People of the Wolf (21 page)

"Enough!" Heron cried, standing, breaking the trance. Caribou turned on their heels, dashing through the ranks of the women, dark feet throwing spurts of snow into the air.

A wounded caribou hobbled to one side, circling to stand meekly before Heron. The old woman settled her dart, balancing the weapon, casting true. The young cow turned, reeling, and pitched on her side to kick futilely.

Only the rasping breath of dying beasts broke the silence.

Runs In Light gasped a deep breath, unaware of how he'd become so winded. Across the space, Heron's eyes locked with his, probing.

"Did you know you did it?" she called. The words echoed in his mind.

He shook his head. "What?"

"You sang them the rest of the way in.
You did.
"

Runs In Light eased down on a rock to stare dumbly at the bloody snow, the feel of the cow's pain still deep in his breast.

"I'm sorry, Mother," he said in a wounded voice, gazing at the dead animal.

The Long Dark waned.

The spirits that haunted the eddies of Wind Woman's breath whimpered to the north while warmer winds circled up from the southwest, leaving the snow sodden and heavy. To the west, the mountains gleamed dazzlingly white on the few days when the sun shone in the sky. Water trickled from the knife-edged ridges. To the north, the huge braided river poured in torrents, white water shooting high as it bashed from rock to rock.

Time after time, the People hunted the caribou and—best of all—the small herds of musk oxen who foraged in the foothills. Musk ox's flesh had always been a favorite, rich, sweet, heavy with fat—even in this terrible year.

"Leave the mammoth alone," Heron warned, seeing the old bull entering the lower portion of the pool to soak his joints. "Sure, he's got cows and calves up there—but I know them. I won't Dream them in."

Nevertheless, the People grew strong, rendering the carcasses of the kills, boiling fat from the bodies—poor though it might be after so much endless cold. Faces filled, limbs grew strong and hale.

One Who Cries laughed and sang, finding an outcrop of fine-grained quartzite from which to craft his long dart points. The finest flint knapper among the People, he studied the head-sized boulders, judging the stone with a practiced eye before driving off thick wedges of the rock. These primary flakes he quickly thinned with practiced strokes of his hammerstone.

"Good stuff!" he called to Singing Wolf. "Look, look how well the stone flakes, broad and flat with good control."

"Such little things make you happy." Singing Wolf shook his head.

"Uh-huh." And he couldn't deny the truth of that. He pulled his caribou antler from the pack, feeling the use-smoothed texture of the tool. He used it as a baton to shape a preform—a basic blank flaked
off
both sides into a thin lenticular shape. One Who Cries sang spirit songs as the baton snapped long thin flakes from the preform. One by one, he made a supply of preforms, most of which went into his pack for future use. From the lenticular shape, he could produce a variety of styles of tool including scrapers, knives, burins and gravers, or dart points as the need arose.

"Nice to see you working again." Singing Wolf settled himself to watch.

One Who Cries whistled loudly, feeling his soul swell. "A person's spirit goes into the stone, you know. There's wonder in that. Good tool stone, like this quartzite, or a fine chert, well, it takes soul better."

Having achieved the basic shape, One Who Cries used his antler and leather to carefully thin the point. He ground the sharp edges down with sandstone, preparing a platform—a purchase surface—for the antler tine. Doing so allowed him more control as he snapped long thin flakes from the point. When he finished, he had produced a parallel-sided point with a needle-sharp tip that just covered the breadth of his hand. He gave the base of the point a final grinding with the sandstone to keep the keen edges from severing the binding sinew when he hafted it to a foreshaft.

"Now there," he whispered in awe, "is a real beauty."

"And here's the shaft that will hold it." Singing Wolf raised a section of birch sapling to the sky, sighting along it for irregularities. Having collected three dozen, he laid them aside to prepare his tools. He reformed thin sections of a waste flake from the pile at One Who Cries' feet, using an antler tine to create a steep-angled cutting edge along one margin of the stone. With that, he carefully peeled the bark from the shafts, smoothing the knots, using a bone-shaft wrench to straighten the rods over a low fire. The best of the specimens he split to hold One Who Cries' expertly crafted points.

"You know, for a while there, I thought we'd never have

the chance to do this again." One Who Cries stared at the wood, thoughtfully slipping his dart point into the groove.

"Wolf Dream, huh?"

One Who Cries grinned. "We're not dead yet, cousin."

Green Water, Laughing Sunshine, and the other women spent the growing days measuring hides carefully against the bodies of the People, sewing the closely tailored garments to fit. In a careful stitch, they closed the seams, leaving the hair inside to provide insulation and circulation to carry away deadly sweat.

"Now, you've got to do this right," Green Water explained to Red Star.

"These are just outer parkas?" Her eyes grew big.

"That's right. Undergarments, the ones that fit next to the skin, we'll have to wait and make from caribou fawn. But for these heavy cold-weather parkas, we have to use winter hides. See? The hair has to be tight. If we killed any later in the season, the hair would slip, fall out."

"So we have two parkas," Red Star observed soberly. "The outer parka goes with the hair out . . . and the under parka from the fawn hide goes hair in!"

Green Water reached over to ruffle her hair. "You're going to make the best of all, huh?"

"Yes!" Red Star giggled. "They're like shelters for each person. That's why they hang down almost to the knees, it makes a tent around you and the long boots come way up high inside."

"You won't freeze," Laughing Sunshine called, inspecting the parka she'd just finished. In all, the complete suit weighed just over ten pounds and could keep a human from freezing-even in the deepest biting cold of the Long Dark when a man's spit froze before it hit the ground.

"I'll be the best!" Red Star promised. "You'll see."

Green Water smiled, eyes closed to feel the sun on her face. "Yes, we'll see. Thanks to Wolf Dreamer."

Broken Branch waddled around, enjoying moments of delight as she floated in the hot pool or picked at the curious yellow crust that formed where the water lapped at the rocks.

From the rocks—exposed by the retreating drifts—moss, lichen, and overwintered leaves were gathered to make the

strong black tea. As the thick brambles of blueberry, bear-berry, and cranberry melted out, fat berries remained, preserved through the Long Dark, sweet and succulent as their juices melted in the mouth.

The children ran, laughed, and played, splashing in the warm waters, eyes twinkling.

Standing a hundred yards from Heron's cave, One Who Cries, Jumping Hare, and Singing Wolf watched the water from the hot pool rise in twining wreaths, casting occasional glances to where Runs In Light stood talking to the old Dreamer. Heron's cackle rent the air like a knife.

One Who Cries stood tall, filling his lungs with crisp spring-scented air as he studied flights of ravens coming up from the south. A flock of scavenger gulls wheeled to the west. "Caribou," he mumbled. "There must be a herd coming."

"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 cocked 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 best leaders 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 Sunshine, 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 grasses. "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?"