amounts at intervals and working them thoroughly in his mouth before he risked swallowing them.
Eventually, he managed to keep some down. It was not surprising, he told himself, that his stomach, so long empty, should be unable to handle a sudden onslaught of fat and meat.
Regretfully, he threw the empty can down to the ground. It made barely one bounce before Wolf was on it. Jeebee left the rest of the cans still in the tree, took the .30/06, and climbed down. By the time he reached the ground Wolf was lying down with the can held between the toes of his two front paws with a suppleness that was almost that of human fingers, his long tongue having polished the interior until it looked like it had been just washed.
Jeebee felt a momentary pang of conscience.
“Maybe later on—” he began, taking a step toward Wolf. But at Jeebee’s first movement toward him, Wolf growled protectively, leaped to his feet, holding the completely empty can in his jaws, and ran off among the trees. Jeebee sighed and sat down. He took the small whetstone from its leather holster on his belt and began to sharpen the mistreated edge of the knife.
He sat so, sharpening the knife, for about fifteen minutes, then waited another fifteen. But Wolf did not return. He had probably, thought Jeebee, taken the can and hidden it somewhere, then gone off on one of his own hunting expeditions. Though what there should be about the can once Wolf had licked out what little Jeebee had left, stuck to its inner sides, Jeebee had no idea. There could hardly be even a smell remaining of the food that had originally been in it.
He sighed. There was very much more he had to understand about Wolf.
There was also no point in continuing to sit here himself. Jeebee took his two rifles and slung the .30/06 on his back once more. Carrying the .22 in his right hand, he left for the place he had picked out as an observation post, from which he could keep a watch for the sort of traveler along the highway whom he had decided he needed.
CHAPTER 5
Jeebee lay between two hackberry trees in a little woods just at the crest of a rise of ground about a hundred and fifty feet to the north of the interstate highway. He was using his cheap and inadequate binoculars to scan the twin roadways below him, east and west, as far as they could help him to see.
For a moment the thought of Wolf intruded. Jeebee had meant what he had felt in their moment of confrontation, earlier in the day. He would do exactly the same if he faced the situation again. But maybe he had pushed Wolf permanently away from him? He put the matter out of his mind. At least the good weather was holding.
The afternoon looked to be clear and bright at least until sunset. There was little breeze and almost no clouds at all—none on the horizon. The day before it had rained; but except for that, they had had nearly a full week of dry weather now, and spring was rushing the growth of new vegetation. Already, the fresh young grass was a good six inches high among the dead brown stalks left over from the year before.
So far, since his arrival half an hour before, there had been no sign of traffic on the interstate. It stretched, a gray double-ruler line before him, from right horizon to left horizon. Nothing moving was to be seen in either direction at the moment. This small hill with its clump of trees was only one of many such for some miles; but it was the one closest to the road, so that other clumps of vegetation did not cut off his further view of the concrete strips in both directions.
Former interstates like this were not ordinarily traveled even at night, let alone in daytime as it was now. Anyone so doing could be seen coming clearly from some distance. Any such travelers would appear while still far enough off for Jeebee to make up his mind about them.
If the individual or group traveling looked dangerous, he could lie quiet until they had passed. Or, if they sent someone to scout the woods before they passed, he should be able to see the scout coming in time to fade back off the crest and put a safe distance between himself and them.
Most of those who came by in daytime were much more likely to be in groups, to risk such visibility. Only a complete fool would travel alone under such conditions and risk attracting the attention of any looters or marauders in the vicinity. His plan was to give his afternoons to watch for traffic. Mornings, as he had today, Jeebee could give to the other necessary duties of finding food and staying alive.
But today the first requirement had been pretty well taken care of by his very lucky find of that root cellar. He had looked for that sort of underground storage at every clump of abandoned farm buildings he had investigated ever since he had left Michigan. Undoubtedly, it was now clear, he had passed some by without knowing they were there. If it had not been for Wolf’s curiosity, he would have missed this one.
Of course, there still remained the problem of finding some kind of bag or container he could put up in the tree and fill with as many of the cans as possible. Wolf, he had found, was wary of anything unknown. The trick would be to keep it unknown. So Jeebee’s trips to the root cellar for loads of cans had better be at times when Wolf had gone off on his own business—hunting or otherwise—as he had just a while ago.
Of course, there was no certainty Wolf might not show up unexpectedly at any time. His most routine appearances were at dawn and twilight. But he had also shown up without warning at all other hours. Jeebee would just have to take his chances of getting to the root cellar and back without encountering him.
Meanwhile, Jeebee’s belly was full now, and there was the highway to watch.
The most dangerous possibility in the way of daytime travelers would be a gang all armed and mounted. A raiding group. These were literally latter-day horse nomads, who lived continually on the move and sometimes numbered enough to threaten even small settlements.
That sort of gang would also be the most likely to send scouts ahead to explore the only cover in sight—in this case, his woods. Moreover, on horseback, they could easily run him down if they caught sight of him. They would be interested not only in everything he had, but in everything he could tell them about things they might want. That meant that as a matter of course, they would torture him to get whatever answers he might be able to give them; after which they would kill him.
In such a situation he could look for no help from Wolf. Not only would his companion be timid of any strangers—strange how an animal so potentially lethal and so armed by nature could also be so cautious and ready to run under unfamiliar situations—but, even if he did, a single bullet would take care of him, probably a shot on first sight by anyone taking Jeebee prisoner.
So Jeebee would be wisest to start leaving the minute he identified any such group moving down the highway. Even a couple of rifle-armed men on horseback were potentially dangerous… unless they were careless, drunk, or drugged enough to ride by these trees without thinking of the danger of being shot from ambush. Jeebee wondered, if it came to that, whether he actually could bring himself to shoot down two such men, merely for what they possessed.
He had shot before at an armed man aiming his rifle at Wolf. But if his shot had killed the man, it had been done in hot blood. Could he do the same in cold?
He thought again about the depth of his hunger and his sudden complete readiness to turn on Wolf, himself, back at the root cellar. The sudden, deep, instinctive emotion of that moment touched him again in raw memory. Yes, if a parallel need occurred with humans in front of him, he could kill his own kind, too, if that was the only way to survive.
But deeply he still hoped and believed what he wanted could be got without killing. It must be a matter of just picking the right traveler, or travelers.
Ideal would be a family with women and children and only one person armed. Probably too ideal. A group like that would have sense enough to travel at night, and as much out of sight as possible.
Whoever it ended up being, he must pick a group with which there was some reason to believe he could risk showing himself and trying to parley. Also a group that had what he needed to trade for or buy.
His mind drifted as he lay in the warmth of the sun. It had now sent fingers of light among the trees to uncover him from shadow. It was hard, even now, for him to realize how much he had changed since he had fled from Stoketon—
The even current of his thoughts, almost drowsy in the warming noontime, was broken abruptly as he caught
