The dogs were lying still now, as if they too had been listening. All around members of their families continued to go about their business. A baby cried and was put to his mother’s breast. Dried fish was pulled from packs and offered around. They would eat something now, because soon they’d be on the water. Once they’d launched, they’d be paddling for the rest of the day, across this lake and then down the long creek that discharged white-water into yet another lake.
“Ah, there you are, Yaot’l.” Her mother came from beneath the spruce shade. She now had Little Brother by the hand.
“Here! You stay with your sister this time, will you? And you, daughter—you watch him until we reach camp tonight.”
Inwardly, Yaot’l groaned. Keeping an eye on Little Brother wasn’t easy.
“I thought you were out looking for him, you know, and here you are, just sitting and wagging your jaw.” Her mother pushed Little Brother forward. “Now, son, this time do what you are told and stay with your sister.”
Beneath her mother’s stern gaze, Sascho shifted uncomfortably.
“Where was he?” Yaot’l rose and took her brother’s hand.
“Never mind where he was. I was the one who went back and found him.”
“I was with Johnny and George, pulling their canoe.”
“You were not pulling the canoe. You were being a nuisance, and you know it.”
“I was not a nuisance, Ma. I pulled a lot. Johnny said if I helped, I could go with them through the white water.”
Johnny and George were still young, near Yaot’l’s age, still honing their river skills. None of them, even together, were really strong enough to handle a loaded canoe in the strong current they’d soon be navigating.
“They are not going to take that little boat by themselves through the white water.”
“But they said—”
“Babàcho Crooked Hand wouldn’t allow it. Not after what happened to Little Joe‑‑and on that same stretch of water, too. You’ll come in the big canoe with your sister, Aunt Katie, me and Uncle Ted.”
Little Brother immediately tried to yank himself free of Yaot’l’s grasp. Not even a reminder of the cautionary tale‑‑told at the campfire just the night before‑‑of how Little Joe Crooked Hand had drowned in the upcoming passage‑‑was going to deter him.
“No! I don’t want to go with you. I’m not a baby!” He stamped, scowling like a thunder cloud.
Young as he was, he could be trouble, especially when he didn’t get his way. Everyone in the family agreed he’d been a bossy, demanding baby. Now, he was a child who gave every sign of growing into exactly the same kind of adult. Even his ordinarily calm mother could lose patience.
“I was going to ask Yaot’l if she’d like to go with me.” Sascho got to his feet. “Little Brother can come with us.”
Her brother stopped his pulling and looked hopefully at his mother. Even traveling with his sister wouldn’t be so bad if he was with an older boy like Sascho.
“Well, we’ll ask your goɂeh.” Mother appeared to be considering. “You’ll have two of my children in your canoe, Sascho, so only if he thinks it best.”
John came through the bush. They saw the white feather in his hat before they saw him, as he emerged through a stand of sapling alder.
“I want to go with Sascho! Uncle John! Tell Mother I am a big boy and that I can go.”
John came to join them silently taking in the scene. Little Brother continued to beg and hop up and down. John watched his antics for a few minutes until the little boy, quelled by his gaze, grew still.
“Little Brother, you will go with me, Nàbe and Babàcho.” He pointed along the bank toward a large canvas boat stuffed with bundles. The boy, over-awed by this family elder, head low, went to take his outstretched hand. Mother, with a ghost of a smile, watched.
Yaot’l dared a smile in Sascho’s direction. He shot her a look, eyes dancing, for now they both believed they would be allowed to travel alone together. They would be paddling through rough waters, but they could talk unobserved. However, just as the idea began to seem a possibility, Uncle John added, “I passed Mamàcho Josette coming through the bush. You two can take her along.”
Just as he finished speaking, the old woman appeared, leaning heavily upon a stick. Even though she was bent and lame, she nevertheless packed a large bundle on her back.
“Is there a place for me in your canoe, young Sascho?”
Mother looked, a little uncertainly, toward Uncle John, for this was another kind of responsibility the children would be assuming—the care of a valued elder—but he only nodded and said, “You have come at just the right time, Mamàcho. These two have strong arms. Here,” he said, stepping to help her remove the burden. “They will paddle for you today.”
John set about making a place for her in the middle of the birch canoe. After she and her bundle were settled, he and Sascho moved the boat deeper into the water. Yaot’l and Mother joined in, wading and holding the sides. One at a time, Sascho and then Yaot’l climbed in with their paddles. These they pushed against the gravel bottom, while John and Mother, one on either side, gently pushed the boat out into the current.
