The Scourge of God c-2

by S. M. Stirling

  Fred Thurston came over to Rudi as she went to gather her gear.

  "She's some Rancher's daughter," he said quietly, his face serious. "An important Rancher; probably a Sheriff."

  Rudi suppressed a smile. "It's a bit obvious, isn't it? She hasn't the manner of an underling."

  "Or the gear of one," Fred said. "That's expensive horse harness-not just the silver, the workmanship-but it's her working tack, not something kept for special occasions. It's a good horse, too. People like that have a hard time disappearing." A grin: "I did!"

  Rudi nodded. "Which means that she might be worth the trouble of pursuing, and draw enemies on us," he said thoughtfully. "Hmmm. See if you can draw her out."

  The son of Boise's first ruler went over to get his cold meat and beans. Breakfast was leftovers from last night; buffalo hump was so succulent that it still tasted good cold, and the flatbread was only a little stale. Garbh gnawed on some ribs, delighted to get them raw and with all the meat still attached.

  "I'm from Idaho, myself," Fred said in friendly fashion.

  She gave him a long considering look. At least she wasn't acting like he was a kid; even as the President's son girls his own age had tended to treat him that way, when they weren't obviously trying to get to his dad through him.

  It's a bit of a relief to be just another guy, he thought.

  "Boise?" she said.

  "Yeah."

  Her eyes narrowed. "We heard some rumor that they've thrown in with the Cutters."

  "Some of them have," he said bleakly. "That's… a lot of the reason why I left."

  Her smile was broad and genuine. "Hell, this outfit here might as well have WHS for its brand, for We Hate Sethaz! I wouldn't mind slapping that iron on a maverick. Or a Cutter's butt."

  When they'd finished breakfast he tossed the remains of the hump to Garbh. They still had most of the young yearling they'd killed two days ago, but it wouldn't last long in this weather unless they made a drying rack; nine people could eat a deer down to the bones and hooves easily enough before it spoiled, but not a yearling bull buffalo dressed out at six hundred pounds of meat.

  Rudi looked after them as Fred took her to look at the remounts, talking animatedly; he smiled tolerantly. The girl was pretty-in a strong-boned, strong-willed way-and they were both young.

  Her own horse obviously needed a few days' rest at least. Rudi was wondering whether it would be worthwhile to stop and jerk some of the buffalo-he hated the thought of waste, though of course the buzzards and coyotes had to eat too-when Ingolf came riding in from his early-morning circuit.

  "Visitors," he said, and gave Virginia a hard look.

  "What direction?" Rudi said. "How many?"

  "At least twenty, from the sound, you betcha. From the east."

  "Well, boggarts bugger us and the Dagda club me dead," Rudi said in annoyance, controlling a prickle of alarm; that was where they were headed. "Backtracking would be… risky."

  Everyone looked at Virginia Kane. She'd said she'd lost her pursuers, and there had been no sign of any until now, but…

  "She came in from the west," Fred pointed out. "Not from the east."

  Virginia nodded. "Cutters wouldn't loop around through the Lakota country, I don't think. You're already over the Seven Council Fires border. The Cutters are crazy but not crazy-stupid."

  "Gear up, everyone!" Rudi said. "Mistress Kane, put your saddle on one of our remounts-your horse isn't going to be fit for much anytime soon."

  It was twenty-two riders, when they could see the approaching party. They were spread out over a fair stretch of the grassland, taking their time to swing around the prairie-dog town and drawing in at long bowshot away from the nine-now ten-travelers. Two of them rode on, coming closer with arrogant confidence.

  The which they're entitled, since they outnumber us nearly three to one and this is their land, Rudi thought.

  Back home, there was usually somewhere to take cover, and you could place yourself by a swift glance at the mountains.

  Here… And it's like a bug on a plate I feel, hereabouts. Waiting for the fork to come down…

  "Sioux, all right," Ingolf said out of the corner of his mouth. "Don't put their backs up-but don't let them think they can push you around, either."

  " This porridge is just right, as the ill-mannered girl said when she wandered into Father Bear's house," Rudi said quietly back; he kept his hands carefully free of his weapons, but his skin prickled with an awareness of where they were.

