Grassy hills rolled in green waves around Dancing Fox; scattered marshes glistened with dew. Bushes sprouted green leaves along the jagged drainages, the pungent scents of willow and wormwood wafting on the breeze.
Fox huddled in the blind she had painstakingly excavated from the slope of the hill. With rapt attention, she stilled the desire to move, to redistribute her weight so the circulation would restore feeling in her foot.
Movement.
She froze, hardly allowing herself to breathe. The head-high sedges obscured her vision of the side of the slope, but she could make out the blotch of gray brown. Creeping tendrils of horror traced around her heart. Not Grandfather Brown Bear! On this wondrously warm morning, he’d amble along, winter hungry, looking for anything edible.
The wind still blew in her face, hiding her scent from any potential prey.
Heart battering her breast, she waited, eyes glued to the brown. A head shook; a soft snuffling carried on the wind. Moose! How long since she’d seen a moose? Five years? Maybe more? And then it had been far to the west in lands long wrested from them by the Others.
Fear leached into excitement, overcoming hunger and fatigue. Her long fingers tightened on the slim wood of the dart shaft. From the feel, she knew the atlatl hook still rested in the notch. Maybe today. Maybe.
Dancing Fox refused to remember the week before when her cast had been too quick, the dart falling short to cut a
long weal in a caribou’s hide. Hitting at an angle, the dart had failed to penetrate and the animal bolted sideways in fear. Not this time. This time her throw must be perfect.
She waited, searching her memories for everything she could remember about moose. Not much. They usually didn’t roam this northern high steppe. Mostly they stayed west of the mountains, farther south in the ancient lands where the grasses were thicker, bending around the open lands below the forests she’d heard of but never seen. The Others had taken much from the People.
The moose stepped closer, allowing her to pick up some details through the sedges. Perhaps the weather had driven a herd of the animals this far east? A long ear flipped back and forth as the animal lowered its head.
Step-by-step, she watched, energy charging her muscles, the numb cramp in her foot long forgotten.
Now? No, wait. Just a bit longer.
The moose raised its head, looking off to the north, ears flicking this way and that, wide nostrils flaring. A second animal—a calf—hovered at the edge of her sight, following the footsteps of the first.
Dancing Fox’s throat had gone dry, the charge in her muscles almost unbearable as her heart hammered excitement. So much meat! So very much!
The cow moose trotted ahead a couple of steps, head up. She scented the breeze with her bulbous nose, trying to compensate for her poor eyesight. The calf moved up to the trickling spring Fox’s blind overlooked, anxious, wary of ambush.
She’d chosen a perfect place here. Free water this early in the year came and went with the sun, and the melt, but this early, the little spring drew game like flies to a raw wound.
Wait, she told herself. Animals are always more relaxed after they drink. Be patient. The cow finally lowered her head to drink after the calf, then walked back, dropping its muzzle to the tussocks again. She moved ever closer.
Moose, despite sharp noses and acute hearing, were weak in the lungs. A good shot through the ribs would kill her. The information lined out in her jumpy mind. Such a huge animal, and only one weakness to exploit. Further, they had thick skins—if poor for clothing or making shelters.
As if by magic, the cow turned sideways, no more than
ten paces away, and began cropping the vegetation. From where she sat, Fox could almost count the white hairs that gave the hind legs a hoary appearance.
Now!
Dancing Fox rose smoothly, arm back, muscles rolling as she used the atlatl to catapult the dart forward, all her weight behind the thrust. The dart sailed true, striking just behind the floating ribs, angling forward.
The huge moose jumped, squealing as it kicked both feet out behind, bucking twice before hunching up. The calf bawled a hideous squeal.
Dancing Fox nocked a second dart, balancing, sending it flying as the cow raced away with a beating of hooves. The worried calf followed in her wake. In the action, the second cast just missed the calf.
“That’s all right! You got the mother!” Talon called from above. “Nice shot that, struck deep. You killed her, Fox!”
She nodded, a feeling of satisfaction deep within as she heard the old woman making her way down the cobble terrace, rocks grating beneath her feet.
The cow had slowed to a walk far out among the lingering snowdrifts that etched the bases of the hills. She crested a rise and disappeared from sight.
Dancing Fox marked the place in her mind, walking forward to where she’d hit the animal, checking the tracks. A fresh pile of manure had been dumped where she’d hunched.
Talon ambled over the sedges and grinned, stooping to stare at the heart-shaped tracks. “You see,” she said, “I told you this would be a great place to come. I remembered from when we camped here … what? Ten years ago? Long time. Never been so far south. My man came here. Wanted to hunt out this way, but it didn’t look good. Vegetation got shorter the farther south we went.”
“And Runs In Light is a lot farther south than this,” Dancing Fox murmured, eyes searching the southern horizon where glacial hills grayed the land. “Well, Grandmother, are you ready for a walk? It shouldn’t be far, she was going pretty slow last I saw her.”
