People of the Wolf (18 page)

"What man?"

"He was tall with graying black hair. He walked to me and I blew a rainbow out." He swallowed hard as though expecting her to call him a liar. "I told him I'd trade him a son for a son. I ... I asked him to choose between light and dark."

"You knew him?"

"No."

Heron stiffened, lips clamped into a white line. "His face, it was oval? His nose thin? Lips full?"

The boy's nod came slowly, warily.

Heron squinted into the distance, searching the past, seeing a lean-faced man as he raped a woman of the People there on the gray sand, the surf pounding in the background. A white hide rested on his shoulders.

"Do you . . . know him?"

Heron nodded, exhaling slowly. "Your father."

Runs In Light's eyes narrowed in bewilderment. "Seal Paw was my-*-"

"Seal Paw adopted you. No, the man in the Dream is your real father." Her smile twisted. "And you'd trade him a son for a son? Interesting. What does that mean?''

"I don't know."

A long silence passed.

"Perhaps." Heron pondered. "I'm missing something. A rainbow is the road of colors that leads to the Monster Children's world up north; it takes a Dreamer smack into the middle of their war. Is that what this is about? Good fighting evil?"

"Maybe."

"You're helpful, aren't you?"

He blinked in embarrassment. "I never understand my Dreams. They leave me ... well ..."

"We'll have to do something about that."

"What?"

"We'll talk about it later. Right now, tell me how the Dream made you feel. Did you think that the People would die at the hands of the Others? At the hands of your father?"

"Wolf told me how to ..." He floundered, tilting his head uncertainly.

"How to what?"

Runs In Light shifted his gaze to the glowing coals of the fire. "There's a hole in the Big Ice."

' 'Wolf showed it to you?''

He nodded tautly. "He said if we went that way, the People would be saved."

Heron's brow furrowed deeply. She puffed a long exhale. "Then you'd better get going. I've seen the Others coming fast. You don't have much time."

One Who Cries crawled up to push the drifted snow out of the shelter tunnel. Bad choice that, there hadn't been time to dig a dipped entranceway to act as a cold trap. Wind sucked the snow past, the world a cloud of white. He pondered the possibilities of moving. He might be able to keep his direction by the wind. But what good would that do? They could walk over a cliff, flounder in a morass of soft-packed willows or larch. And where would they go? Worse, the children, the weakest, would fall behind . . . lost from the rest.

He slumped on the snow, staring blankly at the unending vortex of the storm. Cold leached up from the ice below. The storm might blow for days.

"It's over," he murmured.

With no strength to hunt, only another carcass could keep them alive, render up the life it had once held.

"Maybe we should have gone north," he whispered, looking to where Green Water slept. Her broad nose barely moved

with the breath of life. "I'm sorry, wife. So sorry. I led you
out here, following a fool." '

He reached out to caress her hand, feeling the cold, knowing it wouldn't be such a bad death. Better than rotting from some sickness, wasting away. The wolves would get them in the end.

A sudden ironic thought dawned. He looked back to the windswept white plain, eyes searching for movement. "Was that it, Wolf? Did you fool the boy, lure him here to feed your fleshly brothers?''

He braced his forehead against his arm, laughing softly. "I guess I'm willing. Everybody has to provide for their own."

"Because we're all one, my husband," Green Water said, voice taking on the awed speech-giving tone of the elders around the blazing night fires of winter. "We were stars once. Father Sun threw us out of heaven. Muskrat saw us falling and dove into the sea, bringing up dirt so our landing would be soft. Then Father Sun blew life into us and other falling stars, making us brothers, all the same. We eat wolves; they eat us. It's all the same life."

"You're being awfully cairn about this."

She shrugged weakly.

He crawled back to lie beside her, slipping an arm beneath her head and nuzzling her cheek with his own. "But who will pray us back up to the stars?"

Wind Woman howled outside, snow flitting in to frost their hides and sting their faces.

"Maybe Wolf will,"

"I hope so."

His mittened hand clutching Green Water's, he closed his eyes and dozed. In the dream, he lived again, a young man. Green Water's shy smile and knowing eyes followed him as he strutted before her, a proud hunter, his first solo kill laid before the fire. Even then she'd seen through his laughter, seeing the man beneath. Green Water always knew. She always had everything ordered, each event planned for and accepted. Not even the death of their first child—starving so early that Long Dark—had disturbed her poise. Death came. She grieved, and accepted, planning for the future.

Such a woman ... wasted on him.

Snow slid down on top of him. Had that much built up? He sighed, wondering if there was a purpose in climbing back up, pushing it away so they could breathe. Smothering would be a quicker death, a shorter suffering.

Someone's dog whined. But then, someone's dog was always whining. Dogs were that way. Either whining, or fighting, or eating up the food.

He shook his head, trying to clear the hunger haze.
Dog? They 'd eaten the dogs!

"Imagination," he grumbled, and looked up into a black dog face staring down the tunnel at him.

One Who Cries blinked, hearing with his own ears the sniffing of the animal.
Food!
He reached for his darts, feeling the trembling in his muscles. Cursed hunger robbed a man of ...

"Get back, Black," a sharp voice called as One Who Cries shifted to free his darts. Green Water sat up, desperate hope in her eyes.

The black dog backed out in a new cascade of snow. One Who Cries mustered his strength to crawl up, only to be met by a hooded face looking in.

