“So are your eyes.” Standing near the rear of the wagon, the herdsman held his long, slim arm out straight, parallel to the ground and pointing to his right, off into the woods.
Blinking, Simna glanced in the indicated direction. So did an insouciant Hunkapa Aub. Curled up near the back of the wagon, the black litah ignored the delay in favor of sleep.
“I don’t see anything, bruther.” The swordsman’s confusion showed itself in his face. “What are you pointing at? What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“In that big elm. A bird.” Ehomba sighted along his arm. “I understand your difficulty. It is not very big. About the size of a sparrow.”
Simna made a face. “You stopped so we could look at a sparrow?”
“There!” Ehomba’s identifying finger shifted slightly to the right. “It just flew into the tree next to it. It is a little closer now. See?” He gestured impatiently with his arm. “Near the outer end of the lowermost large branch, among the leaves.”
Realizing that to resume headway meant humoring the herdsman, Simna muttered under his breath. As he adjusted his position slightly in the wagon, he was nearly knocked over by the abrupt shifting of the hairy mass next to him.
“Hunkapa see, Hunkapa see!” Their oversized companion was pointing excitedly, bouncing up and down in the wagon. The stalwart wooden bed creaked dangerously. “Bird without!”
“Without?” Time to put an end to whatever nonsense had afflicted his friends, Simna decided. “Without what?” Straining, he followed the pair of pointing arms and used them to fix his gaze on a particular branch in a certain tree.