The chief stood surveying his surroundings with eyes made a little older by deep sadness. His people were in a desperate state, their eyes and cheeks sunk low in gaunt faces and their tattered clothing barely able to keep out the freezing cold. Many of them were frostbitten. Luck had gone against them. In desperation, still searching for game, they had returned to the place where they abandoned the two old women the winter before.
Sadly, the chief remembered how he fought the urge to turn back and save the old ones. But taking them back into the band would have been the worst thing for him to do. Many of the more ambitious younger men would have seen this as an act of weakness. And the way things had been going, The People would have been easily convinced that their leader was not dependable. No, the chief had known that a drastic change in leadership would have proved more damaging than the hunger, for in times when a band is starving, bad politics lead only to further disaster. The chief remembered that moment of terrible weakness when he had almost allowed his emotions to ruin them all.
Now, once more, The People were suffering, and this winter found them on the verge of hopelessness. After turning their backs on the old women, The People traveled many hard miles before coming on a small herd of caribou. The meat sustained them until spring when they began to harvest fish, ducks, muskrats, and beaver. But just when they regained their energy to hunt and dry their food, the summer season ended, and it was time to think of moving toward the place where they would be able to find winter meat. The chief had never known such terrible luck. As they traveled, the fall season came and went, and once more the band found itself nearly out of food. Now the chief looked at The People wearily with a feeling of panic and self-doubt. How long could he hold out before he, too, became lost in the hunger and fatigue that undermined his decisions? The People seemed to have given up trying to survive. They no longer cared to hear his lectures, staring at him with dulled eyes as if he made no sense.
Something else that troubled the chief was his decision to return to the place where they had left the old women. No one argued as he led them here, but the chief knew they were surprised. Now they stood looking around as if they expected something from him, or expected to see the two women. The chief avoided their eyes, not wanting them to know that he was as confused as they were. There was not a single sign that anyone had been left here. Not one bone gave evidence that the old ones had died. Even if an animal had stripped their bones of flesh, surely something would have been left behind to show that humans had died here. But there was nothing, not even the tent that had sheltered the women.
Among The People was a guide named Daagoo. He was an old man, younger than the two old women, but still considered an elder. In his younger days, Daagoo had been a tracker, but the years had dimmed his vision and skills. He observed out loud what none of the others would acknowledge. “Maybe they moved on,” he said in a low voice so that only the chief would hear him. But in the silence, many heard him and some felt a surge of hope for the women many had loved.
After setting up camp, the chief summoned the guide and three of his strongest young hunters. “I do not know what is going on, but I have a feeling that all is not as it appears to be. I want you to go to the camps near here and see what you can find.”
The chief was quiet about what he suspected, but he knew that the guide and the three hunters would understand, especially Daagoo, for he had watched the chief from season to season and had come to know what the man was thinking. Daagoo respected the chief and realized that he suffered from self-loathing because of the part he had played in abandoning the old women. The guide knew the chief despised his own weakness, for it showed in the hard lines of bitterness etched on his face. The old man sighed. He knew that soon the self-hate would take its toll, and he did not like the thought of a good man such as the chief being destroyed this way. Yes, he would try to find out what had happened to the women, even if the effort was wasted.
Long after the four men left camp the chief stared after them. He could not find a definite reason why he wasted precious energy and time on what might be a futile effort. Yet he, too, had a strange feeling of hope. Hope for what? He had no answer. All the chief knew for sure was that in hard times The People should hold together, and last winter they had not done so. They had inflicted an injustice on themselves and the two old women, and he knew that The People had suffered silently since that day. It would be good if the two women survived, but the chief knew the odds weighed against that hope. How could two feeble ones survive freezing cold without food or the strength to hunt? The chief acknowledged this, yet he could not still the small speck of hope that sprang from months of hardship. Finding the women alive would give The People a second chance and that, perhaps, was what he hoped for most.
Each of the four men was conditioned to run long distances. What took the two women days to travel to the first camp the year before took the four men a single day. They found nothing but endless snow and trees. The trek taxed their limited energy, and they decided to spend the night there. When the first hint of morning dawned, the men were up and jogging once more.