Yaot’l took the front and Sascho sat in the back. The canoe was laden with packs and cook pots. Mamàcho’s tiny body wrapped in a brown dress occupied the middle. The water on either side was brown, filled with boggy, ice cold run-off.
The river itself, their elders knew, would keep them busy, especially with a sluggish loaded canoe. There were no rapids right away, but, later, a number came, one after the other. They were not too difficult for a well-handled boat, but there were tricks to negotiating the rocks that experience taught best. Sascho had been down the river with adults before, as had Yaot’l. Neither were novices.
It was, however, a new thing for both of them, to travel together, even at opposite ends of the boat, even with Mamàcho in between. Yaot’l was a little anxious about the responsibility—just for a moment—and she imagined her companion was feeling the same, though he was doing his best to appear manly and in charge.
The air was heavy with the smells of summer, heat and vegetation. An occasional cloud of insects hung over green backwaters. In the middle, the river was deep, but there were more rocks to negotiate in late summer, ones that were not a hazard in spring.
While they paddled, Mamàcho Josette began to sing in a voice that remained surprisingly clear. She sang of the water, and of the bounty of summer. She called for the spirit of the river to keep them safe as they journeyed; she greeted the fish now swimming unseen in the brown water below, calling them little brothers. She called to a large boulder that the river cut a fork around, greeting its spirit by name, and thanking it as they sped past for letting them pass safely.
All her songs made Yaot’l feel ever so happy; for these were songs she’d heard her whole life, during passages along the various waterways of the Tłı̨chǫ dèè. That, and the wonderful knowledge that she and Sascho had been set to work together, that he was right behind her, steering with such skill.
The rest of day passed swiftly as they worked their way down river, keeping clear of rocks, negotiating the white water. Members of other families floated ahead and behind; sometimes boats under power would surge past them, but few were inclined to waste gasoline when it was so easy to go this way, in the direction of flow. Along the banks they’d catch sight of those dogs, running along on shore, trying to keep pace with their master.
Behchok’o, when they arrived, seemed both smaller and larger than the last time Yaot’l had visited the place. Right away she saw that there alongside old, weathered cabins, there were new ones, brightly painted in yellow and blue. These belonged to the Tłı̨chǫ and Métis people who now made the place their all season home. Still, Yaot’l was no longer the small girl who had wondered at the sight of cabins.
As they waded ashore, pulling in the loaded canoe, the cabins, and in the far distance, the church spire, did not seem so strange as they had the first time she’d seen them.
They offered to hold each other’s arms and make a chair to carry Josette to the land, but the old woman shook her head.
“I’m not afraid of water. Just don’t get any on that pack.” She indicated the one she’d been carrying on her back, all gathered up inside an old blue blanket. Once they’d set her on her feet, she gathered her skirts and waded out. Yaot’l, carrying her cane, followed close behind, in case her Mamàcho stumbled.
Other boats were nearby. Some had just come in. Others were already pulled high onto the shore and were being unloaded. Packages of canvas, bundles of furs and hides as well as cookpots were stacked here and there, all things needed for a visit to a trading post.
“You both paddled well.” The old lady spoke as Yaot’l handed her the cane.
“Thank you, Grandmother.”
When she turned again, she saw that Sascho had already pushed the canoe against the shore. In a moment, she would help him drag it up to a safe spot among the others. On all sides came the babble of voices, as families greeted one another. Behchok’o relatives were arriving to seek out family members, to help carry packs and admire children that hadn’t been seen since last year.
On either side of the canoe, they pulled it onto the bank. Sascho’s arms looked strong from the other side of the shared load. Her own arms ached by the time they were done, so she was pleased when he, instead of straightaway beginning to unload, took her hand. A moment later, they were seated on the shore together, side by side, gazing out at the blue water.
“The white water did not last as long as I expected. We are getting stronger.”
“Seemed like that to me, too. I expected it to be rougher when we came through that last section with all those rocks, but it wasn’t so hard today.”
Yaot’l nodded, enjoyed the warm touch of his hand, for he had not let go. It wouldn’t last long, this quiet moment, and both of them knew it. Someone would come and tell them to get a move on and carry those packs to wherever they were going, but it was worth risking that, or the likely teasing, just to sit together, with the cheerful chatter of family all around, there on the dusty Behchok’o shore.
