Cowley scratched his beard thoughtfully, pulled out a nit and popped it into his mouth. “At least we've found something to eat,” he said. Spooner gave him a sour look but said nothing.
“We'd be eating like kings tonight if you were a better shot.” Still no response from the other man. “A yellow faced deer! An actual yellow faced deer and all you had to do was hit it from thirty yards away. How the hell did you ever pass basic training?”
Spooner looked at him again and shrugged. Spooner was a good shot when he wanted to be, Cowley knew. He'd proved that often enough in the past, in combat. He came to life in battle. A light came into his eye, an energy came into his body. He was fast and deadly, a terror to his enemies. The rest of the time, though, it was as though he walked in a dream. It was as though he just didn’t care about anything.
“Next time I'll take the shot. I can actually hit a running deer.”
Spooner gazed out over the arid landscape. It was as though he’d forgotten the other man even existed. Cowley dug another nit out of his beard, popped it into his mouth, and was rewarded by a look of disgust. It was the only thing he could do that brought any kind of reaction from the other man and so he’d been doing it almost continually since leaving camp. The trouble was that he was running out of nits. What would he do when there were none left? I'll leave the last one, he thought. That way, I'll still have someone to talk to.
Cowley was a man who liked to talk. No sooner had a thought entered his head than he had to communicate it to anyone who happened to be nearby. It seemed to be essential to his thinking processes. If he stopped talking, it was as though his brain stopped working, as if new thoughts could only enter his head if he let the old ones out through his mouth. To be stuck with Spooner, therefore, the most sullen, uncommunicative man he'd ever met, was a kind of torture for him.
“I think you missed on purpose. I think you want us to starve to death out here. Starving to death is part of your cunning plan for world domination.”
Spooner glanced down at his feet. He stared at them as if wondering what they were and why they were connected to his body. Cowley wondered whether clouting the man about the head would bring a reaction. If it had been another man driving him crazy like that he might have decided to find out, but there was something about Spooner that freaked him out a little. He gave the impression, somehow, that if he ever did snap out of his mood, if he did start speaking, he might say frightening things. Terrible things. Things that would make them wish he had stayed silent forever. None of the others liked him. Not for lack of trying. They‘d all tried talking to him, tried to bring him out of himself. All without success.
“Keep your eyes open,” he said. “That deer's still out there somewhere and it won't be the only one. If you see it, just point. I'll take the shot. We can't go back empty handed.”
Cowley started walking, and after a couple of moments Spooner followed him. “There’re hills over there. Where there’s high ground, there’s water flowing away from it. The deer won't go far from it. Harp and Spence went that way, I know. If there’re deer there, they’ve either caught them already or scared them off, but I still think it's our best shot. We’ll give it another half hour or so, then we should he getting back. It’s getting dark.”
☆☆☆
As they walked, Spooner imagined himself drawing his pistol and shooting the other man in the back of the head. He knew exactly what it would be like. How the gun would kick in his hand, how a tiny little hole would appear in the midst of Cowley's thick mane of greasy black hair. He knew how his face would disappear in an eruption of red spray, invisible to him from behind except for a momentary mist that would appear around his head like a brief crimson halo. He knew exactly how satisfying it would feel. How good it would be to see him toppling forward. Maybe to his knees first, then the rest of the way to fall face first into the yellow grass with a heavy thump...
His hand actually moved towards the handgrip of his pistol while he looked around to see if any other members of the Brigadier’s patrol were within sight. Ridiculous, he scolded himself. There would be no way to conceal his guilt. They'd hear the shot, they’d notice Cowley’s absence. They'd kill him as a murderer, but the satisfaction he knew he’d feel tempted him terribly. His death would come later, but the gratification would be immediate, and what was the point of life, anyway, except for wonderful moments like that?
He forced his hand back to his side with a terrible effort. There would be other opportunities. A chance would come for him to satisfy his needs in perfect safety. He could wait. Moments like that were worth waiting for. “Yeah,” he said therefore. “Another half hour.”
Cowley stared at him. “You spoke!” He said. “You actually spoke! Say something else.”
Spooner just gave him a look, though, and went back to examining his feet as they walked.
☆☆☆
Sergeant Blane hefted the deer carcass into a more comfortable position across his shoulder. “Wish you'd shot one of the smaller ones,” he complained, then wished he hadn't spoken. Griping only went up the chain of command, not down. It was bad for discipline. “Plenty of good meat, though,” he added. “The Brigadier will be pleased to see it.”
