Blue Raven sat cross-legged on the snow between Silver Sparrow and his former wife. While Sparrow went about fixing cornmeal gruel for breakfast, Matron Dust Moon tried to appear casual, plaiting her silver hair into a thick braid, but her gaze never left Blue Raven, and he felt it like an icy dagger in his chest.
The pink echoes of sunrise danced through the Cloud Giants, giving a rainbow shimmer to parts of the morning sky.
Blue Raven sipped the cup of tea they had offered, and said, “This is excellent.”
“Thank you,” Dust Moon replied. “It’s my own mixture.”
“Do you purposely dry the rose petals, or let them dry naturally on the plant?”
“I pick them fresh and dry them near a fire. The flavors keep longer.”
Silver Sparrow added dried blueberries to the bubbling cook pot and stirred it with a horn spoon. “She first blended that tea thirty-three winters ago. It was autumn, the Moon of Blazing Leaves, and Dust had been out with our oldest son picking berries at a hunting camp north of here called Cranberry Bog. She started gathering a little of this and some of that, and when she brewed it that night for supper, we all thought it delicious. She’s made it ever since.” Sparrow smiled fondly, but not at Dust Moon, at the cook pot.
Pain briefly lit the matron’s eyes, but just as quickly vanished. Silver Sparrow glanced up at her, and clenched, his jaw.
Blue Raven did not know much about women, but he knew something about men. Silver Sparrow still loved Dust Moon.
Sparrow got to his feet. “Dust, while this finishes cooking, I think I will go and look for some of our things that blew away in the storm last night.” He turned to Blue Raven and his eyes narrowed. “Just as a precaution, let me tell you that Dust Moon carries a stiletto and a knife, and knows how to use them. I taught her. In addition, I will always be in sight of camp. My eyes will rarely be off you, Blue Raven. Understand?”
“Yes. I do.”
Silver Sparrow walked toward the trees to Blue Raven’s left.
Blue Raven waited until he’d passed beyond hearing range, then said, “He treats you as a wife, Matron, not a former wife.”
She continued braiding her hair. “Well, he’s been doing it for most of his life. He can’t help it.”
“How long were you joined?”
“Thirty-five winters.”
Blue Raven propped his elbows on his drawn-up knees. Dust Moon watched him, the wrinkles in her forehead deepening. As the light shifted, the boulder behind. her glittered and sparkled. “Divorcing must have been difficult after so long. I, myself, have never been married, but I’ve heard divorced people say they felt as if they had lost a part of themselves.”
The coldness in her eyes thawed a little. She pulled a cord from her pack and tied it around the end of her braid. “Why did you never marry?”
Blue Raven found himself riveted by those dark confident eyes. Despite her age, she was a beautiful woman. Her thick silver braid draped her right shoulder, and most of the lines in her face bespoke a lifetime of laughter.
“The woman I wanted did not want me, and I did not want the woman who did want me. It’s simple, really, I just—”
“Why didn’t you want her?”
“Well”—he shrugged—“she was a warrior. A very brave one, and I—”
“Couldn’t bear the rivalry?”
“No, no,” he said too quickly, and stopped, wondering about that. In truth, Elk Ivory had always been a better warrior than he and, at one time, it had bothered him. He might have had more brute strength when it came to bare-handed fighting, but her skill with bow and knife …
“I see you had to think about your answer,” Dust
Moon said and lifted an elegant gray brow. “That’s good.”
Blue Raven suddenly felt trapped, and wondered how he’d gotten here. It didn’t happen often. Usually his experience at debating carried conversations. “Well, the real truth is that women are like Cloud Giants to me. Untouchable. Mysterious.”
A gust of wind tousled her hood, buffeting it around her oval face. She clasped it closed at the throat. “That much is obvious. If you understood women at all, you wouldn’t be here.”
“What? Excuse me?” Blue Raven shook his head. “I don’t understand”
Dust Moon tossed a branch into the fire and lifted her teacup again. After a long drink she said, “Why didn’t you suspect that your niece might wish to rescue Rumbler? You should have. Didn’t she give you hints before it happened?”
