On this world, Baver realized, that was more than possible. “What’s his name?” he asked.
“The boy’s? He is Mager Hans Gunnarsson.”
Skinny Hans. It fitted. “Thank you,” Baver said, and waded in among the horses to where the poet’s apprentice was bridling a wiry roan. “Hans,” he said, “wait for me while I get some gear and my horse. I’ll go with you.”
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The boy frowned at him. He didn’t know this man, except that he was obviously one of the star folk. “For a little while,” he said.
“Thank you. Thank you very much.” Then, as if to seal a bargain, Baver thrust out a hand. After a moment’s pause, the boy accepted it. The ethnologist was startled at the strength of the long fingers. Then he walked quickly out of the horse herd, and when he was outside the rope corral, speeded to a trot.
Baver didn’t strike his tent; he intended to be back before midday. But on the chance that he might not be back before night, he stuffed his saddlebags with things, such as his radio, that caught his eye or thoughts. His recorder was already clipped in a pocket of his jumpsuit, and his pistol in its built-in pocket holster. Then he rolled his sleeping bag in his poncho and tied it. Finally, with his light saddle and everything else on his shoulders, he hurried toward the horse corral of the Salmon Clan. The Salmon Clan! The thought struck him that here, far from any salmon, the clan might consider choosing a new totem.
One of the horse boys helped him catch his horse, and he bridled and saddled it. Then he climbed aboard and trotted off toward the corral of the Wolf Clan.
Mager Hans had left without him, but the one-eyed wrangler pointed the way. “He is young,” the old man said. Baver assumed he referred to Mager Hans’s impatience, but the ethnologist remained irked with the boy. True, Hans had only agreed to wait “a little while,” but he should have waited longer than he had. It seemed to Baver very important that he speak with Nils: learn where the Northman was going, so he could inform Matt and Nikko. And without help—Hans’s or someone’s—he had no hope of finding him.
The trail led down a creek bordered by aspen groves. The stream, mountain-born, here flowed through a lobe of prairie, flanked by dwindling, forest-clad ridges. Clans had passed that way en route to the ting, the Salmon
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Clan for one. Thus the grass had been heavily trampled, and hadn’t yet recovered. Baver wondered if it was possible to follow the trail of a solitary horse through this. A Northman could if anyone could, he supposed, but could anyone? Especially a teenaged poet!
The clan trails kept mostly to the prairie grass outside the aspens, but here and there were groves of pine as well, not restricted to the stream borders, and in places the trail wound between pine groves. After a brisk twenty-minute ride, he passed the last of them, and saw a slender, solitary rider, no doubt Mager Hans. The rider had crossed the stream and turned northward, where the ridges had shrunk to a pair of low, nearly treeless hills. He was climbing one of them. Baver shouted, and with his heels, nudged his horse carefully down the steep stream bank and started across, at the same time calling to the other to wait.
The other didn’t, so Baver kicked his horse into a brisk trot till he caught up. Obviously Mager Hans had ridden to his tent before starting out; he’d added saddlebags, bedroll, quiver and bow to his gear. Now he rode with eyes fixed on the grass just ahead. Here there was no trampled trail, but Baver could see the signs that someone had ridden ahead of them.
“Nils’s trail?” he asked.
The boy glanced briefly at him. “Ja Du.”
“How can you be sure?”
“It was made this morning by two horses, one behind the other. A saddle mount then, and a pack horse. And who would leave the ting early, especially alone?”
Baver nodded. “I see.’ He adjusted his opinion of the skinny poet he rode with. From the top of the hill, he could look northeastward across kilometers of rolling, tall-grass prairie. Nowhere could he see a horseman ahead of them, but it seemed there had to be one; the trail was there. With Mager Hans’s eyes more or less intent on the tracks ahead, Baver decided he’d keep his own attention in the distance. If he should spot Nils, Hans wouldn’t have to watch the trail anymore, and they