A Man Called Milo Morai

Epilogue

As Milo closed his memories and ceased to speak, there was a ripple of movement around the ranks of seated boys and girls and men and prairiecats who had gathered about the main Skaht firepit to be entertained by his tale of long ago.

While others rubbed at arms and legs and sleepy eyes or began to gather up tools and handiworks to stow them away for another night, two of the Skaht girls kept to what they had been doing. Myrah Skaht cracked nuts from a pile, separated the meats and tossed the shells down into the bed of dying-out coals in the firepit. Karee Skaht then took up the nutmeats and fed them to Gy Linsee, who sat between them. From time to time, Myrah stopped her nut-cracking to take from its place in a nest of coals a small long-handled pot with which she refilled the horn cup for Gy with a heated mixture of herb tea laced with fermented honey.

Milo communicated on a tight, highly personal beaming to Tchuk Skaht. “Look at those three, would you? I believe that the first thing we are going to witness upon our return is a wedding—Gy Linsee and not just one but two of your Skaht girls, Karee and Myrah. What do you think your chief will say to that?”

The hunt chief grinned and said, “He will say just what he has said since she first saw Sacred Sun: ‘Anything that my Myrah wants, she is to have.’ That’s what he’ll say, Uncle Milo.”

Milo grinned, beaming on, “Well, considering what I brought you all here for, I can think of much worse results than marriage of a son of a Clan Linsee bard to a brace of Clan Skaht females, one of them the favorite daughter of the Skaht of Skaht himself.

“Yes, I think that my purpose here is beginning to see accomplishment, Tchuk, Wind and Sacred Sun be thanked. A few more such ties made between your nubile young people and I think that we will have seen the last of any bloodletting, on any large scale, at least. What true Kindred father would ride to raid against his own children and grandchildren, after all, and what Kindred son would ride against the camp of his parents or in-laws?”

Tchuk grinned, beaming, “Have you met my in-laws, Uncle Milo? But, no, you’re right, of course, as you have always been, so I am told. Those of us who for so long have desired to see an end to this ruinous conflict should have thought of something like this, but then we lacked your vast store of knowledge and experience, too. We soon will start back to the clan camps, then?”

“Not hardly,” replied Milo. “For all else I intended this hunt to be, it still is an autumn hunt, just like any other save for the fact that few warriors and no matrons are taking part in it. When we have loaded down the pack-horses with smoked game and fish and dried plant foods, that is when we’ll head back to the camps, not before then.”

“Well, that boar that Gy Linsee speared will help mightily in that regard, Uncle Milo. Even without the hide and the guts and the bones, there must be three hundred pounds of flesh and hard fat in that carcass.”

“True,” Milo agreed, “and the rest of the pigs are still out there, awaiting our arrows and spears, too. But what I’d like to find now is a salt lick, for I dislike curing pigmeat without salt. Let’s give that task to the foragers tomorrow, eh? They’ll be frequenting the vicinities of springs, anyway, in their search for edible plants and roots. You might try mindspeaking the more intelligent and communicative of the horses, too—sometimes they can scent deposits on the prairie.

“Now, I suggest we all get some sleep, for the dawn will come early, as always.”

To the seemingly bemused Linsee boy, he beamed, “Come, Gy, it is late, and I am going back to your clan’s fires, this night. We can walk together and converse.”

While he waited, Gy arose and was soundly, linger-ingly kissed first by Karee Skaht, then by Myrah Skaht, then by Karee once more, then by Myrah yet again. Finally, Milo strode over and tore the two girls away from the tall, dark-haired boy, admonishing them and him.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think Gy Linsee bound outward for a journey from which he might never return. You two will see him no later than dawn tomorrow, you have my word on the matter.”

