“What an odd story,” Goat-dung said, and added severely, as the women did to her when she told them something they thought to be a lie, “That is not how the Shepherd Howling talks of old Earth.”
The Shepherd Howling, the cat said, washing her long sharp claws one by one, eats his young.
Goat-dung considered this for a moment. True. Go on. Did the old male give your ancestress any details at all?”
Yes. I will tell it to you as it was told to her. Coaxtl gave a slight cough that was half a growl and began.
Long ago, in the time when our ancestors wore tawny coats, we lived in the mountains, not mountains like these all jagged and icy cold, but smooth mountains with hot and fragrant jungles most of the way up their ridges. In that time, the skies were filled with layers of leaves and fronds in which to hide.
“What’s a jungle?” Goat-dung asked.
A place of great heat and many trees, sometimes much rain and bright flowers.
“Like summer in the lowlands?”
No, for this is much hotter and lasts year-round. You would not be able to stand such heat and neither would I. Many kinds of animals and plants existed then that no longer exist, at least not here. Not yet.
“What do you mean, not yet?”
Our Home, the cat said, has plans.
*
“What’s the matter, Sean?” Yana asked about the fifth time she caught Sean looking back over his shoulder. Nanook had done so twice, as well.
“I dunno,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders and giving her a sheepish grin. They should be safe enough with the Connellys. And we’d better get moving if we want to sleep warm tonight.” His grin broadened. “Air’s cooler up here than it is down below. I’d forgot that not everywhere would be enjoying the unseasonable warmth that Kilcoole is.”
Once out of the forest and on slopes covered with lichen like plants and mosses, they had to dismount and lead the ponies over several stretches where the narrow pathway daunted Yana, even habituated to rough going as she had been prior to her injury at Bremport. The curly-coats seemed oblivious to any danger, though it gave her some comfort to note that their ears wig-wagged constantly, their tails sometimes acted like propellersfor balance, the way Nanook used his-and they snorted frequently, as if exchanging information.
They got over the rocky top and down into forest again by the time it was full dark. The forest was denser than the one around Kilcoole. and the trees larger, with thicker trunks. The branches dripped constantly from the melting snow, so that it might as well have been raining. Yana was very tired, so Sean made her tend the little fire he started while he saw to the horses and then skinned the rabbits Nanook caught. The cat ate his raw, but with such relish that Yana could barely wait till theirs was cooked. At last, with Sean on one side of her and Nanook on the other, she slept warmly and dreamlessly. She awakened the next morning to the smell of coffee under her nose and the sight of a cup with its handle turned toward her. Sean slipped back into the bag, grinning at her, and they both suppressed chuckles at Nanook’s soft snores.
The morning was well advanced when, abruptly, they reached the plateau that tilted toward the other half to the Fjord. It was as if a giant ax had neatly bisected the cliff to allow the waters through a narrowing cut to the main body of the continent. The split sloped abruptly down, where a river ended its path to the sea and tumbled in a graceful, medium-sized waterfall into the end of Harrison’s Fjord.
“Who was Harrison?” Yana asked as they made their way down the incline toward smoke that rose from unseen chimneys, Nanook bounding on ahead.
“Harrison? He was one of grandfather’s old buddies. Retired here from the Dear knows where,” Sean said. “He had a droll sense of humor and loved early space adventure stories.”
“Oh?”
“The name of the place,” Sean explained, looking over his shoulder as if Yana should instantly comprehend his reference. When she obviously didn’t, he shrugged and continued his briefing. “Folks are mainly Eskirish-fishermen and boat builders.”