The next Six-Day was the first time the rookies hunted, riding with the veterans, galloping recklessly through woods and brushy bottomlands, while the hounds bayed on the trail of a jaguar. Finally they brought it to bay in a broad-crowned oak, to snarl down from a branch well up in the crown. The hounds circled, necks craned, their trail song become a clamor.
Zassfel looked around. “Macurdy!” he shouted, “take your spear and drive him down out of there.”
Even the veterans found the order hard to believe. “Yes sergeant,” he called back, mind racing. Drive him down out of there! he echoed mentally. What an ass! It seemed to him he’d better take his shield, too, so he left it slung on his back. “Gester,” he said to one of the others, “hold my spear till I get up in there.” Then, while the others watched, he rode to the oak. Leaning his hands on the thick trunk, he stood up on the horse’s back, grasped the only branch he could reach, and pulled himself up, then regained his spear from Gester. Sliding it through the back of his sword belt left both hands free, and he began to clamber up through the branches, doing his best not to catch the spear on a branch, or dislodge his shield.
No one spoke, not even Zassfel. Not even any horseshit advice, Macurdy told himself grimly. They don’t have any more idea of how to do this than I do. He stopped about fifteen feet short of the cat, which had been hissing at him the whole way. So far, so good, he thought eyeing it, but if you come for me now, I don’t have a prayer. He withdrew the spear, an awkward job. “One hand for climbing, one for the cat,” he muttered. “This is the shits!” Sweating with tension, he climbed one branch higher, paused, and reaching with the spear, poked at the jaguar. Its hiss swelled, and swatting, it cut its paw unexpectedly on the blade, almost knocking the weapon from Macurdy’s hand. Shit! he thought, got to get closer. His heart drummed in his rib cage, but his hands were steady. One branch more and see what happens.
The cat began to back out on its branch, flattened to it. Just what I need: two hundred pounds of spotted cat out on a limb, with me between him and the trunk. He stopped on a branch about five feet below the cat, stood on it, and edged outward. The cat moved up one, but didn’t take the opportunity to move to the trunk again. Okay, Macurdy thought, give me a chance at your belly. He rested the spear on the branch overhead, like a pool cue on a bridge, ready to stab upward. The cat reached down, slapping in his direction with a broad hook-rimmed paw, slaps so quick he couldn’t have counted them, and Macurdy realized even more how overmatched he was. Again his spear darted, stabbed a muscled shoulder, and after squalling, the cat moved in to the trunk, to begin backing down. Hopefully to continue downward, because now it was Macurdy who was out on a limb.
When it got to his branch, it paused. Macurdy jabbed again, the blade slipping past the jaguar’s guard, slicing into the muscles of the chest. The cat screeched—the sound freezing Macurdy’s heart—partly lost its hold, then recovered. Macurdy had drawn the spear back; now he jabbed again. This time the paw was quicker, striking the spear aside, and now the cat stepped out toward him, inside the spear’s reach. Hands almost spasming, Macurdy gripped the branch next to his head, the cat hardly six feet from him, jaws wide, the sound from its throat like the steam hose at the creamery.
He tossed the spear away, drawing cries from the men on the ground, but at such close range, he couldn’t use it one-handed. Then, holding the branch above with his right hand, he rolled his left shoulder enough to slide his shield down onto his left arm, shifting it between himself and the cat.
He couldn’t crouch—the branch he held for balance was too high—and he could only bend a little. If the cat chose to, it could easily attack his lower legs. But he thrust the shield toward it, and that held the cat’s focus. “Haah! Haah!” he shouted. A paw struck the shield before he could see the movement, struck so hard it almost dislodged Macurdy, who nonetheless inched another step forward. “Haah! Haah!” The cat backed away. For a moment it crouched with its hindquarters against the trunk, then with a quick scrabbling began to back down the tree again. When it reached the next to lowest limb, it paused, then launched itself, clearing the men near the tree, landing on last fall’s dead leaves.