People - People of the Wolf Part 18

"In which case, she's as good as dead. They lie down, they bleed out inside, stiffen up. We've got her."

They walked on, eyes to the tracks and ever-increasing blood as the cow had hobbled along, the calf crisscrossing behind her.

"You've made it longer than I thought you would." Talon eyed her askance.

Fox looked over, squinting against the westering light. "And I'll make it longer still."

"I'm a little surprised. I didn't expect you to be this strong. I thought you'd run back to the band in a week."

"Then why'd you come with me?"

Talon smiled wryly. "Oh, I don't know. I guess I wanted to see how you'd do. Been a long time since a woman left to be on her own. Been a couple of men every now and then who took off. But a woman? Heron was the last and that's been over twenty Long Lights ago."

Fox nodded slowly, wishing she had Heron's reputed Dreaming talents so she'd know if she'd made the right choice. Things were going to be a lot harder from now on. "I couldn't stay," she said simply.

"You don't like Raven Hunter, do you?"

She started to shake her head then stopped. "I ... To tell you the truth, I don't know. I don't really hate him." She puffed derision through her nostrils. "Can you believe that? He dragged me back to Crow Caller to be humiliated. He used me just about every night he could until you moved into my robes. I ... I don't know just what I think of him." "So that's why you're out here?"

She nodded and finally smiled. "And for the first time in my life,Grandmother, I'm free!"

"You go back and you won't be."

Dancing Fox lifted a shoulder. "Runs In Light will be coming to the Renewal." "If he lives." She bit her lip, a coldness within. "Yes, if he lives."

"You going to try and marry him?"

"I don't know if he still wants me."

"Well, you can find out. But, remember, Raven Hunter will be there, too.

Along with Crow Caller." Talon's withered brow furrowed deeper. "Why'd that old fake live when so many good ones froze?"

Dancing Fox shook her head. "Bad luck."

Talon studied her from the corner of her eye. "No one will hold it against you. A woman has the right to run off from a man who's abusing her. And Crow Caller was abusing you. Everyone knows that now."

Fox lifted her hands helplessly, feeling the cool of the evening rising out of the land like a vapor. The deepening slant of sunlight cast long black shadows across the tundra, glinting silver from the new leaves on the sedges and wormwood.

"Do you think I did the right thing?"

Talon sighed. "Don't ask me, child. I can't pa.s.s judgment. I'm here on borrowed time. You kept me alive out there in the snow. You got a claim on my soul while it's still with my body. But, to be honest, I'm curious and happy to follow my nose for the while. We get eaten by a bear, so be it. There's honor in that. You'll pray me to the Star People if I die and that's enough for me."

"It's enough for me now, too."

Talon eyed her seriously. "You won't get away with this for long, you know? Someday, some man'll get you. Plant some kid in that belly of yours and you'll need people around. That's the curse of women. Always got some man driving his shaft into you. Either they're scared stiff of your bleeding and don't want you around ... or they're parting your legs and climbing on." She shook her head. "Well, so long as Raven Hunter doesn't find me, I'm free of both," Fox said hopefully, watching the disappearing curve of the sun as it slid beneath the horizon.

In the blue-shadow afterglow of sunset, Talon studied the gently rolling terrain, muttering under her breath. "Where'd that moose go?"

"Down there." Dancing Fox pointed to where the ground had been ripped up. A thick pool of blood soaked into the gravelly soil. Tracks angled off for a hollow to the right.

"And there she is," Talon breathed, a frail finger pointing.

Fox squinted, seeing the long head, the lowered ears. The calf stood to one side, looking back and forth between them and its prostrate mother.

"I'd hoped she'd be dead. How long until we're out of light?""Not long. But .. . wait. Her head just dropped. Wait. Ha! She's not getting up again." Talon's old legs trembled from the long walk, but she set out down, the hill anyway. "We'll make us up a fire and have liver and heart tonight, girl! What a hunter you made! Runs In Light will jump for joy to marry you."

Dancing Fox glowed with joy. Yes, Runs In Light would be proud of her.

