Canka, Cuwignaka and Hci clasped hands.
A few hundred feet away, I saw some Dust Legs, a party of them, returning to their own country.
Among them, stripped naked, his hands tied behind him, riding backwards on a kaiila, his ankles bound tether on a long strap, it running between them under the belly of the kaiila, rode the officer who had won the draw. He was a blond, slim young man. He had been the youngest of the officers. At the edge of the Ihanke, when it was reached, some weeks from now, he would be tied and beaten with switches, as though he might be a slave girl. Then, sill stripped, and his hands tied then behind him, he would be released, to make his way as he could to Kailiauk, that white settlement closest to the Ihanke.
I saw a white girl staggering past, bent over. She was stripped. She carried a great bundle of sticks, tied together, on her back. She was pretty. The sticks would doubtless serve as fuel. She was doubtless on her way to the lodge of her master.
The Yellow Knives had been defeated ten days ago.
We were now in a great victory camp, near water, within sight of Council Rock, some seven or eight pasangs in the distance. In this camp there were Fleer, Sleen, Dust Legs and Kaiila. There had been dances and feasts. There had been much loot to divide, taken from Yellow-Knife encampments, and there had been much exhanging of gifts, even between hereditary, inveterate enemies such as the Fleer and Kaiila. Women, too, even free women, of these peoples, of those bands within trekking disatnce, had jouneyed to the encampment. Such times of celebration, of festivals and peace, particularly among diverse tribes, are rare and precious. This was now Wayukaspiwi, in the calendar of the Dust Legs, the Corn-Harvest Moon, or, as it is spoken of in the reckoning of the Kaiila, Canwapekasanwi, the moon when the wind shakes off the leaves.
Only too clearly did the browning grass and the cool winds preage the turning of the seasons, and the advent of the gray skies and the long nights of the bitter moon, Waniyetuwi, called the Winter Moon; Wanicokanwi, called the Mid-Winter Moon; Witehi, the Hard Moon; and Wicatawi, the Urt Moon. The vernal equinox occurs in the Istawicayzanwi, the Sore-Eye Moon. Grunt and I had originally come to the Barrens, it now seemed long ago, in Magaksicaagliwi, the Moon of the Returning Giants. Already various groups, in small numbers, had begun to withdraw from the victory camp.
I, too, I thought, must soon be on my way. I must soon take my leave of the Barrens. I must begin the long journey back to the Ihanke, and thence to the Thentis Mountains, and the Vosk, and the Tamber Gulf and Port Kar.
I turned my steps toward my lodge, that which I shared with Cuwignaka, and his slave, Cespu, and with she who was now my own slave, she to whom I now held full legal title, lovely, obedient blond Mira. Cuwignaka had wished to give her to me but I had insisted on paying five hides for her. Grinning, he had accepted. She was a slave. Why should she not be bought and sold? She was now mine, totally.
I stopped before a quartet of stripped, kneeling white slaves, neck tethered, with their hands bound behind their back. They were the four girls who had been taken from Grunt long ago by Yellow Knives, near the scene of the massacre of the wagon train, and the battle between the soldiers and the coalition of red savages, Lois, Inez, Corinne and Priscilla. They had been returned to Grunt after the defeat of the Yellow Knives, as a part of his portion of the booty. I examined them. They were lovely flesh loot. Priscilla bore a mare in black paint on her left breast. She had been sold for four hides to Akihoka, a friend of Canka, and also a member of the All Comrades. Corinne, the French girl, also bore a mark in black paint on her left breast, a different mark. Grunt had sold her to Keglezela, another of Canka's friends, also for four hides. Keglezela was also a member of the All Comrades. Neither Akihoka nor Keglezela had yet taken delivery on the women.
Lois and Inez had not been sold. They would serve as burden bearers for Grunt, on his way back to the Dust-Leg country. Then, if he had not sold them in the meantime, presumably they would accompany him back to Kailiauk in the spring, whence, after selling his goods and making his profits, and restocking his stores, he would presumably return once more, trading, to the Barrens, this time presumably in the company of the light-skinned young man he had met amongst the Dust Legs but weeks ago, his son.
I pulled Lois' head up by the hair. "You gave the alarm," I said, "when I, and two friends, stole tarns from Kinyanpi at a Yellow-Knife, camp."
She shuddered with terror, held.
"Did you kkow that it was I with them?" I asked. "Did you recognize me?"
She trembled. "Yes, Master," she whispered, terrified.
"You did well," I said.
She looked at me, startled.
"What are you?" I asked.
"A slave girl," she whispered.
"See that you serve your new masters even better," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I then released her, and turned about.Inez's neck, too, I had noted, looked well in its leather bond.
Others, too, there were, whose fate I had learned, Max and Kyle Hobart, and the two former Earth girls, Ginger and evelyn, who had been slaves in Kailiauk. The Hobarts, with men, had pursued Grunt into the Barrens. Dust Legs, friends of Grunt, had attacked them. Grunt, retracing his steps, had located the scene of the attack. There he had found them, the only survivors, stripped and put in leg stretchers, as though they might be slave girls, lying in the grass, awaiting his attentions. He had not killed them. He had chained them in his coffle. They, though strong men, had been forbidden to so much as touch any of the scantily clad beauties who, neck-chained, as they, preceded them in the coffle.
Near the field of the massacre and near the place where the soldiers and red savages had fought they, with two girls, Ginger and Evelyn, whom they had muchly desiered, as long ago as Kiliauk, were taken from Grunt by Sleen warriors. This was done at the same time as Yellow Knives had been approapriating Lois and three others of her sisters in bondage, Priscilla, Corinne and Inex. The Sleen had taken the Hobarts to serve as boys, perfoming lowly tasks and doing such things as watching kaiila. These girls they had taken for the common purposes for which luscious white females are employed by red masters.
During their time with the Sleen apparently Max and Kyle Hobart, unable to help themselves any longer, and finding the girls staked out, naked, in a desolate place, presumably for punishment, had raped them. Sortly after this the slaves had begun to meet. These meetings were typical of the clandestine trysts of slaves. They took place in the shadows, behind lodges and at places marked inthe high grass, where they might lie in one anothers arms, if only fearfully and briefly, fearing the step of a master, the shadow of a whip.
It was in these days, and in these meetings, so different from the alcoves of Kailiauk, that the girls learned that they were the slaves of the Hobarts and the Hobarts learned to their joy that htey, though themselves collared, owned slaves. The relationship of the Hobarts and the girls, I am sure, had not escaped the attention of the Sleen. I think it quite likely that the Sleen, in their kindness, and recognizing the need of strong men, such as the Hobarts, for women, had taken this fashion of rewarding them for good service. I am sure that it was no accident that the Hobarts had been sent on an errand near the place where the two beauties had been staked out. Similarly, there is little, I suspect, which transpires between slaves which is not known to masters. It is usually only a question as to whether the masters wish to take action or not. This hypothesis is further confirmed by the fact that the Sleen, in trading with Grunt, Grunt making use of booties acquired from the Yellow Knives, offered him, in effect, the package containing both the Hobarts and thier lovers.
The Hobarts, with whome I later discussed these things, now share my suspicions in this matter. Grunt, incidentally, has freed the Hobarts, and put them temperarily in his emply. They will accompany him to the country of the Dust Legs, helping him in the transportation of goods to that point, and will then, before winter, continue on to Kailiauk, there to arrange buyers for Grunt's hides, to be deliverd in the spring. They will then, presumably, return to their rance, ouside of Kailiauk. In payment for these services each will recive a female slave.