“The other ones were youngsters,” said Cotton. “Probably rabbits less than a year ago with a brood of half turned rabbits back somewhere. This one was old, though. Won't do any harm to the breeding population to lose him.”
“You learn that from your poaching days?”
“That's in my past. I paid my dues...”
“Of course, but it’s still knowledge that can be useful to us. I would have just shot the one I thought was easiest to carry.”
“And then the pups would have died, and the next travellers to pass this way would have that many fewer deer to hunt. Got to think long term.”
“Yes, you're right. Good thing you're with us. Tell me, if you hadn’t been caught, would you still be poaching today?”
“Probably. My old dad kept on poaching all his life, right up until he went back into the ground. It's a good life, a good living, so long as you don't get caught.”
They saw the fires of the camp ahead of them and angled towards it. There was a figure standing against the ruddy red light of the setting sun. Too tall to be Malone. Had to be Quill then. An idea came to Blane and he carefully laid the deer down on the ground. Then he made a hand signal to Cotton; the sign for a stealthy approach. Cotton grinned. The Sergeant wanted to carry out an impromptu test of their guards. If they managed to enter camp unseen and overpower them, Quill and Malone would spend the rest of the night tied up and gagged to teach them to be more alert in future.
Blane and Cotton crept carefully towards the camp, therefore, using what cover there was. Freezing in place whenever the wizard looked in their direction, dashing forward to the next scrap of cover whenever he looked away. Where was Malone? If he was asleep on guard duty Blane would make him rue the day he ever chose a life in the Ranger Corps, adopted son of the Brigadier or not.
The camp was less than thirty yards away now. The wizard was standing close to the fire, lit up brightly as dusk fell and visible across the low plains for miles around. Any enemy with a rifle would have had no trouble picking him off. Not that Blane would have used a rifle. The noise would wake up the whole camp. A bow and arrow would be better, but being far less accurate he'd have to be much closer to the camp before using it. The Sergeant watched carefully, as still and silent as the evening itself, and when the time was right he rose and crept a few yards closer, to the cover of a large boulder.
He didn't see the figure crouching in the shadows until he was almost on top of him, and then he and Malone gave a start of surprise at the exact same time. Malone yelled, jumping to his feet and fumbling for his clothes, urine still dripping from his groinal slit. “Halt! Halt!” he yelled. “Who goes there? Quill! Quill!”
“It’s okay, private,” said Blane, standing up ruefully. “It's just us. Stand easy.” Cotton came forward too, trying to stifle his laughter.
“Bloody hell, Sarge! You scared the living shit out of me!” Malone turned his back on the other two men as he adjusted his clothing in a desperate attempt to recover his dignity.
“In a very literal sense, I suspect,” said Cotton.
“You picked a poor time to answer a call of nature,” said Blane. “If we'd been approaching the camp from the other direction you would have been off station and in dereliction of duty. This will go on your record.”
“Everyone has to pass water now and again,” protested the batman indignantly. “It just takes a couple of minutes and I would have been back in camp, on guard duty.”
“Who goes there?” called Quill from the camp. “Friend or for?”
“It's okay, Quill!” called back Malone. “It's just Cotton and the Sarge.”
“They got any food?”
“No. Too busy trying and failing to sneak into camp.”
“That'll do, private,” warned Blane. “You'll find a deer fifty yards back that way. Go get it and bring it into camp.”
“Yes, Sarge.” Malone scurried away before the Sergeant could reprimand him further and Blane and Cotton went to rejoin the wizard.
“Anyone else back yet?” asked the Sergeant when he arrived.
“Looks like a bunch of guys off that way,” replied the wizard, pointing off to the north. “One of them’s Harper, I think, to judge from the shuffling gait. There's three others with him. The others won't be far behind.”
“What about the Brigadier?”
“Last I saw him, he was going off that way.” He pointed off to the east. “I think he wanted to check out that old ruined cottage we saw earlier.”
☆☆☆
The old ruined cottage looked to have been abandoned for at least twenty years. Fire had destroyed a large part of the building at some point, but the Brigadier thought it had happened more recently, possibly as a result of a lightning strike. The blackened remains of fairly large bushes stood within the area that had once been contained within its wooden walls. All that remained of that entire half of the building now was the stone fireplace and chimney.