Knowing she would soon be in his arms, the thought of bearing children didn't seem so bad after all. She longed to feel his arms around her, holding her on the long winter nights.

Chapter 21.

Runs In Light stood silhouetted on the ridge crest above Heron's valley, his waist-length black hair blowing in the wind. Dressed in summer fox skins, his muscles bulged in the golden daylight. Below, the People threaded their way in the mushy paths between the receding drifts. Pools of water lay silver in the slanting sun. He crossed his arms over his chest defensively, hoping to ease some of his pain. There they go. I feel like an abandoned sh.e.l.l: empty and useless.

Heron ambled leisurely along the ridge to stand beside him, a hand up to shield her eyes against the glare of Father Sun. Her clean hide dress smelled of sulfur from the hot springs. "Not going?"

"How could I?" he asked bitterly. "What would they have said? The Wolf Dream ..."

"They lived," she reminded. "But I'm glad you're not going."

"Why?"

"You're not ready yet."

He frowned, turning to search her lined face, trying to read the glinting eyes. "How do you know?"

"We looked into each other's eyes once. Seventeen Long Lights ago. You sought me even then--for a reason." She smiled, brown lips hiding her worn and missing teeth. "No, you don't recall .. . but you did."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't." She probed his eyes deeply, as if searching his soul. "Whether you know it or not, Wolf Dreamer, you made your choice.

You chose me .. . my way. I saw forcertain the day you Dreamed the caribou in. Like me, the Power taunts you, stirs your mind, forces you toward the blinding light inside.""

Fear tingled across his chest, tight, p.r.i.c.kling. "I'm not interested in Power. Power is for someone else who--"

"Who what?"

"Who's more worthy."

She chuckled softly, shaking her gray head. "Giving in to cowardice, are you?"

He stiffened, stung deeply. "If I'm giving in to anything, it's good sense. I've been fooling myself."

"You like the feel of Dreaming, don't you?" "Of course," he admitted.

The feel soothed him like a warm fire on a cold winter's night. "But you don't like it enough to give up your soul for it? You want to dabble like a child playing with fire, hoping you never have to surrender your precious self to know the secrets of the flame." "I'm Runs In Light.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d child of an Other," he protested hotly. "I'm not--"

"So what?" She c.o.c.ked her withered head, arching an eyebrow.Dread and a longing to return to the old days welled inside him.

Silently he cried out, pleading for the safety he'd felt before his Dream Walk. Oh, he'd been hungry, but his soul had been whole and un tormented Now he felt as fragmented as a shattered dart point. "I'm not even really one of the People. I'm unworthy!"

"Why?"

"I don't fit anymore."

"n.o.body ever feels like they fit. It's part of the curse of being human."

"I used to fit--before Wolf called me."

"And why don't you think you fit now?"

He shuffled his feet nervously, struggling to find himself beneath the malaise of Dream undercurrents. "I'm different now."

"Of course you are."

A lump swelled in his throat, making it difficult to talk. "Why am I?".

"Because you've touched the soul of the world. You've seen the Monster Children's fight up close, heard the thunderous silence of their clashing weapons, and seen the brilliant darkness of your own soul reflected in their eyes."

"Words," he said gruffly, but their truth pounded loudly inside him like a warning drum. "Just words."

"Yes, you're different. Runs In Light died when Wolf called him from Mammoth Camp."

Staring out across the rocky wilderness shimmering in the sun, he sucked in a halting breath. I'm half-dead, she's right about that. Why can't I just live anymore ? Where's Dancing Fox? What's happened to me? All I want is the woman I love, a safe camp, and to watch my children grow. Is that such a terrible thing?

Heron hobbled over to stand in front of him, then grabbed one of the locks of his hair that fluttered in the wind and tugged hard to make him look down at her. "Don't you see what you're doing?"

"No."

"You're grasping frantically to pull the threads of Runs In Light back together, when you ought to be letting him go completely."

"I can't let him go!" he shouted bitterly. "He's me! That's all I am.