Blue Raven straightened. “Hints?”
“Yes, of course. Children think they’re very clever, but they’re really guileless. When they’re upset or desperate, they ask too many questions about the wrong things, or get in fights to make you pay attention to them, and once they have your attention they try very hard to pour out their troubles to you. Unfortunately, adults rarely listen. We are all too busy with our own ‘very important’ concerns to listen to a child.”
Blue Raven stared at her, remembering Wren’s tormented expression six days ago, that last night on Lost Hill. “I knew the Vigil was hard for Wren. After the deaths of her parents and brother, she—”
“How long ago did they die?”
“Eight moons.”
Dust Moon’s face twisted in sympathy. “Go on. After the deaths of her family … ?”
“Well”—he waved a hand—“she seemed obsessed with saving things. Any baby bird that blew out of a nest wound up in our longhouse eating worms that Wren ground herself. And last summer she walked the shore of Leafing Lake each morning, collecting and carrying beached fish or stranded clams back to the water. She—”
“She didn’t just give you hints, Blue Raven. She told you plainly that she couldn’t bear to see anything else die.” Dust Moon shook her head, as if disgusted by Blue Raven’s blindness. “The poor girl. Losing her parents and brother must have wounded her far more deeply than you suspected.”
“I suspected she hurt a great deal, Matron, but perhaps you are right.” Blue Raven set his empty teacup in the snow. When Earth Thunderer Clan selected this woman as their matron, it showed great wisdom. She was as insightful as she was ruthless. “I’m afraid I know even less about children than women. I—”
“But how can that be?” Dust Moon interrupted. “You’ve never been a woman, but you were certainly a child. Don’t you recall how you felt in your twelfth winter? Don’t you remember the things you did to get attention?”
Blue Raven used the toe of his moccasin to push around his teacup. He did, of course. He’d been a wild animal, tearing through the longhouses, brandishing his child’s bow. His mother had made sure he’d quit that by breaking his bow and tossing it into the fire. He said, “My father spent much of his time warring, and my mother … well, I’m sure she cared about me, but—”
“But not enough.” She nodded. Wind teased loose strands of her gray hair and blew them around her dark eyes. “No wonder you became a Headman rather than marrying. Leading people is much easier than being an equal, isn’t it? Looking down is far more comfortable
than eye to eye. Eye to eye forces you to care, and you don’t really know how to do that, do you?”
Defensive, he said, “Well, you too are a leader. You should know.”
“Yes. That’s why I asked.”
“Matron,” Blue Raven said in a pained voice, “are your questions always so … piercing? Talking with you is very much like being repeatedly stabbed.”
From behind him, Blue Raven heard Silver Sparrow laugh. It was a closed-mouth, almost choking sound, as if he’d been trying to quell the urge. Dust Moon lifted her head and scowled as the aging Dreamer walked into camp. His elkhide coat, decorated with tiny red spirals and dark green trees, bore a light coating of snow. It must have blown down from the trees.
“What are you laughing at?” Dust Moon demanded to know.
Silver Sparrow crouched before the cook pot. “The tone in Blue Raven’s voice. I’ve heard it so often in my own, it sounded like an echo. Who’s hungry?”
Blue Raven didn’t know whether or not he dared smile. Silver Sparrow casually lifted a spoon and stirred the steaming pot, while Dust Moon looked on as if she longed to order his hands and feet bound, while she piled wood around his feet herself.
Blue Raven hadn’t really eaten since he’d left Lost Hill, six days ago. He’d been so worried about Wren, he’d barely noticed his gnawing hunger. Now, just the thought of food turned him desperate. “I didn’t bring anything with me, and I—”
“Where are my blankets?” Dust Moon said with an edge to her voice as she scanned Sparrow’s empty hands. “Did you look for them?”
Silver Sparrow stirred the gruel. “I looked. I didn’t find.”
“Not even one of them?”