As they approached the site for the tea dance, the sound of drumming grew, quickening like a heartbeat. The swishing stamp of many feet underscored the rhythm. As they entered the circle of firelight, there was, for Yaot’l, the thrill of standing tall and being seen. Families from all over had come together. Everyone was dressed in their best.
The men wore pants, boots and button down shirts like those worn by kwet’ı̨ı̨̀. Mothers and grandmothers wore new-beaded moccasins and bright scarves from the trading post. The younger women, just entering womanhood, did more. They brushed their black hair until it shone and then braided it with extra care. The ends were tied and ornamented with either new or well-pressed hair ribbons, for this was a time when marriage agreements were made.
To start off, they danced a simple step. Then, as more and more families joined the circle, the drummers doubled the tempo. Chairs and benches had materialized around the big bonfire earlier, so the elders could sit and watch, although some of them danced for a time before retiring. The men danced first, but, bit by bit, the women joined in. A few young men, some nearing their twenties, danced from the beginning, but others stood just outside the ring of light, pretending to be aloof while talking and joking with each another. Shy glances toward the dancers, especially when some particularly marriageable female slowly danced past, gave away more genuine feelings.
Back in the shadows behind them was a cluster of uneasy looking young men, most of whom had short hair—a sure sign that they had been taken away to school. The school boys, Yaot’l thought, always were much shyer than the ones who had not gone away.
Yaot’l’s heart gave a jump when she saw Sascho among the onlookers. He and his cousins appeared to be egging one another on to join in. Her mother touched her arm to get her attention, and then directed her gaze toward Jimmy who was already dancing. Yaot’l promptly looked at her feet, now looking very pretty in the moccasins she and her mother had just finished. They were of pale moose hide and decorated with floral shapes in green silk thread and sparkling green beads. Beside her, noting the reaction, her mother sighed.
“Tailbones are a good family and Jimmy will be a good provider.”
“I know, Mama.”
“Your father will talk to him tonight, I think.”
Yaot’l’s throat tightened, but she didn’t dare to protest. To contest what was, on the face, a sensible plan, at a time when her father was so ill, would be selfish—plain bad, in fact, to not put the good of her family first. Sternly, she stared into the bonfire, hoping to find comfort in the reliably cheerful sight.
Perhaps Jimmy would not want her. He had been spending a lot of time in Sharon Gon’s company. It was likely, surely, that he would prefer the handsome widow? She could hope!
On every side, faces were rosy with fire—lines and creases on the elders, smooth shiny cheeks on maidens. On every side there were Tłı̨chǫ faces. Some families had round faces, other families who had long, gaunt faces, like the Cree or the kwet'ı̨ı̨̀.
The fire was fresh and roaring, so sometimes she was blinded by billowing flames. Then, for a time afterwards, while her eyes adjusted again, everyone was obscured by shadow. It was so familiar, this firelight circle of the people surrounding her. She was not ready for her place in it to change, not yet.
Sascho had joined the dancers, and as he circled past, the fire leapt again. She could not see his eyes, and whether he’d actually looked at her or not, but she felt he’d seen her, somehow. When a line of women succeeded the men, without hesitation or asking her mother, she stepped into the dance. She could see his strong shoulders in a new shirt among those youngsters moving ahead of her. His face in profile was calm and concentrated.
And she too should concentrate. The tribe was together; for so many families to be in one place happened but once a year. In the voice of the drum and the rhythm of feet, in the old song the men sang, Yaot’l lost herself. Even if they were not close to one another, through this chain of life and energy, she believed she could single him out, feel his heart beat. When he made a circle of his dance, in such a way that his eyes could meet hers, she believed that all these imaginings must certainly true.
More and more people joined in. The tempo increased. Overhead, as if by magic, a green aurora appeared, and it too danced, shaking like a flag in a breeze. The dancers, a flock now, flew around one another, negotiating the space between one another, the fire, and the chairs and blankets of the onlookers. This was the purpose of the dance, after all, this melding, and this unity. Yaot’l knew when it happened, the belonging and joy.
Now our minds are one.
Yaot’l felt safe and content, but then, with a thrill, she realized that Sascho had found his way to her side. For an instant, as they danced in tandem, his fingers sought hers and squeezed. Although he did not smile, he sent a long look deep into her eyes. All too soon, the ebb and flow of The People moved them apart.
