Single Combat (25 page)

Animals do not really smell water. Rather, they catch the faint sweet odors of vegetation that prosper in arid regions. The huge omnivore moved toward those scents, now and then balancing on his hindquarters to better test the breezeborne messages. His kind did not often behave that way—but then, in some ways there were no others quite like him; had not been since humans first probed into the Urals.

For the surviving dogs, fleeing from Hutch's firepower and briefly expecting that this lone creature might be their prey, their encounter had been ultimate disaster. Their quarry had not run at first, but waited for the doberman's second slashing pass. He had fed the doberman a flinty forehoof with a projecting dewclaw that ripped out the ribbed roof of the dog's mouth before its jaws could snap shut. But the dog was tasting blood—its own—and did not heed the lesson.

The mixed-breed and the alsatian tried for a hamstring and found that their opponent could leap with any gazelle. Their normal pack attack was to circle and veer, but with only three of them this stratagem had a fatal flaw. The vast bristly ham was not where the mixed-breed expected; instead, a sharp splayed rear hoof the size of a man's relaxed hand exploded into the dog's ribcage, tossing it as easily as the kick of a horse; and this should not have surprised them, for they had faced full-grown horses smaller than this snuffling red-eyed demon.

The mixed-breed stood again, but could not return and collapsed, dying, bleeding from mouth and nostrils. The alsatian whined in impatience and perhaps, a little, in fear. When the doberman started its frontal stalk, its companion eased rearward. Usually if the quarry charged forward, a big healthy dog could blitz from behind to deliver a disabling slash. But when that charge came, it came with such blinding suddenness that neither dog could respond. The doberman wanted a shot at the throat or, failing that, the shoulder. Instead it found a snout tucked nearly to the caliche dirt and two scimitars leveled at its breast and coming on as if rocket-propelled and, scythe-impaled, the fifty-kilo doberman died while carried forward by the endless thundering charge of an animal ten times its bulk.

When the great beast turned at last, the alsatian was fifteen meters in arrears. Alsatians are smart. This one saw the body of its mate dumped like an offering, or a challenge, between predator and prey, and realized that the monster could outrun him, and knew finally which was truly predator, and which was to be the prey.

The alsatian ran anyway, which was not very smart. Nor would he have been smart to attack, nor even to roll over on his back and wag his tail. When death is absolutely certain, perhaps nothing is very smart.

When the victor had fed he began to crave water, not only to slake his thirst but to wash away the blood that splashed his scant bristly coat and his long sloping face. That was when he drifted away from the sunset toward the smell of waterthings.

His trained olfactory bulbs told him there was person-scent near, and man-scent as well.

He knew two persons whom he loved. He had never met a man he liked. A few men had had the good sense to fall down before him, or to feed him, or simply the immobilizing horror to stand rigid and piss themselves when facing him. Most of those still lived to foster the legend of Ba'al.

He still carried a handful of slugs, cicatriced in mounds of muscle, from the deerfly sting of a '22 to the really damaging wallop of big shotgun pellets, fired by men who had chosen the valiant option. Of the valiant ones, very few still lived. Ba'al did not care which category he would meet upwind and now that his bloodlust and his hunger were assuaged he no longer hungered for trouble. But if they stood between him and his water,—meet them he would.

For the first time ever, Eve Simpson gathered firewood. And enjoyed it! She noted for later recording that occasional rain torrents could create momentary freshets—Hutch called them 'gully washers'—that spewed hunks of oak and mesquite and cedar along their paths before drying again. To Hutch it only meant easy pickin's for a showy bonfire, the kind city folks liked, the kind that wasted enough wood for a week of sensible cooking and warming. Well, whatthehell, some tenderfeet had their points. The fat gal, Evie, had slyly offered to sweeten his hardrock coffee with sourmash that night, and he didn't mind if he did. It was against the rules but in by-God Wild Country you could take a few by-God liberties. He would jolly the young couple along with whatever stories they wanted, most of them true, and knew that the fat gal's eyes would gleam with pleasure no matter what he did.

Hutch supervised the camp setup near the dripping spring, letting Evie help, ignoring the way she panted every time she had to squat in readying the bonfire. Poor li'l rich gal, the thing that would most likely make her eyes catch fire was one thing he wasn't about to offer.