  The two men pulled up halfway between the parties. Rudi and Ingolf walked their horses out to meet them; when they were in speaking distance he raised his hand palm out.

  "Hau kola," he said, and used one of the phrases of greeting Ingolf had taught him. "Lay he hun nee kay washte."

  "Yeah," one of them replied, the older of the pair. His tone was as pawky as his words. "And the top of the beautiful fucking morning to you, too, kilt-boy."

  Both the Sioux riders were in fringed buckskin trousers, beautifully tanned and supple; their hair was parted in the center and hung to either side in braids wrapped with leather thongs. The younger wore nothing else save pants, boots, the skin of a kit fox around his neck and a feather in his brown hair with a red dot on it. He carried an odd-looking standard, with a curve a bit like a shepherd's crook on the end, lined with eagle feathers; the red flag attached to it had a device of seven white tipis grouped in a circle.

  The other wore a long buckskin tunic as well, dyed yellow above and red below, with beads and quillwork and bone tubes in rows on the chest, and a steel cap that mounted a headdress of bison hair and horns. Both had bows in their hands, shetes at their belts, lariats and shields slung at their saddlebows. The man in the steel cap was in his forties and darker than his follower, with a few strands of gray in his raven black hair and lines in his big-nosed, high-cheeked brown face. He had a pair of binoculars in a case as well.

  All the men behind them were well armed; a few had short lances as well as bows and blades, or stone-headed war clubs; all the ones Rudi could see were young but in their full strength, and looked wiry tough. Several wore leather breastplates, probably tough bison hide, one had a mail-shirt, and all of them had light helmets at their saddlebows. Many had battle scars as well, sometimes proudly picked out with red paint. He hoped the tufts of hair on the lances and shields were just tufts of hair-horse hair, for example, or buffalo.

  And not hair hair.

  A herd of remounts followed them, with a few near-naked youths in breechclouts riding about to keep them bunched. The herdsmen were mounted bareback, but the grown warriors had good Western-style saddles.

  "We're just passing through," the Mackenzie said.

  The older Indian's eyes went to the buffalo-hide pegged on the side of the wagon to dry, and to the quartered carcass hanging from the rear of it.

  "Passing through, eating our tatonka," he said. "You know, we're sort of sensitive about armed white-eyes coming on to our land without permission, making themselves at home and killing our buffalo. Call it an ethnic quirk."

  Rudi spread his hands over his saddlehorn in a peaceable gesture, and smiled.

  "We didn't know it was a herd beast," he said.

  "It's not a herd beast," the Indian said-Rudi noted uneasily that he hadn't introduced himself yet, either, or used any formula of hospitality. "We herd cattle and horses and sheep and llamas, not buffalo and pronghorn and elk and deer. Those are game, and all the game on the Lakota nation's land belongs to us and our brothers of the Seven Council Fires."

  "There seemed to be quite a few of the buffalo. We're ready to pay for it, sure, and you can have the hide and the meat if you'd rather."

  "Thanks a lot for offering to give us back our own," the Indian leader said. "Last time round, we said: Sure, it can't hurt, there's a lot of buffalo and water and grass, let 'em take a little now and then when they're passing through…"

  He paused for effect and held up a mock-admonishing finger: "And tha
t turned out to be a very bad mistake. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

  He looked at them, carefully scanning each individual; all the travelers had their fighting gear on. The Portlanders hadn't brought the latest articulated plate suits because they were too difficult to get into without a squire to assist, but Odard and Mathilda and Ignatius all had full knee-length hauberks with greaves and vambraces and kite-shaped shields, twelve-foot lances in their hands with the butts resting on the stirrup-irons. They'd even had time to put the barding on their destriers; Rudi hadn't bothered with Epona, calculating that the extra weight would be more burden than it was worth out here where a horse had room to run as far as its legs would take it.

  The Indian finished the once-over and went on: "So unless you're looking for a fight, why don't you just turn around and go right back the way you came?"

  "Well, we'd be seriously inconvenienced if we did," Rudi said. "First, because we're heading for the Far East. Next and more important, because the Cutters would kill us all if they caught us, do you see, and there are so wretchedly many of them in that direction"-he pointed westward over his shoulder-"the pity and the black sorrow of it, ochone, ochone."

