The calf brayed miserably. Ernst clucked sympathetically "Poor Joshua scared. We shoot, you shoot good and straight. Kill wolf. We take calf home."
"So it can grow up to be a cheeseburger. Some consolation."
"Cad-man?"
"Oh, nothing. On Earth I'd stake that calf out for a mountain lion without a second thought. Here—God, I don't know. In comparison with whatever's been pruning our flock, that calf's my second cousin. It just doesn't feel quite right."
Cadmann scanned their blind, the wall of thorn that hemmed them in on three sides. The Skeeter was hidden in the rock niche behind them, invisible from above or the sides. The blind wasn't perfect, but it would have to do.
The wire grid rectangle of their heater sputtered with flame as Cadmann squatted in front of it. The night was colder than he had realized: the waves of heat eased the tension in his back and shoulders.
He unsnapped his rifle case and lifted free his most prized possession.
It was a Webley semiautomatic express rifle. Its high-energy, mushrooming .44 slugs delivered a staggering load of hydrostatic shock. The Webley had been thoroughly checked out back at the camp, but he reexamined it now. Cadmann had a simple credo that had served him well over the years: when the game is charging full blast, with tusks lowered and turf flying, there is no time to pick grit out of the trigger housing.
He adjusted his infrared goggles and switched them on, peering at Ernst. The big German was a blotch of orangish light in the middle of a blue field. When Ernst moved, the warm air trailing him left an ocher trace image.
Cadmann reassembled his rifle and checked Ernst's, while his friend tied the last thorn section onto hinges of looped cord and tested its mobility. Satisfied, he lashed it into place.
Ernst folded his legs and sat, long face quiet.
"And we are just about ready," Cadmann said brusquely. "Here." He handed the second rifle to Ernst. Something happened to Ernst's face when the rifle touched his hands. It was as if a little light went on, as though the touch of the wood-grain stock or the smooth metal of the barrel stimulated neural connections that had been unaffected by the cryosleep.
Muscle memory. Tactile as opposed to visual or auditory cues. He works well with his hands. He remembers. Surely Rachel can work out some kind of occupational therapy for Ernst based on manual skills...
Their heater died. Ernst leaned his rifle against the thorn barrier and reached around into his backpack for a new tubular cartridge of jellied fuel. He slid it into the heater, and tiny blue flames sprang to life. The flare of light from the goggles was a shade too bright. Cadmann adjusted the light level and again examined the plateau. There was very little to see: only the ghostly outlines of the rock, and the glowing red silhouette of the calf. It gazed forlornly at the barrier, then turned to sip nervously at the waterhole. It stopped, pawing at the ground, gazing into its depths. It moaned.
There was nothing left to do but wait.
Cadmann was humming contentedly to himself, and then the humming turned into words that he was startled to remember:
I Blas Gogerddan heb dy dad
Fy mab erglyw fy llef
Dos yn dy ol i faes y gad
Ac ymladd gydag ef.
Dy fam wyf fi a gwell gan fam
It golli'th waed fel dwfr
Neu agor drws i gorff y dewr
Na derbyn bachgen llwfr...
He sang in a soft, unmelodic tone. As he continued, the rust flaked off his vocal chords, and he began to find notes with something other than shotgun precision.
"Cad-man. What you sing? Don't know those words."
"Oh, oh—damn, I'm sorry. The song's in Old Welsh, Ernst. My grandfather taught it to me when I was a pup. Guess I've never quite forgotten it. A man named Geiriog scribbled it down, and Granddad liked it." Cadmann closed his eyes and chuckled. "He would. ‘Blood and honor, Cad, that's what life is about. What a man is made of'..." Ernst nodded silently, and Cadmann was embarrassed to find himself wondering if the big German could understand. "The song is called ‘I Bias Gogerddan,' or 'Gogerddan Hall.' "
He leaned back against his bedroll and closed his eyes. "It takes place during a great battle, when one of the warriors bolts and tries to hide behind his mother's skirts. She's not exactly a peacemonger. The best I ever translated the song went:
Into the hall-alone, my son?
Now hear your mother's prayer.
Go back onto the battlefield
And aid your father there.
I'd far prefer your blood be spilled
Like water on the ground
Or have you in your shroud arrayed
Than as a coward found.
Go thou into the hall and see
The portraits of your sires.
The eyes of each and every one
Alight with raging fires.
Not mine the son who would disgrace
His family's name and home.
"Kiss me, my mother dear," he said,
She did, and he was gone.
He has come back unto the door,
No longer does he live.
His mother cries, "My son, my son!
Oh God, can you forgive?"
Then comes an answer from the wall,
"While rivers run through Wales
Far better is the hero's death
Than life when courage fails..."
The silence following the song was total, and it took a few moments for Cadmann to realize how deeply into the song he had wandered. The words still resonated in his mind, now carried by the rough, untutored tones of his grandfather.
That's what a man is made of...
"Do you like that?" he asked, almost shyly.
"I like, Cad. I like song. You teach it to Ernst. Soon."
An unstrained chuckle bubbled up through the embarrassment, as Cadmann realized that he felt more comfortable than he had in a hundred and twenty years. At least. "You know, there's something I've always wondered." He paused, his thoughts interrupted by the soft plaintive moans of the calf. "How many of those songs do they sing as entertainment, and how many are behavioral mod? I mean—my grandfather would never have said that he'd rather have a dead grandson than a live coward, but the message was pretty clear." He shook his head irritably. There was a tension headache in there somewhere, but it hadn't wormed to the surface yet. "It sure as hell was. And the worst part of it is that I don't even know what I think of that."
He stared into the heater. It was a poor substitute for a campfire, and he felt vaguely discontented. He made a fist, examining it in the dim light. His skin was the same tough, weathered hide it had been since his late twenties. A faint smile: Let's have a big hand for the oldest, strongest fingers on Avalon.
Absently he caressed the stock of the rifle, running his thumbnail into the engraved hardwood. With sudden, disturbing clarity he realized that he had never touched Mary Ann more lovingly. He grimaced. "Maybe I do know what I think about that. Sometimes you just have to be satisfied with what you are."
Ernst reached out with one large hand and gripped Cadmann's arm warmly.
Together they waited.
Relationships.
There is a relationship between hunters, between hunter and prey, between a hunter and his own body, his aches and pains and fears. Between a hunter and time itself.
They mingle, this complex set of interrelationships which varies in every case, and within a single hunt varies from instant to instant.
But whatever the variables, there is one thing that remains constant:
There comes a moment in which time ceases to have meaning, when aches and pains and fears dissolve into insignificance. When friendship or antagonism, hesitation or eagerness all meld together to create an instant of pure feeling, clear intention, when the observed and the observer are one. At this moment the mixture of awareness and involvement is like a supersaturated solution: one vibration, one degree's variance of temperature triggers irrevocable change, a shockingly abrupt crystallization of potentials.