The barges were loading for the hunting kraals upriver. Scouts had brought word that the main herd had arrived along the Lydia. Two-thirds of the able bodied men in the colony would be out hunting, nearly three times as many men as there were firearms. Of course the rest of them would not be unarmed, but a bow is a poor weapon with which to face an adult trihorn or a prowling longneck.

Jean had nearly reached the wharf when he heard Chloe’s footsteps. She was coming from the north end of town, not from her parents’ house. That puzzled him; later he would see greater significance to the fact. He stepped into an alleyway with her so that their good-byes could be private.

***

They were thirty to a barge, but none rode. Twenty strained at the traces like dray beasts, dragging the obdurate devices against the current, while ten stood guard – four with the offworld double rifles, six with Levi-Stuer’s muzzleloaders. Once they were beyond the town, they would be fair game for leers, trihorns, humpox, and longnecks. There were six barges, their crews assembled by lot. Jean had been chosen to man the third outpost, seventy kilometers upstream; he pitied the unlucky ones who had been chosen for outpost number six.

They made twenty kilometers a day and at night anchored in midstream. After the first day they saw animals everywhere, vast herds that came en masse to water at the river. The herds seemed as endless as the stars, but in three weeks they would be gone, chasing the melting snows southward, leaving the bushes and gluegrass churned and mutilated behind them.

Outpost three was simply an earth and stone enclosure four meters high and twenty meters across with no openings to the outside. The crew entered by climbing the rough walls.

Lone hunting was almost a sport, and had aspects of glory. Not so the communal hunts. They were all business; they put meat in the locker. As soon as the barge was moored and their meager supplies were inside the circle, it began. One man, rifle-armed, would set out with two others, to make his kill. Then he would stand guard while his companions butchered. Load the meat in the hide, drag it back to the enclosure, and trade off, one of the butchers taking the rifle, the former rifleman taking up his knives. And so on, from earliest morning until dusk gave the advantage to the longnecks.

At night they ate cooked meat. When hunger overtook them on the hunt, they ate as they butchered, raw. It was brutal, mankilling work and it was dangerous; for each trihorn or herby the hunters killed, they had to kill at least one krat or longneck intent on robbing them. The nights were punctuated by gunfire and the men praised the three moons for the light they gave. The plains became littered with bones and entrails as the colonists gathered a year‘s meat in three weeks.

Anton Dumezil was among the men assigned to outpost three. Jean saw him in the course of his work, but exchanged no word. Anton’s earlier irritability had hardened into a sullen hatred. Why, Jean did not know. Three times the two were assigned to hunt together and did so without comment, but the strain was noticeable. more tomorrow

A week later they loaded the gig and set it free.  With the melt in full swing, the North River was high, deep, and muddy. There was a stiff silence between them.

They reached the lake in three effortless days, then spent two backbreaking ones rowing between the mouth of the North River and the mouth of the Lydia. There were half a hundred people waiting at the landing, but most of them turned away when it became apparent who they were. Those would be the relatives of the others who had gone north. Perhaps half a dozen parties of youths had gone out on advance hunts. They would bring back the first fresh meat that the colony had had in nearly a year, but that was not their true purpose in going. It was a testing of manhood, a rite-de-passage, though an informal one, entered into voluntarily. Such hunting was deadly dangerous and that, of course, was its appeal. The main meat harvest would come in another month when the herds crossed the Lydia.

By the time Jean and Anton had tied up, only their families and a few friends remained. Chloe was among them. They heaved up their bundles of furs and lightly salted meat. Jean’s father and younger brother loaded them onto a cart.

“A very good hunt, mon fils; you do us proud.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

It was good to be back, good to see Chloe again, but the edge was taken off it all by Anton’s reaction. After all, he had been Jean’s friend. He walked over to where Anton stood watching his uncle load his furs and meat. “A good hunt, Anton,” he said, “It was a pleasure going with you.”

“You did well enough, enfant.” Jean stiffened at the term, started to retort, then let it die. Something in Anton’s eyes told him that he wanted a fight, and whatever he wanted it would serve Jean well to deny him.

