People of the Wolf (14 page)

Her skin prickled at the sudden, crazed look in his eyes. He smiled sweetly. "But this way you're mine alone."

She took a step backward. "Yes, you've seen to that. You've tied me as firmly as if you'd bound me with a mammoth-gut thong like some prize bear dog."

He placed a hand on her shoulder, ignoring her flinch as he turned her to face him. In tones cutting as obsidian he remarked, "I'll tell you once again, I love you. One day, you'll understand.*'

"Take your hands off me."

He tightened the grip on her shoulder. "And I need you. I'm the hope of the People. I've seen it, you understand? I just . . . just can't see it all. But I have to keep the Others back or they'll bury the People."

"Your delusions will be the death of us all."

He sighed heavily, shoulders dropping. Head down, he added, "You can hate me all you want. I have to save the People. Just me . . . and a strange man. Face-to-face, he gives me something. Something that changes the People." He stretched out his arms. "I don't know what. Only that my son—"

She started, eyes widening. "Is that why you want me? For a son?"

"I don't know for cer—"

Her move caught him off guard, her ringing slap staggering him. He fingered his cheek. A slow smile crossed his lips in the subtle glow of the night. "The vision is incomplete, but

I've already seen some of the flashes come true. Like finding you in the snow that day. I'm betting my very life and the lives of our people, that the rest will come and I'll meet this strange man. He's like . . . like ..."

"I've heard enough," she spat. "You're crazy!" She turned as Crow Caller led the way from the shelter, the others in his wake, singing as they carried the remains of Gray Rock to the top of the drift, singing her soul to the Blessed Star People.

He gripped her arm, eyes burning into hers in the darkness. "Remember," he said. "Even if I have to sacrifice both of us, I'll save the People."

He shoved her arm back at her, leaving her off balance and reeling as he went to sing for Gray Rock's soul.

Dancing Fox pulled her hair back where it tumbled from under her hood and forced a deep breath into her lungs. Teeth gritted, she walked wearily to her worn sleeping skins, finding several long strips of dehydrated meat stuffed in her pack. Mouth watering, despite the guilt, she attacked them, ignoring the rancid taste.

That night, Raven Hunter didn't come to her.

"Let's go back!" Jumping Hare declared, looking from face to face. Around them, the snow walls of the ice cave gleamed orange in the firelight.

"To what?" asked One Who Cries.

Green Water placed the last length of knotted willow ripped from the unyielding snow on the glowing coals. She could see her husband's eyes on her, waiting for her words.

"Back?" she asked calmly. "We've crossed nothing but rock. Maybe better land lies ahead?"

"Maybe, but—"

"At least here we find leaves and sometimes a handful of

frozen berries. We didn't have that at Mammoth Camp. There could be game ahead."

Singing Wolf gritted his teeth, waving both arms hostilely. "But we're too weak to hunt. It takes strength to kill."

"We'll manage," One Who Cries assured him.

"But even the mice are burrowed under the snow," Jumping Hare muttered. "The rabbits are gone. The few ptarmigan we've seen fly too—"

"Raven Hunter warned us," Singing Wolf quarreled. "Runs In Light is just a boy."

"And we didn't listen."

Broken Branch, who'd been sitting quietly in the corner, suddenly leaned forward. "You young idiots," she said, sucking the remains of the wolf bone she continued to carry in her pouch. ' 'What's the matter with you? You think
he's
a boy? Look at you!" She snaked a bony arm out of her hide sleeve to point at each of them in turn. Hollow eyes stared back. "Your stomachs knot up a little and you run to bury your heads in the snow.''

"But, Grandmother," Jumping Hare said incredulously. "We're starv—"

"Bah! You're not worthy of Wolf's gift. Go on! Get out!" She sucked her bone loudly, glaring through wind-tangled strands of gray.

Jumping Hare closed his eyes, unwilling even now to chastise an elder. "We might have to, Grandmother. To survive."

"I think we all forget," Green Water cautioned, "this Long Dark is different. Worse than any in memory. The Others lie to the north and west, blocking retreat. Here, we're in a new country. At least the ridges are blown free of snow. In those flats in the north, we'd walk all the way on snowshoes."

"But we might find a camp of the People," Jumping Hare pointed out.

"Would they have enough to share?" Green Water raised a cautious eyebrow. "Or would our arrival doom them . . . as well as us?"

"Survival," Singing Wolf muttered. "We sit here trying to figure a way to save ourselves, and where is our great
Dreamer!"
He pointed to the opening in the snow cave. "He ran away because he couldn't stand to face us!"

An uneasy silence settled, the only sounds the crackling of the fire and Broken Branch sucking her bone.

"He's trying to call the animals," Green Water said finally.

"Hah! He's hunger crazy. It takes a man with Spirit Power to call the animals. And what animal would be here? In these rocks?"

"Maybe some mice or—"

"I saw him stumble and fall today. He's lost his Power!
He's going to kill us all!"
^s

One Who Cries exhaled heavily. "I don't think—"

' 'Maybe the spirits of the Long Dark have already sucked his soul from his body, hauled it out there into the dark to give them strength so they can suck up ours."

"You ..." Broken Branch whispered, faded eyes glistening in the flickering light. Everyone held their breath at the hostile look on her withered face. "What have you ever done for the People? Eh? Nothing. You're a complainer, not a doer. You wait for others to take chances, then you prance around condemning them. You're worse than the spirits of the Long Dark, you suck up all our souls with your jealous whinings."

