People - People of the Wolf Part 3

"We're leaving here tomorrow!" Crow Caller nodded to himself. "Leaving?"

Singing Wolf asked, hand playing over his wife's unfeeling head. "I've hunted .. . and seen no game. If we starve to death sitting .. . won't we starve faster walking? Worse, in hunger, we've eaten our dogs.

Everything must be carried on our backs."

"If we go .. ." One Who Cries added thoughtfully, "we'll leave a string of dead. You expect these old ones to keep up? And which way will we go?" He raised a hand to augment his flat-faced expression. "Where is mammoth? Where is caribou?"

"Maybe we were supposed to come here," Singing Wolf cried pa.s.sionately over his wife's renewed sobbing. "You're the Dreamer. Do something. I'm tired of watching my children die. Go back? But behind are the Others.If we go back .. . they'll kill us. Maybe if we go further south, we'll--"

"We can't go south," Crow Caller rasped, his ancient face lined and sagging under the pull of hunger. With his one good eye, he searched their faces, disturbed by Broken Branch's flinty squint. "My father's father went there." His fur-lined parka hood flapped around his white-streaked black hair. "He found a wall of ice higher than men can climb. Higher than seagull can fly. Eagle can fly that high .. . but nothing else. They hunted--"

"How do you know it's higher than a man can climb?" Broken Branch ran a sleeve across her running nose and taunted, "Eh? Did your grandfather try?" A hush descended, Laughing Suns.h.i.+ne's wailing silenced by the challenge to the People's greatest shaman.

Crow Caller's face crimsoned. "He didn't have to. He could look at it and know--"

"He was a coward," said Broken Branch. "The People knew it then .. . and we see it in you now. You go back north if you want. Let those Others kill you." She waved a mittened hand to the gray horizon. "But I'm going south. Heron went out there someplace. Now there was a real Dreamer!

She'd make--"

"What?" Crow Caller ridiculed. "You'd follow a witch? A wicked Spirit who sucks men's souls and blows them out into the Long Dark? Besides, she's just a legend. Like smoke blowing around your doddering mind."

"Bah! What do you know? I knew her!" the old woman spat. "She went south seeking Spirit Power to--"

"Then go!" Crow Caller shouted, nodding at the crowd. "This old hag deserves death. She's no good to the People. She's too old to hunt or fish. Her womb has gone as dead as her mind. She can't even Dream anymore. "

Murmurs swept the wastes, faces hardening. Unable to Dream? A sign the spirit world had abandoned a person. The old shaman straightened, gloating. Hesitant eyes flickered back and forth, watching, waiting.

Broken Branch lifted an eyebrow. "Well, that makes me more fortunate than you. At least I don't have to suffer false Dreams .. . Dreams that hurt the People. Or worse .. . make them up to keep people believing in a Power that died long ago."

Someone whispered, stepping back a pace.

Dancing Fox swallowed hard, seeing the spark of hate fill Crow Caller's black eye. His white one always made her think of death--like a corpse long hidden beneath the snow.

"You accuse me of making up Dreams?" the shaman shouted. "You--"

"Tell me about going north," Raven Hunter cried, spitting at the old woman in disdain. "Why should we go that way?"

"This land is ours!" the shaman shouted over the keening of Wind Woman.

"Do we walk off and leave the bones of our fathers just because of some Others who--""I'm not afraid of the Others," Raven Hunter said calmly. "Think, people," he continued. "What's happened to us? The Others live in our best hunting grounds, on the path of the caribou. The farther south we go, the drier it is. The higher the ground and rockier. There's more wind. Lots of lakes we can't cross in the Long Light. We can't collect mussels on the beaches anymore. Why? Because the Others have driven us here! Will caribou come this far south? Will mammoth? Look at the sphagnum moss, the wormwood, the tussock gra.s.ses. See how short they are here? If we go farther south, will they go away entirely? If caribou and mammoth can't eat, neither do we.

"As I've killed Grandfather White Bear," said Raven Hunter, "I'll kill Others, too." "You're a young idiot," Broken Branch snorted disgustedly.

"Go sit down somewhere and don't bother anyone."

"Hush, old woman," Crow Caller croaked. "The People don't care what you have to say. Leave us!"

Broken Branch shook her head. "This is what we've come to under your leaders.h.i.+p? Snapping among ourselves when we're praying for this baby's soul?" She gestured toward Laughing Suns.h.i.+ne.

"Go!"

But she stayed, eyes hard as obsidian. Behind her, old Talon nodded agreement.

Crow Caller surveyed the anxious faces in the gathering. Some looked down at the snow. Others watched him hopefully, remembering earlier warnings.