“Not even a piece of one of them, Dust. Given the force of that wind last night, I suspect every shred is floating in Green Spider Lake by now.” Silver Sparrow tasted the gruel, nodded approvingly, and held out his free hand. “Would you pass me the bowls, Dust? This is done.”
Dust Moon picked them up, and slapped the bowls into his palm with such force that Sparrow’s hand dipped into the flames.
The Dreamer concentrated on keeping his expression bland, but the odor of scorched hair filled the camp. “Thank you so much, Dust,” he said, and turned to Blue Raven. “Do you have a bowl in your pack? We only brought two.”
“I’m afraid I don’t even have a pack,” he said. “I left hastily. May I use this cup?” He lifted it.
“That’s fine.” Sparrow took the cup.
As Sparrow filled the cup and bowls and handed them around the fire, the scent of steaming blueberries rose. Blue Raven used his fingers as a spoon. The mixed sweetness of cornmeal and berries affected him like a lover’s touch. The more he ate, the more calm and content he became.
When he’d finished, Blue Raven scooped his cup in the snow to clean it, and said, “I overheard you say that you thought the children might be heading for Paint Rock Village. It has been many winters since I’ve traveled this trail. With the snow, how long do you think it will take us to get there?”
“Us?” Dust asked. “We’re not traveling with you!”
“Matron, please, it will better for everyone if we cooperate with each other. I—”
“Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t kill you, and leave you here to rot?”
Blue Raven steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, and thoughtfully answered. “Because, Matron, I am the only one who might be able to talk the Walksalong elders into allowing Little Wren to live. You seemed worried about my niece earlier. You said that anyone who would condemn a child to death must be a soulless monster. If you kill me, you will also be killing Wren. If you do not help me, you may, inadvertently, be responsible for her death. You don’t wish to see her dead, do you?”
Dust’s jaw moved beneath the thin veneer of skin. “No. No, I don’t.”
Silver Sparrow rested his spoon in his bowl. “If we push ourselves, and don’t see any new storms, we might make it to Paint Rock by the day after tomorrow.”
Dust Moon gave Sparrow an anxious look. “The children have been traveling a day longer than we have. Do you think we really have a chance of cutting them off before they arrive?”
“It’s possible, Dust, but I—”
Blue Raven said, “Rumbler was not well, Matron. I don’t imagine the children can move very fast. When they left Lost Hill, Wren was dragging the False Face Child on a blanket, or hide. She dragged him all the way to the canoe she stole.”
Pity lit Dust Moon’s eyes.
Blue Raven handed his clean cup to Silver Sparrow, and got to his feet.
“If you will allow me, I left my bow and quiver behind the boulder. I would like to—”
“Not yet,” Sparrow said. “Before any of us touch our weapons, let’s establish the details of our new alliance. First, if Jumping Badger and his war party appear, I expect you to attack them, not us. If I even think you might do otherwise”—he pointed a finger—“I’ll kill you, Blue Raven.”
Blue Raven said, “I’m not sure I can shoot at my own relatives, Silver Sparrow, even if they are shooting at me. But I pledge that I will not aim my bow at you or your … at Matron Dust Moon.”
“Or at Rumbler, if we find him,” Dust Moon added. Sunlight flickered in her suspicious eyes.
“Or at Rumbler,” Blue Raven agreed. “My only goal right now is to find my niece before anyone else from my clan does. I don’t know what we will do after that, but, together, Wren and I will figure out something.”
Sparrow nodded. “Go ahead and get your bow.” Then he picked up his own bow.
Blue Raven walked around the boulder.
Sunlight glimmered and twinkled over the snowy forest. The loud melodious calls of cardinals rang out, whistling cheer, cheer, cheer! followed by a swift woight, woight, woight, woight.
The net in her hands, and a coil of cord looped over her wrist, Wren led the way down the trail. Last night’s windstorm had cracked branches from the trees, and madly strewn them across the snow. Rumbler trotted behind Wren, trying to keep pace with her while dodging the obstacles in his path.
