The Hunter Returns by David Drake & Jim Kjelgaard

Author:David Drake & Jim Kjelgaard [Drake, David & Kjelgaard, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Historical, Prehistory, Action & Adventure, Survival Stories, General
ISBN: 9781476780559
Google: SRrWoQEACAAJ
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2015-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

BISON

It had begun to rain before the surviving hunters reached the camp. The women must have suspected what had happened, because they already had the tribe’s goods bundled and ready for flight.

The fire made the drizzle glitter like sunlight on an outcrop of mica. For a moment, the women and children remained impassive as the men stumbled into view. When those waiting realized that there were only five survivors, they began to scream and wail.

“I told you!” cried Elm. “I told you what would happen if you ignored the spirit of the bison!”

“We didn’t ignore anything, old woman,” said Wolf. He was trying to remember what had happened at the other tribe’s camp. Kar had brought the Chief Hunter a wad of wet grass with which Wolf mopped the blood from his forehead. His mind still moved in flashes rather than a connected trail. He remembered a spear coming at his face—and Boartooth spraying blood like a horse whose throat has been cut to finish it quickly. “I perform the rites as my father did. We needed good spears to take game.”

Elm stood with her hands and her hips and her elbows out, shrieking at the hunters with a voice as raucous as a crow’s. “You should have—” she began.

Redhair knocked the medicine woman down with his hand. She squawked in surprise. Redhair had lost his spear, but he still carried a club. He drew the weapon from beneath his waist thong and started for Elm again.

Wolf grabbed him from behind. “No!” the Chief Hunter shouted. “We are a tribe! We do not harm one another!”

Redhair turned away angrily. “Tell her to keep her mouth shut, then,” he snarled. “If she speaks again tonight, I’ll treat her as Flash was treated. Flash was my friend.”

“Come,” said Wolf to the others. “We must leave at once. Bull will not follow us any distance, but if we meet his hunting parties on the plain they will surely attack.”

“It’s night,” said Grassblade, one of the women. “How will we . . . ?”

Wolf opened his mouth to reply, but his vision suddenly blurred. He saw two of everything, fuzzy images which were no more material than wisps of fog. He swayed and would have fallen except that old Kar put an arm around his shoulders.

“We will carry torches,” said the Chief Fire-Maker. “The animals will not harm us. They don’t hunt in the rain either.”

Wolf felt his vision clear and his balance return. “The rain will put our torches out,” said a young boy—Heron’s son, the Chief Hunter thought. He was too young to have the right to argue with one of the chiefs, but all discipline was breaking down under the crushing weight of hunger and catastrophe.

“Soon it will be dawn,” said Kar. “Besides, the night is less dangerous than being here at dawn when Bull’s hunters come.”

He spoke mildly instead of slapping the child to assert adult authority. Perhaps the Chief Fire-Maker wanted to avoid additional violence on a night in which violence had proved disastrous for the tribe .

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