Later, as the red and blue bonfire lay dying, beneath the noisome flare of kerosene-and-rag torches, the dance broke up and everyone went to the food tent. People sat on benches or blankets on the ground and talked; small children curled here and there, fast asleep despite the bustle and chatter. There were sugary drinks, bannock, jelly, and cakes. Just outside, over cook-fires with upright metal racks set above them, women turned out fry bread from deep sided black skillets. Nearby, fire-blackened kettles simmered, each filled with hot weak tea, the old folk’s favorite.
Everyone else lined for hot fry bread. You could dip it in syrup, or sprinkle on a party-time mixture of sugar and cinnamon. After Yaot’l dipped her bread into the shallow bowl of sugar, she went to stand outside. Here small children played while older boys and girls sidled up to one another, surreptitiously talking and teasing in the shadows. Yaot’l found a place to stand, and wasn’t at all surprised to find that somehow or another, Sascho appeared. For a time, they simply stood close, smiling at one another and eating the hot bread and licking sugar from sticky fingers.
“Oh, such good fry bread! Delicious!”
“My Auntie Susie’s is a little better, I think,” said Sascho.
“Nothing is better than this.” Over the hubbub, a boy’s prideful voice sounded. “That is straight from my Aunt Joyce’s kettle. She always uses lard.” The boy spoke out proudly, for such expensive fat was a treat.
They turned to see a thin well-dressed boy in a cowboy shirt, one who had run through the circle of dancers several times.
Sascho smiled, then pitched his voice low and replied, “My Aunt Susie is right over there.” He indicated a round-faced matron only a few feet away, with a drooling toddler straddling one hip. His Auntie was enjoying a laugh with a friend. She’d even been dancing earlier, despite the cranky little one she carried.
“And that is my Auntie Joyce.” The boy nodded toward a tiny bird-like woman who was busy scooping fry bread from the oil with a basket sieve. The fragrance of the fat, just at the right temperature, and the smell of cooking dough, deliciously filled the air. “She cooks at all our festivals here in Behchok’o.”
“I’ve never been to a festival here,” said Sascho.
“Never been to Behchok’o?” To this boy, that appeared to be almost unthinkable.
“I was at Behchok’o once, but I was younger,” said Yaot’l. “We didn’t come to the tea dance, though.”
“Don’t your families come to trade?”
“Our Ka’waoe comes with my uncles to take care of that.”
“So you have never been to school?”
“No.” All the time they were giving way to the pressure of eager fry bread seekers, moving well out of earshot of both proud-cook aunties.
“It’s the law now, you know, that you go to school. Your family could get in trouble with the RCMP or the Indian agent if they find out.”
Sascho said nothing, but he and Yaot’l shared a glance which said ’we better go away from this loud little person.’ Anyone could be is listening!
“Have you been to school?” Yaot’l asked. Sascho had begun to glance around at the crowd, senses alert. He was a boy, almost a man, and was suddenly realizing that although this dance was fun, there was also an edge of danger for “wild Indians” like them, if they came to the attention of the authorities.
“No, but I will go soon with Tanis, my little sister. See her?” he pointed proudly to a dainty little girl in a new white deer skin dress.”
“She is very pretty—and so is her dress,” Yaot’l said. They kept walking, licking the last of Aunt Joyce’s excellent fry bread crumbs from their fingers, but the boy seemed to want to go on talking. He followed in that fancy tasseled shirt.
“I’m Kele Stonypoint,” he said. “I’m not afraid of going to school.”
“I’m Sascho Lynx and I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Yes. Who says we are afraid?” Yaot’l, also stung, added her thoughts. “Our parents need us to work with them.”
Who does this boy think he is? He is much younger than us, after all.
At the same time, she and Sascho kept moving, looking from side to side as they walked. Where was the family? The Gam`e`t`i visitors weren’t immediately obvious in the milling crowd. Yaot’l realized this was the most people she’d ever seen all crowded into one place.
“You don’t know how to speak English, do you?”
“I know a little,” said Sascho. He knew a few words, about furs and money.
“Well, my family speaks English and they’ve taught me, so I am ready to go to school. I even know how to read some, so already I’m smarter than you two are.”
“That’s how it is if you live in Behchok’o, so I guess that’s all right for you.” With a shrug, she and Sascho turned away from his boasting. On the other side of the bonfire, they’d seen the upright feather that marked the hat of Uncle John, which meant safety among their own kind. Besides, Tłı̨chǫ got along with all people. They did not go out of their way to argue with strangers.
