Page 122 of Circle of Days

After a while Pia stood up again. She looked ahead and saw that the cattle had reached the river and were at last quenching their maddening thirst. The danger now, she felt, was angry humans, both farmers and herders.

When she caught up, she saw that the cattle had spread out. Many were just standing in the shallows, drinking. Some had swum to the far side. Others had gone upstream or downstream to find places where they could bend their necks and suck up the water. They were calm now, their panic diminished, their mad rage spent. On the east side of the Break, in the fields that lay between the woods and the river, the crops were undamaged.

Unlike the animals, the humans had not calmed down. Men and women were weeping; others gave in to apoplectic fury. Troon was raging at Zad. “People will starve because of what you’ve done!”

Zad was badly shaken, and bleeding from his shoulder wound, but he was not willing to take the blame. “Who was the stupid fool who decided to plow up the Break?”

“That’s ancient history. It’s our land now.”

“Don’t tell me, tell the cows.”

“None of that makes any difference. You’ve destroyed people’s fields, so now you have to save them from famine. You’ll have to give this herd to us farmers, to compensate for the destruction you’ve caused.”

“You will not take a single one of these beasts,” Zad said angrily. “If you do, it will be theft. And we know what to do with cattle thieves.”

“Be careful. Don’t threaten me.”

“Then don’t threaten to steal cattle.” Zad glanced to the edge of the herd. “Look!” he said, pointing. “That man is trying to lead a cow away!”

“Good for him,” said Troon.

Pia recognized the man. It was Bort.

Zad looked at Biddy and nodded. She put an arrow to her bow. Troon tried to stop her, but Zad stood in his way. Biddy released the arrow. It was a long up-and-down shot, and the arrow stuck into the ground next to Bort’s foot. He was unhurt, but all the same he left the cow and ran away.

Troon said to Biddy: “Lucky for you that you missed him, woman.”

Biddy replied: “Lucky for him that he ran away before I could take a second shot.”

An arrow shot by a farmer curved through the air and landed next to Pia. She screamed, hugged Olin to her, and ran away, out of the herd and downstream. Then she looked back.

Another farmer tried to get away with a cow. Pia could not see his face and did not know who he was. A herder shot at him, and this time the arrow hit. The farmer fell.

After that, no one else tried to steal a cow.

No more arrows were shot. The drama was over, except that it left a crowd of people facing starvation.

The afternoon darkened as the sun went down. The herders rounded up the cattle and drove them back through the Break. The farmers did not interfere.

Yana appeared at Pia’s side. Pia said: “Where have you been? The cattle stampeded. The crops in the Break are all gone, ruined.”

“I saw the whole thing,” Yana said. “Come home with me. I’ve got something to show you.”

They walked along the bank of the river until they drew level with the house, then followed a narrow path up the slope. “Look inside the house,” Yana said.

Pia looked inside and saw a cow.

She turned and grinned at her mother: “You stole it!”

Yana nodded. “Before the herders reached the riverside.”

“We can’t keep it, though,” Pia said. “Others need it more than we do.”

“I thought we’d give it to Mo,” said Yana. “She and Bort have lost everything.”

“Mo’s dead,” said Pia.

“Oh, no!”