Chapter 27

The day dawned clear and cold. A faint breeze blew from the northeast. We looked out over the broad snowfield where the grasslands had been.

Dark objects stood out against the whiteness. They were a mile away, possibly more; it was difficult to judge across that field of white. That triggered a thought; my eyes had been gummy when I woke up this morning. Could the snow-glare have caused it?

“OK, folks,” I said. “It’s time to make masks.”

“Masks, Matt?” This came from Lee. Lilia only nodded; she understood right away.

“I should have thought of this before; the snow is too bright. It’s a near-perfect reflector and it can hurt your eyes, give you snow blindness. A bad case of it can make your eyes swell closed and you won’t be able to see anything until it goes away. Even if it’s just temporary, you still don’t want it to happen and certainly not now.”

There were a couple of doubtful looks, Laz in particular. I wondered what else he’d done besides work in a mine.

“We’ll use leather. Take a strip long enough to tie around your head, then cut two slits for your eyes. Measure, fold the leather where you want to cut it, then make two slices. Check the location again and if you’re happy where the slits are, cut away the leather between the slices. You want the openings to be less than half an inch wide. Tie the mask on and make sure you can see, then adjust the cuts if you need to.

“Give yourself time to get used to wearing the mask. Don’t tie it too tight, just tight enough to keep it in place.”

We rummaged through the stuff on the sleds and managed to find enough leather. It had originally been padding for a strap, but it worked fine for the masks. Half an hour later we were ready, looking like so many bandits from a downtime movie, but I could feel the difference. That was more important than how we looked.

“I can’t tell yet what those animals are. They’re up to their bellies in the snow, and anyway they’re a long way off. We’ll head that way and watch out for surprises.

“If you look at the surface ahead of us, you can tell there’s a slight dip in the ground. Be careful when we get near that point. We don’t want to surprise something that might mistake us for dinner. If there’s nothing dangerous in that hollow, we’ll use it to conceal ourselves while we work into bow range of those animals. They can see us as easy as we can see them.”

“You lead off, Matt,” said Laz. “You’ve got a better eye for terrain and Lee and Lilia can go ahead with you. I’ll pull the big sled by myself, Sandra can pull the two small sleds if she ties one behind the other. We don’t have very far to go anyway.”

“We can try it, Laz. If it doesn’t work, we’ll think of something else. I’ve got another idea; turn your coat inside out, everyone. Wear them with the fur outside.

“They’ll still be warm and we’ll look like animals. We won’t be as likely to alarm whatever those things are unless we try to get too close, and that wouldn’t be very safe anyway. There’s no hurry; the idea is to get into range without spooking the herd. They’ll run soon enough when we begin shooting arrows.”

We slowly snow-shoed our way onto the snowfield, five bent hairy figures with sleds following behind. I kept an eye on those far-off shapes but most of my attention was on the dip ahead of us.

I hoped the animals were bison. They’re quick to detect movement, but if you can move at the speed a grazing animal would use they won’t realize you’re a predator until it’s too late.

We approached a small ridgeline ahead. The declivity I’d seen was just beyond the ridge. I paused for a moment; there were tracks of animals in the snow, but they were like nothing I’d seen before.

Snow collects in the hollows, blows away from higher ground; whatever had left the tracks had pawed through the thin snow on the ridgeline. Even a slight reduction in snow depth attracts hungry grazers, and that’s what had happened here.

We’d probably find deeper snow between this ridge and the next, but it wouldn’t bother us. The snowshoes would keep us from sinking in.

The foraging animals had left their dung on the ridge. The piled droppings were smaller than expected but still resembled that of bison. We might get lucky, not have to go all the way to where those other critters grazed. I held my hand out as a signal for the others to wait. If there were feeding animals on the other side of the ridge, one man would be less visible than five.

It’s really not possible to be stealthy on snowshoes, but I tried. Slowly, put a foot ahead, bring up the other foot, ease it straight down, repeat. The snowshoes squeaked against the snow as I stole up to the crest.

The snowfield dropped away in front of me. The valley was not very deep and there were scrubby plants on the sides of the ridges. Animals had been browsing on them, or maybe they’d used them as shelter for bedding down.

There was a snort of alarm and suddenly a dozen animals bolted across the valley, charging up the low ridge across from me. It took a moment for me to shuffle the snowshoes around; you can’t draw a heavy bow if you don’t have good footing, but I still managed to put an arrow into the one on the right as the animals raced away. To my left, Lee and Lilia had charged up the ridge and launched arrows of their own. I hadn’t yet identified them, but they appeared to be larger than deer.

It stumbled when my arrow hit, but soon regained its footing. I put my second arrow into the body, this one a perfect shot that sank to the fletching just behind the shoulder. That was enough; the beast—llama?—collapsed.

It was camel-like in appearance, but with a too-small head perched atop an upright neck. My first shot had missed the spine, but the second arrow had penetrated the ribcage and was still lodged in the body somewhere. Lilia and Lee had also bagged one; it had run no more than fifty yards before falling. Fresh blood blotched the snow.

I murmured to the others, “We’ll dress out those two, then pack them onto the big sled. We can try to get closer to those other animals, bison I think, when that’s done. Laz, you’ll stay behind with Sandra after we field dress these two and yell if you see anything dangerous. The rest of us will try to get close enough to those others for a shot. They’re too far away now, but if we can work in closer we’ll have a chance. It’s taking them a long time to paw through the snow, which will work in our favor. They aren’t in a hurry and they don’t seem very alert, either, but there’s sure to be one watching. Look for him, and when he lifts his head to look around, freeze in position. We’ll resume moving in after he goes back to feeding, and make sure you’ve got an escape route as we do. If they’re facing toward you, circle around. I don’t want them running over one of us, and another thing, don’t shoot unless you can put your first arrow into a killing spot. That way, we should get at least one before they stampede.”

Lee snow-shoed to the ridge and kept watch while the rest of us field-dressed the two llamas. The snow should make it easy to see anything approaching, but even so, keeping someone on watch had become a habit. I didn’t want us to ever get careless!