"We didn't look for it-but it would be easy to bring it from the seashore."
"We've got it closer here. We've got prospects of metal. You haven't seen that ore outcropping yet, have you? We're better equipped every day; our standard of living is going up. We have a colony nobody need be ashamed of and we did it with bare hands; we were never meant to be a colony. Why throw up what we have gained to squat in caves like savages?"
Rod sighed. "Grant, this bank may be flooded in the rainy season- aside from its poor protection now."
"It doesn't look it to me, but if so, we'll see it in time. Right now we are going into the dry season. So let's talk it over a few months from now.
Rod gave up. He refused to resume as "City Manager" nor would Caroline keep it when Rod turned it down. Bill Kennedy was appointed and Rod went to work under Cliff as a hunter, slept in the big shed upstream with the bachelors, and took his turn at night watch. The watch had been reduced to one man, whose duty was simply to tend fires. There was talk of cutting out the night fires, as fuel was no longer easy to find nearby and many seemed satisfied that the thorn barrier was enough.
Rod kept his mouth shut and stayed alert at night.
Game continued to be plentiful but became skittish. Buck did not come out of cover the way they had in rainy weather; it was necessary to search and drive them out. Carnivores seemed to have become scarcer. But the first real indication of peculiar seasonal habits of native fauna came from a very minor carnivore. Mick Mahmud returned to camp with a badly chewed foot; Bob Baxter patched him up and asked about it.
"You wouldn't believe it."
"Try me."
"Well, it was just a dopy joe. I paid no attention to it, of course. Next thing I knew I was flat on my back and trying to shake it loose. He did all that to me before I got a knife into him. Then I had to cut his jaws loose."
"Lucky you didn't bleed to death."
When Rod heard Mick's story, he told Roy. Having had one experience with a dopy joe turned aggressive, Roy took it seriously and had Cliff warn all hands to watch out; they seemed to have turned nasty.
Three days later the migration of animals started.
At first it was just a drifting which appeared aimless except that it was always downstream. Animals had long since ceased to use the watering place above the settlement and buck rarely appeared in the little valley; now they began drifting into it, would find themselves baffled by the thorn fence, and would scramble out. Nor was it confined to antelope types; wingless birds with great "false faces," rodents, rooters, types nameless to humans, all joined the migration. One of the monstrous leonine predators they called stobor approached the barricade in broad daylight, looked at it, lashed his tail, then clawed his way up the bluff and headed downstream again.
Cliff called off his hunting parties; there was no need to hunt when game walked into camp.
Rod found himself more edgy than usual that night as it grew dark. He left his seat near the barbecue pit and went over to Jimmy and Jacqueline. "What's the matter with this place? It's spooky."
Jimmy twitched his shoulders. "I feel it. Maybe it's the funny way the animals are acting. Say, did you hear they killed a joe inside camp?"
"I know what it is," Jacqueline said suddenly. "No 'Grand Opera.'"
"Grand Opera" was Jimmy's name for the creatures with the awful noises, the ones which had turned Rod's first night into a siege of terror. They serenaded every evening for the first hour of darkness. Rod's mind had long since blanked them out, heeded them no more than chorusing cicadas. He had not consciously heard them for weeks.
Now they failed to wail on time; it upset him.
He grinned sheepishly. "That's it, Jack. Funny how you get used to a thing. Do you suppose they are on strike?"
"More likely a death in the family," Jimmy answered. "They'll be back in voice tomorrow."
Rod had trouble getting to sleep. When the night watch gave an alarm he was up and out of bachelors' barracks at once, Colonel Bowie in hand. "What's up?"
Arthur Nielsen had the watch. "It's all right now," he answered nervously. "A big buffalo buck crashed the fence. And this got through." He indicated the carcass of a dopy joe.
"You're bleeding."
"Just a nip."
Others gathered around. Cowper pushed through, sized the situation and said, "Waxie, get that cut attended to. Bill... where's Bill? Bill, put somebody else on watch. And let's get that gap fixed as soon as it's light."
It was greying in the east. Margery suggested, "We might as well stay up and have breakfast. I'll get the fire going." She left to borrow flame from a watch fire.
Rod peered through the damaged barricade. A big buck was down on the far side and seemed to have at least six dopy joes clinging to it. Cliff was there and said quietly, "See a way to get at them?"
"Only with a gun."
"We can't waste ammo on that."
"No." Rod thought about it, then went to a pile of bamboo poles, cut for building. He selected a stout one a head shorter than himself, sat down and began to bind Lady Macbeth to it with rawhide, forming a crude pike spear.
Caroline came over and squatted down. "What are you doing?"
"Making a joe-killer."
She watched him. "I'm going to make me one," she said suddenly and jumped up.
By daylight the animals were in full flight downstream as if chased by forest fire. As the creek had shrunk with the dry season a miniature beach, from a meter to a couple of meters wide, had been exposed below the bank on which the town had grown. The thorn kraal had been extended to cover the gap, but the excited animals crushed through this weak point and now streamed along the water past the camp.
After a futile effort no attempt was made to turn them back. They were pouring into the valley; they had to go somewhere, and the route between water and bank made a safety valve. It kept them from shoving the barricade aside by sheer mass. The smallest animals came through it anyhow, kept going, paid no attention to humans.
Rod stayed at the barricade, ate breakfast standing up. He had killed six joes since dawn while Caroline's score was still higher. Others were making knives into spears and joining them. The dopy joes were not coming through in great numbers; most of them continued to chase buck along the lower route past camp. Those who did seep through were speared; meeting them with a knife gave away too much advantage.
Cowper and Kennedy, inspecting defenses, stopped by Rod; they looked worried. "Rod," said Grant "how long is this going to last?"
"How should I know? When we run out of animals. It looks like- get him, Shorty! It looks as if the joes were driving the others, but I don't think they are. I think they've all gone crazy."
"But what would cause that?" demanded Kennedy. "Don't ask me. But I think I know where all those bones on that beach came from. But don't ask why. Why does a chicken cross the road? Why do lemmings do what they do? What makes a plague of locusts? Behind you! Jump!"
Kennedy jumped, Rod finished off a joe, and they went on talking. "Better detail somebody to chuck these into the water, Bill, before they stink. Look, Grant, we're okay now, but I know what I would do."
"What? Move to your caves? Rod, you were right-but it's too late."
"No, no! That's spilt milk; forget it. The thing that scares me are these mean little devils. They are no longer dopy; they are fast as can be and nasty... and they can slide through the fence. We can handle them now-but how about when it gets dark? We've got to have a solid line of fire inside the fence and along the bank. Fire is one thing they can't go through... I hope."
"That'll take a lot of wood." Grant looked through the barricade and frowned.
"You bet it will. But it will get us through the night. See here, give me the ax and six men with spears. I'll lead the party."