Jean entered the stockade with Chloe on his arm and returned his rifle to the city arsenal. All of the original cartridge rifles were held in common trust, as were a number of Levi-Stuer’s muzzleloaders. A man could rent one of the latter if he contributed a portion of his kill to the colony, but only a proven hunter could rent a cartridge rifle. It was a high privilege.

Of course, one could buy a muzzleloader from Levi-Stuer, but the price was more than it took to equip a farm. Jean, like every other youth, wanted one in the worst way.

It was Levi–Stuer’s standing lament that he could not get an apprentice; the young men preferred bolder endeavors and the older men lacked the steady hands. Jean had even considered becoming his apprentice, but pride kept him from it.

They walked through the stockaded city to the river’s edge. Chloe said she had missed him, called him by tender endearments she said were his alone (a declaration he tended to doubt), and they found privacy beneath the bank where prying eyes were not likely to come.

***

It was early in the melt when Jean and Anton went on their lone hunt. Around the colony the lal bushes were still in bloom. Now the siskal and greenhorn had both bloomed in turn and all three were fully leaved, only a few purple blossoms still clinging to the greenhorns. The gluegrass was a solid carpet as far as one could see.

Jean paused outside the Chambard’s door until Chloe’s mother appeared. No, she replied, Chloe was not at home but would probably be back soon. Jean was surprised and a little hurt, but not so much that he missed the strange look the older woman gave him. It made him thoughtful as he walked down to the wharf. more tomorrow

Among leers, the female is the more deadly and they almost always run in pairs. One always shoots the female and leaves the male.

Jean relaxed his forefinger and waited, sighting past the bayonet fitted at the end of his rifle. The male dipped his head, then tipped it back to drink. Long minutes passed, but a hunter must be patient above all things. The male moved back into the bushes and Jean wondered if he had erred and thrown away his chance. Time passed.

Jean’s caution was rewarded as the female strutted forth, her pink feathers iridescent in the noon sun. She was cautious. After carefully scrutinizing the area she dipped her head, then tipped it back. When her eyes were skyward, Jean shifted his aim slightly to cover the spot where she had drunk. When she dipped her head again, he fired.

The leer collapsed as the shot echoed across the pool. There was agitation in the bushes and the male burst forth.

For a space of four heartbeats Jean watched as he charged. Time seemed to hang suspended. Jean heard the insects buzzing nearby, thought of Chloe, of the warmth of the sun, and of the fabled toothless birds of other planets. He did not think. of his weapons any more than he would think of his foot or his arm. They were simply there, a part of him.

The leer darted his head forward, teeth aimed at Jean’s neck. A little sidestep, just as old Renou taught; the shock of contact as the teeth met on the hard leather shield at his shoulder; the shock of the bayonet going home; the shock of Jean‘s back striking the sodden ground as hunter and prey fell in a tangle of limbs. Then up, thrusting and parrying against that sinuous, deadly head. Finding the rifle torn from his grip. The sudden fear; the warm comfort of a blade hilt. The sudden overhand slash that ended it all.

Jean swayed on his feet, bleeding from a score of insignificant lacerations; his shoulder was bruised and painful. But the leers were dead, both of them, and he had been alone.

***

Anton jammed a section of leer haunch onto the stick he had sharpened, then held it to the flame. He had not made a kill during the day and he communicated his irritation through curt movements at the fire.

Jean leaned against a backrest woven from a living greenhorn and fought back a scowl. The hearts of his leers hung over the fire, but Anton had given no word of approval. Still, Anton was his friend, so he ventured, “Tomorrow your luck will change.”

“You seem to have it all. Besides, I don’t need luck.”

Jean clamped his jaws shut and started forward, then relaxed. Anton was ready for him to make a move. Anton had always belittled him, but never before had he actually goaded him. “What’s wrong with you, Anton. You act more like an enemy than a friend.”

Anton sat back and something seemed to go loose inside him. He smiled with no humor. “Maybe I’m just surprised that your luck carried you through so easily.”

“Like you said, luck had nothing to do with it.” Anton motioned toward the steaming hearts. “Two leers, one rifle. I call it luck.”