"I'm going to finish telling you about the south this old woman wants you to seek. My grandfather and his people hunted there," he cried harshly. "For days they found nothing but cold and rock and gravel and impa.s.sable lakes. Like us, they starved. They followed the ice wall for many days, eating their clothing to keep strong. Many, many died. They turned back to the north, thinking they might find mammoth, or even seal or fox.

"They walked until they came to the salt water. But there, too, the ice continued, stretching far out into the water. Desperate, they started back west for the Big River. They knew they'd find food there." He raised his voice, shrieking into the wind. "They found seal and sh.e.l.lfish and caribou. They lived and my (Father's father told my father, and he told me, "Don't go south. A wall of ice is there .. .

death is there." "

"Then we must go north," One Who Cries agreed. "Maybe we can cut west, follow along the mountains to--"

"Wind Woman will catch us," Gray Rock interrupted, mouthing her toothless gums. "Don't forget, this is the middle of the Long Dark. Wind Woman will laugh and call Cloud Mother. What chance will we have out there? Eh? You tell me. What chance in the middle of a storm? Wind Woman will freeze us as we walk. Our bones will--"

"What chance have we here?" Crow Caller asked. "Remember when I looked inside Seagull? I saw then that we needed to go north. I saw--" "You saw nothing!" Broken Branch cried derisively, a fist pounding air. "You've seen nothing but darkness for years. And now you would lie to keep upthe sham. Lie .. . and lead us all to our doom!"

From the corner of her eye, Dancing Fox saw Jumping Hare start suddenly, then run, weaving through the ma.s.s of dead bodies to fall on the ground, eyes widening.

"Look!" he shouted. "Blood. Here, by Flies Like A Seagull's foot."

Men shuffled forward. Dancing Fox ignored them, dropping beside Suns.h.i.+ne to comfort her in the turmoil. "Come on, I'll sing with you," she a.s.sured in a soothing voice. "You and I can sing the baby to the Star People by ourselves." She lifted her sweet voice in the haunting melody of death, Suns.h.i.+ne weakly echoing her words.

"Wolf tracks," One Who Cries grunted, stilling the women's eerie song.

"Wolf jumped here." He lowered his head, studying the snow at an angle.

"There, see? He landed and ran." On all fours he scrambled along, head bent to the crusted snow. "Aieee! Blood here, too! Wolf is hurt bad."

Raven Hunter looked around, searching faces. "Where is my brother, Runs In Light?"

Fox took a quick breath, heart pounding. "Runs In Light?" Patting Suns.h.i.+ne's arm, she struggled to her feet and slid down the drift toward the shelter.

Ice gleamed treacherously as she hurried. Even that exertion took her breath and left her legs trembling. At his shelter, she crawled under the flap, wide-eyed in the darkness under the mammoth hide. Some of the old people and a few of the weaker children looked absently back at her.

Runs In Light's robes lay empty, his weapons gone.

Slipping back outside, she hurried up the slope, panting, "He's gone.

He's taken his weapons and--"

"One wolf," Singing Wolf said through gritted teeth. He pulled off his mitten, placing the urine-soaked snow to his nose to sniff. "Hungry wolf. Like us ... he's starving."

"And Runs In Light shot him!" One Who Cries sang out. "Perhaps Light didn't make a good wound--but it'll kill. I smell gut juice in this blood."

Like Wind Woman in the willows, a ripple of relief went through the People. Dancing Fox smiled, a lightness caressing her heart. Runs In Light would save them. Her pride at hisA hard hand clamped her shoulder.

Crow Caller bent her head back to glare into her eyes, hissing softly, "Happy, eh? Happy that Runs In Light has killed wolf?"

She twisted, but he held her tight. "Of course, I'm happy. You think I want to die?"

"One wolf? For all these hungry bellies?" The hand tightened until she winced. She couldn't help but stare into his white-blinded eye. As always, she s.h.i.+vered.

"The other .. . hunters .. . They haven't even got a wolf."

"You are my wife. But I see your eyes going to Runs In Light. I see your smiles for him. I know what's in your heart, woman." He jerked hershoulder so hard she cried out softly. "And I know what's in his."

"What difference does it make?" she pleaded. "I'm your wife. I can't--"

"Remember that," he said, shoving her away and calling loudly, "I'm leaving this place at the rising of Father Sun. I'm going north .. .

then west around the mountains. That is the way--the way to mammoth!

This I've seen in a Dream!" He whirled, trudging back for the shelter.

Broken Branch brought him up sharply when she yelled, "Who will follow?

Who'll follow a man of false Dreams?"

Crow Caller straightened, then continued walking as though her words were nothing more than the howling of Wind Woman. Dancing Fox stared after him, heart stuttering a cadence of hatred.

"Leave him," Broken Branch whispered in her ear, unbidden. "I'll let you stay in my lodge."

"Then neither one of us would get any food, Grandmother. "

"Light would never let you starve," she whispered. "His feelings for you haven't dimmed."