As the ageless man and the adult-sized boy strolled in the bright moonlight along the bank of the riverlet, Gy beamed hesitantly, “I … uh, Uncle Milo, if still you wish to take me with you and the Tribe Bard, I … that is, you had said that-I might bring a wife with me. Might I … I mean, would I … could I …”

Milo chuckled, beaming back, “Two wives will be acceptable, Gy—another set of hands never hurts when setting up camp or breaking camp or loading or unloading horses. If you and they both are in agreement on the matter, I say, fine. They’ll learn a lot, as will you, my boy, traveling from one far-flung clan camp to the next. You’ll meet Kindred you’d never see if you lived long enough to go to a dozen Fifth-Year Tribal Councils. I’ll teach the three of you how to read and to write more than just your name, and you’ll help me in preparing a series of maps of the land as it now lies. We will explore ruins as we come across them, seeking out metals and ancient jewels and any artifacts still usable after so long in the earth; some, the best, of these, we will keep, others will be guest gifts to clans we visit, the rest we will sell to roving traders or bring up to the next Fifth-Year Camp.

“We may live or migrate with this clan or that for months, and then again we may go it alone in good weather for just as many months, only seeking out a clan with which to winter when the cold begins to nip at us. Perhaps we will winter one year in a friendly Dirtman settlement. Yes, Gy, there are a very few such places, although they are scattered most widely and most lie far to the south of where we now are.

“And of course, all the while, Bard Herbuht will be teaching you the history of the various clans and of the tribe itself—the facts, the legends, the heroes, the great chiefs, significant raids, battles, victories, defeats, genealogies of clans and septs, and so much, much more that a Bard of the Tribe must know and recall when the need arises. He and I will also school you in the proper use of your mindspeak, and I am convinced that you possess already great untapped powers of the various types and levels of mindspeak, Gy. I am anxious to see you develop those powers, for a Tribal Bard is more than that title might seem to imply. At times he must be a mediator, a peacemaker between clans or factions within clans, and on those occasions, in those ticklish situations, an ability to soothe the minds of angry, blood-hungry men as well as frightened horses is a necessity owned by few. Herbuht is one such, I am another, and I believe that you can be, too, once your mind is awakened and becomes aware of its true talents and potentials.

“But back to the very near future, Gy. In the morning, my hunt will be riding back to where we were today, after the rest of those pigs—they’re just too much meat in one place to pass them up. I’ll be wanting you along and any other good spearmen you know of, too.”

“But … but please, Uncle Milo,” beamed Gy from a roiling mind, “I … we … it was my section’s day to fish. Karee and Myrah said—”

Milo clapped the big boy on his thick shoulder, laughing. “Oh, don’t fret, Gy. I’ll ask for your two intendeds on this hunt with us tomorrow, and I doubt that Hunt Chief Tchuk will voice any really strenuous objections to the rearrangement of schedules.”

At the Linsee area, Milo shooed Gy off to his lean-to, but he himself did not immediately retire. Instead he sent out a mindcall for Hwaltuh Linsee.

“On the council rock by the water, Uncle Milo,” came beaming the silent reply. “Come and join me.”

Milo climbed the flat-topped, mossy rock and squatted beside the Linsee subchief, one of the few adult warriors along on this very unusual hunt. Below them lay one of the backwater pools of the riverlet, and in its near-stillness, the silver disk of the moon was reflected. Now and again at intervals, something splashed in the pool and sent ripples out to break that silvery radiance into wavering shards that slowly recoalesced as the agitation of the water decreased to near-stillness again. It all looked so quiet, so peaceful, but Milo well knew that it was not. It was anything but peaceful, night in the wilds; night was the time of death as the night hunters prowled with growling, empty bellies in search of their natural prey.

“Were you at my tale-telling this night?” beamed Milo.

“Yes, for the first part only, though,” Subchief Hwaltuh beamed in reply. “Snowbelly mindcalled me from up above. Crooktail had found a strange scent out a few score yards from the area of short grasses, where the horse herd is biding this night.”

“And you found … ?” inquired Milo.

The Linsee warrior shrugged and shook his head, his braided hair flopping. “No tracks that I could see in the moonlight or feel with my fingers. I couldn’t smell anything, either, except a trace of skunk or weasel musk in a couple of places. Nonetheless, I told the cats that I’ll bed down up there tonight, close to the herd. With a strong bow and a ready spear and a few darts, I’ll be ready for whatever may befall, I think.”

