In the milky light of the evening sun, Wind Woman swirled the clouds into long stringers of gold and picked at the bones of the People. A thin gilding of frost lined their hoods. Dark circles beneath their hard eyes, the People squinted ahead to the endless tiers of stark ridges.
One Who Cries looked back at the staggering line of people, working their way up the long ridge. Broken Branch came at the end, placing her feet carefully on the snow-blown rock. Three of the little children paced in front of her. Ahead, farther up the ridge, the one they now called Wolf Dreamer plodded onward, darts over his shoulder, pushed by the lure of his Dream.
One Who Cries glanced at Jumping Hare. His young cousin looked as worn as the ancient landscape. Wiping crusted ice from the hood fur around his jaw, he squinted against the frigid blasts ripping the land. “Four weeks, Crow Caller said. Four weeks until we’d feel hunger.”
Jumping Hare pursed his lips tightly. “We’ve caught what? Three rabbits since we left Mammoth Camp?”
“And that’s been only a week,” One Who Cries grumbled miserably, staring at Wolf Dreamer’s back. “We should have gone back.”
“One way’s as good as another,” Green Water whispered. “We could have starved just as easily in Mammoth Camp.”
One Who Cries lowered his eyes and lifted one hide-wrapped foot in front of the other, keeping the slow pace, knowing from experience that the night would be upon them before they made the crest of the ridge. Shame burned in his breast. Had he lost faith in the Wolf Dream so quickly?
Step-by-step, they climbed, testing the footing with the deliberateness of hunger-weak muscles. No extra move wasted what precious energy remained in their tired limbs.
“Spirits,” Jumping Hare muttered under his breath. “Runs In Light had to hear Wolf. Had to run out and get mixed up in Spirit Power.”
“You still believe that?” Singing Wolf asked, condescendingly.
“You don’t?”
“Wolf wouldn’t torture us to death if we were following his Dream.”
“Hush. We had to do something,” Laughing Sunshine chided. “You don’t notice the women complaining, carrying on. We save our breath and effort for walking. If men had sense, so would they.”
A heavy silence fell. They glanced back and forth uncertainly. In the distance, Father Sun’s face wavered silver through the blanket of clouds, crawling downward.
“Maybe it’s a test of our faith.” Green Water sighed.
One Who Cries looked up to the gray sky. “Starving isn’t a bad way to die. There’s worse. There’s bad teeth that rot and swell a man’s jaw with pus. There’s the joint-pain where a man hobbles in agony, his joints grinding and burning. A fellow can always break his leg out away from help—be eaten by Grandfather Brown Bear. And remember old Walrus Tusk? His legs swelled up fit to bust his long boots. Then his water got bloody. And then there was—”
“Hush!” Green Water said in exasperation.
Ice Fire woke in the night. Around him, he could hear the soft breathing of his clan. Over his head, the vicious wind rippled the hide roof of the shelter. In the darkness, he could see condensed breath rising from the robes around him. He shifted his position beneath the soft piles of hides, frowning into the sea-scented darkness.
A curious dream; he’d been walking, seeking something in the south. Behind him came the White Tusk Clan, hungry, trusting, and through it all he’d wondered if he’d been betrayed by some Power in the night. Yet, as he led his band up the rocky hills, they could feel eyes upon them, someone watching from above. There, on the side of that windswept hill, he’d turned, casting a searching look to the cloudy skies.
And he’d seen her eyes, staring down: The Watcher!
As he resettled himself, he tried to shake the feeling of premonition. The haunting call echoed around the edges of his mind. He blinked, yawned, and rolled over, trying to sleep again. Hours later, he pushed back the robes, putting
on his outside parka and heading for the cold trap and the doorway.
“Can’t sleep again, Elder?”
“No, Red Flint, my old friend.” He paused, feeling the chill of the deep blackness seeping up from where he held the door flap slightly ajar. “At times I wonder if I’m slowly losing my mind.”
Red Flint stirred in his furs and reached out, prodding the ashes in the fire pit, exposing a red eye of coal. “So, you were going out to walk around the night like some homeless ghost again?”
Ice Fire lifted a shoulder as Red Flint pulled on his parka and bent over to blow on the coal, feeding a bit of dried moss to the tiny eye, coaxing a blaze with bits of willow stems and dried leaves.
“The light might wake someone up,” Ice Fire said, gesturing to the sleeping bundles around them.
Red Flint grinned in the glow; humor pulled the lines of his flat face into comic patterns. “I doubt it. You kept them up too late retelling the story of the Sky Spider spinning the web that holds up the sun and the sky. No, they’ll sleep.”
Ice Fire settled himself on the foot of his friend’s robes, crossing his legs carefully. He grunted acceptance and stared into the flickering yellow flames.
“You’re not gonna die, are you? Sometimes men can’t sleep before they die.”
Ice Fire bowed his head and chuckled softly. “Not yet.”
“Then what’s bothering you?”
He reached a long-boned hand for a willow stem and slowly poked the blaze with a length as he thought. Where to begin? “I dreamed of an old woman—a witch. I …” He frowned. “I know her. At least, I’ve felt her before.”
