Chapter 6

This had been a wonderful summer, except that it had been even drier than normal. It almost never rains around here in the summer time, but I can't remember the last time it rained. The grass was browner than usual and the ground was cracking in places from being so dry. Erkla had to haul in water for his garden; otherwise, all of his hard work would have gone for naught. We all pitched in and got the harvesting done so that nothing was lost to dry weather, but it was a close thing on some of the vegetables.

Finally, it was time for the fall auroch slaughter, though nobody called it that. A messenger rode in from Chief Umgallah and asked if the "hunt" was on for this fall. I sent word back that we would be ready to leave with him when they arrived in two days. On my monthly trips to his camp, we had talked about this expedition, so it was not a surprise when the messenger showed up. I thought that it was really a polite way of saying that the Olgars were ready to go, so we should get our asses into gear.

We were ready when the Olgar caravan showed up. It was as big a deal as last year, and over half the camp was going to the big affair. There was nothing to hold us, so everybody in our tribe was going, including Ai Chee's new infant. I was a bit dubious about the little boy going so soon after being born, but Ai Chee assured me that Yuglis (Strongheart) would be up to the trip. Damn, we were going to need more horses pretty damned soon!

It really was not all that far to the place where we expected to find the herd, so there was no great need to hurry. We ambled along and reveled in the pleasures of just being alive on such a beautiful day. When we came to the river, I was sorely disappointed at how little water there was as compared to last year. The river was still plenty wide, but there was almost no water covering the ford. We could easily see the increase in depth just before and just after the ford.

We set up our little town at the edge of the river so that water would be handy, but we were still quite close to the aurochs. There was the usual feast that night and the hangovers the next morning. No weddings this time, so I was saved that chore.

Chief Umgallah and my women pointed out which animals they wanted me to kill, so I knocked off the required aurochs in just over two hours. Everybody wanted more beef this time, so it took a little longer to do the deed. When I was finished, the men on horseback rode out to chase off the remaining aurochs so that the women could safely do the butchering.

I noted that, this time, every woman took her crossbow and 10 explosive bolts with her as she went to work. We probably could have stood off an army, the way everybody was armed with explosive warheads. The women finished the butchering in one day and had already started smoking the meat. As before, we had brought the stuff to salt some of our meat, and the Olgars had done the same.

Our plan was to hang around and finish the smoking of the meat before we packed up to return home. The fuel for the smoking was auroch dung. The stuff was packed in layers on the ground. I wondered how long the aurochs had been living in this area—it had to be at least 20-30 years, judging by the amount of dung lying around.

We were just cleaning up from the last day of smoking when we saw a dark cloud on the horizon. Hopefully, it was an augury of rain, since it was badly needed. Well, it made no difference to us, if it rained we would just continue to ride through it. A little water would not hurt us, and it might even be fun. We had not planned on leaving this day, but, rather, were looking forward to one last big party before going home.

The women had split their duties this day: half were cleaning up the last of the smoked meat and half were cooking for the feast to come that night. That was plenty enough cooks, so we were in no danger of being short on food at the party.

When the feast started, as the shaman, I was expected to give a short benediction before we began eating, so I espoused a rousing rendition of "Casey at the Bat" in English, of course. This pleased everybody because it was long enough to satisfy the gods and short enough that the food didn't get cold. As I sat down, I noticed how beautiful that cloud had become with the light of the setting sun shining on it the way it was—all orange and red.

We were well into the third course of the meal when I happened to glance up and saw the cloud. SAW THE CLOUD!?! Hell, the sun was long set and the sky was dark. There should have been no way that I could see the cloud. Figuratively, this scared the shit out of me, and I pointed out the phenomenon to Chief Umgallah who was sitting next to me.

He was drinking a long draught of the local beer, but he did glance up to look at the cloud. His reaction was even more forceful than mine. He spewed beer in all directions and dropped his cup. I think he was up and giving orders before the cup hit the ground. It only took that one glance to convince him that we were in dire peril. He started yelling to all and sundry that the plains were on fire and we had to prepare ourselves as fast as we could if we didn't want to die.

A few of the men were already too drunk to react, but most of the people understood the problem and were already in a panic. Chief Umgallah showed why he was chief on that night. I liked the man, but now he has my undying respect, for he saved all of our lives!

His first command was for the men to gather the meat and transfer it to the other side of the river. Hopefully, the river would be wide enough to halt the spread of the fire. Meanwhile, he commanded the women to wrap the children in every bit of cloth that they could find and dip them into the river. He wanted their clothes saturated with water. When that was done, the children were placed in the wicker panniers on the horses, and the horses were led into the water to stand so that only the children's heads were out of the water. This generally was deep enough so that only the horse's head was above the surface. When they were in place, the horses were tightly hobbled so that they could only move their feet to help maintain their balance as they stood in the water.

All food was gathered and moved to the other side of the river. I had an inspiration and stopped the piling on the other bank of the river until I could start it burning. The wind was blowing so that the resulting fire traveled away from us. I hated to do it, but I realized that the fire would consume all of the readily available fuel before the monster fire got to us. That way, maybe the food and other stuff stacked on the far bank would not be burned by the approaching fire simply because the fuel had already been exhausted. It took only a moment for Chief Umgallah to understand my plan, and he endorsed it immediately.

There was some mumbling and cursing from the extra work I caused, but instructions were followed, and we soon had a fire burning over there. There was more than just dry grass to burn—there was all that dung. I just hoped that it burned out before the other fire got to us.

Various other things were done to get ready for the arrival of the fire. I didn't know how the explosive warheads would react in the heat, so I asked that they all be dumped into the river. This would also ruin the arrows and bolts, but I did not see that we had a choice. The crossbows could be piled on the far bank, and we could hope that they survived the fire, but they could be replaced, so that was a relatively small loss. I was grateful that my gun was completely waterproof, so I could try to save it by dunking it under the water; without it, we would be in serious trouble.

The fire on the far bank finally burned out, so stuff could be piled over there again. Chief Umgallah ordered that things be spread out so that a fire in one place would have trouble spreading to another place. Just as we had done everything that we could do to get ready, we saw the flames running along the ground.

This upset the aurochs, and they came charging toward us in a vain effort to escape the fire. They would have trampled us in short order if they reached where we were standing in the river. I had no choice. I ran toward the charging animals and opened up on them with full automatic fire and explosive bullets. There was no question that any auroch struck by one of the explosive bullets was going to stop running, and that was my object. I had to stop them before they could reach the river. Any that swerved away from us were welcome to continue living for as long as possible, but I could not allow a single animal to reach our part of the river.