People of the Earth (33 page)

 
          
 
Downhill. Downhill is easier. Dazed, balance
uncertain, she fought to place her feet; they had become so numb she couldn't
feel the ground under them.

 
          
 
She traveled mindlessly onward, barely aware
that the land had flattened out into a broad valley. Driven only by shocked
instinct, she staggered forward.

 
          
 
I am alone. Nothing is left. Not my people.
Not Wind Runner. Nothing . . .

 
          
 
White Ash passed, oblivious, among the gray
boles of
Cottonwood
trees, struggling through the snow and
thick grass. She crashed through a stand of willows and stared dully at a
river. Which river? Owlishly, she peered around. A sheer-walled canyon cut the
Sideways
Mountains
to the south. The
Gray
Deer
River
?

 
          
 
She blinked at the
silty
current and stumbled down to the edge of the water, heart aching at the barrier
before her. What now?

 
          
 
A haunting ghost of sound—like clad feet
whispering through deep snow—came from behind her. Gasping panic, she looked
back across the floodplain and saw nothing, only her own tracks in the virgin
snow.

 
          
 
Hearing things. That's it. I'm going crazy . .
. like the whole world. She peered down at the swiftly moving river.

 
          
 
Water, I can . . . can clean. Everything but
my soul. Horrifying images of Three Bulls' leer tormented her.

 
          
 
White Ash ripped her clothing off. At the odor
of rape, her throat constricted with the urge to vomit. She scooped sand from
the river with hands that had lost all feeling; even the sting of the cold had
gone. She began scrubbing her flesh, splashing her thighs and belly. Violent
shivers wracked her.

 
          
 
Movement caught at the corner of her eye. Who?
What?

 
          
 
She spun around. Nausea swept her. "Who
are you?" she screamed at the dark apparition that wavered in the whirls
of snow.

 
          
 
Cross! Must escape! Have to . . . get away.
She grabbed her robe and pack and lurched forward, slogging out into the
sucking cold of the river, barely aware of the drifting ice that bumped against
her skin. Shivering uncontrollably, she tripped on the slippery rocks. As she
went under, the bone-deep cold penetrated the last of her warmth. Water gurgled
and bubbled around her head, swirling her hair around her face in a strangling
net.

 
          
 
She struggled feebly against the current. Her
soul drifted as if it had come free.

 
          
 
I'm dying . . . dying . . . The thought
settled around her like falling goose down. I'll be free, floating and warm
like Bright Moon. Maybe in the Camp of the Dead, I can smile again.

 
          
 
Bad Belly stood up, smacking his coat and
digging out the cold, wet stuff that had been scooped up when he'd fallen down
the slope. In the valley below, the
Gray
Deer
River
gleamed with an opalescent fire.

 
          
 
" 'Find the Dreamer,' Warm Fire
said," Bad Belly muttered. He threw snow at Trouble, as he wagged his tail
after bounding down the slope. On four agile feet. He caught the snowball and
chomped it, eagerly waiting for more.

 
          
 
"You had to follow some wolf in the
middle of the night, didn't you? I'll bet if you could talk, you'd tell me it
was a black wolf, too. Some Spirit animal bent on getting me in trouble."

 
          
 
Bad Belly walked on, shivering. He reached the
river bottom and waded through the snow of the broad floodplain. The
cottonwoods stood stark and gray, their branches stippled with black buds that
lifted toward the patchy clouds of the sky, engaged in a quest for a summer
that never seemed to come.

 
          
 
He stopped at the thick fringe of willows
along the banks and stared morosely at the roiling river. He shivered again—
his chill made fiercer at sight of the clumps of snow and ice floating on the
turbulent dark waters.

 
          
 
He turned to follow the river north to the
hot springs
and glimpsed a figure stumbling along the
opposite shore. By instinct he grabbed Trouble just before the dog started to
worm through the willows—-to drink from the river, no doubt.

 
          
 
Holding the dog, Bad Belly crouched down.

 
          
 
He couldn't tell much about the bundled figure
except that it carried darts and an
atlatl
. That was
enough to create a squirmy feeling in Bad Belly's empty gut.

 
          
 
He glanced around. Could his tracks be seen
from the opposite shore? Whoever this was, chances were good he wouldn't care
for a lone stranger like Bad Belly.

