The lean one ceased his browsing and approached.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Strangers. Maybe eeksies,” Sayjak replied, glancing at Chumo. “I don’t know.”
Chumo shook his head.
“Perhaps I should come along,” Staggert said.
“Someone has to take care of the camp. Leave signs if you have to flee.”
“Of course.”
Sayjak set out with Chumo, shambling along trails for the first mile or so, all senses alert. Finally, Chumo led him into the trees as they neared the place of the tracks.
“I heard them pass,” he said, “from a distance. By the time I got here they were already well gone. I located their tracks and studied them.”
“Let’s find them,” Sayjak said.
They proceeded along the well-worn game trail, boot marks still clear in the damp soil. It wound into the west, then the northwest. Sayjak determined that there were four of them—two fairly large men, and two of more average height and build.
From far off to the left came the crack of a discharging weapon. A moment later the sound was heard again.
Sayjak smiled.
“Easy game,” he said. “They give themselves away for it. Now we know the trail turns, curves that way. We cut through. Find them sooner.”
So they left the trail and headed in the direction of the sounds. It took them perhaps half an hour to find the place of the slaughtered buck, but from there the trail was very clear. The game had been dressed, divided, and borne off to the northeast.
Following, again, Sayjak and Chumo finally heard the sounds of voices at about the same time they smelled the cooking meat. Proceeding more carefully then, they discovered the band to be camped in an area identifiable by scent as one previously used by a clan similar to their own. It had been abandoned for at least a week, however.
They drew nearer. From the more than casual appointment they had effected in the area, it was obvious that the hunters were planning to spend the night. Sayjak was momentarily taken aback on seeing that the largest of the four was a woman.
“Eeksies,” Chumo whispered.
“Bounties,” Sayjak corrected. “Big one’s a female. Guess who?”
“Big Betsy?”
“Right,” he said, fingering a scar along his left thigh. “Lots of the People’s heads gone home with her. She and me go back far.”
“Maybe this time we take hers.”
“This time I take hers. Go back to camp. Get Staggert, Ocro, a few other big guys who need action. Bring them. I wait, watch. We move. I leave signs.”
“Yes.”
Chumo vanished into the brush.
Sayjak moved nearer, his mouth watering at the aromas from the cooking, though he’d never learned much about fire, and he knew that raw meat was best anyhow. Bounties…
Eeksies wore uniforms. Bounties dressed any damned way they wanted. Bounties were more ingenious, more relentless—deadlier. Not being civil servants and actually making or not making their money as a result of their own actions had much to do with it. Sayjak realized that bounties were not normally offered until a situation reached a point where eeksy activity was deemed inadequate. While modesty was not one of his virtues, he did not feel that his clan’s activities alone were sufficient to warrant such attention. No. Hard as it was to think beyond the clan, it occurred to him that the other tribes of the People must also be burgeoning, be hunting and browsing to an extent which became noticeable on someone’s big balance sheet of how things should be. Offhand, he did not know what to do about it. But he did have a solution for the immediate problem, as soon as the others arrived.
He watched as they set up their camp, continued to watch as they gathered about the fire and took their meal. He hoped there would be some leftovers… for afterwards. But his hope diminished as Big Betsy dug in. The lady had quite an appetite, in full keeping with her figure.
“Enjoy now,” he breathed. “My turn later.” And he studied the machete she’d hung on a nearby tree limb. Could it be the same one that had cut him? He knew how they operated now. Just like swinging a big stick, only sharper. Good for taking a head.
He crouched and watched. Plenty of time now. Might as well spend it planning…
It was evening when Chumo returned with four others. Silent, for all their great bulk, they crouched beside him as he pointed out features of the camp, indicating attack points he had decided upon. Then he motioned for them to follow him and took them a great distance off into the brush.
There he halted and spoke softly:
“You—Chumo, Staggert—hide in trees, near, with me. Ocro, Svut— you climb in trees, be overhead. When they sleep, ground people follow me in. Kill everyone. Too much trouble, Ocro, Svut jump down quick. Help.”
“If they got guard?” Staggert asked.
“Mine,” Sayjak replied. “I go first. Guard dead, and you come in. Get the rest. Understand?”
It was not the desire to demonstrate his leadership, or even mere bravado, which governed the plan. It was, rather, Sayjak trusted none but himself, a value he’d learned at an early age as a wandering outcast from his own clan, and the thing which had probably assured his primacy for so long in this one. Self-sufficiency, distrust, and the ability to make an instant decision and follow it with a surprise move, were—had he been of the reflective sort—the most useful lessons he might have felt he’d learned in those early days.
And so they returned to the camp of the bounty hunters, and his party positioned itself in accord with a shoulder clasp, a pointed finger, a nod apiece. Sayjak took up station in the thicket nearest the hunters and worked his way slowly to its forward edge. There, he lay absolutely still, watching the figures about the fire as they sipped some beverage and talked.
Would they leave a guard? He suspected so. He planned to approach as close as he could, then give the attack signal to the others simultaneous with leaping upon the guard and killing him—or her. He hoped that Big Betsy would stand the first watch herself, both because she was the most formidable and it would be well to dispose of her quickly, and because he could hardly wait—after all these years and encounters—to slay the huntress from far-off Verite. He had never heard of Thomas Ray, who had introduced sex and repro into proges, so long ago. But probably he should rape her, too, he decided, just to show that his victor)’ was total as well as complete. On the other hand, he realized that he would be afraid to try it while still she lived. No matter. Afterwards would serve as well to prove his point.
Again, he studied the machetes. Big Betsy had hurt him bad with one such, that other time. He had thought of it over and over, until he was certain how it worked, though he never dwelled on the mysteries of design or manufacture. Good for getting heads, he knew. It was how they filled their bounty sacks.
He watched the campers and tried to understand their conversation, but failed. He wondered whether Big Betsy knew any of the People’s talk. He listened to the night sounds and studied that other mystery, the fire.
It seemed a long time before one of the men began to yawn. But moments later another joined him. The first said something and gestured toward his sleeping roll. Big Betsy nodded and answered, jerking her huge thumb in that direction. All three of the men retired to their bedrolls, and she added more sticks to the fire. She cleaned her weapon and honed her machete then, setting both of them near to hand when she was done. Sayjak studied their disposition. He had to come upon her in such a fashion that she could not seize advantage and turn it on him. Once it was simply strength against strength there would be no problem despite her bulk. He was considerably more massive, and his strength had long been a thing of legend among the People. So…