Understanding its hand-talk and responding took all the concentration and strength the trapper had. I kill bear, he answered.
Bear hurt me, break leg bone.
The sims grimaced. One gave an involuntary hiss of pain. Another pointed at the rude splint. Why stick!
Hold bone pieces stil . Hurt less. Quick changed the subject; his leg did not hurt much less. He waved at the dead bear, cut up meat, take to your fire. He could not hope to eat a twentieth part of it before it spoiled.
The sims could have done what they wanted with the bear no matter what he said, but his free giving of it seemed to take them aback.
Come with us, eat with us again! signed the male he knew.
He had prayed it would ask that. The band of sims, he knew, was his only hope of living through the winter, though he had scorned the thought not long before. It was his only hope of living longer than a few days, come to that.
Even if his leg healed well, he would not be able to travel for months. And with the injury he had, he had a bad feeling it would not heal well.
A male with a broken front tooth was signing at the one he knew best: Kil , it urged. More meat.
Kil , another male agreed. No hunt, no walk. Lie by fire, eat.
Cold soon. No food to give. No good to us. kil .
In other circumstances, Quick might have agreed with those sims.
He would be a burden for the band, and one more mouth to feed when they wein hungry themselves. Unless he could find a way to make himself valuable to them, he was done for. Take me to fire, then take all tools in pack, he offered.
One of the sims, unfortunately, was smart enough to see the flaw in that. Kil , then take tools, it signed.
He almost gave up then. Like a bul et, a spear going into his chest or a club breaking his head would put him out of his pain.
But he had not shot himself, and he did not want to end as a feast for subhumans. He forced his battered wits to work. Take me to fire, make more tools. That was the best he could do. If it did not appeal to the sims, he was dead. The male that had brought him the marten pelt hooted.
Make noise-sticks? it asked. He could see the eagerness on its broad features.
No, he signed, hating to have to do it. But even had he had metal to hand, he did not know how to make a gun.
Use noise-stick to kill game near fire.
He happened to think of bows and arrows. They were rare in the Commonwealths, but some rich men back east liked to hunt with them, claiming they were more sporting than guns. Quick cared nothing for sport. He was interested in surviving. Make thing like noise-stick, but quiet, he signed.
Kil far like noise-stick? the male asked. Not that far.
Farther than spear.
The sims shouted at one another, not so much arguing as to intimidate. Finally the male that had brought Quick the marten fur signed Take, and pointed at him. He tried without much luck to stifle a shriek as two sims hauled him upright. Others fell to butchering the bear.
It Soon they were toting slabs of meat bigger than those a man could easily carry.
That strength also helped the pair over whose shoulders he had draped his arms. Al the same, the journey to the band's clearing was a nightmare. It would have been dreadful even with careful men hauling the trapper. It was worse with sims. They were not deliberately cruel, but they were careless. Several times his broken leg hit the ground so hard he thought it would fall off. He rather wished it would. Mercifully, he passed out again before the hunting party got home.
The anguish when his bearers let him down like a sack of meal brought him back to himself. Sims were all he could see as he peered blearily upward. Their thick odor clogged his nostrils.
He felt blood flowing down his leg again. The thought of getting the sims to set the broken bone made him sweat but leaving it untended was worse.
Take off stick, he signed. Take off boots, pants. The sims grunted in puzzle the hand-talk gesture for trousers meant nothing to them, since they had never seen any except his. He pointed, and they understood. Fix bone, put stick back and another stick on, hold bone in place. He thought of thing else. Hold me down. I yell, you do anyhow.
the sims hooted in dismay when they saw how he was.
He die, a female signed flatly.
He live, he make for us, answered the male he knew. he live. That was another female. After a moment, he reconized it as the one that had wanted to couple with him. Well, no danger of that now, he thought, and even in torment almost laughed.
The grizzled sim pushed forward. Maker it signed. Good. if Live.
That was the most sign-talk the trapper had ever seen from it.
He turned his head away. The sight of his red-smeared tibia sticking through his flesh was making him even sicker than he felt already.
Push bone into leg, he signed. straight, like other leg.
Till then, he had only thought he knew what pain was. again, the sims were not cruel on purpose; again, that did help. No one could have set the fracture without hurting him badly. That the would-be healers were inexperenced subhumans made things worse, but perhaps not by much.