Hutch cussed softly at himself for the vagrant moving mental image of himself with her. He wasn't fair, letting himself be revulsed by her when she'd done nothing to provoke it. All the same, he reflected as he brought out the preheated banquet from the modern 'chuckwagon', he mustn't give her any signals she could take amiss. Cleve Hutcherson could imagine nothing more terrifying, more unmanning, than wallowing with Eve Simpson. That was because Hutch was a man with a narrow imagination; an hour after sunset his imagination would be immensely expanded.

He moved carefully toward the fireblaze, walking rather than trotting to catch every scent, tallying the information with what he saw and heard. Two persons and two men, none smelling of fear or anger, talking in voices he could have heard a kilometer away. He had not been hungry, not with twenty kilos of dogmeat in his belly, but the odors of Schreiner food would titillate a gourmand of any species. He identified armadillo (roasted over slow mesquite embers), Corsican lamb (with braised mint), and something he could not place (no wonder: ostrich-egg omelet with avocado and eggplant). This last tumble of sensation was a nose-puzzler, and he snorted.

The slender person turned, her night vision lost in the glare of bonfire, and stared directly toward him. "What was that?"

He studied her alertness; could detect no fear. Other voices calmed her. He might pass behind them to the shallow waterhole, but knew they would hear him drink. Well, they were on ground he had chosen, however temporarily, as his and now he was salivating for the food that lay in plain sight near the four humans who sat on stones and taunted him unaware. He moved nearer between stunted cedars, then nearer still to the very edge of the firelight without being detected. In his way he was having his little joke, easing into their very midst in utter silence. But not without odors of his own.

The louder of the two men took a coffee cup, sniffed, said, "Hutch, what do I smell in this Java?"

Hutch, blinking: "Why—just coffee. Whoo-eee, but that's rank! It isn't coffee, podnuh, smells more like a stray—", and then he peered across the firelight into the eyes of a primordial power and lust unmatched by any homicidal maniac since time began.

Hutch's lips formed the word:
Baal
, but could not say it aloud. To his surpassing credit he quavered instead, "Folks, do not move. I'm dead serious; don't scream, don't do
nothin'!
. Aw, my great—good—Gawd—almighty."

The slender person glanced between the two scrub trees, hardly a spit away for Hutch; drew a breath; fainted.

Her consort stared and was paralyzed as surely as though he had seen the face of Medusa.

Eve, in the act of fanging a lamb riblet, would have shrieked had her mouth not been full. She jerked; which brought a hellish visage swinging toward her.

In a husked tremor: "Evie. For your life, gal, don't panic." The bristle-edged ears flicked but did not flatten. Hutch knew animals. He wondered if animal lore applied to this leviathan. He saw Eve's wide eyes beseeching him, and his right hand might be near enough to the holster for him to get off one shot. He knew with utter certainty that six rounds would not be enough.

Eve saw the guide's leathery face ashen in the flickering firelight, his hand twitching near the six-gun, and knew that his mortal terror was justified. Her gaze was drawn again to the colossal bloodstained beast, a Russian boar so enormous that he seemed heraldic; mythological. He sat at his ease as if judging them all, his long dark triangular head as high as a man's. His little eyes—reddish yellowed whites that matched the incredible tusks—gleamed with intelligence and with calm intent under the scarred brows. They missed nothing, yielded nothing, feared nothing. Eve swallowed with an audible gulp.

"Easy now," Hutch whispered. "Toss that bone down in front of him."

She did it. The great muscular shoulders flowed forward, hindquarters up and disproportionately small but corded with sinew and crossed like the shoulders with old scars. Ba'al's shoulder hump was the size of a young bison's but his entire body would not have yielded enough fat to grease a skillet. He dipped his snout, still gazing steadily at his hostages, and Eve saw flecks of foam on his jaws as he took the offering. Then without being told, she astonished herself by easing forward, grasping the stainless steel warmer, placing it in the dirt, toeing it in the boar's direction.

