Little Wren’s shadow moved over the shelter wall as she duckwalked to the fire pit, and checked the soup pot hanging from the tripod over the low flames. The scent of smoked turkey and onions filled her nostrils. “It’s not boiling yet, Rumbler, but it won’t be long now.”
He sat leaning against the massive trunk of an oak tree, wrapped in her foxhide cape. His chin-length black hair clung to his cheeks, framing his beautiful round face. He gazed at her through unwavering black eyes. He’d been looking at her like that since she’d first tied her cape around him, and dragged him off Lost Hill. He couldn’t walk. She hadn’t had any choice. Besides, she’d been plenty warm. She’d packed her deerhide cape earlier, thinking that Rumbler would need it. She’d ended up wearing it instead.
He couldn’t seem to stop shivering. It worried Wren. She’d seen people die from being out in the cold for too
long. Even though people found them and brought them back to the longhouse, they’d gone to sleep and never awakened. Rumbler seemed to be getting stronger, though. He could lift his own teacup now. He could only hold it for a few instants before he had to set it down, but when she’d first handed him a cup, his fingers hadn’t worked at all. The wooden cup sat on the ground beside him.
“Do you need more tea?” Wren asked.
“No, I …” He looked into his cup. “I still have some.”
Wren’s pack rested near the woodpile, to the left of the fire pit. She dragged it over, found her wooden spoon, and stirred the soup. She’d packed enough food for five or six nights. After that, they would have to hunt.
She didn’t know what they would do or where they would go. But she knew she couldn’t go home.
Once, many winters ago, a girl named Caprock had taken one of the sacred masks from the council house, and run off with it. Wren had only seen four winters at the time, but she’d heard that Caprock had planned to sell the mask to a holy woman in a Bear-Turtle village. The war leader before Jumping Badger had hunted her down and dragged her back, screaming, to Walksalong Village.
Matron Starflower had ordered her to be burned alive.
Stealing a False Face Child was much worse than stealing a sacred mask.
Wren peered absently at the soup. It had started to bubble.
She laid down her spoon, and pulled a bag of cornmeal from her pack. After she’d added a handful to the soup, to thicken it, she folded the top over, and tied it again. They didn’t have enough to allow even a few grains to leak out.
“Just a little longer, Rumbler,” she said and sank down cross-legged beside the fire.
Their tiny shelter had warmed up. Wren just hoped the heat wasn’t melting the snow that mounded the deadfall, and hid it from view. She’d deliberately built a small fire—had considered not building one at all, but Rumbler had desperately needed warmth.
Grandmother Earth had made the shelter for them. Over the tree’s long life, limbs had died and piled up around the trunk. Then grape vines had grown over and through the pile, creating a sheltered hollow about two body lengths wide. The animals had discovered it first. Wren had been looking for a windbreak when she’d spooked a deer bedded down in this place. She’d dragged up a few more poles to close the opening to her left, then pried a hole in the roof to allow the smoke from their fire to escape, but the interior had already been carved out perfectly, the sharp twigs broken by the animals, the ground hard-packed.
Wren removed two wooden bowls from her pack, along with the other spoon, and set them in front of her.
She ladled both bowls full, then went to lean beside Rumbler against the oak trunk. The bark felt cold through her cape. She set her own bowl down, and held Rumbler’s out to him.
“Can you take this, Rumbler?”
He reached for it, hooked his thumbs over the rim and curled his injured fingers beneath the base. The bowl shook, the spoon inside clicking against the wood. He carefully lowered it to his lap.
Wren studied the bowl and his bowed head. “Do you need help, Rumbler?”
He didn’t answer.
Wren got on her knees beside him, lifted the bowl,
filled the spoon and blew on it, then held it to his lips. “Be careful. It’s hot.”
Rumbler ate the first mouthful, and Wren dipped a second.
As he chewed it, he said, “This is good.”
He ate two more spoonfuls.
She smiled. “My mother taught me to make it. In the autumn she always added things like sunflower seeds, walnuts, gooseberries, and currants. She taught me lots of things.”
Rumbler watched Wren with shining black eyes. On occasion, like now, she had the feeling that he could see right through her skin and muscles to her souls. It made her backbone tingle.
“My mother taught me things, too,” he said.
“She was a Healer, wasn’t she? I heard that from someone.”