Milo nodded. “A wise decision, that one. Now make another one, Hwaltuh. When we return to the Tribe Council Camp, Gy Linsee will announce his intent to wed Karee Skaht and Myrah Skaht. I ask that you not only not oppose this match but give it your full support should your chief object.”

“Oppose it, Uncle Milo?” The Linsee warrior grinned. “Why should I oppose it? Those two Skaht chits show taste and intelligence rare in Skahts. Besides, they both look healthy and strong enough, and that Myrah Skaht has a fine eye for archery. Certainly I’ll favor the match should the Linsee object to it for some reason, but I don’t see why he would. How does this matter sit, though, with Tchuk Skaht?”

“He is of the mind that it will be a good thing for both clans,” Milo replied. “And he has offered unasked to intervene with his chief, the girl Myrah’s sire, on the matter.

“But that is not all on which I want your help, your voice, Hwaltuh,” Milo went on after a brief pause. “After the hunt is done and Gy is married to his two wives, I mean to take him with me and Tribe-Bard Herbuht Bain of Muhnroh for a few years. The Linsee may object to it, the boy’s sire is almost certain to do so, and a few words in favor of the idea from you would be at least helpful.”

“Why in the world would you want to take a fledgling warrior with two young wives who are both certain to be rendered gravid in a very short time with you and the Tribe Bard, Uncle Milo? If it’s bows and swords behind you you want, I can think of a goodly number of Linsee men who could and would ride with you for a couple of years for a reasonable figure, just as warriors hire out as guards for the trader wagons now and then.”

“No,” beamed Milo, “you misunderstand me. Bard Herbuht and I and our party carry very little of value with us, we both are ourselves proven warriors and our women too, so we need no hired guards. Look you, Hwaltuh, Gy has a rare gift of a voice and of a memory and of improvisation; he should rightly be a bard, he longs to be a bard, yet you know as does he that he never will be allowed by his sire to become the Clan Linsee bard, in favor of his elder brother. Not so?

“Well, I hate to see natural talent of any sort or description wasted needlessly, and Bard Herbuht is of like mind. I want Gy to wend with us for long enough for Herbuht and me to fully test him and make a determination as to whether or not he will be suitable material for the next Tribal Bard.”

- “A Tribal Bard? A boy of Clan Linsee to be Tribal Bard?” Hwaltuh Linsee was so shocked that he spoke aloud, in a hushed tone. “That is so great an honor for the clan that I feel safe in saying that you’ll get no single objection from the chief, and any that the clan bard might voice will be overridden by the chief and the Linsee Council. The Song of Linsee tells of right many mighty warriors, brave and wise chiefs, skillful hunters and the like, but nowhere of a Tribal Bard of our blood.

“You tell the Linsee your plans for our Gy … or better yet, let me have the time to tell him before you come to the chiefs yurt. I feel free to promise that there will be no slightest objection or condition to Gy going off with you and Bard Herbuht.”

When, the next morning, half the horses were mind-called down from the prairie above to be saddled for the hunting and foraging parties, Hwaltuh Linsee came down astride the bare back of one of them, not looking as if he had slept well, if at all.

“There’s some something nosing around up there, right enough, Uncle Milo,” he reported. “It’s never gotten really close to the herd, and it’s canny enough to stay downwind so that neither the horses nor the cats can scent it properly, but it’s there, anyway.

“You take half of my hunt with you, today. I’m going to keep the other half of them and both of the prairiecats with me here, and I mean to find out just what is up there and whether or not it represents a danger to the horses.”

Milo shook his head. “Hwaltuh, recall if you will, these aren’t grown warriors we’re dealing with, Jthis hunt. If whatever is up there is at all dangerous or very big or there’s more than just one of them, you’re going to be hard pressed with only a handful of boys and girls to back you, with or without the cats and a few stallions. Keep your entire hunt here today. I know exactly where I’m taking mine, for a change, and immediately we’ve harvested those pigs, I’ll bring them back with the meat. We’ve done a lot of butchering down here in the last week, and who knows what sorts of predators or scavengers we might have attracted.”

