Poised on the balls of his feet, One Who Cries waited. The big cow spun, wheeling, trunk high to scent Wind Woman, little eyes hot and black in her shaggy head.
He could feel the tremors of her tramping feet through the very rock he crouched behind. Like he always did when he hunted mammoth, he wished he could let the runniness in his bowels and bladder loose. The cow turned away again and One Who Cries raised on his feet. Like lightning, his arm rolled back, then snapped forward, his atlatl sending the long dart arching to strike near the cow’s anus where the skin was thin, sensitive.
Once more, it worked. The dart Singing Wolf had so carefully crafted struck home, the shaft itself separating, the main part falling back to earth, the lethal point and foreshaft deeply embedded in the beast, continuing to slice tissue as the animal moved. The shaft clattered as it fell to earth.
The cow bellowed, whirling on her feet, trunk whipping back and forth. Hot breath rasped from her mouth as she sniffed for her tormentor.
One Who Cries scuttled through the rock, bent low.
It wasn’t much of an outcrop to hide in. Just an angular upthrust of black shale that created a sort of hogsback. Nevertheless, the mammoth couldn’t traverse it. She could only circle, and try to avoid the narrow-walled gully that erosion had cut along the lower border of the rock. If she fell there,
the six-foot drop would kill her much quicker than One Who Cries’ stone-tipped darts.
One Who Cries bent low, scurrying through a gap in the rock, panting and puffing, zigzagging between the walls of shale that thrust up around him. Seeing his chance, he scrambled for the long dart shaft, grabbing it up, sprinting for the safety of the rocks.
The cow caught a glimpse of him, screaming rage. She charged forward, accelerating her huge body in an amazing burst of speed. She stopped on the verge of bad footing, questing with her trunk. She’d almost caught him the first time he’d retrieved his dart shaft using the same tactic.
Heart pounding so hard he thought it would break his ribs, One Who Cries waited—safely out of reach. “Got to goad her, make her madder.”
Laughing and dancing, he sailed a flat, hand-sized slab of rock to pelt her in the face. A shrill trumpet of fury smashed at him as he dodged away, yipping and whistling. He jumped a tilted gray slab, adrenaline pumping, and rolled to one side, crabbing through the narrow crevice as the berserk mammoth circled, gouging the resisting ground with her tusks, flinging ripped moss and grass to the air, broadcasting her frustration at his taunting.
The cow screamed again, brought up short by the angular black rocks. She shifted, one thick leg resting on the rock as her trunk sought him, picked up his scent, head extended forward, trunk reaching.
She staggered as the rock crumbled under her heavy foot, backing off, startled by what she’d almost done.
Heart hammering, One Who Cries waited where he’d crawled into a sheltering niche in the rock. As her trunk swung away, he scuttled farther. The cow squealed angrily, pounding around the outcrop, trying to circle his position. He fitted the last of his foreshafts into the dart body, twisting it into place, checking quickly to make sure it sat in the shaft straight. He puffed a final breath. The last shot.
“That’s it!” he taunted. “Chase me! Come on! Lose all your sense! Be mad, Mother! Mad to the point of blood rage!”
He had room now. Circling his arms to keep her attention,
he shrieked and hollered. The cow stopped, tearing the frozen ground as she wheeled, snorting.
One Who Cries leapt, his last dart in hand, and lashed it forward, the atlatl providing two hundred times the power of his unaided hand.
The dart shot true, planting itself in the thinner hide behind the jaw—driving the foreshaft deep. The spent shaft separated to clatter noisily at her feet. The cow went crazy. Head up, trunk extended, she rushed forward.
One Who Cries screamed in fear, casting his atlatl to one side, running unencumbered for the edge of the rocks. The cow roared slathering wrath—the very earth shaking as she bore down on him. Not once did One Who Cries look back. His every thought centered on running, on picking his path through the uneven footing as he flew for the edge of the rock outcrop.
He made it, turning the corner, leaping nimbly along the path he’d cleared hours earlier. Legs pumping prodigiously, he bounded along the edge of the drop-off, one last jump taking him to firmer ground.
Heart thundering, he looked back, seeing the cow round the bend, seeing startled fear in her eyes as the gully appeared under her feet. She slid forward, legs locked. Beneath her, the undercutting excavations One Who Cries and Singing Wolf had dug with such labor from the permafrost collapsed. The cow teetered, trunk whipping for balance. So much weight falls slowly at first. She had time to voice a final shriek as she toppled.
