People - People of the Wolf Part 17

"Then the cursed flies will be here shortly." Jumping Hare looked westward, pursing his thin lips as though regretting what he had to say next. "And the clans will be gathering in a turning of the moon or so."

"For the Renewal, you mean?"

"Yes."

"You're going?"

Jumping Hare lowered his gaze, awkwardly scuffing the toe of his long boot against a rock. "I've reached the marrying age. The only place I can look for a wife is at the Renewal, where all the clans come together."

"True." "We've made mistakes, but we have to go on living."

One Who Cries puffed out his cheeks and spewed a long exhale. "Mistakes?

We're alive."

Ignoring the comment, Jumping Hare added, "And I want to know if my mother lived."

"She's a strong woman."

"You know Runs In Light will stay here," Singing Wolf said from the side where he watched the young man talking in low tones to Heron. "The old woman won't go back. I don't .. . Well, Runs In Light doesn't know he'll stay yet, but he will."

One Who Cries c.o.c.ked his head. "You've become an expert on Runs In Light? I thought you couldn't stand him." Singing Wolf's expression didn't change. "Remember up in the hills when Broken Branch landed on me with both feet? That wasn't anything to what Heron told me a couple of days after we got here."

"What did she say?" "She .. . she's smart. Knows a lot about people and how they work. She told me ... I ... could be a great leader if I learned what made things happen. She said I could be one of the bestleaders the People ever had if I'd give myself the chance, keep my mouth shut, and think about things before I acted."

"I think she's right. You've always been smart--just too emotional."

Singing Wolf pursed his lips. "Laughing Suns.h.i.+ne and I have talked. She thinks maybe the time has come for me to think instead of yell first."

One Who Cries grinned. "Then you will become a leader, my friend. And next time we're starving, I won't feel like driving a dart into you."

"Did you feel like that?"

"Oh, yes. The day we found the musk ox."

Singing Wolf dropped his head; staring forlornly at the new spring gra.s.ses. "I can understand why. I wasn't very good company. Always complaining." "Too bad you can't make the point bases thinner." Jumping Hare wound damp sinew around a point he'd conned away from One Who Cries. A frown lined his forehead. "I wonder .. . The Wolf Dream. You suppose--"

"I don't suppose anything about spirits," One Who Cries said, rubbing his mashed nose. "But I know this: Runs In Light found musk ox on the march and kept us alive. He brought Heron to us when all of us would have starved. Remember her words? Dreams don't come easy." Eyes roaming off to the east, he added, "But nothing does out here."

"Heron says the Big Ice is five days' walk away."

"And she knows of no hole," One Who Cries mumbled somberly, meeting his cousins' eyes.

"Spirit Dreams make people crazy," Jumping Hare said. "Me ... I think it was all in Runs In Light's head. I think he--" "Runs In Light doesn't make things up," One Who Cries protested.

"I didn't say that!" Jumping Hare cast an irritated glance at Runs In Light. "I think he believed it at first. But if there ever was a Wolf Dream, it's dead now."

"Just because he can't understand it anymore doesn't mean it was false,"

he countered, though he, too, had wondered if the boy ever really saw Wolf.

Jumping Hare shrugged. "What about the gathering of the clans? What about my mother? Why go farther south when there's food right here? Out there, in the ice, I won't find a wife to warm my robes."

One Who Cries' heart pounded in guilt. "If we go back, we'll brand Runs In Light a fake .. . forever. He'll never live it down. People won't forget."

"He dreamed it. Not us," Jumping Hare snapped, slapping a hand on the rock. "A man can't be responsible for another's Dream. It's his trouble.

He can deal with it in his own way."

"He blames himself because we didn't walk in a shaft of Father Sun's light all the way beyond the Big Ice," One Who Cries grumbled. "I hate to see him suffer.""All right," Jumping Hare said, slapping a hand against his thigh. "You don't want to see him suffer. Fine. Neither do I, but I want to go dance the Renewal, see the girls, find out if my mother lived. Face it, there's nothing out here. No magic path to the south and unlimited game.