Daylight was fading when the men arrived at the second camp, and the younger men saw no evidence that it had been used in a long time. Impatience began to overtake them. They had been trained from childhood to respect their elders, but sometimes they thought they knew more than the older ones. Although they did not say so out loud, they felt precious time was being wasted when they should be hunting for moose.
“Let’s turn back now,” one of the young men suggested, and the others agreed quickly.
The guide’s eyes lit up in amusement. How impatient they were! Yet Daagoo did not criticize the others for he, too, had been impatient as a young man. Instead, he said, “Take a closer look around you.” The young hunters looked at him impatiently.
“Look closely at those birch trees,” Daagoo insisted, and the men stared blankly at the trees. They saw nothing unusual. Daagoo sighed, and this caught the attention of one of the younger men, who tried again to see what the old man saw. Finally, his eyes widened. “Look!” he said, pointing to an empty patch on a birch tree. Then they saw that other trees spaced widely throughout the area had been stripped carefully, almost as if done intentionally so that no one would notice.
“Maybe it was another band,” one of the men said.
“Why would they try to hide those empty spots on the trees?” Daagoo asked. The young man shrugged, unable to find an answer.
Then Daagoo gave them instructions. “Before we return,” he said, “I want to search this area.” Before they could protest, the guide pointed them off in different directions. “If you see anything unusual, come right back here and we will go together to see what it is.” Tired as they were, the men began their search, although they were sulky and did not believe that the two women still lived.
Meanwhile, Daagoo set out in the direction he believed the two old women might have taken. “If I were afraid to be found by The People who left me to die, I would go this way,” he muttered to himself. “It is a senseless direction because it is far from water. But in winter they would not have to rely on the river, so I think they might be this way.”
Daagoo walked a long distance into the willows and beneath the tall spruce trees. As he trudged farther and farther over the snow, he felt weary and wondered if he was doing the right thing. How was it possible to believe that two old women could survive when they, The People, barely made it through that winter? Especially those two women. All they did was complain. Even when little children were hungry, the women complained and criticized. Many times, Daagoo expected someone to silence them, but that had not happened until the day things had gotten out of control. Daagoo began to feel they were on a useless hunt. The two women must have gotten lost and died along the way. Perhaps they had tried to cross the river and drowned.
As Daagoo thought about all of this, he became more doubtful with each negative thought. Then, suddenly, he smelled something. In the crystal-clear winter air, a light scent of smoke drifted past his nose and was gone. Daagoo stood very still as he tried to catch the scent once more, but there was nothing. For a moment, he wondered if it had been his imagination. Perhaps a summer fire nearby had left its lingering smell in the air. Not wanting to believe that, the old man backtracked slowly until once again he caught the scent. It was a light smell, but this time Daagoo knew that it was no remnant of a summer fire. No, this smoke had a freshness about it. Excited, he tried walking first in one direction, then another until the smoke grew stronger. Convinced that it came from a campfire nearby, his face crinkled into a broad grin as a certainty filled him—the two women had survived.
Daagoo hurried back to get the young men who were waiting as impatiently as before. They did not want to follow when he beckoned, but reluctantly, they followed Daagoo into the night for what seemed a long time. Finally, the guide held out his hand signaling them to stop. Lifting his nose, he told them to smell the air. The hunters sniffed but did not smell anything. “What is it you want us to smell?” one of them asked.
“Just keep smelling,” Daagoo answered, so the men sniffed the air again until one exclaimed, “I smell smoke!” The others walked around sniffing the air with more interest now until they, too, smelled it. Still skeptical, one of the younger men asked Daagoo what he expected to find. “We will see,” he said simply as he led them farther toward the smoke.
The guide’s eyes strained into the darkness looking for the light of a campfire. He saw nothing but outlines of spruce trees and willows. Aided by the small lights of the many stars above, Daagoo saw that the snow was untrampled. Everything was still and quiet. Yet, the evidence of smoke told him that somewhere near someone was camping. As sure as the blood raced through his veins, the old tracker was now confident that the two old women were alive and at that moment, close. He could not contain his excitement, turning to the younger men and saying, “The two old women are near.” Chills ran down the spines of the younger men. They still did not believe that the old ones had survived.
Cupping his hands to his mouth, Daagoo called the women’s names into the velvet night and identified himself. Then he waited, hearing only the sound of his own words swallowed by the silence.