The ground slapped up at One Who Cries as her huge body slammed the earth. The sound of snapping bone seemed to stick in his ears. Then it was over. A rasping—like grinding ice—blasted from the cow’s mighty lungs.
One Who Cries climbed up over the rocks, well out of harm’s way, peering carefully over the drop-off. The red-haired trunk quivered, blood leaking from the mammoth’s mouth. A frightened black eye stared up at him.
Wouldn’t be long now. She couldn’t breathe down there, the very weight of her body would smother her. She couldn’t stand, her snapped limbs powerless. The top ear batted back and forth, her trunk questing, probing, determining the reality
of her death. The ragged wisp of tail slapped behind her.
Singing Wolf called, “Thought she had you for a second there at the beginning.”
One Who Cries closed his eyes, sighing. He looked down. “Yes, Mother, you almost did get me, huh? I’ll relive that moment forever.”
Singing Wolf stood on the hill, downwind, some three dart throws away, waving with his hands. Green Water, Laughing Sunshine, and the rest would come now. They would all begin the butchering process, rendering the huge cow for all they could take before beginning the long trek back to Heron’s valley.
Puffing out his cheeks, One Who Cries shook his head at the huge beast, now still in death. “Another handsbreadth, Mother, and you’d have stomped me into red mush. Blessed Stars, there’s got to be an easier way.”
He sagged on the rock, remembering.
For a long time he looked at the dead mammoth, sadness and regret welling in his heart. Somberly, he went down to kneel by the mammoth’s huge head and stroke it gently. From the sacred pouch hanging around his neck, he took the special amulets, breathed on them, and began the process of singing the cow’s soul to the Blessed Star People.
The new darts had worked. Never had One Who Cries driven a point so deeply into animal flesh before. As they cut each of the foreshafts from the carcass, Singing Wolf nodded, muttering under his breath as he examined the depth of the wound.
“Still got a problem with the hafting. Can you make the point thinner at the base?”
One Who Cries rubbed his mashed nose with a bloody finger, frowning. “No, it’ll break too easy on impact. I tried that, remember?”
“Maybe a longer point?” Singing Wolf asked. “Not quite as wide as this one?”
“Thought you said the People didn’t make different styles of points.”
Singing Wolf shrugged, sheepishly.
Long strips of meat covered the rocks. One Who Cries worked by Green Water, splitting long bones, helping pile
the rich marrow on the greasy hide to be rendered for fat. Dancing Fox tended the hot rocks, carefully pouring liquid fat into intestines the way Green Water had taught her. It was such a tricky process; she couldn’t let the gut bag burn, but she had to get the fat hot enough to run.
“Hey!” Singing Wolf snapped where he slashed at the thick hide with a sharp bifacial tool, flaked on both sides to create an acute cutting edge. A cur ducked his backhanded blow and jumped lightly to the ground, panting with excitement. The other dogs ran, yipping and snarling at each other, despite bellies which practically dragged the ground.
“Maybe we were better off without ’em,” Singing Wolf growled, threatening the beasts.
One Who Cries looked up and grinned. “You’d rather carry everything on your back, huh?”
Singing Wolf sighed and shrugged. “No, and this time the dogs can sniff out bears for us, too. Guess we won’t have to worry so much about being eaten alive.”
One Who Cries sucked his upper lip, nodding. Pensively he looked up at the thick clouds rolling in from the northwest. Already they’d had snow, but the grasses had grown this year, curing brown on the stem. The fat on the mammoth’s back where Singing Wolf exposed it was a foot thick, the meat beneath rich with the white deposits. Bloody, fat globules sticking to his forearms, Singing Wolf bent to his task again.
Green Water shook her head, looking up at the hunter as she whispered to the women working beside her. “You know, I believe Blueberry’s stories about the Mammoth People. Even if Raven Hunter says she’s lying.”
One Who Cries listened pensively, nodding slightly in agreement.
Dancing Fox changed the position of her bulging bag, air starting to expand with the heat. Deftly, she let off some of the pressure. “I told you he was crazy.”
“Singing Wolf isn’t convinced. He might be heartsick at the things Raven Hunter led the young men to do but he’s not convinced Raven Hunter’s wrong in fighting for these lands.”
“He’s going to get himself killed.”
“He’s going to get all of us killed,” One Who Cries added furtively.
