Bili the Axe

9

The shaggy, filthy, verminous-looking man had woven leaves into his disheveled mop of dull, dirty hair and his scraggly beard. Streaks of a claylike mud now adorned the highlights of his already dusty, dirty face. Even while flies explored his ears and nostrils, even while tiny, maddening no-see-ums swarmed and whined about his head, he remained absolutely motionless, his gaze locked upon the firestick-armed man who stood alertly some few yards ahead of him.

The unkempt warrior had left his two ponies tethered a quarter mile back in the woods, most of his weapons and equipment with them, retaining only his dozen or so knives. The largest of these—both sides of its fourteen-inch single-edged blade liberally smeared with greasy soot and dust to prevent a telltale reflection of light along its length—was now grasped in his right hand, ready for slash or stab or throw, whatever the occasion might demand. This man had had years of experience at bushwhacking the unwary.

Almost imperceptibly, the shaggy man moved closer to his quarry. Not even a rustling leaf or the crackling ‘of a single tiny fallen branchlet bespoke his passage, however. Soon, now. Very soon he would be close enough to arise for that last, lightning-quick and viper-deadly rush; then a knee in the small of the sentry’s back, left hand clamped over the mouth and pulling the head back to bare the throat for its brief, sharp acquaintance with the edge of the blade, and it would all be over save the stripping of the victim of his weapons and any other desired loot, then a safe withdrawal to where the ponies waited, browsing the tender, green new growth of the springy underbrush.

Closer. The wind was right, blowing gently from the hunted down to the hunter, bearing on it the mixed scents of man sweat, mule sweat, gun oil and tobacco, all registered by the flaring nostrils of the shaggy man. Closer. The shaggy man stopped in midmovement, froze like a statue, for the man with the firestick seemed to be staring directly at him.

But then the searching gaze wandered on and, ever so slowly, the shaggy man smoothly recommenced his interrupted stalking of his soon-to-be victim. Closer still. The keen eyes of the man with the long knife locked onto his quarry. He was come close enough; now he only need wait for the moment when the standing man turned his back.

That moment came at last, and, like a coiled spring suddenly released of tension, the shaggy man was on his booted feet and, in an eye-flickering rush of movement, behind the watcher. In a rhythm born of long practice, the left hand was clamped cruelly tight over the mouth and the body bent painfully backward over the knee sticking into its spine. The long, cruel knife blade came around for the throat-slash…

Old Johnny Kilgore waved the sooty knifeblade before the eyes of his “victim.”

“You daid meat, Jimmy Lewis. I done kilt yer ass, by naow.”

“Not quite, Johnny, not quite.” There came a sudden popping and crackling of brush and fallen branches from at least three points behind the shaggy man. Then the officer who had spoken and two troopers armed with rifles—scoped, sniper models—came from out the woods, their faces soot-darkened and the nets covering their helmets festooned with plant materials, the metal itself smeared with random patterns of mud.

The officer added, with a grin, “You’ve been under close observation almost from the time you left your ponies. Where did you get the smaller one, anyway? He looks like a real Ganik pony.”

Kilgore released the sentry and sheathed his big knife. Shaking his head, he remarked, “Gump, you’n yore boys is a-gittin’ good, dang good. Yawl won’t be gittin’ bushwhacked by no Ganiks, not if yawl stays thet sharp.”

Smiling warmly, the officer nodded and holstered his big pistol. “We all had a good teacher, Johnny. Generations of Broomtown men will bless your name and memory, you know.

“But, back to that scrawny bag of bones you’ve acquired… ?”

Old Johnny shrugged. “I foun’ ‘im wand’rin’ up yonder a ways, and he won’t awl I foun’, neethuh. Foun’ whutawl ‘uz lef of a Ganik, too. A wild bunch Ganik looked fer to be, to me.”

In a tight voice, the officer demanded, “Did he see you?”

“Not hardly!” The old cannibal chuckled. “Some critter, some dang big critter, had plumb chawed the life outen thet Ganik. An’ whutawl the littler critters an’ the birds an’ awl had done lef of Mm, won’ much fer me to see ‘cept his clo’s an’ boots an’ knifes an’ awl.”

Johnny shoved aside the close-fitting cap stitched together from two well-matched human scalps and scratched at his bald pate with filthy, cracked fingernails. Then puzzled, he added, “But fer the life of me, I cain’t figger haow one pore bunch Ganik got hisse’f this fer south by his lonesome to git chawed to death.”