Rumbler nodded, and ate another mouthful. “She’s a great Healer. Did you know that if you boil the thick inner bark of hoary willow roots, it will cure a cough?”
Wren frowned. “No, I didn’t. We use cedarberry tea for coughs.”
“The juice of marsh willow dripped into the nostrils cures headaches,” he added, “and if you put hemlock berries in cold water with maple sap, then leave it for a week, it makes a good beer. You can also use the beer to wash wounds. They heal faster.”
“What about burns?” She fed him another spoonful. “My people have never figured out the right plant for that.”
“We cook poplar buds with bear grease. It works as a salve on burns, cuts, or other injuries.” Rumbler let out a long breath. “I think that’s all I can eat, Wren. Thank you, I … I don’t feel very well.”
She set the half-empty bowl down, and searched his
round face. “Maybe you should try to sleep, Rumbler. You’ll feel better once you’ve gotten a good warm night’s rest.”
Obediently, he lay down. Wren tucked the edges of her fox-fur cape around his stubby legs, then sat back and picked up her own bowl. As she ate, Rumbler watched her, his eyelids growing heavier.
The thick soup tasted delicious, and it soothed her, reminding her of happy nights around the fire with her parents, brother, and Trickster. Without even thinking, she looked at the spot beneath her cape where Trickster’s rawhide toy hung from her belt. Though she hadn’t seen him, or heard him barking, she felt certain that Trickster’s ghost stood guard close by. She’d heard steps behind her, crunching the snow, as she’d hauled Rumbler up the hill toward Dancing Man River, and to the—
Rumbler murmured, “I had a dog, too, named Stonecoat.”
Wren lowered her spoon to her bowl. “How did you know I was thinking about Trickster?”
“My dog followed us after the warriors captured me. Stonecoat fought for me. He jumped on the big man. But the warriors killed him and ate him.”
Wren numbly stared into her bowl, barely seeing the chunks of turkey, and onions. Her people often ate dogs; if they were properly fed the meat had a sweet taste. But if someone had killed Trickster and eaten him before her eyes, it would have broken her heart.
She set her bowl on the floor. “I’m sorry, Rumbler. For everything that’s happened to you.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry for your hands, too.”
He blinked tiredly at his fingers. The top joints of his first three fingers had swollen. His little fingers resembled bloated black slugs. Rumbler tried to wiggle them, and winced.
In a small voice, he said, “Wren?”
“Yes, Rumbler.”
His black eyes devoured her souls. “Why did you help me?”
She shrugged and studied the crisscrossing poles that formed the roof. Vines as thick as her arms wove through the tangle. Taller animals, like the deer, must rub on them. The smooth shiny wood reflected the firelight. “You needed me to, Rumbler,” she answered.
“But your people will kill you for it, won’t they?”
“I don’t know. But I couldn’t leave you out there. It was as if I had to save you, or—or I was going to die myself.”
She used the back of her hand to wipe away the tears that blurred her eyes. “My cousin Jumping Badger should never have stolen you. It was wrong.”
Rumbler tilted his head and his eyes went vacant. He whispered, “After the warriors took me away into the forest, he did terrible things.”
“What kinds of things?”
“He ordered his war party to rape the women and little girls, and to cut open the bellies of pregnant women. They drew the babies from the wombs. One of them, one … he …” Rumbler swallowed repeatedly as if fighting nausea.
“Rumbler?”
“He—he was a boy baby. He cried when the warriors lifted him from his mother’s belly. The warrior took him, and—and bashed his brains out on a rock.”
Rumbler had started breathing hard, as if seeing it all again.
Wren frowned. “But I thought … didn’t you say that the warriors carried you out of the village at the beginning of the battle?”
“Yes.”
“How could you know what they did afterward?”
Rumbler bowed his head. “I saw it.”
“Did they carry you up on a hill where you could look back?”
“My eyes … they fly sometimes, Wren. I see things in faraway places.”
Wren bit her lip. Dwarfs had strange Powers. She’d heard stories about them all her life. But she’d never heard of a dwarf with winged eyes. A thought occurred to her.
“Can you see my uncle?”
“Are you worried about him?”
“He might get in trouble.”
“Because you helped me?”
“Yes.”
Rumbler closed his eyes and tipped his head back. The blue veins in his temples pulsed.