  The younger man grunted, and the older's black eyes narrowed.

  "We're at peace with the Church Universal and Triumphant," he said. "And we're not supposed to take in refugees from their territory."

  But he said it as if the words made his mouth hurt. His companion grunted again and spat on the grass, then unexpectedly spoke:

  "We're not supposed to harm their missionaries, either. But it's funny how many of them fall off their horses and break their necks or get run down by stampeding herds."

  Hooves sounded behind Rudi. He looked over his shoulder and swore silently; Virginia Kane was pushing her borrowed mount up beside him, and herself into a negotiation that wasn't going so well. She raised her hand in the greeting gesture and spoke herself:

  "Wacantoognaka," she said unexpectedly. "Oun she la yea."

  The Indian's eyes went wide. "Virginia? Christ, you've grown!" he blurted.

  "I remember you, leksi Whapa Sa, even if I'm a woman now."

  "What about Dave?"

  "My father's dead," she said shortly. "The Cutters killed him. It was supposed to be outlaws… but I never thought they'd stand by the terms of the peace treaty. And they weren't going to let me inherit!"

  "Damn. He was a good man. Yeah, of course you can have sanctuary. Dave Kane was my blood-brother, and we don't forget."

  "And for these people too; they took me in and fed me without asking anything for it just because the Cutters were after me."

  The man studied her face. "Yeah, I'll stretch it that far. Sorry, tonjan -you're welcome in our camps anytime, but I know it's hard."

  "I'm just glad Mom didn't live to see the Cutters take over Skywater."

  He sighed and said a phrase that Rudi hadn't heard before and couldn't even render into syllables in his mind without repetition. The swift-rising, slow-falling sounds of Lakota were pleasant, but the strangeness to an English-speaking ear made Gaelic sound like a first cousin.

  Our lady guest must have learned some of it early, he thought.

  Virginia relaxed slightly; she didn't have any trouble following it. "Thank you for accepting my friends as guests, Uncle Red Leaf," she said formally.

  The Sioux leader nodded to her, edged his horse closer and extended a hand to Rudi.

  "John Red Leaf, Kiyuska tiyospaye of the Ogallala and the Lakota tunwan," he said resignedly as they shook, then smiled. "Also BS in Range Science from SDSU, class of 1998. This is my son, Rick Mat'o Yamni-Rick Three Bears. Welcome to our land, oh sacred guests, yada yada yada."

  Three Bears looked faintly scandalized, at a guess because of his father's irreverence, but shook hands as well. The Mackenzie clansman sympathized; he'd had the same experience with people who'd grown up before the Change. Sometimes they had no idea of what to take seriously.

  "Rudi Mackenzie, tanist of the Clan Mackenzie," Rudi said politely. "My sept is Raven. Many thanks for your hospitality. We're from Oregon. Well, most of us."

  "Ingolf Vogeler, of nowhere in particular," Ingolf said.

  Virginia looked at the warriors behind Red Leaf. "Kit Foxes, Uncle John?"

  "Yeah, I'm akicita chief right now. We're out patrolling the border."

  "I…" She looked at Rudi, and winced slightly.

  She's going to be franker with her uncle John than she was with us, Rudi decided. He smiled and inclined his head to her. And I wouldn't be blaming you, moi glic caileag.

  "I think I lost the ones who were after me. Vince Rickover decided right at Dad's funeral that it was time I had protection…"

  Red Leaf nodded. "Figures. Wants to marry you to get the land, right?"

  She nodded. "But there was a unit of the Sword at his place, the Bar Q-they were what gave him the nerve to move on us. My people would have fought, and we could handle the Bar Q easy enough, but trying to fight Corwin would just get them and their families killed, so I took some horses and ran for it. I think I lost them, but…"

  "But we'd better push it hard," Red Leaf said. "The damned Cutters' idea of a peace treaty is that it means whatever suits them from moment to moment-which is sort of unpleasantly familiar, though at least they didn't promise to leave us alone while the sun shone and the grass grew."

  Pushing it involved turning and riding a little north of east without losing any time about it, which was the way Rudi's band had been going; the pace was a lot harder, though. The Mackenzie didn't object.