“You’re certain he was alone then, Johnny?” probed Gumpner.

The old man shrugged again. “Had to be, Gump. Been any mo’ boys with ‘im, eethuh he wouldn’ of got chawed a-tall, or they’d of took awl his knifes an’ his boots afore they lef ‘im fer the critters. Ganiks, they lives hard an’ they don’ let nuthin jes’ go to waste.”

Gumpner tugged at his neat, iron-gray chin beard for a moment, then said, “Johnny, that bear we had to kill—could that bear have been the animal that killed this Ganik you found?”

Johnny bobbed his head once. “I thought ‘bout thet, too, Gump. Could be, could sure be. It ain’ thet much distance less’n you stick to the trail, ‘long here, an’ ain’t no cawse fer no bar to. Bars don’t eat folks often, but thet ’un, he might of come after the pony an’ thet pore boy he darted him too fer back. So the dang pony, he got away, and the bar, he chawed thet pore dumb Ganik to death. Mighta happund, Gump.”

“So, it was just the one man and his pony, then, Johnny?”

Kilgore gave another single, curt nod. “I backtrailed ‘im, Gump. Foun’ wher he camped up the trail the night afore he ‘uz kilt. Won’ nobody but him an’ the one pony. An’ thet ain’t no particul of right in it, neethuh, Gump. Ganiks, they ain’t nevuh liked bein’ alone; the bigger the bunch they rides with, the better they likes it. Suthin’ damned funny musta happund up nawth, elst thet pore boy, he woulda been with two, three othuh Ganiks, enyhaow.”

The officer turned to the two snipers. “Go fetch in those two ponies.” Then, to Johnny, “There’s a little brook between here and the camp. You can wash the worst of that stink off and then we’ll go on in. I’m certain that the general will be relieved by your message.”

Corbett was vastly relieved at the prospect of not having to fight Ganiks yet. Old Johnny, on the other hand, seemed aggrieved, attesting, as he squatted by the cookfire, “It jes’ ain’t no fun no mo’, gin’rul. Thesehere boys is done got so sharp, I cain’t hardly nevuh ketch ‘em no mo’. I spent me a whole passel of time a-plannin’ an’ awl, lef the ponies way, way back, then took up close to two hours fer to go the las’ lil ways aftuh Jimmy Lewis, an’ it awl looked perfic’. Then I come fer to fin’ out it’d been rifuls awn me dang near the whole damn way. It jes ain’ no fun no mo’!”

Corbett sipped at a metal cup of strong coffee and grinned. “It’s your fault, then, Johnny. You’re too good a teacher for your own good, apparently.”

The old Ganik still looked and sounded hurt and offended, however. “But, gin’rul, it won’t fair fer to tell Gump an’ them I wuz gonna try to jump ‘em today.”

From where he squatted with his own coffee Gumpner said, “Johnny, neither the general nor anybody else told any of us that you planned to try the perimeter today, only that you would try to do it from time to time, as you’ve been doing periodically for months. It just happened that one of the outer line of sentries, a fellow up a tall tree, spotted you sneaking across that little ridge back there, and passed on the signal to the perimeter.

“He didn’t recognize you—all he reported was a Ganik headed at us afoot. He had a scoped rifle and could likely have dropped you, then, but he was aware that the general wants live prisoners. It wasn’t until I got up there that I saw you and realized you’d chosen this time and place for one of the general’s impromptu problems. Still, you taught me and two snipers even more than you had in months past about camouflage and the fine art of bushwhacking. All I can say is, thank God you’re on our side, Johnny.”

The order of march for the next few days remained the same in all respects save that Johnny Kilgore rode with the point rather than ahead of it. They made good time in the week before any other singular events occurred, and Corbett was able to report the appreciable progress in the nightly conversations with Dr. David Sternheimer, via the big transceiver.

“Were we on the main trail, the big eastern one, David,’ we’d be making even better time than this. But I still agree that it will be better to stick to the one we came south on, this smaller, western one, for all its narrowness and twists and turns. Not only do Gumpner and I and some of the others who were with me last year know this trail well, there’s the additional fact that the Ganiks themselves use it seldom, so it will be an unfortunate coincidence if we run onto any of the uncouth bastards.”

