The nagging pain in his arm woke Sparrow. He opened his eyes, and saw that Dust lay curled against him, her head pillowed on his arm. Despite the pain, he didn’t move. He would give almost anything to awaken with her in his arms every morning. He inhaled the delicate scent that clung to her hair, and slowly let the breath out. It floated away in a white cloud.
After her blankets had blown away, she’d been forced to choose between freezing to death or sharing his elkhide. To his irritation, it had taken her over a finger of time, and a good deal of pacing back and forth, to decide. When she’d finally crawled under the hide, she’d ordered him not to touch her, and vowed she wouldn’t touch him.
Sparrow smiled. Dawn Woman’s pearlescent gleam fell through the trees, dappling Dust’s beautiful face with lavender light. Sometime during the long cold night, her body had won the battle with her pride and she’d snuggled as closely to him as she could.
He silently reached out and touched the long silver hair that spread over his arm. The softness consoled him.
Groggily, Dust whispered, “Stop that.”.
He roughly pulled his arm from beneath her head, and it thumped the ground. “You’re the one who decided we were friends again. I woke up with you glued to my side tighter than pine pitch.”
Dust opened her eyes. “That’s because you slipped
your arms around me in the middle of the night, and pulled me against you, Sparrow. I was just too tired to resist.”
Momentarily stunned, Sparrow didn’t know what to say. A thousand times in the past two winters he’d dreamed of doing exactly that. So … he probably had.
“Well,” he said as he shoved out from under the hide and stood up. “Forgive me. My arms didn’t know any better. After thirty-five winters, they thought that was where they were supposed to be.”
His moccasins squealed on the snow as he plodded away from camp, and into a thick grove of maples. As he emptied his night water, he saw Dust sit up. Her hair swung around her like a moonlit mantle.
Something about the morning light. He couldn’t take his eyes from her. She rolled their hides, then stood up and, like a cat stretching in the sun, lifted her arms over her head while she arched her back. Dressed in plain knee-length moccasins, a doehide dress, and buckskin cape, she did not look like a powerful clan matron. She looked delicate and young, reminding him of the weedy girl he’d started to love in his fourteenth winter. He’d had to wait twenty moons before he could even ask her father if he could court her. But it had been worth it. He’d been forced to admire her from afar, like now, and it did something to a man’s souls, transforming ordinary yearning into a hallowed sensation.
Even now, after all the children she had borne him, he looked at her and felt reverence.
Dust rummaged in her pack, drew out cooking pots, bowls, and horn spoons, then stood and walked behind a boulder.
Sparrow started breaking off the dead lower branches of the maples. He moved from tree to tree until he could carry no more, then returned to the camp, dropped his
wood near the rolled hides, and picked up his bowl. He began to scoop a hole in the snow. Just as he finished, Grandfather Day Maker crested the eastern horizon. Brilliant daggers of light shot across the sky, lancing the drifting Cloud Giants, and spilling yellow across the rolling hills. The snow glimmered, and sparkled.
Sparrow stopped to enjoy the moment.
Crows cawed in the distance, their voices joyful, as if greeting Grandfather Day Maker.
“You think he’s going to Paint Rock, don’t you?” Dust asked as she walked from behind the boulder.
“Yes,” Sparrow said.
He started cracking twigs from the branches he’d collected and dropped them into the hole.
“But why, Sparrow? There’s nothing there for him.”
“Wouldn’t you go home, Dust?” He reached for his pack, and drew out his fireboard, his drill, and the small wooden box of charred fabric. He carefully arranged the blackened threads atop the twigs, and moved his fireboard into position over the tinder. “Even if you’d been told that your village was gone, and everyone you loved was dead, wouldn’t hope drive you back?”
She sat on the rolled hides and leaned forward. “Perhaps, but I know the horrors of life. I’ve spent fifty winters learning to see them without seeing them. He’s seen nine winters. His eyes only know how to see.”
Sparrow fumbled with his fireboard and drill. “I’m afraid for him, too, Dust.”