 
          
 
The figure stepped down the bank, reeling
slightly as if exhausted, or wounded. The man started, and took a long look
back the way he had come—the sort of thing a person would do if he suspected
pursuit.

 
          
 
"Oh, Trouble, what did we do? Blunder
into some kind of war?" Bad Belly groaned, studying the fugitive's back
trail. He could see nothing but the barren slopes rising to the west.

 
          
 
The man on the far bank began to undress.

 
          
 
"Of all the insanity, who in his right
mind would—" His voice stopped short as the he turned into a . . . she?

           
 
The woman ignored the freezing cold, washing
herself in a way that made Bad Belly blush despite his chill.

 
          
 
She scrubbed and scrubbed at herself, as if to
cleanse every part of her shivering body. Then she jumped again, as if
frightened, and plunged headlong into the river.

 
          
 
"No! Don't do it." Bad Belly shook
his head and muttered to Trouble, "She doesn't look strong enough. And
what about when she reaches this side? She'll be half ..."

 
          
 
The woman rose, slipped, and fell.

 
          
 
Bad Belly jumped to his feet, trotting along
the bank. The pack and robe she carried whirled away with the current. He
bounced from foot to foot. He could see her strength failing as she floundered
and could imagine the aching cold that would be cramping her muscles.

 
          
 
Would he have to watch the woman drown before
his eyes? Bad Belly ripped off his coat and peeled out of his shirt, leggings,
and pants. He charged into the river, terrified that she'd be dead by the time
he reached her.

 
          
 
Cold shocked his already chilled flesh as he
splashed toward her. His feet went out from under him on the slick, round
rocks. He flailed with his good arm, got his head up, and battled the frigid
current.

 
          
 
Grains of sand carried by the runoff prickled
on his rapidly numbing skin. He reached her, bobbing on his toes, breath
catching in his lungs as the intense cold stunned every nerve in his body.

 
          
 
Bad Belly grabbed a handful of her hair. She
struggled weakly. "Hang on to me!" he wheezed through ice-strangled
vocal chords.

 
          
 
The woman managed to slide her arms around his
neck in a choke hold as he battled to stay afloat with his good arm and to push
off the greasy rocks on the bottom with his cramped toes. They went under time
and again; the woman's grasp on his neck cut off his air.

 
          
 
Bad Belly's limbs were losing their power to
the terrible chill. He could feel his muscles stiffening, strength playing out.

 
          
 
"We're going to die," he whimpered
as the current carried them around a bend. He gave his last effort to pull them
into slower water as his feet touched sand. He dug his toes in, leaning against
the current until he could kneel in the backwater, teeth chattering so hard his
vision blurred.

 
          
 
He tried to stand, prayed his legs would obey.
The woman's stranglehold pulled him over backward, making him gasp desperately.

 
          
 
Bad Belly floundered in the gritty water,
clawing at his neck. He twisted around and thrashed, realizing the woman had
gone limp—but her arm had tangled in the thong around his neck. He bucked
hard—and the thong parted.

 
          
 
She lay slack in his grip as he grabbed for
the pouch and its precious teeth, snagging it before the current whisked it
away.

 
          
 
"Good for you I had these, or you'd have
drifted away." He dragged her to the sandbank. She moaned, coughing up
water.

 
          
 
Drained, cold to the bone, Bad Belly sloshed
out of the shallows and pulled her onto the stony shore beside him.

 
          
 
"C-Can't s-stay h-here," he
stuttered through clacking teeth. He fumbled around as he sought to lift her.
Exertion might bring warmth. He got his good arm under her and lifted. Trouble
came charging down the bank, tail whipping this way and that while he barked
his delight.

 
          
 
Bad Belly got the woman up. She seemed to find
some reserve of strength somewhere and stumbled along with him. Snow burned his
feet as they careened along. Cramps shot agony up his legs.

 
          
 
Somehow they made it to his clothes. He
wrapped her in his coat, pulling moccasins and leggings over the icy pain of
his feet. His shivering made the chore twice as hard.

 
          
 
Bad Belly's thinking turned muzzy as he tried
to figure out what to do. Warmth, they needed warmth or they'd both die. She
had lain down and seemed to have lost consciousness. He stared at the
surrounding white. The plume of the
hot springs
rose in a mounded white pillar to the
north.

 
          
 
Hot springs
? Hot water? It didn't look far now. All he
had to do was follow the river.