During the conversation one night, Sternheimer had said, haltingly, “Now, Jay, you know that my belief in some of this parapsychological stuff is very limited. Nonetheless, I have this… how shall I say it?… this ‘feeling’ that Erica still is alive… somewhere. It’s most likely simply a matter of pure and unadulterated wishful thinking, of course. But… but, Jay, please, as a personal favor to me, keep your eyes open. Any sign, anything… ? Since that vicious bastard Braun did what he did to her… she… I now know that she meant far more to me than I ever… than I ever allowed myself to consciously realize… admit.

“You see, Jay, we still are subconsciously bound by the strictures, the morals of the world in which we matured, even though that world hasn’t existed for almost a millennium. In the beginning, when first Dr. Arenstein came down to work on the Project, she… just being near her, seeing her, hearing her voice, it… well, she aroused me… sexually, I mean.

“But back then, in our original bodies, there was a vast disparity in our ages. Dr. Arenstein… dammit! Erica … was no more than thirty-eight or -nine, while I was nearing seventy. I had my full share of enemies then, both outside and inside the Project, and the last thing I wanted or felt I could afford was to have the label ‘dirty old man’ added to all the other canards; nor would that have then been all, of course. I then had a still-living wife, though we had not lived together for years.

■ “That frigid, feminist bitch! She would have loved nothing so much as to have had the ammunition to publicly humiliate me… us, Erica and me… had I been so rash as to give it to her. May she rot and suffer in whatever hell she’s been in for these last thousand or so years!”

“And so, Jay, I was emotionally saddled with those same, senseless inhibitions for long centuries. Only when, last year, I… when I thought that Erica… dear, lovely woman… only then did I admit to myself just how stupid I had been for so long a time.

“Then, last winter, I began to have strange, disturbing dreams… dreams of Erica. I could see her in some low, smoky place… perhaps a cave… and there were other people there, too, men, 1 think, some of them, at least, armed with rifles. Laugh at me if you wish, but… but it all seemed so… so real that… that I thought, perhaps, if… ?”

“It’s entirely possible, David. According to Morty Lilienthal, an intense emotional attachment when combined with enforced separation and longing can heighten, increase, latent psychic abilities.”

Old frames of mind become often rock-hard and old habits are hard to break even in the face of suffering. “That fraud?” Sternheimer snorted scornfully. “That pompous ass of a Rhine-blinded idiot! I just wish I knew how that so-called psychometric, that lousy louse of a cheap fortuneteller, got assigned to the Project to begin with. I’m sorry to say so, Jay, but you have a very poor choice of associates.”

“David,” Corbett began, “now I know, along with everyone else at the Center, that you and Dr. Lilienthal don’t particularly care for each other…”

Sternheimer snorted again. “That, General Corbett, is the unparalleled understatement of two millennia!”

Corbett pushed on, regardless. “No matter, David, you are just now caught between a rock and a hard place, and, like it or him or not, Morty Lilienthal just may be the only one down there who can help you.

“Now you have just gone through a protracted and obviously difficult admission to me about an affair of the heart that everyone save only you at the Center has known about or at least surmised for centuries. You once considered— and likely a part of you still considers—even admission of these feelings to yourself to be far beyond the pale, much less the thought of consummating them, but still you have found the strength within yourself to sufficiently reshuffle your mind enough to admit them not only to yourself but to me.

“Now you’re going to have to do a bit more reshuffling, David. For all that mindspeak, as they call it, is a reality and has been a reality on this continent for centuries, and that this mindspeak is nothing more or less than what we once called telepathy, you have continued to regard it and all the other of the host of extrasensory abilities as, at the very best, pseudo-science and, as such, unworthy of your notice. Well, you’ve been wrong and you’re just going to have to bite the bullet and admit that too.

“David, Mcrty Lilienthal respects you and admires you, has always admired you and fought very hard to get assigned to the original Project in hopes that his then-rare specialty might be of help to you and your Project. He has since been hurt and embittered by your often and loudly expressed scorn of him and his field, but still he never has ceased to admire you and your unimpeachable accomplishments.

“Go to him, David. Better yet, call him to your office and tell him all that you’ve just told me. He can teach you to mindspeak, if you possess the germ of the ability. He’s already taught me in just the last few months to contact those capable of receiving at as much as several hundred meters distant.