“What’s wrong with you?” .

He shrugged. “Nothing. I was just surprised.”

“Why? When have I ever shirked any task? Why should you expect me to fail as a hunter?”

“Oh, shut up and eat. You’re just strung out from the hunt.”

*****

This Anton is the patriarch’s grandson. The patriarch’s son, also Anton, now leads the community. Ugh, too many people, too few names. more tomorrow

Thomas Anderson, whose views I often disagree with, but always respect, found the transition from Part I to Part II of Jandrax abrupt, irritating, and hard to follow. I told him that I like a tangled web, meaning that I like abrupt jumps followed by the information needed to fill in the blanks. I think his criticism and my response are both valid, but each has its drawbacks. If you tell too much and make the story too cohesive, a certain kind of reader will lose interest. If you jump around too much, another kind of reader will lose interest. It’s a judgement call.

It didn’t help that everybody’s names were too similar. That even confused me.

I could have written . . .

Two decades had passed. Children were born who knew no other life but the life that Harmony offered them. Andrax and the others passed out of everyday conversation, if not out of memory. The elders never talked about them, and the youngsters did not know their names.

A month after the others’ disappearance, Angi married Lucien Dubois, and six months later gave birth to a son she named Jean. Eventually, the patriarch died and his son took his place. Every other melt the herds returned, and everything in the colony came to revolve around their harvest.

It did not occur to me to write such a transition. In the seventies, stories were expected to proceed at a gallop. This is what I did write . . .

Part II
Standard Year 893 and of the colony,
Year 23

Chapter 9

Jean Dubois knelt near the icy pool and waited. Anton Dumezil was somewhere within shouting distance but likewise well hidden. The melt had been underway for a week back at the colony and they had trekked north to meet the oncoming herds; others might wait until the animals arrived nearer home but Jean and Anton were impatient in their youth. Anton was armed with one of the rifles brought in on the Lydia. Jean’s muzzleloader had been made on Harmony by old Levi-Stuer, the gunsmith. It was probably as accurate and powerful as Anton’s weapon, though slower to load, but the cartridge rifles carried an extra aura of prestige.

The wind stirred the lal bush with the soft movements of new growth. The melt is a glorious time, even as youth is a glorious time, for all the wiry, naked bushes take on flowers for a few weeks and then leaves. For a month the sun is warm (though the old ones who remembered Bordeaux complained bitterly of the cold even in high summer) and the world is green. Then the melt is gone and the vegetation with it, and the land is desert again for a season before the snows return.

The old ones complained that there were no rain and no clouds, but Jean found the idea of woolly things floating in the sky and liquid falling from it so absurd as to be unbelievable.

Across the pool the bushes stirred and Jean raised his rifle. It was a leer. They were not prized for their meat but for their skins, which were carefully removed with feathers intact. Anton had a jacket made of leerhide which he wore on ceremonial occasions. Very impressive. The leers were always the first to come with the melt, so Jean was unlikely to get a better target. As the creature worked its way out to the pool, Jean noted with some concern that it was a male. Among leers, the female is the more deadly and they almost always run in pairs. To kill a male with a single shot rifle was to lay oneself open to attack from the female. One always shoots the female and leaves the male. more tomorrow

Jan left the others in the valley and went out to hunt alone. He waded through the snow, at a disadvantage because he had not taken the time to make skis or snowshoes. There was much he did not know about the animals of the mountain forests. The trouble was that the planet had never been properly scouted. He himself had been acting as a colonist’s advisor, something a Scout often did if he lived long enough to retire. There had been no time for exploration. Every waking minute had been aimed toward survival, toward making a viable community. Now he would have to start all over.

Before, the task of survival had been difficult; to build a community of five men and two women would be impossible. They needed more people, yet none were to be had. Even Marie seemed half ready to desert. Only her loyalty to Henri and the rough treatment Helene had received kept her from it.

Early the next morning, Jan returned with the carcass of a longneck. He had eaten longneck meat before in his initial experimentation, but the colonists had refused it, even when they killed longnecks while defending their other kills. This was a scrawny specimen with huge paws, one born for the deep snow – clearly a different variety from the herd-following longnecks.