The flywhisk tail switched once. He stepped forward, dainty mincing steps on split hooves that seemed tiny though they would have sufficed for an Olympic elk. Ba'al vented one subterranean grunt, buried his snout in the lamb as Eve stood two paces away. Hands at her sides, facing this horrendous brute, she stood filled with awe and with a wild rush of something she had felt many times before. Never like this. Trembling, she stood before an animal whose natural weapons beggared those of Bengal tiger and Kodiak bear, whose awesome constantly-whetted tusks could have sliced paper, and she welcomed the rush of emotion.

From behind her, a barely recognizable thin male squeal: "Shoot, Hutch, for God's sake
shoot!"

"I don't
dare
," was the soft reply. "Evie, back up real careful. Everybody move slow into the chuck-wagon."

Unwilling, Eve backed away. She was last into the cramped cargo hold of the hoverbus, puffing with exertion as she found a seat. The young couple were both crying with relief as Hutch flicked toggles; engaged the diesel starter.

The diesel's clatter angered the great animal. Ba'al backed away from his feast, ears flat; rushed the vehicle, slamming ivory knives against the thin aluminum of the engine hatch. Hutch shut the engine off instantly and sighed aloud to see the beast amble back to the food panniers. "Well, he damn' sure ain't got a radio," said Hutch with new confidence and punched out a code on the radiophone.

Eve half-listened to the conversation, fully aware of its portent as she peered out the window at Ba'al. She hadn't known the little hoverbus carried a phone but since it did, she had a potential link to CenCom.

Help couldn't reach them for hours, said the ranch manager. It was up to Hutch to keep his charges alive until then. To the manager's suggestion Hutch said, "Sure we can take pictures, the ugly devil's near enough that I could make his dental chart. And when you see 'em, you'll see why I ain't gonna go up against him with no damn' handgun. Shoot, Mac, I'd sooner face a grizzly with a willow switch, them tusks is long as my forearm! I just hope he don't decide to use 'em for can-openers. Listen, maybe you could home the chopper in on us; buzz us a little. Maybe the wind would send him off—or if you got it down low enough maybe he'd chase it. No shit, Mac, this is the real article: Ba'al! If the notion struck him he'd chase King Kong clean to Mexico!"

After completing his call, Hutch moved aft to comfort the poor in spirit. It was going to be okay, they'd be safe if they kept quiet and took a few infrared photos which, he opined, would command a tidy sum. As Eve squeezed into a front seat near the controls, Hutch maintained a running mono-log and helped the others ready their cameras.

Eve found her bag and the scrambler module, saw that the radiophone was standard, and quietly set about her contact with CenCom. The Ember of Venus slid up from between her breasts. In another moment she was encoding.

Hutch did not notice. Poor sniveling human; she had seen him wither to an empty palpitating shell before an awesome potency that no mere man could ever approach. Eve was not one to ask herself whether she had overtrodden the boundaries of sanity in her grappling toward greater sensation. Her sole criterion was, 'Can I get away with it?'

Her alphanumeric readout glowed in the bezel. It looked as if she might indeed get away with it. From some forgotten veterinary file, CenCom provided an answer that Eve did not wholly understand, nor did she need to. The tiny synthesizer understood and accepted its task, for the female sex pheromone of the wild asiatic pig was within its capability. Eve disconnected the radiophone; smiled at the firelit scene ten meters distant.

She was still sitting there smiling when, minutes later, Hutch came forward. He had watched the huge predator move to the waterhole, had heard the contented bass grunts of Ba'al at his toilette. Maybe, he said, they could start up the diesel without startin' a one-sided war.

Eve's reply, he thought, lacked warmth. Something had changed between them now. He couldn't say what he'd seen in her gaze during the past few days, but figured it had to be fear. Because he'd seen a bushel of it on her face as she'd stared out that window.

The diesel steadied to a softer thud after twenty seconds of Hutch's anxiety, and he eased them away without feeling the impact of Ba'al's scimitars again. Built for hovering and not for ramming, the vehicle could not have withstood many such collisions. Hutch was too busy to notice that Eve had rolled her window down slightly; was flicking her fingertips into the night breeze.

Eve's temptation was to insist that she be let out of the 'chuckwagon'. That, she was certain, she could
not
get away with. She had sprinkled her lust-message on the night air, and for now it would have to be enough. Later she could return alone in a chartered hovercraft to make her assignation. In the meantime she would research Russian boars, the better to make her alliance.