Kennedy shook his head. "It's my job."
"No, Bill," Cowper said firmly. "I'll lead it. You stay here and take care of the town."
Before the day was over Cowper took two parties out and Bill and Rod led one each. They tried to pick lulls in the spate of animals but Bill's party was caught on the bluff above, where it had been cutting wood and throwing it down past the cave. They were treed for two hours. The little valley had been cleaned out of dead wood months since; it was necessary to go into the forest above to find wood that would burn.
Cliff Pawley, hunter-in-chief, led a fifth party in the late afternoon, immediately broke the handle of the little ax. They returned with what they could gather with knives. While they were away one of the giant buck they called buffalo stampeded off the bluff, fell into camp, broke its neck. Four dopy joes were clinging to it. They were easy to kill as they would not let go.
Jimmy and Rod were on pike duty at the barricade. Jimmy glanced back at where a couple of girls were disposing of the carcasses. "Rod," he said thoughtfully, we got it wrong. Those are stobor... the real stobor."
"Huh?"
"The big babies we've been calling that aren't 'stobor.' These things are what the Deacon warned us against."
"Well... I don't care what you call them as long as they're dead. On your toes, boy; here they come again."
Cowper ordered fires laid just before dark and was studying how to arrange one stretch so as not to endanger the flume when the matter was settled; the structure quivered and water ceased to flow. Upstream something had crashed into it and broken the flimsy pipe line.
The town had long since abandoned waterskins. Now they were caught with only a few liters in a pot used by the cooks, but it was a hardship rather than a danger; the urgent need was to get a ring of fire around' them. There had already been half a dozen casualties- no deaths but bites and slashings, almost all from the little carnivores contemptuously known as dopy joes. The community's pool of antiseptics, depleted by months of use and utterly irreplaceable, had sunk so low that Bob Baxter used it only on major wounds.
When fuel had been stretched ready to burn in a long arc inside the barricade and down the bank to where it curved back under the cave, the results of a hard day's work looked small; the stockpile was not much greater than the amount already spread out. Bill Kennedy looked at it. "It won't last the night, Grant."
"It's got to, Bill. Light it."
"If we pulled back from the fence and the bank, then cut over to the bluff- what do you think?"
Cowper tried to figure what might be saved by the change. "It's not much shorter. Uh, don't light the downstream end unless they start curving back in on us. But let's move; it's getting dark." He hurried to the cooking fire, got a brand and started setting the chain of fire. Kennedy helped and soon the townsite was surrounded on the exposed sides by blaze. Cowper chucked his torch into the fire and said, "Bill, better split the men into two watches and get the women up into the cave- they can crowd in somehow."
"You'll have trouble getting thirty-odd women in there, Grant."
"They can sit up all night. But send them up. Yes, and the wounded men, too."
"Can do." Kennedy started passing the word. Caroline came storming up, spear in hand
"Grant, what's this nonsense about the girls having to go up to the cave? If you think you're going to cut me out of the fun you had better think again!"
Cowper looked at her wearily. "Carol, I haven't time to monkey. Shut your face and do as you are told."
Caroline opened her mouth, closed it, and did as she was told. Bob Baxter claimed Cowper's attention; Rod noticed that he looked very upset. "Grant? You ordered all the women up to the cave?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry but Carmen can't."
"You'll have to carry her. She is the one I had most on my mind when I decided on the move.
"But-" Baxter stopped and urged Grant away from the others. He spoke insistently but quietly. Grant shook his head.
"It's not safe, Grant," Baxter went on, raising his voice. "I don't dare risk it. The interval is nineteen minutes now.
"Well... all right. Leave a couple of women with her. Use Caroline, will you? That'll keep her out of my hair."
"Okay." Baxter hurried away.
Kennedy took the first watch with a dozen men spread out along the fire line; Rod was on the second watch commanded by Cliff Pawley. He went to the Baxter house to find out how Carmen was doing, was told to beat it by Agnes. He then went to the bachelors' shed and tried to sleep.
He was awakened by yells, in time to see one of the leonine monsters at least five meters long go bounding through the camp and disappear downstream. It had jumped the barrier, the stakes behind it, and the fire behind that, all in one leap.
Rod called out, "Anybody hurt?"
Shorty Dumont answered. "No. It didn't even stop to wave." Shorty was bleeding from a slash in his left calf; he seemed unaware of it. Rod crawled back inside tried again to sleep.
He was awakened again by the building shaking. He hurried out. "What's up?"
"That you, Rod? I didn't know anybody was inside. Give me a hand; we're going to burn it." The voice was Baxter's; he was prying at a corner post and cutting rawhide strips that held it.
Rod put his spear where it would not be stepped on, resheathed Colonel Bowie, and started to help. The building was bamboo and leaves, with a mud-and-thatch roof; most of it would burn. "How's Carmen?"
"Okay. Normal progress. I can do more good here. Besides they don't want me." Baxter brought the corner of the shed down with a crash, gathered a double armful of wreckage and hurried away. Rod picked up a load and followed him.
The reserve wood pile was gone; somebody was tearing the roof off the "city hall" and banging pieces on the ground to shake clay loose. The walls were sunbaked bricks, but the roof would burn. Rod came closer, saw that it was Cowper who was destroying this symbol of the sovereign community. He worked with the fury of anger. "Let me do that, Grant. Have you had any rest?"
"Huh? No."
"Better get some. It's going to be a long night. What time is it?"
"I don't know. Midnight, maybe." Fire blazed up and Cowper faced it, wiping his face with his hand. "Rod, take charge of the second watch and relieve Bill. Cliff got clawed and I sent him up."
"Okay. Burn everything that will burn-right?"
"Everything but the roof of the Baxter house. But don't use it up too fast; it's got to last till morning."
"Got it." Rod hurried to the fire line, found Kennedy. Okay, Bill, I'll take over- Grant's orders. Get some sleep. Anything getting through?"
'Not much. And not far." Kennedy's spear was dark with blood in the firelight. "I'm not going to sleep, Rod. Find yourself a spot and help out."
Rod shook his head. "You're groggy. Beat it. Grant's orders."
"No!"
"Well... look, take your gang and tear down the old maids' shack. That'll give you a change, at least."
"Uh- all right." Kennedy left, almost staggering. There was a lull in the onrush of animals; Rod could see none beyond the barricade. It gave him time to sort out his crew, send away those who had been on duty since sunset, send for stragglers. He delegated Doug Sanders and Mick Mahmud as firetenders, passed the word that no one else was to put fuel on the fires.
He returned from his inspection to find Bob Baxter, spear in hand, holding his place at the center of the line. Rod put a hand on his shoulder. "The medical officer doesn't need to fight. We aren't that bad off."
Baxter shrugged. "I've got my kit, what there is left of it. This is where I use it."
"Haven't you enough worries?"
Baxter grinned wanly. "Better than walking the floor. Rod, they're stirring again. Hadn't we better build up the fires?"
"Mmm... not if we're going to make it last. I don't think they can come through that."