As silence descended, he turned his attention to Sunshine and Curlew Song, who sliced long strips of meat from the shoulder, laughing as they walked to lay them across the willow tops. There, the meat would freeze-dry for the next couple of weeks, the heavy water weight sucked away by the cold wind.
From the corner of his eye, One Who Cries watched Curlew Song. Young and pretty, she kept glancing up at Jumping Hare where he worked to peel the thick hide back from the mammoth’s rib cage as Singing Wolf continued to cut at the stringy gray tissue that bound the hide to the body.
She kept the young man’s spirits up, kept a new shine in his eye to make up for the loss of his mother, Gray Rock. He’d taken her for a wife upon his return from warring with the Others. She’d come from Buffalo Back’s camp: a woman of the Seagull Clan. He’d wanted her as a first wife. Then he had married Moon Water, a captive he’d taken in a raided camp.
Moon Water bent to her burden, looking sullenly up at Jumping Hare, a smoldering fire in her eyes. She’d be trouble; One Who Cries could feel it. Nevertheless, her lithe body and the way she moved with undulating grace drew his eye. A brief fantasy of stripping her, running his hands over her high full breasts, parting her firm legs, played through his mind. He felt himself—
The vision popped as an elbow punched his ribs. Startled, he shot a quick glance at Green Water. She doubled her fist, eyes knowing.
“Just daydreaming,” he muttered.
“Sure,” Green Water growled under her breath; but she couldn’t keep the twinkle from her eye.
One Who Cries grinned sheepishly and went to gather another armload of fat as Singing Wolf cut it loose.
Everywhere, camps of the People had taken in the new women captured from the Others. The elderly women worked hard to teach them the legends and myths, to make them one with the People—even though they would always be second-class wives. The captives learned. They remained for the most part sullen, angry, servicing their new husbands with resignation. Still, many continued to try to run away.
“How long?” Green Water wondered, looking at the
growing pile of fat as One Who Cries dropped the greasy slab.
He stood, easing the crick in his back, trying to wipe the gobs of fat from his thick fingers. “Another week? Maybe two? The freeze will be hard in the ground by then. Snow won’t be that deep and we can walk into the deep cold. There’ll be good travel then.”
“The sooner the better. Singing Wolf is worried.”
“And I’m worried,” One Who Cries agreed. “They’ll strike back. According to Blueberry, they have to.”
Green Water tilted her head, soft eyes on her husband. “I think she’s seen a lot more of the Others than Raven Hunter. I listen to her talk and I think the men should heed what she says. If half of what she says is true—”
“We’re in deep trouble,” One Who Cries agreed, watching Blueberry take time to nurse her child.
Green Water nudged him, humorous reproach in her eyes. “The child will grow up as one of us.”
“Can you believe Raven Hunter wanted to kill it? You’d think he’d learn.”
“He’s crazy.” Green Water lifted her chin, long shining lengths of hair falling around her firm throat. A wistfulness lay in the corners of her broad mouth.
“I hope he’s not as crazy as Dancing Fox says.”
Fox sighed heavily, shaking her head. “He is.”
Green Water studied One Who Cries thoughtfully. “Incidentally, I noticed that you told most of the band leaders how to find Heron’s valley.”
A few yards away, Singing Wolf had taken his baton, striking flakes off the sinew-clogged biface he was using to butcher the mammoth. The clack-snap carried to One Who Cries on the cold breeze, reassuring, the familiar sound of meat-making. Why didn’t it soothe him?
He filled his lungs, blowing out into the cool air to watch his breath condense. Around him, the hills rose, crumpled shale outcrops on the ridges as the folded topography rose to the high mountains to the west. The air cut cleanly through his lungs, bringing the scent of mammoth and trampled wormwood and sedge. To the north, a somber bank of clouds rolled down from the salt water—a nasty storm from the looks of it.
“If the Others come this winter … as many of them as Blueberry says, we’ve only got one way to go.”
“And if there’s no way out of Heron’s valley?”
He gave her a cockeyed glance and chuckled. “Well, maybe Heron can Dream them away, huh?”
“People!” A faint cry came, borne on the wind. Singing Wolf stood up, looking to the north, shading his eyes with a blood-caked hand. Jumping Hare let the hide slide loose, craning his neck back and forth to see.
“Looks like Three Falls,” Singing Wolf called. “What’s he doing here? Thought he’d gone off with Sheep Whistle to hunt up north.”
“I see Mouse,” Jumping Hare called. “I’d know her walk. Broke her leg that time. When Strikes Lightning’s dart didn’t kill that buffalo along the salt water. There’s more, too. Lots of the People behind them.”