This is the end of the world! Everything we have is back with the People. And we've got responsibilities, the Dance of Thanks, the Renewal rituals--"

"How do you know there's no magic path? We never looked for Runs In Light's hole. Along the river, that's what the vision showed," Singing Wolf pointed out, looking from one to the other.

"You go hunt. I'm not missing the Dance of Thanks. It's unthinkable,"

Jumping Hare said sharply.

"Unthinkable." One Who Cries reluctantly sighed agreement.

"Remember last year? We missed the Renewal, then the Long Light faded,"

Jumping Hare reminded them. "Maybe it was the fault of the People, huh?"

"Well, if we're going back," Singing Wolf added, "we'd better leave soon. If we wait, we'll have to cross the muskeg. You know what that's like when it gets all mucky above the frost line. Tussock gra.s.s twists and flips enough to break your ankle. We've got the spring storms to keep the ground frozen. A man can walk on frozen ground."

"And Runs In Light?"

Jumping Hare shrugged. "His decision is his. We can always come back here and see if he's--"

"Heron doesn't like company," One Who Cries pointed out. "You want her mad at us for coming here again?"

Singing Wolf picked up a rock, scratching a design in the dirt. He lifted a shoulder noncommittally.

"Not me," Jumping Hare declared, "I wouldn't want to make a woman with her Power mad."

Singing Wolf's jaw vibrated with grinding teeth. One Who Cries watched him closely, seeing in the background the scattered puffs of clouds winding southward.

"Something's happening. Can you feel it?" Singing Wolf looked from frown to frown.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean ... I mean I feel drawn to the Big Ice, like maybe there really is a hole there."

"Do you?"

Singing Wolf stroked his thin face, nodding once.

Jumping Hare chewed his lip. The silence lengthened before he said, "Let's go to the Renewal. We could come back and camp in the foothills where Wind Woman blows the snow clean. We know there's game here. Then we could look.""What about the Others?"

"They won't come here!" Jumping Hare cried incredulously. "Why would they? They--"

"Following the game, just like us," One Who Cries a.s.sured. "And even if they don't come this Long Dark, they will the next or the one after that."

A tremor of apprehension went from man to man. Jumping Hare's flat nose flared. "I can't believe--"

"Believe it. One Who Cries is right. If we found this place, the Others will, too."

Jumping Hare flapped his arms helplessly. "We've got to go back to the Renewal. It's the way of the People. It's just the way, that's all."

"The way ..." One Who Cries echoed regretfully.

No more was said.

Chapter 20.

Gra.s.sy hills rolled in green waves around Dancing Fox; scattered marshes glistened with dew. Bushes sprouted green leaves along the jagged drainages, the pungent scents of willow and wormwood wafting on the breeze.

Fox huddled in the blind she had painstakingly excavated from the slope of the hill. With rapt attention, she stilled the desire to move, to redistribute her weight so the circulation would restore feeling in her foot.

Movement.

She froze, hardly allowing herself to breathe. The head high sedges obscured her vision of the side of the slope, but she could make out the blotch of gray brown. Creeping tendrils of horror traced around her heart. Not Grandfather Brown Bear! On this wondrously warm morning, he'd amble along, winter hungry, looking for anything edible.

The wind still blew in her face, hiding her scent from any potential prey.

Heart battering her breast, she waited, eyes glued to the brown. A head shook; a soft snuffling carried on the wind. Moose! How long since she'd seen a moose? Five years? Maybe more? And then it had been far to the west in lands long wrested from them by the Others.

Fear leached into excitement, overcoming hunger and fatigue. Her long fingers tightened on the slim wood of the dart shaft. From the feel, she knew the atlatl hook still rested in the notch. Maybe today. Maybe.

Dancing Fox refused to remember the week before when her cast had been too quick, the dart falling short to cut a long weal in a caribou's hide. Hitting at an angle, the dart had failed to penetrate and the animal bolted sideways in fear. Not this time. This time her throw must be perfect.

