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It was tracking Tamara.
“Tamara!” Patrick bellowed, and gestured widely toward the tyra
Tamara spun, saw the predator, and then looked wildly about for a place to flee. The land by the river was flat and almost featureless. There were not many natural sanctuaries or hiding places here.
“Thorns! Thorns!” Patrick shouted. He waved both hands upward and then forward, pointing to a distant thicket of thorn trees. If Tamara could reach them, there was a chance she could burrow deep into the center of the tangle, where the young tyra
All in one motion, Tamara shed her knapsack and began to run.
Scarface leapt forward, after her.
Tamara had always been a jock. She ran like a sprinter, knees high, her spear flashing up and down with her arms.
She was ru
She couldn’t possibly reach the thorn trees in time.
She wasn’t going to make it.
As if from a great distance, Leyster saw himself race forward to place himself between her and Scarface. It was an instinctive action, one totally beyond his control. He was shocked to realize what he was doing.
When a tyra
Still, if he were right in front of Scarface when it reached him, even something as single-minded as a tyra
That was Leyster’s theory, anyway.
With a kind of dreamlike wonder, he saw Scarface bear down upon him. The tyra
Leyster’s body trembled with the need to flee. Run! it demanded.
But he stayed there.
The tyra
Then, incredibly, as it reached him, it lifted that great head upward and to the side, and then back again, so that he was effortlessly knocked out of the creature’s way.
It was like being shoved aside by a Percheron. With a slam of pain Leyster stumbled back against Patrick, who was there, somehow, grabbing at his shoulders, trying to pull him away from the charging tyra
He fell.
He’d been rejected. Scarface wanted Tamara and no other.
A strange sensation of mingled disappointment and relief flooded Leyster then. It wasn’t his fault now, if Tamara died. He’d done all that was humanly possible.
But even as he fell, Leyster realized that he was still carrying the shovel. In his confusion, he’d forgotten to drop the thing. So, desperately, he swung it around with all his strength at the juvenile’s legs.
Tyra
The shovel co
Somebody was screaming. Dazed, Leyster raised himself up on his arms to see Patrick, hysterically slamming the juvenile, over and over, with the butt of the shotgun. He didn’t seem to be having much effect. Scarface was clumsily trying to struggle to its feet. It seemed not so much angry as bewildered by what was happening to it.
Then, out of nowhere, Tamara was standing in front of the monster. She looked like a warrior goddess, all rage and purpose. Her spear was raised up high above Scarface, gripped tightly in both hands. Her knuckles were white.
With all her strength, she drove the spear down through the center of the tyra
It spasmed, and died.
Suddenly everything was very still.
Painfully, Leyster stood. “I think my rib is cracked.”
“I think your head is cracked,” Tamara said. “Just what were you trying to prove there? Attacking a tyra
“I…” Everything felt unreal. “How did you get here? You were ru
“I turned around. I looked over my shoulder and saw what a stupid thing you were doing, and came back to bail you out.”
Patrick started to laugh. “Oh, man,” he said. “Did you see the look on that thing’s face?”
“When you were beating on it with that—!”
“It was baffled! I thought I was the only one who—”
Then they were all hugging one another and thumping each other on the back, and crying and howling with laughter at the same time. There was a lifetime’s worth of emotion inside them, trying to get out all at once.
“Right through the old antorbital fenestra!” Tamara crowed. “Right there in the middle of the skull where there are no bone plates at all. Nothing but soft tissue. The spear punched right into its brain. Hah! Leyster, you were right—practical anatomy does pay off.” She got out her hunting knife, and knelt down by the tyra
“What are you doing?” Leyster asked.
“Getting a tooth. I killed this sucker, I want a trophy, damn it!”
Patrick had his camera out. “Stand by the body,” he told her. “Put your foot up on its head. Yeah, like that. Now show us a little cleavage. Ouch! Hey! No!” He laughed and dodged as she jabbed at him with the butt of her spear. “I’m telling ya, a little skin’ll do wonders for your career.”
He posed her again, and ran off several snaps. “Okay, one of those ought to be a keeper. Now all three of us together. Leyster, I want you to hold your shovel with the blade up.”
He began to set up his tripod.
“We’d best take those pictures and get that tooth out fast,” Leyster said. “I don’t want to be anywhere near here when Mama comes looking for her little Baby Bunting.”
Leyster worried about the Lord and Lady all the long and uneventful trek home. Still, when they came trudging up Smoke Hollow, and he saw the firelight from the long house and the last glint of the setting sun on the satellite dish, his spirits lifted. He felt good to be returning to it. He wanted to hear Tamara bragging about her exploits. He wanted to see Lai-tsz again. He wanted to see if she was showing yet. He wanted to share in the happiness he knew everyone would be feeling.
This is my home, he thought. These are my people. They are my tribe.