The Works of Clifford D. Simak Volume One by Clifford D. Simak

Author:Clifford D. Simak
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504049009
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2017-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

14

A week later, they had traveled as far north as they could go. Cushing spread out the map to show them. “See, we’ve passed the lake. Big Stone Lake, it’s called. There is another lake a few miles north of here, but the water flows north from it, into the Red. Thunder Butte lies straight west from here, perhaps a little north or a little south. Two hundred miles or so. Ten days, if we are lucky. Two weeks, more than likely.” He said to Rollo, “You know this country?”

Rollo shook his head. “Not this country. Other country like it. It can be mean. Hard going.”

“That’s right,” said Cushing. “Water may be hard to find. No streams that we can follow. A few flowing south and that is all. We’ll have to carry water. I have this jacket and my pants. Good buckskin. There’ll be some seepage through the leather, but not too much. They’ll do for water bags.”

“They’ll do for bags,” said Meg, “but poorly. You will die of sunburn.”

“I worked all summer with the potatoes and no shirt. I am used to it.”

“Your shirt only, then,” she said. “Barbaric we may be, but I’ll not have you prancing across two hundred miles without a stitch upon you.”

“I could wear a blanket.”

“A blanket would be poor clothing,” Rollo said, “to go through a cactus bed. And there’ll be cactus out there. There’s no missing it. Soon I will kill a bear. I’m running low on grease. When I do, we can use the bearskin to make us a bag.”

“Lower down the river,” Cushing said, “there were a lot of bear. You could have killed any number of them.”

“Black bear,” said Rollo, with disdain. “When there are any others, I do not kill black bear. We’ll be heading into grizzly country. Grizzly grease is better.”

“You’re raving mad,” said Cushing. “Grizzly grease is no different from any other bear grease. One of these days, tangling with a grizzly, you’ll get your head knocked off.”

“Mad I may be,” said Rollo, “but grizzly grease is better. And the killing of a black bear is as nothing to the killing of a grizzly.”

“It seems to me,” said Cushing, “that for a lowly robot you’re a shade pugnacious.”

“I have my pride,” said Rollo.

They moved into the west, and every mile they moved, the land became bleaker. It was level land and seemed to run on forever, to a far horizon that was no more than a faint blue line against the blueness of the sky.

There were no signs of nomads; there had been none since that morning when the war party had moved so quickly out of camp. Now there were increasingly larger herds of wild cattle, with, here and there, small herds of buffalo. Occasionally, in the distance, they sighted small bands of wild horses. The deer had vanished; there were some antelope. Prairie chickens were plentiful and they feasted on them. They came on prairie-dog towns, acres of ground hummocked by the burrows of the little rodents.

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