While the steaks were broiling, Jan gathered the group together to take stock. Marie wanted to return and said so. Henri said that they could not, now that blood had been shed, and Valikili corrected that there had never been any choice since Dumezil’s sermon. Marie was unconvinced until Helene told her what Dumezil had boasted were his intentions toward the rebels.

Valikili’s temper had worsened with his recovery. He was ready to wage unholy war on the colonists.

Jan remained silent at the edge of the discussion until they had exhausted both bile and ideas, then told them the story of Hallam’s World. He gave it to them straight, in full and gruesome detail, holding back nothing of his and Sabine’s parts in the slaughter. They sat in silence through it until he finished. “So you see what will happen if we return and what will happen if we try to make war on the colonists. It would be far better if we were all to die than for that to happen.”

“Then what should we do?”

“If we cannot rejoin them and we cannot raid their supplies, then we simply have to make a way for ourselves. Other rivers flow further to the south. We can settle there.”

“But we have nothing with which to make a settlement.”

“True.”

Sabine stirred the coals with a stick and looked sidelong at Jan. “You have something up your sleeve. Out with it.”

Jan stared from one face to another, wondering how his radical solution would be accepted. “Actually, I have two things up my sleeve. One – I think we went about colonizing the planet all wrong. We thought only of stable, permanent settlements with strong houses and proper fields. We harvest the melt but only in a most unaesthetic manner. We were too civilized to consider becoming nomads – following the melt.”

“Impossible! We would have to walk thousands of kilometers every year.”

“True, but not so many every day. It could be done.”

They wrangled the idea for an hour before dropping it. Jan knew that it had taken root; he would let it simmer in their minds in the weeks to come. He had turned toward his sleeping robes when Sabine‘s voice stopped him. “You said that you had two things up your sleeve. You only mentioned one.”

Jan looked closely at Sabine, saw the same old carelessness that had driven him on in the face of enemy fire, and was thankful for its presence. Sabine was already convinced that Jan had the only answer.

“Sabine, we cannot survive unless we augment our numbers. No group as small as ours is viable.”

Sabine shrugged, “What can we do? We will find no converts among the colonists.”

“Converts, no, but children . . . ”

*****

This is where part one ends. Tomorrow’s post takes place two decades later.

Chapter 8

For two days the party went overland, staying clear of the river. The fugitives still had some meat and Jan slipped down to refill their water bag as often as necessary, leaving no tracks to tell of his coming. Valikili walked with a makeshift crutch, Helene by his side. He was surly with pain and with shame that he had not been the one to rescue her.

Sabine Conners had discarded the name Adrian Dumezil. He told his companions that he had been on Hallam’s World during the fighting and they accepted that without further questions. Fighting had no place within the renegade group.

Jan found himself looking sideways at Conners from time to time, amazed at how thoroughly the plastic surgery had changed his appearance. Sabine did not tell them he had known Jan on Hallam and Jan was content to let it stand thus.

***

Jan and Sabine Conners were old hands at the business of living off the land under threat of an enemy force. The others were not, but Nur and Henri were strong young men and Helene and Marie were pioneer women. They stood the trek well. Valikili suffered from his wound and slowed their flight, but he was recovering. Marcel Damle Was an older man; he was doing all right while Val’s wound kept the pace slow, but he would be a burden later.

The food gave out on the third day of their trek, but they were far enough away not to fear the colonists, so they dropped down to the river, where they stripped the land as they passed, eating the few fruit pods that grew along the banks, picking the edible leaves of the greenhorn, and chewing siskal twigs for narcotic sustenance. At night they boiled siskal bark to make chota and Jan shot an occasional milik. They were eating less than their bodies were using and Jan watched with concern as their weight dropped daily.

The colonists who had gone to smelt iron and cut timber would be expecting them. They had taken a portable radio when leaving the lower colony months earlier and the lifeboat radio could reach them easily. Twenty men awaited them, armed with bows and two of the rifles.

