Enigmatic Pilot_ A Tall Tale Too True - Kris Saknussemm [3]
In any case, all these diversions and perversions streamed through his mind on the edge of that overly exuberant rivulet because of what he could not escape in his field glasses. Because of who or, rather, what he saw, relaxed and waiting for him as if his arrival had been long anticipated.
He was looking at a still young man of around thirty, not much older. He was not an Indian—it was hard to say his breeding—and he was mounted on a donkey, but a donkey that was twenty hands high. The man wore some kind of military costume, but unlike any Todd had seen before. It was not a Civil War uniform. Nor was it was some old Mexican uniform from the war of 1845. When he looked more closely, he saw that the emblem on the man’s chest depicted a wheelbarrow with flames rising from it. On the man’s head was a kind of hat made from the pelt of a skunk. Then, to Todd’s astonishment, the hat stirred and the young cavalryman realized that the skunk was still alive! The man was wearing a live skunk—like a hat. And a very ceremonious headdress it appeared, too. The acid in Todd’s stomach roared like the creek.
In the Man Beyond’s rifle sheath was a firearm that appeared to be made of glass and in his belt, like a saber, hung a weird-shaped hunting horn, while on the pommel of his saddle perched a powerful pure white gyrfalcon.
The thing Todd found unaccountable was that the man, the skunk, the hunting bird, and the donkey all waited as blithely as could be amid a large herd of smoldering black bison, the biggest Todd had ever seen. Even standing still (and as if at attention), the massive horned and hump-shouldered animals looked more like fur-draped locomotives than even gargantuan ungulates.
Then, through the field glasses, Todd watched as the man raised his arm. The bison did not react, but the falcon flung itself into the air with a strength that Todd could feel all the way across the creek. Beating its wings ferociously, the raptor soared up over the grassland and came at him. The horse soldier was so surprised that he nearly dropped his binoculars. Faster and harder the fierce white bird came, so that Todd was compelled to reach for his Colt revolver—but then, by God, the man on the donkey waved at him!
Todd got distracted and had to duck as the falcon plucked his hat clean off his head. Unfortunately, in veering to escape the clutching talons the lieutenant slipped out of his saddle and fell on his ass, which startled his steed further and made him see red for a moment. (In fact, the falcon had nicked him.) By the time he was seated astride his spooked horse again, staunching the faint trickle of blood from his hairline, the man across the creek was holding his hat. The man then offered the cavalry officer’s brim back to the beak of the bird.
This time the falcon swooped out over the creek and released the hat into the water. Todd let out a slight cry at this, for reasons he did not understand (and felt ashamed about), and watched as the hat and all that he symbolically associated with it surged off into the current.
Needless to say, Lieutenant Todd was discomposed by these events and blew a blast on his bugle to signal Sergeant Scoresby that it was time to come forward with his supporting battalion, which was poised for action about three-quarters of a mile away. Scoresby’s men answered the call, but to Todd’s dismay, so did the falconer. He raised the eccentric hunting horn and blew a deep, rich tone from it, more primal than symphonic—with amazing effect.
There had been no bison on Todd’s side of the rushing creek before then that he had noticed—and it is very hard to overlook a huge herd of potentially deadly mammals. But there were now. More than he had ever seen, and he had by that point seen a lot. He was hurled from his horse. He felt his intestines contract and his breathing stop, and then the