“There it is,” Wren said, and pointed to the small clearing sixty hands away. Pine siskins covered the ground, feeding on seeds that had blown from the thick winter grasses. “This will be perfect.”
She’d dragged Rumbler up the trail last night past this place. It had been filled with birds then, too. Rosebushes bordered the clearing on the south side, straight ahead of them.
Rumbler’s white fox-fur cape swung around him as he swaggered to catch up. An ache built under her heart. He looked so small, and feeble. A search party surely followed them. How would they ever outrun it? And, worse, they were wasting daylight. This instant they should be racing up the trail as fast as they could, not netting birds.
Rumbler stopped at her side, breathing hard, and peered at the clearing. “Where do you wish to set the trap?”
“Near the roses. That way we can hide behind the bushes. Come on.”
As Wren and Rumbler entered the clearing the siskins burst into flight, their yellow backs flashing as they winged up and circled through the trees. They returned to perch in the branches a short distance away.
Wren knelt, and Rumbler dropped to his knees at her side. She placed the loop of cord, and net, on the snow. The net stretched about six hands across. Loosely woven with different-sized strips of bark, no one would call it pretty, but it would do the job. Her mother’s voice seeped through a door in Wren’s souls, saying, That, my sweet daughter, is an embarrassment. A wolf could leap through those holes. A fleeting smile turned her lips. Wren searched the ground for two branches about the length of her arm. She planted them in the snow and hooked two corners of the net to the tops of the branches, then she stretched the net out behind the sticks and piled snow over the bottom of the net to keep it in place. When she’d finished, the trap looked like a lean-to structure.
“Here,” Rumbler said. From his cape pocket he drew out a few morsels of corn bread, and handed them to Wren. His blackening fingers shook.
Gently, Wren took them, and scattered the morsels beneath the net. “Rumbler? Why don’t you go and sit down behind the bushes. I’ll be right there.”
“All right, Wren.”
He rose on wobbly legs, and the hazy sunlight shafting through the trees striped his beautiful round face. As he passed Wren, he put out a small hand and patted her arm, then continued on toward the bushes.
Wren tied both ends of the cord to the two sticks holding up the net, and grasped the remaining cord in what seemed to be the middle. Loops unfurled behind her as she made her way to the rosebushes.
Rumbler whispered, “Are we ready?”
“Almost.” Wren drew up the slack in the cord and ducked down. “Now we are. Be quiet, Rumbler.”
Rumbler nodded, and stretched out on his belly in the snow. His eyes shone as blackly as the deepest forest shadows.
Wren took a breath.
The spicy scent of rose hips taunted her nose. The animals had eaten off the tips of the bushes, and the rose hips on the outside, but inside, shielded by thorns, the seeds had been untouched. She could see them speckling the briar’s interior, and longed to put on her mittens and gather a handful, but she remained still and silent.
The siskins hopped from branch to branch over their heads, singing and chirping. A few cocked their heads to eye the trap.
“Wren?” Rumbler whispered. “What’s happening? Are—”
“Shh!”
He bit his lip.
Two siskins fluttered down near the trap, and began pecking at the snow.
Wren tightened her hold on the cord.
The rest of the flock leaped from the trees, and swooped down, alighting in a rustle of wings.
Rumbler twisted his head at a funny angle, and Wren
realized he’d found a gap in the bushes where he could watch the trap.
One of the siskins hopped closer. The bird pecked around at the base of the sticks, examining the net, its head tilting first to the left, then to the right. It seemed to sense something amiss, but couldn’t quite figure it out. The siskin ate for a while longer, glancing at the cornbread crumbs, then stopped and took another long careful look at the net. Finally, he hopped underneath it, and tasted a crumb. Then he began gobbling as fast as he could.
The other birds noticed. In a flurry of wings and chirps, five more siskins fluttered beneath the net.
Wren could hear Rumbler’s shallow breathing. He turned his head and looked at her.
With lightning quickness, Wren jerked the sticks from beneath the net, and it collapsed on three birds. The others skittered from beneath the net’s edges and soared up and away, and the whole flock burst into flight.