Once up on the prairie level, Milo rode close enough to the now-reduced horse herd to mindspeak the two prairiecats, Snowbelly and Crooktail.

“Uncle Milo,” Snowbelly informed him, “I have never smelled this scent before. It is a little like a big weasel or a skunk, but also it is a little like an average-sized wild cat or a tree cat or even one of the cats of the high plains.”

“Does it smell at all like one of your kind?” queried Milo, thinking that they still occasionally came across a wild prairiecat, though such occurrences were getting rarer and rarer.

“No, Uncle Milo, not one of our kind,” the cat’s beaming assured him. “Whatever it is is as big as a full-grown wolf, but it is no wolf—no wolf ever smelled like that.”

“Well,” Milo beamed, “Subchief Hwaltuh is staying behind with all of his hunt today, and he means to find it, whatever it is.”

Aided by the exceptionally keen-nosed Snowbelly, Subchief Hwaltuh Linsee with a half-dozen members of his hunting party had backtracked one of the creatures that had been prowling around the vulnerable horse herd. Now he and the youngsters were squatting on the muddy bank of a small stream, some mile or more from the campsite. Strange tracks, big tracks, were all about them, and the odor which had so bothered the cats was here strong enough for even the humans to catch its powerful, musky reek.

Wrinkling up his nose in clear distaste, the big prairie-cat beamed, “There are nine of the beasts, at least in this pack, and they made a kill in this spot last night. The smell of deer blood still is strong in this mud, despite the other stench overlying it. They killed it here and ate it here.”

“Then where are the bones?” beamed Hwaltuh puzzledly. “What became of the hooves, the skull, the antlers, if any? Foxes?”

“No, Subchief,” Snowbelly’s powerful telepathy replied. “No recent smell of foxes or any other kind of small scavenger is here. Those strange beasts must have eaten the entire carcass—meat, guts, hide, bones, hooves and all. And I find this most odd, for this was no small deer they killed, Subchief Hwaltuh, and they did not lie up here and gnaw away at those bones like normal beasts, but seem to have eaten them as quickly and as easily as they ate the softer parts. No wolf could do such —or would so do in a country so full of game—yet you can see by the size and the depth of the spoor, these smelly beasts are none of them larger than an average prairie wolf.”

The Linsee subchief frowned. “It is something beyond my ken or experience, Snowbelly. Can you range the hunt chief? Or Uncle Milo?”

“This cat will try,” beamed Snowbelly, then, after a moment, “No, Subchief, both of them are out of my distance.”

The warrior stood up then, saying, “All right. Let’s see if we can trail them from this place to wherever they went next. Strung bows, everyone, with one shaft nocked and two more ready. Any beast that can carelessly munch the bones of a big deer could just as easily shear through the leg of a horse or any part of one of us. Only a fool would trail such a beast all unready.”

The trail of the smelly beasts wound on down the stream bank for a quarter mile or so, then struck out across the prairie, angling back more or less in the direction of the horse herd and the campsite. This bothered Hwaltuh, and he ordered the pace increased accordingly, for in his absence, there now were no adult humans in the camp, only some bare dozen youngsters—• one of them lying burned and helpless—and Crooktail, the other prairiecat.

Nearer to the herd and campsite, Crooktail had perceived the emanations of a large feline, not one of his own kind, but in many ways similar, and, even as Subchief Hwaltuh and his band rode for the camp, the prairiecat was in silent converse with the spotted, short-fanged cat (Milo would have called her a jaguar, while the far-southern clans would have used the Mekikahn word, teegrai, to describe her).

A young cat, without a clearly defined personal territory as yet, she had followed the migrating herds north in the spring, and she now was headed south again as the weather became colder. She was roughly of a size with Crooktail, though finer-boned and less beefy of body. She seemed fascinated to learn that twolegs and a variety of cat not only lived together in harmony but even shared the hunt and the protection of grass-eaters from other beasts.

