People of the Wolf (41 page)

Horror twisted his soul. He cried pitiably, "No ... no, what did you do?"

"Dream . . .Dream, boy." The words shuddered from her mouth.

He crouched and touched her arm tenderly. "You're so cold."

Frantic, he plucked wood from the pile, applying the burning roots, thankful as flames licked up around the dry sticks.

"Here, sit up. Let me—"

"C-can't, boy. Poison. Can't move. Can't . . . feel. Dreaming, boy. Drifting. Not . . . not here."

He dropped to his knees, heart bursting, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Fight them," he whispered. "You can do it. Don't let their spirits beat you!"

He wrapped her in her robes, keeping her warm where she lay beside the crackling coals. "Please, Heron. Come back. I need you. I'm not finished learning."

"Dream, boy!" she croaked, saliva dribbling down her chin, eyes unfocused. "See? Look . . . there!" She cried:

'
'Built a big mountain out of dirt. Raised on sweat and hurt. Rose so high over the river. Eating plants! Bah! No spirit in that. Not like blood-filled liver.

"Father of Waters flows so rich,

Trickles water into the ditch.

Grow a plant, so tall and green,

Fruit is yellow. I have seen.

Feathers colored, the dead are laid.

Logs across and dirt is made.

Lazy sloth, in baskets carried—

Sun, man, and woman high are married.''

"She's raving," Broken Branch murmured from behind him, voice shaky. "I don't know what to do for her."

"Nothing," Wolf Dreamer said in a pained voice. "We talked about this possibility months ago. I think I understand what's happening to her. She'll live so long as she follows the Dream. If she hesitates, loses herself for an instant—she's dead."

"Sun God!"
Heron exploded, body jerking.

"Born of Light!

Spiral, you god of gaudy feathers! Carry the plant upon your back. Parch the seeds upon the rack. Rocks like sky are passing by.''

A black look crossed her face.

'
'Sun children . . . kill each other.

Long way south for the death of a brother.

Hot, dry, war is nigh.

Sing, Sun God, blood rises . . . stingers in the sky.

"And among the People?

Come the brothers!

Born of Sun. One is stayed.

Here, by the long trail, his corpse is laid.

Blood is spread, from the head.

Black one goes . . . aye, he's dead.

He who loves is lost and gone.

Render of the fair heart's song.

Woman weep, for not you know.

Lose forever
—
or live in snow!''

"That's it," he whispered, rocking her gently back and forth in his arms. "Follow the Dream through." "You, boy," she whispered.

"You. Born of Father Sun. Laid in the light next to night. Choose, my people. Dance the Father you don't know. South, ever south we go . . . Find an end to the blowing snow.''

She blinked spastically.

'
'Death in the high plains.

Others come.

Our old path they follow from.

Shelters they dig in the ground.

Made like holes in the round.

Farther . . . farther south they go.

Shelters.

Rock piled high. Raise the infants to the god in the sky.

Earth, hey Earth, from it spread.

Raise the underworld of the dead.

' 'Flight of the bird, so big, so loud. Calls the lightning from the cloud. "

"What's she talking about?" Broken Branch asked. Wolf Dreamer shook his head. "I don't—"

'
'Monster creatures on bellies crawl. Bite a man's foot. Watch him fall. Legless, armless, hair of scale. Shakes a rattle on his tail. Teeth of poison, hollow flail, Makes blood black and frail. "

Wolf Dreamer closed his eyes, her hand bound in his.

"East, aye, east. Then south the trail.

Born of ice . . . the mother's womb. Oh, black brother, there lies your doom. Taken by sea, their father came, Born of Sun, of Sun the same. One must live and one must die. See the souls rise to the sky.

"The sky? Aye, always the sky.

Blazing hot, and white the land,

Scorched by burning brand.

Dream the big beasts to the stars, away.

Their corpses bleach on dusty clay.

Change the land the People tread.

Find a new way
... or we'll
all be dead.

Learn the grass, the root, the berry.

Time is short, life not merry.

Pound and grind, grind and pound,

While the hot wind blows around.''

"How do we know," Broken Branch muttered hoarsely, "what she means?"

"Who . . . who called?"
Heron's head twisted.
"A voice out of time . . . Under it all, lies old pain. "

"It's me, you old hag," Broken Branch said in a strained voice.

' 'Hush!'' Wolf Dreamer ordered in terror. Broken Branch's hand flew to her quivering mouth. Wolf Dreamer pulled Heron close, whispering in her ear, "Hold the Dream. Don't let go of it!"

"Broken Branch,"
Heron muttered, shaking her head violently.
"Death to the west! Bear Hunter? Bear Hunter! Come back to
...
to . . ."

She stiffened, gasping, mouth open, eyes wide.
"Back to . . . the Dream. Gone . . . with Bear Hunter. Gone . .
. "

She stiffened, tongue protruding, images of horror reflected in her eyes.
"Can't. . . love
..."

The old woman went limp in his arms.

Stunned, he waited, rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand. "Heron? Dream. Follow it through!"

Her eyes emptied in the flickers of the fire. No expression changed her slack face.

"No . . ." he whispered in agony, shaking her gently. "No, don't leave me."

Broken Branch wailed, "She's gone! No, I didn't know what I was doing!"

"It wasn't you, Grandmother," he comforted. "It was Bear Hunter that killed her."

Broken Branch swallowed. "No, can't be. Dead. The man's been dead for years . . . years."