“And David, there is another type of telepathy, one which non-Center people call farspeak. Certain unusual minds possessing this talent can communicate over vast distances, hundreds of kilometers; the outer ranges have never been determined. If you prove capable of this rarity, David, and if Erica is still alive somewhere, you might be able to actually contact her, converse with her or exchange thoughts and so make it easier for us to find her and bring her back to the Center… to you. Would that be worth the consumption of a helping of crow to you, David?”

“Abase myself to that young charlatan? Never!” snarled Sternheimer, adding in a more normal tone, “You ask too much, Jay. You must remember, I am after all the Director.”

“All right,” agreed Corbett, trying to mask from his tone the exasperation and disgust he was beginning to feel for Sternheimer and his rigidly closed mind. “Look at the matter this way, David. If you do possess long-range telepathy and you can find a way to develop mastery of that ability, it just might prove of value—possibly, of inestimable value—against the mutants, all of whom do any important long-range discussion in just that way.

“And please understand, David, I’m not saying you should make a decision on it now; just think about it, weigh it in your mind. As of tonight, we’re nowhere near where Erica was lost, and won’t be for a week or more at our present rate of march. Besides, I want to see the job well underway up ai the site of the landslide before I take any troops off on what well might well be a wild-goose chase and highly dangerous to me and my men, to boot.”

A few hours after the end of that radio communication, it began to rain, nor did it ever stop for more than a few hours at a time, day or night, for weeks. Moreover, with the rain and mist came a drop of temperature to a level unseasonably low for the area they were traversing. The thin layers of soil covering the rocks on the higher elevations of the track became slick patches of mud, making these stretches even more hazardous than usual for the riders and heavy-laden pack animals. Corbett often found it necessary not only to dismount the column but to have men detailed to garner large quantities of weeds and brush to cover the slippery spots and provide some manner of traction for both men and beasts.

Consequently, the formerly good progress was slowed to a mere crawl, nor did all but sleepless nights of shivering under wet blankets add to the daytime efficiency of the troops and civilian packers. Tempers waxed short and the generally easygoing officers and noncoms found it necessary to exact and enforce strict, harsh discipline in order to maintain a unit rather than a mob.

Nor did the march on lower levels of the track provide any rest for the weary column. Streams that Corbett’s mental map had recorded as hardly fetlock-deep were found, on this trip, to have metamorphosed into raging rivers, swirling, muddy, icy water between steep, slippery banks and belly-high for even a long-legged mule. Thicker layers of loam on the valley trails quickly developed countless and seemingly bottomless mudholes, from which cursing, mud-caked and thoroughly soaked men often had to extricate screaming, thrashing and terrified mules or ponies.

Due to these multitudinous difficulties, it was close to three weeks before the column wended its way between the high, rocky walls of that pass wherein Dr. Harry*raun had clubbed Dr. Erica Arenstein to earth and left her to the tender mercies of the cannibal Ganiks, while he galloped on after Gumpner and the wounded, leaving Corbett and the bulk of the force doggedly holding the northern mouth of the gap against hundreds of the savage Ganiks, and fully expecting to give their lives that their comrades and the two scientists might have a better chance at survival.

To their astonishment, all of the defenders had lived through the suicidal action, their well-used rifles having taken so heavy and ghastly a toll of the attacking Ganiks that the leaders of the savages had finally rounded up their own survivors and ridden back whence they came, apparently counting on a smaller contingent led by Johnny Skinhead Kilgore to chase down and slay Gumpner’s party.

Instead, Corbett and his force had surprised Old Johnny and his Ganiks camping along the trail and shot or sabered all of them save Old Johnny himself. Then Corbett’s group joined with Gumpner to continue on south, to Broomtown.

Now, arriving at the northern mouth of the pass, they confronted another difficulty, this one of their own making. What remained of the low breastwork of rocks they had had to erect so quickly before that long-ago battle was easy enough to shift aside with so many hands to join in the work, but the huge fallen tree that they had tumbled from one of the verges above proved another matter entirely.

