"Good, and you are not a vegan?"
Hunnicutt thought that was pretty good. "Not exactly. I like red meat as much as the next man. But I prefer elk to this mystery meat," he went on, looking down with some distaste for what was on his plate.
"Elk?"
"Wapiti, biggest damned deer you're ever gonna see. A good one's got maybe four, five hundred pounds of good meat in him. Nice rack, too."
"Rack?"
"The antlers, horns on the head. I'm partial to bear meat, too."
"That'll piss off a lot of the folks here," Dr. Killgore observed, working into his pasta salad.
"Look, man, hunting is the first form of conservation. If somebody don't take care of the critters, there ain't nothing to hunt. You know, like Teddy Roosevelt and Yellowstone National Park. If you want to understand game, I mean really understand them, you better be a hunter."
"No arguments here," the epidemiologist said.
"Maybe I'm not a bunny-hugger. Maybe I kill game, but, goddamnit, I eat what I kill. I don't kill things just to watch 'em die-well," he added, "not game animals anyway. But there's a lot of ignorant-ass people I wouldn't mind popping."
"That's why we're here, isn't it?" Maclean asked with a smile.
"You bet. Too many people fucking up the place with electric toothbrushes and cars and ugly-ass houses."
"I brought Foster into the Project," Mark Waterhouse replied. He'd known Maclean for years.
"All briefed in?" Killgore asked. "Yes, sir, and it's all fine with me. You know, I always wondered what it was like to be Jim Bridger or Jedediah Smith. Maybe now I can find out, give it a few years."
"About five," Maclean said, "according to our computer projections."
"Bridger? Smith?" Popov asked.
"They were Mountain Men," Hunnicutt told the Russian. "They were the first white men to see the West, and they were legends, explorers, hunters, Indian fighters."
"Yeah, it's a shame about the Indians."
"Maybe so," Hunnicutt allowed.
"When did you get in?" Maclean asked Waterhouse.
"We drove in today," Mark replied. "The place is about full up now, isn't it?" He didn't like the crowding.
"That it is," Killgore confirmed. He didn't, either. "But it's still nice outside. You ride, Mr. Hunnicutt?"
"How else does a man hunt in the West? I don't use no SUV, man."
"So, you're a hunting guide?"
"Yeah." Hunnicutt nodded. "I used to be a geologist for the oil companies, but I kissed that off along time ago. I got tired of helping to kill the planet, y'know?"
Another tree-worshiping druid, Popov thought. It wasn't especially surprising, though this one struck him as verbose and a little bombastic.
"But then," the hunter went on, "well, I figured out what was important." He explained for a few minutes about the Brown Smudge. "And I took my money and hung it up, like. Always liked hunting and stuff, and so I built me a cabin in the mountains-bought an old cattle ranch-and took to hunting full-time."
"Oh, you can do that? Hunt full-time, I mean?" Killgore asked.
"That depends. A fish-and-game cop hassled me about it… but, well, he stopped hassling me."
Popov caught a wink from Waterhouse to Killgore when this primitive said that, and in a second he knew that this Hunnicutt person had killed a police officer and gotten away with it. What sort of people did this "project" recruit?
"Anyway, we all ride in the morning. Want to join us?"
"You bet! I never turn that down."
"I have learned to enjoy it myself," Popov put in.
"Dmitriy, you must have some Cossack in you." Killgore laughed. "Anyway, Foster, show up here for breakfast a little before seven, and we can go out together."
"Deal," Hunnicutt confirmed.
Popov stood. "With your permission, the Olympic equestrian events start in ten minutes."
"Dmitriy, don't start thinking about jumping fences. You're not that good yet!" MacLclean told him.
"I can watch it done, can I not?" the Russian said, walking away.
"So, what's he do here?" Hunnicutt asked, when Popov was gone.
"Like he said, nothing here, exactly, but he helped get the Project going in one important way."
"Oh?" the hunter asked. "How's that?"
"All those terrorist incidents in Europe, remember them?"
"Yeah, the counterterror groups really worked good to shut those bastards down. Damned nice shooting, some of it. Dmitriy was part of that?"
"He got the missions started, all of 'em," Maclean said.
"Damn," Mark Waterhouse observed. "So, he helped Bill get the contract for the Olympics?"
"Yep, and without that, how the hell would we get the Shiva delivered?"
"Good man," Waterhouse decided, sipping his California Chardonnay. He'd miss it, he thought, after the Project activated. Well, there were plenty of liquor warehouses around the country. He would not outlive their stocks, he was sure.
CHAPTER 35
It had become so enjoyable that Popov was waking up early, in order to relish it more. This day he woke up just after first light, and admired the orange-rose glow on the eastern horizon that presaged the actual dawn. He'd never ridden a horse before coming to the Kansas facility, and he'd found that there was something fundamentally pleasing and manly about it, to have a large, powerful animal between one's legs, and to command it with nothing more than a gentle tug on the leather reins, or even the clucking sound one made with one's tongue. It offered a much better perspective than walking, and was just… pleasing to him at a sub-intellectual level.
And so he was in the cafeteria early, picking his breakfast food plus a fresh red apple for Buttermilk just as the kitchen staff set it out. The day promised to be fine and clear again. The wheat farmers were probably as pleased as he was with the weather, the intelligence officer thought. There had been enough rain to water the crops, and plenty of sun to ripen them. The American wheat farmers had to be the most productive in all the world, Popov reflected. With this fine land and their incredible mobile equipment. that was little surprise, he thought, lifting his tray and walking to the accustomed table. He was halfway through his scrambled eggs when Killgore and the new one, Hunnicutt, approached.
"Morning, Dmitriy," the tall hunter said in greeting.
Popov had to swallow before replying. "Good morning, Foster."
"What did you think of the riding last night?"
"The Englishman who won the gold medal was marvelous, but so was his horse."
"They pick good ones," Hunnicutt observed, heading off to get his breakfast and returning in a few minutes. "So, you were a spy, eh?"
"Intelligence officer. Yes, that was my job for the Soviet Union."
"Working with terrorists, John tells me."
"That is also true. I had my assignments, and of course I had to carry them out."
"No problem with me on that, Dmitriy. Ain't none of those folks ever bothered me or anybody I know. Hell, I worked in Libya once for Royal Dutch Shell. Found 'em a nice little field, too, and the Libyans I worked with were okay people." Like Popov, Hunnicutt had piled up eggs and bacon. He needed a lot of food to support his frame, Dmitriy imagined. "So what do you think of Kansas?"
"Like Russia in many ways, the broad horizons, and vast farms though yours are far more efficient. So few people growing so much grain."
"Yeah, we're counting on that to keep us in bread," Hunnicutt agreed, stuffing his face. "We have enough land here to grow plenty, and all the equipment we need. I may be into that myself."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, well, everybody's going to be assigned Project work to do. Makes sense, we all gotta pull together in the beginning anyway, but I'm really looking forward to getting me some buffalo. I even bought myself a real buffalo gun.