Sunrise Lands

"We're close," Rudi said, and the others nodded.

You couldn't leave stock wandering on their own for long, not with wolf and coyote, bear and tiger and mountain lion around, not to mention rustlers and horse thieves. This was the time of year ranchers started moving herds up towards the higher country, as the snow pulled back into the mountains. They passed more cattle and sheep as they walked, and saw riders pacing them on the edge of sight. Probably one had dashed on ahead to alert the camp, which was all to the good. You didn't want to surprise people, especially not people with bows and protective attitudes towards their livestock.

A little farther and they smelled woodsmoke, with an overtone of frying bacon and brewing chicory. Rudi cupped his hands around his mouth as they walked on through brush and onto the edge of a wide opening with only scattered trees.

"Hello! Hello, the camp!" he called.

Calling out like that was considered good ma

"Hello! Hello, the camp!"

Dogs barked and voices rose; Garbh started to growl back, then quieted at Edain's whistle and stayed close to his heel, apprehensive and aggressive at the same time with the stress of being in a strange pack's terri tory-her kind weren't so different from human beings, in many ways.

There were a fair number of folk around the fires there, tending gear or getting ready for the day or striking tents; three covered buckboard wagons were parked nearby, and plenty of hobbled horses nosed at the ground. The humans included both sexes and all ages down to infants, all dressed in drab sensible leather and linsey-woolsey and sheepskin. A woman spun wool with a spindle and distaff as she watched a half dozen toddlers; that was less efficient than a spi

Three men already in the saddle cantered over and pulled up with casual ease, leaving the reins lying loose on their mounts' necks. One wore a mail shirt, and the other two had breastplates of cowhide boiled in vine gar and strengthened with chevrons of thin steel splints painted brown; they all had curved swords at their belts, full quivers over their backs and round shields at their saddlebows marked with the intermingled S/R of their ranch. The man in the mail shirt had a horse tail mounted on the top of his helmet as a crest as well.

None of the three men had drawn swords, but they all had their short, powerful horn-and sinew recurve bows in their hands and a shaft on the string. They drew up a fair distance away, and kept their eyes moving to make sure there weren't more strangers hidden in the trees.

"Howdy," their leader-the one with the mail shirt and the horse-tail crest-said. "You folks know you're on Seffridge Ranch land? Mind tellin' where you're from, and where and what your business might be?"

Rudi nodded. "Hello. We two are Mackenzies from over the Cascades," he said. "And our friend here is from out east-far east, from beyond the mountains, not from Pendleton," he added. CORA and Pendleton don't mix well. "We're here to see Mr. Brown."

The cowboy's brows went up; he was a leathery man of about thirty, with sandy colored stubble on a sun-ta

" You want to see the Rancher his own self?" he said, sounding dubious. "I'm line boss here in this section. You got something to say, say it to me."

Behind him, one of the men muttered: "Not even saddle tramps."

Rudi nodded, concealing his amusement. People on this side of the mountains attached a lot of importance to your horses, and they looked down on men who traveled far afoot. He liked horses well enough himself and considered Epona one of his best friends, but he thought the attitude ridiculous.

"Mr. Brown is expecting us," he said. "Who we are is between him and us, sure, and our business likewise. No offense, but he wouldn't be thanking you for asking too many questions. If he thinks we're wasting his time… well, in his own house he'd be able to deal with that the way he thought best, wouldn't he?"

The cowboy gave a brisk nod, which set the horse tail on his helmet bobbing.

"He's had a good deal to do with Mackenzies before, I know that," he said thoughtfully, eyes narrowing. "And he's got a fair passel of guests to home right now, all of 'em foreign."

Then he came to a decision, and called over his shoulder: "Cody! Hank! Tommy! Git over here! Rest of you, there's plenty to do. We got eight hundred head to move."

Cody looked enough like him to be his younger brother and probably was; Hank was even younger, but dark and thickset; Tommy was about sixteen, a slender redhead. They were armed and equipped like the first three; so was every man here and a fair number of the women.

"These folks are here to see the boss. Tommy, you get back to the homeplace and let him know. Cody, Hank, cut them out horses and take 'em on down to the house."

The three travelers stood and watched the ranch hands break camp. Most mounted up and moved out to get their herds moving north into the old national forest. The rest finished dousing their fires and policing up their gear, ready to resume their slow journey up to the sum mer pastures where they'd live until fall. One young girl came over shyly and gave them each a buttered biscuit with a piece of bacon in it. A few of the others looked dubious, and he caught a mutter of, "Witches."

Cody and Hank brought them saddled horses. They seemed to be watching as the three mounted, and half hoping they'd do so with a clumsy scramble. Rudi smiled, put a hand on the cantle and vaulted easily into the sad dle, feet finding the stirrups. They followed the old road, riding off the broken pavement to spare the hooves; the potholes had been filled in roughly to keep it passable to wagons, but dirt was easier on the horses' feet.

After an hour or two the two young cowboys were chattering merrily, and asking questions about the strangers' gear.

"Them longbows don't look too handy," Cody said dubiously.

"The dead pine," Rudi replied conversationally, nocked a shaft, drew and shot in one supple motion, before the cowpony he was riding had time to crab.

You could use a longbow from horseback, particularly when the target was directly to the left; it just wasn't easy. Snap, and then an instant later the shaft was quivering like an angry wasp in the trunk of the dead ponderosa pine a hundred and twenty yards away, while birds flung themselves skyward from it in alarm.

Cody gave him a look and cantered his horse across the slope to retrieve the shaft. He tried tugging it out, then gave up and dug at it with the point of his knife. When he came back he was shaking his head ruefully.

"OK, mister, you can shoot with that beanpole there," he said. "My daddy went west with the Rancher in the War of the Eye and he told me about Mackenzie longbows… still, I'd say a saddlebow is handier."

He raised his own weapon, copied from pre-Change recurve hunting bows, to illustrate what he meant; it was around four feet long, with flat-section laminated limbs that curled forward at the tips.

"It certainly is, when you're riding," Rudi acknowl edged. "The longbow holds up better in wet weather, though."

Ingolf shook his head. "Not if you're careful about varnish."

"And that doesn't matter as much out here, where it don't rain all the damn time like I hear it does over the mountains," Cody added.

They spent a pleasant hour talking bows, horses and hunting as they traveled. Then the men drew rein and looked southward as they came out of the last of the forest, where it trailed off into the occasional stunted juniper amid grass and sage and wildflowers.

Cody smiled, obviously expecting them to be impressed. "Quite somethin', ain't it?" he said proudly.