"How do you know you can only talk with plants? You wanted it that way and that is all you've done. Even if it's all you can do, you can talk with the Trees and it maybe important that we have someone who can talk with them. As for Elayne, she has an overall—a universal—ability that may stand us in good stead when we begin digging out the data. She might be able to see relationships that we couldn't see."
"But our own tribe maybe out there," insisted Ezra. "If they
are, it would help to have us along."
"We can't take the chance," said Cushing. "You can talk with
your tribe for us later on.
"Laddie buck," said Meg, "mad I think you are."
"This is the kind of business," said Cushing, "that may call
for a little madness."
"How can you be sure the Trees will let you out?"
"I'll talk with the A and B. He can fix it up for me.
Seen from close range, more of the nomads were camped on the prairie than Cushing had thought. The tepees, conical tents adapted from those used by the aboriginal North American plains tribes, covered a large area, gleaming whitely in the morning sun. Here and there across the level land were grazing horse bands, each of them under the watchful eyes of half a dozen riders. Trickles of smoke rose from fires within the encampment. Other than the horse herders and their charges, there was little sign of life.
The sun, halfway up the eastern sky, beat down mercilessly
upon the prairie. The air was calm and muggy, bearing down so
heavily that it required an effort to breathe.
Cushing stood just outside the Trees, looking the situation over, trying to calm the flutter of apprehension that threatened to tie his stomach into knots. Now that he was actually here, ready to begin his trudge across the naked land to the camp, he realized for the first time that there could be danger. He had said so when he had talked about it the previous afternoon, but it was one thing to think about it intellectually and another to be brought face to face with its possibility.
But the men out there, he told himself, would be reasonable. Once he had explained the situation, they would listen to him. Savages they might be, having turned to barbarism after the Collapse, but they still had behind them centuries of civilized logic that even a long string of generations could not have completely extinguished.
He set out, hurrying at first, then settling down to a more reasonable and less exhausting pace. The camp was some distance off and it would take a while to get there. He did not look back, but kept tramping steadily forward. Halfway there, he paused to rest and then turned to look back at the butte. As he turned, he saw the flash of the sun off a glittering surface well clear of the Trees.
Rollo, the damned fool, tagging along behind him!
Cushing waved his arms and shouted. "Go back, you fool! Go back!"
Rollo hesitated, then began to come on again.
"Go back!" yelled Cushing. "Get out of here. Vamoose. I told you not to come."
Rollo came to a stop, half lifted an arm in greeting.
Cushing made shoving motions at him.
Slowly Rollo turned, heading back toward the Trees. After a few steps, he stopped and turned. Cushing was still standing there, waving at him to go back.
He turned again and went plodding back the way he'd come. He did not turn again.
Cushing stood and watched him go. The sun still burned down, and far in the west a blackness loomed above the horizon. A storm, he wondered? Could be, he told himself; the very air smelled of heavy weather.
Convinced that Rollo would not follow him, he proceeded toward the camp. Now there was evidence of life. Dogs were sallying out from the fringes of the tepees, barking. A small band of horsemen were moving toward him at a walk. A gang of boys came out to the edge of the camp and hooted at him, the hoots small and tinny in the distance.
He did not break his stride. The horsemen came on at their steady gait.
They came up and halted, facing him. He said, gravely, "Good morning, gentlemen."
They did not respond, regarding him with stony faces. The line parted in the middle to let him through and, when he resumed his march, fell back to flank him on either side.
It was not good, he knew, but he must act as if it were. There could be no sign of fright. Bather, he must pretend that this was a signal honor, the sending out of an escort to conduct him into camp.
He strode along, not hurrying, eyes straight ahead, paying no attention to those who paced on either side of him. He felt sweat popping out of his armpits and trickling down his ribs. He wanted to wipe his face, but with an iron will refrained from doing so.
The camp was directly ahead and he saw that it was laid out with wide spaces serving as streets between the lines of tepees. Women and children stood before many of the tepees, their faces as stony as those of the men who moved beside him. Bands of small boys went whooping up and down the street.
Most of the women were hags. They wore misshapen woolen dresses. Their hair hung raggedly and was matted and dirty, their faces seamed and leathered from the sun and wind. Most of them were barefoot and their hands were gnarled with work. Some of them opened toothless mouths to cackle at him. The others were stolid, but wore a sense of disapproval.
At the far end of the street stood a group of men, all facing in his direction. As he came up the street, one of them moved forward with a shuffle and a limp. He was old and stooped. He wore leather breeches and a cougar hide was tossed across one shoulder, fastened with thongs in front. His snow-white hair hung down to his shoulders. It looked as if it had been cut off square with a dull knife.
A few feet from him Cushing stopped. The old man looked at him out of ice-blue eyes.
"This way," he said. "Follow me."
He turned and shuffled up the street. Cushing slowed his pace to follow.
To him came the smell of cooking, laced by the stink of garbage that had been too long in the summer heat. At the doorways of some of the lodges stood picketed horses, perhaps the prize hunters or war horses of their owners. Dogs, slinking about, emitted yelps of terror when someone hurled a stick at them. The heat of the sun was oppressive, making warm the very dust that overlay the street. Over all of this rode the sense of approaching storm—the smell, the feel, the pressure, of brewing weather.
When the old man came up to the group of men, they parted to let him through, Cushing following. The mounted escort dropped away. Cushing did not look to either side to glimpse the faces of the men, but he knew that if he had looked, he would have seen the same hardness that had been on the faces of the horsemen.
They broke through the ranks of men and came into a circle, rimmed by the waiting men. Across the circle a man sat in a heavy chair over which a buffalo robe was thrown. The old man who had served as Cushing's guide moved off to one side and Cushing walked forward until he faced the man in the chair.
"I am Mad Wolf," said the man, and having said that, said no more. Apparently he felt that anyone should know who he was once he had said his name.
He was a huge man, but not a brute. There was in his face a disquieting intelligence. He wore a thick black beard and his head was shaven. A vest of wolf skin, decorated by the tails of wolves, was open at the front, displaying a bronzed and heavily muscled torso. Ham like hands grasped the chair arms on either side.
"My name is Thomas Cushing," Cushing told him.
With a shock, Cushing saw that the scarecrow man who had been spokesman for the wardens stood beside the chair.
"You came from Thunder Butte," rumbled Mad Wolf. "You are one of the party that used your magic tricks to get through the Trees. You have disturbed the Sleepers."
"There are no Sleepers to disturb," said Cushing. "Thunder Butte is the Place of Going to the Stars. There lies hope for the human race. I have come to ask for help."
"How for help?"