There seemed to be no way that they could shove hard enough against the thick mass of splintery roots or heave on ropes hitched around the trunk to do more than shift the tree a few bare centimeters. The spread of branches that had spanned the defile from wall to rocky wall and thus provided so excellent an abattis in last year’s defensive battle now fought against their efforts to clear the gap. Those same branches that had forced the charging Ganiks to dismount and come slowly in afoot into the murderous fire of the rifles now sought out and wedged tightly into every crack and crevice and cranny of walls or floor and so added their resistance to the massive weight of hardwood against which the sweating, panting, cursing parties of men strained.

Nor, in the confined area, could enough mules to make a difference be hitched to either side of the stubby trunk of the mountain oak. Moreover, as the wood had had time to weather and season, efforts directed at the thick branches with axe or saber seemed endless and exhausting.

Finally, Old Johnny opined, “Gin’rul, I thanks the bestes’ thang we kin do is to burn the bastid out.”

Corbett shook his head. “I’d love nothing better, Johnny, and were we not now into Ganik country, I would. But on a clear, almost windless day like this, we’d be sending up a smoke you could see forty miles away. And since most fires are the work of men, just how long do you think it would be before we had a mob of your kinfolk on top of us?”

Kilgore shrugged. “Not lawng, gin’rul. Ganik’s is awl curious. But thin why not jes’ camp wher we is and do ‘er’t’night?”

Again, Corbett demurred. “Johnny, look up there.” He pointed at the verges ten and more meters above. “Against anything more original or innovative than a direct frontal assault, this gap will be a deathtrap for anyone fool enough to get caught in it. I want to be clear of it well before dark. If only there were some way to get a dozen span of mules through the mess up there…”

Johnny scratched at his bald scalp and commented, “If it’s jes’ mules and riders you wawnts to git out yonder, gin’rul, ain’ no trick to thet. R’member, me ‘n’ my boys, we rode raht roun’ yawl, las’ year?”

Corbett slammed clenched fist into palm. “Damn! What the hell was 1 thinking of? Of course you did. But those were mountain ponies you rode, Johnny. Do you think these big mules could negotiate those trails?”

The old cannibal sniffed. “Onlies’ really rough part’s gon’ be gittin’ ‘em down the bluff inta the valley yonder. The rest of it’s jes’ a wide swing th’ough the woods, is awl.”

Corbett nodded briskly. “All right, Johnny. Take any man you choose, trooper or civilian, and any animal. Gumpner, you go with him and see that he gets no lip from anyone, then report back to me when he’s on his way. Once you and your party get into the valley, Johnny, we’ll hook up the ropes and pass them through those damned branches to you.”

Johnny Kilgore proved as good as his word, and, with twelve pairs of brawny mules hitched to the tree and a clear expanse of valley before them, the heavy, unwieldy hulk soon was hauled clear of the gap, leaving in its wake only splinters and hunks of half-rotted bark. And the column moved on through.

Although there were several hours more of daylight, Corbett halted the bulk of the column in the meadow just to the north of it, along the banks of the wide, shallow brook that flowed southeast to northwest across it. They all waited there, setting up the night camp, until a strong patrol led by Lieutenant Vance and Old Johnny returned to report no sign of any nearby Ganiks or even of any recent movements of them along any of the network of smaller tracks.

At that juncture, Corbett announced that they would camp in their present location for two or three days. He thought that after the recent strenuous weeks of rain and cold, both the animals and the men needed a rest before they pushed on; it was a certainty that he, Jay Corbett, did.

On hearing this news, the indefatigable Johnny Kilgore found a fresh mount and a few kindred spirits and set out to fetch back fresh game. Corbett let the old man and his companions go with heartfelt wishes of hunter’s luck, for he too was sick unto death of the monotonous rations on which they all had been subsisting these past wet weeks.

So quickly did the hunters return that Corbett at first suspected that they had run into Ganiks or some other trouble, but such was not the case. All were heavily laden with game, and the old man was ecstatic. “Gin’rul Jay, long’s I lived in theseheanh mountins, an’ thet’s a passul of years too, I ain’t nevuh come fer to see the critters be so thick an’ easy to knock ovuh as they is, naow an’ heanh. A body he’d thank they hadn’ been huntid fer months. An’ not one place could I fin’ where nobody’d been a-diggin’ no roots, neethuh, an’ Ganiks is allus diggin roots, ‘speshly in spring.”