It was the other half of the building that drew the Brigadier, though. It would make a good hiding place for a small group of bandits, presenting a potential threat to their overnight camp site, and so had to be checked out. Regulations said that he should have come with a couple of men in case of trouble, but he thought the chances of the cottage actually being occupied were small. There were no trade routes or large towns within fifty miles, nothing that a gang of brigands might be interested in. Any outlaws in this area would have moved further west, to where the lucrative targets were. If there was anyone here it would more likely be a trapper or two, chasing the same game as his men.
He approached cautiously, though, aware that the only thing that could be predicted with complete certainty was that the world would present him with surprises at the most unexpected times. He stopped beside a large clump of gorse and used the cover to watch the building for a few minutes. No horses tethered outside, not on his side at least. No sign that the undergrowth had been trampled down recently. No smoke rising into the sky. No sounds above the gentle sighing of the wind and the distant cawing of crows. He kept still and silent, watching for any other signs that might appear, and only when he was satisfied that he’d learned everything he could from a distance did he carefully get back to his feet and step forward.
He circled the building, confirming that there was nothing to be seen on the building's far side, then moved slowly in. There were tall weeds growing up against the side door, the only one of the building's entrances to have survived, but the inner door connecting the still intact eastern half of the building with the fire gutted western half stood half open allowing him to see part of the floor and the far wall. There was no movement that he could see, and no light from a fire inside. Feeling more confident now, the Brigadier rose to his full height and walked forward with only the occasional glance around to check for danger, just from force of habit.
He decided to use the inner door, since it was already open and he could see that there was no-one hiding behind it. He stepped over the weed covered remains of the wooden wall, partially scorched by fire, the rest warped and half rotted and with the remains of a coat of paint flaking and peeling away. As he approached the door, though, he was brought up short by a disturbingly familiar smell wafting out from the opening. The sickly sweet smell of a body returning to the earth. Human or animal? He stepped forward and peered around the half open door.
It was a man, most of his flesh gone, bare cartilaginous bones showing through gaps in his clothes. His leg was broken, the Brigadier saw. Just some traveller who'd suffered some kind of accident, thrown from a horse or something. He'd crawled in here to die, knowing no help would come for him and that he faced a slow death from starvation. He'd known that only one kind of survival was possible for him, as evidenced by the position of his unbroken leg. It was up against the door. He'd been trying to close it when he'd died.
He'd failed in that last act, but he'd done enough just by getting inside the room. Here, the intact roof had hidden him from the crows, and the remaining walls had prevented the smell from attracting scavengers. The corpse, left in peace, had regressed, the flesh breaking apart into a thousand tiny globules of transparent flesh that split off and wriggled away in search of small, damp cracks in which to make a new life. The traveller had hoped that some of them would be adopted by worms and beetles and begin the long climb back up the ladder of life. Some of them might even become humans again one day. The traveller had managed to find a glubularium for himself in this old ruined house. A ramshackle alternative to the splendidly decorated and lovingly maintained chambers that most families maintained, ready for the day when one of them felt the end of their life approaching.
The Brigadier silently paid his respects to the anonymous traveller, then looked around at the rest of the room. There was nothing there but piles of old leaves and some scraggly weeds growing in the light slanting in through the empty window. He saw that the light was growing dim and red as the sun dropped towards the horizon and decided that the time had come to get back to camp. He closed the door behind himself as he left, to give the last of the globs time to find shelter and get adopted, and then he left the ruined cottage behind him.
He arrived to find a haunch of deer cooking over the fire, fat sizzling as it dripped into the flames. Malone was prodding it with a skewer, frowning with concentration, while Cotton was cutting up another haunch they’d cooked earlier into thin strips. The rest of the deer lay nearby, still waiting to be cooked, while Cotton scraped the fat from the deer’s pelt, preparing it to be made into leather. Beside him, Harper was stirring salt into a pan of hot water, ready for the next stage of the process.
Cowley was on guard on that side of the camp and he was the first to see him. “Come on in, Brigadier.” he called out. “We've got supper going. Hey, everyone! The Brigadier’s back!”
“Hope you like fish,” added Smith. “Got a nice big one cooking over here.”
“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you,” whispered Malone as the Brigadier reached him. ”I didn't like the look of it. Better stick to the venison.”
“I'll do that. A nice big bit for me, I think.”