'You are far from home,' I said.
'Yes,' said Pumpkin.
'What are you doing here?' I asked.
'We have been brought here to cleanse the field,' he said. 'We are to bury thedead and dismantle and burn the wagons, disposing likewise of similar debris.'
'You must have been marched here long before the battle,' I said.
'Yes,' said Pumpkin.
'Did you see the battle?' I asked.
'No,' said Pumpkin. 'We were forced to lie on our stomachs, with our eyesclosed, our limbs held as though bound, watched over by a boy.'
'To guard you?' I asked.
'No, to protect us from animals,' said Pumpkin.
'To the west,' I said, 'among the other wagons, there is a part of a body.'
'We will find it,' said Pumpkin.
'The field is mostly cleared,' said Grunt. 'There must have been other groups ofWaniyanpi here, as well.'
'That is true,' said Pumpkin.
'Are they still about?' asked Grunt, nervously.
'I do not know,' said Pumpkin. The object of Grunt's concern, potent as it was,did not occur to me at the time.
'How many of the large wagons, such as those to the west, were there?' I asked.
'Something over one hundred of them,' said Pumpkin.
'How many of these smaller, squarish wagons, such as this one, were there?' Iasked, indicating the remains of the nearest wagon, one of those, which had beenwith the mercenary column.
'Seventeen,' said Pumpkin.
This information pleased me. There had been seventeen such wagons with theoriginal column. They were, thus, all accounted for. The beasts, which hadinhabited them, presumably one to a wagon, given the territoriality andirritability of the Kur, presumably would then have been afoot. Most then,presumably, might have been slain.
'How many graves have you, and the other Waniyanpi, dug?' I asked.
'Over one thousand,' he said.
I whistled. The losses had been high, indeed.
'And you must understand,' said Grunt, 'the savages clear the field of their owndead.'
For a moment I was stunned.
'It was a rout, and a massacre,' said Grunt. 'That much we learned from CornStalks.'
'How many of the graves,' I asked Pumpkin, 'were those of settlers, those fromthe large wagons?'
'Something over four hundred,' said Pumpkin. He looked back to the others forcorroboration.
'Yes,' said more than one.
'The settlers must have been wiped out, almost to a man,' said Grunt.
I nodded. The first attack had presumably taken place there, on that part of thecolumn. Too, they would have been less able, presumably, to defend themselvesthan the soldiers.
'Something in the neighborhood of six hundred soldiers then fell,' said Grunt.
'Yes,' said Pumpkin.
'Yes,' said another of the fellows behind him.
'That is extremely interesting,' I said to Grunt. 'It would seem to follow thatsome four hundred of the soldiers escaped.'
'That they did not fall on the field does not mean that they did not fall,' saidGrunt. 'They may have been pursued and slain for pasangs across the prairie.'
'The wagons seem to have been muchly looted,' I said. 'Our friends may havepaused for plunder. Too, I do not know if their style of warfare is well fittedto attack a defensive column, orderly and rallied, on its guard.'
Grunt shrugged. 'I do not know,' he said.
'Beasts,' I said to Pumpkin, 'such as that which threatened you, how many ofthem, if any, did you bury or find dead?'
'Nine,' said Pumpkin. 'We did not bury them, as they are not human.'
I struck my thigh in frustration.
'Where are these bodies?' I asked. I wished to determine if Kog and Sardak wereamong the fallen.
'We do not know,' said Pumpkin. 'The Fleer put ropes on them and dragged themaway, into the fields.'
'I do not think they knew what else to do with them,' said one of the fellows.
I was angry. I knew of one Kur who had survived, and now it seemed clear that asmany as eight might have escaped from the savages. Indeed, many savages, formedicine reasons, might have been reluctant to attack them, as they did notappear to be beings of a sort with which they were familiar. What if they werefrom the medicine world? In such a case, surely, they were not to be attackedbut, rather, venerated or propitiated. If Sardak had survived, I had littledoubt he would continue, relentlessly, to prosecute his mission.
'Do you wish to know of survivors?' asked Pumpkin. 'You seem interested.'
'Yes,' I said.
'Other than soldiers, and beasts, and such, who might have escaped?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Some children were spared, young children,' said Pumpkin. 'They were tiedtogether by the neck in small groups. There were four such groups. The Fleertook one group, consisting of six children. The other three groups, consistingof five children apiece, were taken by the Sleen, the Yellow Knives andKailiauk.'
'What of the Kaiila?' I asked.
'They did not take any of the children,' said Pumpkin.
'The children were very fortunate,' said one of the fellows before me.
'Yes,' said another. 'They will be taken to Waniyanpi camps, and raised asWaniyanpi.'
'What a blessing for them!' said another.
'It is always best when the teaching can be given to the young,' said another.
'Yes,' said another. 'It is the surest way to guarantee that they will always beWaniyanpi.'
I wondered if the horrors and crimes perpetrated on one another by adults couldever match the cruelties inflicted on children. It seemed unlikely.
'There were some other survivors?' I asked.
'Some nubile young women,' said Pumpkin, 'but we did not look much at them. Theywere naked. Rawhide ropes were put on theft necks. Theft hands were tied behindthem. They must accompany the masters, on their tethers, walking beside theflanks of their kaiila.'
'And what, do you conjecture,' I asked, 'Will be their fate?'
'We do not dare speculate,' said Pumpkin, looking down, confused and dismayed,hotly reddening.
'They will be made slaves,' I said, 'crawling and kneeling to men, and servingthem abjectly, and totally, in all ways.'
Pumpkin shuddered.
'It is true, is it not?' I asked.
'Perhaps,' mumbled Pumpkin. He did not raise his eyes. I saw that he fearedmanhood, and sex.
'Would you not like one so serving you?' I asked.
'No, no!' he cried, not raising his eyes. 'No, no, no!'
The vehemence of his answer interested me. I looked about, at the otherWaniyanpi They did not meet my eyes, but looked down.
'Were there other survivors?' I asked Pumpkin.
He looked up at me, gratefully. 'Two,' he said, 'but, it seems, one of them onlyfor a time.'
'I do not understand,' I said.
'A boy, a Dust Leg, I think,' said Pumpkin. 'He was a slave of the soldiers. Hewas left staked out, over there, on that hill. We are to keep him alive until weleave the field, and then leave him here, to die.'