"She loved him." He fought the growing pit of cold expanding in his stomach. "She told me once. Can't Dream . . . and love."

The pain caught him unawares, wrapping around him, stinging his eyes, burning his heart. He barely heard himself start sobbing in anguish.

Back bowed to the blowing snow, she walked. Her heart thudded hollowly against her rib cage.

She turned, looking back at the blowing gray-white swirls of snow. The high point where she'd laid Talon's lifeless body was wrapped in haze. Wind Woman, in a mirroring of her soul, picked that moment to whip the ground blizzard into a frenzy, blasting her with stinging snow and gravel.

Dancing Fox flinched from the gale, turning her steps again to the trail left by Singing Wolf and One Who Cries, seeing their marks, rocks piled atop one another. Step by miserable step, she walked, Wind Woman's harsh breath flapping her pack about on her back, sawing the tump line viciously into her forehead.

A deep emptiness loomed in her soul; another piece of her life lay frozen behind her, obscured by the endless spirals of snow. Spirals, like the rest of her life. An endless line going nowhere, a way of marking the turns of a circle. Always she returned to the place she'd begun, her soul naked and alone.

Jaw muscles clamped, a crying knot of hunger in her stomach, she walked, step after step, placing her feet just so on the rocks, using a three-point stance to cross sections where the snow made footing treacherous.

As the Long Dark grew, she stopped and camped by a pile of rocks marking the trail. Curling on her side wrapped in her double parkas and robes, she touched the jumbled rock.

"A link with the People," she whispered, blinking tiredly. "Proof that there's a future, if I can just keep following."

She glanced fearfully at the swirling snow, then pulled the robes over her head and closed her eyes. Her dreams revolved around Runs In Light, the softness of his eyes, the gentleness of his touch. Maybe Talon had been wrong? Maybe he'd still want her?

The next day, she ate the last of the dried mammoth meat-rationed into ever-scanter meals—and squinted out over the vast plains of gusting white. Would the storm never let up?

"I'm coming, Runs In Light."

She staggered along, placing one foot ahead of the other.

Around midday, she lost the trail. Somewhere, somehow, the piles of rock vanished. She backtracked, following her steps as far as possible, nothing looking the same. At the last vestige of her trail, she looked around, circling, seeking the marking cairns. Nothing.

Panic tightened at the base of her heart. Almost frantic, she ran, slipping, stumbling, barking her shins on angular outcrops of glacial rock. Struggling to the top of a ridge, she put a hand to her eyes and searched the land: nothing, no trail.

"No," she gritted through clenched teeth. "I can't be lost. I can't!"

Only the howl of Wind Woman's coarse breath answered. The arms of doom twined around her.

Stark branches of willow squatted on inverted images in the hot pool, rippling with the gusting wind. Singing Wolf stared at them, concentrating on the feel of the warm mist. A deep fear clutched at him. Something was wrong in the world, terribly wrong. It was as though a malignancy lurked

out in the shadows, waiting with frightening patience for the People to grow comfortable and fat before it pounced.

Shoving his hands deep in his pockets, he fought the eerie sense of impending disaster. He'd never known this type of gnawing disquiet. It seemed as though the very ground be-, neath his feet might open and swallow him at any instant.

"You're worried?"

She came up behind him, placing hands on his shoulders.

"He's been gone two turnings of the moon." Singing Wolf filled his lungs, puffing out condensed breath.

"Green Water says he has to deal with himself. Understand Heron's death, and make peace with his conscience."

"You saw him when he left us." Singing Wolf shook his head slowly. "I've seen that look in the eyes of the old ones. It's there when they go out to die. Just empty, you know?" He turned halfway around to probe her sensitive eyes. "Like nothing's left in the soul."

"He'll heal."

"Maybe. If he lives. Only a fool goes out on the ice like that. Death is everywhere. All the cracks, the blocks broken and jumbled. No one can cross that. No one."

"He thought he could. You heard him talk about the buffalo." Laughing Sunshine tilted her face up to the warm fog, letting it drench her skin.

"I heard. When it comes to the buffalo and tapeworm, I believe him, too. But across the ice? No, we can't do that. That hole Wolf told him about must be the way."

"What if he can't find the hole?"

A tremor of anxiety touched him. "You think the children could walk across the shifting ice blocks? / wouldn't walk across them!" He lowered his eyes to stare at the wavering reflections of the winter-stark willows again. "If he can't find it we'll have to go back north—try and sneak past the Others."

Her hands tightened on his shoulder. "Buffalo Back is coming. Did you hear?"

He puffed out a weary exhale. "I did. It worries me sick. They run to us in the middle of the Long Dark? How will we feed them all? This valley doesn't have that much game."

Shamefacedly, she murmured, "That herd of mammoth are up in the foothills. One Who Cries wants to go hunt them.

In the deep snow, you'll do all right. Mammoth can't move in the drifts so well."

"The old bull, he was Heron's. I wouldn't want to. I know Heron's dead, but her soul clings here. Hangs in the air. Waiting, watching. I feel it."

She nodded, tugging the strings of her hood tight against the worrying of Wind Woman. A long silence stretched between them.

They stared at the western mountains, the glaciers rouged with pink fingers as the southern sun angled through the biting air. Clouds scudded out of. the north, threatening even more snow. The puckered nipples of piled rock gleamed eerily as long drifts of snow tapered away from the knobby tops. Over the bitter land, the Long Dark dropped, each day shorter than the last. Wind Woman's harsh breath scoured the earth.