“Jimmy thinks that he will be the one to have Sharon, even though he knows that Armand Chocolate is his rival. Armand, I’ve heard, has already been courting her and bringing gifts to her family.”
Lying in the tent between Little Brother and Aunt June, Yaot’l listened while her parents talked outside by the fire. Her father now sometimes spent his nights in the bush, wrapped in furs and blankets. The kwet’ı̨ı̨̀ doctor at the hospital had given him a strong medicine for his pain, but it still kept him awake sometimes. Rene said it made him happy to lie out-of-doors and watch the stars as they, hour by hour, moved over his head.
“Jimmy may be disappointed if he chooses Sharon. He should remember that Yaot’l is a hard worker and never runs after boys.”
“I may no longer be here to remind him. What matters is what will happen to Yaot’l if I die soon, as the kwet’ı̨ı̨̀ doctors have said.”
“Even if Jimmy prefers Sharon, the Snow Geese look after their own, my husband. Your brother and cousins are at Whati, if my own family is not willing to help us. Our Yaot’l is a hard worker and a fine hunter, too. Some good man will ask for her.”
There was a pause, in which Yaot’l imagined her father’s gaunt face angling to the sky. He cleared his throat painfully before he spoke. The sound was heart-breaking.
“As you say, she will have a husband, one way or another. Come, wife, let us sleep now. I ache to my bones.”
Her parents crawled into the tent. There was shifting and sighing and the give and squeak of spruce boughs as they made themselves comfortable. The smell of fire and summer, of bodies and fresh tree sap, mingled.
Father respects Sascho’s Uncle John. All men do, for John is a successful hunter, one who understands the ways of the animals, and who possesses Įk’ǫǫ̀. Perhaps Sascho will ask him to speak to my father, even though we are still so young. After all, Snow Geese and Lynx often marry.
Although her heart soared as she tested this final “what if”, Yaot’l, tired at last from the sorrow-to-joy swirl of her imaginings, fell asleep.
Yaot’l knew she was smiling while she walked into the brush alongside Sascho. It was exciting, going off like this together! They really weren’t supposed to, with her parents gone back to the Faraud Hospital, but she had no tasks, and no one, really, was paying attention to either of them.
Little Brother had gone to the trading post with Aunt Kathy, her husband and their kids. Aunt June, her husband and a few friends were finishing up the end of a pot of homebrew, hiding out in the bush nearby like criminals. Actually, they were breaking the law, as it was illegal for Tłı̨chǫ to drink alcohol at this place. Yaot’l knew they wouldn’t be paying a bit of attention to anything soon, especially if there was any quantity of brew left within the old enameled pot they’d carried with them. They’d disappeared as soon as a man with a broad-brimmed hat and a pitted face identified by someone as an “Indian Agent” had gone wandering past. He seemed to be on the look out for someone among the visitors’ tents.
She and Sascho had been hoping to be alone together and now—they were! Such a good day, too, maybe even a good fishing day, one to be out and away from the bustling settlement, and the watchful eyes of all those Uncles and Aunts and Cousins! Overhead, a slight breeze urged small clouds across a blue sky. Through thickets and around clumps of brush, they walked a path almost as almost as narrow as the trail it once had been, wandering along, occasionally flushing small birds as they approached the creek.
The future, Yaot’l thought, as they paused to study the racing water, could be this good! He and I will fish together, travel together, hunt together—even sleep together in the great open world of the north! A warm glow encircled her heart with the mere imagining of such a wonderful prospect, but then reality intruded.
-If there is a way to evade marriage to Jimmy Tailbone, I must find it!
-Surely my father will not force me?
-Father is worried about what will happen to all of us if he dies.
-If both families agree that I should marry Jimmy, then that will be that…
She’d have to march away into winter with the Tailbones, work with them through the icy trials of the dark time, while her new husband served out the bride price beside one of her Snow Goose Uncles. After all, her father had talked, just the other night, of wanting to see her married before the men went north to trap.
In the traditional way, she would go to the groom’s family, work with his mother and aunts, and wait until her husband, his debt paid with labor and furs, returned in the spring. It was also likely, knowing the things her mother had told her, that by that time she would have reached womanhood.