Quietly, she gathered their bowls and cups and duckwalked to the fire where she emptied them back into their respective pots. She scowled at the dirty dishes, hating the idea of going out into the snow to wash them. I’ll do it in the morning. I’ll rub them clean with snow. That will be good enough. She set them near the fire, and crawled around the pit for her own blankets, which lay near the woodpile.
Before spreading them out, Wren glanced at Rumbler. He hadn’t moved. She unrolled her blankets. The woodpile rested an arm’s length away. As she lay down, she pulled a stick from the pile, and placed it on the coals. Flames licked up, crackling and spitting sparks.
“Rumbler?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”
In a soft voice, he answered, “Oh, yes, Wren. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Dust Moon nearly leaped out of her skin when she heard the wind. “What the …”
She sat up in her blankets. It had snowed on and off throughout the night, but now a deep blue sky arced overhead, filled with the glistening lodges of the Night Walkers. She rubbed her eyes, and tried to steady her breathing. The roar had wakened her from frightening dreams about clouds and shadows. Rumbler’s beautiful round face had peeked out at her more than once.
The deep-throated growl grew louder.
“Sparrow, do you hear that?”
They’d camped in a meadow on the southern shore of Leafing Lake, where the snow had been blown clean away. Tall wind-sculpted drifts scalloped the edges of the meadow, and ringed the grove of pines on the hilltop behind them.
Sparrow lay rolled in his hides to her right. When he lifted his head, his beaked nose gleamed silver.
“What, Dust?”
“Are you deaf? Don’t you hear it?”
Sparrow brushed his white hair behind his ears, and cocked his head first one way, then another, listening to the frigid night. His breath condensed into a white cloud before him. “Hear what?”
Dust Moon’s mouth gaped. “That eerie howling as if Grandmother Earth is being torn apart by a pack of wolves! You really don’t hear it? I can feel the roar in my souls!”
Sparrow slowly turned to face her. His bushy brows drew together. “In your souls?”
“Yes! It’s like an earthquake coming. You know how you can hear the quake before it strikes?”
“Yes, I do.” He shoved his hides away, and sat up. “I have the feeling, though, that you may be the only one who hears this roar.”
“What are you talking about?”
Sparrow’s eyes went over the pines, and the snow that packed the forest, then drifted to the lake. It resembled an endless glimmering sea. Silver ribbons of waves rolled onto the shore. “Souls have a language of their own, Dust. Yours may be trying to tell you something.”
“I’m sure it is. It’s trying to tell me that old age has finally grabbed you by the foot, and you’re going deaf. You must hear that!”
“No, I don’t, and I wish you … wouldn’t …” Sparrow blinked as if to clear his vision. “What in the name of the ancestors is that?” He pointed to the northeastern horizon.
Dust turned.
Out across the lake, a black wall of clouds rose over the water. As she watched, it rolled closer, the leading edge tumbling, blotting the stars as it came.
“Get up, Dust. Move. Hurry! Run for the trees.”
Sparrow grabbed his bedding, snatched his pack, and dashed up the slippery meadow for the pines.
Dust bent over to gather her blankets, but her eyes stayed on the storm. “What is that?”
“A storm!” he shouted, and violently waved an arm at her. “Come on!”
Cloud Giants sailed in from every part of the sky, huge giants, wispy giants, they all rushed to join the storm. As their bodies melded with the black wall, it billowed higher into the night sky.
“Blessed Grandfather Day Maker,” she whispered in awe. “It’s alive.”
By the time Dust had dragged her blankets into her arms, and slung her pack over her shoulder, the storm had swallowed half the sky.
“Come on, Dust!” Sparrow called from the hilltop. “It’s coming fast!”
She ran up the icy meadow toward the snowdrifts that ringed the pines, but before she made the trees, the wind struck her like the fist of the gods, slamming her sideways, knocking her off her feet and ripping her blankets from her arms. She tried to grab for them, but they whipped away, flying upward as if they’d sprouted wings.
“Dust!”
Sparrow ran for her, grabbed her, and pulled her to her feet.
“Hold on to me!” he yelled. “Don’t let go!”
Sparrow guided Dust into the lee of a large granite boulder, and forced her to crouch down behind it. The rock blocked some of the wind, but the storm ripped off a blizzard of pinecones and needles from the branches behind them and hurled them down.
Dust yipped sharply when a piece of gravel struck her cheek and drew blood.