“Come on!” Wren yelled. She leaped to her feet and ran for the net.
The trapped birds struggled beneath the weave, pecking at the net and each other. Wren used both hands to slide the net beneath the birds and scoop them up, turning the net into a bag. The birds shrilled as she twisted the weave to secure it. “Look, Rumbler! We did it. Whichever ones you aren’t going to need, we’ll have for supper tonight.”
“We can’t eat them, Wren.”
Rumbler sat in the snow beside her and held out his wounded hands for the net.
Wren gave it to him, but said, “Not even one of them? What would that hurt? There isn’t much meat on a siskin but it would add flavor to gruel.”
He shook his head. “I need to ask one of these birds
to help me, Wren. I can’t eat his relatives.”
As he untwisted the net and slipped his hand in with the birds, one of the siskins screamed. Rumbler’s fingers tightened around the bird’s body, and he drew it out, then released the other two birds. The freed siskins shot away like arrows.
Wren sat in the snow beside him, watching. “What now?”
Rumbler pulled the bird to his chest, and relief crossed his face. “I’m the one who has to do it, Wren.”
“Do what?”
He tenderly stroked the siskin’s head with his thumb, and murmured, “You’re safe. Don’t be afraid. Shh. Shh.”
Wren frowned..
Rumbler lifted the bird to his forehead and closed his eyes. His lips moved soundlessly, as if speaking to the bird. The siskin chirped, then struggled against his hands, and Rumbler suddenly opened them, freeing the bird. It circled the clearing, then flew straight up.
Wren shielded her eyes to watch. The black spot grew smaller and smaller until the bird vanished into the gleaming golden bellies of the Cloud Giants that crowded the blue sky.
Then she lowered her hand, and looked at Rumbler. Tears filled his eyes.
“What did you say to the bird, Rumbler?”
He whispered, “I asked the siskin if he would fly to the Up-Above-World and look for my mother. If she’s there, then I … I don’t …”
Wren slipped her arm around his narrow shoulders, and he buried his face against her deerhide cape. “Then you don’t have to go home?”
He nodded.
And you won’t have to see her body. You can remember
her as she was before my clan killed her.
Wren said, “Rumbler, I’ve been thinking that maybe we should leave our canoe hidden here, and go the rest of the way on foot.”
“In case they’re following us?”
She nodded and hugged him. “Yes. The bird will find us on the trail, won’t he? If he has a message from your mother?”
Rumbler wiped his nose. “Yes. And we need to go. I know we are in danger.”
She helped him up, and started for the trail, but his feet didn’t crunch the snow behind her. Wren turned.
Rumbler stood at the edge of the clearing with his face tipped up, and all the hope in the world shining in his eyes.
She shifted, waiting.
Then said, “It’s a long way to the Up-Above-World, Rumbler. It may take the siskin a while. Give him the time he needs.”
Rumbler bowed his head. Tears dripped onto his moccasins. After several heartbeats, he nodded, and followed in her footsteps.
Early morning sunlight glittered from the still water of Leafing Lake, and flashed on the paddles of the Walksalong warriors.
Elk Ivory knelt in the rear of the canoe, timing her strokes to Acorn’s, who sat in the front. Muscles bulged beneath the shoulders of Acorn’s tan shirt as he dipped his paddle and pulled. Sweat drenched his collar, dotted the ridge of hair on the top of his skull, and created a sheen over the shaved sides of his head.
They had been driving hard, canoeing until well after dark, and rising long before dawn, tracing Blue Raven’s path along the shore.
Tracking him had been like following a three-winters-old toddler. Elk Ivory’s belly churned every time they found one of his campsites.
As they headed for the western tip of Leafing Lake, the nine other war canoes caught up with them, cutting chevrons in the glassy water. Their bow waves rocked Elk Ivory’s boat. Jumping Badger’s canoe brought up the rear. He sat in the prow with the severed head propped before him, while Rides-the-Bear did the work of paddling. An eerie silence possessed their war leader. For the past three nights, he’d said nothing to any of them—though he’d whispered constantly with the rotting head of Lamedeer.