When Crooktail “described” the scent of the strange prowlers, the spotted cat replied, “Yes, the skunk-wolves. There are not many of them anywhere, though they are more common farther south than here. They will eat anything living or dead, and although they often kill their own food, they will still take a kill from any other they can find or catch. They themselves are inedible, even the young ones. But tell this cat more of these strange twolegs you claim as brothers and sisters and who keep you fed even when you cannot hunt, in the times of the cold-white.”

Far from Crooktail and his wild feline companion-of-the-moment, away over on the other side of the horse herd, near to the edge of the bluffs, a mare had just dropped a foal. Her dark-bay flanks still trembling with strain, she was licking the infant horseling clean when her heightened senses told her of the imminence of deadly danger to her and her foal.

Two brownish, striped meat-eaters were stalking her in the open in a series of short, sidling rushes. They both stood as tall as or taller than a prairiecat—as much as six hands at the withers, though their bodies sloped sharply back toward the crupper. An erect crest of stiff hair stood up along their withers and thick necks, and their opened mouths were all big, gleaming teeth.

The mare screamed a terrified warning, then moved herself to take a stand between the threatening predators and her helpless foal. Warned by her hearing more than her sight, she lashed out with a two-hoofed kick to the rear and received the brief satisfaction of feeling her hooves make contact with a hairy something that gasped a whining scream and then thudded to the ground some distance away and made no other sounds of any sort. But even as she fought so well, so victoriously, against one of her stalkers, she realized that at least one other had gotten to, and sunk its fearsome fangs into and was dragging off her newborn foal. And even as a snarling prairiecat arrived on the scene at a dead run, the valiant mare felt rending fangs tear through her near hind leg as, simultaneously, still another set of crushing toothshod jaws clamped down on her throat and windpipe.

One glance at the huge jaws and bulging forequarter muscles of these beasts the spotted cat had called skunk-wolves and Crooktail recognized that this fight must be One of movement, rapid movement, slash and withdraw to slash and withdraw again, for to try to close would mean being held and eaten alive by the dog-shaped things. Beaming out a wide-spreading call for aid from the clansfolk and the herd stallions, the cat dashed in to claw open the flank of an attacker that had just messily hamstrung the doomed mare.

The creature turned its head on its misproportioned neck to snap bloody jaws at its own claw-torn flesh once, before returning to its attack on the mare, hunger and bloodthirst driving it harder than pain.

Crooktail drove in yet again, this time at one of the brown, striped beasts that was wrenching loose great bloody mouthfuls of flesh and entrails from the body of the feebly thrashing, piteously screaming foal. As the cat turned to leap away after laying open the back and off ham of the skunk-wolf, he collided full on with another that had been charging down on him; the impact sent both cat and beast rolling to sprawl on the hard ground, winded. Even as Crooktail fought to breathe and regain enough control of his battered body to arise arid keep moving, he saw his nemesis bearing down fast upon him in the form of one of the largest of the huge-jawed skunk-wolves.

At fourteen summers, Daiv Kripin of Linsee was big for his age and race, accurately drew a bow of adult weight, possessed a rare eye for casting darts and was developing rapidly into one of the best hands with saber and lance in the clan. He was sure of himself, as a good leader must always be (or, at least, project the appearance of being). All of his clansfolk recognized that if he lived to adulthood, Daiv would one day be a sub-chief, and Subchief Hwaltuh had felt no qualms at placing the boy in charge of the camp and the herd in the absence of adults.

Daiv had the ability to think ahead, to foresee possible dangers and prepare for them, and he had therefore ordered that a fast and veteran hunter be saddled and accoutered and kept on a picketline in camp for each of the half-dozen boys and girls left to him. Therefore, when the mare’s scream alerted him, he and the rest were already tightening cinches and mounting even as Crooktail’s mindcall reached them.

A MAIN

“Wait!” he cautioned those who would have immediately turned their mounts and essayed the steep trail up to the bluff top. “First string your bows and nock an arrow—there may be no time to do so above in whatever is going on up there.”