“Get down!” Sparrow shoved her down flat, and covered her with his own body.
White hair streamed over his shoulders like the ghostly arms of a dancer. Through the veil, she glimpsed pine boughs lashing into each other as snow blasted from the sky.
Jumping Badger walked around Lamedeer’s head, his steps light. The firebow that draped his neck patted softly
against his long beaverhide coat. He’d planted the staff, upon which the head rode, in the middle of Blue Raven’s trail. The traitor had pulled his canoe up on shore and camped here last night. The head stood as a reminder to anyone who doubted his abilities that he had sniffed out his cousin’s trail. Not that it had been difficult. Blue Raven had made no attempt to disguise the deep swaths his body had cut. Jumping Badger couldn’t decide why. Many winters ago, Blue Raven had been a renowned warrior. If he’d stolen the boy and meant to escape, why would he leave such an easy trail?
He kicked snow at Lamedeer’s head. “Eh?” he whispered. “You would cover your trail. So would I. Why didn’t he?”
A prickling started beneath Jumping Badger’s heart. He had learned to recognize Lamedeer’s ghostly laughter. He couldn’t hear it with his ears, but his body could. It was like being tickled with a bear’s claw, sharp, irritating.
He walked around Lamedeer again. Over the past hand of time, he’d worn a circular path in the snow.
Shadows danced across the snowdrifts as his warriors lifted their heads to watch him. They sat fifty hands away, huddled around the nightly fire. They moved uneasily, lifting a shoulder, toying with a piece of wood, shaking their heads. They spoke in hoarse whispers.
Behind them, at the edge of the fire’s halo, a dark shape floated through the trees. Burned. She had been burned blacker than the darkness, her body consumed. But not her eyes.
They lived. Bright and shining.
Those eyes peered at him from behind a tree trunk.
“Go away!” Jumping Badger shouted. “You can’t hurt me! I’m more powerful than you are! If you don’t leave me alone, I will cut your son into little pieces when I find him!”
The eyes died. The forest stilled.
Jumping Badger studied Lamedeer. The dead war leader’s face had changed. Most of his hair had fallen out, leaving huge bald spots on the crown and left side of his head. The few graying black locks that remained hung in filthy strands over the right eye. The other eye had sunken into the socket and formed a hard yellow crust, but Jumping Badger could feel it gazing at him—like a deer watching him through thick brush.
“You are strangely silent tonight,” Jumping Badger noted. “Have you given up trying to drive me mad with the echoes?”
When Lamedeer said nothing, Jumping Badger leaned down and shouted in his face, “Talk to me!”
Frightened murmurs rose from his warriors.
Jumping Badger whirled. “Be quiet! I can’t hear anything with your noise!”
Elk Ivory stood up. She said something to Acorn, then broke from the group and walked toward Jumping Badger. Tall and muscular, she had shoulder-length black hair and striking brown eyes: when she looked at a man, he felt as if he’d been bludgeoned. She wore a heavy buffalo-hide coat, the curly fur turned inside to rest against her skin. Painted green hawks and falcons decorated the lower half of her coat. At thirty-eight winters, she was the oldest warrior in Walksalong Village. She had made a reputation for herself in her seventeenth winter when she’d killed the war leader of an enemy village in his own plaza. Jumping Badger remembered her triumphant homecoming. The warriors who’d fought at her side had carried her into the plaza on their shoulders. She had never married. Perhaps warring was the best use of her dried-up womb.
Jumping Badger smiled grimly as she approached. He’d grown up hearing the stories about her undying love
for Blue Raven, about how it had driven her to become a warrior, so that she might fight at her lover’s side. In the end, her sacrifice hadn’t mattered. Blue Raven had rejected her. The reasons were a little vague.
“A pleasant evening to you, War Leader,” Elk Ivory said. She glanced distastefully at Lamedeer’s head.
“What do you want?”
“To speak with you.”
“Then do so.”
“The other warriors have asked me—”
“They are banding against me! The traitors!” he bellowed, and noted the reactions around the fire. Shoulders tensed. Grumbles went round.
“I did not say that, Jumping Badger.” Elk Ivory looked him straight in the eyes, and he had trouble holding that intense gaze.
“Then say what you mean. I have more important things to consider tonight than you.”
