A Long Time Until Now (64 page)

CHAPTER 39

Sean Elliott was satisfied with progress. It was May and humid and warm, and the creek was drying up again, but the well was clean and produced water. He’d devised a sand and gravel filter with a leather catch basin. He planned to replace that with concrete, hopefully this year because he didn't want to depend exclusively on the Cogi's filter. Roman concrete wasn’t great, but wasn’t bad, and the local Romans had knowledge of it.

Their periodic visits had been carefully orchestrated to get technical knowledge from them, while imparting as much awesome as possible through real but impressive claims of American military might. It seemed to be working.

As for his element, he couldn’t ask for better people. Their personalities clashed as much as anyone’s, but their breadth of knowledge was amazing and their determination shone through. They’d survive. The only questions were how far they could advance, and how much information could they leave for the next generation of theirs, or of the Urushu.

He saw Oglesby walking his way with one of the Gadorth. It was interesting how most of the soldiers had turned into managers and liaison, now that they had trustworthy local labor.

“What’s up?” he greeted.

“Hey, sir, Sadi’a is a junior chief for the village.” He indicated the local.

Sean nodded acknowledgment and said, “Relay my greetings. What’s up?”

“He says we have to plan a hunt for midsummer.”

“Okay. A ceremonial thing?”

“Yes.”

“We’re in. Traditional or guns?”

“Traditional. Spear throwers and hand-thrown spears.”

“Okay. Can we wear body armor? It’s our traditional dress, after all.”

Oglesby spoke clearly overall, with some pauses and hesitations, and pantomimed armor.

“Sir, they say if that’s our traditional clothing for hunting, we should of course wear it. They’ d like us to use their traditional weapons.”

“Seems fair. Is this a cow? A bear? Something cool?”

“Yes, sir. A rhino.”

“A . . . rhino.” That sounded dangerous, and horribly unPC.

“With spears. They specifically want Doc along, too.”

“Well, good. I guess.” Rhinos, with spears. “Do we really need to do this?”

“It’s important to them, sir. They do it every midsummer. They ask for our two best hunters.”

That was complicated. The best hunters would be Barker and Dalton. However, as commander, he should lead by example. Except if he did get badly hurt, then leadership could be damaged.

“I’ll send two hunters and Doc,” he said. “After we consult with the spirits on who is best suited.”

Jenny Caswell had mixed feelings. Being selected as a hunter was good, if it was to show equality, bad if she was a token.

Then, there was killing a rhino. She didn’t like killing animals anyway, and this was a magnificent beast whose entire genus was near extinct in their era. This species was already gone.

It felt a lot as if she’d been railroaded into it, and couldn’t gracefully bow out.

Stupid male egos were part of the culture here. If only that could be directed somewhere else. It was much easier to do that with a modern, technological society.

She had three javelins, with hardened steel tips Spencer had forged for her, and fletched by Bob. Then she had a heavier stabbing spear, with a tubular iron point to cause hemorrhaging, cut from a pipe section from Number Eight.

Other than that, she had helmet, armor with plate, and a Camelbak Hawg with a handful of useful things in the outer pocket.

Elliott, Doc and she, three Urushu in rawhide, three Gadorth in armor of hardened hides, and two Romans in their armor plodded uphill to find a rhino. They were following a watercourse smaller than their own.

One of the Urushu, Zhu!yi, pointed, cupped his hands, and said, “Ak!a.”

She raised cupped hands to her lips. “Ak!a?” she asked. “Drink?”

“No. Ak!a.” Zhu!yi moved his hands around in a circle.

“Pond or lake, I think. Mare.”

One of the Romans, Fulvius, grinned. “Lacus.”

“Okay, good. We’re looking for rhino at a lake.” She pantomimed a horn and drinking.

“Yes.” Zhu!yi nodded.

It was amazing how a few words and signs could be used so well.

On they trod. It wasn’t a long trip, but it was all uphill and cross country. It was hot, sticky and dusty, and she wasn’t as tall as the Urushu or Doc or Elliott. The Romans clustered back with her. She could tell they were watching her, and was glad for weapons and the male soldiers.

There weren’t any Latin comments she wasn’t supposed to hear, so that was good. She was not going to drop farther back, though. She lengthened her pace and moved forward, almost trotting to keep up with Elliott. He looked over at her, she looked back, he nodded and said nothing. He didn’t slow down either.

Good. He understood.

A half hour later, they were up on the higher plain. It was rolling, scrubby ground with short, twisted trees, as she remembered. There were occasional bursts of green and taller brush in low areas, but no actual watercourses. There was a depression with muddy water in it, either from dew and rain, or from a water table in the bedrock. Far to the south were the long, low lines of the Hindu Kush.

Here there were saiga and some of the prettier antelope in family groups. The grass shifted now and then as burrowers ran underneath. A herd of aurochs grazed far to the east, and ahead, rhino.

Zhu!yi pointed at each of them, and a direction, and gestured envelopment. He indicated a horn and said, “Sita,” meaning “Small.”

“Minisculus,” said Elliott.

She added, “Stihb,” for the Gadorth. She’d been picking up some vocabulary.

Zhu!yi indicated a smaller beast at edge of the group, probably a yearling.

Then she was trudging through waist-high scrub with Elliott, plodding through the heat, approaching the rear of the herd, where they hoped to surround and kill a baby rhino.