She shoved her hands into her pockets and heaved a breath. “All of his life he’s been protected. People have treated him like a rare and precious trade pot. During the Paint Rock battle, the pot was dropped. I fear he’ll shatter if he has to stand over the dead bodies of his family.”
“Dust …” Sparrow propped his fireboard on the
ground. “He may have already shattered. He’s been through a terrible ordeal.”
“Let’s just try to reach him as soon as we can, Sparrow. If his souls are—not right—maybe I can help him.”
“We’re trying, Dust.”
Sparrow got down on his right knee, and placed his left foot on the fireboard to hold it in place. He inserted his drill, a stick about as long as his arm, into a prepared hole in the flat fireboard. Ordinarily it took about ten heartbeats to get a spark, but on very cold days it always seemed to take longer. He vigorously spun the drill between his palms. After thirty heartbeats the friction of the hardwood drill against the soft fireboard produced smoke. Sparrow pressed down harder, and spun the drill as fast as he could. Finally red sparks glowed to life in the drill hole. He laid his drill aside and carefully dumped the sparks into the nest of charred fabric. As he blew on them, the charred threads began to burn, and fell into the bed of twigs, igniting the bark. A tiny flame licked up, then the twigs caught, and fire danced to life. Sparrow pulled larger sticks from the woodpile, and gradually added them until he had a decent blaze going.
Dust extended her hands to the flames. “Sparrow? Do you think … I mean … Rumbler must be hoping that Briar is alive.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“If what we’ve heard is true, he’s going to go home and find her … you know what Cornhusk said about how she … she was clubbed. The wolves and hawks may have been at her.” Dust shook her head, unable to finish the sentence. “I’m afraid of what Rumbler might do, Sparrow.”
“I know what I’d do.” A bed of coals had formed in the fire pit. Sparrow used a stick to pull some of them to the side, then packed snow into the teapot and set it on
the coals to heat. “If I came home and found your body lying in a burned heap of timbers, I’d go mad, Dust. Completely mad. I would use every vestige of Power I could pull from the earth and sky to punish those who’d hurt you.”
At the emotion in his voice, her extended hands turned to fists. “I’d feel the same way if I found Planter or … or my grandchildren murdered.”
Sparrow smiled sadly at the list, but said, “Yes, I know you would.”
“Rumbler is Powerful, Sparrow. What if he does something foolish?”
“Like call out to the Up-Above-World for huge rocks to rain from the skies? Well, the Walksalong Clan will be pummeled to mush. But I doubt that will happen. Power lives in Rumbler’s body, true, but he can’t control it yet. At least, I don’t think he can.”
“We’d better hope he can’t.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “If the Walksalongs become mush, we’ll be looking at a long war with the Bear Nation.”
Wind Mother whipped through the forest, jostling the trees and battering the snowdrifts. A glimmering white haze spun through their camp. Sparrow bowed his head to fend off the onslaught, while Dust quickly pulled up her hood. The forest sighed and moaned before going quiet again.
When Sparrow looked up, his mouth open to say something else, his heart stopped.
A man stood next to the boulder behind Dust. Tall, with long graying black hair, and an oval face, an elkhide wrapped his shoulders.
Sparrow froze.
Dust’s hand slipped beneath her cape for the stiletto on her belt.
From behind her the man saw no movement. He cautiously stepped closer.
Sparrow did not look at Dust as he rose to his feet, but he knew she was watching his every breath, studying his movements to judge the threat.
Sparrow called, “It has been a long while, Blue Raven.”
Dust’s breathing quickened as she pulled her stiletto onto her lap, and slowly turned toward the Headman of Walksalong Village.
Blue Raven scanned both of their faces, then spread his arms. “I left my bow behind the boulder. I am unarmed. I came to talk. Please.” He glanced at Dust. “You are Dust Moon? Matron of Earth Thunderer Clan?”
Dust nodded.
Blue Raven took another step toward them.
“I have heard many people speak of your courage and kindness.” Blue Raven inclined his head to show his respect. “I hope you will extend some of that kindness to me this day. I give you my pledge that I do not come in anger.”
“Then why are you here?” Sparrow asked.
“I overheard you talking—”
“You mean you were spying on us!” Dust said.