She had heard of such things, of men losing their souls, but she’d never—
“Look!” Buckeye shouted from the canoe that had overtaken them. A canoe lay beached on the sand up ahead.
“Come on, Acorn. Let’s see if we can’t beat them there,” she said.
Acorn nodded, got on his knees, and lengthened his powerful stroke. The canoe darted forward.
Cornhusk waved his arms to the children who sat behind the elders at the farthest reaches of the firelight. The longhouse stirred as people watched Cornhusk. “Come closer, little ones. This is a story for you, too.”
Three little girls edged forward and snuggled into their parents’ or grandparents’ laps. The girl to Cornhusk’s
right had long braids that dragged the floor. She tucked her finger in her mouth and leaned back against her grandmother’s chest. The grandmother, Matron Oriole-Soaring-Down, propped her chin on top of the little girl’s head. Short gray hair fell around her cadaverous old face.
Cornhusk surveyed his audience. He’d arrived in Winged Dace Village about three hands of time ago, and done some Trading; then Oriole-Soaring-Down had invited him to her longhouse. If everything went well here, he’d be Trading all night. After hearing this tale, people would be throwing precious valuables at him and asking almost nothing in return.
“Well?” Oriole-Soaring-Down said. “You promised to tell us about Walksalong Village. We have heard much gossip, but I doubt the truth of it. Please enlighten us.”
Cornhusk narrowed his small dark eyes, and hissed, “Listen. Listen, well. This is a tale of great sorrow and woe.”
Bright blue, red, and yellow fabrics shone as people leaned forward to hear better. Beadwork shimmered. Shell earrings danced.
Utter silence descended. Just as he’d intended.
Cornhusk looked into the eyes of those sitting closest to him. “I was there. I left only after the village was ravaged by a deadly windstorm. This is not gossip. It is truth. Terrible truth. It is a tale of a Headman’s betrayal and cowardice. A tale of a little girl’s evil hatred for her clan. I tell you truly, thousands of winters from now legends will be Sung about the Spirits that roamed Walksalong Village during the Winter of Crying Rocks. They will Sing of the wicked False Face Child, and the courageous war leader who captured him, Jumping Badger. They will Sing of the hideous deaths of those who dared to touch the boy. I was there. I saw Mossybill and Skullcap writhing and screaming in agony.”
He paused and scanned the faces around him. No one seemed to be breathing. Even the little girl with the long braids had gone as still as a corpse.
Yes, it would be a profitable night, indeed.
“I saw poor old White Kit’s body covered in blood. The—”
“Kit is dead?” Oriole-Soaring-Down croaked. Her wrinkles deepened. “Is this true? I had heard this, but did not believe. Are you certain?”
Cornhusk nodded slowly for effect. “The False Face Child stabbed her with her own knife, Matron, and then”—he swooped a hand toward the firelit ceiling, and every eye jerked upward—“the boy flew to the rafters of the Walksalong council house like a bird. I heard this from Matron Starflower’s own lips.”
Oriole-Soaring-Down’s mouth tightened in pain. “I will miss Kit. She was a good and kind woman. A fine leader. Go on, Cornhusk. Tell us more about the evil girl and the False Face Child.”
He lowered his voice again, forcing people to bend toward him. “After he stabbed Kit, the wicked boy flapped around the ceiling, shrieking like an enraged eagle. He dove at Starflower and tried to pluck her old eyes out so she could not look upon his face … .”
Moans and gasps filled the house, and Cornhusk held up his hands for silence. In a ringing voice, he said, “You know the stories! The boy’s father is an evil Forest Spirit cast out of the Up-Above-World, and condemned to walk the earth forever! I tell you truly, the boy is even more Powerful than his father. The animals come to the boy’s call, and with a single hand he can pull the Cloud Giants down from the skies!”
People shifted and whispered. Their voices began to rise.
“This is not gossip, I tell you! It is truth. Listen. Listen to me … !”