It seemed like a hell of a challenge, and that made it even more offensive. In a few thousand years, these animals would be on the verge of extinction. Even here, they were a trophy. The Woolly Rhino had been almost extinct in Gadorth territory, as far as anyone could tell. It was a magical beast to them, and they needed to kill one for some fucked up reason of chest-thumping.

She had to do it, though.

In another twenty minutes they had it surrounded, along with several of its peers. Slowly they moved in, tightening the circle. She fumbled with the javelins, and hoped her throws would match her rifle skill. She’d had little practice. Helmet and armor made her even clunkier.

They were about a hundred meters out, when the Gadorth, whose names she’d not bothered with, stood and hurled, with a yell. In a moment, the Romans stood, cocked back and threw in perfect unison. Elliott raised his hand back and down behind him, and heaved. Doc threw his flat and fast. The three Urushu chucked their lighter darts from long practice, and she brought up the rear. Her first one was short. Most of the others hit and the beast made an almost trump sound in pain. The second volley hissed through the air as the other animals panicked and ran. She was late on that, too, but thought she hit.

One of the rhinos thundered toward her, bent on goring or running her down. She dropped into a high crouch, ready to spring from its path and try curling into a ball. She felt the ground shake, saw others mill about and more javelins fly at the target, then the beast lowered its head and she bounded to the left and rolled, clutching the weapons in an outreached arm, then pulling them in.

Nothing happened, so she glanced up and saw she’d evaded the charge. The target animal, though, was now staggering toward her, sharp sticks protruding from back, flanks and rear legs.

She wasn’t sure why, but she found herself setting the spear butt into the ground and leaning into it. She’d have to dive again if it kept going.

Then it lowered its head, presented its horn, and dug in its feet. She stretched out, and when it seemed to rise over her, she dropped the spear and rolled again.

This time she wasn’t fast enough. A leg kicked her hip painfully, and she bounced off a rough, leathery knee, then landed flailing and flat, the helmet wrenching her neck. The air whuffed out of her.

Above that she heard the rhino utter a sound like a bellow, moo and trumpet all at once. It had collided with her spear. The shaft snapped off, but only after momentum drove it clear into the shoulder joint. The creature was on three legs now, limping in a circle.

Elliott ran in and rammed his spear into one flank. It screamed in response, thrashed, and staggered back up.

Then it charged.

One of the Gadorth didn’t shift in time, and got thrown under the beast. After it passed, he crawled away, apparently intact.

She rose painfully to her feet, limping as fire shot through her hip, and looked at her hand to make sure she still held the stabbing spear. She didn’t. She had a javelin. She’d used the stabbing spear. Right.

Shaking her head of fuzz, she hung back.

Two more stabs in the hamstrings forced the poor animal to remain on the ground, dragging those legs behind. It still had a front leg to crawl with, one injured one to swing at humans, and the horn and teeth.

She felt ill, and it wasn’t just nausea from the impact. This was vile. They were killing it because they could, not because they needed to. It fulfilled some cultural demand to prove machismo.

One of the Romans stabbed it in the neck, causing enough damage its head drooped. It bellowed, the sound tapering to a howl of agony.

Sobbing in pain and loathing, she moved in, wanting to put it out of its misery. She limp-jogged toward it, chose a spot behind the ear and inboard, took the javelin, and threw her weight into it.

The shaft bent, then straightened, as the steel cut through the hide. She’d picked the right spot, directly along the spine, and the tip slid deep into the rhino’s skull. She stirred the shaft in a circle.

In response, the animal’s eyes fluttered and rolled, it gargled out what was almost a laugh, and its entire body twitched, then went limp.

She turned away and vomited.

She saw Elliott’s boots in front of the greasy puddle of puke.

“Should I leave you alone?” he said, barely above a whisper.

She nodded.

His boots stepped back and he started exclaiming loudly to the group. Doc’s boots came into view, then moved away, too.

She wouldn’t join this hunt next summer.

The Gadorth scattered about the area, bringing back gnarled sticks, dried dung, and dried grass of two kinds. One unwrapped a bundle of leaves to reveal a coal, which he applied to tinder. Momentarily, a fire flared up, hot and with dirty yellow smoke. He fed it with twigs, dung balls and heavier sticks.

She watched as a scarab wiggled out of a smoldering dung ball. One of the Urushu snatched it, peeled open the shell, and sucked the guts out as if it were a tiny crayfish.

She couldn’t throw up again. The first one was excusable as a battle reflex. Not now.

She focused on analyzing the ritual as her guts roiled.

However they’d developed it, or it evolved, the pungent smoke kept other animals at bay. Meanwhile, the others caressed the carcass almost as if it were a departed pet, then used heavy flint knives to hack through the hide, sectioning it. Parts of the muscle underneath still twitched, dead but with remaining lactic acid and nerve impulses.

She actually couldn’t throw up. There was nothing left. She choked back bile.

Men pulled out chunks of flesh, and nibbled some, even raw. More was jabbed on javelin tips then held over the fire for a quick roast. The eater would hold the speared meat to his mouth, bite it, slice off next to his lips with a flint cutter, then stick the rest back into the fire for more cooking while he chewed the fresh meat thoughtfully.

Their reverence while chewing, and the creepy caressing of the corpse, plus the additional fires being built at cardinal points—the first had been due west—showed how important this was to them.

Two men sawed off the two-foot-long front horn. Their task was complicated by the presence of two others bashing in the skull with a hammerstone.