A Different Flesh Read Free Page B

masters. The sims, now, those whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear’d stinkards—”
    Without pausing but to draw breath, he continued in that vein until he and Wingfield were surrounded by forest. As had Anne’s remarks the night before, his diatribe roused Wingfield’s contentious nature.
    â€œWere they such base animals as you claim,” he said, “the sims would long since have exterminated one another, and not been here for us to find on our landing.”
    Dale gave him a look filled with dislike. “For all we know, they well-nigh did. ’Twas not on us they began their habits anthropophagous.”
    â€œIf they were eating each other, Henry, and you style them ‘anthropophagous,’ does that not make men of them?” Wingfield asked mildly. His companion spluttered and turned even redder than usual.
    A robin twittered among the leaves. So the colonists named the bird, at any rate, but it was not the redbreast of England. It was big and fat and stupid, its underparts the color of brick, not fire. It was, however, easy to kill, and quite tasty.
    There were other sounds in the woods, too. Somewhere, far off, Wingfield heard the deep-throated barking cries of the sims. So did Henry Dale. He spat, deliberately, between his feet. “What men speak so?” he demanded. “Even captured and tamed—as much as one may tame the beasts—they do but point and gape and make dumb show, as a horse will, seeking to be led to manger.”
    â€œThose calls have meaning to them,” Wingfield said.
    â€œOh, aye, belike. A wolf in a trap will howl so piteously it frightens its fellows away. Has he then a language?”
    Having no good answer to that, Wingfield prudently kept silent.
    As the two men walked, they looked for signs to betray the presence of small game. Dale, who was an able woodsman when amiable, spotted the fresh droppings that told of a woodchuck run. “A good place for a snare,” he said.
    But even as he was preparing to cut a noose, his comrade found a track in the soft ground to the side of the run: the mark of a large, bare foot. “Leave be, Henry,” he advised. “The sims have been here before us.”
    â€œWhat’s that you say?” Dale came over to look at the footprint. One of the settlers might have made it, but they habitually went shod. With a disgusted grunt, Dale stowed away the twine. “Rot the bleeding blackguards! I’d wish their louse-ridden souls to hell, did I think God granted them any.”
    â€œThe Spaniards baptize them, ’tis said.”
    â€œGood on them!” Dale said, which startled Wingfield until he continued, “A papist baptism, by Jesus, is the most certain highroad to hell of any I know.”
    They walked on. Wingfield munched on late-ripening wild strawberries, larger and sweeter than any that grew in England. He spotted a woodchuck ambling from tussock to tussock. This time he aimed with special care, and his shot knocked the beast over. Dale grunted again, now in approval. He had bagged nothing more than a couple of songbirds.
    They did find places to set several new snares: simple drag nooses, hanging snares made from slip nooses fastened to the ends of saplings, and fixed snares set near bushes. The latter were especially good for catching rabbits.
    They also visited the snares already set. A horrible stench announced that one of those had taken a black-and-white New World polecat. Skinned and butchered to remove the scent glands, the beast made good eating. Wingfield and Dale tossed a copper penny to see who would have to carry it home. Wingfield lost.
    Two traps had been sprung but held no game. There were fresh sim footprints around both. Dale’s remakes were colorful and inventive.
    The Englishmen headed back toward Jamestown not long after the sun began to wester. They took a route different from the one they had used on the way out: several traps remained to be