With a burst of pride that made him feel foolish a moment later, Quick realized the female sim had treated him as if he were a hunter himself, a dominant member of the band.
Despite that acceptance, he remained an object of curiosity.
That, he knew, was natural enough, he was probably the first live creature ever to share the band's campsite. If they changed their minds about him, he might not stay that way, either. Sims sometimes ate sims from other bands and, when they could catch them, people too.
A good many such grisly episodes punctuated man's westward expansion across America.
But this group found him only interesting. The grizzled elder that tended the meat ran its hands over his clothes, as fascinated by the soft suede as the youngster had been. Make, it signed, and then, after obvious painful groping for the sign, How?
Skins cut to arms, legs, chest. Not stink, rub tree bark-not any tree, right tree. As a trapper, he knew how to tan hides; what he could not do was put it in terms the sim understood. Show one day, he promised. If a sim saw something done, it could copy as well as a human. But sims would not improve on a process, as humans might.
Show, the old sim agreed. It pointed to Quick's fancy silver belt buckle. Show?
Regretfully, he shook his head. He knew nothing of metalworking, save that it was too complex for the subhumans to fathom.
His person fascinated the sims as much as his gear. They pointed at his gray eyes, then at their own, which were uniformly dark. He had to rol up his sleeve several times, and take off his boots to show that under them his feet were like theirs, if less battered and cal used. His forehead, though, intrigued the sims most. They kept patting at it to compare it to their own heads, which sloped sharply.
He shuddered even when he thought of doing so through the winters bouts.
On the face of it, it seemed impossible. The sim to whom he had given the fox carcass was close by.
He signed, How live, when snow come?
the sim signed, repeating for emphasis. Hard. Cold. Hungry. Many die in cold.
A shiver il ustrated the idea. Far more fluent with her signs than the elder had been, the female went on, Dens like bears', brush, branches. Stil . Make fire.
Still cold.
Cold. Cold. Cold. The sims eyes tried with dread. Winter was a worse enemy than spearfang or bear. With their bel ies full, though, the sims, never renective the first place, did not care to look ahead.
The youngsters through the clearing, wrestled with one another, and bred their elders, for al the world like so many unruly hen back in Cairo or Portsmouth or Philadelphia.
Many of the adults made beds of branches and leaves, curled and went to sleep, ignoring the youngsters' squawks shouts. A mother nursed a baby.
The old sim and a young adult male squatted by the fire, chipping stones. The young adult absently swatted at a youngster that disturbed him.
When it came back to watch what they were doing, the male let it stay.
Other adults had a different idea for passing the time.
Three or four couples paired off and mated. The rest of the sims paid them no particular attention, nor did they seem to feel the lack of privacy.
When a running youngster was about to crash into one pair, the male reached out from its , position on its knees behind the female to fend off the little one.
Henry Quick found the rutting sims no more interesting than did the rest of the band. He had been away from men a long time, but not long enough to think of a sim as a partner.
He would as soon have coupled with a pack of dogs! Some trappers, he knew, did that. Some mated with sims, too. He knew what he thought of them: the same as most a people thought. "You son of a sim" would start a fights anywhere in the Commonwealths.
He was taken by surprise when the female sim he had given the fox meat touched him on the leg again, this time much higher up than before. Want, ? the female signed. The last gesture it used was not a standard part of hand-talk, but not easy to get wrong, either.
To remove any possible misunderstanding, the female was on hands and knees, looking back over its shoulder at him. Neither that nor the sight of its cleft between hairy and rather boyish buttocks did anything to rouse his ardor.
No, he signed; hand-talk was not made for tact. He I softened his refusal as much as he could: You, I not same. The sim, luckily, seemed more curious than angry. Not fit? it asked, eyeing his crotch as if to gauge what his trousers concealed. He left that unanswered. He had seen enough sims to know their masculinity was hardly so if rampant as jokes and stories made it out to be, but he was no I more than average that way himself.
Not want, ? the female signed after a moment, and used a that gesture of its own invention again.
Full, Quick temporized. He patted his stomach.
Apparently that impeded performance among sims too because the female gave a small, regretful hoot. Later? it signed.
The trapper shrugged and spread his hands. You, I not same, he repeated. The female shrugged too, and went off to get a few more whortleberries. To Henry Quick's relief, it did not come back to him. He'd meant to imply that men and sims were so different no offspring could come from a mating. He did not know whether the sim was bright enough to follow that. He did know it was a lie.
He had never seen a crossbreed. The repugnance almost everyone felt for coupling with the subhumans had a lot to do with that few of mixed blood were born. Fewer still lived.
The human parent did that, to save themselves from disgrace.
The ones that did survive were good for driving lawyers to distraction, and for host of tales whose truth the trapper was in no position to judge.
He yawned. Back by his own campfire, he would have een asleep hours ago. Here he had neither his own blanket lor the nests sims made for themselves. He stretched out on he ground. The big blaze the sims had going was plenty to seep him warm. He was tired enough not to worry about sleeping soft. He rolled over, threw aside a twig that was Raking his cheek, and knew nothing more til the sun rose.
He woke with a crick in his neck and a bladder ful to bursting.
He walked into the bushes at the edge of the clearing to relieve himself. By the smel , and by the way his shoes squelched once or twice on the short journey, the sims were not so fastidious.
They had already begun their endless daily round of foraging.
Henry Quick was glad to see that the importunate female was gone from the campsite. Otherwise, he thought with wry amusement, it might have wanted to go into the bushes with him to see just what sort of apparatus he had.
The males, who hunted in a group rather than scattering one by one, were still by the fire. The trapper went up to the male that had guided him here. Good food, he signed.
He had a spare bootlace in one of the pouches that hung from his belt. He dug it out. Yes, it was long enough for him to cut a couple of lengths from the end and stil do what he wanted with it.
He cut off the extra pieces, tied them to the main length at one end, and made loops at the other end of each. Then he tied the makeshift belt round the sims middle to Carry knife, axe, he signed. Have them to use. Have hands free. The sim did not seem to understand. It rubbed its chinless jaw, staring at Quick, but made no move to put the tools in the loops.
The old grizzled male looked from the trapper's belt to the leather lace he had given the other sim. Its eyes lit. It let out a soft hiss making the very same noise when, as a boy, he had seen his first steam railroad engine. The grizzled sim stepped forward, took the knife from the younger male's hand, and thrust it through one loop.
Then it pointed, first at the hatchet, then at the second loop.
I'll It gave an imperative barking call, pointed again. It might never have learned hand-talk well, Henry Quick thought but its years had given it a wisdom of its own.