第68节
to remain silent and take it on the chin.
In the circumstances, her reaction was perfectly understandable but it
still riled him. It didn't matter. His anger would pass. He still
intended to save her from the Iron Masters if he could.
As the month of May began, so did the clan's preparation for the
journey to meet the Iron Masters.
The warrior's long knives were finely honed and burnished until they
shone like mirrors; crossbows were cleaned and oiled, the wooden stocks
rubbed until they gleamed. The shaped leather body armour and helmets
were refurbished, cracked stones and bones were replaced along with
fresh arrays of feathers and other, more gruesome relics attesting to a
warrior's prowess in mortal combat. Turf marker poles, with their
clusters of carved and coloured wooden plaques were brightened up and
adorned with ceremonial motifs.
The captured renegades also figured in these preparations. They were
taken singly, under close guard, to the stream running past the
settlement and told to strip and wash. Their patched fatigues and
undergarments were laundered and repaired, they were even given extra
helpings of food, and each day they were groomed and exercised like
prize show cattle.
Hunting trips and turf patrols continued alongside these assiduous
preparations and Steve - who had avoided all contact with the captive
breakers since his run-in with Jodi - joined the posses whenever he was
allowed to do so.
Four days before the renegades were due to begin their journey to meet
the wheel-boats, Steve joined a posse of sixty Bears on an extended
patrol of the southern section of the M'Call's turf. On the second
day, one of the flank scouts found the butchered carcass of a
fast-foot. The head, ribcage and entrails of the deer had been buried,
but the grave had been too shallow and had not been secured with
rocks.
As a result, it had been dug up by a passing family of coyotes. Mutes
did not bury carcasses of animals killed on hunting trips. They were
gutted and carried back to the settlement on poles. For it to have
been hidden in this way was a sure sign of intruders.
A careful search of the area turned up further clues. A broad leaf,
crushed underfoot, bore a tell-tale pattern of dried blood - the bar
tread sole of a Tracker boot - left by someone who had helped slaughter
the deer. In a nearby cluster of rocks, a fire had been lit under an
overhang where the flames would not be directly visible from the
surrounding terrain. The ashes had been carefully dispersed and the
site swept clean of footprints but the rock cleft bore traces of fresh
soot and the Mutes, with their keen sense of smell, could detect the
lingering odour in the larger piles of charred wood.
This fire had been alight the day before.
Observing the way the Bears prowled around looking for clues and the
excited way they evaluated each discovery, Steve decided they got as
much pleasure from the deductive process as from the subsequent chase
and kill. Blue-Thunder, the leader of the posse, showed Steve a
misshapen, hollow-point round that had been dug out of the fast-foot's
skull. 'Your people..."
Steve frowned. 'This far north already?" Wagon-trains normally
emerged from the Fort Worth depot at the beginning of April but the
first month was spent on re-supply runs to way-stations. It was too
soon for them to appear - and besides, Karlstrom had said that the
Trail-Blazers units would be diverted elsewhere.
Blue-Thunder shook his head. 'Not sand-burrowers.
Redskins."
The Mute name for renegades - who called themselves breakers. The
Federation saw them as criminals, they saw themselves in a more heroic
light, rebels who had beaten the system. The Mutes made no
value-judgement, the red-skins were just another of the many life-forms
inhabiting the overground.
'Are you going after them?"
'You bet. The dead-faces make good trade with us."
'Dead-faces...?"
'Iron Masters. They take our clan-brothers and sisters and give us
sharp iron. But one red-skin is worth twenty Plainfolk. Better to
trade them than send our people down the river."