I'm--"

"Bah! Quit being a fool. If that's all you were, you'd have never heard Wolf calling you."

Pressure built to a violent crescendo inside. "I don't know what you're talking about.""Don't you?" Her scratchy old voice had gone gentle, comforting. "I know exactly how you're feeling, torn between this world and the Dream world.

I've been there. Fortunately I had Broken Branch to make my decision for me. Years pa.s.sed while I scrambled to learn how to open the doors in my soul. With me teaching you, you'll learn it in a tenth the time."

"I don't want your teachings."

A smile creased her face, understanding, sympathetic. "Going to be a dabbler all your life, eh?"

"Maybe."

"I warn you .. . you'll end up like Crow Caller, out of sorts, unable to leave the Power alone, lost between truth and falsehood."

"I don't care!" he shouted hoa.r.s.ely, turning his back to her. "It's my choice."

"No argument there."

He heard her steps going away down the trail, returning to her hot springs, and he swallowed convulsively, heart hammering. Looking out, he could see the People, smaller now, slow-moving dots in the gleaming plain as they picked their way toward piles of glacial rock buried in sheaths of snow.

The urge to follow cried hollowly in his chest. That way led back to the familiar world, to the People and comfort of knowing where he stood in the community. That way led to laughter, warm fires in the night, the old stories. His last link to the security that had always been his was fading with their tracks in the snow.

Too much. I can't give that up!

Resolutely, he clutched his darts and snowshoes up from where he'd laid them, and ran, following the trail of the People. A handful of paces later, he pulled up, looking back at the ridge, back at Heron's. Fear tingled along his spine.

"No," he growled at himself, at the longing tugging him to turn around.

"I'm not the one."

Again he took the trail, stilling the wrongness in his heart, but his steps had no spring to them.

Night caught him in the open, stringers of cloud blowing in from the far horizon to burn orange in the sunset. Alone, he bundled himself into a niche in the rock where Father Sun's heat would radiate through part of the night. Miserable, he tried to sleep.

His Dreams left him uneasy, images of the Dream Hunt, of the green valley bursting with game, of Wolf's rasping last breaths. They teased him, haunting, pulling like the open arms of a lover. A lingering taste of wolf meat went sour at the back of his tongue. In the Dream, Wolf stopped frolicking through the lush gra.s.ses and turned to him, lifting his nose high. "Spurning my promise?" he asked.

"No! No, I .. . there's someone better, someone who can--""I chose you."

"No!"

As if a clap of thunder had sounded, he came bolt awake in the blackness. Sweat poured down his chest, tickling along his skin. The gritty bite of the rock and the edges of chill ate through his damp long boots.

"I'm afraid!" he whispered, tears stinging his eyes. He slammed a fist into the rock beneath him. "So afraid. What's happening to me?"

The wind brought a pungent odor, cutting. He leaned back, resting on his elbows. In the night, a wolf howled, a chorus filling in, eerie, searching. A crisp breeze skimmed the chopping white capped waves that blew up the river, tousling the fringes on Ice Fire's sleeves. From his high rocky perch, he gazed out over the Big River to the jumbled sh.o.r.e on the other side. The hazy blue green of vegetation carpeted the rolling hills. Far to the east, he could see the rising white of the Big Ice. Behind him, the snow-mantled gray summits of the mighty mountains raked the clouds. The heart of the Long Light had come. Life filled the land.

Flocks of geese soared through the azure skies, their chevrons stretching endlessly to the south. Birds wheeled over the water, preying on the abundance of fish. A deep longing filled his chest as he followed their flight.

"You've been watching the snow geese for four days now," Red Flint remarked, coming up behind him.

Ice Fire didn't bother to turn. "Birds are wonderful things. Imagine what they see up there." He let his eyes dwell on the far southern horizon. The call lurked, subtle, urging.

"They're also noisy. They screech and honk and they're stupid. You can lay out gra.s.s-stuffed snow-goose hides and they'll fly right into your net." Ice Fire c.o.c.ked his head to study his friend through a si it ted eye. "I hope you came up here to ruin my contemplations fora reason."