Talon worked her lips over her gums, setting out on the tracks, old eyes following the sign. “Blood here. Dark stuff. Liver blood. You hit her solid.”
“You haven’t lost any skills.”
“Not a one, child.” Talon chuckled dryly. “Just my muscles is gaunted up some.”
They walked on, the sun slanting slowly to the west.
“She slowed here,” Fox decided, looking at the tracks. A thick puddle of blood had formed. She looked up, measuring the height of the sun off the horizon with her hand. Three handsbreadths of light left? It might be close. The thought of losing the moose to wolves hurt something deep inside.
“She’s not far,” Talon added, pointing. “Look there. Frothy. That dripped out of her nose. She’s dead as we speak.”
“That or laid down.”
“In which case, she’s as good as dead. They lie down, they bleed out inside, stiffen up. We’ve got her.”
They walked on, eyes to the tracks and ever-increasing blood as the cow had hobbled along, the calf crisscrossing behind her.
“You’ve made it longer than I thought you would.” Talon eyed her askance.
Fox looked over, squinting against the westering light. “And I’ll make it longer still.”
“I’m a little surprised. I didn’t expect you to be this strong. I thought you’d run back to the band in a week.”
“Then why’d you come with me?”
Talon smiled wryly. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I wanted to see how you’d do. Been a long time since a woman left to be on her own. Been a couple of men every now and then who took off. But a woman? Heron was the last and that’s been over twenty Long Lights ago.”
Fox nodded slowly, wishing she had Heron’s reputed Dreaming talents so she’d know if she’d made the right choice. Things were going to be a lot harder from now on. “I couldn’t stay,” she said simply.
“You don’t like Raven Hunter, do you?”
She started to shake her head then stopped. “I … To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I don’t really hate him.” She puffed derision through her nostrils. “Can you believe that? He dragged me back to Crow Caller to be humiliated. He used me just about every night he could until you moved into my robes. I … I don’t know just what I think of him.”
“So that’s why you’re out here?”
She nodded and finally smiled. “And for the first time in my life, Grandmother, I’m free!”
“You go back and you won’t be.”
Dancing Fox lifted a shoulder. “Runs In Light will be coming to the Renewal.”
“If he lives.”
She bit her lip, a coldness within. “Yes, if he lives.”
“You going to try and marry him?”
“I don’t know if he still wants me.”
“Well, you can find out. But, remember, Raven Hunter will be there, too. Along with Crow Caller.” Talon’s withered brow furrowed deeper. “Why’d that old fake live when so many good ones froze?”
Dancing Fox shook her head. “Bad luck.”
Talon studied her from the corner of her eye. “No one will hold it against you. A woman has the right to run off from a man who’s abusing her. And Crow Caller was abusing you. Everyone knows that now.”
Fox lifted her hands helplessly, feeling the cool of the evening rising out of the land like a vapor. The deepening slant of sunlight cast long black shadows across the tundra, glinting silver from the new leaves on the sedges and wormwood.
“Do you think I did the right thing?”
Talon sighed. “Don’t ask me, child. I can’t pass judgment. I’m here on borrowed time. You kept me alive out there in the snow. You got a claim on my soul while it’s still with my body. But, to be honest, I’m curious and happy to follow my nose for the while. We get eaten by a bear, so be it. There’s honor in that. You’ll pray me to the Star People if I die and that’s enough for me.”
“It’s enough for me now, too.”
Talon eyed her seriously. “You won’t get away with this for long, you know? Someday, some man’ll get you. Plant some kid in that belly of yours and you’ll need people around. That’s the curse of women. Always got some man driving his shaft into you. Either they’re scared stiff of your bleeding and don’t want you around … or they’re parting your legs and climbing on.” She shook her head.
“Well, so long as Raven Hunter doesn’t find me, I’m free
of both,” Fox said hopefully, watching the disappearing curve of the sun as it slid beneath the horizon.
In the blue-shadow afterglow of sunset, Talon studied the gently rolling terrain, muttering under her breath. “Where’d that moose go?”
“Down there.” Dancing Fox pointed to where the ground had been ripped up. A thick pool of blood soaked into the gravelly soil. Tracks angled off for a hollow to the right.
“And there she is,” Talon breathed, a frail finger pointing. Fox squinted, seeing the long head, the lowered ears. The calf stood to one side, looking back and forth between them and its prostrate mother.
“I’d hoped she’d be dead. How long until we’re out of light?”
“Not long. But … wait. Her head just dropped. Wait. Ha! She’s not getting up again.” Talon’s old legs trembled from the long walk, but she set out down the hill anyway. “We’ll make us up a fire and have liver and heart tonight, girl! What a hunter you made! Runs In Light will jump for joy to marry you.”
Dancing Fox glowed with joy. Yes, Runs In Light would be proud of her. Knowing she would soon be in his arms, the thought of bearing children didn’t seem so bad after all. She longed to feel his arms around her, holding her on the long winter nights.