“Well?” he prodded after a moment. “Think of it, man, unfetter your mind and think. You posed questions —now give me the answers to them, as you can and will.”
It did not take long. “The … the feud … the feud with Clan Linsee … is that it, Uncle Milo?”
Milo smiled briefly. “You have a cigar coming, but I don’t have one, so how about a pipeful of my tobacco instead, Hunt Chief Tchuk? Precisely! This damnable, idiotic feud is at the bottom of all the tribulations of both Clan Skaht and Clan Linsee. Nomad clan versus nomad clan is a flatly murderous type of warfare … but you know that fact well, don’t you? Raidings of Dirtmen steadings are one thing—the element of surprise holds down the number of casualties amongst the raiders, as too does the fact that the modes of thinking are very different when you compare settled farmers and nomad herders and hunters. And, also, the prairiecats and our strain of horses with their telepathic abilities give us a distinct edge over our prey. Yes, there are losses sustained in raiding Dirtmen, but mostly they are but piddling compared to the loot, livestock and slaves gained for the clans. Why, the hunt results in as many or more deaths and serious injuries for a far more paltry return in benefits, but you know that, too.
“On the other hand, when you ride to raid or war against men just like yourselves, you can expect the butcher’s bill to be high, almost insupportably high. How in hell are you going to surprise a camp the perimeter of which is patrolled by farspeaking telepathic cats and horses? And if you choose to set your own cats on the guard cats, the resultant din of feline battle is going to be heard for miles. Though I understand that the cat chiefs, both yours and Clan Linsee’s, past and present, wisely refused to engage in active warfare and raiding against any Kindred clan, only fighting defensively.
“Had your clans been allowed to keep up this senseless round of raidings and ambushes and duelings and battles, the time would soon have come when neither of you would have had sufficient strength remaining to even hold your own against the natural adversaries that beset us all our lives on the prairies and plains. The only reason, indeed, that you two weakened clans have survived this long is that almost all of the non-Kindred nomads have been killed off, driven off or melded into our tribe over the last few generations. Had such fearsome fighters as Clans Staiklee, Duhglisz, Kahr, Lebohn and their ilk still roamed in enmity to the Kindred, you had all been rendered corpses or slaves.
“All of the other Kindred clans face precisely the same attrition from natural causes and from riding the raid against Dirtmen as do Skaht and Linsee. That they manage—barring the rare disaster—to maintain a constant strength of numbers in spite of certain losses results from the fact that they live by, adhere to, The Law and the ancient customs proven from the days of the Sacred Ancestors to the present.
“First and foremost of the Law is that Kinship is holy, Tchuk. Had clan not helped Kindred clan in times of need or danger over the years, there would today be no tribe, no clans. In union there is strength for all of our confederation of interrelated clans and families. Such disunity and enmity as your two clans have practiced can lead only to chaos and death for you, your descendants and, eventually, your clans.
“Unfortunately, there are a certain number of hotheads, greedy, suicidal and homicidal types, in every generation of every clan. Clans Skaht and Linsee have, over the more recent years, set a bad example, and other, more sober and Law-fearing Kindred clans have avoided mixing with them because they feared the bad influence upon their own few fire-eaters. Looked at from their viewpoints, no man could blame them for being somewhat less than Kindred toward you. Prove only to the Council of Kindred Chiefs that Skaht and Linsee can live harmoniously, one with the other in peace and true brotherhood, and you will see how quickly there are offers of Kinship from your Kindred of all the other clans.”
He seemed on the verge of beaming more to the receptive hunt chief, but his mind was just then smitten by a beaming of the combined power of Myrah Skaht, Karee Skaht and Gy Linsee. “Uncle Milo, please, won’t you do as you did last night? Please tell us all more of the olden days, of your life before the Great Dyings and of how you formed the Sacred Ancestors into our clans of today.”
“If I do, it will have to be, as last night, told to all, Linsees as well as Skahts. Will you welcome them among you if I agree to open my mind and memories again to you?”
I
Although radios and gramophones blared out songs of coins falling from the skies, the only thing that the skies over depression-racked Chicago seemed to be producing were rain, snow, sleet and windborne stenches from the stockyards this winter of the Year of Our Lord 1936.
Or, at least, so thought Police Officer Bob Murphey as he squatted, back to a wall, keeping watch over the unfortunate gent who lay unconscious before him on the damp, slimy, gritty stones of the alleyway. Bob was certain that this one was a real gent—his clothing was too fine, too obviously expensive, for him to be aught else than a gent or a hood, and it was too conservative of cut and color to be the latter. That expensive clothing had likely gotten him into this sorry pickle, Murphey silently reflected. Why, his shoes alone represented a week’s pay for the average working Joe these dark days … if said Joe was lucky enough to be working at all.
Bob had been walking his beat, huddled into his uniform coat against the chill and the thick, cloying mist, when he had passed the alley mouth and sighted in his peripheral vision a flicker of movement too large to have been a mere rat or alley cat or gaunt scavenger dog. He had turned back then, taken his best grip on his billy club and demanded, “Now what in hell’s goin’ on back there?”
There was scuttling movement, then footfalls rapidly receding down the alleyway. Murphey had proceeded cautiously on until he had suddenly tripped over and almost fallen onto a recumbent body. A brief examination had revealed that the victim was not dead yet, though from the amount of blood clotting the dark hair, he might soon be. After he had carefully, as gently as possible, dragged the body closer to the alley mouth, he had trotted the half-block or so to the callbox and reported the need for an ambulance at this location.
He had returned in time to find two miscreants—likely the same ones who had slugged the gent’s head and robbed him to begin with—engaged in trying to get off the man’s shoes and greatcoat. One of them had gotten away, but the other now sat handcuffed and groaning from the beating Bob had inflicted with his billy club.
“I’m getting old,” thought the shivering policeman, clenching his jaws to stop his teeth from chattering. “Twenty years ago, it’s the both of the bastards I’d’ve got, not just this one. When I come back from France back in ‘18, all full of piss and vinegar, it looked like the world was my oyster for sure. What in hell happened to all those plans, all those chances I knew was just sitting out there waiting for Big Bob Murphey to come along?”
After glancing at his prisoner and assuring himself that the clubbed and moaning man offered no further threat, Murphey let his billy dangle from his wrist by the thong and tucked his numbed hands under his armpits. “I wonder if that poor gent there was in the Great War, too? Likely he was—he looks about of an age with me. ‘Course, he prob’ly was an officer—he looks the type. He sure got his breaks after the war, else he wouldn’t be laying there in a greatcoat that cost a hunnerd dollars if it cost one red cent. I dunno—things would prob’ly have fell in place better for me if I hadn’t gone and married Kate as soon as I did. Hell, she’d’ve waited for me to make my pile, and we both and the kids too would’ve been a sight better off if I had. But then, I’d prob’ly’ve lost it all back in ‘29 like the rest of the high-rollers did and ended up dead or riding boxcars or in jail or sweeping up horse biscuits with the WPA. At least I got me a steady job and three squares a day for me and Kate and the kids and a roof over our heads and coal to burn in the Arcola, and all that is a whole helluva lot more than most folks can say these days.”