Pendillo. While he stretched the skin in the afternoon sun, Lanny turned the meat over the fire. When they began to eat, both Lanny and Gill were amused that Tak Laleen had manners as fastidious as Pendillo's. The missionary nibbled delicately at her food, as if she thought the grease would soil her lips. Afterward she and Pendillo washed in water which they heated over the fire. Pendillo's sons stripped and swam in the ocean, as a man properly should to make himself clean.

They made beds for their father and the missionary in front of the fire. Lanny and his brother would have been willing to continue the march north until nightfall; the food had restored their balance of energy, as it always did. But they knew the other two had to rest.

Lanny and Gill dug burrows in the warm sand outside the cottage, where they felt more comfortable. They were consciously an integrated part of their world, nurtured by the earth and the sun. To them it seemed absurd to build walls of wood or stone to separate themselves from a part of their own being. None of the younger generation had ever understood the need of their elders for artificial shelter. That feeling, too, was a product of of their education, though neither they nor their teachers grasped what it implied. The children of the prison camps lived in a new universe, not yet defined.

Lanny and Gill were immediately asleep. It did not occur to them that Tak Laleen might try to escape. They assumed she had read the signs of the plentiful game in the forest: they were a long way from any enemy installation.

Yet four hours later they were jerked awake by the sound of her screams, faint and terrified in the night shadows of the forest. They found her a thousand yards from the cottage. Her back was against a wall of boulders and with her frail, white hands she was trying to beat off a snarling cougar which had already clawed her uniform to shreds.

Lanny drew his knife and leaped at the animal. Gill threw a stone which might have broken the skull with bullet force, but at that moment the cougar whirled toward them. Its claw slashed at Lanny. He bent low, driving his knife upward. Momentum carried the big cat forward. As the tearing fury struck his chest, Lanny plunged his knife again into the thick hide.

The cougar fell, writhing and howling. Gill smashed a broken tree limb into the yawning jaws, and the big cat died. Tak Laleen stumbled toward them. She tried to speak. The words of gratitude choked in her throat and she fainted.

 Prev. P 16/42 next