Jumping Badger’s chest prickled again, and rage fired his blood. He swung around to Lamedeer. “Don’t laugh at me! Why are you laughing?”
“Because you are such a fool.”
Jumping Badger’s souls went cold. A gust of wind shook the staff, and the decaying mouth opened slightly.
Fear stiffened his backbone.
Elk Ivory placed a hand on Jumping Badger’s shoulder, and he jumped. She gently forced him to turn around and face her. “Are you well, War Leader?”
“Just deliver your message, old woman!”
“Your warriors are wondering why we are continuing to follow Blue Raven’s trail when it is apparent that neither the False Face Child, nor Little Wren, is accompanying Blue Raven.”
Jumping Badger straightened. “I don’t know where the loathsome girl is. She probably ran off and got eaten
by a cougar. Who cares? As for the False Face Child, what makes you think he would be walking? Are all of my warriors feebleminded? Did it never occur to you that after nights of lying in the cold and snow the boy would be incapable of walking? Blue Raven is, of course, carrying him up from the canoe, and back down to it!”
Elk Ivory tucked her fists into her coat pockets. Firelight flickered through her black hair. “May I suggest something else?”
“No, I don’t care to—”
“Just listen. When we made it to Lost Hill, Blue Raven’s fire had gone cold. Dishes and blankets lay where he’d been sitting. Not the sort of things a man planning on running away would leave.”
“If you have something to say, say it!”
Her brown eyes turned stony. “Tomorrow afternoon, at the latest, we will catch up with Blue Raven. None of us believe that he stole the boy. It seems clear that Little Wren is the culprit. She must have released the False Face Child while Blue Raven slept, and been long gone by the time he awoke. That’s why we’ve only seen Blue Raven’s footprints. He discovered her crime and decided to try and track her down before anyone else discovered what she’d done.”
“That’s ridiculous! Why would he—”
“He loves that little girl. I know him, Jumping Badger. Blue Raven’s sense of honor and duty to his family is powerful. He’s hunting for her, hoping to bring her back and beg the matrons for mercy. It’s his way. That’s also why he’s not bothering to disguise his trail. He has nothing to hide.”
He sputtered, “B-but—”
“You imbecile. You’ve been following the wrong trail. Now you’ll never find the False Face Child, and he’ll
kill you. Just as I said. I’m so glad you brought me along. I want to be there to see it happen!”
Jumping Badger shrieked like a madman and threw himself on the head. He tore the staff from the ground, and swung it with all of his strength, flinging it and the head out into the dark forest.
His warriors lurched to their feet and grabbed for weapons. Acorn ran forward. He stopped just behind Elk Ivory, breathing hard, his rough-hewn face shining with sweat.
“What is it?” Acorn asked. “What’s happened?”
Elk Ivory subtly used her chin to point to the severed head that blackened the snow forty hands distant.
Acorn glanced at it, swallowed hard, and nodded as if in sudden understanding. “Well. If you need me … just … just call.”
“I will, Acorn,” Elk Ivory said. “Return to your tea. All is well.”
Acorn gave Jumping Badger a weak smile. “Good evening to you, War Leader.”
“Get away from me!”
Acorn backed up, then headed for the fire. When he arrived, he was barraged with whispered questions. Acorn knelt before the fire and shushed them.
Elk Ivory stood tall and calm. Observing.
Jumping Badger spread his hands. “I don’t know why he does that to me,” he said. “I think he’s trying to drive me mad.”
“Who? Acorn?”
“Lamedeer!” he shouted. “You have no idea what it’s like to have one ghost talking ceaselessly in your head, while another prowls the darkness waiting to get her hands around your throat. At least tonight the echoes are silent. They are always worse at night, right after I climb
into my bedding. Like a hundred hearts pounding at once, they—”
“Jumping Badger?” Elk Ivory’s voice had gone low and concerned. “The Midwinter Dance is two moons away. Perhaps you should ask permission to participate in the ceremony. If you ask Sky Holder for his blessings, he might rid you—”
“You think I’m a cursed man, don’t you?” He knew the very thought terrified his warriors. “Don’t you see what’s happening here? I’m not cursed!” He gestured to the head lying in the snow. “One of Lamedeer’s souls still lives in his head! I’ve received a great gift, Elk Ivory. The gods have given me the ability to speak with that soul, to learn from it.”