“Well, Matron”—Blue Raven smiled wanly—“a man does not simply march into the camp of Silver Sparrow. Perhaps in the old days when he was a renowned Trader, but not now. For three moons’ walk, people cower at the mention of your husband’s name—”
“Former husband.”
Blue Raven seemed taken aback by that. He glanced at Sparrow, and continued. “Many people whisper that Silver Sparrow is no longer human, that he sails through the forests at night in the body of an owl, or bat. I thought
it wise to watch your camp for a time before I stepped from my hiding place.”
Sparrow said, “What do you want?”
Blue Raven cautiously said, “The two of you are searching for the children, and I am searching for the children.” The lines on his forehead deepened. “Together we have more of a chance of finding them, and we must find them soon, or I fear—”
“You mean …” Dust lurched to her feet. “Rumbler isn’t with you?”
Blue Raven shook his head. “With me? No, of course not.”
“Didn’t you cut him loose?”
“Me?” Blue Raven cried. “I had nothing to do with it! My niece, a girl of twelve winters, was responsible. She must have felt pity for him. When I was asleep, she—”
“Ah.” Sparrow nodded, suddenly seeing how the pieces of the story fit. “Well, Blue Raven, many things have happened that you are not aware of. Please sit down. Share our fire.” He gestured to the crackling flames.
“I do not wish to sit. I—”
“You may stand if you wish, but the truth is not easy to tell or, I imagine, to hear.” Sparrow exhaled a frosty breath.
Blue Raven glanced back and forth between them, fear growing in his brown eyes. “Then, please, tell me quickly.”
Sparrow crouched and scooped more coals around the teapot. “Jumping Badger and twenty warriors are on your trail. Starflower ordered them to hunt you down because she thinks you saved Rumbler.”
“But that’s foolish! Why would I—”
“We don’t know the why of it. But they think you betrayed them.” Sparrow rephrased the story Cornhusk
had told them: “Lamedeer supposedly said that I said the False Face Child would be the death of the Walksalong Clan. Correct?”
Blue Raven nodded. “Yes. Did you—”
“No, I didn’t, but that’s another story. Your people think you have doomed them by saving the boy. They have labeled you a traitor.”
Dust added, “And your niece, Little Wren, as well. They have condemned her to death.”
Judging by Blue Raven’s expression they had just confirmed his worst fears. “Oh, gods. This is much worse than I ever …” He shook his head. “Yes, much worse. I—I need to think. There must be a path through this insanity. A way to repair the damage. I just … I must find it.”
Sparrow frowned at the fire. “Well, we all have our problems, Blue Raven. Ours is to find Rumbler before Jumping Badger does. I don’t suppose you have any notion of where he and his war party might be, do you? So we can avoid them?”
“I don’t,” Blue Raven answered. “In fact, since I made no attempt to disguise my trail, I should already be dead. The storms may have delayed them, but they will not have stopped them. Not if what you say is true. Jumping Badger is honor bound to find me.”
“And your niece, don’t forget,” Dust added coldly. “Among the Turtle Nation, we would never condemn a child to death. You Bear Nation people must be monsters to—”
“Matron.” Blue Raven looked Dust straight in the eyes, and lowered his hands to his sides. “Please. I did not make this decision, and I have never cast my voice to condemn a child. I love my niece very much. No matter what I have to do to save her, I will.”
Dust’s eyes locked with Blue Raven’s. “Even if it
means going against the orders of your clan matrons?”
Blue Raven hesitated. As Headman he could never admit to such a thing. “I think the Walksalong matrons are … confused. Misinformed. Once they understand the facts, I’m certain they will see reason.” But he exhaled unsteadily, and put a hand on his belly, as if to still its churning.
“Despite the confidence of your words, Blue Raven,” Dust said, “you do not appear certain. Though I pray you are right.”
Blue Raven smiled. “I value your prayers, Matron. Please keep praying.”
Sparrow pointed to the pack beside Dust. “Dust, I’m hungry, could you hand me—”
“The food bags,” she finished, and reached for them. “I think Blue Raven could use something in his stomach, too.”