Chapter 3: Stampede

"All right, this should be far enough," she spoke up as the approaching sunrise began to tint the sky ahead of them, revealing a line of hills blocking their path. "I'll drive the rest of the way. We have to follow a set path from here on in, so that they'll know that we're friends."

"What if we didn't?"

"Another 'accident', probably. I'd rather not have a herd of buffalo stampeded in my direction."

Phil quickly changed places with her. He was silent, remembering an incident that had taken place a few days after he'd arrived on Aurora. The survey crew had been on its way out to set up some triangulation points, and he'd been half dozing in the back seat of the rig when...

"Wake up, Phil!" Luana jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. "You've been wanting to see a herd of Auroran buffalo up close, and here's your chance."

"Huh? What... Oh!" He looked out of the window of the rolligon. A cloud of dust resolved itself into a line of animals trotting along parallel to their course. They drew closer, and he could see that at first glance they strongly resembled the American bison whose countless numbers had virtually covered the midwestern plains when the white men first arrived. As they drew closer to the herd, he was able to make out some differences. These animals were larger, more massive, and their horns were long and straight, spanning six feet and more in the older specimens. Mike started to angle off to the left as more of the shaggy animals loomed out of the swirling dust, making a solid wall of flesh that seemed to build higher and thicker every second. The muffled thunder of hooves rose ever louder over the soft hissing of their steam engine.

"Boy, they are big. Aren't we getting a bit close?"

"It's all right, Mike knows what he's doing. They don't pay too much attention to our vehicles, since they've never seen any before. We just don't look like much of a threat... Oh, oh! Watch it, Mike, they're starting to move this way."

"Luana!" Mike snapped. "See if you can raise headquarters on the radio. If they swing any further in our direction, we could be in real trouble."

"No use," she called back to him after a few moments spent fiddling with the set. "Too much static. Must be a thunderstorm someplace close by. I'll keep on trying, but we're pretty far out anyway."

The entire herd was up and moving, reacting as one to some unseen threat. The nearest animals were already trotting, clouds of dust rising thickly behind them. The buffalo were moving faster now, their hooves pounding out a more urgent rhythm. Tiny antelope could be seen bounding swiftly away, while smaller animals scrambled for safety or sought their burrows.

With a muttered curse, Mike floored the throttle, turning away and trying to cut across the face of the herd to safety, but suddenly they were in the midst of a tossing sea of animals. The rolligon was bounding and lurching as its air-filled rollers spun ever faster across the grassy plain, and more than once Mike had to swerve abruptly to miss gullies or old wallows. The vehicle's top speed of sixty miles an hour could have left the charging animals far behind, but the rough ground held them to less than half of that. Mike's knuckles were white on the rim of the steering wheel, his eyes straining to pick out the fastest course across the deceptively level-looking prairie. The thunder of hooves built up to a deafening roar.

"Hang on!" Mike swerved, trying to miss the horns of an old bull, and then they were out in the clear again as the herd split around an obstruction. Before they could close in, the rolligon managed to pull away from all but the leading fringe of stampeding bison. The little vehicle rocked and bounded across the uneven terrain, striving vainly to reach safety as the bison continued to pick up speed. Mike shouted something that was lost in the rumbling thunder of cloven hooves as the herd closed in around them once more, and Phil watched helplessly as a wave of animals ahead of them seemed to drop away.

The gully, carved by the rushing waters of some long-ago cloudburst, was a death trap for the stampeding bison. The rolligon wasn't much better off. Its huge, soft rollers lost contact with the ground, coming down on top of a mass of crumpled, thrashing bison. It rocked forward, then settled as the air gushed out of rollers torn by raking horns and hooves. There was a series of jarring crashes as the last few bison tumbled over the rim of the gully, piling up against the back end of the rolligon, then all was still.

Phil realized that the quiet was only relative. Crippled animals still bawled their agony, thrashing about as they tried to flee, but it was no use. One by one, they fell silent. Ghostly shadows became solid bodies as the dust settled. One moment there was only noise and dust, the next moment they were surrounded by a pack of giant wolves whose members moved from body to body, finishing the work that the mindless stampede had begun.

He reached for the rifle that was stowed with their survey gear, but Luana stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Don't. You'll just make things worse."

"What do you..." Phil's words ground to a halt as one of the wolves casually walked over to the wrecked vehicle and reared up on its hind legs, its tongue lolling out as it peered in at them through the shattered window of the rolligon. For a long moment its eyes held his with a calm assumption of equality that was little short of disdain, a moment that he knew that he would never forget. This wolf must weigh as much or more then he did, was his vagrant thought. Like the others, its coat was black beneath the dust that clung to it, shading to a deep red on its throat and underside.