As the little party leaned well forward in their saddles to aid their mounts in balancing on the steep, narrow ascent, they all could feel the vibration of the milling, stamping herd, could hear the whickerings and snortings, and could sense the plethora of mindspeaking and mind-callings among the restive, disturbed equines. Horses, even the rare breed of Horseclans stock, possessed nowhere near the intelligence of cats or twolegs, of course; Daiv was of the private opinion that even cattle and sheep were smarter, and he prayed Sun and Wind that this herd would not take it into their empty heads to panic and stampede out into the vast prairie. Not only would that mean many long, wasted hunting days of running the brainless creatures down, as many as had not by then fallen prey to predators, or broken legs caused by their headlong flight, but it would reflect ill on him, since the camp and the herd had been in his keeping this day.

Daiv’s hunter crested the bluff almost atop the spot where a badly clawed doglike beast was gorging itself on chunks of flesh and bone torn from the flopping, twitching carcass of what had recently been a new-dropped foal. Without pause or even thought, the boy drove a stone-tipped arrow fletchings-deep in the side of the singular glutton, just behind the hunched shoulder. And the well-aimed shaft had but barely left the powerful hornbow when another had been nocked and readied for use.

Some dozen yards or so away from the riders, they could see a fast and furious and bloody running fight being waged between six more of the big, ugly beasts, Crooktail and, surprisingly enough, a short-fanged cat about of a size with the prairiecat but of a very odd color —a base coat of golden yellow thickly interspersed with large black near-circular blotches.

A momentary contact with Crooktail’s mind assured him of the verity of his original surmise, and he both shouted and mindspoke the other boys and girls, “Don’t shoot that spotted cat. She’s fighting for us against these smelly things.” Then he felt it wise to broadbeam the same instructions to the scattered herd guards who were frantically galloping around the herd or trying to force a way through it.

Fearsome as were the skunk-wolves as predators and fighters against other beasts, the pack proved no match for seven mounted, bow-armed boys and girls of the Horseclans, and shortly they were become only seven arrow-quilled lumps of bleeding flesh and bone covered over with matted, stinking hair. That was when Subchief Hwaltuh Linsee and his six riders arrived with Snow-belly.

Dismounting, the warrior examined each of the dead creatures at some length and detail, wrinkling his nose against their hideous reek. “Hmmph. The skunk part of their name is apt enough, but I don’t think they’re really wolves. For one thing, no wolf has ever had ears like .that, and, look you all closely here, the creatures all completely lack dewclaws, and their toe pads are of a very different arrangement than a wolfs are. They—”

A high, wavering scream bore up to them from the camp below the bluffs. There was a cackle of inhuman-sounding laughter and a second scream … or rather half of one, chopped off into sudden silence.

“Sun and Wind!” exclaimed Hwaltuh. “What… who was that?”

Daiv Kripin of Linsee paled under his weather-darkened tan. “The burned Skaht boy, Subchief … he’s lying down there alone, no one to tend him or defend him. Could there be … do you think there may be more of these … these things?”

Hwaltuh flung himself into his saddle. “Yes, Daiv, there’re more. We’ve been tracking at least nine of them across the prairie, and you lot only killed seven up here. Come on. Half of us down the center path, half down the upstream route. Snowbelly, you cats go ahead and try to hold them until we get down. You herd guards, stay up here on your posts. Mindspeak the stallions and any other horses you know well — try to get this herd calmed down.”

Milo Morai needed but a glance at the nine holed, bloody and stiffening carcasses laid out at the edge of the stream to make positive identification of the late marauders. “Hyenas, Hwaltuh, beasts that look like dogs and behave a great deal like them, too, but are more closely related to cats or weasels, actually. They aren’t native to this continent any more than are a number of other beasts now living here, but some must have been imported before the Great Dyings. Probably the many- times- great-grandparents of these lived in a zoo or a theme park and must have lived well on all the cadavers lying everywhere during that long-ago time. I’d never before come across any of them, never even heard tell of them on the prairies, before this. I hope we never again come across any of them, either. In Africa, I’ve seen packs of them literally eat animals alive.”

