At this last question, Bub paused. Suddenly very tired, he slumped against the improvised bed. "The - hayah. Lessee now. Oh RAHT! Th'hayah. Not all of it, y'all understand. Just whut I'd'a won in the ring, fair&square." She could hearthe ampersand; had she ever encounterd someone who spoke like this? "Which YEW wouldn't step inta with me."
Bub stood back up, invigorated by the recollection. His wrath returned, tempered now by the realization that maybe she had a bad take on the entire situation. Maybe this could be worked out. In any case, seeing the moment of hesitation, of confusion in her blazing eyes, he made his move. He let slip the sideknot of his sealskin garment, revealing with a swish the entire (if neatly stowed and quiescent) extent of his fish-totem to Rambi's disbelieving eyes. Bub exploited this moment of shocked immobility by striding right up to her and plucking the knife from her hand. With his other arm he neatly, and rather gently, twisted the Uzi from her grip. Before she could take her rapt attention off the oiled blonde crop circles of his deltoids and forcibly protest this - forwardness, he stepped back. In a vignette from the Olympics, his bare hide writhed with the silent harmony of his musculature as he deftly dumped the magazine from the little black box of death. In a fluid motion he racked the bolt and allowed the chambered round to fall onto the surf of seal fur at his feet. It made a tiny heavy sound muffled by all the warm leather.
Just as Rambi began to sputter her rage at being thus presumed upon, he silenced her for one second more with a sharp glance. With a crisply-executed bow, he laid her weapon at her perfect feet. He gathered up the dark slab of the magazine as well as the stray round. Straightening again, he said: "Ah figgert all this ain't zackly new territory to you, whut with your knifecraft an'all. Now turn around if you like, li'l lady. Ah'm gonna put on some decent duds."
Rambi was speechless at this sustained display of boldness combined with a complete absence of the sort of heavy-handed sexual intent she usually elicited in men. Especially ones so obviously endowed with the masculine charms. She sat back down and stewed while Bub turned around, displaying the hill country of his buttocks. He re-assembled what was left of his dress and kit. His final act was to return his dirk to its boot holster, after minutely examining its double edge for nicks inflicted at the porcelain hands of the... untrained... in the delicate care requirements of best-grade Damascus.
Rambi couldn't take any more of this. She gathered up her neutered Uzi and began laying in on him. "You...man you..."
Just then the village elder came in, obviously disturbed. Rambi and Bub stopped theirverbal combat and stepped out to join a row of awestruck tribesfolk. The southern horizon was aflame. Every now and then a faint distant tremor announced itself through the permafrost. Bub moaned, "Oh gawd. It's'a happenin early." "The Blowoffs," breathed Rambi. Too far south to be seen, the mountains, whose dizzying heights had almost exhausted each of them upon making the crossing, were testifying to the violence of their magmatic collapse with this strange false aurora.
"Lissen, Rayam'beh. Ah realize we din't git to talk thaings straight. But Ah suspect we're plumb outta time up here. Ah'm gonna mosey on south, back to whar's Ah wuz jist startin ta'git comfy. But it seems lahk th'door we came in through just got slammed shut. Y'all are invited to join me, headin' back an'all. A promise it's hands off 'til we're outta Injun country."
Rambi looked at Bub, standing tall in his shirt and harness, in still invitation. She met his gaze directly and senced sincerity there, a willingness to suspend the quarrel in the interest of the code of the trail. "No", she answered at length. "I'll tell you, I can't figure you out. Any other fellow would have killed me, or worse, after the way you got the drop on me. I'm...not sure what this means, but I'm not about to start trusting a man, any man" (silently invoking an exception in the case of the long-lost mulepoke) "to take care of me or anything like that. I'm sure you know I'm independent, always have been, always will be." She turned back to the low arch of Inferno projected onto the horizon. "I'm going to return on my own. I'm sooner going to die trying than sit still for anybody else's needs." She turned on her heel and strode back into the longhouse.
Bub found the owner of the longhouse and expressed his gratitude at her generous hospitality. She grinned, revealing an uneven row of greenish teeth. She called to the younger feminine contingent, who'd been standing aside with shy dismay as their new idol spoke at length with this pale tall beauty who'd shown up not much later. They now came forward in a giggling phalanx, holding something large and indistinct. She presented it to Bub and said, in broken phrases of a tongue they shared: "This is a coat of bearskin. This trouble in the mountains - it's going to awaken the bears early. Many bears. They will be hungry and vicious. Wear this, and you won't look like prey."
With this warm garment and a heavy pack of baby seal ribs, the villagers sent him on his way.
As the village disappeared into the gloomy snowscape, Bub turned and whispered into the timeless moan of the arctic wind: "Y'all watch out now, li'l lady. Th'way back will be heaps tougher than the way up hereabouts. Y'all make it back in one piece, so's we can find each other and lay this feud to rest."
He drew a bead on the orange stain spreading across the horizon and headed toward the right, seeking a western passage. There were new places there, the fabled lands of the Phoenix, and of traders in exotic index puts. He shuffled across the hard rime toward the future. |