Singing Wolf's mouth gaped, bitter words on his tongue. "You crazy old—"

"Don't you backtalk me, boy. I'll skewer you with this bone." She lunged at him, striking his collar hard. He scuttled backward, slapping at her.

"Crazy old curlew of a woman! Crazy! Like that cursed Runs In Light!"

Broken Branch sidled toward him, bone pointing, eyes keen as she cocked her head. "Let me tell you something,
boy.
You've never proved who you are! That's why you always sucked up to Crow Caller. At least, you did until he didn't sing for your little girl out there in the snow that day. Eh?"

"I don't know what you're—"

"That's what did it." She tapped the bone on his knee. "That's what broke your faith in Crow Caller and sent you following the Wolf Dream. And before that? What broke your faith in Sheep Whistle, eh? Maybe the fact that he didn't make you hunt leader when you thought you deserved it?"

Singing Wolf dropped his eyes, staring at the compacted snow polished to ice.

"You're all emotion, boy. You better think about that. You're always sniveling, never taking time to consider what you're doing or where you're going. If anybody will kill the People, it's you and your kind."

Singing Wolf's jaws ground so loud everyone could hear in the deepening silence. Heads bowed uncomfortably around the cave.

"And you want to be a leader?" Broken Branch clucked derisively. "You've got the makings deep inside, but you've always been too much of a coward to do anything with them."

"Grandmother, he tries," Green Water said softly. "This is a hard time for all of us. Singing Wolf—"

"He doesn't try very hard. The boy's got to get out and test himself—take some chances. Then he'll stop insulting people who try harder than he does."

Green Water smiled weakly. ' 'When we look about us and see so many empty places where familiar faces should be, all of our hearts are stung. It's hard to want more tests. Don't blame Singing Wolf. This Long Dark has been particularly hard on him."

Broken Branch gave Green Water a cool stare from the corner of her eye, then turned to Singing Wolf. He sat, head down, apparently cowed. "Is that right, boy? You've had it harder than the rest of us?''

In a sudden move, he crawled past the old woman and out the hole into the night.

Jumping Hare mumbled to One Who Cries, "Too much hunger. Makes the senses leave."

One Who Cries lowered his eyes. "None of us are all the way sane."

"Especially Runs In Light."

Broken Branch jabbed out suddenly with her bone, poking his arm. He yipped.

"What do you know of Dreaming? I saw it!" she growled, nodding, her battered hood creasing. "I saw it in his eyes." -

One Who Cries, frowning at his cowering cousin, put a restraining hand on Broken Branch's shoulder. "He didn't mean it, Grandmother. He—"

"Maybe
you saw it!" Jumping Hare defended. "Then again, maybe he's crazy like Raven Hunter said."

Broken Branch scowled, looking down at the hand on her

shoulder. "Let me go, you empty-headed fool ... or you're next," she warned, waving her sharp bone. One Who Cries jerked his hand away as though burned. Glaring around the shelter, Broken Branch breathed, "We're not dead yet, are we?"

"No," Green Water softly agreed. "The Dream lives."

"Dream?" Singing Wolf called from beyond the crawl hole. "He's Dreamed us to death."

'
'No!''
Broken Branch shifted, bony fingers knotting in the nearest parka. One Who Cries tensed as she tugged feebly. "Didn't you see? Didn't you see his eyes?" Her gaze unfocused and she leaned back, grip loosening. "It was real."

"I believe, Grandmother," he said.

Green Water reached over, patting her reassuringly. ' 'I saw his eyes, Grandmother. He Dreamed."

Jumping Hare bit his lip, looking away.

Green Water stirred, blinking awake. Through her robes she felt the chill play across her flesh. Father Sun would be rising soon. She struggled to sit up, limbs shaking.

They hadn't moved for two days. People huddled in their robes, eyes sunken with famine. No one had the strength to walk.

Our final resting,
she mouthed silently.

She glanced to Runs In Light's robes; he was still gone. Carefully, she crawled over sleeping people to the opening. Squeezing through, she peered at the landscape. Above, the Star People .twinkled while the long twilight grayed the southeast. Moon Woman's half-light gleamed from brooding peaks. Ponderous glaciers crept down their flanks, majestic mountains glowing blue in the clear air. Wind Woman, for a brief moment, had stilled her restless roar. To the east, a broad valley opened, stretching to rocky highlands beyond. Even in the poor light, Green Water could make out the piled mounds of glacial rock.

Turning slightly, she saw him.

He crouched, head slumped backward unnaturally. Snow had drifted up around him.

Heart in her throat, Green Water shuffled over, shaking him by the shoulder. He didn't move. She shook him harder, tears welling. "Wake up! Runs In Light?" Fear etched her

face as she looked at the thick frost lining his fur hood. Even normal breathing should have melted some. ...

"No," she whispered. A yawning gulf opened within.

Settling on her heels, she clutched a mittenful of snow and slapped it into his face.
"Wolf Dreamer?
We can't come to this."

He remained stiff and silent.

Viciously, she slapped him again and again, screaming, "Don't you die! Don't you leave us to starve!
You led us here!"

Still he didn't move.

"No ... no ..." she moaned, dropping her face in her hands.

"Tired."

The whisper sank through her anger. Green Water gasped, falling on her knees beside him to brush snow from his cheeks. "What?"

"Tired. "

"Get up!" She beat him with her fists. "Get up, now!"

In a frantic gesture, she jerked his arm, dragging him to his feet. Staggering along beneath his weight, she forced him to walk, hoping his body could still generate enough heat to keep him alive.