On the nineteenth day they made camp below the upper colony and Jan took Sabine with him to go raiding. The other, younger men were no doubt surprised at Jan’s choice of partner and Jan realized that he would have to let them know more about his past if they were to remain together.

Sabine had a bow and quiver, but would rely on his blade. Jan had observed him closely during the trek and saw that his speed and strength were only marginally diminished by age.

Three days later they returned with a heavy load of frozen meat. Jan snapped when Marie asked him what had happened and spent the afternoon in a foul temper. Later Sabine took her aside and explained that the colonists would be digging two new graves, one of them for Raoul LaBarge, a man Jan had liked and respected. Jan blamed himself for that, thinking that his approach to the fortified position had been clumsy.

They left the river and cut overland to the south.

Some snow had fallen and Jan was careful to keep them to the bare rock so that they would leave no trail, though he doubted that they would be pursued. Their water gave out and they replenished it from snow. For three days they trekked south-east along the foothills, then turned up a valley into the high timber.

They made camp in a high, wooded valley where the snow was ever present. At this altitude no true melt would occur and trees lived only because they could take their moisture directly from the snow. Jan left the others in the valley and went out to hunt alone.

He left the rifle where it had fallen as he had the others. The survival of the colony depended on them.

It took only a moment to find the right key and release Helene. He had already scouted his way out and moments later a guard on the palisade fell to an unseen blow. Helene went over the palisade wall on the end of Jan’s line and into the waiting arms of Marcel and Henri.

Jan did not follow her. Instead he dragged the sentry away and bound him, then retraced his footsteps. So far he had been both careful and lucky; to go back now was sheer folly.

He slit the shutter hinges of the Chambard house where Alexandre Chambard lived with his ailing wife, his three children, and Angi Dumezil who helped with the children. Jan knew that his chances of going unheard in a household with six sleeping persons were slight, but he was determined to try.

He slipped wraithlike to the cubicle where Angi slept. It was walled off by a trihorn-hide curtain and he woke her with his hand over her mouth. She started, then relaxed, eyes wide, when she saw who it was. She put her mouth to his ear.

“What are you doing here?”

“I just broke Helene out. She is on her way to Valikili.”

“Is he all right?”

“Lame but recovering.”

“Oh, I’m so glad. Papa is mad, utterly mad.”

“I know.”

“How did you get her out without the key?”

“I had the key.” She suddenly went stiff and he reassured her, “Your papa is all right. No one was badly hurt tonight”

Angi was angry. “That’s more than you can say for last Sabbath. We have eight injured and we buried three others. I hope you’re proud!”

“It was forced upon us.”

“You still think we’re barbarians.”

“I think that has been amply demonstrated.”

“If only you had tried to reason with Papa instead of running . . . ”

“Then I would be dead!”

“I don’t believe it.”

“You little fool, how can you say that?”

Then they were both silent, for their voices had started to rise. Finally he said, “I have to go now. Will you come with me?”

“Are you mad? You can’t survive this way. Your only hope is to make peace with Papa.”

“Never!”

“Then go, and don’t expect me to follow. When the melt comes I will put siskal flowers on your grave.”

Jan jerked away and stalked to the window. Someone stirred in his sleep, but the scout paid no heed. He climbed out the window and trotted toward the palisade, unmindful of his safety, hoping that some sentry would cross his path.

Angi lay back and slipped her hands down to her lower belly. One dry sob racked her body; then she was silent.

It was true that she did not think the renegades could live, but her spoken refusal to follow Jan had been a lie. She would not go with him because of the thing beneath her fingers, deep in her body – the child she carried. Jan Andrax’s child.

*****

Of course Angi stays behind for plot reasons. Andrax’s son will be the main character in the second half of the book. But there is more to the story. Angi, like Shashi in A Fond Farewell to Dying, has a mind of her own, and doesn’t meekly agree with everything our hero does. In both cases, the main character moves on, leaving his lover behind. I didn’t find a woman to accompany the main character all the way to the finish line until Cinnabar in the Menhir series (not yet published) and she’s a handful.

Weak women bore me. more tomorrow