“How is my Cat-Brother called?”
The kitten did not alter his position, and he eyed Milo distrustfully. When he decided to answer, it was with open hostility. “This Cat is Killer-of-Two-Legs. Keep away or you all die!”
Dik slapped his thigh and guffawed. “Listen to him! What a warrior he’d be. Facing down four full-grown, armed men, and him but a cub.”
Milo spoke aloud. “Don’t underestimate him, Dik. Smaller than his mother, yes, but he’s near as big as a full-grown bobcat, and I’ll wager he could put some pretty furrows in your hide, if given the chance.”
Then he added, “But we won’t give him that chance, I hope. Two of you take off your jackets and hand me one, sloowwly, then get some of that rope ready. I could argue all day with this obstinate little bugger, and his mother will soon die without help.”
With moving men to either side distracting his attention, Milo was able to flip the heavy coat over the kitten. And then it was a furious matter of grab and tussle, but finally, the raging, squalling little beastlet was securely wrapped in two thick leather garments and wrapped about with several yards of rope. The other two kittens had retreated into a far, dark corner.
First Fil cleaned the wolfbite and smeared it thickly with salve, then he adroitly set and splinted the broken leg, using part of his own embroidered shirt when he ran out of bandage cloths. But when he first began to shave the infected leg with the razor-keen skinning knife, the huge cat came to full and furious consciousness, straining at the ropes and straps pinioning her rear legs and fearsome jaws, growling between clenched teeth.
Milo tried to reach her mind, but it was useless. As well as he could, Fil went on about his shaving of the long fur.
As gently as possible, his sensitive fingers roved over the grossly swollen leg. He rubbed a portion of the discolored skin with a few drops of liquid from a small metal bottle, then dipped the short blade of a slender knife into the bottle.
At the first touch of the needle-pointed knife, the big cat squalled, and heaved her heavy body once, then unconsciousness claimed her once more.
Fil had the experience to keep clear, but the curious Djim caught the jet of foul greenish pus that erupted around the first thrust of the little knife full in his face. Cursing sulphurously, he stood up and headed for the water pool.
Fil opened a long gash and cut through to the bone, then pressed upon the leg until nothing but blood and clear serum flowed. He packed the open wound with dried herbs, smeared its gaping edges with salve and bandaged the limb with more of his shirt. After feeling the neck pulse to ascertain if his patient still lived, he gathered his instruments and trudged wearily toward the pool.
After the straining men had manhandled the limp form of the cat back to where she had been originally lying and had untied her rear legs, Fil Esmith took up the watch over his patient, squatting near her with the thrashing shape of a decapitated rattler before him, gobbling raw filets of snake as fast as his busy knife could skin, clean and slice them. Across the den, the red-haired Linsee twins were joking and chortling as they lugged bloody wolf carcasses up to the roof of the tower for skinning whenever the blizzard died down.
In one end of what had been the snake den, Djim Linsee squatted, kitten-sitting. Killer-of-Two-Legs had not been released, as he had hotly refused to tender his parole. The furious and frustrated little beast was managing to somehow roll his ropebound leather cocoon over and over from one side of the room to the other, alternately squalling for maternal assistance and beaming silent threats of dire and deadly retribution against every two-legs he had seen.
On the other hand, Djirn had gained at least the conditional friendship and partial trust of the smaller and less pugnacious female kittens. The fuzzy little creatures were mindspeaking less and less guardedly as they avidly devoured his lavish gifts of snakemeat.
Milo had found the inner door of the fallout shelter unlocked, though every crack had been sealed with wide strips of tape. Sealant removed, the door had opened easily to reveal a virtual efficiency apartment—two double-decker bunks a chemical toilet, a two-burner petrol range, a stainless-steel sink with chrome pump in place of faucets, and a plethora of cabinets and drawers of various sizes and shapes covering every available inch of wall space.
After going through the contents of a few of the cabinets, some of the worry about their situation left Milo’s mind. Even if the blizzard, now howling in full force, should last a month and the huge wolfpack should maintain its siege until spring, he and the Horseclansmen would be well fed on the big sealed cans of powdered milk and eggs and orange concentrate, the stack upon high stack of freeze-dried foods still sealed in their plastic-lined foil pouches. There were jars of coffee (he tried but could not recall the last time he had tasted real coffee, though the nomads all drank certain bastard brews they invariably called “coffee”) and sugar and jams, tins of tea, even a case of Jerez brandy, Año 72, plus a wide assortment of condiments and pickles.
Under one of the lower bunks was a flat steel chest, its lid padlocked and sealed with tape. The lock yielded to a few strokes of the iron bar. Within, the first thing that caught Milo’s eyes was a finely tooled leather case about four feet long.
Nape hairs prickling, he lifted the case to the bunk and unsnapped its catches, then lifted the lid. Nestled on a bed of impregnated sheepskin lay a scope-sighted sporting rifle, blued barrel, chrome bolt handle and polished stock reflecting back the light of the lantern. Arrayed below the barrel were six brightly colored boxes, each labeled “REMINGTON .30-06 Sprgfld. 180 gr. pointed soft point 20 rounds.”
With shaking hands, Milo lifted the beautiful weapon from its century-old bed and first lifted, then pulled the silvery bolt handle. The ancient Mauser action slid smoothly open and the ejector sent a bright brass dummy cartridge clattering across the room. The visible interior surfaces of the rifle gleamed as brightly as the exterior.
Milo slouched back against the cabinet behind him, a grim smile on his face. Six boxes, twenty rounds the box, one hundred and twenty cartridges, then; even if it took him a full box to reorient himself to a firearm and to zero this one in, he’d still have more than enough to seriously deplete the wolf population hereabouts, so they were only now trapped here until the weather improved.
But what about the cat? Even with the wolves dead or departed, she would be in a bad way. Unable to hunt for at least a month, she and those kittens would be white bones soon. True, he and the Horseclansmen could leave meat behind for her, but how long before it was all eaten or became inedible?
“Take them back with us? For the kittens, that would work fine—strap one each on the backs of three men. But how in the devil do seven men get a two-hundred-and-some-pound injured cat down a bitch of an almost vertical hill, coated with ice and full of loose rocks?
“What we should do is just loll about here until the big cat is mended, then give her the choice of coming with us or staying here, but if I keep these men away that long, their clans will think they’re all dead, and, likely, move the camp to a luckier place, probably in the very direction we won’t go.
“Now if it only weren’t for that damned hill, we could just build a sledge and—”
Fil’s mindcall interrupted him. “Uncle Milo, the big cat is waking up.”
When Milo strode into the den, Fil Esmith, and Bili and Bahb Linsee were watching the groggy beast, made clumsy by her bandaged forepaws, trying to get a hind claw under the strap still securing her jaws.
Milo moved to her side and squatted. Laying a hand on her head—he had long ago learned that physical contact always improved telepathic communication—he mindspoke her.