He spent two days in the cave, locked in by the blizzard. No firewood, no food, nothing but the stench of the horse and the moaning wind. When it ended and the sky shone blue again, the world was completely covered with white. Snow plastered the trees and made their laden branches sparkle crystalline in the newly risen Sun. Drifts heaped up against the mouth of Alec’s cave waist high. The land beyond was a rolling featureless unmarked expanse of white.
He admired its beauty for several minutes. Then his hunger and his fear of dying drove him out into the snow’s cold embrace.
The horse died that morning. It collapsed under him in a shuddering groan and floundered in the snow. Alec could feel the warmth of life seeping out of its body. Now he was totally alone. Nothing alive was in sight. There were no landmarks, no direction to aim for, no hope. He stood in the thigh-deep snow, wet and cold and trembling between despair and bleak fear.
He looked at the horse’s emaciated carcass, flirted with the thought of carving off some flesh and eating it raw. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Sleep, he told himself. That’s what I need. Rest and sleep.
And the wind sighed, making the trees croon to him, Sleep... yes, sleep.
But then, from somewhere deep within his memory came a fragment of poetry that he hadn’t realized he knew. It spoke itself in his mind, and he jerked erect. He muttered it to himself, then flung his head back and, arms outstretched, shouted it to the trees and wind:
“To sleep! Perchance to dream:—aye, there’s the rub;
“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come...”
That sleep of death. Alec repeated it to himself. And he hunched forward and fought his way through the snow. It was a bitter exhausting battle, as much against himself as against the elements. Cold, hungry, weary, he clamped an iron determination over his aching, protesting muscles and empty gut as he pressed forward.
There are villages all around here, he told himself. Look for smoke, or maybe a road.
He found a road first. He barely recognized it; there was nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the snow-covered landscape except a faint pair of ruts where sled runners had pressed down. It was easier to walk in the ruts, though, and thankfully Alec staggered along, heading slightly downhill, away from the base and toward the valley floor where the farmlands and villages stood.
It was nearly dark when he tottered up to the village. It was either the same one they had taken months earlier or another just like it. Then Alec saw the old man who sat by the gate. Underneath his muffling coat and heavy, pulled-down hat he was the same man. With the same shotgun across his lap.
They said nothing to each other. Alec stood by the gate on unsteady feet, clutching his automatic rifle feebly, numb with cold, puffing with exhaustion. The old man faced him, shotgun in his gloved hands, looking uncertain and red-faced in the last dying rays of the Sun.
Finally the old man shrugged and beckoned to Alec, then turned and headed into the village. Alec followed him, staggering, down cold deserted lanes where the snow had been pounded flat and solid by the passage of many feet.
The old man led him to a hut. “In there,” he said, in a ragged, age-roughened voice.
Alec pushed the door open and stumbled into the room. A flood of warmth from the fireplace was the first thing he sensed. It made his face hurt. Then he saw the two men at the table, startled, half out of their chairs, a steaming bowl of food on the table between them.
They were two of Alec’s men. That was all he noticed. He fell face down and was unconscious before he reached the hut’s bare earthen floor.
They spent a couple of days pumping warm food into him and letting him rest on their pallet. Miraculously, Alec realized, he had not come down with a fever. A touch of frostbite and a lot of raw, chaffed skin. But otherwise no damage that rest and food could not cure.
The men—Zimmerman and Peters—had decided to remain at the village when Alec’s force had broken up. Most of the group had joined Will Russo’s band, once they learned that Alec was Douglas’s prisoner. Jameson had taken the rest south. No one knew what had become of Ferret; he had disappeared. Gradually, Alec realized that Zimmerman and Peters were living together as lovers. He was startled at first, although homosexuality was not rare in the lunar community. After a few days, Alec was more embarrassed than anything else. He wished he had another hut to live in.
“You say Jameson headed south?” he asked Peters over breakfast on the third day. Zimmerman had already left to help the other village men who were shovelling newly-fallen snow out of the village lanes.
Peters shook his head solemnly. He had grown a luxuriant dark beard since Alec had last seen him. Now it was speckled with crumbs of bread and beads of honey.
“He said he would try to link up with Kobol,” Peters explained, between bites.
“How did he know Kobol had landed?”
“Russo told us. Jameson let us make up our own minds about what we wanted to do. That’s when Zim and I... well, we decided we’d done enough soldiering. We helped the people here take in their harvest and they invited us to stay. They’ve been very kind and understanding.”
Alec thought, And they probably think everybody on the Moon is homosexual. Aloud, he asked, “How many of the men went with Jameson?”
“Four, I think. No, it was five.”
Alec sank back in his chair. There’s no one left to join you, he told himself. You’re completely on your own.
After a week the elders of the village came to Alec. They were polite, even deferential. But they were also firm. They had no desire to be caught in whatever high politics was taking place between The Douglas and his son. And they had only so much food, which had to last the winter. So would Alec please leave as soon as he was strong enough? They would give him food and ammunition and even a good horse. But he must leave the village, and tomorrow would be an excellent day for his departure.
Alec smiled and agreed with them. The next morning they solemnly led a big, gentle-looking chestnut mare from their communal barn and loaded it with a bedroll, packs of food, and boxes of ammunition. Peters gave Alec an ancient singleshot rifle, good for hunting small game. Zimmerman gave him his own pistol, holster, and cartridge belt.
The elders watched without a word as Alec said goodbye to his two former comrades and swung up into the saddle. With a nod to the older men he kicked the horse into motion and trotted through the gate and out of the village.
To where? he wondered. South to join Kobol? Instinctively he shook his head, vetoing the idea.
He puzzled over his situation for the whole day, and when the Sun dipped low on the brow of the western hills he found a cave in a little snow-covered ridge and decided to spend the night there.
Kobol will come here in the spring, he thought as he unsaddled the horse. Let him come to me. But another part of his mind answered ironically, You have to get through the winter, first.
He pulled enough deadwood from the bare trees outside the cave to make a small fire. He tethered the horse near the cave’s entrance. The smoke from the fire wasn’t bad, once he got used to the stinging of his eyes. It was better than the horse’s smell. Briefly he debated trying Peters’ rifle on some small game, but it was already getting too dark. He ate from the stores the villagers had given him: a bit of salted meat and some dried grains.
The horse was standing as still as a rock. The fire had burned down to a few barely glowing ashes. Alec was stretched out in the bedroll, trying to sleep, trying not to think of Angela. But there was nothing else to fill his thoughts. The night outside the cave was dark and silent, with only an occasional sigh of wind breaking the frigid hush.
Would she have come with me? he asked himself. Good thing she didn’t; I damned near killed myself. Wouldn’t want her to...
A crunching sound. Alec’s eyes snapped open but there was nothing to see in the darkness. The cave was black, its entrance only slightly lighter. The sound had been faint, but—he heard it again.
Footsteps squeaking on the packed snow.
Alec slid his hand down to the pistol inside his bedroll. The automatic rifle was within arm’s reach. He silently rolled over onto his stomach and turned enough to face the entrance to the cave, thinking, It must be the villagers coming to take their gifts back. If The Douglas’ son just happens to die in some cave, it’s not their fault. And why should they lose a valuable horse?
