stared in open-mouthed wonder at the teeming, milling bur&lo the break in the trees revealed.
There were more of them than Virginia herds had cattle. The beasts were of two sorts. The short-horned kind, with its hump and shaggy mane, was also fairly common east of the mountains; it closely resembled the familiar wisent of Europe. The other variety was larger and grander, with horns sweeping out from its head in a formidable defensive arc. Only stragglers of that sort reached Virginia. They were notoriously dangerous to hunt, being quicker and stronger than their more common cousins.
The rumble the sim and scout had heard was coming from the clearing; it was the pounding of innumerable buffalo hooves on the turf. Charles poinoed to the herd, signing, Good hunting. Good eating
'Good hunting indeed,' Kenton said. Its meat smoked over a fire, a single buffalo could feed Charles and him for weeks. But the scout saw no need for that much work. With the big beasts so plentiful, it would be easy to kil one whenever they needed fresh meat.
Good hunting in another way also, the scout realized. A herd this size would surely draw wolves and spearfangs to prey on stragglers.
Kenton smiled in anticipation. He would prey on them.
'Let's get some meat,' Kenton said matter-of-factly. Charles nodded and slipped off the trail into the trees. The scout followed.
He could just as well have led; the sim and he were equal y skilled in woodscraft But he would not go wrong letting Charles pick a spot from which to shoot.
Once away from the trail, the scout felt as though the forest had swallowed him. The crowns of the trees overhead hid the sun; light came through them wan, green, and shifting. Shrubs and bushes grew thick enough to reduce vision to a few yards, but not enough to impede progress much. The air was cool, moist, and still, with the smell of earth and growing things.
Steering by the patterns of moss and other subtle signs, Charles and Kenton reached the clearing they had spied in the distance. It was even larger than the scout had thought, and ful of buffalo. More entered by way of a game track to the north that was wider than most Virginia roads; others took the trail south and west out.
Charles picked a vantage point where the forest projected a little into the clearing, giving Kenton a broad view and a chance to pick his target at leisure. 'Good job,' the scout murmured. Charles wriggled with pleasure at the praise like a patted hound.
But Kenton knew there was more to the sims glee than any dog would have felt. Charles's reasoning was slower and far less accurate than a man's, but it was enough for him to understand how and why he had pleased the scout. People who treated their sims like cattle or other beasts of burden often had them run away.
Kenton shook his head slightly as he aimed at a plump young buffalo not thirty yards away. If Gharles wanted to flee on this journey, he had his chance every night.
The flintlock bucked against the scout's shoulder, though the long barrel of soft iron reduced the recoil. Buffalo heads sprang up at the report; the animals' startled snorts filled the clearing. Then the buffalo were running, and Kenton felt the ground shudder under his feet.
If the sound of the beasts' hooves had been distant thunder before, now the scout heard the roar as if in the center of a cloudburst. Charles was shouting, but Kenton only saw his open mouth, his cry was lost in the din of the stampede.
The cow the scout had shot tried to join the panic rush, despite the blood that gushed from its shoulder just below the hump and soaked its shaggy brown hair. After half a dozen lurching strides, blood also poured from its mouth and nose. It swayed and fel .
Several other buffalo, most of them calves, were down, trampled, when Kenton and Charles went out into the clearing, which was now almost empty. The scout took the precaution of reloading, this time with a double charge, before he emerged from the woods, in case one of the buffalo stil on their feet should decide to charge.
Crows and foxes began feasting while Charles was still cutting two large chunks of meat from the tender, fat- rich hump. Soon other hunters and scavengers would come: spearfangs, perhaps, or wolves or sims. Kenton preferred meeting any of them on ground of his own choosing, not here in the open. He drew back into the woods as soon as Charles had finished his butchery. They got well away from the open space before they camped, and Kenton made sure they did so in a small hollow to screen the light of his fire from unwelcome eyes.
After he had eaten, he wiped his greasy hands on the grass, then dug into his pack for his journal, pen, and inkpot. He wrote a brief account of the past couple of days of travel and added to the sketch map he was keeping.
As always, Charles watched with interest. Talking marks? he signed.
'Aye, so they are.'
How do marks talk? the sim asked, punctuating the question with a pleading whimper. Kenton could only spread his hands regretfully.
Several times he had tried to teach Charles the ABCs, but the sim could not grasp that a sign on paper reprented a sound. No sim had ever learned to read or write.
Then the scout had an idea, maybe his map would be easier than letters for Charles to understand. 'Recall the creek we walked along this morning, how it bent north and then southwest?'
The sim nodded. Kenton pointed to his representation. 'Here is a line that moves the same way the creek did.'
Charles looked reproachful y at the scout. Line not move. Line there.
'No; I mean the line shows the direction of the creek. D'you see?
First it goes up, then down and over, like the stream did.'
So? In their deep, shadowed sockets beneath his brow ridges, Charles's eyes were full of pained incomprehension. Line not like stream. How can line be like stream?
'The line is a picture of the stream,' the scout said.
Line not picture. Charles's signs were quick and firm. Picture like thing to eyes. Line not like stream.
Kenton shrugged and gave up. That had been his last, best try at getting the idea across. Sims recognized paintings, even pen-and-ink drawings. Abstract symbols, though, remained beyond their capacity.