Green Water made a clucking sound. “I don’t think this is good. Go see.”
One Who Cries picked up his darts and trotted around the rock outcrop where he’d taunted the mammoth cow. The dogs were already barking, growling as they ran to meet the hounds with Sheep Whistle’s people, snarling and fighting.
Three Falls walked in the lead of the group, a huddle of women behind him bent under flat-looking packs hitched by tump lines. They paced wearily, followed by one or two more hunters to the rear. Then came others, more bundled figures topping the horizon, walking bent against the skyline. The ones in the rear didn’t look well as they limped along. No one noticed the scrapping dogs as they growled and yipped, the packs tearing into each other.
One Who Cries pulled up, sensing the wrongness. “Three Falls!” he called. “Welcome. Come, we’ve killed mammoth. We can feast you in real style.”
A ripple of relief seemed to run through the group. Mouse—hair cut short in mourning for Strikes Lightning—lifted her head, a bit more bounce in her walk. Her young infant peeked out from her hood, a tiny face beside hers. Behind her a little girl toddled. More came, some still straggling over the hilltop to the north.
“There goes our winter’s supply of meat,” he whispered to himself.
Three Falls lifted grateful hands in the gesture of relief. “We’ll enjoy your feast, One Who Cries, and offer thanks to the Blessed Star People for your shelter.”
“I don’t see much in the way of packs. The dogs aren’t loaded. Isn’t that Big Mouth back there?” The short, stocky man limped miserably. “Is he hurt?”
“Dart wound.” Three Falls looked away nervously, lips pinched. “We had a wonderful hunt. Caught a herd of dall sheep in a little valley. Perfect. We’d butchered most of the carcasses, built caches so the permafrost would keep the meat. Thought we’d stay there all winter with the Others driven off and all.”
A tendril of anxiety touched his stomach. “What happened?”
“The Blessed Star People saved us, my friend. Just luck. One of the young men was running to tell Raven Hunter and Crow Caller that we’d made enough meat to feed many. He saw the Others first, ran back, and warned us. Let me tell you, they fight better now. Killed four of the hunters who went out to drive them off. There were so many of them, old friend. So many. So fierce. We could no more drive them off than stop Wind Woman. But our position in the hills was good, so we didn’t get slaughtered.”
“How’d you find us?”
“Sheep Whistle told us which way you’d gone. We hoped you’d give us help.” Three Falls shuffled his feet awkwardly, eyes to the ground.
One Who Cries looked out across the figures still straggling over the far hill. “Is Sheep Whistle here? He taught me the old stories.”
“He’s gone, my friend. Maybe later, tonight or tomorrow, we’ll gather to sing his soul to the Blessed Star People.”
One Who Cries flinched. “How did it happen?”
“The Others … Well, the dart caught him low, just above his manhood. Bad wound, that. Gut juices got into him. He started to stink and swelled up. We carried him for as long as we could.”
“And your camp?”
Three Falls slapped his darts meaningfully. “The Others moved into it. Me, some of the rest of Sheep Whistle’s band,
we came to make sure the women will be safe. Then we’re going after the Others to pay them back.”
One Who Cries shook his head. “Last time you paid them back, they didn’t stay paid. Give it up. Too many have died already.” He lifted an arm toward the oncoming swell of people. “Look at the women with their hair all cut short. It’s got to end someplace.”
Three Falls smiled wistfully. “Feast me and my warriors tonight, One Who Cries. Feast us well. Then we’ll avenge our lost relatives.”
“Sounds like Raven Hunter talking through your mouth.”
“He’s a leader.” Three Falls nodded admiringly.
“Maybe.”
Three Falls’ brows lowered. “We need warriors. You’ll come? You and Singing Wolf and Jumping Hare?”
“No.” He shook his head certainly.
“But we have to—”
“No.”
“You don’t care about the murders of people you loved.”
“We care more about the living. Singing Wolf, Jumping Hare, and I have talked about it already. We were afraid this would happen. We’re going south to follow the Wolf Dream. If you really want your women and children to be safe, come with us.”
Three Falls hesitated, then shook his head. “We must go back. It’s … honor.”
“Honor?”
Three Falls straightened, eyes brightening fiercely. “Warrior’s honor.” He shook his darts in emphasis.
A wrenching feeling of foreboding lashed at One Who Cries. He bowed his head and nodded slowly. His People grew more like the Others every day.