistle soaring into the ultrasonic realm as MacArthur suddenly sat up and lifted the dweller high in the air. The other hunters tumbled backwards as the laughing MacArthur regained his feet, hugging Tonto close to his chest. He placed the hunter on the ground and bowed low. The hunters, all of them, bowed in return.
MacArthur flopped on a log, and the other dancers stumbled and hopped back to their seats, tweeting and chirping.
"You didn't see them?" MacArthur asked Chastain and Tatum for the twentieth time since awakening from the thickweed stupor. "They were beautiful. I could smell them!"
"We were too far away, Mac," Tatum answered. "I thought you were dead. And the stink was too much. We both kept passing out. I don't know how you were able to walk so far and stay conscious. We thought you were dead for sure."
"Beautiful," MacArthur said softly. "Horses. I smelled them."
"Well, at least now we know how to get close to the buffalo," Chastain said. "That loco weed grows along the river. I picked some."
"Careful with that stuff," MacArthur chided. "My head still hurts."
"Yes, be careful," Lee pleaded. "We need to experiment with it first. It's obviously a mind-altering substance, possibly habit-forming. It may have permanent effects."
"MacArthur's mind don't need any more altering," Tatum offered. "He already comes up with enough crazy ideas. You should have seen him staggering after those buffalo!"
"Don't get him started again!" Shannon shouted, and everyone laughed.
"Why don't you ask Lizard about the horses, Mac?" Buccari asked. She and the guilder had been sitting on adjacent flat rocks, industriously scrawling messages to each other in the flickering firelight. "I could use some help, and since Hudson's still enjoying the sunny south, it looks like you're elected."
"I don't know how much help I'll be," MacArthur responded. The Marine slid next to her and grabbed a writing implement and a clean parchment. She watched as he deftly made the interrogative signs and added a series of action icons describing the hunting activity. Lizard watched.
MacArthur' s iconic skills had progressed markedly, almost on par with Hudson's, but still short of Buccari's. The mood around the campfire became quiet and peaceful, everyone patiently waiting for MacArthur's written query. Dawson hummed as she rocked Adam, the fire crackled and popped, and the modest noises satisfied everyone's need for society.
Buccari moved out of MacArthur' s way and turned her back to the fire so she could more easily puzzle out the long message Lizard had just prepared for her. Two hunters had flown in from the dweller colony late in the day, bringing instructions for Captain. The cliff dwellers spent almost an hour among themselves prior to the evening's feast, and Lizard was communicating the essence of that meeting to her now. Captain sat nearby, watching every move.
Buccari broke the serenity. "The dwellers all leave tomorrow," she said, getting everyone's attention and eliciting groans of disappointment.
"All of them? Even the stone carvers and gardeners?" Lee asked. "Why?"
"First, the bear people will be back soon," Buccari said. All cliff dwellers disappeared into the forests at the first sign of the konish airplane. "Secondly, and more importantly, the hunters must return for a salt mission. The hunters will not leave the guilders here unprotected."
"A salt mission, eh?" MacArthur said, looking up from the drawings.
"We'll miss our friends," Lee said.
"But it will be good to see Mr. Hudson and Chief Wilson again," Dawson said. "I bet they'll have a million sea-stories."
"After two weeks with the bugs," Shannon said, "they'll be glad to get back."
"I don't know," Buccari said. "The way Hudson went on about how warm it was there, neither one may ever come back."
"Finished," MacArthur said, handing Lizard his message. The cliff dweller scanned it before starting his reply, and as usual, the guilder was quick. He handed his reply to MacArthur. On the parchment was a clean and precise line drawing of a muscular, short-legged horse, its mane and tail flowing.
"That's it!" MacArthur shouted. "Look at this! This is what I saw!" He held the drawing up for the others to see, then abruptly sat down and began adding to the message. Buccari watched over his shoulder, quickly grasping MacArthur' s intention.
"They certainly must have thought of it before," she said. "There must be a reason why they haven't used horses to carry salt bags."
"They aren't strong enough to control a horse," MacArthur said, handing Lizard the message.
Lizard looked at the sequence of icons thoughtfully. He communicated with Captain for several minutes, and the hunter became very excited, unusual for the stolid warrior.
"What's his problem?" Fenstermacher yawned.
"We're going to catch us some horses," MacArthur said.