She waited, searching her memories for everything she could remember about moose. Not much. They usually didn't roam this northern high steppe. Mostly they stayed west of the mountains, farther south in the ancient lands where the gra.s.ses were thicker, bending around the open lands below the forests she'd heard of but never seen. The Others had taken much from the People.

The moose stepped closer, allowing her to pick up some details through the sedges. Perhaps the weather had driven a herd of the animals this far east? A long ear flipped back and forth as the animal lowered its head.

Step-by-step, she watched, energy charging her muscles, the numb cramp in her foot long forgotten.

Now? No, wait. Just a bit longer.

The moose raised its head, looking off to the north, ears flicking this way and that, wide nostrils flaring. A second animal--a calf--hovered at the edge of her sight, following the footsteps of the first.

Dancing Fox's throat had gone dry, the charge in her muscles almostunbearable as her heart hammered excitement. So much meat! So very much!

The cow moose trotted ahead a couple of steps, head up. She scented the breeze with her bulbous nose, trying to compensate for her poor eyesight. The calf moved up to the trickling spring Fox's blind overlooked, anxious, wary of ambush.

She'd chosen a perfect place here. Free water this early in the year came and went with the sun, and the melt, but this early, the little spring drew game like flies to a raw wound.

Wait, she told herself. Animals are always more relaxed after they drink. Be patient. The cow finally lowered her head to drink after the calf, then walked back, dropping its muzzle to the tussocks again. She moved ever closer.

Moose, despite sharp noses and acute hearing, were weak in the lungs. A good shot through the ribs would kill her. The information lined out in her jumpy mind. Such a huge animal, and only one weakness to exploit.

Further, they had thick skins--if poor for clothing or making shelters.

As if by magic, the cow turned sideways, no more than ten paces away, and began cropping the vegetation. From where she sat, Fox could almost count the white hairs that gave the hind legs a h.o.a.ry appearance.

Now!

Dancing Fox rose smoothly, arm back, muscles rolling as she used the atlatl to catapult the dart forward, all her weight behind the thrust.

The dart sailed true, striking just behind the floating ribs, angling forward.

The huge moose jumped, squealing as it kicked both feet out behind, bucking twice before hunching up. The calf bawled a hideous squeal.

Dancing Fox nocked a second dart, balancing, sending it flying as the cow raced away with a beating of hooves. The worried calf followed in her wake. In the action, the second cast just missed the calf.

"That's all right! You got the mother!" Talon called from above. "Nice shot that, struck deep. You killed her, Fox!"

She nodded, a feeling of satisfaction deep within as she heard the old woman making her way down the cobble terrace, rocks grating beneath her feet. The cow had slowed to a walk far out among the lingering snowdrifts that etched the bases of the hills. She crested a rise and disappeared from sight.

Dancing Fox marked the place in her mind, walking forward to where she'd hit the animal, checking the tracks. A fresh pile of manure had been dumped where she'd hunched.

Talon ambled over the sedges and grinned, stooping to stare at the heart-shaped tracks. "You see," she said, "I told you this would be a great place to come. I remembered from when we camped here .. . what?

Ten years ago? Long time. Never been so far south. My man came here.

Wanted to hunt out this way, but it didn't look good. Vegetation got shorter the farther south we went."

"And Runs In Light is a lot farther south than this," Dancing Foxmurmured, eyes searching the southern horizon where glacial hills grayed the land. "Well, Grandmother, are you ready for a walk? It shouldn't be far, she was going pretty slow last I saw her."

Talon worked her lips over her gums, setting out on the tracks, old eyes following the sign. "Blood here. Dark stuff. Liver blood. You hit her solid." "You haven't lost any skills."

"Not a one, child." Talon chuckled dryly. "Just my muscles is gaunted up some."

They walked on, the sun slanting slowly to the west.

"She slowed here," Fox decided, looking at the tracks. A thick puddle of blood had formed. She looked up, measuring the height of the sun off the horizon with her hand. Three hands breadths of light left? It might be close. The thought of losing the moose to wolves hurt something deep inside.

"She's not far," Talon added, pointing. "Look there. Frothy. That dripped out of her nose. She's dead as we speak."

"That or laid down."