Bettylou had heard in the Abode that the prairie was virtually swarming with hordes of horse-nomads, that their gigantic camps covered square miles of grasslands, but such assertions could never be proved by what she had seen to date.
In addition to the sweat yurt, there were thirty-four other yurts in the camp—eighteen for Clan Krooguh. fifteen for Clan Skaht and one for Clan Morai. Among these dwelt forty-eight males of an age older than thirteen, which added up to nothing near a horde, in Bettylous mind. Of course, both men and women could and did fight if attacked, and both sexes hunted even the most dangerous game animals. Also, Chief Milo assured her that there existed Kindred clans much larger—perhaps as many as threescore adult males in a clan—and there were more than fourscore Kindred clans on the prairies, deserts and high plains, all drifting hither and yon, following the grass and the water.
Chief Milo opined that if the Abode-spawned tales were more than whole-cloth exaggerations, the square-miles-covering camp might be the recollections at third or fourth or fifth hand of someone who had seen or heard of one of the rare tribal camps—conclaves of scores of clans planned for years in advance and at which there might be as many as ten thousand, briefly, until the graze became insufficient to maintain the herds of cattle, sheep and horses.
“All of the clans assemble at such times, then, El … uhh, Chief Milo?” Bettylou inquired.
Flashing his white teeth in a brief smile, he shook his head. “No, child, at most perhaps half of the Kindred clans at any one time and place.”
“But why not get all of the clans together at once, Chief Milo?” Bettylou probed.
Patiently, he answered, “For one thing, it is a really impossible thing. Yes, there are some fourscore or more of he Kindred clans, but those clans are spread over something like four million square miles or more of territory—ranging generally farther north in spring and summer, farther south in autumn and winter, and seldom in one place for more than a moon. Nor can I think of any area that could support such a vast number of folks and herds and cats for any meaningful length of time; the camp would needs have to be moved before many of the clans could reach the predetermined location, for although a party of picked raiders can move very fast, cover fantastic numbers of miles in a few nights’ ride, you will soon learn that a clan on the march proceeds no faster than the slowest of its members or wagons or cattle … and that can be snail-slow at times.”
“Where do you usually meet, Chief Milo?” she asked. “When? I mean what time of year?”
“Usually in late spring or early summer, Bettylou. Once we met on the high plains, but mostly we meet at some spot—some marked or easily found spot—on the prairie. At the last such, five … no, six years ago! we met in and around the ruins of a town that used to be called Hutchinson in an area that once was the State of Kansas. It was decided there by the council of clan chiefs that the next one would be met at a spot farther north and west, but no firm site was selected for it, so it could take place, whenever it does, in any location, and those chiefs who for whatever reason or none don’t like the time of the conclave or the location just will not bother to make the journey, Kindred Horseclansfolk are a freedom-loving lot and refuse to be bound by anything other than the Couplets of Horseclans Law, that and the inborn obligation to defend other Kindred against non-Kindred folk.”
“But, Chief Milo,” she said puzzledly, “if the Kindred clans are truly spread so far, how do any of them ever hear of these meetings and learn where to go for them?”
He shrugged. “Tribe bards, for the most part, who travel widely and almost constantly. Also, from messages left here and there in traditional places, cryptic signs that only a Kindred clansman can interpret. Then too there are the roving smiths who glean metals from ruins either use themselves or barter to the clans they happen across in their travels. They pass the notices of meetings on to the Kindred clans, for all that some of them are not by birth Kindred.”
“If these men are not Kindred, Chief Milo, then what are they?”
He replied. “Vagabonds with a flair for metalworking or trading from the more settled areas to the east and west and north and south of the plains and prairie, Bettylou, a good many of them. Some most likely malefactors of one stripe or another who found or made the farming areas too hot for themselves to endure and still live. That or non-Kindred nomads.”
“Then all of the horse-nomads are not Kindred, Chief Milo?”
“No, child, though there are now far fewer non-Kindred folk roving about than there were a hundred years ago, the plains and the prairie are still not yet the uncontested stamping grounds of us Kindred. But that day will yet come, child. Perhaps you’ll live to see it.”
He had spoken the last sentence with so grim an intensity that she felt compelled to probe more deeply. “Are the Kindred clans not on good terms with these other nomads, then. Chief Milo?”
“Not hardly !” he snorted. “Oh, one would think that with so many hundreds of thousands of square miles of open country to roam, there would exist, could exist, damned little possibility of friction between relatively small groups of folk leading very similar nomadic existences. But it simply has not worked out so peacefully as that over the years.
“Understand me, Bettylou, we Horseclansfolk were a feisty lot from the very beginning, about two hundred and fifty winters back, but we were none of us basically savage, random killers. We fought for and still do fight for survival—the elements, beasts and men, when necessary. But we would much prefer to bring non-Kindred nomads into the tribe by marriage or adoption than to kill them for their women and their herds. Quite a few of your present ‘Kindred’ clans became such in just those ways.
“Your father-in-law-to-be, for instance. Bettylou. The Clan Staiklee were once bitter enemies of the Horseclans, back some three or four generations. Their tribe was not large, but their warriors were every one as tough, as skilled and as resourceful as any Horseclansman, and they made it most difficult for us in the northeastern reaches of that area that long ago was called Texas. They fought us unstintingly for nearly a generation, and they might have done so for much longer had they not owned a wise chief who came to realize that his tribe was much outnumbered by the warriors of Kindred clans and vastly outnumbered by the incredibly bestial and savage tribes of utter barbarians who were just then making to push up from the southwest.
“Because he would not see his tribe ground to powder between barbarians and Kindred, he negotiated an initial meeting with four Kindred clans, and, shortly, those four became five. That done, the five summoned other Kindred clans from the north and the west and, all united, were able to extirpate or turn back all of the southwestern barbarians.
“Numerous Kindred clans were originally non-Kindred, from the Texas area—Ohlsuhn, Morguhn, Maklaruhn and Hwilkee are perhaps the foremost of them, aside from Clan Staiklee.”
As the time to begin the feast neared, clansfolk of both sexes and all ages packed into the sweat yurt, but not Bettylou Hanson; the knowledgeable Ehstrah had seen to it that she, Ilsah and Gahbee had completed their ablutions well in advance of the rest. And when the three returned to the Morai yurt, Bettylou had been given back her red dress.
She could only stare and stutter, barely recognizing the garment, for what had been back at the Abode of the Righteous a badge of Sin and Shame and a portent of certain Doom had lost every last iota of that identity and become a purely and a thoroughly Horseclans garment.
The faded-red dress had been redyed a deep crimson, and the floppy, open-cuffed sleeves had been somehow made fuller and fitted with drawstrings at the wrists. Head hole and sleeves and a large expanse of the rest of the reborn garment were now rich and heavy with Ehstrah’s fine, meticulous embroidery; she also had used embroidery to conceal the stitches with which each tear and rent had been closed. Bettylou had never before been in receipt of anything so lovely, not in all her short life, for the garb of all of the Righteous was unremittingly drab—unbleached wool and linen and a mixture of the two, unadorned leather or rawhide. Unable to contain herself, she felt tears rolling down her cheeks still damp from the bath and irresistible sobs welling up from deep within her.