“Uncle Milo,” said Hwaltuh earnestly and solemnly, “I am very sorry about the death of that boy, Rahjuh Vawn of Skaht, and poor young Daiv Kripin of Linsee, conscientious as he is, goes absolutely crushed that he did not think in the excitement of the moment to see that at least one boy or girl remained down here to see to the helpless lad.- He feels that he has failed in discharge of his assigned responsibilities this day, fears that the losses of a Skaht boy, a Skaht mare and her foal may recommence the feud and that that too will be his fault. What can I say to him?”

Milo looked at the other warrior, who now stood beside him and Hwaltuh. “What would you say to such a lad in such a case, Hunt Chief Tchuk?”

Tchuk Skaht shook his head sadly. “It’s not that poor, brave lad’s fault, not any of it, not the deaths of mare or foal or … or Rahjuh. Part of the fault for his death rests squarely upon my shoulders, for I flung him into that firepit and burned him. But the larger part of that fault lay upon Rahjuh himself, for had he not been dangerously insubordinate, there would have been no reason for me to so harshly discipline him. Nor do any of my younger Skahts seem to hold this Daiv Kripin of Linsee culpable—they only seem to regret that they were not here to share in the battle against these whatever-you-called-thems.”

“Then,” said Milo, “I think that you and Hwaltuh and a couple of your young Skahts should seek Daiv out and tell him what you just told me. Make certain that one of the young Skahts you take along is a pretty, unattached girl, eh?”

Tchuk Skaht nodded, with a broad grin and a wink.

As Milo and his hunt lay upon the large, flat-topped rock drying their bodies and hair in the sun, the three cats crouched around a heaping pile of pig offal, gorging on the rich, fatty fare, while Milo and Gy Linsee mindspoke them.

“We all are in your debt, cat sister,” Milo informed the stray jaguar female. “But for your ferocity, Crooktail feels that he would surely have been killed or at least seriously injured by the skunk-wolves. And Subchief Hwaltuh still is amazed at how you dashed in and, at great risk to yourself, bit clean through the spine of that skunk-wolf that was savaging the body of the boy. What can we do to repay you?”

Tilting up her neat head, her eyes closed, her gleaming carnassials scissoring off a tasty section of pig gut, the spotted cat beamed, “Crooktail has told this cat that if a cat helps you twolegs to hunt and to guard your fourleg grasseaters from wolves and bears and other cats, you will always provide meat and a warm, dry place to sleep with safety for kittens and cubs until they are big enough to protect themselves. Is this true?”

“Yes,” beamed Milo simply.

She swallowed the piece of pig gut and immediately went to work detaching another length, sublimely unheeding of the metallic-hued flies buzzing and crawling upon her bloody face and the bloodier feast that lay before her. “It sounds a better, more secure life than following the herds of horned beasts and trying to find and claim a hunting ground where no big cat now lives, and being always fearful of dying of hunger in the long, white-cold. Could this cat become such a cat as Crook-tail, twoleg brother of cats?”

“Crooktail’s clan will be honored to include so valiant a new cat sister amongst its fighters,” Milo assured her. “But by what name is our cat sister called?”

“Why not call her Spotted One?” beamed Snowbelly, in friendly fashion.

As he lay back and relaxed in the warm sunlight, Milo wondered if the prairiecats and the jaguar were closely enough related to produce fertile kittens or any kittens at all, then mentally shrugged. Only time would tell, in that matter.

But in a closer matter, there was no slightest doubt as to the speedy outcome. In the midst of the gathering of nude, damp boys and girls on the rock, Karee Skaht, Myrah Skaht and Gy Linsee now were thoroughly occupied with one another, completely ignoring the others around them.

Karee half sat on the supine boy’s upper chest, presenting her wet blond pudenda to his eager lips and darting tongue. Gasping her pleasure, her small hands twisted through his dark, loosened hair while his larger hands kneaded and pinched and caressed her small, pointy breasts.

Myrah was astride Gy’s loins, her knees and shins pressed to the rockface, head thrown back, eyes scewed tightly shut, spine arched, hands clenched, every line and muscle showing tension as she rocked slowly back and forth, back and forth.

Milo reflected that, in company with Gy Linsee and his two hot-blooded young wives, the next few years of traveling should be anything but boring.