They set about the routine of making camp. Con set up the tent and swept the snow from its interior with her sock-covered hands. There was no bedding to lay upon the frozen ground, so she maneuvered the travois plat-form inside the tent and covered it with the few items of clothing they were not wearing. With that task accom-plished, she grabbed her spear and her soiled rags and headed for the river. Joe and Rick had already left camp to search the riverbank for driftwood.
THE NIGHTSTALKER HAD smelled the nearness of the big things long before a pause in the snowfall made them visible. She was about to retreat when she noticed the herd had broken up. Instinct told her this was an oppor-tunity. The smallest of the big things, the one fragrant with blood, was alone by the river. The terrible black stick was nowhere to be seen. She looked for the other big things and saw they were far away. The desperate need of hunger overcame her remaining wariness. Ingrained skill, inherited from thousands of genera-tions of successful hunters, guided the animal. Surely and stealthily, she approached the prey. The closer she came, the more its aroma excited her. Soon .. . soon . .. soon she would eat.
CON SAW A flicker of movement from the corner of her eye. She grabbed her spear and whirled in that direction. Her forgotten rags drifted away. The nightstalker froze. It was only twelve feet from her. Con stared into its large yellow-brown eyes and tried to read its intentions. They were inscrutable, but the sickle-shaped toe claws rose.
The spear seemed to puzzle the carnivore. Con feigned lunges, hoping to scare it off. The nightstalker held its ground while its head tracked the spearpoint with rapid, precise movements, the way a bird might. It's quick, thought Con. It's looking for an opening. With a few quick steps, the creature advanced to just beyond the spear's reach. Con pulled her spear back and assumed a defensive posture.
"Rick! Joe!" she cried. "Help! The nightstalker! It's here!" Con heard the sound of distant running feet, but she dared not take her eyes from her foe. Only a slight tens-ing in its haunches foretold its spring. With dazzling speed, the nightstalker launched itself into the air. Con swung her spear to meet it and felt the spear's point rack along her attacker's rib cage. The point lodged momen-tarily between ribs as the nightstalker's weight and the momentum of its leap pushed the spear downward. A foot slashed out so fast that Con did not see it, and a claw tore her jacket sleeve, spilling down into the wintry air.
The nightstalker hit the ground with the spear still in its ribs. Con tried to push the spear home, but the creature leapt back. As it did so, Con felt the tip of the spearhead snap.
"I've got a sting!" she yelled at her enemy.
The nightstalker stared back, ignoring its latest wound. It seemed to study the spear. Then it began to move like a prizefighter, dancing and feinting. Con jerked the spear one way then another, trying to keep pace with the night-stalker's movements. It advanced and retreated, waiting for her to make a mistake. Joe appeared running along the top of the riverbank. Intent on Con's spear, the nightstalker turned too late. Joe's spear entered its feathered abdomen, then pushed the nightstalker down into the mud. Joe bellowed in tri-umph over his writhing enemy. Putting all his weight on the spear shaft, Joe drove the point through the night-stalker's body and deep into the mud.
Like an undead monster, the impaled nightstalker pushed its body up the spear's shaft. Before Joe could jump back, it struck like a snake and buried its teeth into his forearm. Joe cried out in surprise and pain. Con stabbed at the creature with her broken spearhead, ruin-ing a yellow-brown eye. Still, the creature held on as it thrashed about in its death throes.
Rick came running. He dropped his spear and pulled out his knife to saw at the creature's throat. Blood sprayed them all before the nightstalker went limp. Rick pried open the dead animal's jaws and released Joe's arm from their vise-like grip.
For a moment, Joe stood shaken and dazed; then, a grin crept over his face. The grin broadened and a gleam en-tered his eyes. "Damn!" he said. "That was one tough bastard. But I got it. I sure as hell got it!" Con looked at Joe's bloody jacket, unable to tell what blood was his and what was the nightstalker's.
"We'd better look at that bite," she said.
"It's only a scratch," replied Joe.
"We should still clean it," said Rick.
"With what?" asked Joe. "River water?"
"It's the best we have," said Con.
Joe dragged the nightstalker back to camp while Rick retrieved the driftwood he had dropped, and Con found the wood Joe had left behind. Only when Rick got the fire going did Joe remove his jacket. On both sides of his upper right forearm were a series of punctures sur-rounded by a darkening bruise. Some of the punctures were deep, and the serrations on the rear of the night-stalker's teeth had made the wounds' edges ragged. The deeper ones still bled. Using a wetted rag torn from the cleanest shirt she could find, Con washed the blood away. She felt the loss of the pot most keenly now, for there was nothing to boil the water in. After the wound was cleaned, she bandaged it with the remains of the shirt. Con tended Joe with concerned tenderness and occasion-ally her face quivered with repressed sobs. Joe put on his jacket, regarding its bloodstains as mil-itary decorations. He did not permit his wound to cloud his jubilation. His mood was infectious. Soon Rick and Con felt encouraged and relieved. The pile of driftwood made a respectable blaze and its light and warmth cheered them further. Soon they would be cooking dinner on it. The promise of warm food danced in the flames.
"Con," said Joe, "you did great! You killed that bastard as much as I did." Con grinned, feeling that she had partly redeemed her-self from last night's disaster. Rick began to butcher the nightstalker. They would use every part they could. He plucked the down and saved the skin. He had read that it was possible to boil water in a skin bag and thought they could try to do so in order to clean Joe's wound better. He threw away most of the viscera, even the liver since, in some carnivores it could be poisonous. He kept only the heart. That he would cook specially for Joe. He sliced all the meat into strips and laid it on the snow to freeze. Since there were no large stones from which to construct a cache, he planned to put the food in the tent. If necessary, they would defend it with their lives.
While Rick finished the butchering, Con set about boil-ing water. She dragged some glowing embers from the fire and circled them with rocks. Then she took a section of nightstalker hide to the river and, gripping it to form a pouch, brought water in it. When she placed the hide over the embers, the water transferred the heat from the skin, preventing it from burning. Eventually, the water boiled. Though Joe protested it was unnecessary, Con cleaned his wound again with the boiled water. Pinkish brown and flecked with wood ash, it did not look as clean as the river water. Joe patiently let her minister to him once again and thanked her when she was done.
They roasted strips of nightstalker on the coals and boiled broth in the skin. Drinking the broth without spoons or a pot to pass proved awkward. After some ex-perimentation, they settled on crouching like a dog drink-ing from its dish. As Rick sipped the broth, he keenly regretted leaving the utensils behind. He feared that the others felt the same way, but neither Joe nor Con said anything. It was an evening for looking to the future, not regretting the past. The sea could not be that far away. Most likely, only a few days of travel remained.
Joe held aloft the stick that skewered his foe's roasted heart. "To the last of the nightstalkers!" he said. He bit into the warm meat with relish.
"To friends," said Rick, sipping from the water bottle.
"And future friends," added Con, "may we meet them soon." They lingered around the fire until it dwindled to ruby embers gleaming against the velvet night. Now that they had food again, some of the urgency they had felt throughout the day's march had lifted. Before they retired to the tent, Rick gathered the meat to bring inside with them. It was already frozen. RICK AWOKE AFTER a poor night's sleep. Without the conifer bough bedding to insulate the ground, it was too cold to sleep in a prone position. They had slept back-to-back in a tight circle upon the travois platform, with their knees drawn close to their chests, sharing the two meager blankets. It was an uncomfortable way to sleep, and, despite his fatigue, Rick had kept waking throughout the night. Joe looked like he had not slept at all.