“Our Yaot’l must have a husband by this winter. She is already skilled in woman’s ways. You, my wife, have taught her how to work hard.” That’s what her father had said. It was unlike him to make a decision unless he’d spoken a new idea aloud in the hearing of his family, and before it had been discussed with other members of the band. Ordinarily, new ideas were planted, like seeds with time to grow before the time of decision and action arrived. But his manner this summer, after his weakened retreat from the mine, had changed. Yaot’l understood that death was pressing him, forcing him, a man who usually waited for events to unfold and show him the way, into quick decisions
“You have a long face. Are you worried you will get in trouble later?”
Sascho had stopped and turned to face her. He was still a little round—his Mamàcho always made the tribe’s best bannock—but his body had begun squaring as he grew. When the process was over, he would surely own the sturdy muscular form of his legendary Inuit great-grandfather.
“No! I—um—I was thinking—about ...about…”
“Your father and mother have gone to the hospital in Rae, haven’t they?”
“Yes. Last night Father was in great pain. Mother was up with him, out in the bush.” Her father had not wanted anyone to hear him—a strong man—groan and sigh.
“My Uncle John‑‑” Sascho frowned and hesitated before he went on. “My Uncle says that the land where your father works makes the animals lose their hair. They sicken and die.”
“Yes. My father has spoken of seeing sick beaver in the lakes. He says that when he hunts, he hunts far away from those places.”
The frown on Sascho’s face remained.
“Maybe‑‑your father has not hunted far enough away.”
“That is what Mamàcho thinks—and what my mother fears.”
Sascho nodded, but he didn’t want to think too deeply about what they’d just said to one another. People died, yes, Grandmother Chocolate, Little Joe—a few years ago in the rushing water—and, of course, winter born babies.
Nevertheless, with her beside him, it was hard to dwell on the sorrows of life.
The sky overhead is blue, and I am with this strong clever girl, the one I want to see beside my camp fire forever.
The night of the dance he’d watched her, moving, a young lithe mirror of others, a perfect part of the larger kinship they shared. There was no immodest putting herself forward, and yet how she’d shone, even among all those others…
“Do you—uh—want to…?” He began to move the fish spear restlessly about hand to hand.
“Yes. Let’s see what’s in the water.” She wanted no more sorrowful conversation either.
Better to hunt the fish skipping in and out of the creek beneath a sunny sky! To be where the water sang, to be on Tłı̨chǫ dèè, with Sascho‑‑well, nothing was better.
“It will be good to have fish when we return, especially because my mother will forgive almost anything for a few nice Inconnu.”
“And mine, too, so let’s follow the water up this way to a good spot I’ve found.”
The stream still ran fresh, sending many bright fingers racing among gray boulders. Toward the middle, the water was deep and dark blue, capped in places with hissing froth.
Carefully, they began to make their way rock by rock, out from the bank. They didn’t want to get too close and risk a fall into the main channel; it was still cold and wild and would drown you for sure. The side branches held the best spots to fish, for there would be shallows where they could stand and spear any stray Inconnu now making their autumn migration. These meaty white fish were prized.
For a time their shared love of the chase blotted out anything else. There was warm sun on their skin and glare bouncing off the rocks and the water. There was enough wind to move the bugs from the heights, but not enough to discourage them from hovering over the water and attracting the fish. Rough liquid music sounded on every side. Moving in and out of the shallows, they successfully speared several Inconnu.
When there was sufficient catch for the family fire, Yaot’l returned to the bank, laid down her spear and sat next to it. It was hot again today. Even the rock upon which she sat was warm enough to make her glad for this afternoon’s stiffening breeze.
She removed the green scarf around her neck, shook it out and then refolded it before covering her head. So much sun had made her, suddenly, a little dizzy.
She had finally spoken aloud her fears, shared them with someone else, someone who understood. Of course, he was a boy, but he was also THE boy, the one she wanted for all time.
She watched as he continued to fish, taking up a station between another set of rocks. Spear in hand, his dark eyes studied the moving water. High cheek bones, slanted jet black eyes, his dark hair blowing, he made a handsome picture. There was no doubting his intensity, but he was no longer catching any fish. It made her smile to watch him persist, when it was increasingly clear the run they’d been so lucky to intercept was over. Perhaps he wanted to prove, one last time, his prowess.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the flourish of more silver coming up the creek. At the same instant, Sascho darted forward. She saw the metal tip dart into the water and return, holding a slippery flapping Inconnu of perfect size.