“You old dog, you! Been feeling women? You’re not ready to die … except for maybe your taste? Now, I got this daughter, Moon Water. She’s budded out. Make you a good—”
“Do you want to hear this?” he asked irritably.
“I’m sorry. You just seemed so … Well, I thought maybe teasing would help.”
Ice Fire slapped a hand to his friend’s knee and paused for
a time, staring at the flames. “You remember me telling you about the woman I caught by the sea years ago?”
“The Enemy woman,” Red Flint nodded, eyes gleaming. “Yes.”
“The witch was there. Watching.”
“I thought you didn’t see anyone.”
“I didn’t. But I know the feel of the witch’s vision. Like the way a dart shaft fits in the hand. Familiar. You don’t have to look down to know your dart. It’s the texture, the balance, the weight. She has that feel, this witch.”
Red Flint scratched the side of his weathered face. “You think she’s calling you? Maybe witched you? We could have a Sing, try and drive her off. Maybe we can throw it all back at her, hurt her—”
“No.” He lifted a hand. “It’s something else. Some awakening of Power that’s stirred her … and me. Something’s happening.”
Red Flint stared somberly into the fire. Golden flickers reflected in his narrowed eyes. “You know the other clans aren’t doing well. Tiger Belly Clan lost a lot of ground last year. Hundreds of young men were killed fighting the Glacier People. To the west, the Round Hoof Clan was pushed away from the Great Lake. They’ve been chased clear into Buffalo Clan’s area. Face it, we’ve been pushed out of all our old places.”
“The whole world is changing and there aren’t enough of us anymore to push our enemies back.”
“Is that what the witch is telling you?”
Ice Fire coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s part of it, but there’s more. She draws me south for another reason.”
“What?”
“It has something to do with that Dream Walk I made years ago, after my wife was killed. I traveled many days’ journey over difficult country. For two weeks, I went without food. I remember sleeping on a rocky pinnacle. The rock grew up out of the ground, rising so high I could look down on the birds. To the south, I saw a huge wall of white, and beyond it, a free land, full of animals but empty of humans.”
“But we have Enemy to the south,” Red Flint pointed out.
“Now, but not then.”
“Should we try to go to that land?”
“I’m not sure. The Dream was unclear and the next day I found the Enemy woman. We were to come together, she and I. I could … could feel the rightness of it. A healing, if you will. Her long hair swirled in the wind. Water crashed about her feet. In a Dream haze, I walked up to her and she smiled. We coupled passionately, she and I, there by the sea, and I planted my seed in her.”
“But that part was real.” Red Flint’s bushy brows lowered.
“Yes … and no.” Ice Fire winced and ran hard fingers over his face. “The vision broke as I got up and looked … looked into the Watcher’s eyes. And the woman … I raped her. Left her broken and crying on the sand. She who I should have loved and cherished, I destroyed.”
“And you think the witch who haunts your sleep caused this?”
“I’m not sure.”
Red Flint shifted uncomfortably, retrieving a stick to prod the fire into crackling brilliance. “What happened next?”
“I turned and saw all the clans following in my tracks, chased by all kinds of enemies.”
“That’s how the Dream ended?”
Ice Fire blinked, shrugging lightly. “No. After seeing what happened on the beach that day, I ran. You know, getting away from the horror. That night I had nightmares … one after another. The woman in the Dream stood up and offered her hands to me. In one lay a piece of meat. In the other she held her dart.”
“Life or death?”
“I read it so.” He propped his chin on his palms. “Then I looked behind me and the sea was rushing in, trying to swallow us all. I took the meat and the woman smiled again, saying, ‘You and I are one. We are one.’ Then she took my hand and turned into a great bird, the Storm Bird, and flew with me, far to the south to the middle of the new land beyond the white wall.”
Red Flint sucked at his teeth for a moment, thinking. “And that’s why you’ve always forced us to move south, despite the dwindling game?”
“Not since I went on that quest have I felt the spirit move
so powerfully within me. Until now. It plagues me, keeps me from sleeping. I feel driven, as if the witch pushes me to bring all the clans south.”
Red Flint squinted at the firelight dancing across the ceiling. “But the rest of the clans won’t come. They say there’s no warrior’s honor there. The Enemy scatters before us like seagulls from a thrown rock.”
“I know.” He turned to search his friend’s concerned face. “And what if I can’t save our people before the sea comes to drown them?”
“Then our clan will push south without them. In all of this, there is one certainty; these gutless Enemy we face are few, and getting fewer. At least our clan can brush them out of the way like so many flies.”
Ice Fire rubbed his hands together, feeling the calluses on his palms. “Perhaps. But I’ve dreamed of a young man. A tall, angry young man. I see him gathering his darts and bringing us death. He’s a leader. The kind who can stir warriors. He …”
“Go on.”
“I may have to kill him.”
Red Flint stared, motionless. “You’ve killed before. Why does that bother you so?”
Ice Fire turned anguished eyes on him. “I’m not sure I can.”
“Why not?”
“I … I think he’s my son.”