Epilogue
As Milo closed his memories and ceased to speak, there was a ripple of movement around the ranks of seated boys and girls and men and prairiecats who had gathered about the main Skaht firepit to be entertained by his tale of long ago.
While others rubbed at arms and legs and sleepy eyes or began to gather up tools and handiworks to stow them away for another night, two of the Skaht girls kept to what they had been doing. Myrah Skaht cracked nuts from a pile, separated the meats and tossed the shells down into the bed of dying-out coals in the firepit. Karee Skaht then took up the nutmeats and fed them to Gy Linsee, who sat between them. From time to time, Myrah stopped her nut-cracking to take from its place in a nest of coals a small long-handled pot with which she refilled the horn cup for Gy with a heated mixture of herb tea laced with fermented honey.
Milo communicated on a tight, highly personal beaming to Tchuk Skaht. “Look at those three, would you? I believe that the first thing we are going to witness upon our return is a wedding—Gy Linsee and not just one but two of your Skaht girls, Karee and Myrah. What do you think your chief will say to that?”
The hunt chief grinned and said, “He will say just what he has said since she first saw Sacred Sun: ‘Anything that my Myrah wants, she is to have.’ That’s what he’ll say, Uncle Milo.”
Milo grinned, beaming on, “Well, considering what I brought you all here for, I can think of much worse results than marriage of a son of a Clan Linsee bard to a brace of Clan Skaht females, one of them the favorite daughter of the Skaht of Skaht himself.
“Yes, I think that my purpose here is beginning to see accomplishment, Tchuk, Wind and Sacred Sun be thanked. A few more such ties made between your nubile young people and I think that we will have seen the last of any bloodletting, on any large scale, at least. What true Kindred father would ride to raid against his own children and grandchildren, after all, and what Kindred son would ride against the camp of his parents or in-laws?”
Tchuk grinned, beaming, “Have you met my in-laws, Uncle Milo? But, no, you’re right, of course, as you have always been, so I am told. Those of us who for so long have desired to see an end to this ruinous conflict should have thought of something like this, but then we lacked your vast store of knowledge and experience, too. We soon will start back to the clan camps, then?”
“Not hardly,” replied Milo. “For all else I intended this hunt to be, it still is an autumn hunt, just like any other save for the fact that few warriors and no matrons are taking part in it. When we have loaded down the pack-horses with smoked game and fish and dried plant foods, that is when we’ll head back to the camps, not before then.”
“Well, that boar that Gy Linsee speared will help mightily in that regard, Uncle Milo. Even without the hide and the guts and the bones, there must be three hundred pounds of flesh and hard fat in that carcass.”
“True,” Milo agreed, “and the rest of the pigs are still out there, awaiting our arrows and spears, too. But what I’d like to find now is a salt lick, for I dislike curing pigmeat without salt. Let’s give that task to the foragers tomorrow, eh? They’ll be frequenting the vicinities of springs, anyway, in their search for edible plants and roots. You might try mindspeaking the more intelligent and communicative of the horses, too—sometimes they can scent deposits on the prairie.
“Now, I suggest we all get some sleep, for the dawn will come early, as always.”
To the seemingly bemused Linsee boy, he beamed, “Come, Gy, it is late, and I am going back to your clan’s fires, this night. We can walk together and converse.”
While he waited, Gy arose and was soundly, linger-ingly kissed first by Karee Skaht, then by Myrah Skaht, then by Karee once more, then by Myrah yet again. Finally, Milo strode over and tore the two girls away from the tall, dark-haired boy, admonishing them and him.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think Gy Linsee bound outward for a journey from which he might never return. You two will see him no later than dawn tomorrow, you have my word on the matter.”
As the ageless man and the adult-sized boy strolled in the bright moonlight along the bank of the riverlet, Gy beamed hesitantly, “I … uh, Uncle Milo, if still you wish to take me with you and the Tribe Bard, I … that is, you had said that-I might bring a wife with me. Might I … I mean, would I … could I …”
Milo chuckled, beaming back, “Two wives will be acceptable, Gy—another set of hands never hurts when setting up camp or breaking camp or loading or unloading horses. If you and they both are in agreement on the matter, I say, fine. They’ll learn a lot, as will you, my boy, traveling from one far-flung clan camp to the next. You’ll meet Kindred you’d never see if you lived long enough to go to a dozen Fifth-Year Tribal Councils. I’ll teach the three of you how to read and to write more than just your name, and you’ll help me in preparing a series of maps of the land as it now lies. We will explore ruins as we come across them, seeking out metals and ancient jewels and any artifacts still usable after so long in the earth; some, the best, of these, we will keep, others will be guest gifts to clans we visit, the rest we will sell to roving traders or bring up to the next Fifth-Year Camp.
“We may live or migrate with this clan or that for months, and then again we may go it alone in good weather for just as many months, only seeking out a clan with which to winter when the cold begins to nip at us. Perhaps we will winter one year in a friendly Dirtman settlement. Yes, Gy, there are a very few such places, although they are scattered most widely and most lie far to the south of where we now are.
“And of course, all the while, Bard Herbuht will be teaching you the history of the various clans and of the tribe itself—the facts, the legends, the heroes, the great chiefs, significant raids, battles, victories, defeats, genealogies of clans and septs, and so much, much more that a Bard of the Tribe must know and recall when the need arises. He and I will also school you in the proper use of your mindspeak, and I am convinced that you possess already great untapped powers of the various types and levels of mindspeak, Gy. I am anxious to see you develop those powers, for a Tribal Bard is more than that title might seem to imply. At times he must be a mediator, a peacemaker between clans or factions within clans, and on those occasions, in those ticklish situations, an ability to soothe the minds of angry, blood-hungry men as well as frightened horses is a necessity owned by few. Herbuht is one such, I am another, and I believe that you can be, too, once your mind is awakened and becomes aware of its true talents and potentials.
“But back to the very near future, Gy. In the morning, my hunt will be riding back to where we were today, after the rest of those pigs—they’re just too much meat in one place to pass them up. I’ll be wanting you along and any other good spearmen you know of, too.”
“But … but please, Uncle Milo,” beamed Gy from a roiling mind, “I … we … it was my section’s day to fish. Karee and Myrah said—”
Milo clapped the big boy on his thick shoulder, laughing. “Oh, don’t fret, Gy. I’ll ask for your two intendeds on this hunt with us tomorrow, and I doubt that Hunt Chief Tchuk will voice any really strenuous objections to the rearrangement of schedules.”
At the Linsee area, Milo shooed Gy off to his lean-to, but he himself did not immediately retire. Instead he sent out a mindcall for Hwaltuh Linsee.
“On the council rock by the water, Uncle Milo,” came beaming the silent reply. “Come and join me.”
Milo climbed the flat-topped, mossy rock and squatted beside the Linsee subchief, one of the few adult warriors along on this very unusual hunt. Below them lay one of the backwater pools of the riverlet, and in its near-stillness, the silver disk of the moon was reflected. Now and again at intervals, something splashed in the pool and sent ripples out to break that silvery radiance into wavering shards that slowly recoalesced as the agitation of the water decreased to near-stillness again. It all looked so quiet, so peaceful, but Milo well knew that it was not. It was anything but peaceful, night in the wilds; night was the time of death as the night hunters prowled with growling, empty bellies in search of their natural prey.