Beyond the sunset

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

Afterwards I made Peter comfortable as best I could, stacking a pillow of leaves beneath his head and searching his inert form for concealed wounds that I had missed in my first hasty examination. He was scratched from instep to scalp, scarce an inch of skin left whole. Yet he breathed, as I convinced myself by holding my knife-blade to his lips, and his pulse still fluttered feebly. His heart I could not hear. His eyes were closed. He had not uttered a sound after that last expiring flicker of vitality when he promised himself "a fine robe of dot pelt"; and I was certain he was dying. My one idea was to ease him out with as little suffering as possible.

But Tawannears refused to accept my theory when he climbed the hillside an hour later.

"Corlaer will not die today," he declared looking up from the Dutchman's scarred body. "Otetiani stopped the bleeding in time."

"'Tis impossible," I protested. "You have not seen how dreadfully he is hurt. And the bleeding is not stopped."

Tawannears removed the pack I had inserted in one of the ghastliest of the wounds in Peter's belly.

"See!" he said, holding back the flaps of flesh. "It is a clean wound—or it will be when I have drawn the poison from it. No ordinary man could have lived through this, but Corlaer is not ordinary. His fat has saved him. None of these hurts goes deep enough to kill."

I joined the Seneca and probed the gashes with a knife-blade seared in the flame. Tawannears was correct. In no case had the bear's claws sliced through the overlying blubber into the vital parts. Such wounds would have meant the slashing of our intestines for Tawannears or me, but they had done no more than drain Peter of some of the blood that always poured in a torrent through his giant frame. His shoulder was badly torn where the beast had nipped him with its teeth, and we could not be certain whether the bone was broken; but aside from loss of blood and the chance of poisoning, here again 'twas a mere flesh wound, more ill to look upon than to cure, as Tawannears asserted.

"There is the chance that Peter will die," he admitted. "Not today, but tonight or tomorrow or the day after that. If we are to save him we must have him under cover. We must secure herbs to dress his wounds. We must have warmth to fan his life-spark alight.

"Otetiani must first skin the bear here. We shall have need of the hide and the meat, and the fat will make grease for a healing salve. In the meantime, Tawannears will seek shelter. We must hurry, brother. Before night we must have him settled quietly. He should be moved before his mind escapes from the cloud that is over it."

When Tawannears returned he brought two young saplings, which he had laced together with vines to form a litter, and we rolled Peter—my swollen ankle would not permit me to exert my full strength—upon it. He had also cut a stick for me so that I could hobble beside him and be of some aid in handling the litter.