  If the people with the local knowledge think it best, it's best, he thought. Especially as this Red Leaf has survived all the time since the Change.

  As he thought, the Sioux leader spoke: "So, Rudi Mackenzie, are you guys refugees, traders, or what?"

  Rudi thought for a moment. "What," he said. "Very much what."

  "Oh, crap," John Red Leaf said four hours of walk-trot-canter-trot-walk later. The Sioux pointed to a circle of vultures in the sky ahead. "Again."

  He flung up his hand. The Lakota and Rudi's party had been riding along more or less in a loose clump, shifting as people wanted to talk; now they came to a halt, with the loudest sound the endless sshhhh of the wind through the ankle-high green grass. Virginia, he noted, had been accepted by the warriors as if she were everyone's younger sister, chaffing with them-in English and in scraps of the older tongue, which she spoke as well as anyone in this band, Red Leaf included. These folk seemed to use it about the way Mackenzies did Gaelic, which was to say mostly for emphasis and the odd word for flavor, but rather more so since there were quite a few actual speakers.

  It's an odd language they'll be speaking in a few generations, he thought.

  The prairie rose and fell, rose and fell in long swales; it was hot now, enough to make Rudi unpin his plaid and fold it into a saddlebag, and it leached out the land until everything looked like a green-brown vacancy, with only the occasional sagebrush for visual relief.

  "You know what that is they're circling?" Rudi said, cocking an eye at the buzzards.

  "I've got a strong suspicion. Same as last week… oh, well, we can water there."

  "And my folk can change out of their armor, so they could."

  "Yeah, it looks heavy," Red Leaf said. "Sort of inconvenient, having to stop and get in and out of it, I'd say. With our gear you can be ready to fight anytime."

  "It is a bit of a nuisance, I'll grant. But worth it in a stand-up fight, the which is more common where we come from."

  The Indian nodded. "I can see that. Less room to run and dodge out on the West Coast."

  The whole group proceeded cautiously. More buzzards rose from the ground as they crested the low rise. The two buffalo ahead were very dead, mostly eaten and buzzing with flies; from the smell it had been a couple of days ago. The bones and heads lay near the edge of the muddy little stream-it would dry up later in the summer, but for now it still held a slow
trickle between banks of grass thicker and greener than that on the uplands to either side, with a few cottonwoods just coming into leaf. It also made the ground soft enough to hold prints; you could see clearly where the ambushers had pounced from the cover of a clump of rabbitbrush, and the splashing, thrashing fight it had been until two young bulls were brought down.

  Epona danced a little nervously until Rudi ran a soothing hand down her neck. He swung to the ground, looped up the reins from her hackamore, and turned her loose; the big black mare mooched a few yards upstream and dipped her muzzle into the muddy water, being naturally too intelligent to drink down current from a body. He looked at the ground more closely, and caught a faint rank odor, like a neglected catbox. The killers had been messy feeders, too, even before the birds and coyotes had gotten to work. Several of the broad-winged scavengers were circling resentfully overhead, waiting for the irritating humans to go away and let them get back to serious eating.

  Even in the midst of his annoyance, Red Leaf gave Epona an admiring glance.

  Sure, and she's a better introduction than a friendly dog, Rudi thought.

  Red Leaf dismounted in turn, and handed his horse over to one of the teenagers in breechclouts; the Sioux war-party had little apparent discipline, but organization seemed to appear like mushrooms after rain when they needed it. From what he and Virginia had said, the Kit Foxes were a brotherhood devoted to defending the tribal borders, and also a social club that organized everything from dances to marriages and acted as a police force besides.

  "I'd say that's a tiger's prints," Rudi said, squatting for a moment and tracing the great plate-broad pugmarks with a finger. "But you don't have tigers hereabouts, I'm thinking. And there's at least four different animals, and tigers don't hunt in packs."

  "No," Red Leaf replied. "We've got plenty of lobos these days, some grizzlies just lately, but no tigers. We do get goddamned lions, of all the crazy things, the past few years. They follow the buffalo north from Texas and New Mexico when the snow melts; now I hear some of them are wintering in the Black Hills. They breed like rabbits; only rabbits don't have fangs and claws and four hundred pounds of attitude."