"Hungry in there?" an old woman asked. "Thought it was a nice storm. Not the kind to be wasted sitting home by the fire, so I threw a couple of guts full of fat and took a walk."

One Who Cries stared. "Are you a spirit trying to suck my soul into the Long Dark?"

' 'Hush,'' Green Water called, pulling him back to the side.

The old woman wiggled in, the black dog leaning forward to fill the space, blocking the little light.

"Black!" the old woman growled. "Get out of here." She motioned and the dog backed hurriedly out.

"Where's Broken Branch?" the woman asked—a wicked light in her eye.

"Next shelter, I think. You know her?" One Who Cries asked.

She studied him for a second. "Know her? Twenty-five Long Darks ago, I promised I'd kill her if she ever came into my reach again. That's a long time to keep a promise."

One Who Cries looked sharply at Green Water. * * *

Cold. Nothing else existed but the hunger knot in Dancing Fox's belly. Only Talon's weak raspy breath reminded her that she wasn't alone, that other humans existed, that the world had once held warmth, sunshine, and laughter.

Wind Woman ravaged the snow around them, rattling ice crystals off the worn caribou robe they snuggled under. So little body heat left to share, so little energy. Despite the hide they'd wrapped in, despite the double layers of hair-on parkas, the cold ate at them.

"Who will sing us to the Blessed Star People?" she wondered aloud.

"Maybe Mammoth, huh?" Talon murmured, not even moving her old gray head where it lay pillowed on Dancing Fox's shoulder.

"Four days we've lain here. I wonder if anyone but us is alive?"

"My greatest worry," Talon whispered, "is that you might have to pee again. You get up and I'm gonna freeze."

"I might have to. You're warmer if you don't keep that extra water. It sucks the heat out of you. Wastes what little's left."

"Ah, I know that. But I can't get up again, girl. Can't do it. Bare my butt to the blowing snow? No, it'll kill me. My thread's weak . . . weak. ..."

Dancing Fox closed her eyes. "Thank you, Talon, for spending time with me. I don't think I could have made—"

"Bah," Talon hissed softly. "I wanted to be with you." Then she turned her ancient face up and stared at the ice walls. "Wish we'd both gone with Runs In Light. Wolf Dream. There's Power in that."

"I tried."

"I know." The old woman's head moved as she swallowed. "I ... know."

Dancing Fox lifted the corner of the caribou hide, seeing the wraiths of snow rushing past. Here, on the ground, the whole world hazed white. Even in this little bit of day, she could see nothing. What a terrible way for her soul to leave its body.

"Runs In Light?" she called softly. "One day, perhaps among the stars, we'll find each other. I'll hold you then. Love you."

She closed her eyes, blinking back the tears, pain from the loss lancing her very heart.

"Still calling after my idiot brother?"

Even through dreams of death, Raven Hunter's voice penetrated. She willed his knowing tones away.

"Come on, my dearest Dancing Fox," the voice called again, insistent, real. "Raise your flap and eat this."

Talon shifted next to her as the caribou hide lifted, and despite the cold snow that blew in, she stared up into his handsome face.

"I found Sheep Whistle's, camp a day from here." He handed her strips of meat. "They're setting up a shelter now. We'll have a fire going in a couple of minutes. Heat some fat up. It'll be hard, but I think we can save the ones still alive. Until then, stay warm."

"We'll live," she whispered.
Oh, Runs In Light, I'm going to live!

"Good boy, that Raven Hunter," Talon whispered. "You could do a lot worse than him, Fox. A lot worse."

Dancing Fox winced, shuddering.

Ash-colored, rays streamed down through the ice cave's narrow opening, accenting the sallow cheeks of the People pressed close together inside. Clutching robes tightly around them, they spoke little, or not at all, despair a palpable thing-all hope fled.

"Grandmother?" Red Star, a five-year-old girl with wide brown eyes and a cadaverously thin face, called. She weakly tugged the hood over Broken Branch's head.

"Hmm?"

"Grandmother, I'm cold." She tightened her hold on the fish-bone doll clamped in a death grip against her cheek.

Broken Branch roused herself, rubbing fists into her eyes

before staring down at the child. Red Star looked up, blinking slowly, lashes crusted with ice. She lifted her arms, begging to be taken.

"Come on, child," Broken Branch murmured tenderly, picking the girl up and sitting her in her lap. She wrapped ice-stiff robes around them both and squeezed Red Star hard, kissing her forehead.

"Thank you." The child sighed, leaning tiredly against the old woman's chest. She took off one mitten to tuck a finger in her mouth, sucking softly. "I'm hungry."

"I know you are. But it won't be long now. Wolf Dreamer's coming back real soon. He'll get us out of this mess. He's probably out talking to Wolf right now."

Red Star frowned disbelievingly. "Are you lying to me because I'm little?"

"Of course not," Broken Branch protested with hurt pride. "He's coming back. You'll see."

"Maybe he's dead and can't."

"Who told you that?"

Red Star tilted her head awkwardly as though hesitant about, telling. "Well ..."

"Come on. Who can you tell if not me?" Broken Branch wheedled.

"Singing Wolf said maybe Grandfather White Bear ate him and we were all going to die for following him."

Broken Branch puckered her lips disdainfully. "Well, Singing Wolf's a fool. You listen to me. I've lived twice as long as he has and I know the way the world works. Wolf Dreamer's coming back."

Red Star's stomach rumbled and she dropped a tiny hand to pat it. "It's been growling and knotting up."