Her eyes bored into him. “I think you need to see a Healer, Jumping Badger. People often do. It is not something to be ashamed of. All living things fall sick. A Healer will blow ashes upon your body to cleanse you of the evil that’s come to live in your souls.”
“There’s no evil in my souls, old woman! My Power grows daily. You’re just too blind to see it.” He glowered at her, then cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted at his warriors, “And so are you! You’re all as blind as moles!”
His Power had drained away to nothingness, and he knew it, but he couldn’t let them know it. It enraged him to think that that despicable old lunatic, Silver Sparrow, might be waiting outside Walksalong Village right now, and Jumping Badger had no way of reaching him to force him to remove his curse. If he could only …
“The prophecy will come true,” Lamedeer’s deep voice hissed from the shadows. “You will wind up treated worse than a mangy cur. I have seen it, your own relatives kicking you, and spitting upon you.” More laughter. “It’s a glorious sight.”
Jumping Badger scrambled through the deep snow, screaming, “You don’t know that! How could you? It won’t happen!”
His warriors rose to their feet, and stood nervously before the fire.
Jumping Badger pulled the head from the snow, and shoved his nose less than a handbreadth from the dead war leader’s. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to treat me that way. Do you hear? Anyone!” In a low, threatening voice, he added, “Even you, Lamedeer. Don’t forget, I hold your soul in my hands. If you don’t do as I say, I’ll never let you rest. I’ll …”
His warriors’ voices rose, and Jumping Badger spun around.
The sound of branches cracking came from the forest. The voices around the fire halted. Several warriors rose and sneaked to the north end of the camp, searching for the intruder.
Snowflakes started to fall. A wall of indigo clouds rolled overhead, gobbling up the lodges of the Night Walkers. Jumping Badger frowned.
“Oh, not another storm,” Elk Ivory said. “I hate—”
“It’s not a storm,” Jumping Badger whispered as his eyes opened wide. The black shape in the forest had grown. She stood leaning over the trees, two hundred hands tall! Her charred hair waved against the starry sky. “It’s her! She’s coming for me!”
A shrill keening began, angry, forlorn, as if the Forest Spirits were fleeing for their lives.
Jumping Badger rose to his feet. “Run!” he screamed. “Everyone run!”
The leading edge of the storm exploded around him, blasting bedrolls and packs, roaring like a wildfire. Warriors ran in every direction, screaming and shouting. The
wind ripped Lamedeer’s head from Jumping Badger’s arms, and sent it sailing away.
Jumping Badger dove for a tree, wrapped his arms around the trunk, and shrieked at the top of his lungs.
He could hear Elk Ivory yelling, “Forget your packs! Find cover. Crawl under the nearest log!”
The storm raged for less than a finger of time, but when it passed, and Jumping Badger managed to dig his way out, he could not believe he still lived. He shouted, “Light a fire! Someone, hurry! Buckeye, I order you to light a fire!”
The lodges of the Night Walkers threw a pale silver light over the clearing where their fire had been. The hulking warrior Buckeye ran to the place where the pit had been and frantically began scooping snow away, trying to find it.
Every trace of their camp, every vestige of their lives, had been swept away.
Warriors began to emerge from the forest, brushing snow from their hair, cursing as they hunted the deep drifts for belongings.
“I found hot embers, War Leader!” Buckeye shouted. “A moment and I will have a fire going!”
“Hurry!” Jumping Badger screamed. “Hurry!”
His whole body shook as he watched Buckeye run to crack dead branches from a tree, and run back to toss them upon the red eyes of coals. Buckeye bent over and blew into the pit. Smoke curled up, followed by a few pathetic flames.
In the fire-spawned shadows, Jumping Badger could see her. Looming tall and black, her arms whipping back and forth, silently railing at him, cursing him.
As Buckeye piled more wood on the fire, she receded into the darkness, waiting.
Jumping Badger expelled a breath and tried to control his shaking.
Fifty hands away, Jumping Badger saw the staff sticking up through the snow. He trudged to it and pulled Lamedeer’s head free.
The rotting mouth had curled into a broad smile.
“Did you think a little wind would scare me? You old fool, I—”
“You had better be scared,” Elk Ivory said as she stood up from behind a tangle of brush, her pack in her hands. She gave Jumping Badger a hard look. “We’ve just lost our packs, bedding, and supplies. If we don’t find them, we can’t go on.”