As it developed, they stayed for six days, leaving the valley only when the mules and ponies had grazed it out. But they had mounted a strong, concentric perimeter guard twenty-four hours per day, while Corbett and Johnny or Gumpner and Johnny or Vance and Johnny led out large, far-ranging patrol and hunting parties to north and northeast and northwest, to find not one living Ganik of any sort, nor any trace of recent occupation of two deserted bunch camps and a handful of small farms.

One of the bunch camps was utterly abandoned and fast falling in upon itself, the new plants of spring quickly commencing overgrowth of the untenanted spot that had been some years before, or so Johnny assured them, the camp of his son, Long Willy Kilgore. But the other camp had been both slighted and burned, nor had the progress of seasons and weather and predators been able to entirely erase the traces of a large and hard-fought battle in and around the camp at some time prior to the conflagration. Nor could Old Johnny shed any light on the matter, confessing readily and with much scratching of his hairless scalp that he never before had seen the like.

The abandoned farms presented even more of a puzzle. No one of them seemed to have been subjected to any sort of violence, yet all looked to have been deserted well before harvesttime, for many of last year’s uncollected crops had obviously reseeded themselves and were springing up afresh if a bit randomly. Aside from evidences of neglect and weather damage, all of the farm buildings were structurally sound and most still contained larger and bulkier items of furniture and household effects, only smaller, easily transportable items being missing.

With the sole exception of a few wild-looking chickens— most of which succulent fowl were downed with darts or sling stones and added to the day’s bag—and a single, blat-ting billy goat which proved too elusive and chary for even Old Johnny to dart, no livestock remained anywhere. Nor did any wagon or cart remain on any of the farms, although quite a collection of larger agricultural implements were still in place.

Old Johnny Kilgore opined that “suthin’ dang funny has done gone awn up heanh las’ year,” and Corbett and the rest could only agree. In all of the mountains and valleys there did not seem to be a single Ganik left resident. Nonetheless, the perimeter guards were maintained and the patrol-hunts went on, though the last three days were spent in ranging up the projected line-of-march, locating and marking favorable campsites and suchlike.

It began to rain again during the night before they broke camp and again marched northeast, but it was only a light drizzle and the winds that bore it were seasonally warm and gentle. By midday, it had ceased completely and the sun was beginning to dry up what little moisture had not soaked into the ground or run off into the little streams along the way.

At that time unaware of the network of smaller tracks connecting the three larger north-south traces, Corbett had led those of his last year’s force who had survived the landslide on a grueling cross-country trek from the easternmost track to this one, but with Old Johnny as a guide, such a hellish journey was not necessary this time. A couple of hours into the second day’s march after leaving the valley camp, the bald Ganik had set the column onto a narrow, overgrown track—little more than a game trail in the best of times, from the look of it—meandering eastward.

Due to the condition of the long-unused track and the bulk of some of the pack loads, some work with axe and saber was necessary on the part of the vanguard, but Corbett was quick to note that this clearance did not in any way approach the brutal labor of hacking out a passage where none had previously existed as he and his party had been compelled to do in last year’s cross-country journey. Nor did this year’s passage take the long days that that one had required. They were on the main, easternmost track before dark of the same day they had left the western one.

They camped that night at the junction of the smaller and larger tracks and resumed the march with the dawning of the new day. The midday halt was made just north of a place where a wide but shallow stream crossed the track. A small, brushy island flanked by deeper channels lay just downstream of the ford, and both Corbett and Gumpner were quick to recognize and remember the spot.

“It was here,” Corbett informed Johnny and his officers, “on the island, yonder, that the bulk of what was left of the column found Sergeant Vance with the men and animals he’d led out of the forest fires and the Ganik he’d captured, one Jim-Beau Carter.”

Old Johnny sniffed. “I knowed thet bastid, too. Won’t none them Carters worth a moldy possum turd or a han’ful of rottun peanuts, not fer nuthin’, they won’t.”

“Be that as it may,” Corbett went on, “I know the trail now, from here on, and so does Gumpner. So, Johnny, you and Vance take a squad on ahead and find us a good, well-watered campsite, one near to plenty of graze, if you can. I want to be fairly close to the areas in which we’ll be working, but not too close; there’s no certain way to tell in advance which direction these explosives may throw rocks, and I’d prefer that said rocks not land in our camp.

“All right, then. As soon as the men have finished their coffee and whatall, let’s get cracking. I’d like to excavate what’s still worth it and get back down to Broomtown before autumn makes these mountains really miserable to travel through.”