Dancing Fox felt a sob well in her throat. She swallowed hard to keep it from rising. "It doesn't matter anymore. Besides, Crow Caller controls my soul--and yours too."

"You mean those clippings of hair and smears of menstrual blood? Bah, those only work in the hands of man with Power. Don't worry about him.

He's as harmless as a gutted wolf." "So long as he has the backing of the People, Grandmother, he's not harmless. He can do whatever he wants to me and no one will dare--"

"Don't let him beat you to nothingness," Broken Branch grumbled. "That's worse than being an outcast." Turning away, she patted Laughing Suns.h.i.+ne's bowed head before tottering back to the warmth of the shelters. Old Talon bent to growl reprimands into Broken Branch's ear.

The old woman cackled angrily, and waved Talon off as she bowled past.

Talon hesitated for a moment, took a step toward Fox, and stopped. Her lips twitched in her brown face before she sighed and turned for the shelters, following in Broken Branch's wake.

Dancing Fox s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably from foot to foot. She could never leave Crow Caller. He'd kill her--and the People would help him. From behind her, she heard Raven Hunter's soft condemning laughter and looked around sharply. He stroked his handsome face knowingly, as if his keen ears had caught every word Broken Branch had whispered.

"Take care," he murmured, striding to loom over her. "Your husband's Power may be gone, but no one belie1 es it except Broken Branch. They'll tear you to pieces for shaming him."

"I don't need your advice."

He grinned, looking her up and down. "Not yet. But you will."

"Never!"Smiling, he reached out and grabbed a tendril of her hair that fluttered in the wind. Caressing it, he whispered, "We'll see."

She jerked away, glowering. He held her eyes for a moment, probing deeply. "When you're trapped," he said in a conspiratorial voice, "remember .. . I'll be there."

"Get away from me!"

He c.o.c.ked his head, laughing as he turned and trotted down the slope.

She squeezed her eyes closed.

Chapter 4.

Dancing Fox huddled at the edge of the knot of people who stood at the corner of the big shelter. She stared out across the snow-blasted wastes, heart numb, watching three men buck the snow.

Runs In Light walked in front, Wind Woman flapping his worn caribou-skin parkas, the creases of his garments lined white where snow had caked and frozen. A whisper of awe rose as the last of the light caught his face.

Fox lifted a mittened hand to her mouth. Look how he has painted his face! Red lines of blood ran down around his cheeks, circling his mouth like a muzzle. In speckle-dried blood, the image of what might have been either a bear or wolf faced left on his forehead.

Her heart raced. Look at the oddness gleaming behind his eyes--like a whale-oil fire in the night. He's seen something powerful. Maybe spirits do exist?

"Hah--heeee!" Broken Branch shrilled, wild gray strands of hair whipping in Wind Woman's grasp. She raised a bony arm, k.n.o.bby brown finger stabbing through the glacial air. "There .. . There's a Dreamer! See the light in his face? Spirit has walked there. Spirit has drawn marks of a powerful Dreaming!" She bobbed in excitement.

Dancing Fox stared fearfully at Crow Caller. He loomed black against the driven white. Tight jaw muscles jumped beneath his sunken cheeks.

"My brother?" Raven Hunter scoffed. "A Spirit Dreamer? More likely he conjures images of snowflakes in sunlight."

Fox squared her shoulders, feeling his gleaming black eyes trace the lines of her face. She looked away, hearing him as he approached to stand beside her. Teeth gritted, she kept her eyes on Runs In Light.

"My brother's mind is simple, woman," Raven Hunter whispered softly.

"His thoughts are in a different world than yours or mine."

She swallowed and looked up into his hard face. "How would you know?"

"Your devious ideas lie on your face like tracks in fresh snow," Raven Hunter said, sarcastic humor and something else, something painful, in his eyes. "And it's not just me who sees them."

"I don't know what you're--"

"I think you do." Smiling, he walked away, lithe, a predator even in starvation. Curse him to be buried, did he have to be so sure of himself? Something, the way his eyes looked, made her wonder. Haughty or not, Raven Hunter rarely made mistakes. That was his genius, knowing how souls--human and animal--worked.

Two children broke from the knot, stumbling out to greet Jumping Hare and One Who Cries as they tramped nearer, bearing angular chunks of frozen wolf meat.

The only burden Runs In Light bore dangled gray from his shoulders: wolf's hide, head still attached, eyes crystal-frozen and dull.

"Runs In Light brings meat!" Jumping Hare cried. Then his voice thrummed higher, like walrus gut in the sun. "And he brings a Dream!"They waited, tense, staring at the red-white slabs of meat on the hunter's shoulders, minds on the promise of life it bestowed. A Dream? A Spirit Dream?